The BBC News iPhone App

After being delayed by a BBC Trust review, the BBC News mobile application was released last week for the iPhone and iPad.

The app allows you to scroll around stories in the main BBC News categories, and edit the layout of the screen to customise what stories you see first. Stories contain embedded video clips, and the beeb has made it easy to share stories on Facebook and Twitter. You can also watch the BBC News TV channel as well as submit a photo or news story direct to the BBC newsroom.

Over half a million people downloaded the application in the first week – impressive numbers!

A BBC Sport application is expected for the iPhone and iPad soon, and versions of the apps should be out for Android and Blackberry later this year. A BBC iPlayer application is also believed to be in the pipeline.

The BBC News app is available for free in the iTunes App Store: BBC News App

The Apple press conference at 6pm UK time has wrapped up. Apple appears to have admitted that there is a problem with the iPhone 4′s reception, and that holding the handset in a certain way will impact signal strength. There won’t be a product recall, but Apple has gone some way to addressing the problem.

The OS upgrade to 4.01 (out now) will make the signal strength display more accurate, and Apple will be giving away a free case (referred to as a rubber “bumper” to everyone who has bought an iPhone 4, or buys one before the end of September 2010. A “bumper” reduces the problem which is caused when the human hand comes into contact with the lower part of the left-hand edge of the iPhone 4.

Those who’ve already bought a bumper case will get a refund.

iPhone 4 owners still not happy can get a refund within 30 days of purchase.

“Antennagate”, a.k.a Death Grip is likely to cost Apple something in the order of £115 million in costs to provide cases for the 3+  million iPhone 4 users – plus a lot of bad press…

Details of how to get a free case will be coming to the Apple website from the 22nd of July 2010.

Apple has just released a new version of operating system for the iPhone – iOs 4.01 is now available for download via iTunes

The 580 megabyte download includes bug fixes and improvements, most notably: “iOs 4.01 Improves the formula to determine how many bars of signal strength to display”.

The new OS appears to have increased the size of the signal strength bars, and in part addresses the “Death Grip” issue with reception, which will be formally addressed by Apple at a press conference tomorrow.

iOs 4.01 is available now for iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4

The problem with signal strength (or lack thereof) on the new iPhone 4 just won’t go away, and Apple’s been forced to make a comprehensive statement. This will happen tomorrow, Friday the 16th of July, at 10am California time.

The problem manifests itself when you hold the handset in a certain way – causing the signal to drop a few bars – we demonstrated this in our iPhone 4 Launch Special Edition.

A leading consumer magazine in the US has stated that it can’t recommend the phone due to the signal / reception problems, and many Apple fans are an unhappy bunch.

It’s unclear what Apple will have to say about this – Their responses so far have been wooly. There appears to be four options open to Apple:

1. The “It’s not a problem” approach that we’ve had from Steve Jobs
2. Free “bumpers” for all – $25 rubber cases that cover the offending area on the bottom left of the phone
3. A software fix – Although the problem still exists in iOS 4.1 just released to developers, and most believe that this hardware problem can’t be fixed in software
4. A product recall. Embarrassing for Apple, being called for by many, and could be the only way to put this to rest.

Here in the UK, we should know by the end of the working day on Friday just what Apple plans to do for us iPhone 4 users…

Got an iPhone? Get iOS 4.

The new version of firmware for the iPhone has just been released to the waiting world. If you want to give your iPhone 3GS an update, hop to iTunes and upgrade from 3.1.3 to 4.0

There’s a bunch of new toys to play with, including:

• Multitasking – Run apps such as streaming radio in the background… finally
• Email enhancements – A unified inbox and message threading
• Photo improvements including 5x digital zoom and map display of geo-tagged photos
• SMS search and character count
• Automatic Spell checker
• Wallpaper for the home screen
• iBooks and iBookstore
• Support for Bluetooth keyboards
• Improvements to location privacy
• Plus loads of other fixes and tweaks

Later this week, we can expect the release of the iPhone 4, which of course runs iOS4.0.

Enjoy the new features on offer with iOS 4.0 – but if you’re reading this before 7pm on Monday evening, do us a favour and don’t hit “Check for update” for another few minutes, as we’re mid-download!

From the 24th of June 2010, o2 will be scrapping the unlimited data plan for new iPhone customers.

Existing iPhone customers on an unlimited data plan can keep that plan as long as they don’t change tariff, or upgrade to the new iPhone 4.

Anyone getting a new iPhone from 24th June will instead be offered a tariff with the following:

• Cap of 500MB of data a month – £25 to £35 a month contracts
• Cap of 750MB of data a month – £40 to £45 a month contracts
• Cap of 1GB of data a month – £60 or £65 a month contracts

Given that many iPhone users are heavy data users, this new cap will be far from ideal, and many may choose to either a) not upgrade to the new iPhone 4 and keep their existing Unlimited contract, or b) shift to a network that offers a less extreme data cap.

Although the new data caps take effect from 24th June, it seems o2 won’t be enforcing them until 1st October 2010. From 1st October 2010, it’ll be an extra £5 for each block of 500MB used.

Hacked off with o2′s new data policy? Add a comment below!

In one of the worst-kept secrets, Apple today announced the next generation of iPhone, the iPhone 4.

Speaking today at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, Steve Jobs announced the slimmest smartphone ever. Here are the highlights:

• 24% thinner than the iPhone 3GS (9.33mm)
• Front facing camera – video calling (called FaceTime), but initially over wi-fi
• 4 times as many pixels (326 ppi)
• Uses a micro-SIM card as they “need the space”
• Onboard gyroscope for games (6-axis motion sensing)
• Camera upgraded to 5 Megapixels with LED flash
• Video editing on the iPhone – “iMovie”

Available in Black or White. In the US, pricing the same as 3GS – that’s $199 for 16GB model, $299 for 32GB model (on a 2 year contract)

The iPhone 4 ships in the UK on June 24th 2010.

Also covered by Jobs – the next release of the OS – renamed from iPhone OS to iOS.

iOS 4.0 has over 100 new features, including:

• Multitasking
• Message threading in email
• Folders for apps
• Addition of the Bing search engine
• iBooks (now on iPad) will be on iPhone

A Gold Master Candidate of iOS4.0 is ready – and the final version will be out on 21st June for existing iPhone users (free).

Apple also announced that on the 1st of July, they’ll enter the advertising market by launching iAds – mini-adverts that developers can add to their applications (and get 60% of the ad revenue). When you click on an ad, it opens within the application, not in the browser.

Some of Steve Jobs live demos failed – 570 people in the audience with an active wi-fi connection stealing all of the bandwidth. He asked the audience to shut down their laptops and stop live blogging.

So, the hype has started – and we’re three weeks away from queues of people desperate to get the iPhone 4…

There are a bunch of Sat Nav apps out there for the iPhone, including the rather expensive TomTom, and our favourite, the CoPilot Live. We’ve stumbled across another iPhone Sat Nav app, the NDrive.

We’ve tested a number of Sat Nav apps for the iPhone, and at £4.99, our expectations of the NDrive weren’t high, but it’s a surprisingly impressive sat nav app, and has some nice touches including a handful of 3D buildings, and a built-in Google location search. Postcode search, lane assist, safety cameras and a speed limit alarm are all there, and the heads-up display is surprisingly impressive.

Whilst a sat nav on a phone isn’t as good as a dedicated stand-alone Sat Nav, at a fiver, it’s worth having as a handy backup for those times when you need a handy voice-driven turn-by-turn navigation solution.

NDrive UK is available for £4.99 – NDrive on iTunes.

Give it a go…

We’ve just released an audio update to keep you informed on what’s new while we’re working on our June show. Here’s what we cover in the update:

• UK Radio listening rockets
• US TV shows to be axed
• We have an iPhone app
• We’re on your Internet radio
• Get a half-price Joggler
• Powerlines break FM and DAB

You can download the update direct to your MP3 player or listen online at http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/update.html.

If you have an iPod or iPhone, get shows faster by signing up at iTunes:  FrequencyCast on iTunes.

Handy links:

• Powerline interference YouTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3yVu5IfaEY
• More on Powerline adapters: frequencycast.co.uk/powerline.html
• Forum discussion: frequencycast.co.uk/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1274377381

 FrequencyCast Update 20 May 2010 [14:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A nifty gadget to let you take control of your TV, home cinema and hi-fi direct from your iPhone – the iPhone Universal Remote.

The product is actually a jacket into which you slide your iPhone 3G or 3GS. Once in the case, the iPhone can transmit the required infrared control commands to take control of virtually any IR device.

To use the jacket, you’ll need some software. Control TV from your iPhone? Of course – there’s an app for that, and it’s free.

The controller allows you to control multiple devices from one screen, is easy to customise and doesn’t need any additional hardware or dongles – the case itself is slim and smooth that also protects your iPhone from accidental lounge mishaps.

The iPhone Universal Remote is now available in the UK – for full details and pictures, hop over to http://www.firebox.com/product/2683/iPhone-Universal-Remote

What’s the best game for the iPhone / iPod Touch? Flight Control, of course.

Hideously addictive, and oh-so-simple – land the planes without them crashing into each other. If you’ve not tried it – get it from the iTunes App Store now (assuming you don’t want to be productive for the next few hours, that is).

Now, Flight Control is available for a whole new platform – the Nintendo DSi. Congrats to the makers Firemint.

If you have a Nintendo DS, you owe it to yourself to fire up your DSi, go to the Nintendo store, go to DSIWare and download Flight Control. You’ll soon be gliding planes to a save landing with your stylus. It’ll cost you 500 DSI points.

If you beat our highest score, there’ll be trouble!

Freeview has just launched an app for users of the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.

Before you get excited – it won’t let you watch Freeview from your iPhone – what it does provide, is a handy and fairly powerful TV listings service to see what’s on the 50 or so Freeview channels.

Easy-to-use, and with handy access to the Freeview Twitter feed for recommendations and news, this is a must – especially given that it’s a freebie!

The Freeview HD iPhone app is available now on the iTunes App Store

Update: Reviewed in our Feb 2010 Update – Listen to Update / Read Transcript

iPhone users – you can now watch 11 Freeview channels live on your phone.

The service from TVCatchup.com allows you to watch the following channels:

BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, ITV1, ITV2, Channe 4, Five, Film 4, e4, More 4 and 4 Music.

To watch, point your iPhone web browser to http://iphone.tvcatchup.com/ – No subscription, no sign-up, no app to install. Nice!

Update. One commenter below doesn’t believe that this actually works, or is some kind of viral application. To clarify, this is not an installable app – it’s all done using the native iPhone browser and media player. Here’s a screen grab of TVcatchup in action on an iPhone:

At last – barcode scanning on a mobile phone that actually works. Despite some glowing reviews for the application RedLaser on iTunes, I must admit our hopes weren’t high.

We’ve tried barcode scanning apps for mobiles in the past, notably on Nokia Series 60 handsets, and the results have been dreadful – lots of faffing about to get the phone’s camera to capture the image of the barcode, then a wait while the code was decoded and sent to a database, followed by a “nothing found” type message.

Given that our iPhone 3G doesn’t have a flash or auto-focussing camera, we expected the results to be dreadful…

But it’s not! This is an amazingly well done application. Even without auto-focus, the app is able to get a pretty quick and accurate result. Here’s a shot of Pete scanning in a book’s barcode (and failing to scan his feet)…

It captures UPC, EAN and UPC-E barcodes (no, we didn’t know either), and then look up the prices on Amazon (UK, US, DE, etc) as well as via Google Product Search.

Practical upshot – when you’re out shopping, pick up something you’re considering purchasing, say a book or DVD, scan it, and 5 seconds later, you’ll see how much cheaper the product is online.

Searches are saved for later viewing, or you can order direct from your iPhone browser. We tried it on all sorts of things – books, DVDs, water filters, teabag boxes, Maltesers and a top end over recorder that we’ll be reviewing in a future show – all with positive results.

Yup – we’re impressed. This is one of those must-have apps for the iPhone, and could save you a fortune when shopping.

Update: RedLaser featured in our 15 Oct Audio Update. Transcript available

RedLaser, from Occipital, available for the iPhone, now out, and hot, on iTunes.

Hot off the press, over 16 minutes of tech and TV news from the team at FrequencyCast.

In this update we look at the merging of two mobile networks, what Apple’s been up to this month, Freeview HD testing, BT Vision updates, a Sky offer, the latest on iPhone sat nav applications, and a new DVD release.

The show is attached to this blog entry, or you can listen at www.frequencycast.co.uk/update.html

 FrequencyCast Update 16 Sept 2009 1597790 [16:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The FrequencyCast News Blog (wot you’re reading now!), is now iPhone, iPod Touch and Google Android compatible.

Here’s a before-and-after on how our Blog behaves on an iPhone:

FrequencyCast on an iPhone – Before

FrequencyCast on an iPhone – After

Our blog now detects if you’re connecting on an iPhone, Touch or Android device, and if so, presents a cleaner, mobile touch-friendly layout.

The new-look interface is designed to be used on touch-enabled mobile devices, and is made possible using a WordPress plug-in called WPtouch.

try it for yourself – On an iPhone, go to www.frequencycast.co.uk/blog on an iPhone, and see how sexy we look now!

Got an iPhone? Turn it into a Sat Nav for £27.

If you listen to Show 43, you’ll have heard us review the Co-Pilot Live satellite navigation application, comparing it with the TomTom and Mobile Navigator applications. CoPilot came out very well, especially given it’s half the price of the TomTom equivalent.

In our review, we had two issues with the CoPilot – the lack of speed cameras and the fact that it lost your route if you answered an incoming voice call.

Good news is… a free update has been released to address this. Well done to the team at ALK Technologies.

CoPilot, is now available from the App Store. Click the icon to open iTunes on the Co-Pilot Live page:

For a comparison of the three iPhone Sat Nat apps, see the FileSaveAs iPhone Satnav Apps Compared page.

Lots for fan of Apple products to sink their teeth into as Apple has released a new set of iPods, a new version of firmware for the iPhone, and an updated iTunes. Here’s a summary:

New iPods:

A new iPod Nano has been released, sporting a video camera and a slightly larger screen. 8 Gig version is £115 and 16 Gig model is £135. At last, an FM radio has been added, as has voiceover, Genius mixes and a pedometer.

There has also been an update to the screen and button-less iPod shuffle, which now comes in Pink, Green and Blue.

There’s also a 64 Gig iPod Touch, for just under £300

iPhone OS3.1

The new iPhone OS adds support for Genius mixes, and will recommend applications that you may be interested in downloading, based on your previous purchases. There are a number of fixes too, including better Wi-Fi performance when using Bluetooth, a phishing alert in the browser, and improved Exchange calendar sync.

iTunes 9

An improved user interface and a new feature called Home Sharing that will let up to 5 authorised computers share music, TV shows and applications.

There’s also iTunes LP, which will supply extra goodies with purchased albums, including song lyrics, photos and video clips.

You can also organise the layout of your iPhone and iPod Touch screens from within iTunes, and there is now more control over what you decide you want to sync to your device.

Lots of new toys to play with. Enjoy!

Show 43 of FrequencyCast, the UK’s TV and Tech podcast, has just been released.

In this show, we discuss all that’s new with digital TV and technology. Here’s what we cover in this show:

• News Updates: 3D TV is with us, the end of the ISS, Freeview changes, and Lazy Britain.
• Focus: GPS gadgets – track your location, get sat nav on an iPhone and own a geotagger.
• Hands-on: Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS watch reviewed
• Hands-on: Sat Nav for the Apple iPhone – We compare the TomTom and Copilot Live
• Hands-on: The SWAP Watch, as featured on the Gadget Show (8 months after we featured it)
• Your questions on Freeview HD, Virgin on a PC, plus the survey results are in… love us, or hate us?

You can download Show 43 direct to your MP3 player or listen online at http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/latest.html. If you have an iPod or iPhone, get shows faster by signing up via iTunes.

 FrequencyCast UK Show 43 [30:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Woo-hoo! This has been a great week for those that like their phones shiny with a picture of an apple on.

Two days ago, the new version of operating system OS 3 came out offering cut-and-paste, MMS and a lot of under-the-hood tweaks.

Today, Friday the 19th of June 2009, the iPhone 3GS went on sale at o2 and Carphone Warehouse stores across the land.

The 3GS (the “S” standing for Speed) offers a faster processor, improved battery life, video recording, a uninspiring 3 Meg camera and a digital compass.

The new 32Gig variant is likely to be a popular choice, but boy it’s not cheap – £890. (Assuming £275 for the phone, and £35 a month for 18 months). Those with an iPhone 3G will have to buy out their old contract to upgrade – for many, £245 or more…

Queues at a local o2 store at 8:30am today

Still, you have to hand it to Apple, the iPhone is revolutionary, and for many, including our presenter Pete, this is the must have phone, and it’s still hard to fault (if not afford!)

More on the iPhone: UK iPhone details