This isn’t anything mobile phone related necessarily, but it does show that the iPhone’s hype has been percolating into various other products. Usually a product will just take the ‘i’ and add it to their product, but this iBoxer has gone a few leaps further. The coin-operated boxing machine is designed purely on the iPhone UI and design and is meant to be in discos and pubs.
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I like the idea of building your own mobile accessories. Like, if I were to build a case for my iPhone, it might be made of paper mache and duct tape. These paper cup speakers look way better though and they even have an Apple feel to them. The white and simple elegance of the paper cup seems like something right out of a Mac graphic design school.
“This is a fun project. Four single-serving paper cups, two tooth picks (for holding cups together) + iPod with classic earbuds. The increase in volume, of coarse, is radiculous, but hey, you get stylish iPod accessory out of nothing!”
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TouchArcade has done a great job of putting together a list of discounted iPhone apps and games. The list includes a ton of games that have become free as well as some significant price drops. I haven’t done a Black Friday post yet so this is it. Because I’ve spent the last 3 Thanksgivings in Asia and the Middle East, to be totally honest I just found out about Black Friday about a week ago and I still don’t really get it. Why do people want to shop after Thanksgiving? Are you drunk on turkey and need to spend cash? Anyways, great prices after the jump.t
Click through to read some awesome Black Friday deals
Apple is getting sued for infringing on some vague patent. We’re not sure how much they’re asking for in damages but here are the details about patent 7, 441, 196:
an invention that displays “on-line content reformatted from a webpage in a hypertext markup language (HTML) format into an extensible markup language (XML) format to generate a sister site.” This sister site is a simplified version of the original site that is then displayed on any number of devices–including cell phones.
This lawsuit is unlikely to result in any damages awarded because the iPhone isn’t attempting to replicate a “simplified version” but rather an exact duplicate. If Apple is in fact sued, I can think of many other phones that would surely be sued as well.
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At the Adobe MAX conference, Andy Rubin demoed Flash running on the Android G1 to prove that the platform worked well on mobile. The demo was also somewhat of a call-out to Apple to say that their platform should be on the iPhone, and they no longer have excuses to not implement it. During the same presentation, Rubin confirmed that Google and Adobe are working together to make sure Flash runs on Android devices.
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Tricia Duryee is with paidContent.org and I had the pleasure of meeting her at a Glu press event in San Francisco. In any case, she interviewed Gonzague de Vallois of Gameloft about the state of mobile gaming and he had some interesting things to say.
Back when QuicklyBored first started, we were 100% mobile gaming. The industry was in a terrible state. The industry was bogged down with heavy royalty payments, inefficient distribution and seemingly never ending porting.
This is starting to change. The industry is now blessed with perfect distribution models such as the iPhone App Store, as well as innovative technologies such as Google’s Android. On top of that, there are platforms such as N-Gage which are developing graphically intense games to match the high power hardware they’re putting out.
Continue reading about the current state of the mobile gaming industry
The Android-powered G1 has been available in T-Mobile stores for a little while now and a lot has happened. A couple hundred people lined up in San Francisco for the black and bronze models, dubbed “extremely limited availability.”
From what I’ve seen on the net so far, I’m not crazy about the look of the UI, but Android is so customizeable that it shouldn’t be a concern for pro users. Also, it’s much better than older versions of the UI which turned out terribly.
Something I would really like to address is how the purchasing system on Android is becoming a little absurd. First, we heard reports about the Android Market and how it will revolutionize software due to the open source nature of it all. Then, we heard about carriers taking an interest and creating their own Android-based markets that will be preloaded on phones. At that point, I started to doubt the Android Market. Then, to top it all off, MobiHand announced they were developing an Android-based MobiHand store that will be available online.
Continue reading updates on Android
Here is the QuicklyBored Podcast with Wes Tam of Magmic that I said would be up yesterday but is instead up today. Sorry the quality is so bad but it’s hard to keep 20 minutes under 1GB. I sat down with Wes to primarily talk about mobile content distribution and how it pertains to the various platforms: iPhone, BlackBerry and WinMo. We also talked about Magmic’s upcoming game based on the Hollywood movie Eagle Eye.
Click through and read more about this Podcast
I’d really like to drive everyone’s attention to my post about the HTC Touch HD as a mobile entertainment device. This post has been killing me in the comments and so it clearly needs addressing. QuicklyBored readers know their stuff, so I’m going to repost the comments and address them. Quality comments guys, I appreciate it.
Continue reading about the HTC Touch HD and QB readers’ opinions
At Google’s Developer Day in London, a polished Android was showcased for all to see. All internet hype and rumors are pointing to the HTC Dream on T-Mobile being the first Google phone to hit the market and we can’t wait. I’m curious to see what sales will be like considering people are still riding the iPhone wave. Will this phone be much cheaper? Will it offer something truly unique that the iPhone does not? We’ll see.
[Update: T-Mobile will be announcing the HTC Dream with Android on Tuesday, September 23rd in New York]
Great post by Rob on Android Forums:
UPDATE 9/16/08
Looks like it will go like this:* September 23: T-Mobile/Google/HTC Dream Press Conference
* October 20th: Device Launch