LS-HACKS

Sprint today announced pricing and nationwideavailability for the Palm Pre phone, offered exclusively from Sprint.Palm Pre will be available nationwide on June 6 in Sprint stores, BestBuy, Radio Shack, select Wal-Mart stores and online at Sprint.com for$199.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-inrebate. Running on the new Palm webOS mobile platform, Pre bringstogether your important information from where it resides ? on yourphone, at your work or on the web ? into one logical view.

Forthose who juggle life circa 2009 ? bouncing from conference call to carpool schedule, from doctors? numbers to doctoral thesis data, fromsocial calendars to social networking ? Pre marks a new wirelesscrossover standard. Before Pre, you had to compromise when selecting awireless phone. To get the business features you needed, you had tosacrifice the personal entertainment features you wanted. Preconsolidates your important information ? professional, social andpersonal ? into one revolutionary device using an operating system thatredefines the experience of living and working wirelessly.

?Theargument that you need one phone for work and another phone for play,or that you have to make compromises between business and lifestyleproductivity, is over,? said Dan Hesse, president and CEO of Sprint.?With Pre, compromises of the past are history.?

Palm Pre willrun on America?s most dependable 3G network and come with Sprint?sindustry-leading, value-oriented Everything Data plans that offersavings of up to $1,430 over two years vs. comparable AT&T andVerizon plans for smartphones and PDAs.(2)

?The Palm Pre takesfull advantage of Sprint?s Everything Data plans,? said Avi Greengart,research director for Consumer Devices at Current Analysis. ?The Prehas been expressly designed for multitasking among multiple web pagesand applications. It also builds on Palm?s heritage in PDAs by managingyour digital information ? whether that?s on a corporate server or onthe web.?

"The Pre's dynamic 'activity cards' approach tohandling and navigating multiple applications is a great advance, butthe core breakthrough is the integration of information across multipleapplications on and off the phone," said Andy Castonguay, director ofMobile & Access Devices Research, Yankee Group. "With socialnetworking and messaging being so important to consumers, the device?snew ?Palm Synergy? functionality ? which gives Pre the ability toautomatically pull friends' contact details, messaging addresses andpersonal calendars from different applications online and on the phone? will greatly simplify people's ability to communicate with theirfriends and colleagues the way they want."

Pre: A New Kind of Phone

Thenew webOS platform introduces Palm Synergy?, a key feature that bringstogether your personal and professional calendar, contacts and e-mailinto one centralized view, making transitions between work and personallife smooth and easy to manage.

With Palm Synergy, users get:

* Linked contacts ? With Synergy, you have a single view that linksyour contacts from a variety of sources, so accessing them is easierthan ever. For example, if you have the same contact listed in yourOutlook(3), Google and Facebook accounts, Synergy recognizes thatthey?re the same person and links the information, presenting it to youas one listing.

* Layered calendars ? Your calendars can be seen ontheir own or layered together in a single view, combining work, family,friends, sports teams, or other interests. You can toggle to look atone calendar at a time, or see them all at a glance.

* Combinedmessaging ? Synergy lets you see all your conversations with the sameperson in a chat-style view, even if it started in IM and you want toreply with text messaging. You can also see who?s active in a buddylist right from contacts or e-mail, and start a new conversation withjust one touch.

Palm webOS lets you keep multiple activitiesopen and move easily between them like flipping through a deck ofcards. You can move back and forth between text messaging and e-mail,or search the web while you listen to music. You can rearrange itemssimply by dragging them, and when you are done with something, justthrow it away by flicking it off the top of the screen.

Findingwhat you need is also easy with universal search ? as you type whatyou?re looking for, webOS narrows your search and offers results fromboth your device and the web.(4) WebOS crushes the barriers to truemobile computing.

?Pre is truly a new phone for a newweb-centric age,? said Ed Colligan, Palm president and chief executiveofficer. ?We?re a mobile society, and we want our people, calendars andinformation to move with us. With Pre?s exquisite design and the uniquewebOS software, running on Sprint?s fast broadband network, we?rechanging the perception of what a wireless phone can be.

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Precomes with a charger in the box, but for anyone tired of plugging acord into their wireless phone, Palm introduces the Touchstone?charging dock, the first inductive charging solution for phones,available exclusively for Pre. Simply set Pre down on top of the dockwithout worrying about connection, orientation or fit. Pre is activewhile charging, so you can access the touch screen, watch movies orvideo, or use the speakerphone. Set Pre on the charging dock whenyou?re on a call, and the speakerphone automatically turns on; when youtake a ringing Pre off the dock, Pre automatically answers the call.Other mobile operating systems allow multitasking, but Palm hasdeveloped an intuitive method of switching between "cards,? whichresemble clicking different tabs on a Web browser. New applications canbe launched easily using the "Launcher" software button at the bottomof the home screen, and users navigate between different applications.

Withnearly every wireless device today you have to exit one applicationcompletely before you can use another. That?s not what people areaccustomed to; think of your PC and all the applications you can haveopen at one time.

Pre: The latest NOW Network milestone for Sprint

Pre also lets you access feature-rich Sprint content on the Sprint Now Network, including exclusive applications such as:

* Sprint Navigation(5)

* Sprint TV

* NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile Live

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Sprint?sNow Network brings you America?s most dependable 3G network, thelargest push-to-talk community, and in selected markets Sprint is theonly national carrier bringing 4G to life in 2009,?(6) Hesse said. ?TheNow Network is more than just a physical network ? it?s also data plansthat are all-inclusive, eliminating fear of data overages and a perfectfit for Palm Pre users.?

Sprint?s networks are now performing atbest-ever levels, and Sprint?s high-value Everything data plansconsistently beat AT&T?s and Verizon?s comparable plans in savingsby hundreds, even thousands, of dollars over two years. With therevolutionary launch of Ready Now, which Sprint pioneered, customersleave the store educated, comfortable and confident about the phonesthey?re about to take home. As a result of these measures and more,Sprint customer satisfaction indices ? from first call resolution tobilling satisfaction, from customer care response time to service andrepair ? have all significantly improved during the past year.

Pricing and Availability:

ThePalm Pre phone will be available from Sprint on June 6 for $199.99after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year service agreement on anEverything Data plan or Business Essentials with Messaging and Dataplan. An array of compelling accessories also will be available forPre, including the Palm Touchstone charging dock. The Touchstone?Charging Kit, which includes the Touchstone charging dock andTouchstone back cover for Pre, will be available June 6 for $69.99. TheTouchstone charging dock and Touchstone back cover also are availableseparately from for $49.99 and $19.99, respectively.

Do you have a Twitter? If so then you might want a Application for your iPhone/iPod Touch for your Twitter. Then you’ve come to the right place. TweetStack is a great way to organize your tweets, and keep them in order.

The Design:

One thing i like about TweetStack is its SMS/iChat look. It has the chat bubbles for its Reply, Tweet, and Direct Messages sections. Another thing i really do like is its sending screen. When sending a Tweet it has the iPhone SMS sending screen that makes it really cool.

Stability:

In the settings you can set TweetStack to refresh every time you log on. Now for some apps this causes a stability issue, but not for TweetStack. It can still hold up.

I really recommend you get TweetStack. Not only is it organized, but it has features that are incredible! If you would like to get it, see the App Info below.

Price: $2.99

BeejiveIM is a simple, reliable service for IM services Like AIM, Mobile Me, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN/Windows Live, MySpace IM, Yahoo! Messenger, and Facebook IM. The thing that brings most people to this IM service is the look. The style of this App provides an iChat/SMS style interface to the table. People who have a Mac or iPhone know and love this Chat style. Besides the look Beejive (Pronounced Bee Hive) has many other features as well. One is the ability to send Links, Pictures, Videos, and now Voice notes. As well as being able to change the background of your chat session so that you have a relaxing customized feeling. Another custom feature is changing the color of your chat bubbles. Organizing your buddy list has not been so easy. You can add/edit Names of the people in your buddy list so that you can remember them. You also have to ability to add people to a favorites list so that you can access their name easier. Another thing i like is the search feature. Why scroll through your buddy list and find the person your looking for? Why not type in their name and get them easier? I think im going with two, and Beejive did as well!One of the other features i liked is the Badge notification. If you don’t know what that is then ill tell you. Its puts the a number badge on your home screen icon telling you how many unread IMs you have, sort of the same as the Mail app. Another feature is the easy to use Landscape keyboard function you can enable in settings

The Cons:

Although i would say this app is the BEST, there are a couple of things that i think they should add. When your in a IM you can’t see when the other person is talking, and often change subjects when your friend is still on others. Also, no matter what IM service the receivers on when your using Beejive They can’t see when your Typeing, and when your typing a lot they won’t think your talking. Now i don’t know about you, but i think that needs to change. Another thing is that when you have several IMs going and you use Landscape it gets very laggy, and for me crashs. I do love BeejiveIM, but they need to change this.

About two weeks ago 3.0 beta 3 was released for developers and was later leaked on torrents and uploaded to the net. Now 3.0 beta 4 has been released for paid developers in the iPhone Developer Program. It was released yesterday and has been leaked already on torrents. The Non-Dev Team jailbreak hasn’t been released yet so if you want a jailbreak don’t upgrade yet!

Note: We’ve gotten reports that developers must install the iTunes 8.2 pre-release before attempting to install iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 4.

For the people who update ModMyi tell us that the store settings are working now. This means people who upgrade will be able to buy from the iTunes Store and App Store on there iPhone or iPod Touch.

Search results can now be shown or hidden and the order adjusted (Unchanged from Beta 3)

SMS messages that fail to send now appear with an exclamation mark. Demonstration of deleting and forwarding of individual SMS messages. Has been available since beta 1 but never shown on World of Apple before.

We also have found out that in MMS when taking a picture from your camera, it will ask you if you want to take the picture, want to save it or want to re-take it again. I’m not sure if this also goes for the camera.

Copy and paste has made its way to the Calculator app.

Remember before upgrading to 3.0 beta 4 you must do it the right way, by not connecting to the Internet. Please read this post before upgrading, please don’t do this if you don’t know what you are doing.

Lots of features are being discovered in the 3.0 beta firmwares and this newest one is voice recognition. This new feature is called Jibbler, but it wont be an app you open, it will be built into the homescreen. This new voice feature will be more like an add-on to the new Spotlight search feature in the 3.0 firmwares. We suspect these new voice features will be similar to whats in the newest iPod Shuffle. Adding voice recognition to the iPhone will bring it up to speed with a lot of other phones in that aspect. Although I don’t see any big need for it since voice recognition can get very annoying at times. But the more features the better!

A new build (10A335) of Snow Leopard was released for developers.QuickTime X offers a great new feature called Screen Recording witch is awsome.Such a feature will be particularly useful for software developers and educators, as it will simplify the process of creating video tutorials, software demonstrations, and anything else best captured in live motion as opposed to still shots.We hope that the screen recording feature will be better than Snapz Pro X or the same as ScreenFlow.When you start to recording a recording interface prompts the user to begin the video capture then disappears.To stop recording you'll use the upper-right hand side of the Mac OS X menubar.

AT&T is increasing the downlink capacity on its high-speed packet access (HSPA) from 3.6 megabits per second to 7.2 Mb/s through software upgrades at the base station, according to Scott McElroy, AT&T Mobility Vice President of Technology Realization.

Telephony Online reports that AT&T currently has the enhanced networks running in two test markets but plans to extend those capabilities to its entire network. HSPA can theoretically support 14.4Mb/s; however, the report suggest this may never happen...

The next obvious step would be for AT&T to further upgrade its 3G networks and devices to its full 14.4-Mb/s potential, but McElroy said AT&T will most likely skip the final HSPA iteration for two reasons: There have been technical difficulties implementing the final step, and HSPA+ is now ready for prime time. There's little point in migrating to 14.4 Mb/s if AT&T can go straight to 21 Mb/s, McElroy said. HSPA+ actually encompasses a bevy of upgrades, including evolving to a flat IP core and the introduction of smart antenna technology, but AT&T is focusing on upgrades to the baseband, which will dramatically increase capacity without having to fiddle with the elements on the tower or in the core.

It has widely been rumored that the next iPhone 3G expected in June will be able to take advantage of the faster 7.2MB/s connection AT&T is currently phasing in.

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Apple has advised resellers to begin placing on clearance both the Apple Composite AV Cable and the Apple Component AV Cable, according to a PhoneNews.com report.

The site has learned that Apple will replace these with a single cable, which is known simply as the Apple AV Cable. The consolidated cable will support both component and composite output on the same cable.

More interestingly, PhoneNews.com has learned that the next generation of iPhone and iPod touch will offer at least one version of the iPhone and one version of iPod touch with an even higher resolution screen and capable of full HD video output.

Currently the iPhone and iPod touch do not exceed 480i and 480p (respectively) in terms of video resolution. However, the next iPhone and iPod touch will enable full HD playback, with 720p and 1080i output modes.

It is also believed that Apple will provide the ability for users to access their entire iTunes Library from the iPhone via Wi-Fi.

The end result is that a user can sit at their HDTV, using an Apple AV Dock and an Apple Remote, controlling their iPhone much as they do an Apple TV today. This ensures that a new iPhone owner will be able to purcase, for under $100, all the equipment needed to access (via the iPhone) all of their computer-stored HD content, on their HDTV.

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Several additional tweaks and improvements have been found in the new iPhone OS 3.0 beta 3, according to an AppleInsider report.

Developer sources familiarizing themselves with betas of Apple's iPhone 3.0 software have uncovered a handful of additional tweaks and improvements to the system in recent weeks, including changes to Safari's window handling, new battery status indicators and notification preferences, as well as the advent of data detectors in certain apps.

- Safari now lets you close the last active window replacing it with a blank page.


- 22 new png files have been included in the lastest build which will act as a numerical representation of remaining battery life.


- A new push notification preference pane lets you enable or disable any of the three types of notifications: Sounds, Alerts and Badges.


- Additional data detectors have been added to OS 3.0 which identify text fragments like email addresses, phone numbers, and street addresses inside different applications. You can then touch these fragments to perform different functions. (ie touch a number to call it).



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Hulu may be in the process of developing an app for Apple's iPhone and iPod touch, according to a Business Insider report.

A plugged-in industry executive revealed that the app is coming within a few months and is "badass". It supposedly will work over both wi-fi and 3G.

It won't be the first Web video app for the iPhone -- CBS's TV.com app is on the market, as are Joost, i.TV and several others -- but it could be the best. Hulu's tech and design teams have demonstrated themselves as the best in the Web video industry, as everyone is now trying to emulate them. One hurdle, we assume: Because of Hulu's streaming architecture, it might not be possible to download videos to watch later, such as on the subway or an airplane.

The Business Insider notes that only 3% of mobile subscribers watch video on their phones; however, an iPhone Hulu app could possibly change that.

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Apple has been conducting ongoing research into how to further improve their mobile device interfaces as evidenced by a couple of patent applications published over the past couple of weeks. Two different patent applications reveal a couple of different approaches to movement-aware interfaces found on portable devices.

The first application published a couple of weeks ago actually explores the possibility of using motion as an interface method itself.

One problem with existing portable media devices such as cellular telephones is that users can become distracted from other activities while interfacing with the media device's video display, graphical user interface (GUI), and/or keypad. For example, a runner may carry a personal media device to listen to music or to send/receive cellular telephone calls while running. In a typical personal media device, the runner must look at the device's display to interact with a media application in order to select a song for playing. Also, the user likely must depress the screen or one or more keys on its keypad to perform the song selection. These interactions with the personal media device can divert the user's attention from her surroundings which could be dangerous, force the user to interrupt her other activities, or cause the user to interfere with the activities of others within her surroundings.

Apple proposes the use of motion-based gestures to invoke specific commands rather than relying on on-screen buttons. Examples include the use of gestures such as flicking the phone to step through contacts. Additional uses of onscreen buttons or bezel touch detection could prevent accidental gesturing. Such a system, however, seems somewhat ambitious.

A more practical take on this problem emerges from a patent application published today. In this report, Apple concedes that users may have difficulty using the iPhone's touch interface while performing tasks in motion:

. A user of a device can interact with the graphical user interface by making contact with the touch-sensitive display. The device, being a portable device, can also be carried and used by a user while the user is in motion. While the user and the device is in motion, the user's dexterity with respect to the touch-sensitive display can be disrupted by the motion, detracting form the user's experience with the graphical user interface.

Apple's solution to the problem is to modify the iPhone's interface in real-time if it detects that you are in motion (such as running, jogging).

In this example, they enlarge the size of each contact in response to the detection of motion. Similar user interface adjustments to the iPhone's home screen could be made as well to improve accuracy during activity.

Apple's patent applications generally reveal a very wide-range of possibilities and don't necessarily result in shipping products, but does show the direction of Apple's recent research.

Update the patent diagram also depicts a front-facing video camera on the front side of the device (labeled 180). A front facing camera could allow video-chat capabilities in future iPhones.

The other labeled sensors are: proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, and accelerometer. Apple also mentions the possible use of a gyroscope (digital compass/magnetometer)

AT&T has just launched a new service called FamilyMap. FamilyMap lets you locate each device within seconds. You can locate each device from your PC, or even your phone. The service actually uses A-GPS for accurate results, and if your phone does not support A-GPS, it uses Triangulation, which is less accurate than A-GPS. You can even set up a Schedule Check to automatically get location information sent to you via text message or email.

AT&T FamilyMap runs at $9.99 for two phones, and $14.99 for five phones.

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HAHA GUYS I CAN SEE HOW THIS SERVICE CAN GO SOUTH IN SO MANY WAYS!

Apple has seeded the third beta of the iPhone 3.0 Firmware and SDK to developers. No word yet on any changes or improvements.

Let us know what you find

WWDC is coming up.  What does that mean?  Probably a new iPhone.  We have been seeing a lot of leads to believe that there is going to be a new iPhone.  What could this mean for you?  Well, 4G speeds may come.

This one isn't very surprising, knowing that technology is getting greater and greater everyday.  Now, 3G speeds are really fast.  What could 4G bring?  Sources indicate that Apple has boughten 5.0 mega pixel cameras, and 3.2 mega pixel cameras.  What could this point to?  Well, a 3.2 would be great for video chatting; video messaging!  Many people have wanted video messaging for ever it seems like, and this may be the time it happens!

3.0 software.  We all know that the 3.0 beta was released, only it is still a beta.  It is very, and I mean very buggy, and it's not too great yet.  When the beta testers send in their information, Apple will fix these bugs.  3.0 will hopefully be better in the next generation iPhone.

Could we also see a new design coming to the iPhone?  Yes!  We saw the iPhone have a lovely design, then we saw the iPhone 3G have a better design.  This one could top it all off.

Well, if you have any comments, please post them and we will get back to you soon!  Thanks!

-Samuel

To embellish on the video capture features, Here is a screen shot found of the new 3.0 software enabling video capture.