Mophie and Intuit partner to create Complete Card Solution for iPhone, try to make Square look square

Who knew that credit card processing would be the new hotness for smartphones? The Square mobile payment system has been making waves by letting small businesses receive credit card payment directly on their smartphones. Now, mophie and Intuit are looking to get in on the same action with their Complete Card Solution for iPhone. It’s a $179 package that includes both mophie’s card-swiping phone case and the 3.0 version of Intuit’s GoPayment app. After a quick application users are said to be approved (or, erm, declined) within 15 minutes and can immediately start accepting payments. Full details, including just how much users will be forking over in fees, after the break.

Initial targeted clients were people like plumbers and electricians, but we can definitely see tech-minded farmers at the market relying on this sort of system, along with craftmeisters who shun Etsy and prefer to sell face-to-face. A single account can also cover up to 50 users, meaning an entire sales team could be equipped with these devices. Intuit’s site provides lots of data on transactions and the like, but for the full ability to reconcile to invoices and track payments you’ll need to use Intuit’s QuickBooks suite, either on the PC or Mac.

The big question is, of course, what it’ll cost you to use the thing. $179 up-front is hardly a small commitment, and a further $12.95 per month makes the minimum cost quite a bit higher than Square, which offers free hardware and no monthly fees. Likewise, per-transaction fees here are between $.30 and $.34, double the $.15 fee of the Square. However, Intuit and mophie will take a smaller chunk of the overall payment: 1.7 percent usually, though that could climb as high as 3.7 percent depending on the type of card being used. That compares favorably to Square’s 2.75 to 3.5 percent.

Whether this is a value proposition for your business depends largely on the size and frequency of transactions you plan to receive. But, there is one definite advantage Square has over this system: compatibility. This case, which encrypts every credit card number before it gets to the phone, will only work with the iPhone 3G/S. We’re told an iPhone 4-compatible version is in the works, but it’s anyone’s guess when that will show up. We do, however, know that this current version is available now in Apple retail stores and will be hitting Apple’s online site in the very near future. So, go on now. Get paid.

(from engadget)

Jailbreak your iPhone just visiting a website

Do you have an iPhone? even an iPhone 4?

Just go to http://jailbreakme.com with safari in your iPhone and slide the bar. Jailbreaking your iPhone now just as easy as this…

Why should you do that?

Well, first now it is legal, you can always restore your iPhone if you prefer, and you get cydia, like an appstore with software you will never find in the apple app store, such as my-wi which converts your iPhone into a wifi hotspot using your 3G, or have voip calls via 3G, or have sms delivery reports, or shortcuts for bluetooth, or you name it.

I’ve seen some people reporting that when they did the JB the had issues with mms and facetime. The same people by restoring and applying the jailbreakme again, fixed the problems.

Did it work for you?

Great Travel guides for the iPhone

Condé Nast Digital Britain recently unveiled a series of apps for the iPhone and iPod touch, dubbed Condé Nast Traveller City Guides. There are four separate apps for Barcelona, New York, Paris and Rome priced at around $9.99 each.

The apps [iTunes link] are divided into six sections containing more than 500 searchable listings, complete with venue information, photos and editors’ reviews:

• Neighbourhoods: Browse all listings in a single neighborhood
• See & Do: Major sites, museums, parks, farmers markets and other attractions
• Places to Stay: Organized according to location, price range, type (i.e. fashionable, family-friendly or classic), and a key feature (gym/spa, internet access, etc.)
• Eat & Drink: Mainly high-end sit-down restaurants with some exceptions, like a well-known knishery and an East Village dumpling house
• Shopping: Features an array of products, including apparel, home, records and electronics from high-end to outlets
• Nightlife: Bars, music, dancing and other venues for late-night entertainment
• Word of Mouth: Recommendations from celebrated New Yorkers like designers Oscar de la Renta and Paul Smith, nightclub owner Amy Sacco and architect Carlos Almadada

The list of venues is well-curated; there are enough to appeal to a relatively broad array of tastes without being overwhelming. Users can bookmark interesting listing by adding them to a to-do list and share them via Facebook, Twitter and e-mail.

What’s most impressive about the apps is their Augmented Reality functionality (pictured above). Simply point your phone in a direction and it will bring up images of nearby attractions, which you can narrow down by type. You can also use GPS to pull up venue locations on a map.

The apps contain a number of other neat little features as well, including a handful of guided audio tours and magazine articles, a travel journal, a Flickr-integrated personal photo log, a timeline of the city’s history and essential travel information about local customs, transportation and the location of tourist offices and so forth.

What’s more, Condé Nast Britain promises to update the apps’ content every four months free of charge.

The only major drawback are the prices, which are hard to justify when free apps like restaurant-finder Urbanspoon also come with many similar features (although Urbanspoon’s Augmented Reality functionality is admittedly more basic and many users would rather read a review from a food editor than from the guy next door). In all fairness, Zagat’s TO GO app [iTunes link] also costs $9.99, but then it has a key feature Condé Nast Traveller’s does not: the ability to make restaurant reservations. It also covers almost every major U.S. city in one app.

(via mashable)

Fring for iPhone gets 2 way video calls over 3G, even without iPhone 4

The Fring app, known by consolidating together Internet Messanging services such as Skype, MSN, Gtalk, ICQ and others, has just released an update that in the iPhone 4 allows to use the front camera for video conferencing using 3G.

This is big. Now if you have an iPhone 4 you are not obliged to use FaceTime alone, calling only to other iPhone 4 users using wi-fi.

Now you can call using 3g, and the thing I wonder is if you can call a PC running skype. That would be  big for me. I could call my mum in Spain and have a video call. I hope you can do so because in their official blog they put it this way:

Face-to-face video calls with friends on their Droids, Nokia (Symbian S60) and other iPhones

For those (like me) that have an iPhone 3GS, it does work as well. It uses the rear camera, so impossible to see your caller at the same time he sees you, but good enough for people, like me who has a baby and the grandma wants to see him (again if you can call a PC).

For the time being I just tested the test call. Quality was pretty bad compared with FaceTime videos I see around.

Another big thing (to be tested because I am a bit hesitant about the functionality in general) is multitasking. In principle it can run in the background, and uses push to notify new call.

They have also added twitter and facebook, but who wants that?

Good work Fring.

How to sync and manage notes with Gmail and iO4

Ever since the first iPhone, there has been a “Notes” application. However, the ability to save and manage notes has always been fairly minimal. Now, with iOS4, Gmail users can easily manage their notes, even across multiple Gmail accounts.

One of the apps that is seemingly unchanged from the very first iPhone release is the Notes app. While it fulfills the basic functions of a notepad, many users want more functionality. Specifically, people want a good way to save and manage their notes. Up until recently, your only options were emailing directly from the Notes app, or syncing with iTunes.

iOS4 users who have Gmail accounts will notice a few new settings. Amongst those is the ability to individually toggle mail, calendar, and notes syncing. If you turn on notes syncing, all of your notes will automatically be copied to your Gmail account. Once they are synced however, they may be difficult to find.

To find notes inside Gmail, look for a “Notes” label on the left side of the sceen. If it is not visible, the label may be hidden. Click on the link that says “X Number more” (in the above screen shot it indicates “3 more”) to pull up the list of all labels. Once you click on the “Notes” label, you should see all of your notes copied over from your device. The synchronization is done over-the-air, meaning it does not require an iTunes sync to copy them to Gmail.

From here you can organize your notes, add labels and delete them. The one limitation is you cannot add anything to the notes, or edit them in any way. While this may seem like a flaw in the design, it’s because Gmail is treating the notes as an email message. You cannot edit the notes just as you cannot edit past emails.

While not a perfect solution, this added functionality is a welcome improvement.

(from appadvice)

My iPhone 3GS runs iOS4

Two days ago I upgraded to iOS4 (jailbreak) and I am a happy man.

The best:

Folders: I used to have 7 or 8 screens, now I have only 1.
All inboxes in 1: I keep my inboxes to zero messages. I love to see all the incoming email in a single place, from any of my email accounts. Now you have subtile improvements such as highlighting stuff like telephone numbers, addresses, dates, so you can take action.
Bed mode: When you double click there is now an icon to block the screen so it doesn’t rotate. Great for reading in bed.
Tap to focus in videos: Great. The Zoom for photos not that great, but handy. Camera seems to be faster when shooting.

The disappointments:

Multitasking: is it a joke? True that there are not many apps making use of multitasking but the fact of having all the apps down in the dock when double clicking home and when you click on any of them is just like opening like before, makes it a joke. Where is skype? IMs? I guess it will improve in the future, but today, it just sucks. The only app I use regularly that uses multitasking is Evernote, and it is not that great the implementation they did. I read you can record a note and do other stuff but…

It is fine…

ibooks: ibooks app rocks. Far sexier and better than kindle. Bookmarks sync with iPad and books look great, but… who read books in an iPhone? I prefer a trillion times to listen to books, put the iPhone in my pocket and listen.
Tip for ibooks: they use .epub extension, so if you have any .epub books, just drag them to your iTunes and you’ll have them in your iPhone. Just great.

Now that I have iOS4 in my 3GS, do I really need to buy an iPhone 4???

I am sure a lot of people is going to be asking this question. What else do you get? A better display? A better camera? Maybe the killer feature for the switch is facetime, but I still don’t know how it works. Do you have to start a regular call before starting? If so, it is now worth it for me. The other end cannot be a computer and I don’t know anybody with an iPhone 4.

Now if you have to make a call, lets suppose my mum in Spain buys an iPhone 4, then I have to spend a lot of money to call her first to Spain from a Swiss phone. If you can start the call over wifi (no need to make a call) then it is a different story. It might be a good thing.

By the way, is Fring or Skype going to support the front camera? if that is the case, then yes…

How to jailbreak your iPhone 3GS with iOS4

Well, two days ago iOS4 was out. Two days later dev-team has released Pwnage Tool 4.01 to jailbrake your iPhone 3GS.

First make sure that:

• If you have a Jailbroken iPhone 3GS with the OLD BOOTROM and you DID NOT use Spirit to jailbreak then you can create the ipsw with PwnageTool 4.0 and restore with your jailbroken recovery mode.
• If you have an iPhone 3GS with the NEW BOOTROM this is NOT supported by PwnageTool 4.01

This is what you have to do:

1. Download Official iPhone iOS 4 for iPhone 3GS here (official from Apple).
2. Download Pwnage Tool 4.01 from any of this locations:
   • http://www.iphone-storage.de/PwnageTool_4.01.dmg
   • http://dl.finalgaming.de/dev-team/PwnageTool_4.01.dmg
   • http://www.stimp.nl/mirrorfiles/PwnageTool_4.01.dmg
3. Download iTunes 9.2 (you can do that but opening iTunes and look for upgrades)
4. Now run the PwnageTool. If it is in the same directory of the image ipsw image you downloaded in the step 1, then it will see that it the image to use. Just use Simple Mode and this image. This will create a new image that by default will be placed on your desktop. You can then close the PwnageTool.
5. Now before you upgrade your iphone, you could consider installing from Cydia AptBackup (from BigBoss). That will know which Cydia apps you have installed and in a later stage restore them.
6. Now, back up your phone, by connecting it to iTunes
7. Switch off your phone by holding on the top button and sliding to switch it off.
8. Make sure that it is connected it to the mac with the image you created and iTunes is open. Now hold the top and home button to enter into recovery mode.
9. iTuenes will tell you it is in recovery mode. Now you have to hold the Option key and click on restore. That will allow you to select the image on your desktop.
10. That’s it. The restore upgrade will not take a lot of time. What takes time is once you have iOS4 to restore you latest config.

If you have gone to the 10 steps you should have an iPhone 3GS with iOS4 and after more than an hour (in my cases) the same you had before.

Now you go to Cydia and install AptBackup, click on restore and voila, all your Cydia apps.

I had a problem though. My iPhone had a safe mode due to a problem with an app in Cydia. The app in question was MyFi. I had to remove it and now everything is OK.

PadLock and iAlertU protect your iPad, iPod or iPhone and your Mac

PadLock is a software that protects your iPad, iPhone or iPod when they are plugged to your computer.

So imagine that you are at work and you leave your iPhone charging with the USB cable, then this little software will trigger an alarm if someone disconnects your phone.

You can download it here.

This software reminds me a similar one that I use to have on my mac, so when someone removes the power cable, touches the mouse or keyboard or closes the laptop… o even if it is moved!, the software takes a photo sends it via email and triggers an alarm. This one was called iAlertU and you can download it here.

Both are free.

Here PadLock:

Here iAlertU:

iPhone 4 is here

Yesterday at the WWDC Steve Jobs announced the new iPhone 4. We were expecting it after all the leaks in internet, from the stolen/lost iPhone 4 prototype in a bar to the ones found in Vietnam. We knew he would probably was going to announce a new iPhone.

From all the videos, photos and rumors we did not know the specifics, and now we do.

The iPhone 4 running iOS 4 (the renamed that), has a retina display with 4 times more pixels per inch than the iPhone 3GS. Pretty astonishing for what I read. The resolution is 960×640. No other phone out there is close to this. It is twice the resolution of an old iPhone, with a contrast ratio of 800:1.  If the nexus one screen with OLED was great but unusable with direct sunlight, this is another story.

I hope once they can scale this technology they port it the macs and iPads. Basically you can not see the pixels… incredible.

The new iPhone has also 2 cameras, a front one for FaceTime (I will explain further down) and a proper one on the back with 5Mpx. Not too many pixels, but a very good sensor that works with low light. The fight for pixels is over, you need good lense and great sensors, and looks like it does have one.

This back camera will have a led (flash) and will allow to take HD videos (720p and 30fps) and they are porting the touch the screen to focus to the video as well, which is great. Also, they have added digital zoom and iMovie to edit your videos with the iPhone like a pro ;-)

There are rumors that iWorks will be also migrated to iOS4.

Continuing with FaceTime basically is the fact that you can use the front camera to have video calls, using wifi only for the time being, and between iphones… using open protocols. I hope in the near future you can use this with skype or qik or ichat or other clients that can be used in a computer. In my case I would love to be able to use an iPhone 4 front camera to chat with my brother (now in Nigeria) or my mum (in Spain) using their computers.

The new iPhone has the expected A4 chip that ships with the iPads and will give the iPhone a great battery life (7h 3G talk, 6h 3G browsing, 10h Wi-Fi, 10h video, 300h standby). I am a bit disappointed that they will have 8, 16 and 32 Gb. I was expecting a 64Gb, but knowing Apple we shouldn’t be surprised if they leave this for Christmas or next release.

It is 24% thinner than the iPhone 3gs, and they claim it is the thinner smart phone.

It has also a 3 axis gyroscope which I bet will be great for those who play with the iPhone.

For the connectivity, it has wifi n (great) and the back of the body is plastic, having steel all around which is used as the antenna, for which we have to suppose that the speeds and coverage will be better/faster.

Well this is basically it. It will launch in the US on the 24 June. Also France, Germany, Japan, and the UK. I think is 18 more countries sometime in July (including Switzerland) and the rest of the world in August.

It comes in black or white, and with a new contract in the US, costs $199 for a 16GB version and $299 for 32GB.

You can see the official announcement here.

iWebcamera: Turn your iPhone into a real webcam

Turn your iPhone into a real webcamera and use it to video chat with your family and friends.
With iWebcamera you can use your iPhone as webcamera in applications like Skype, Windows Live Messenger, Youtube and every other webcamera enabled application.

Features

• Turn your iPhone into a real wireless webcamera.
• Two quality options.
• Instant-Pause mode, stop streaming instantly and resume whenever you want without exiting your host application.
• Plug and Play ready, install the drivers and you are ready to go!
• Built-in manual.
• Beautiful Userinterface fully translated in English and German.
• Compatible with Windows 7, Vista and XP and Apple’s Leopard and Snow Leopard.

iWebcamera requires an iPhone with at least iPhone OS 3.1, a computer connected to the same network and the installation of the iWebcamera drivers.

snapfinger: order your next meal online

Snapfinger is the largest online restaurant ordering site with more than 28,000 locations in over 1,600 cities..

Don’t wait in line… Snapfinger is the largest online Restaurant Ordering Site

Snapfinger is the US’s largest most complete restaurant search and remote ordering site for take-out, delivery and catering from your favorite restaurants. More than four years in the making, Snapfinger allows you direct access to the nation’s top restaurant brands through each location’s interactive menu. You can access your favorite restaurants from the web, from your cell phone or from a toll free number.

DeHood: A Location-Based Social Network for Your Neighborhood

The current crop of location-based social networks mostly focus on getting users to check in and share tips about local venues like restaurants, stores and coffee shops. DeHood, which officiallylaunched earlier today, wants to bring a bit more value to its users by going beyond check-ins. The new location-based social network wants to bring a local community closer together by giving its users the ability to share news and information about deals at local shops and restaurants.

DeHood is currently only available for the iPhone (iTunes link).

Going Beyond Check-Ins: Local News and Deals

While the app allows users to check in at local venues, the focus of the app is on sharing information and helping users to discover local news and events. As the company’s CEO and founder Babak Hedayati told us last week, he wants people to be able to check the app first thing in the morning and feel informed about what’s going on in their neighborhood. This part of the app feels a bit like EveryBlock, though like many new social networks, the service currently suffers from a lack of users that contribute to the service (which, after all, only launched today). In Hedayati’s vision, regular users, as well as local officials, will soon post short, hyperlocal news updates about traffic jams, fires and deals at the local coffee shop.

Besides the utility aspect of the app, DeHood also features some game mechanics. When checking in at some places, DeHood will display a scratch-off game where users can win titles and find special offers for a product. One interesting aspect of DeHood’s shopping section is that users can alert others of deals at local stores and verify deals that already appear in the app.

Challenge: Getting Users

While DeHood definitely has great potential, the app currently suffers from the simple fact that it doesn’t have a lot of users yet. Given that other networks like Gowalla and FourSquare already have a lot of momentum (though not the feature set of DeHood), it will be hard for DeHood (and other companies that want to enter this space) to persuade users to switch networks and build up their social networks from scratch again.

That said, though, it’s important to note that DeHood plans to offer an API for developers in the near future, and, as Hedayati told us, that the company is not an app company but a platform company. Because of this, the app itself is only a part of DeHood’s roadmap, and we might just see other developers include DeHood’s functionality in other apps in the near future.

(from readwriteweb)

Why my next phone it will be an iPhone 4G and not an Android froyo

Last Wednesday in San Francisco took place the latest Google I/O conference, in principle a conference for developers. Each participant gets a free android phone (well the probably cover the cost of the phone with the fees…).
Many people expects this conference to be a consumer goods conference where things are explained in plain english and where they release new products.
Well they did announce some interesting stuff: google wave for everybody (this should have a post of its own), new Android 2.2 (froyo) faster than the speed of light apparently, google tv, another attempt to create tv in a box (apple tv, tivo, boxee…), a google web store (is this a fight with apple?) and little about the chrome OS.

Anyway, why my next phone is going to be an iPhone 4G and not an Android?

Having migrated all my email to google apps myself (I was hosting it at home with zimbra up to now), I have thought several times that the best next phone for me would be an android based phone. I’m sure there is nothing better for Google apps integration, and I am a heavy user of google apps (mail, calendars, tasks, contacts, docs), but…

I love my current phone (iPhone 3GS) and even if sometimes I feel tempted to go for more powerful, quick and feature rich phone, such as the nexus one, droid incredible, evo… they are still behind apple’s iPhone in terms of the amount of apps, the simplicity and in terms of sync with google apps, I am pretty happy with exchange for having pushed email, calendars and contact from google, and geetasks app for the tasks.

Again I am not questioning the fact that android phones might be much better integrated, but, and this is the main reason why I am going to buy an iPhone 4G, and it is something everybody should consider:

I am not ready to see that my handset is obsolete after a month or two in the market. That there are trillions of handsets so always something newer and better than the one you have.

Same applies for android OS. They release versions like popcorn. Today you buy a motorola droid with android 2.1 and tomorrow you have the droid incredible and android 2.2.

With apple this is more reasonable: maximum one new handset per year, and the releases of updates maximum every 6 months, but always compatible with old handsets and easy and transparant to update.

Now you might also argue that android is not policed like apple is. True. That is why I get the most out of my phone by jailbraking it. No limits: MyWi, SMS confirmation, sbprefs, install apps from ssh…

My iPhone is my all-in-one gadget it does everything for me: I control the music on the mediacenter computer (windows) with iTunes using remote app, I see and control my IP Camera from anywhere, it is a terrific iPod, I listen and watch netcasts, listen to books, music, constantly!!, Navigon tells me how to get to a place when driving, I check in in places, write comments, check the web, have my email pushed, have my life archived (mail, bills and so) with evernote, I tweet, I see my webdav server, I can connect my computer with MyWi using 3G, I take quality photos and videos everywhere (I have thousands)… and if now I am going to be able to have skype running in the back with a front camera…

what else? ;-)

grove: bamboo cases for iPhones

For $99 you can have a unique iPhone cover made of wood (bamboo) that fits your iPhone to the micrometer.

Take a look to their website: grove

These are beautiful, unique and expensive cases to make your iphone a unique piece in harmony with the nature.

You can buy a plain case for $89 or add your own design engraved with laser on the back. You can also choose from a set of artwork they have.

Have fun organising a Geocaching event for iPhones

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online.

Now you can geocache using your Apple iPhone and Groundspeak’s Geocaching iPhone Application.

How It Works

The iPhone 3G and 3GS use a combination of GPS, Wi-Fi positioning and cell towers to determine your approximate location. Groundspeak’s iPhone Application then queries the Geocaching.com database in real-time and provides a list of geocaches near you.

Available in English, Dutch, French, German and Japanese language versions.

Screenshots and Features

Instant, direct access to Geocaching.com’s database of worldwide geocaches

• Search by current location, address or GC code
• Filter your hides and finds from the Geocaching.com search results
• Access geocache details, including description, photo gallery, attributes, recent logs, hint and inventory
• Look up trackable item details, including item goals, while on the trail
• Save geocache listings, including maps and photos, for quick retrieval and offline use
• Log geocache finds and post notes in the field
• Download active pocket queries for use while outside of network coverage
• View geocache web pages on geocaching.com without leaving the application using embedded web browser

Advanced navigation capabilities

• View nearby caches on the embedded map
• View cache size, terrain and difficulty rating directly from the map screen
• Navigate to geocaches with a simulated compass arrow (iPhone 3G and 3GS only) or directly from the map screen
• Add custom waypoints when navigating to multi-caches
• Switch between street, topographic and satellite maps
• Rotate map to match your heading (iPhone 3GS option only)

Supported Devices

Groundspeak’s Geocaching Application is best supported by the iPhone 3G or 3GS, but is also compatible with the iPod Touch and 1st generation iPhones.

Please note: You will need Wi-Fi access for the application to work on the iPod Touch. Also, without GPS, compass navigation will not work on the 1st generation iPhone.

We will be introducing a version of the application for Android in Q2 of 2010.

Ready to get started?

Visit the Apple iTunes Store to download Groundspeak’s Geocaching iPhone Application.

Discuss Geocaching with the iPhone on the Groundspeak Forums