iCloud

While Apple might not have iCloud up and running by the time they host the WWDC in early June, it's looking more and more like they will at least have the pieces in place (agreements with music labels) to make an announcement introducing iCloud.


There is rumor that Apple has recently reached an agreement with Sony, leaving just Universal as the major player left.

iPlayboy

Yes your read the title correctly!!! Imagine having every Playboy edition, in full, available on your iPad, or better yet your iPad2. Thats a lot of reading. Thats also a lot of viewing!!!

Quickly bring up every article, cartoon, story and of course... some incredible photography in vivid color with Apple's zoom-in technology. Hugh Hefner started Playboy in 1953, after receiving a $1000 loan from his mother.


iPlayboy is not an actual App available at iTunes, but rather a web app, whereas you access with Wi-Fi. Users can obtain a membership by paying for a monthly or yearly subscription.

This App definitely gets three thumbs up!

Happy 10th Anniversary Apple Stores

Today is the 10th Anniversary of the first opening of the Apple stores. On May 19th, 2001 Apple opened two Stores. After 10 years Apple has over 300 stores worldwide. Ten years may seem like a long time, but to put it into perspective, the first Apple store opened less than four months before 9/11. Apple opened over 300 stores in less time than it took the whole world to find Osama Bin Laden.


Apple is said to be planning some big events and opportunities for customers over the next few days - details of which are being closely held.


The two photos above of from Apple's Fifth Avenue store, New York

Purple iPhone

And you thought the WHITE iPhone was cool, how about a mesmerizing deep purple iPhone 4?


This is not being offered by Apple, but rather an add-on, or replacement, case for your iPhone. Focus Supply has an assortment of other iPhone related items where you can choose to have your iPhone in blue, silver, gold and more.

Being able to personalize your iPhone they way you like totally Kicks Butt!!!

text-speech & speech-text

According to PatentlyApple, Apple has filed a new patent for bringing text-to-speech and speech-to-text to the iPhone. This would be in a version of iOS5. Not word yet on whether this would be available on the next generation iPhone, possibly being released as the iPhone 4S.


This feature could be quite useful in a noisy environment, or a very quiet one when it would be advantageous to just read a message instead of hearing a voice message!

iPhone 4S ???

What do we know about the next iPhone, you know... the one that may or may not hit the stores in September! Well even without any specifics we know it will sell well, because it's a... you know... iPhone!

The latest rumor I read about has the next iPhone being called the iPhone 4S, not the iPhone 5 that everyone has been speculating about. Rumors also suggest it will look like the iPhone 4 in shape, but will carry the new Dual-Core A5 chip that is found in the iPad 2. As well as better cameras and HSPA+ support, the iPhone 4S would only have some minor cosmetic changes from the iPhone 4.



Keeping in mind that this is still just rumor, we don't really know when it will be launched, what it will look like, what features it will have, what colors it will be available in (holding white for 1/2 year sales event) or even what it will be called. We just know that sales of it will Kick Butt!!!

Friday 13th

I was surprised to find that there is in fact an iPhone and iPod touch app made for Friday 13th. It's basically a future calendar of upcoming Friday 13th's.

Never again will you be caught off guard with not knowing about an upcoming date to be careful of.

SexTrack App

OK, it was bound to happen eventually. There are apps that count the calories you eat, measure the distance you run and even track how well you sleep at night. But now, there is an app that lets you know how well you're performing... in bed!

SexTrack even gives you a score based on parameters such as speed, amount, duration and intensity. The app uses the iPhone's built-in accelerometer to measure these items and based on the "players" movements, presents a score - and even presents a track records of their top scores!


For those who feel they must post everything about their daily lives on Facebook or Twitter, the app also has a social networking feature whereas this information may be posted in a classy form online, or emailed.

Does it work? Who knows and who cares! Have fun testing it!!!

Top App

About two weeks ago I blogged about a new iPhone application called Office Jerk. What initially got my attention was who the game was made by. Office Jerk was developed in partnership by Fluik Entertainment and Big Fat Simulations. These two companies have been successful making products separately, and more recently as a team, achieved even greater success with their Airport Madness series of games developed for the iPhone and iPad.

Knowing the history behind these skilled game makers I was expecting Office Jerk to be a well made game, and although I blogged in favor of the game, I had little idea how popular it would become.

Office Jerk has been downloaded over 5 million times, and held the top free app at the iTunes store as many others just disappeared. I'm looking forward to how Office Jerk may be developed further in the future and what future apps may be developed by this collaborative team!

Well done. Office Jerk has Kicked major Butt on the iTunes store!!!

Brand Value

It's amazing the value of a Brand Name. Often the brand insignia of an item is as valuable as the item itself. For example, if you made two identical shirts and placed a Nike swoosh on one, and a picture of me on the other, I'm sure the Nike item would sell for WAY more than double the item with the handsome picture on it.


Looking at the value of the top companies it's no surprise to see technology companies occupying the top few spots. What is surprising is how much a large company can increase it's worth in such a short time.

As you can see from the chart above, Apple has overtaken Google as the most valuable brand with a growth in value of 84% since last year. That makes Apple the world's most valuable company at over $153 Billion. Check out all those zeros $153,000,000,000. Google slides down to the number two spot at $111 Billion and IBM is number 3 at $101 Billion. Microsoft is number 5 at $78 Billion.

Interesting to note is how these numbers compare the the world's wealthiest people. Bill Gates is the world's second richest person at $58 Billion and Warren Buffet is number three at an even $50 Billion. The wealthiest person in the world is from Mexico, Carlos Slim at $74 Billion.

I'm sure if Apple decided to make a line of clothing and placed their little Apple brand insignia on each item it would be the hottest selling clothing line instantly. They could even design all the pockets to perfectly hold Apple items such as the iPhone and iPad.

Battery Life

I don't know why, but we refer to our batteries as if they are living things. For example, when the chemicals in a battery that produce electrochemical reactions slow the process of creating negatively and positively charged electrons, instead of saying the power is low, we say "my battery is dying!" Doesn't this seem a bit dramatic. Once it runs "out of juice" completely we refer to it as "dead!" Again, this description seems a bit extreme to me. Usually when something is dead, it's dead forever and rarely does something that is dead end up working just fine after plugging it in for two hours.

Hang on a sec, I gotta plug in my laptop before the battery dies!

Ok, I'm back. Now battery power has been a major issue for all smartphones since they were first created. The massive power and feature creep capabilities of the iPhone, Blackberry and Android devices draws a lot of the energy packed into the limited space of the battery itself. While hardware developers work feverously to pack more electrical punch into a battery, software coders are working to make the apps more efficient and use less battery power so you don't end up with the "dead" battery situation.

Apple recently released iOS 4.3.3 which they claim will increase battery life. This comes after iOS 4.3, which was followed by plenty of reports that there was little to no change, and even some claims that the battery loses the battle of life even faster!

iPhone Fridge Magnets

I got this set of fridge magnets as a gift and think they are hilarious.


What better way to keep notes on the fridge than using the app icons from an iPhone!

eBay Mobile

I was cleaning up my apps loaded on my iphone yesterday, which mostly involved just moving apps around and into folders that resembled some sort of order. One App that I didn't realize I even had was eBay Mobile. I placed it in a category with some others that I rarely look at.

I was so glad I rediscovered it as I look at eBay online quite frequently. eBay Mobile runs natively on the iPhone, iPad touch and iPad, allowing the user to buy and sell as they would on their computer.



So if you haven't downloaded the free app already, do so today. If you have it buried somewhere in the last few pages of apps on your Apple device, go find it and check it out. It might be worth moving up the one of the front pages!

eBay Mobile definitely Kicks Butt!

Osama Bin Laden DEAD!

As I'm sure you've all heard, Bin Laden is dead. Being shot it the head will do that to a person, and I can hardly think of a person or animal more deserving!!!


It got me wondering if there were any iPhone Apps out there about Bin Laden, pre or post death! None to be found. I'm sure somebody is working on something whereas maybe we could take shots at him ourselves, drop a nuke on his head or even throw bricks at him. Maybe this game could even change their image to Osama Bin Laden, so players could vent their anger on him.

I did however, find a number of iPhone and iPad apps all about terrorism. Everything from what to avoid, checking for car bombs, the President's schedule, surviving nuclear fallout and training to be a counter-terrorism expert!

Here is a short list of a few of those:
UK Terror Alert
Stratfor
Anti Terrorism Training Center
Disaster Readiness
9/11 Numbers
Surviving Terrorism
iWatch USA
Nuclear Survival
Terror Organizations
Disaster Preparedness
Defeating Islamic Terrorism

Part of me wants to have a bunch of new apps available to seek revenge, but another part of me thinks the less attention paid to Bin Laden, the better. He's dead, which he should be. He's gone. This can only be a positive thing for the rest of the world!

Amen!

Canada Election Day Eh!

Today, May 2nd 2011, Canadians will elect their 41st Prime Minister. In actuality, they will be electing members to the House of Commons that make up the Canadian Parliament, and hence the Prime Ministership.

I was doing some searching for iPhone apps that might be useful for anyone wanting background info or the latest news and election results. I was quite surprised at how little was available. There are some strict rules about publishing election results but I at least expected more information about polls and from the political parties themselves.

Here are the apps I found from the political parties and their leaders:
Green Party - Elizabeth May
NDP - Jack Layton

Here are few other apps from the Canadian Media covering the election:
Canada Elections
My Politics
Maclean's
Globe Politics


In a world of Twitter, Skype, Texting, Facebook, Email, Apps and a plethora of other at-your-fingertips technology, I really was expecting more. The Canada Elections App and the Globe Politics App both seem pretty good, but not great!

If you are having a really sleepless night and have $10 burning a hole in your pajama pocket, buy Prime Ministers of Canada, and you will have more info than you could possibly ever want!

Chuck a mug at your co-worker Day

So it's Monday and you're stuck at work, annoyed that you have to somehow make it not only through the whole day with the jerks in the office, but the whole friggin week!

Go ahead and throw a mug at one of them! Or an eraser, a pencil, a stick of dynamite or even an egg! Office Jerk lets you do this, without getting fired!



All these items are fun to throw, but the mug is extra fun. I still like the dynamite but the mug will actually break things and knock over the jerk's family photo too. Give it a try and see what stuff you can break. Think outside the box a bit and you might be surprised what breaks.

So far my top score is 14!

Office Jerk hits # 1 Free App

Well it took less than 48 since it's release, but Office Jerk quickly climbed the iTunes store of top sellers and hit the #1 top Free iPhone App.


I still think the dynamite is the best!!!

Office Jerk is still free at the iTunes store!

White is thicker than Black

I've been joking all week about how the new White iPhone 4 is just that... an iPhone 4 in white... everything else just the same. Well... looks like there is a small difference between the two. Apparently the White iPhone 4, is .2mm thicker than the Black iPhone 4. (Go ahead and insert a joke here)


.2mm (millimeters) is less than 0.008 of an inch!

I heard a few rumors giving explanation as to why the White iPhone 4 is thicker and here they are in no particular order:

5. Fixes the antennae problem they've had
4. Blocks light entering the phone around the white plastic
3. White plastic is thicker
4. The controversy will increase sales
5. The white wants to be thicker!!!

Whatever the reason, sales of the White iPhone 4 are strong. Now let's get back to getting out the iPhone 5!