News

Following a crackdown on "overtly sexual" content, Apple has had its censors remove 5,000 applications from the iPhone AppStore. The app purge began on Friday, with over 4,000 apps removed due to their "sexually arousing" or implied sexual language and images.

To date, the Apple cleansing is said to have removed almost three percent of the total number of iPhone applications previously available. In a strange twist, apps representing large media companies but still promoting sexual content remain on the AppStore.

Wireless carrier AT&T's new policy of allowing some bandwidth-heavy iPhone applications to run over its expanded 3G network is now being put to the test. SlingPlayer Mobile allows users to stream video content from their Slingbox to iPhones anywhere 3G or Wi-Fi is available.

The previous version of SlingPlayer Mobile, first released last year, restricted streaming video to Wi-Fi only at the request of AT&T. Video quality is still better over a Wi-Fi connection, as the stream has to be optimized for 3G speeds.

MobileMe subscribers can now navigate to an improved landing page at me.com from their iPhones. Apple has added more functionality to what once was just an instructional page.

Although the mobile browser version is improved, for complete features such as adjusting MobileMe account settings users will still have to access me.com from a computer web browser. iPhone apps such as MobileMe iDisk and MobileMe Gallery still provide more options than the iPhone version of me.com.

Could it be that Apple plans to reveal iPhone OS 4.0 as early as March 14th? Multiple sources have received anonymous tips pointing towards a demo of the new OS by Apple next month. This date roughly coincides with the first iPad ship date, and has led to speculation that iPhone OS 4.0 may ship on the new device.

Apple has typically announced updates to its iPhone hardware in June. This year should be no different and the company is expected to reveal its fourth-generation iPhone on schedule. What has thrown industry watchers off track is that the iPad was announced in January running iPhone OS 3.2. This operating system is not yet available Apple's heralded smartphone.

In a move said to be preparation for the iPad release, Apple has doubled the App Store size limit on 3G cellular network downloads to 20MB. Previously users were prompted to use a Wi-Fi connection or iTunes to download applications larger than 10MB.

The change could put more bandwidth pressure on the AT&T network, however the company has been frantically working to improve speeds and capacity nationwide ahead of the iPad and 4G iPhone releases later this year.