Latest Tech News

iPhone’s default Notes.app is feature incomplete. You can’t organize the notes using folders. You can’t even search the notes. The worst part is that it can’t sync with computers. Note Pad is the software that can help to enhance it. It’s currently free as promotion, so get it by clicking here as soon as possible.
Note Pad provides the options to create different folders for notes. To start a new note, shake the iPhone when the app is launched. Type anything you want and save. You will be able to choose the folders you want to save. In addition, you can search the notes easily with the search bar in the top.
More after the break.

Lots of great iPhone application has been rejected. I hope Adobe Flash will not be the one. Some people created a list that is available here to remember the apps that Apple has killed. The name is called iPhone Application Graveyard. Those names are familiar to you: Podcaster, NetShare, MailWrangler, and more. These applications seems to be no reason to be rejected from the App Store. But, sorry, let’s face the truth. The list shows you the price, Apple’s reason, and fruther news of the app. Good to trace Apple’s wrong decisions on App Store.

If you are a rock music lover, this iDrum is a set for you. We have the Drum paid shareware in the App Store, but this iDrum is free and available now in Cydia. After running the app, you will see a picture of drum set. Just use your finger to tap the drum set, it will play the sound. No complicated menu. No settings. Simple and clear.

I introduced Wide Email few days before. Wide Email is an $0.99 app, but now we have another one for free. This one is called Firemail. Firemail do the similar job as Wide Email. It lets you to send email in landscape mode. Wide screen and big virtual keyboard makes life easier. Firemail is not a standalone Email application, after you typed the content, press the action button on the left. Choose “Send To MobileMail” and your default Mail app will pop up. You can then send the email by clicking send.
Firemail also can save your email temporary using Bookmark function. Click the action button and choose “Save to Bookmarks”. To recall the bookmarks, click the middle button. Click and choose to insert it in the mail. I love this bookmark function rather than that one in Wide Email. Firemail’s bookmark function acts like copy and paste. You can repeat to insert the bookmark.
Another point that makes me love Firemail is that it supports international characters. Wide Email will soon support it after the update. Wide Email is currently waiting Apple’s approval to deliver the update.
More screenshots after the break.
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I hope you guys’ iPhone are still working well. But if you are so unlucky that have dead pixel in your screen, you may try the new software PixelChecker available from the Cydia. It’s from the iSpaizo.net source, if you don’t have it, just install it from the list.
PixelChecker will help to check whether your screen have dead pixel by displaying different colours. Just tap the screen and the colours will be changed. After you tap it several times, it will flash the colours. Flashing colours can help to fix the dead pixel. No matter the iPhone have the dead pixel or not, it’s good to have a check.

Do you love to use iPhone in wide screen mode? It’s so sad that default email application does not support sending email in landscape/horizontal mode. Wide Email is a $0.99 app now available in App Store which helps you to send the email like pictured above. It is not actually an email application. After you type the email in Wide Email, click “Send to Mail” will help you to copy the content to the default Mail.app.
You can still save draft in the Wide Email. Click “Done” and it will ask you to save it as draft. I have tried to press the “home” button to quit the program, and Wide Email have helped me to save the mail as draft. It work as promised and it’s okay to pay $0.99. Unfortunately, it does not support international characters like Japanese and Chinese during the test. Developer know it already and hope to have fix very soon.
I am pretty surprised that Apple does not say that Wide Email duplicates internal functionality. Do Apple also admit that Mail.app is not good enough for landscape mode?
More screenshots after the break.

I have introduced VLC last month. VLC can watch more video formats than the internal QuickTime player. It also supports live streaming. Another competitor, MPlayer, is now also ported to iPhone. MPlayer supports many video formats including RMVB.
As usual, this great stuff cannot go to App Store for sure. It is now available to download at iPod Touch Fans. During my test, FLV, AVI, RMVB got no problems. But, it does not play the movies smoothly. It still requires more improvements.
After you download 2 files from iPod Touch Fans, you need to upload it to iPhone’s “/Applications” folder through SSH. To play your own movies, you need to use SSH to put files under “/private/var/media”. While in most cases, there will be no “media” folder under “/private/var”, so you need to create it by yourself. MPlayer does not work as best as VLC, but it definitely has its potential. MPlayer needs a better internal player and support of live streaming. If MPlayer can work as live TV streaming app for iPhone, they win.
More screenshots after the break.
You can create free iPhone ringtones using Garage Band in Mac or Audacity in Windows. You may also consider the shareware to import ringtones to iPhone quickly. But, these seems still too complicated for users.
CNET found the way to create the ringtone using only the iTunes 8. No need to install anything. The trick is to use “Start Time” and “Stop Time”. Convert it to AAC, and change the file extension. Import in the iTunes again and it will work. Sync the iPhone and you will be able to get the free ringtone.
The video has demonstrated very clearly. It only takes a few minutes. Anyway, I have written down the steps in text and photos. Take a look.

To watch live audio or TV streaming on iPhone, you can try to use VLC. If you only want to listen live audio streaming, App Store also have lots of choices. Freeware FStream can also listen to live audio streaming. It supports MP3, OGG, WMA over MMS/ASF stream, AAC and AAC+ files. It also supports PLS, M3U andASX playlist.
FStream has an update to 1.0.1 recently. The update brings the ability to keep on listening to audio streaming through 3G even the screen has turned off. In VLC, when you switched off the screen, iPhone will disconnect the 3G connection with server. FStream was having the same problem, but now it is solved.
Screenshots and more review after the break.


Fring is now available at the iPhone App Store. Fring is the first program that lets to use Skype on the iPhone. If you have data connection or Wi-Fi, you can now call local or international number with Skype account. Note you cannot use VoIP via 2G/3G data connection. I didn’t try it completely, but most users have positive feedback. If you want to save call minutes or want to call international friends, Fring is a must install.
Fring also supports chatting using MSN, Yahoo, or even Twitter. Fring is very popular in the firmware 1.1.4 old days. Thank god Apple does not reject it from App Store. And also thanks to Fring that it is free for all users.
Funny video demo after the break.


