This is a demo video of the new FlyTunes Internet radio tuner service. FlyTunes delivers music, talk, weather, and traffic to the Apple iPhone and iPod touch.
The video shows the installation process and demos a few stations.
Orb Networks today announced a new service that streams live TV to the iPhone and iPod touch.
“TV on the iPhone is now real,” said Joe Costello, CEO of Orb Networks. “Steve Jobs may think that buying shows from iTunes is the same as watching TV, but iPhone users know better. When the NBA playoffs are on, you want to see the game, live, wherever you are. Free.”
To get around the iPhone’s extreme limitations on supported video formats, Orb created a special application, OrbLive, to enable the streaming of any video format to iPhones. Here’s a short demo video:
“Although the iPhone provides users with a great way to experience the web, it offers a ridiculously sub-par streaming video experience. When all the carriers’ free phones can stream lots of things that my iPhone can’t, something’s seriously wrong. OrbLive finally brings the iPhone’s streaming video experience up to par with other mobile phones.”
Orb’s service requires a jail-broken iPhone at this time.
Though we haven’t seen any official announcement from AT&T, its site is already touting 3G iPhone coverage and free wireless access at the company’s 17,000 hotspots.
The AT&T site now touts 3G support for the iPhone:
Data Access
In order to use data such as email, Google Maps, YouTube videos and web browsing, AT&T recommends using iPhone in a 3G or EDGE Network (coverage viewer), or from a local Wi-Fi connection.
It also notes that iPhone users get free WiFi access:
Individual Plans
To use iPhone, you’ll need to sign up for a 2-year service agreement. Plans start at $59.99 and include Visual Voicemail, Unlimited Data (email and web), 200 SMS text messages and access to AT&T’s more than 17,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, including Starbucks* all for use in the U.S.
*Wi-Fi available at U.S. company operated Starbucks locations equipped with a hotspot.
Higher data speeds and free wireless are welcome; this, along with the upcoming flood of software for the iPhone are going to make the iPhone a mobile content creation platform.
MacRumors reports that AT&T hotspots are now offering free Wi-Fi access to iPhone users.
Barnes and Noble, Starbucks and presumably AT&T’s 71,000 other Wi-fi hotspot locations are now offering iPhone users a custom portal to access free Wi-Fi. A special iPhone formatted page asks for your mobile phone number. Once entered, you can access the Wi-Fi access for free.
MacRumors has been able to confirm this finding at a local Barnes and Noble. Blurry photo provided:
AT&T recently partnered with Starbucks (displacing T-Mobile) to provide Wi-Fi access to Starbucks’ 7000 stores nationwide. This partnership allowed existing AT&T broadband customers free access and AT&T promised that it would “soon extend the benefits of Wi-Fi at Starbucks to its wireless customers”, but no official announcement has yet been made.
Even better - this functionality is based on the iPhone’s user agent - which is easily imitated with the browser on your computer.
We haven’t had a chance to give this a try yet. If you’re at one of AT&T’s 71,000 hotspots today, give this a try and let us know how it works!
Update: This service appears to have been disabled, at least for now. No official word on this from AT&T.
Based on the latest stats from M:Metrics, the iPhone is delivering on its hype, radically changing what people are doing with the mobile Web.
Check out some of these figures:
The iPhone is already the most popular device for accessing news and information on the mobile Web, with 85 percent of iPhone users accessing news and information in the month of January.
30.9 percent of iPhone owners watched mobile TV or video, versus a 4.6 market average, and more than double the rate for all smartphone users.
30.4 percent of iPhone owners accessed YouTube, compared to 1 percent of all mobile phone users.
36 percent used Google Maps, compared to 2.6 percent of all mobile users.
Usage of social networking is also popular among iPhone users: 49.7 percent accessed a social networking site in January, nearly twelve times the market average.
Twenty percent of iPhone owners accessed Facebook, one of the first Web properties to customize its content for the iPhone, versus 1.5 percent of the total mobile market.
The iPhone offers a taste of the future; iPhone users are using the devices in all sorts of leading edge ways. It also shows how mobile users will use Internet media when they get capable devices and unlimited data plans.
“The iPhone has certainly delivered on its hype,” said Mark Donovan, senior analyst, M:Metrics. “Beyond a doubt, this device is compelling consumers to interact with the mobile Web, delivering off-the-charts usage from everything to text messaging to mobile video.”
“While the demographics of iPhone users are very similar to all smartphone owners, the iPhone is outpacing other smartphones in driving mobile content consumption by a significant margin,” said Donovan. “In addition to the attributes of the device itself, another important factor to consider is the fact that all iPhones on AT&T are attached to an unlimited data plan. Our data shows that once the fear of surprise data charges is eliminated, mobile content consumption increases dramatically, regardless of device.”
Appleannounced today that more than 100,000 iPhone developers have downloaded the beta iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) in the first four days since its launch on March 6.
According to Apple, “developer response continues to be phenomenal”. The company cites a variety of developers already working on new applications:
“We’re excited that the iPhone expands the ways our customers can solve key financial tasks wherever they might be,” said Rick Jensen, senior vice president, Small Business Group at Intuit.
“We can’t wait to show off great new versions of arcade classics like PAC-MAN and Galaga that use the revolutionary features of the iPhone and iPod touch,” said Scott Rubin, vice president, Sales and Marketing, Namco Networks.
“Apple’s become an important mobile game platform with the iPhone SDK,” said Jason Kapalka, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, PopCap. “The new SDK gives us the tools to innovate and reinvent games like Bejeweled, Zuma and Peggle.”
“Six Apart pioneered the mobile blogging experience with an iPhone-optimized blog service,” said Chris Alden, CEO, Six Apart. “We’re taking it to the next level with our native iPhone application for TypePad that’s already in development.”
The free beta iPhone SDK an be downloaded at developer.apple.com/iphone/program. The iPhone Developer Program will initially be available in the US and will expand to other countries in the coming months.
According to reports, the Beatles will finally be coming to iTunes. Paul McCartney has reached a $400 million agreement with Apple for the distribution of the Beatles’ back catalog.
McCartney, Ringo Starr and the families of late Beatles stars George Harrison and John Lennon will share in the profits. Portions of the multimillion-dollar payout also will go to Michael Jackson, along with the EMI and Sony recording groups, who each own certain Beatles recording or publishing rights.
iEmulator.com, a provider of emulation solutions, has announced iEmulator Touch,  a touch-enabled PC emulator environment for iPhone and iPod Touch users running firmware version 2.0.
“Imagine being able to run most popular PC software anywhere, with full Internet connectivity, without having to lug a notebook PC around,” said John Czlonka, General Manager of iEmulator.com. “It’s a fundamental shift in how people will use mobile devices, and makes thousands of new applications available for the platform.”
“Apple’s new iPhone and iPod Touch software development kit is allowing us to quickly port iEmulator to these innovative devices,” he went on to say. “It’s an amazing development and operating environment.” (more…)
Apple today introduced the iPhone software development kit (SDK) at a special event held on its Cupertino campus. In doing so, it hit the ball out of the park, delivering the deep enterprise support that businesses want and delivering the whiz-bang sh** that everybody else wanted to see.
If that weren’t enough, Apple announced a $100 million iFund to kick-start the development of great mobile apps.
Plus Spore on the iPhone.
Delivering The Corporate Goods
The iPhone 2.0 beta release, which is immediately available, includes both the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) as well as enterprise features such as support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to provide secure, over-the-air push email, contacts and calendars as well as remote wipe, and the addition of Cisco IPsec VPN for encrypted access to private corporate networks.
Apple has licensed Exchange ActiveSync from Microsoft and is building it right into the iPhone, so that iPhone will connect out-of-the-box to Microsoft Exchange Servers 2003 and 2007. Built-in Exchange ActiveSync support also enables security features such as remote wipe, password policies and auto-discovery.
The iPhone 2.0 software supports Cisco IPsec VPN to ensure the highest level of IP-based encryption available for transmission of sensitive corporate data, as well as the ability to authenticate using digital certificates or password-based, multi-factor authentication. The addition of WPA2 Enterprise with 802.1x authentication enables enterprise customers to deploy iPhone and iPod touch with the latest standards for protection of Wi-Fi networks.
The iPhone 2.0 software provides a configuration utility that allows IT administrators to manage multiple iPhones, including password policies, VPN setting, installing certificates, email server settings and more. Once the configuration is defined it can be easily and securely delivered via web link or email to the user. To install, all the user has to do is authenticate with a user ID or password, download the configuration and tap install. Once installed, the user will have access to all their corporate IT services.
But enterprise support is just the start of it. Apple also introduced the SDK, the App Store, a giant bag of money and some whiz-bang games.
There have been a lot of headlines over the last few days about iCrime - the idea that the popularity of iPods is leading to a surge in violent crime.
The source for these stories is actually a nearly six-month old paper (pdf) by the Urban Institute research group. The paper argues that the recent surge in violent crime defies easy explanation, and then goes on to propose that the rise in violent offending and the explosion in the sales of iPods and other portable media devices is more than coincidental.
In fact, they argue that “America may have experienced an iCrime wave.”
Here’s the meat of their case:
In the fall of 2004, a new generation of iPods was introduced and consumer demand exploded. By the end of 2005, more than 42.3 million units had been sold, and by the end of 2006, the total was almost 90 million.
In 2005, for the first time in 12 years, violent crime increased—a trend that continued in 2006. This followed a relatively long period of decline. From 1993 until 2004, the violent crime rate fell every year, for a total decline of 38 percent. At the same time that violent crime rates began to rise, America’s streets filled with millions of people visibly wearing, and being distracted by, expensive electronic gear. Thus, there was a marked increase in both the supply of potential victims and opportunities for would-be offenders.
Past crime waves are thought to have occurred in a similar way—triggered by the introduction of a new high-status and expensive product. For instance, in the 1980s and 1990s, the proliferation of such valuable products as expensive basketball shoes or North Face jackets may have led to new crimes. However, in past instances where the supply of crime creating products increased, the consumer population purchasing these goods—and the would-be offenders coveting those products—made up a relatively small part of the U.S. population. By contrast, iPods are everywhere, and, unlike a jacket or a sneaker, one size fits all.
Unfortunately, the Urban Institute’s paper doesn’t make a very strong case; it’s not clear if the popularity of iPods and the rise in crime is coincidence, correlation or causation. In fact, the paper doesn’t tackle the most obvious question: is some significant portion of the increase attributable to ipod-related crimes?
The Urban Institute has found an iMeme, but it makes more headlines than sense.
Based on the latest stats from 
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