Hit News » iPhone

Simplify Music 2.0 for IPhone Adds Search

matt — Fri, 01 May 2009 10:43:10 +0000

We were fans of the first version of Simplify Media’s iPhone client, which allows you to stream music from your computers or those of your friends to your iPhone or iPod touch, so we welcome with open arms (and ears) the news that Simplify Media on Wednesday released Simplify Music 2.0 (iTunes link).

Simplify Music 2.0 adds a few new features to the mix. Users can now search for artists, albums, and song titles across their entire shared music library–the results will show up no matter which machine the track is on (presuming, of course, they’re all running the free desktop client). In addition, you can also tag favorite songs either from your own library or your friends’, create playlists in the application while you’re on the go, and use the new scrub bar to easily jump around inside podcasts and audio books.

While 2.0 won’t fix some of the limitations of the application (the iPhone still doesn’t support background processes, so you won’t be able to listen while you’re doing other things on your device), other outside factors have changed in the interim: for example, since Apple has gotten rid of DRM-encoded tracks, you can now stream pretty much anything you buy from the iTunes Store.

The only downside I can see is that Simplify Music 2.0 will require an additional expenditure from owners of the original version: it’s on sale for $3 until May 14, when the price goes up to the $6. The 1.0 version of the app, now rebranded “Simplify,” is still available, and currently costs $4.

Palm Pre Coming to Best Buy

matt — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:51:42 +0000

We still don’t know when you’ll get our hands on the wildly anticipated Palm Pre smartphone, which was announced at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show. But we are getting a hint of where we might be able to buy it. The Palm Pre may be sold exclusively through Best Buy Mobile (in addition to at Sprint stores) for the first two months of its release.

Palm Pre Coming to Best Buy

WebOS Arena is reporting this news, saying it received a tip from a “credible source” within Best Buy. When you consider that the Samsung Instinct was initially sold solely through Best Buy Mobile, and also how the big blue box store was the first to nab the iPhone outside of Apple stores and AT&T, the rumor looks pretty solid.

A lot of hype and expectation weighs upon the shoulders of the Palm Pre. So far it’s received very good reviews from the tech press, who are calling it “simply amazing” and “well thought-out and smooth.” Before the Pre, Palm wasn’t doing so hot — in fact, many thought the company wouldn’t survive. And now, many are thinking the Pre is Palm’s last chance.

So, with all this in mind, a Best Buy marketing blitzkrieg might be just the ticket for the latest potential

iPhone Hacked Work Bluetooth

matt — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:09:52 +0000

The iPhone has been hacked in the past to use modified external keyboards, but new mods promise much more general interaction. Now, iPhone expert Ralf Ackermann has succeeded in supporting a standard Bluetooth keyboard using an external Bluetooth approach and is working on supporting an internal one.

For the external approach, Ackermann modified a Robotech Bluetooth module, which he placed in an iPhone battery sleeve and connected to the iPhone (serial) connector port at the bottom of the unit. This allowed the the phone to communicate directly with the the module using the Bluetooth serial port profile.

The external Bluetooth module on the left has been placed into an iPhone battery sleeve.

The whole thing works courtesy of Jay “saurik” Freeman’s Veency application. Ackermann used a tiny libvncclient to generate keyboard events, which were then passed to Veency. Veency then provided the keyboard event injection using the iPhone’s private Graphics Services framework.

Bluetoot keyboard

Erica Says ” You can find out more about this external module project over at Ackermann’s blog. He’ll be posting schematics and code as he gets his site set up.

Ars readers may be more excited, though, by his work on a completely internal solution. Here, Ackermann discovered BlueSn0w, part of the iBluetooth project. BlueSn0w (yes, its name is apparently inspired by the iPhone dev team’s yellowsn0w) will scan for discoverable Bluetooth devices. According to this Flickr page, the module seems to enable the Bluetooth UART interface to communicate

Using the internal Bluetooth module will offer a simpler, more elegant solution.

iphone bluetooth

The internal solution depends on gaining access to the Bluetooth module stack. “User space BT stacks are not common—nevertheless, of course they can be done,” Ackermann told Ars. “In the past, I had a look at an adaptation of the Linux Bluez stack for ATMEL uCs for instance—and this seems similar.” Once the stack becomes available, Ackermann believes a fully internal solution will be quickly usable. There is no time estimate on this due to the complete volunteer nature of the BlueSn0w project but it looks like hobbyists are drawing close to the goal.

Allowing the iPhone to accept keyboard input from an external Bluetooth keyboard will move the iPhone forward in opening new opportunities for general computing and on-the-go note taking. Taking into account the iPhone’s newly realized video out support, the entire platform looks like it’s at the brink of a transformative revolution.