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Filed under: Odds and ends, iPhone

If you've been watching TV over the last few days (and who hasn't, with that USA / Canada hockey game and the tsunami coverage), you may have seen the latest in the series of iPhone ads.

The ad, titled "Family Travel," features a voice-over by a Mom who gushes that "It's unbelievable how much better family trips have gotten..." as she demonstrates using the Southwest Airlines app to check in on a flight from Denver to LA, finds a restaurant for the family (Heidi's Brooklyn Deli) in the C concourse at Denver International Airport with Gate Guru, makes sure that she has entertainment for her kids in the form of "Finding Nemo" loaded in the iPod app, and then turns off the living room lights at home with the Schlage Link app.

For those of you who are sticklers for advertising accuracy, note that Southwest flight 1403 is not an actual SWA flight between DEN and LAX and that the restaurant list for Concourse C at Denver International Airport is actually a mashup of restaurants located throughout Denver International Airport. All of the apps are free, although Schlage Link does require a monthly subscription and appropriate Z-Link hardware on the home front (similar to the Christmas tree ad from the holidays).

New iPhone ad: Family Travel originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

New iPhone ad: Family Travel originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scales and Modes lives up to its name, but there are better bargains for learning music theory on your iPhone.

Originally posted at Digital Noise: Music and Tech

Filed under: Surveys and Polls, iPhone, iPad

The end of this week has brought a little flurry of information about the differences between iPhone and Android users. First up, Admob has released the results of a survey that says the iPhone is twice as popular as comparable smartphones in both young and old demographics. Unfortunately, we can only guess as to why (it would be a little more interesting if either age showed a preference for one phone over another), but it seems the iPhone has yet another remarkable trait: appealing to users of all ages. No wonder Apple is jumping in on the iPad -- they really do have a pre-release audience.

But they can't sit on their laurels for too long -- according to a report at Myxer's Boombox (via Fortune), the Android OS is picking up the pace, especially in what city folk call the "flyover states." Android use of the program has actually surpassed iPhone users in Montana, the Dakotas, and Arizona and New Mexico, and the numbers are close in the Midwest, including Kansas and Missouri. That's interesting -- that could have something to do with the distribution of Apple retail stores, or maybe just more urban center dwellers are drawn to the iPhone. DC seems to be the exception, as Virginia and Maryland are much more Android, but otherwise, if you're in a state with a big population center, odds are that you own an iPhone. Fascinating.

iPhone users come in all ages but probably live near a big city originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iPhone users come in all ages but probably live near a big city originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Gaming, Software, Apple, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Good news for fans of good games: the terrific DS courtroom simulator (which, trust me, sounds much less fun than it actually is) Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney is coming to the iPhone, and Slide to Play has posted some hands-on video. The game takes the two DS screens and stacks them on top of each other rather than converting the game into a landscape version, so it's basically a straight port of the DS game. It'd be interesting to see a more iPhone-specific version of the game (maybe something that uses the camera or the accelerometer to show off evidence in the courtroom), but we'll take just the port, too -- if you haven't played any of the Phoenix Wright games but enjoy a good adventure yarn, you're in for a treat. The game should be out "soon."

Hexen II is on its way to the iPhone as well, and Touch Arcade has a few screens and video of that one. I was much more of a Quake fan, but Hexen, with its medieval setting and RPG elements placed in the same game engine, had its share of followers back in the day, too. Unfortunately, Vimov doesn't yet have the rights to Hexen II -- they're just working with an open-sourced version of the engine. To actually release the data on the App Store, they'll need to make a deal with Activision, so we'll have to wait and see if that can happen before you can start hacking and slashing through the world of the Serpent Riders again.

Phoenix Wright, Hexen II coming to the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Phoenix Wright, Hexen II coming to the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: OS, iPhone, iPad

One of the big topics of discussion yesterday in our TUAW back channel was this post from the New York Times Bits blog. In "Why can't PCs work more like iPhones," Bilton pointed out that the iPhone has given Apple a chance to build a new OS from the ground up.

This is a familiar viewpoint to us here on TUAW. Last year, I asked whether the future of the Mac OS would turn out to be the iPhone. In my write-up, I pointed out that the iPhone OS was built from scratch to work with Objective C 2.0 with its properties and other modern language features. Its API, far from being cobbled together, showed ever increasing design maturity without the weight of heavy backwards compatibility concerns. I concluded that Apple might take a lesson from the iPhone OS and consider offering a ground up redesign for Mac OS X, at least in terms of core OS principles.

In his post, Bilton considers how Mac OS X might integrate iPhone OS features into its user experience, suggesting a possible Front Row-like overlay layer, running an iPhone OS interface. The goal would be to craft iPhone-style GUI simplicity onto the desktop experience, so that users could move seamlessly between their mobile and desktop worlds.

But as much as we believe that Apple is heading cautiously in the direction that Bilton suggests, the TUAW consensus is that a desktop OS needs far more structure and, at the same time, flexibility than what the iPhone OS offers.

Continue reading TUAW redux: The future of iPhone OS and Mac OS

TUAW redux: The future of iPhone OS and Mac OS originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TUAW redux: The future of iPhone OS and Mac OS originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week's apps include a unique painting app and a game that closely mimics one of the greatest classic arcade tank games of all time.

Originally posted at The Download Blog

Griffin's TuneJuice gives an iPhone as much as 2 hours to 3 hours and 30 minutes extra of talk time depending on the type of batteries used.

Apple's been saying for a while now that they don't want Flash on the iPhone or iPad for technical reasons, but it's pretty obvious that that doesn't hold much water. Adobe Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen, while giving a talk at the Goldman Sachs technology conference taking place this week, said what we know to be the obvious reason: keeping the App Store as the only way to get apps.

Any Apple store can replace a busted screen for you, but the price tag is a jaw-dropping $200. In Chicago and Seattle, it'll cost you $85 and 15 minutes.

Rumors are swirling around about Apple possibly announcing lower-cost iPhone models in June. This one comes from Katy Huberty with Morgan Stanley, who points out that cost of the device and the plan that goes with it are hands-down the biggest factors deterring people from buying iPhones. She predicts Apple is going to respond to this by announcing models with a lower over-all cost of ownership.

"We expect Apple to launch new iPhones in June that offer both a lower total cost of ownership and new functionality, potentially including gesture-based technology," she wrote in her most recent note to investors.

She even has a fancy graph. Check it out: