MobileViews Blog

In Podcast 36, I speak with Jane Seagrave who is a Senior Vice President Global Product Development at the Associated Press (AP). Here’s what you can find in this 21 minute 31 second podcast conversation:

- Discussion of the AP’s recently released AP Stylebook iPhone app’s high price ($28.99 compared to $18.95 for the paper version which is available for $12.89 from Amazon)
- The state of AP’s mobile friendly website (apnews.com) and free iPhone Mobile News app.
- Slightly off-topic but of personal interest to me: What is the situation for bloggers citing AP news reports? Will armies of lawyers descend on a blogger who directly links to an AP news story? Listen to the blog to hear the answer.

- You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
- You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
- You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your phone.

In Podcast 34, I had the great pleasure of speaking with Smule CTO/co-founder Ge Wang again (we first spoke in Jaunary 2009). The topic this time is the phenomenal $2.99 iPhone music app…

I Am T-Pain

It combines Smule’s iPhone sonic app programming savvy with the branding of musical artist T-Pain and his signature use of Antares’ Auto-Tune product. Auto-Tune corrects a singer’s pitch. In most cases, you never know it was used to “fix” a pitch error made by a singer during a recording session. T-Pain, however, uses Auto-Tune as a musical instrument in its own right. Its use in this manner, by the way, is somewhat controversial.

So, please join me for Podcast 34 as Ge Wang and I spend a bit over 30 minutes talking about the business angle, technology, and music behind the “I Am T-Pain” app.

- You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
- You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
- You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your phone.

With all the interest in Smule’s recently released “I Am T-Pain” for the iPhone app that lets anyone sound good in a Karaoke-type app featuring T-Pain’s music, I thought there might be interest in a conversation I had with Smule CTO & co-founder Ge Wang back in January of this year. You can find the podcast in the player embedded above. You can also find this podcast in the MobileViews.com Podcast catalog on iTunes.

INRIX President and CEO, Bryan Mistele about the firms recently released free iPhone app…

INRIX TRAFFIC!

TRAFFIC! provides real-time traffic information based on continuous feedback from commercial vehicles like taxis and fleet trucks. It also is able to take data from the new free consumer iPhone app (if the app is running in the foreground). I asked Bryan about the app’s accuracy, privacy and its unique traffic forecasting feature. I learned about INRIX’s fascinating traffic information services and the benefits of using their free iPhone app during my conversation with Bryan. I encourage you to listen to the podcast. I think you’ll find his information interesting too.

- You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
- You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
- You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your phone.

Hmm. Just took a look at Expansys‘ weekly specials email message and noticed a “Factory unlocked iPhone 3G” (8GB model) for $674.99. I think this is the first time I’ve seen an iPhone offered as “factory unlocked”.

iFixit’s Kyle Wiens flew to London to be one of the first people in the world to buy an iPhone 3G S and then take it apart. iFixit co-founder Luke Soules and I discussed what Kyle found. You can find a step-by-step description with photos of the tear down process here:

iFixit iPhone 3G S Teardown

This podcast is 19 minutes 10 seconds long.

- You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
- You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
- You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your phone.

I updated my iPhone 3G to iPhone OS 3.0 and decided to try out the new Voice Memos app to record a mini-podcast. I apologize for the exceptionally poor sound quality. I didn’t realize that it would be so poor. I have a number of other rude OS 3.0 shocks that I discovered after recording this mini-podcast. Rants to follow later…

- You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
- You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
- You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your phone.

I just found out that one of my long time favorite mobile software development firms has a Twitter account. You can follow Ilium Software at…

@IliumSoftware

Ilium’s Ellen Craw and Marc Tassin were one of the very first podcast guests on the MobileViews Podcast (then called the MobileAppsToday Podcast). You can listen to it using the embedded podcast player above.

I had the opportunity to speak with iHound Software’s VP of Business Development (and one of the firm’s founders) about their iHound for iPhone app that can help you recover a lost or stolen iPhone. The app normally costs $3.99 but is currently on sale in the iTunes App Store for $2.99. Purchasing the app includes 6 months of tracking service via their website. The annual cost for the service is $9.99.

Gary announced on the podcast that they just started providing code to enable other applications to use their service. This means, for example, that if a game is iHound enabled, if someone uses that app on your iPhone, it will broadcast its current position.

- You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
- You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
- You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your pho

Case-Mate provided a review unit of their iPhone 3G Fuel – Rechargeable Battery Pack. I’ve got a pair of somewhat nit-picky issues with the unit. But, they do not detract from the product’s main purpose: Provide a convenient portable recharging solution.

My daughter and I went to see the new Star Trek movie last night. As a long time Trekker I give the movie a big thumbs up despite the shocking ret-cons (no spoilers). My non-Trekker daughter (she’s never watched an episode of STTOS (Star Trek The Original Series) or previous Star Trek movies) loved it too. I liked it so much, it moved me to find my dusty old STTOS Communicator I was amused to note the iPhone 3G is about the same length and width as the Communicator though the iPhone is much thinner.

Live long and prosper…

FileMaker’s Bento is been a popular personal database app for the Mac. Its one shortcoming for me was the lack of a way to carry its data with me on a phone. The release of…

Bento for iPhone 1.0 (iTunes App Store)

Bento for iPhone (Product page)

…earlier this week appears to have addressed that issue for me. Fortunately, I was able to speak with Ryan Rosenberg, Vice President of Marketing and Services, to learn more about Bento for iPhone.

We also spent a few minutes discussing a second iPhone related product that was also released this week: FileMaker PHP iPhone Site Assistant. This server-side product produces iPhone friendly web pages for presenting data stored in FileMaker Server.

- You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
- You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
- You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your phone.