iAPPS.sg

Gosh, what’s happening to the iPhone’s App Store? I kept getting a blank screen when I tap on the Categories. Restoring the phone does no help. It all happens yesterday afternoon when I shopped for applications on my iPhone. The Categories page is mysteriously empty! Is Apple secretly working on some features?

Let’s wait for Apple to rectify this problem, if it is really a problem.

[UPDATE: The App Store(Categories) is up, but there are no new features]

Today, at the highly-anticipated media event, Apple introduces iPad to the world.

The Apple iPad which sports a 9.7-inch, 1024 x 768 display is available in 2 models – WiFi and WiFi+3G. Depending on the storage capacity (16GB, 32GB and 64GB), the WiFi model will be priced at US$499, $599, and $699, while the WiFi+3G model at US$629, US$729, and US$829.

Powered by a custom 1 GHz “Apple A4″ chip, the iPad runs on an iPhone Operating System – this means all iPhone applications will be able to run on the iPad effortlessly. The iPad comes pre-installed with native applications such as Calendar, Address book, Email, Safari, Google Maps, and Notes. Both models sport an accelerometer, digital compass, speakers, microphone, and a 30-pin dock connector.

Most amazingly, the iPad offers a proclaimed 10 hours of battery life for viewing video, with 1 month of standby battery life.

According to Steve, the WiFi model will be shipped internationally in 60 days while the WiFi+3G model 90 days from today. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the iPad will be available for sales in Singapore in late March.

[UPDATE: The WiFi-only model will be delayed till 3rd April in US. WiFi and WiFi+3G model will be available to some countries in late April]

BeeJive is finally “Push-ready”.

Following the announcement of the iPhone 3.0 firmware, millions of users worldwide have been looking forward to Instant Messaging (IM) clients such as BeejiveIM and IM+ to make their applications Push-ready. According to the developers, the push-enabled version of their applications have already been submitted for Apple’s approval weeks before the release of the 3.0 firmware update. Users of IM applications can now be relieved as Apple has finally approved and make the applications available on the App Store.

With Push Notification, you no longer have to rely on Push email to keep you inform of incoming messages when you pick up a call or reply to an SMS. Instant Messages are delivered to you just the way it works on your desktop – through badges, alerts and/or sounds.

It has been a week or so since Apple unveiled iPhone 3GS in WWDC 2009. Since then, we have been waiting eagerly for SingTel to announce mobile plans for the new iPhone. Finally, SingTel’s website is updated to invite public to register their interest for the new phone.

For those who have watched the WWDC 2009 presentation, Philip Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing, has mentioned a little on the release date for iPhone 3GS. If everything goes as planned, the iPhone 3GS should be released in Singapore on July 9th.

Apparently, SingTel has once again acquired exclusive rights to offer Apple iPhone to its customers. Though no official announcement has been made on the subscription plans and the cost of the phone, we all know it is about time.

If you are interested to grab Apple’s latest iPhone, register your interest now.

There are a number of ways to restore your Mac back to its youthful snappiness. Here are a few tips I’ve found for restoring my Macs to full speed without spending a penny.

1. Repair Disk Permission

Some poorly-written, 3rd party installers are known to change permissions of System-related folders and neglect to set them back, causing problems after the installation. I would not regard this as a MUST for regular maintenance, but there is no harm doing it and I would advise this task to be done after installing 3rd party software. You can do it with OnyX, which of the dozen of OS X system maintenance utilities out there, it is the one I use most often.

OnyX has a nice interface, it performs well and it’s free. There is so much you can do with OnyX, from verifying and repairing of permissions, running of cron maintenance scripts, to configuring of hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock, Safari, Dashboard etc.

2. Clean up your Startup Items

Some applications were setup as a “startup item” by default or by your decision, and they will be opened every time you login to your Mac. Sometime down the road, you have decided that you don’t need these applications to startup on every login, and you want them to be inactive during startup. To do so, follow these steps:

Apple > System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items

To remove, select the item name and hit the “minus” button at the bottom of the list.

3. Remove unwanted/uninstalled applications

Some applications deposit preference files, and sometimes application support files in your Mac after you have installed them. These files may not be removed even after you have deleted the applications.

Preference files usually take up negligible disk space and they can be safely deleted. As they keep your settings for your application, you may not want to delete them if you think you might re-install it sometime in the future. You can access them at the following directories:

(~/Library/Preferences/) or  (/Library/Preferences/)

Some applications may require additional files, such as dictionaries, plug-ins, scripts, etc., to execute. Application support files can take up anywhere from a few KiloBytes to several GigaBytes, depending on the application installed.  They may be located in:

(/Library/Application Support/)

4. Evaluate your widgets

If you are using Mac OS X Tiger or Leopard, you probably have played around with the Dashboard. There are many useful widgets available for free, some of them are useful to others but you don’t use them at all. Why run them when you don’t need them? These Widget consumes RAM and processor power to keep them running, even when Dashboard is hidden. So, start now, make judicious evaluation on what widgets you want to use.

5. Remove unwanted Language Packs

Look, sooner or later, your Hard Disk will get full. It’s time to remove things that you don’t need. Mac OS X comes pre-installed with multiple languages support and you probably will not be using some of these languages at all, so why not remove them to recover some disk space? Monolingual is a free program that root out these languages for you.

Apple has introduced a simple way to create and sync your custom ringtones to the iPhone via GarageBand, an application that comes pre-installed with Mac OS X Leopard. If you have a Mac and you want to create a custom Ringtone from your iTunes library then step in and follow me.

1. Startup GarageBand

2. Enter a name for the New Project, select a location and leave the rest untouch.

3. From the iTunes, drag the song you want to create as a ringtone to the GarageBand.

4. Turn on Cycle Region (it will turn blue after clicking)

5. Increase the Cycle Region (the yellow bar) from the default 5 to 20 (equivalent to 40 seconds).

6. Drag the Cycle Region to where you want to begin your ringtone.

7. Finally, send the newly created Ringtone to iTunes.

Congratulation Apple !!! The App Store launched nine months ago has just delivered its 1 billionth application download. Featuring more than 35,000 paid and unpaid iPhone/iPod Touch applications, built by thousands of developers, the App Store is currently available to 77 countries.

A 13-year-old downloaded the billionth application from the Apple App Store and stood out as the grand-prize winner in the countdown contest.

“Do I need an anti-virus software for Mac?”
“If McAfee or Symantec develops anti-virus software for Mac, then they must somehow be vulnerable too?”

These questions have always been raised by Windows users who plan to make a switch-over. Their worries are entirely understandable considering how much damages viruses can cause. Is Mac OS X susceptible to the countless viruses, Trojans, and malware that are hunting out there?

Mac OS X is built upon an open source “Darwin” operating system similar to that of UNIX. Both Darwin and UNIX are stable and secure, OS X also greatly benefit from that. Apple’s developers and security experts are constantly spending huge amount of man-hour into ensuring that the operating system is safe and sound from viruses, with this, Mac users are already getting metric tons of prevention when they adopt the operating system. To date, OS X has remained safe and sound, especially when compared to its counterparts.

Most anti-virus solutions for Mac target at removing Windows viruses from infected files before they were distributed to other Windows users. As these viruses do not affect OS X, users are actually expensing their own resources to help mitigate a problem that affect Windows users.

Apple has just launched the 1 Billion App Countdown promotion. Simply download an app and you will stand a chance to win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro.

Apple has just unveiled the iPhone 3.0 blueprint in Cupertino. Scheduled to arrive this summer, the iPhone 3.0 firmware will introduce over 100 new features to the hands of the iPhone/iPod Touch owners. Here is a list of the top 5 prominent features that are most talked about:

1. Tethering

Included in the iPhone 3.0 firmware is the tethering capability. Instead of signing up a separate mobile broadband for internet on the go, wouldn’t it be great if one can ride on the iPhone 3G connection for internet access on the laptop? This would be a whole lot of saving if SingTel allows this.

2. Copy-and-paste

Since the debut of the first generation iPhone in 2007, the iPhone has been criticized for the lack of such basic functionality. Though Apple has tried to predict where people would want to use copy-and-paste and provide suitable workarounds, anyone who’s ever had to transfer a scrap of arbitrary text between applications will eventually jot a note down on a piece of paper and then laboriously typing it back in. It seems that Apple is well aware of this and finally make “copy and paste” possible.

3. Spotlight

Just like Mac OS X, with the Spotlight phone-wide search feature, just key in a name and it will list down all the emails, calendars and contact of the person. So long as the 3rd party applications are written to support this feature, its data will also be available in the search.

4. MMS

This is a basic capability found in any other handsets except the iPhone. Yes, I know that I can send an email to someone with a photo attached, but what if the recipient does not have an internet-capable phone? With the new MMS capability, it allows you send messages that include everything from images to sound to vcards.

5. Push-notification

At the Worldwide Developer Conference 2008, Apple touted a push notification system that would allow 3rd party applications to alert users upon new information. However, after several firmware updates, the feature is still yet to be seen. So now, it is apparent that Apple has not dropped Push-notification, it has been doing complete re-architechture of the Push Notification server infra-structure to ensure stability upon rolling out. Well, it better be a rock-solid implementation than anything approaching the MobileMe’s disastrous launch.

The iPhone OS 3.0 will be a free upgrade to all iPhone users, and for iPod touch users, it will be available for $US9.95.

If you dare, you can sign up for the beta here.

After a couple of email teasers, SingTel has finally announced the official release of the much-anticipated iPhone 3G. The launch will take place at SingTel Comcentre on August 22nd, 12:01am – that is 42 days after Apple and AT&T launched the phone in US.

Tens of thousands of iPhone fans who have made online reservations at the SingTel’s website will get their first dibs on the phone. In preparation for the launch, official will setup barricades to control the queues and Comcentre will extend its usual opening hours on Thursday for the midnight launch. The iPhone 3G will be sold at various hello! stores islandwide starting next Monday.

Available in 2 capacity – 8GB (black) and 16GB (black/white), the iPhone 3G can be yours for as low as $0 with a new 2-year contract or existing plans. The subscription plans will be shown on SingTel website starting tomorrow.

Minutes before the unveiling:

Yes, the long wait is over! Continuing the success of the first generation iPhone, Apple has just unveiled the next generation iPhone to its product line – iPhone 3G.

In term of physical appearance, the iPhone 3G features the same gorgeous wide screen display, tappered edges and glossy black/white plastic backcase. Unlike the 1st generation iPhone which sports a matte finished plastic and metal backcase, the new iPhone will attract more fingerprints and smudges, thanks to its glossy backcase. After all those complaints about the incompatible headphone jack, Apple does listen and put in a flush headphone jack for the new iPhone.

There is no upgrade to the stingy 2.0 Mega pixels camera and the iPhone still does not support video recording. Apple has incorporated a 3G chipset and Assisted-GPS to the hardware, taking a step further to speed up internet connection and improving location-tracking. Despite the higher drain of 3G data, the battery life remains solid up to 5 hours of 3G talk time and 300 hours standby.

What makes iPhone 3G truly powerful is the 2.0 firmware that comes with the highly anticipated App Store. The App Store is Apple-sanctioned, jailbreak-less source of third-party applications that offer all the functionality to the device that isn’t already built-in. While not all apps will be free, not all will be pay-for, either.

The iPhone 3G will be available in 70 countries which includes Singapore by the end of the year.

Singapore among all:

Apple has just rolled out an update to its iTunes – the application that manages multimedia for PC, Mac, iPhones and iPods.

iTunes 7.7 now brings the iPhone/iPod Touch firmware 2.0 update. Existing iPhone owners can download the firmware for free while owners of iPod Touch who want access to the App Store will need to pay a one-time charge of US$9.99.

Many expected this update to bring the Apple Music Store to Singapore, putting an end to the speculations that sparked off since 2006. Unfortunately, the update only brings an “App Store” to Singapore, no musics no podcasts and no videos.