Thought Garage

For most of the day during and after today's iPhone event at Apple, we could barely access their web site consistently. Glad its back now. Not only full web site is accessible, but also the streaming video of today's event is now available for us to watch. Watch Apple's 4th October "Let's Talk iPhone" event here .

Here is a nice info graphic on the history of iPhone. What you know is already history and I believe the best of iPhone is yet to come. via Mashable .

Finally here is a Blogger application on iOS devices. Primarily its an iPhone (iPod) application but can be run on iPad as well. Google announced the app on the blog and you can download the app from the App Store .  Read more about the announcement and features here :  Blogger Buzz: Announcing the Blogger app for iOS .  Here are a couple of quick screenshots from iPhone using the Blogger app. List of Posts Composer Screen Glad, they made it compatible with all iOS devices by making it compatible on iOS 3.2+. The work flow is smooth and intuitive to work with. However, the composer doesn't support rich text, so you will see all HTML markup when you are trying to update an existing post. But big deal for me is it makes life lot easier now to post pictures directly to Blogger blog. Emailing a picture wasn't working as Blogger has difficulty in parsing images embedded in emails.

Just watched 10 Hacks to Go From Idea to #1 App (October 29, 2010) - HD on Active Player . Source : 10 Hacks to Go From Idea to #1 App (October 29, 2010) - HD from Developing Apps for iOS (HD) ( Feed ) via Active Player

Wow !!! Apple App Store reached 10 Billion downloads .

I have been thinking for a while to learn and develop iOS applications but has been putting off due to other commitments. Last week I have finally decided to take the plunge and get started. I am planning to post my travelogue with notes and links to resources of this exciting journey on this blog.  Join or subscribe to RSS Feed or by Email if you are interested. Courses & Resources After few hours of watching and reading various content available, I found that there is no place better than the Apple : iOS Dev Center to get started with developing iOS Applications. There are tons of content ranging from working samples,developer guides to full length WWDC videos delivered by none other than Apple’s own engineering staff. If you prefer a class room style, with a prescribed direction and outline, here are some courses I found on iTunes that are teaching or have taught iOS development. Stanford University CS193p : Developing Apps for iOS (Fall 2010) CS193p: iPhone Applic...

Chris Anderson and Wired offer yet another riveting conclusion (sounds like a prediction for some of us) that the Web as we know is dead as we are getting more and more connected on the internet with apps and devices. You’ve spent the day on the Internet — but not on the Web. And you are not alone. -- The Web Is Dead. Long Live Internet, Wired I agree 100%, as it is just a fact for how I consume content on the internet. Almost (99%) everything I do on the internet is done through a custom application (mostly on iPhone and iPad) rather on the web. Active Learning Suite In fact the applications I have been building as part of Active Learning suite exemplify the same conclusion about web.  Active Player lets you enjoy and learn from your favorite videos and podcasts without ever visiting a single web page. If a website doesn’t offer an RSS Feed, you can create your own RSS Feed of any content available on the internet with Active Feeds and help the rest of the world...

How many times in your whole life have you ever seen individuals or organizations admit their mistakes point blank without giving a spin or excuse? Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong . Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. -- Letter from Apple regarding iPhone 4 And the letter confirms that gripping iPhone 4 in a specific way could hurt its reception and thought its a design issue of iPhone. But I didn’t know that its the same way for any other mobile phone.

Its Diwali now..., in fact whenever you want if you are in India. No restrictions. No need for special permissions. No proof of special occasions. Enjoy whenever you want. Pictures taken from the first generation iPhone.

iPad is now official and awesome. And in my view, there are two categories of products that will suffer a great deal if not completely get ignored in the market: Netbooks and e-Book readers (like Kindle) .  iPad will be a real break-through not because hardware (despite gigantic touch screen) or for software, but for great and intuitive user experience in consuming content. Finally, consuming content on web feels like reading a book or magazine, close to your heart. Something I always wanted. Hmm, I will be poor by at least another $500. The fact that any of those 140K apps that run on iPhone or iPod touch run on iPad without any modification is quite irresistible. And for those who already have an iPhone or iPod touch, using iPad is just natural and hence nothing exciting. It not only looks and feels like a gigantic iPhone or iPod touch, but powered by the same software core.

Vonage started offering Unlimited Calls to India under its $24.99/m existing plan recently that include both landlines and cell phones. The 2 Months free offer is still available, if you haven’t signed up yet. Today, Vonage released a Mobile application that can be installed on Blackberry, iPhone or iPod touch that will allow you to make international calls right from your Mobile at Vonage rates. It uses WiFi if available. Otherwise it uses your normal voice minutes on your Mobile like you are making a local call even when you are make an international calls. Remember you will pay for Vonage International Calling Rates for each call you make, in addition to your cell phone minutes when you use cell phone network instead of WiFi. It is bad you can not use your existing Vonage account to this mobile application. Hope Vonage will soon allow that too. You need to setup a credit or debit card and pay per use. I guess, Vonage will soon allow to connect your existing account and sh...

iPhone is my dream smart Phone (see my original post Busting the myth of Smart phones posted on  Cellular Lifestyles in October, 2006 )  Many critics of iPhone are quite reluctant to accept that iPhone has not only changed the meaning of a smart phone, but also changed the mobile user and hence the market. My colleague, a great fan of Nokia always argue that Nokia had the best smart phone, well before iPhone ever made into the market. I don't know much about that device he is talking about, but see what iPhone had done to the user and market. More users are using email on their phones. More users are now browsing web using a mobile phone. More web sites and business applications created iPhone ready websites and applications. I haven't heard of a single web app that was declared as Nokia ready. Now with introduction of games through apple Appstore, I am pretty sure more people will play games on their mobile phones.  In turn, carriers will see more people buying d...

iPhone is my dream smart Phone (see my original post Busting the myth of Smart phones posted on  Cellular Lifestyles in October, 2006 )  Many critics of iPhone are quite reluctant to accept that iPhone has not only changed the meaning of a smart phone, but also changed the mobile user and hence the market. My colleague, a great fan of Nokia always argue that Nokia had the best smart phone, well before iPhone ever made into the market. I don't know much about that device he is talking about, but see what iPhone had done to the user and market. More users are using email on their phones. More users are now browsing web using a mobile phone. More web sites and business applications created iPhone ready websites and applications. I haven't heard of a single web app that was declared as Nokia ready. Now with introduction of games through apple Appstore, I am pretty sure more people will play games on their mobile phones.  In turn, carriers will see more people buying ...

When it comes to web surfing there is no other device like iPhone. Nokia fans and Blackberry folks are very reluctant to accept that iPhone from a computer company beat the mobile phone companies flat out. But they all know iPhone has really done it. Data from search engines only confirms it. On Christmas, traffic to Google from iPhones surged, surpassing incoming traffic from any other type of mobile device, according to internal Google data made available to The New York Times. A few days later, iPhone traffic to Google fell below that of devices powered by the Nokia-backed Symbian operating system but remained higher than traffic from any other type of cellphone. The data is striking because the iPhone, an Apple product, accounts for just 2 percent of smartphones worldwide , according to IDC, a market research firm. Phones powered by Symbian make up 63 percent of the worldwide smartphone market, while those powered by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile have 11 percent and ...

Apple's iPhone is without any doubt has been considered as the "Best Gadget" of 2007, for it has dramatically changed our Cellular Lifestyles. It would be unfair if we limit iPhone to just that. It has completely changed the meaning of a Cellular Phone. Time's Invention of the Year and Top 10 Gadgets of 2007 No wonder, it has been named Time Magazine's Invention of the Year 2007: iPhone . And also, Time Magazine's Top 10 Gadgets of 2007 gives iPhone No.1 slot: The iPhone changed the way we think about how mobile media devices should look, feel and perform. The design is exceptional inside and out: NPR's Best Technology Innovation of The Year NPR's Morning Editions cites iPhone as the Best Technology Innovation of the Year Tech guru Mario Armstrong claims the iPhone as the best technology innovation of the year. The iPhone's touch-screen technology, visual voicemail, and integration of the digital camera, iTune software brough...