I thought I knew everything about my iPhone, but one of the most basic things I had no clue about. It is the emoji keyboard, which gives you the ability to send funny faces, funny icons and representative icons.

You basically need to enable a new "international" keyboard on your iPhone to activate it. After you do that, you get these characters, plus a heck of a lot more, as options when sending text messages, emails and so on.

How do you add it?

(1) Tap Settings > General > Keyboard
(2) Tap International Keyboards
(3) Tap Add New Keyboard
(4) Locate and tap Emoji

Then when the keyboard is open, hit the globe on the botton, near the left of the space bar. You will be able to toggle through your various keyboards that way.

Posted at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

You know I ordered the iPhone 4S, in fact, I woke up at 3am EDT Friday morning to try to be one of the first on line to order it online.

It ended up taking me over an hour to order and I ordered it from AT&T, not Apple.

First, I feel bad not ordering from Apple. Every single iPhone I purchased for myself was ordered from Apple. Yes, all 4 iPhones I owned were Apple ordered. This is the first iPhone being shipped from a non-Apple order.

But after over an hour of trying to order from the Apple Store online or via the phone, I gave up and ordered via AT&T's web site. I feel bad, but I had to go back to sleep and make sure my order went through before it was sold out.

That being said, in the past, I had camped out a bit at the Apple Store to get the iPhone. I did this twice in the past but this year, I am not able to because the pick up day is this Friday, which is a Jewish holiday and I will be offline.

So instead of waiting on line offline at the Apple Store, I waited on line online at the store.apple.com last Friday.

Orders are reportedly shipping now, it would be nice if mine arrived Wednesday, since I'll be offline Thursday and Friday, but not counting on it.

And yea, Apple sold over a million iPhone 4S devices, which surpasses their 600,000 unit record. I am honestly shocked by that, since I know a ton of people who told me they aren't upgrading because there isn't enough of a difference, compared to last year where almost everyone I spoke with wanted the 4.

Posted at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

So you heard, iPhone 4S is available for pre-order this Friday. Which is a good thing, because pick up in store is on a Jewish holiday. So I can order it this Friday, have it delivered to my office and then pick it up from there after the holiday.

That being said, this is the first time I am not *excited* to get the new iPhone. It is not 4G enabled, I am so unhappy. I guessed it would be the iPhone 4G, I also said it wouldn't be the iPhone 5 - so I was both wrong and right - it is the iPhone 4S, without the 4G connection.

But I will get it, because I've always got the new iPhone, every single new one since they were released. And yes, since it is not 4G, i'll stick with AT&T because Verizon's 3G stinks.

I have the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G and the original iPhone. So it would be a shame to let that streak go.

Here is what it looks to be eligible:

Here is what it looks like not to be eligible:

Posted at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

Just a heads up, it is the 3rd birthday of the iPhone Siddur and we have knocked down the price for 50% discount. So go get it now.

Posted at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

I upgraded my iPhone to use the beta developer preview of iOS 5 and I am in love with many of the features, especially the notifications. (Yea, Android people, I know - stop there.)

One thing I want is that my car's navigation system be more integrated with my iPhone or even Android phone.

(1) I want the notifications to stream from my phone to my navigation.

(2) I want to ditch my car's GPS and use the GPS built into my phone.

(3) I want live Google Maps traffic to display from my phone to the navigation.

(4) I want to let my wife and kid watch movies streamed from my phone on the navigation while I am driving.

(5) I want to be able to stream anything via Airplay or USB from my device over my navigation.

Am I asking too much?

This has been a dream of mine since driving to Toronto in 2006. I just wanted this data streamed to my car's navigation.

Posted at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Category: Motor Vehicle , iPhone | Comments (2)

I've owned and tried to use a Verizon MiFi for 16 months and 18 days now and today is the last time I try to use it.

I have consistently had issues with this wireless data device. I rarely had issues when I didn't need it. But I always had issues when I needed it, i.e. at conferences. Everyone I know who has a MiFi at these events have issues also, they include Danny and Lisa. I spent countless wasted hours with Verizon tech support. For some reason, the device constantly disconnects and then reconnects, killing my sessions during my tasks. I lived with it by tethering via USB, but that is pointless, the device is meant for wireless access.

In any event, today I cancelled the device, which cost me $95 but ultimately will save me money. I spent $60 a month on this device and it barely worked, so $95 to break a contract that ends in October will save me about $325 over the course of those months.

But I can't go wireless free, can I? Well, since iOS 4.3, AT&T now supports the iPhone personal hotspot feature. So technically, I can use the 3G connection on my iPhone to power my other devices. I can use it over USB, Bluetooth and more importantly, over WiFi!

That is not my password, by the way...

This adds on an additional $20 or so per month to your wireless plan, assuming you have the 2GB plan already. It gives you an additional 2GB of data for the personal hotspot. The cool thing is, if you do not need it, you can downgrade your plan and save the $20 or even lower your plan down to the 200MB plan and save even more.

So instead of the $60 per month, I will just activate the extra $20 or so when I need it. AT&T will prorate stuff and adjust my bill for my actual usage and I can save a bundle with this.

Even more importantly, I've tested this out on Friday and it works. I do not disconnect, it is fast and it is easy to use. Plus, I tested it with using the phone at the same time, while checking email on my phone and surfing the web on my laptop, all off the same 3G connect. It all just works! (Note: Verizon Wireless can't currently do simultaneous phone and Internet but AT&T can.)

I've used the Nexus S with Android's hotspot feature when in Israel and that worked well. I was very happy to not have multiple Internet devices. I can empty my bag of one more internet device and really have a single device for it all, an iPhone.

Posted at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

So one of the guys at RustyBrick was crazy enough to wait ~3 years for the iPhone to come to Verizon. And he got his last night.

He showed it to me and it was really weird to see "Verizon" at the top left of the phone. So weird.

I've travelled with the iPhone and I've seen other networks, such as Orange, Cellcom and others. Just Verizon is weird to me.

Posted at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (2)

Cross post on the RustyBrick Blog.

As some of you may know, I was in Israel for the past 10 days or so. It was a family vacation and hosting the SphinnCon Israel SEM conference.

For this trip, I decided to not go with the AT&T International plan for my iPhone and instead use an unlocked Nexus S phone with an Orange IL pre-paid SIM card. The reason was two fold:

(1) It would save money on the data plan because the Orange data plan is cheaper than the AT&T international data plan. Plus, I can use the phone as a hotspot for my other devices, which I couldn't do with my iPhone, causing me to rent a USB card.

(2) I wanted to give Android, the latest and greatest Android OS and Google phone a real shot. 10 full days using it as my primary smart phone and barely using the iPhone.

When I arrived in Israel, I popped in the SIM card and was immediately able to make phone calls. But the data simply did not work. I spent some time on the phone with Orange's support, but they could only email me a document with settings. When I finally got to the hotel and was able to download those instructions, they did not work. So I Googled for help and found a Google thread with the answer I needed. At that point, I was up an running with data.

The mobile hot spot on the device was probably the single best feature of this phone. I used it more than I talked on the phone. My wife used it, my 19-month old used it, and it worked well. The data was a bit slow, but that was 3G speeds and it was good enough. We connected my MacBook Pro to it, our iPhones, iPads and even gave others access to it when they needed it. Yes, the iPhone will have the mobile hot spot feature soon with Verizon and rumored to be coming to AT&T soon as well. For now, Android had the edge here.

It's open! The Nexus S let's me put any SIM card (GSM required) I want in there. And I did that. I couldn't do that with the iPhone, well, I could, but then I would have to jailbreak the device and thus kill my warranty. That is a huge plus for the Nexus S and Android.

But overall, even with running Android 2.3, I felt I was missing something. Even after 10 days of using it, I still felt tasks such as email, browsing the web and even phone calls, were taking extra time. It felt like I had to take more finger taps to get what I wanted done on Android when compared to those same actions on iPhone. One is example is deleting emails: I right swipe over the email on iPhone. With Android, I have to click on the email or a check box and then click delete.

Finally, the battery does not compare with the iPhone. I can run all day on my iPhone without an issue. The Nexus S and Android 2.3 maybe lastest 75% of the work day. I use it a lot but so do I with the iPhone.

Now, I am way more accustomed to using an iPhone. I have been using one for 3.5 years and I really love it. So giving Android 10 days is likely not a fair test.

The bottom line is that when I landed in New York, I was thrilled to have my iPhone back. That was until AT&T couldn't connect to the network and the data wasn't working. But in regards to the user interface and the friendliness of the device, I was happy to return to my iPhone.

Now that the iPhone is coming to Verizon, I really do not see a real reason to recommend Android to people. When people said they won't get an iPhone due to AT&T, I bought that. I said, great - so get an Android device. But now that Verizon has the iPhone, there is no excuse. Get yourself an iPhone, you won't be disappointed.

Posted at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

I was checking out the Siddur Map on the iPhone Siddur today and noticed that it was steadily climbing. During the time Israel was using it for Maariv tonight, Tisha B'av, there was close to 1,000 users using it at the same time.

I wonder if it will spike up to well beyond that number tonight?

It was spiking up to over 875 at one point, and then I received a phone call and stopped checking. It is now back down to about 600. Maybe it reached 1,000, I am not sure. But maybe it will blow past 1k tonight.

It is so cool to see so many people using this product at once. Most iPhone Apps are use it, get bored of it, never use it again. This app, people use every day, a few times a day! So proud to be a part of it.

Meanwhile, did you know English for Sefard is out?

Posted at 5:16 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

Today is an exciting day. Not as exciting as getting the iPhone 4, then dropping it and getting a second one but still exciting.

I got my iPhone black bumper today, so I am less concerned about breaking it. But more importantly, I got a skin that turns the back of my iPhone 4 white and sticks a vintage colorful Apple logo on it. When I saw it on TUAW, I had to recreate it. Here are pictures:

I left the front alone:

The nice thing about the Gelaskins is they seem to come off, even off the InvisibleShield I have on my phone. So when I get bored, I can take it off.

To recreate this yourself, you can download my PSD file and to sharpen it up grab the Apple logo from Wikipedia. Note, you may want to also change the name to yours. :)

Posted at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (4)

Last night, the Apple Store called me and told me my "replacement iPhone was ready" and I can pick it up. So I ran over there a few hours later and picked up my second iPhone 4.

I felt guilty while picking it up. There are many people out there really wanting a single iPhone 4 and I got one then dropped it and got a new one a couple days later. For free!

I got lucky, some stores are replacing smashed or chipped iPhone 4s for free and some are not. I got lucky.

So when I got the new phone, the first thing I asked was - do you have any cases. They said no. So I ran to best buy and bought some pink cases - that is all they had. I then also but another InvisibleShield, but this time, I had the guy in the kiosk install it for me and that went well. I didn't want to leave the place without it being protected, even if it meant sticking plastic on it and walking around with a pink case.

Best Buy said I can return it within 30 days and I will. I am waiting on In Case to release a case for the iPhone 4.

I hear lots of people are dropping their iPhones and it smashing. Here are picks from Gizmodo of some damage and read Andy Ihnatko's review where he dropped it and it smashed, and talked about other drop cases. I need a bumper but they are no where to be found!

In any event, I do feel bad owning two different iPhone 4s within a single week.

One day, I need to write a blog post just on walking into the Apple Store. Should be funny...

Posted at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (2)

On Friday, I was showing off my new iPhone 4, making all of you jealous of my Apple sweetness. I feel I had a right to, being that camped out for six hours to be one of the first to pick it up from the Apple Store.

But then the unthinkable happened. I dropped it! I keep my iPhone in my shirt pocket for accessibility. Friday afternoon, I was outside, I bent over to pick up something from the floor and my iPhone slide out of the pocket, and bounced on the concrete walkway.

When it fell, I didn't think anything of it. It maybe dropped a foot and a half and I am sure my other phone has dropped a lot worse. But when I picked it up, I noticed the top left corner was chipped off. The glass was chipped! Here is a picture:

Here is another:

I kind of freaked out. Not only was it chipped, the phone didn't detect the SIM card. So I turned off and on the phone and the SIM card was again detected, but the chip was there.

My wife asked me what was wrong and when I told her and showed her the damage, she gave me a weird look. You know, the look you get when your man-hood is in question. I then decided to man up and try to let it slide. But it was bothering me the whole weekend.

Then someone I know told me, he dropped his phone, the back shattered and Apple is replacing it for him. So I stopped by the Apple Store yesterday, and they said, they will replace it for me for free.

I got a work authorization and the Apple Store will call me when new iPhones come in. When they come in, they will give me a new one and I'll give them this one. They said they are doing this for people, since the phone is so new.

Of course, didn't Apple play up how durable the new screens are? I have owned 3 iPhones prior to this one and I never had an issue with the screen before. I am hearing reports of people cracking iPhone 4s all the time now. I wonder if there is a design flaw or something larger.

In any event, I will make sure to have a case in hand by the time I pick up the new iPhone. It won't leave the store without a case protecting it.

Posted at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (15)

It is weird saying iPhone 4. I had the original iPhone, it was called the iPhone. I then upgraded the year after to get the iPhone 3G, which makes sense - it supported the AT&T 3G network. Then the year after, I got the iPhone 3GS, so they made is faster, add an S for speed.

This is my fourth iPhone, so technically it makes sense - the iPhone 4. But just sounds weird to me. In any event, I am already looking forward to the iPhone 4G, cause I hate EVO users!

Since I documented unboxings and/or pictures of all my iPhones, I'd figure I do it again. I didn't do an unboxing this time, so here are just some pictures I took of the iPhone 4 on my desk:

Yes, I bought the dock. I am a docker - many are not.

Posted at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (2)

In preparation for picking up the iPhone 4, I ordered the invisibleSHIELD For iPhone 4. It has been sitting on my desk for about a week, and yesterday, when I got the phone, I placed it on the iPhone 4. Actually, I ordered two, one for me and one for Ronnie, so I did it twice.

I did the step by step instructions but still had a horrible experience.

The top of the shield was placed at the very top of the iPhone. It was perfectly fitted at top, exposing the ear piece and front facing camera. But when I placed the rest of the screen down, the bottom of it was too far. It overlapped on the home button and also ran over the bottom of the iPhone.

We had the issue on both phones. Ronnie tried trimming the excess off.

We both took them home and when resting in our shirt pockets, the bottom of the shield peeled up and became ruined. I tried to fix it but it was a loss cause.

Ronnie even tried to cut it more after that but no success. Here is a picture of how the bottom of the screen was ruined over time:

As you can see, he cut it, but the shirt pocket stuff got all over the back of the adhesive side of the screen.

That also happened to mine, even without cutting the screen. Why? Cause the screen seemed to be too long.

I got frustrated, so I ripped it off and threw it away. The iPhone 4 is too nice to make it look like that. I want to protect the phone but I don't want it to take away from its design.

As I write this, I see Danny wrote about iPhone Case options, after falling and buying his iPhone last minute. He is a big fan of the ZAGG brand. I have it for the iPad it is okay. But for the iPhone 4, it simply did not work!

I didn't mind placing my 3GS, 3G and original iPhone in cases. I went through many iPhone cases.

Posted at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (7)

My writers block was due to all the iPhone madness over the past fews days.

In summary, on Tuesday, 3 of 6 of us who pre-ordered the iPhone 4 found out that the Apple Store did not have our reservations on file. They had us come to the store, with our pre-order confirmation emails and put us on a "managers list." I was afraid to blog about it then, because I didn't want to cause even more confusion prior to the iPhone 4 being released.

This morning, I am glad to say we got our iPhone 4s. At around 6am, Suzy from that Apple Store went through the people on the pre-order line. She had us all down on either the normal list or the "manager list." But there were some people who were not on either list and some of those people were not allowed to get the iPhone via that list. They were moved to the walk-in line, which was 200 people long or so at 6am. So I am glad we took care of our mess on Tuesday.

That being said, you can see some pictures from the lines and at the store at the RustyBrick Blog.

Posted at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (2)

My kid woke me up about 4am, so I was able to pre-order the new iPhone 4 at about 4:30am. It took several tries, but it finally went through around 4:30am.

Yes, I decided that since the stores open at 7am, I'll do an in-store pickup. I didn't do this last year, but I did it for the launch of the 3G. Well, the 3G you had to get in a store, there were no other options back then.

I'll have more details about which store later on:

Posted at 4:58 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (2)

I am nuts, I check to see if I can upgrade my iPhone 3GS, which I bought a year ago, like every day. On June 7th, AT&T moved my upgrade date from October 2010 to February 2011. I did not call and complain, I just did what any blogger would do and blogged it.

I was all set to spend the $399 or whatever it was to upgrade early, without being eligible for a two-year upgrade discounted price.

I logged in this morning and also dials *NEW# on my phone to double check... I am now qualified for a new iPhone 4 for the full discounted price of $199:

I am a bit concerned there is some sort of bug - but hey, I am so happy now!

Tomorrow is pre-order day - the big question I have is do I wait in line at a store (Apple Store or local Walmart) or have it delivered on June 24th?

Posted at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (3)

So, today is the big day. The iPhone Worldwide Developer Conference. Big news, very excited.

But while many are saying their early upgrade dates are now, mine was pushed from October of this year to February of 2011!

Yes, last week when I checked when I was able to upgrade for a "full discount," AT&T told me it was October 20, 2010. Now, AT&T is telling me February 20, 2011. This is for a customer who has owned an iPhone July 11, 2007 and owned the new one every single year.

AT&T normally gives me a full discount for the new iPhone but I guess not this year. This year, instead, I get a "discounted iPhone upgrade at a higher price, along with a 2-year commitment and an $18 upgrade fee." Or whatever that means.

Who knows, maybe they will surprise me. Either way, I am buying the new one.

Posted at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

Last week, Ronnie and I were testing out various softphone solutions for our IP based phone system. After some research, looking at the features, reviews and number of updates to the app, we picked the Acrobits Softphone (aff link). Ronnie did his review of the softphone iPhone app in a new weekly series of blog posts at the RustyBrick Blog.

On Thursday night, for fun, I decided to call some people as if I was in the office.

Let me step back a bit. Since we use an Asterisk based IP-based PBX provided by Fonality (which I am still very happy with after 4+ years), we can use softphones from anywhere in the world with our PBX. So when I go to Seattle next week and want to get on conference calls or tell someone to call me in the office, I can. I don't have to give out my cell phone number, I don't have to forward my phone calls, all I have to do is open the iPhone app and it will start receiving phone calls as if I am at my phone at my desk.

So to have some fun, I made some phone calls last week. I called my mother at about 10pm one night and the first thing she said was "you're still at your office?" I said, "yea" but eventually came clean after laughing. I called a few more people who said the sound quality was pretty good, at worse, it sounded like I was on a speaker phone.

Sound quality has little to do with the app and more to do with the broadband available both on my iPhone and in the office. Making the calls from my home over Verizon FiOS was no problem at all. The office's connection wasn't great, but it was fine - all the calls via this SIP protocol go over the T1. Cable blocks them, unless it is through their own phone system.

But when I tried to make phone calls over AT&T's 3G connection, the sound quality was horrible. Again, not an issue with the app but more of an issue with 3G just not being strong enough to handle a solid phone call.

There are some free SIP iPhone apps you can play with, but this app seems to be updated frequently and have some nice features.

Make sure to check out Ronnie's review on the RustyBrick Blog.

Posted at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

We just installed an AT&T MicroCell at RustyBrick and now I have five bars. How cool is this? Let me show you...

Before:

After:

Both pictures were taken in the office, but one before MicroCell and one after.

Posted at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

There are tons of pictures depicting Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, holding the iPad(s) in his hands as if he were moses holding the tablets (ten commandments) in his hands. Yesterday, we launched the iPad Torah, so now technically, Jobs can hold the ten commandments in his hands. For a bit of a fun read, check out FrumSatire's review of our product.

I thought it would be neat to post all the images I found via Google for these depictions of Jobs with the Tablets. All images can be clicked on to find the source:

Posted at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

I am sure most of you have seen the video of the 100-year-old using and loving the iPad. If not, I posted it below. Point being - hey - mom and in-laws, you can figure it out to.

Of course, they will reply to me and say - buy it for me as a present and we will use it.

Posted at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (4)

Full disclosure: This iPhone app is an app we built for a client...

Back in December, we launched an iPhone app for a client named WorldLive Mobile. The app was focused around compiling and aggregating the Tweets and MySpace feeds of their favorite HipHop stars. It not only showed you these feeds, but also hooked up to the iTunes Music Store, the artist's web sites, their Facebook and MySpace pages, included their YouTube channels and had concert dates and listings.

The app literally rocks. It has a sweet coverflow like interface with tons of ways to customize the artists you love. It gives you an easy way to stay on top of your favorite Hip Hop artists. You can download it for free and it is named WorldLive Hip Hop.

Since then, we released three more apps that work in a similar fashion but for different areas. For example, we released WorldLive Country, WorldLive Pop and WorldLive Hollywood. So Country and Pop are similar to Hip Hop, but the Hollywood is obviously focused on TV and movie stars.

Here are some pictures of each app:

WorldLive Pop:

WorldLive Hollywood:

WorldLive Country:

WorldLive Hip Hop:

All these apps for free and I would really appreciate it if you would download it and give me feedback.

Download them at:

• WorldLive Hip Hop
• WorldLive Country
• WorldLive Pop
• WorldLive Hollywood

Posted at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

Apple approved a semi-large update to our FREE iPhone App for Purim, the Megillas Esther iPhone App. We made some big improvements to this holiday app, just in time for Purim, which is just about a week away.

First change we made was to add the brachos (blessings) before and after the reading. Here is a picture of the bracha before:

We also bolded the sections the congregation repeats:

Also, we added the ability to add 6 more sounds for 99 cents. We wanted to play with in-app purchases, so for only 99 cents, you get 6 additional sounds. The additional sounds include a telephone ringing, a car crashing, guns, bombs, air raid horn and a whistle.

There are some other small changes we made to the app, so I hope you like it. You can download it for free by clicking here.

Also, we released a new Siddur update today, which I will talk more about when it goes live.

This is a cross post with the RustyBrick Blog.

Posted at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (0)

I first wrote about the anti-semitic "reviews" in the iTunes iPhone App Store back in September 2008. Some were never removed until Apple changed the policy that you need to download and install the app before writing a review. This was not just an issue with the Apple App Store, it we also so anti semitic reviews on the Palm Pre store.

It has been a long time since we had this pop up. But last night I was notified of an anti-semitic review on our iPhone Hebrew Translator app. Here is a picture of it:

I think Apple needs to pull a Google and place an ad above their reviews, like they did for both Michelle Obama images and for the search jew.

Posted at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (2)

We at RustyBrick are looking to hire a few more developers, including iPhone and PHP/MySQL developers. We don't bother posting jobs on job sites anymore, it leads to way too much spam - so we use expensive recruiters. Recruiters, please do not call me - we have one exclusive recruiter we use. We decided to get a bit more creative about hiring and built an iPhone App that helps us do the recruiting.

We named the app RustyBrick Hire Me and it basically takes someone through three questions to qualify them before having them submit their resume and come in for an interview.

First it asks you the type of position you would like to apply for:

After that, it asks you a single multiple choice question to qualify that you technically know your stuff.

Then it makes sure you are able to work in our office.

Finally, if you pass the three previous steps, it asks you for your email address so we can contact you.

Check it out the RustyBrick Hire Me app or download it iTunes now for free.

Posted at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Category: RustyBrick , iPhone | Comments (0)

Last night, our latest crazy iPhone app was approved. It is named Bleeper and all it does is allow you to record yourself and click on the "bleep" icon to play that bleep sound. Yea, kind of funny and pointless - but perfect as an iPhone App, don't you think?

The neat part is you can share you "bleeps" on Twitter, Facebook or via email. That is where it can get fun. Let me take you through the app, step by step.

Here is the main screen. You basically click "record" start talking and then click the "bleep" icon in the middle to make the bleep sound where you want. When you are done, hit the "stop" icon (which is what the record button turns into after you hit record):

When you are done, you can hit "play" to listen to your most recent recording. If you are happy with it, hit "share" and you are given three options. Share on Twitter, Facebook or E-Mail.

Sharing on Twitter requires you to enter your username, password and a short message to be sent in your Tweet.

Then you hit share and it sends it:

You can then access all public Tweets from Bleeper by clicking on the Tweets icon:

Clicking on the arrow on the right of the shared Tweets plays the audio right in your phone using the movie app:

If you listen to the Tweet in the timeline on Twitter.com, such as displayed here:

If you play it from here, on your desktop, it takes you here:

How about Facebook? We use Facebook Connect to send a status update to your Facebook profile.

Type in a message:

Hit Publish:

It is then shown on your Facebook profile page:

With a little audio player:

Sharing it via E-Mail basically attaches the wav file to your outgoing email:

That is basically how Bleeper works. You can download it for free on iTunes now.

Posted at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

I've had the Verizon Wireless V740 ExpressCard for over two years now. It lets me plug the card into my laptop and have Internet virtually anywhere I go. It is rock solid, in fact, I used it on a drive all the way from my office to Albany and back with no issues at all. I actually do it often enough and use it at all conferences and when I travel or go places where I don't want to tap into the open Wifi.

I didn't want to upgrade the plan, in anticipation of AT&T coming out with a tethering plan, so I can connect my iPhone to my computer and use the Internet from my iPhone to power my laptop. The issue is, AT&T is way too unreliable for that, especially in places such as NYC and at conferences (where there are tons of iPhones) to bank on it. So I decided to get a MiFi router from Verizon today.

MiFi is a tiny little wireless router that is basically like the card I have, but acts as a wireless router. The concept isn't new, it is old - but they are becoming more popular these days. The reason I went with this, over a new plug in air card, is that I can share it with multiple people and devices. If and when my iPhone doesn't work at conference or in meetings in NYC, I can let it access the MiFi wireless, along with my laptop. Plus, I can let my fellow bloggers (up to 5) connect to it, so they also can have internet, when they don't.

I don't have the device yet, but when we get it, I'll report back on how I like it. I will also have Ronnie write about the features of the MiFi router at the RustyBrick Blog for those who are interested in how configurable it is.

Just sad I feel the need to get a Verizon MiFi to make sure my iPhone can connect to the Internet - don't ya think?

Posted at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Category: Computers , iPhone | Comments (0)

A week ago, I complained about my iPhone & AT&T fading away my calls. It turned out that it had nothing to do with the software update released the same day.

AT&T called my brother and told them the issue was fixed this morning at 11am. The issue was with the cell phone tower. Some hardware in the tower that powered the phones in that area, was broken.

They supposedly fixed it today.

The thing is, I thought they fixed it on Monday. The fading issue went away on Monday - at least for me.

Maybe they fixed it yesterday but didn't get confirmation of the fix until today?

In any event, the iPhone software update had nothing to do with the fading calls. It has to do with the cell tower hardware issues.

Posted at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

I catch myself saying terms that people sometimes do not understand. Not big words, just new words. The latest word is Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality is a fancy way of saying using computer driven technology on top of real world elements. Got that?

Urbanspoon recently updated their iPhone app to include a "scope" feature. You click on the "Scope" and your iPhone's camera turns on (note, this only works with the 3GS). The point is, you are to go outside, open up the app, turn on the scope feature and look at the world in front of you with the camera. Then, Urbanspoon overlays their restaurant data on top of what you see through the camera.

Here are two pictures:

The device knows where I am and using the compass, it knows which direction I am pointing. So Urbanspoon is able to overlay their restaurant data to show me nearby places to eat, how much people like those places (based on their reviews) and how far the place is to my exact location.

People have asked me if we will add this to our iPhone Kosher Restaurant database. It would be cool, but I am not sure how many people would appreciate it.

So if you see someone walking down the street, looking through their iPhone or other mobile device - they are not crazy, they are using Augmented Reality. Walk over to the person and yell, "AR!!!"

Posted at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Category: Just Interesting , iPhone | Comments (0)

Last Thursday, Apple released an updated OS for the iPhone, with a carrier setting update. I updated immediately cause I am like that - really, that is how I am.

I am sorry I did.

Ever since then, my phone calls fade away for a few seconds and then fade back in. I spoke to a few other people who have updated and they experienced the call "fading" that I have experienced.

I can be speaking to someone, and then I hear nothing. A few seconds later, I hear them talking again, but I missed several words. Often, they have no idea they faded away, so I don't say anything. But I may have missed several words that are important.

Dropped calls are nothing new to the iPhone and AT&T, but call fading is something I have not experienced until 3.1.2.

Update: The issue had nothing to do with the software update but rather an issue with hardware on the cell tower in my local area.

Posted at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (4)

MobClix was contracted by Gap to run a contest for iPhone App developers, to allow them to build their app and the winner gets to be the official Gap iPhone app. So the contest is now live, please, please, please, go vote for us (IntuApps). Vote for the top middle one, made by IntuApps, which is a company RustyBrick partially owns. Go vote with all your email addresses, as many as you have, please!

Personally, I was not into the idea of building an app for a company with a 'chance' to win. I don't like contests, but I was over ruled (which is rare) and we developed the app. If you want to learn more about the story on why we went ahead to build the app, go read Ronnie's blog post at the RustyBrick blog.

The app really deserves to win. It really gives you the whole Gap store experience. From selecting clothes, to the Gap store music and atmosphere to neat ways on actually buying the clothing. Finally, it even has a cute game to ask you to name the price of the product. Just check out our video demo of the app:

Again, please vote, you will see this screen, vote for the IntuApps app and please tell your friends. Please Vote IntuApps!

Posted at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (2)

Lots of people are now getting the iPhone AT&T MMS update via iTunes. To make sure you get it on your device, make sure to:

(1) Download update in iTunes
(2) Sync your iPhone with iTunes
(3) Then reboot your iPhone

You will then see it in the messages section.

Here are screen shots:

Posted at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

I jumped in my car to pick up yet another salad (I am good).

I decided to check my email while sitting in the car. I hit reply to that email and the GPS screen changed as if I was making a phone call. I first thought that I called someone by accident, but that wasn't it. I then figured out that every time I hit reply or new email, the iPhone sent a command via bluetooth to my car's GPS that I was making a phone call.

This is the first time something like this happened to me. I honestly think this is a quirk. But if it happens again, I'll update this post. If not, then it was a one time quirk (if that is even possible).

This happened in at least three cases:

• Hitting Compose Email
• Hitting Reply to an Email
• Clicking in the search box and searching for an email

Posted at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Category: Computers , Motor Vehicle , iPhone | Comments (1)

Today, I went to the local pizza store to pick up food for some of the guys and myself. Yes, the same pizza store that was broken and where I witnessed a big accident.

I get in the car and pull away, off to the pizza store. I then realize, I forgot my iPhone!!!!

I considered turning back and getting my iPhone, but then I thought - the whole trip will take me a total of 15 minutes. I thought, I can survive without my iPhone, access to my email, RSS feeds, my phone and so on for a total of 15 minutes. So I continued onward to the pizza store.

I survived, but let me tell you - I felt naked the whole way there, in the pizza store and on the way back. Yea, I don't touch my iPhone every week for a 25 hour time period, due to Shabbat. But driving a car, being in a store during the week, it just felt incredibly weird that I didn't have my iPhone.

Yes, I felt like I was in the pizza store completely naked. An awkward feeling for me, and I am sure it doesn't look that pretty to outsiders. :-)

In any event, I did survive to blog about this experience. Like I did when the Israeli Consulate seized my iPhone from me back in March.

Posted at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (3)

Today we announced a new iPhone app we built under our IntuApps brand named Goldilocks. It is a interactive and fun iPhone book available in the iTunes store for 99 cents. You can download it by clicking here. If you want to win a free copy of it, be one of the first to comment on Ronnie's blog post and he will give you a redeem code to download it.

I made a video of this app, because words don't do justice in describing it. Here is the video:

Posted at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (3)

When Google announced AdSense for mobile apps, I bugged Google to let me in. They did and finally, our iPhone Hebrew Translator app now has AdSense in the app. It is actually performing extremely well, I think because we dynamically load the translation terms into the AdSense system. In the example below, I translated iPhone, which then showed an iPhone related AdSense ad.

Prior to Translation (we feed generic keywords):

After Translation we feed the keywords from the translation:

So far, this is way out performing AdMob.

Posted at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

Matisyahu, the popular musician known for his Jewish reggae and for being a Chabad/Lubavitch Jew uses our iPhone Apps.

How do I know? Last night, he tweeted that he is looking for kosher food in Japan. A guy name Ross, replied to him, telling him to get our Kosher iPhone app. Matisyahu then replied to that saying:

wow I have the siddur but didn't know about kosher

So, Matisyahu, the famous musician, that has over 600,000 followers on Twitter and a huge following in the real world, uses our iPhone Siddur and probably now has our Kosher iPhone app. I bet he will be excited to learn that the next version will have an enhanced Chabad siddur. Update, it seems Matisyahu doesn't want to "box" himself into the Chabad sect, see more at Wikipedia, pretty interesting.

Posted at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (2)

Since I took video of me buying the Palm Pre on my iPhone, I thought I take video of me returning the Palm Pre on my iPhone.

I didn't take video while driving this time, as per my wife's advice. The video is pretty bad, cause I was in a huge rush.

No more Pre for me. The keyboard actually was damaged from extremely little use, in less than thirty-days. The phone hardware is JUNK, the software is neat, but coding for it is advanced JavaScript and not fun.

Posted at 5:38 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

We just posted version 4.1 of the iPhone Siddur which has many improvements, but the two most significant changes is a way to upgrade to the official Chabad (aka Nusach Ari) prayers from Kehot Publication Society and major speed improvements.

The Chabad Jewish sect has been waiting for this and we finally worked out a deal with the copyright owners of the Nusach Ari Siddur. Kehot Publication Society technically owns the rights to that Siddur, so we were not able to publish the full text until they gave us their approval. The deal is simple, we ask those who want to have the official Nusach Ari siddur to pay an additional $5 and it adds the official text to their iPhone Siddur. Of the $5, Apple takes 30% (like they do with all apps) and Kehot gets 70% - RustyBrick is not taking a dime extra for this, we are happy with 70% of the $10.

Let me show you how the upgrade process works (using Apple's "In App Purchases" feature).

Go to the Nusach Ari text of the Siddur and notice the blue button at the top right that says "Upgrade."

You are then taken to a screen that explains the price and details of the upgrade:

Click "Upgrade" and Apple asks you to confirm (your iTunes account will be charged):

Click "Buy" and then the transaction should go through and you will know you have been upgraded if you see the "upgrade" button turn into a "Kehot.com" button:

That is how you upgrade.

The other changes are speed improvements, including downsizing the overall size of the application and speeding up the loading of the Siddur. The Siddur sometimes uses the Internet and when the Internet connection is slow, it slows down the Siddur. We finally made that part run in the background, which seriously improves load times throughout the application. It was a major issue this morning when AT&T had an outage and it took a minute or so for my Siddur to load (due to the time out we set).

Other improvements include:

• Added Today Button to Luach
• Added Favorite Tefilot Feature
• Overall Speed Improvements & Downsized Application
• Misc Changes to Edut Mizrach & Sefard
• Bug Fix for Luach & Mizrach Orientation Alert
• Updated Minyan Database

It can take a week or so for Apple to approve this update, so expect it to come out soon.

Posted at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (0)

Today, we released an update for the iPhone Siddur, which Apple has to approve. The changes include:

• Added Mizrach Compass (iPhone 3GS Only)
• Added Luach Calendar Subscriptions & Alerts
• Revised Luach Event Management
• Revised Map Feature using Native Apple Maps
• Setting to Turn Off Nekudot in Siddur (for speed)
• Setting for Turning Off Sleep Mode in Siddur
• Force Portrait Layout for Luach & Mizrach Compass
• Cleaned up Benching in Ashkenaz and Sefard
• Shows Tachnun After Shavous by Default
• Bug Fix for Rosh Chodesh
• Bug Fix for Nusach Ari text in Benching and Al Hamichya

Also, here is a video demo of the 4.0 iPhone Siddur.

Posted at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

I thought 189 was a good score. Well, today I played the game and I scored a 561!

This game is more than just a game. I play against clients and colleagues for bragging rights.

Posted at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (3)

One thing we were able to improve on the Siddur due to the 3.0 iPhone software release was the map feature. We added a native Apple Google Map directly into the Siddur and plotted where some of our Siddur users are using it right at the moment that you are looking at the map.

The main difference that you will notice is the speed of the map loading and the responsiveness of the zoom and panning through the maps.

Here are the new maps:

Zooming In:

What did the old version look like?

Posted at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (6)

One of the features we always wanted on the iPhone Siddur, but could not bring to until the release of the iPhone 3GS was a Mizrach compass.

Basically, Mizrach means east and that is the direction most Jews pray, depending on your current location. In America, you point eastward because that is the direction of Jerusalem or the Kodesh Hakodashim. When you are in Israel, you might not pray eastward, depending on your current location. So this compass plots the longitude and latitude of the Kodesh Hakodashim (the most widely accepted opinion) and then based on your current long/lat and direction (based on the digital compass in the 3GS), we point you in that direction.

Here is a preview of how it works on my iPhone 3GS. We hope to release it shortly.

Posted at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

We were incredibly excited for the 3.0 iPhone software to come out, but it was a major let down for us. Yes, Apple now officially "support" Hebrew, but the Hebrew support is a joke. We wanted this update because many of our applications are Jewish focused. In fact, Hebrew rendered fasted on 2.x then it does in 3.x. The vowels (aka Nekudot) are still off, and the speed is horrible.

We built an application that loads a page of Hebrew text in mobile Safari. I put two iPhone 3G devices next to each other, one running 2.x and the other running 3.x and you can see how much slower the 3.x is running. In fact, it is a full 7 seconds slower.

Just how crazy is that? I submitted this bug to Apple time and time again. The bug ID is 6869094 and you can also submit it at this page.

Posted at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (3)

I have been plagued with the wait 48 hours to be activated message, like many of you. So I was reading the Apple forums and they said, you need to speak to an activation person at AT&T. So I did and it worked. Do this, step by step:

(1) Call 800-331-0500

(2) Dial 0 and then 0 again

(3) Ask the customer rep nicely to activate you.

(4) Give them your SIM Card # and IMEI. To find this quickly, go to "Settings" on your iPhone, click on "General," then "About." The "ICCID" is your SIM card and the one above that, IMEI is the other number they need.

(5) They will ask you to shut down your phone, wait 30 seconds and turn it on.

(6) When the phone turns back on, you should be activated.

LAST item is to make sure your voicemail works. Just call your number, with area code and leave yourself a voice. It will then prompt you a minute later to enter your voicemail password and then your voicemail should work.

Enjoy!

Posted at 6:14 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (34)

So I just got my iPhone 3GS (3.5 hours ago) and still having activation issues but I thought I test out the video camera.

So I captured two videos with this iPhone. One I uploaded directly from the iPhone to YouTube and the other I downloaded to my desktop via USB. The direct to YouTube does not produce as high a quality video, as compared to the desktop downloaded version. In fact, the one I downloaded from my iPhone to my desktop over USB is HQ (high quality) compatible with YouTube. The one I uploaded directly to YouTube via the iPhone was compressed more and not HQ compatible.

Here is the HQ one:

Notice the "HQ" button in the play bar after you hit play.

Here is direct to YouTube via phone:

I am a bit sick, so please excuse my appearance.

Posted at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

I just got my new iPhone and I go through the steps to activate it. Guess what, I am told that AT&T's servers are too busy with activating iPhones. I will have to wait for mine to be activated. Let me take you through the unboxing and then failure of activation message.

Unboxing the iPhone 3GS:

Now I plug it in, to activate:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4: FAILURE!!!

Posted at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (29)

A couple weeks ago, Yoni Glatt, a writer from the Jewish Press spent about an hour interviewing us about our iPhone apps, specifically about our Jewish iPhone Apps.

That article is now live on both the web and print version. If you do get the Jewish Press or want to pick up a copy (only a $1), you can find the write up on page 27. If you have no way of buying a copy, you can see the web version titled How Apple Made Me A Better Jew. It is an extremely nice and positive article about our apps, as well as some of the other Jewish apps available in the iTunes store.

I personally love the introductory paragraph, which I actually hear often from our customers:

Over the past few weeks, I've become an improved Jew. I learn more, say more brachos, bench more, and didn't have a problem remembering the day in the Omer. I haven't been to Israel recently, didn't have a near death experience that reawakened my spiritual side, nor did I feel empty in my life and decided I needed to search for more meaning. So what caused this recent growth spurt in my Judaism? I got an iPod touch.

Thank you Yoni for the write up!

Posted at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Category: RustyBrick , iPhone | Comments (1)

We got lucky, Apple approved our iPhone Siddur today, the day of the release of version 3.7 of our Siddur. This version is officially 3.0 tested by Apple. Here is a screen capture:

Version 3.6 runs incredibly slowly in OS 3.0, so make sure to upgrade to version 3.7 immediately. The only issue is that Apple's iTunes Store seems to be having major issues, so hopefully you will be able to get the update soon.

The next version we release will have many more features and we will label it version 4.0 (that is unless we need to sneak out a quick update for bug fixes to 3.7). To suggest changes to the Siddur, please use Google Moderator.

Posted at 6:56 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

I was completely prepared to pay the $200 premium for the new iPhone 3GS, when I heard rumors that AT&T and Apple would refund people who are eligible (or close to it) the $200 premium).

Just minutes ago, I received an email from Apple telling me they will refund me $200 within 5 days. In fact, this would make a total of $500 in refunds for all my iPhone purchases. With my iPhone 2G, AMEX gave me $200 back and then Apple gave me $100, totally $300. Now, I am getting a $200 credit for the 3GS, totally $500 back in total.

Last year, the phone sold for the discount anyway, so no official refund on those.

Here is the email:

To Our Valued Apple Customer:

On June 17, AT&T announced a change to their upgrade eligibility policy
and ‘best upgrade pricing’ for qualifying iPhone 3G owners.

Based on AT&T’s updated qualification criteria, we are pleased to inform
you that you are eligible to receive a refund on your recent
iPhone 3G S purchase.

Your Order Acknowledgment and Shipment Notification emails will reflect
the original purchase price. However, Apple will issue you a refund in
the amount of $200.00, which is the difference between your original
purchase price and the new qualifying price.

Apple will process your refund in the next 5 days, and will send you an
email when this has been completed. We will process your refund based
on your original payment method. See below for details.

No additional action is needed on your part for you to receive the
refund. These activities will not impact your estimated delivery dates.

You can view the most up-to-date status of your order, including
monitoring the details of your refund, at online Order Status
.

Thank you for choosing Apple.

Sincerely,
Apple Online Store Team

Posted at 5:53 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (4)

Now, us developers need to rate our apps in iTunes Connect. We click on the rate this app icon and then are taken to this screen:

The App Rating icon in the screen shot above, top right icon, changes as you select different radio boxes.

Here are the rating grid info:

Posted at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

Yea, I am a sucker. I ordered the new iPhone 3GS, even thought it will cost me more than $299.

I ordered the 16GB black one, which is the same size and color I have now. I currently use only about 10GB anyway. $100 extra for twice the size was appealing, but I couldn't justify it. In fact, I couldn't justify buying a new one, but I did it cause I am an Apple fan boy that is a sucker for new gadgets.

It started with the Treo. I had the Treo 650 and then I had to get the Treo 700p for the ability to talk on the phone and use the internet at the same time (tethering was key then). Then a year later, I caved and bought the original iPhone, then a year later, I line waiting and purchased the iPhone 3G.

Today, I pre-ordered the iPhone 3GS online and Apple promises to deliver it to my office on June 19th, the same day it becomes available in stores.

No one in my office is surprised I bought the new one. None of my friends or family are surprised either. I am so cheap when it comes to certain things, but with gadgets, I am such a sucker.

Posted at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (8)

Our first ad was pretty neat, but we thought we change it up a bit and make a new version. Does this ad format look similar to something you have seen?

Larger version over here.

Posted at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Category: Religion , RustyBrick , iPhone | Comments (2)

There are dozens of Jewish newspapers, so we decided to test an ad in one of them, to see if it helps spike up the sales of our Jewish iPhone Apps.

Most the ads in these magazines are cluttered and very salesly. We went with an Applistic approach (at least we hope). Our ad will be on the back cover of the Front Page (a New York based weekly circulation):

How about this. If you are one of the first five to take a picture of yourself with the ad and email it to me barry at rusty, I will give you a free app of your choice from the RB selection.

Posted at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

Remember the other day I shared stats of the Urinal App with you? Well, I checked yesterday and it made it to the number two one spot in the App Store for free apps.

Update: Now number one as of Saturday:

Here is a screen capture:

That number two app was made by us. How cool!

Posted at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

Moving on up! For the first time in our iPhone development history, we have an app that hit the top ten spot in the iPhone App Store. The Urinal Test App built under the IntuApps brand for publisher Hachette is now number 9 in the App Store top free apps list. Here is a picture:

To celebrate, I thought it would be fun to share the scores from those who participated in the game. Top score is 25, here is the chart:

Here is some of the breakdown:

• 19% or most people scored a 22
• 18% scored 21
• 15.5% scored a 23
• 13.5% scored a 20
• 9% scored a 24
• 8.75% scored a 19

Those are the top occurrences for scores on this app.

Posted at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

I need a life. I just played Flight Control after learning that my high score was beaten by a client and I scored a 189!

So I was promoted to a captain:

To become a "test pilot" I need to land 280+ planes!?!?!

Someone actually landed 261 planes? Wow, those are fast fingers.

Posted at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

Last week, I gave you all a preview of our Swine Flu app and didn't expect much from it.

We built it, because there were tons of desktop and browser based mashups to get information on the Swine Flu. So we thought it would be both useful and cool to create a location-aware version for the iPhone. So we did.

I then blogged about it and decided to tip off TechCrunch about it. TechCrunch was kind enough to write about it minutes after I tipped them off. The title TC used was awesome: Want To Avoid Swine Flu? There's An App For That Too.

After that, the news took on like wild fire - kinda like an epidemic (pun is intended). CNN covered it, Fox News, TG Daily, and so many more magazines and publications. The BBC actually did a phone interview with me, I assume to broadcast on BBC Radio or TV (we did it over Skype). Plus, I have almost 200 comments on the original blog post.

This was not through Digg or Reddit or Twitter, this was through mainstream media.

Honestly, I did not think it would cause so much discussion or press. I am a bit in awe and shock.

I really wanted more press for our iPhone apps and I guess we got it. But seriously, did not think it would come from this.

Update: Here is some (not even close to all) the press about the app:

• An iphone application to track Swine Flu across the country, Tech Innovations
• Swine Flu fever hits iPhone, TG Daily
• Swine flu mania in the App Store: iPhone application coming soon, iPhone Footprint
• Want to avoid Swine Flu? There’s an app for that, too, STLtoday
• Want to avoid Swine Flu? There’s an iPhone app for that, too, MacDailyNews
• Developer hopes to bring home the bacon with swine flu app, Pocket Picks
• Emergency Mapping, dailywireless.org
• geek speak - Swine Flu Apps For iPhone/iPod, collapsemag.com
• iPhone App Tracks Spread of Swine Flu Virus, Fox News
• Swine flu iPhone app awaiting approval, CNN.com
• Swine Flu tracking app for iPhone, TechShout
• Influenza dell'indirizzo IP nella SEO, Seo Point
• Swine Flu Tracker, CouleurGeek
• Suivre la Grippe A sur iPhone, TechnoBlog
• How the Swine Flu is Affecting Search, Maine SEO Blog
• Life in the Digital Age (FYS 100 J), WFU
• SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 30, 2009, Search Engine Land
• Sigue a la gripe porcina desde tu iPhone o iPod, iPodTotal
• Swine Flu Tracker App For iPhone Awaits Approval, iPhone Savior
• Want To Avoid Swine Flu? There's An App For That Too., Washington Post
• Want To Avoid Swine Flu? There’s An App For That Too., TechCrunch
• iPhone app tells you how, where to avoid swine flu, TechRadar UK
• iPhone Swine Flu Map App, Time To Get Panicky, SoftSailor
• SWINE FLUTHERE'S AN APP FOR THAT TOO!, OutNext
• Techmeme: Want To Avoid Swine Flu? There's An App For That Too. (MG Siegler/TechCrunch), Techmeme

Update: Here is the audio interview from the BBC's Newshour on May 4th, 2009 the clip starts at 32:30 or so. Here is the trimmed down version, thanks to @syneryder:

Posted at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (2)

Update: I beat this score and I am now at 187 planes landed, yippeee.

I am a bit addicted to the Flight Control game on the iPhone. The point of the game is to land as many planes in a row without crashing them into each other. You set the flight path and have them land on the correct run way.

In any event, my high score is 108 127, how about you?

Update: Someone commented asking for the "fligh traffic" so I decided to play again and I hit 127. Here is the current flight traffic during the time of the crash... Doesn't look that busy during the crash, but I landed like 6 planes within seconds of each other right after the crash...

Beat that!

Posted at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (9)

Under our IntuApps brand, we released a new iPhone app that has data on the Swine Flu outbreak. Let me take you through the app, which has yet to be approved by Apple. Note, if you want to be notified when the app is live, leave a comment below with your email address and I will notify you.

Starter Page, something simple:

Threat Level Page, a web page that takes info from the WHO's threat level page:

Mapping Swine Flu cases through a Google Maps RSS feed:

Clickable Map details, by clicking on a pin, you can read more details:

Swine Flu Facts:

Swine Flu Alerts pulled from WHO, CDC and HealthMap Twitter accounts. We actually used Yahoo Pipes to consolidate the feeds and host the RSS, which you can see over here. Here is a picture:

Again, to be notified when the app is live, leave a comment below with your email address and I will notify you.

Posted at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (196)

We released a new app under the IntuApps brand today named the Urinal Test. It is basically a game that challenges men to pick the right urinal.

The decision on which urinal to use when in a public bathroom is not always clear. This game tells you if your first instinct is in fact correct or not. We place men in various urinals and you pick which urinal you would use, based on where the other men are standing.

Just click on the urinal you would use. There may be more than one correct answer. The test is 25 questions long and it is for Hachette's The Man's Book.

You can download it for free at iTunes. Hope you enjoy it.

Posted at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (4)

A Compete report mentioned by the NY Times blog says that 73 percent of iPhone owners used their mobile devices primarily for personal reasons, such as entertainment. I find that incredibly high, but what do I know.

Personally, I would say I use my iPhone for 90% work. I am constantly checking email when using my iPhone. I am constantly reviewing Google Reader, adding topics to RustyBudget to blog about later. I frequently use my phone for calls with clients. Okay, so I check stocks, weather and on occasion use TwitterFon.

I have downloaded many games, but I rarely ever use them. I rarely even use the iPod, except when flying when I download movies. I rarely ever watch movies, so when I do watch them, it tends to be on planes on my iPhone.

I do use my iPhone to pray three times per day on. I use the iPhone Siddur for weekday prayers every day, except on Shabbos (Saturday). So outside of the Email, Safari, Phone and Siddur, I don't use many other apps on the iPhone.

Again, 90% of my usage would be classified as work related.

TechCrunch gives more insight into the study saying:

The Compete survey reportedly found that 73% of iPhone owners used their mobile devices primarily for personal reasons, but what isn’t detailed is how much time in total they are using their phones - which I imagine is a whole lot more than on other smartphones - and how much more efficient it makes them when they actually do use it for work.

How one classifies work usage in the study can be a big difference.

Posted at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

There are lots and lots of iPhone apps out there and many are backed by big brands. Lilly Gold on her new blog named App Store Marketer posted a Branded iPhone Apps Timeline that plots all the apps release into the iTunes App Store since day one.

Here is that timeline:

Posted at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

Last night, Apple approved the iPhone Jewish Radio application we built back about 20 days ago.

It was first rejected because it worked over 3G and Edge. Apple made us make it run over Wifi only. I am not sure why. But we do have a loop hole to get it working on 3G and Edge, if you really need it. ;-)

In any event, we had people already submit new radio stations that we will be adding to the next version. Feel free to submit more!

You can get the iPhone Jewish Radio by clicking here, it is only 99 cents.

Hope you like it!

Posted at 9:05 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

Apple held a developer preview of the 3.0 software update coming to the iPhone. I was watching it on the various live blogging platforms, but primarily on Gizmodo. I felt like a kid in the candy store, almost the whole time, minus some of the demos. It won't be available to most people until the summer time, but I am a developer.

The single biggest feature from a user perspective, for me at least, is the Cut, Copy and Paste. I missed this feature so much, since leaving my Treo and getting the iPhone. In fact, I have learned to totally not expect to copy and paste anything, where now, it doesn't bother me when I need to copy and paste anymore. Weird and scary, but true. So, having this missed feature will do wonders for me.

The new home screen, search and push notifications will also be a major change in how I use the iPhone.

On the developer side, the things we can now add to our products seem to be boundless. Push will be huge, we can do notifications for alerts. Our users will love this. We can also likely integrate calendar data with the iPhone's calendar, again, big plus. I know adding the native maps to our apps, including the Kosher Restaurant app and Siddur user map will be a huge plus.

Now, accessories and how they integrate with apps has blown my mind. They showed a blood pressure machine hooked up to an iPhone, so the machine sends the data to the iPhone for data storage, sharing and charting. A plug in Shofar? A real virtual menorah? A compass accessory for the Siddur for which way is east? Ha!

Also, as a developer, we can now sell upgrades within the app itself through Apple. So if I ever do work out a deal to add English or translation to the Siddur, selling it at an extra "upgrade" fee is possible. Plus, selling app data on a monthly subscription is possible.

Anyway, I just covered some of the many features coming to the iPhone. More details can be found at the SDK page.

Posted at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (7)

Our next app is named the iPhone Jewish Radio. It basically streams a dozen or so free Internet radio shows in the Jewish music niche. I have more details over at rustybrick.com/iphone/jewish-radio and you can sign up to be notified of the new app when it is available over here.

Here is a video demo on how it works:

Feel free to use the HQ version to see it in higher resolution.

Posted at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

After well over a month in the Apple review process, Apple has approved Fluke Music. I thought it would not be approved, but I was wrong.

Here is a video from a while back on how it works:

You can download it now, for free over here. I hope you like it and tell your friends!

Posted at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

This morning, I checked my iPhone to see the reviews for my products and I noticed they said, "no reviews" for virtually all of them. Here is a screen capture:

Figured a bug in the system. Then I remember iTunes upgraded last night. So I checked the iTunes Store and I noticed Apple now breaks down reviews by two categories:

(1) Average rating for the current version, and
(2) Average rating for all versions

Here is a screen capture:

You can then see the current version reviews. As a developer, this is great news and I assume consumers like this as well. Version 1.0 is often not as good as version 5.0. ;-)

To see it in action, check out the siddur app on iTunes.

Posted at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

Someone informed me this morning that the Jewish radio station here, JM in the AM, talked about the iPhone Siddur for about four minutes.

Meir Weingarten said he finds it to be "amazing" and seems to really love it. I always love hearing unsolicited comments about our products, especially when people love them. In fact, the iPhone Megillah was a huge hit over Purim.

If you are interested, listen to his review below:

Keep in mind, he only touched on a few of the many features in the iPhone Siddur.

We actually released a new version of the iPhone Siddur yesterday with some updates. It should be released within the next several days as a free update.

Posted at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (0)

When I went to Israel a couple months ago, I was ecstatic to to have an international data plan for my iPhone. It really let me enjoy my time in Israel, knowing that I can be connected all the time, where ever I went.

But it is not enough to be connected to the Internet on just my iPhone. A couple months ago, I used the hotel's internet, which was pretty expensive (I think $15 per day) to connect my laptop. Then with the international plan at about $10 a day also, it added up.

I will be heading back to Israel via a Blogger Delegation via the NY Israeli Consulate. This time, I can take advantage of renting a wireless data card.

I received an email from TravelCell.com a few weeks after I returned from Israel that they know how internet cards PDF available for Israel at an unlimited data rate. So I just signed up for the weekly plan, which includes a free cell phone rental (minutes are extra but free incoming).

Will the internet card be too slow? I am not sure. I did some speed tests in Israel over my iPhone and it was actually faster then my brothers Israel internet. So I hope it isn't too bad.

I will report back my experience.

The only downside right now is that they charge your credit card for $500 as a security deposit. You got that, they do not just "authorize" the card for the deposit, they actually charge you $500. Then when you return it, they promise to refund the $500. Outside of that, so far so good.

And I have learned to activate my AT&T international plan on the way to the airport, as to not pay for days that I am not overseas.

Posted at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Category: Computers , Travels , iPhone | Comments (1)

Passover is now just around the corner and in preparation for that, we have built a free Sefirat Ha'Omer iPhone application to help you Jews count the omer between Pesach and Shavout.

It is a fairly simple application. You open it, it shows you the blessing, the day to say and the ending brachot, with the day included.

It changes every day at about 3pm (your local time).

Here is a picture:

Sign up to be notified at the Sefirat Ha'Omer iPhone app page.

Posted at 3:14 PM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (0)

A couple days ago, I noticed the number of reviews for the iPhone Siddur dropped from 101 reviews to 79 reviews, over night. I scratched my head and forgot about it.

The next day, I saw a comment from my post about anti-semitic comments in iTunes that Apple has removed them because they removed reviews from people who did not pay or download the app.

Apple must have removed tens of thousands of reviews. MacRumors said that SEGA's Super Monkey Ball count dropped from 4197 reviews down to 3710. So logically, if you add up the apps and the possible number of fake reviews, those numbers are probably very high, probably in the tens of thousands or more.

Personally, I am just glad they got rid of the anti-semitic iPhone app review that has been on some of my apps since September 2008.

Posted at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (2)

Some of you know about our pretty popular iPhone app named Fluke. It basically find random apps and let's you explore them. It is a fun and useful app to discover new apps, when you have the time.

So we decided to release a new app, just like it, but for music. We named it Fluke Music and it randomly finds music, and allows you to filter by category of music (i.e. Jazz, country, rock, etc.) The cool part of the app is that it streams 20 second samples of the tracks over the Internet. So you open the app and it just plays music and random, which is very fun, imo. The purpose is to help music lovers discover new songs, that they may have not discovered otherwise.

Great concept, right? Well, it seems to me that Apple doesn't think so. It seems to me that Apple might forever keep this app in the "In Review" status. Why do I think that? Well, we released a couple apps after submitting this app and those were either approved or rejected already and this one just remains stuck in this status. No response from Apple. We had a similar issue with a client app and it is still not resolved. Do you think Apple doesn't like this app because it plays music samples?

Here is a video that demonstrates the app in action:

Do you think they don't like it because it links both to iTunes and Amazon (a competitor) to buy the song? I am not sure. Maybe I am thinking up conspiracy theories?

Posted at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (2)

Gary Price tipped me off... This is so cool! I can now record shows on my DVR from my iPhone. I was excited when they allowed me to do this via the web with FiOS Remote DVR, but now it even works on my iPhone.

Here are screen by screens from my iPhone:

My Verizon Mobile home page:

FiOS TV Central mobile:

Now, I login with my Verizon account (notice it now says "Sign Out" at the top right):

I can now scan TV listings in my area:

I can view a listing by clicking "more info":

And I can even record a show:

I checked and it is actually scheduled to record on my DVR box!

Other features include:

• Record Shows by searching for the show name
• Bookmark new videos on demand
• Change parental controls
• Browse TV listings, noted above
• Browse top purchased videos on demand
• View status of your set top boxes
• Browse or record prime time shows
• Browse or record top tv shows

Below I will include more screen shots. I am sure these menus will change over time.

What can't you do that you can do on the non-mobile site? One thing I see is the ability to delete DVRed shows but I am sure there are other things.

Posted at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

I am a strong believer or adopter of using technology to increase efficiency and utility. Automation, streamlining, and efficiencies are core to my way of working. In all honesty, I am a bit of an efficiency nut. Even the way I enter or leave my house, is done so with the most efficiency as possible, to not waste a second. I am crazy.

So when I see car concepts from companies like Ringspeed named iChange, I get excited. iPhone-controlled car to demo at Geneva Motor Show via MacWorld explains that Ringspeed is demoing a car that using the iPhone as a way to control certain elements of the car. It replaced your keys, and I already have those smart access keys for my car and I would love to ditch them, and my other keys, in place of my iPhone. Yes, access control can go wrong, as I experienced first hand, but I would much rather put up with those issues on a rare occasion than to have to carry extra keys. Let me do away with all my keys!

Back to the iChange, here is a picture of the inside of the car, take a look at the left top of the picture, the iPhone holder:

The iPhone will also turn on and off your headlines (which I am not impressed with, because that should be automated based on if it is raining or dark outside).

The cool thing is that this care is the "world's first car whose body adapts to the number of passengers on board." Now that is cool!

Posted at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Category: Motor Vehicle , iPhone | Comments (1)

In time, we hope, for the Jewish holiday of Purim, we submitted a new (FREE) app to Apple's iTunes iPhone App Store. The new app is named Megillas Esther. What does it do?

(1) It has the Book of Esther in Hebrew so you can follow along Purim night and morning at Synagogue.

(2) It has five different noise makers, such as a machine gun, firecrackers, air horn, crowd booing and a gragger.

Here are screen captures:

Intro Screen:

The app itself:

To activate the sounds, you click on the related icons at the bottom. For a random sound, you just shake it. :)

Anyway, you can get it now in the iTunes Store.

Happy Purim!

Posted at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (0)

For my Jewish iPhone people out there. The Mikvah iPhone application is now available for purchase in the iPhone.

I guess the best way for me to show how this app works is to do a video. So here it is:

You can buy this app by clicking here.

Posted at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (0)

If you are a web analytics junkie like me and you use Google Analytics for most of your tracking and you have an iPhone (got that). Then you will love this new app from Michael Jensen named Analytics App. I did a 3 minute video demo of the application. This is really worth the $6, if you meet the above criteria. More discussion on the app can be found at Techmeme.

This is a great app for people like me. Thanks Michael!

Posted at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Category: SEO Tips , iPhone | Comments (4)

Apple just approved one of our most annoying iPhone apps. So annoying, I think it will do incredibly well. It is called Feedback and it is available for free on iTunes.

Basically, it produces that feedback sound you get from speakers. You know, the ear piercing, annoying sound, when you put a microphone next to a speaker.

I created a quick video to demonstrate it, here it is:

Posted at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (5)

Based on popular request, we have built a new application for the iPhone that is named the Mikvah iPhone app. But it does a lot more than look up the closest Mikvah. It has Mikva'ot Database, Vestos or Taharas Mishpacha Schedules, Mikvah Zmanim, Family Purity Guidelines, Mikvah Checklist, Contacts and Privacy with Password Protection.

For those of you who are not observant Jews or Jews at all. This is called Taharas HaMishpacha. In short, this tool is to help observant Jews practice the strict laws of the relationship between a man and wife. There are tons and tons of laws around this and I won't get into the details, but if you want to read about it, in pieces at Wikipedia on Niddah, Mikvahs and Jewish Marriage.

Outside of that, I am way too tired to write up the screen by screen again, so just look at what I wrote and the screen captures at rustybrick.com/iphone/mikvah. A ton of work went into this program.

Here are some of those screen captures:

Posted at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (9)

I am in Israel now and I have had time to really test out my iPhone using local ISP speeds but why not post the speed results I get on my iPhone in Israel.

Here is a speed test result set from the Speed Test app for the iPhone:

The first 3G result set is the 3G speeds I am getting in Israel. Max 471 down and 181 up. The WiFi result, directly under that is my brother's wifi connection, which is slower than the 3G at a max of 440 (average of 138) down and 53 up. You can see, I ran it twice and the speed is more like 140 down, which is much less than the 3G network here. The next 3G result is from New York area, which is about the same as in Israel.

Here is a later subset of results that shows speeds much higher. In some locations in the US, the 3G network got as fast as 1120 down. But my FiOS connection is super fast showing 5764 down and 3049 up, which is slower then my previous report of 12664 down and 3149 up.

Posted at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Category: Travels , iPhone | Comments (2)

I just signed up for the Data Global Add-Ons for Smartphones, PDAs and iPhone from AT&T for my iPhone. Yes, I was very excited to learn that this was expanded to Israel recently. Today, I ordered the most expensive option, because I need to assume I will use what I use here in the states, on a high day for my trip to Israel.

Normally, I am on WiFi networks here. But on Sunday's I notice my usage on the data network spikes. So I picked the highest usage, which is about 6MB and went based on that. I signed up today, which gives me 80MB of usage until I get back to the states. Here is a picture of my data usage bar in my account for this international plan:

I will use the data plan probably 10 days, maybe less. Also, 4 of those days, I will be around wifi networks, most of the day. So I should have plenty of data to not go over the plan. If I do, I get hit with a fee of $.005/KB - which can get bad, quickly with the iPhone.

Now my only concern is battery life...

Posted at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Category: Travels , iPhone | Comments (0)

Apple just approved two new apps we released recently. They are virtually the same app, but one is named the iPhone Shabbos Clock and the other is named iPhone Auto Shutoff Alarm Clock. Let me explain how they work.

On Shabbos, religious Jews are not allowed to use the iPhone, amongst hundreds of other things. So we cannot set a normal alarm clock to wake us up for morning services on Saturday. Why? Because we cannot shut the alarm off from beeping. So they make special alarm clocks that turn themselves off after X seconds or minutes.

So we built the same idea, as an iPhone app, and named one for the Jewish crowd (i.e. iPhone Shabbos Clock) and one for the non-Jewish world (i.e. iPhone Auto Shutoff Alarm Clock), if it is helpful for non-Jewish people to have an alarm that turns off by itself.

Now that you understand the need for it and why we have two of the same app, just named for each market, let me show you how it works...

You can set up to three alarms:

You can then set how many seconds the alarm should go off for:

Once you set it, the time will show in landscape mode only:

Important things to note: Touching the screen will not do anything, except for hitting set alarm. We do this on purpose, because we don't want you to do anything by accident to the phone when it is on Shabbos. Turning the phone won't change the orientation, again - a shabbos thing. Also, make sure to keep your phone or iPod Touch plugged in, because it keeps the app open and doesn't shut off the phone or sleep it, while it is on. Also, the App must be open for it to alarm. Finally, make sure your volume is loud enough to wake you. Got all of that?

You can get the Shabbos version over here for 99 cents and the Standard version over here for 99 cents.

Posted at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (1)

It is possible for the iPhone to become a Breathalyzer? Well - not yet, but we can fake it.

We recently built the Breathalyzer Test for the iPhone. It is basically a really life like hoax. This is how it works.

Step 1: Set the hoax on your friend, so set how drunk you want them to be. It has a random setting also... Hit Done.

Step 2: Give the iPhone to your friend and tell him to hit the green blinking button in the middle of the device and then breath a slow, steady blow into the microphone.

Step 3: The results will come back with what you set and your friend will laugh.

If your friend does not breath for a steady 3 seconds, it will return a fail message:

Just press the green button again to start the test again.

This has sound effects, it really detects breathing and it is really convincing.

There is another test like this out there now (launched the same day) but it doesn't detect breathing in the mic, it doesn't have sound effects either.

Get it for 99 cents at iTunes.

Posted at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

Software piracy is a huge business, it costs software developers a lot of money, but it also costs software consumers a lot of money, because it is built into the price of the software.

Software piracy is not only an issue with desktop software but with mobile software, like iPhone apps. I read an interesting write up named Game Developer Confronts iPhone Software Cracker. It basically discusses the rational of why software pirates feel they are entitled to steal and distribute the stolen software, for free, to those that do not want to pay for it. It is a must read.

When we found out that our iPhone Siddur was on the torrent list of apps stolen and being distributed, we were actually some what excited. I mean, if your app is good enough to make a list of apps that people want to steal, well - that says something. But the article above doesn't agree with that rational. So now I don't know what to think. I mean, 99% of our users gave us five star reviews, so clearly, the app is worth the $10 to 99% of the folks out there.

Anyway, I keep track of our sales and I also know how many people have the iPhone Siddur on their iPhones. I can tell you that there are about 30% more Siddurs on iPhone than what was paid for. This can happen for two reasons:

(1) They stole it via a torrent site or
(2) They use the same iTunes account as a friend or family member and downloaded it on their iPhone as the same iTunes user.

What I find nice is that several people have either emailed us or called us asking us permission to do #2. I always say yes, and I really appreciate the email. Some have even gone as far as to send us money, not through Apple, because they felt it was the right thing to do. Again, appreciated.

But for iPhone Developers to continue making products and improving them, we need the income. I do believe that stolen releases lead to other people buying it. Overall, I don't think this is a major issue for most of my products but I can see this being an issue for other developers.

Posted at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (6)

Over the weekend, our latest app was released. This app is named fluke - random iPhone app finder. In short, it will show you a random app each time you shake the phone.

I consider this app to be the perfect app for the toilet.

I know, I know, I am very against using your phone in a public bathroom, very against it. But honestly, there are tons of people who do it. So instead of yapping away on your phone and disturbing the guy or gal next to you in the other stall, use this app. It is quiet, easy to use, fun and you can strike gold with it.

You basically shake it, it finds a random app, and you can either click over to the App Store from it, email it, or look at your history of what you saw. In addition, you can filter what you want to see (i.e. free apps in the lifestyle and entertainment categories), if you so please.

You can get the app for free at rustybrick.com/iphone/fluke/get/.

Posted at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

So you know we have been working on what we are calling the "social" version of the iPhone Siddur. You saw the Misheberach lists where you can add and share the names on your Misheberach list with other iPhone Siddur folks. Well, let me show you some of the other features we added to 3.0, but let me say, there are more social features coming in future 3.x versions.

You can now add custom events to the Luach (Jewish Calendar). It was one of our more popular requests. Here is how it works. You go to Siddur, click on "More" and click on "Luach Events". You can then add or delete events. Here is me adding Rav Moshe Feinstein's Yahrzeit, but you can add any event you want.

You can set it by Hebrew date or English date, but it always uses the Hebrew date for going forward (i.e. it converts English date to the matching Hebrew date). It then adds it to the list view and also to the other views. If you view it, it looks like this:

FYI, you can add up to three events and if there are other white bars of information, it will override the bottom three, if it must. This does not support notifications via integration of the iPhone calendar or via email. When Apple allows us to integrate this information, we may do that. We might also release a standalone Luach app that has many more features with email reminders and so on - so stay tuned.

We also added a "Map View," which will show you who is using the iPhone around the globe. Don't worry, this can be turned off in the settings, but even if it is on, we don't share your information. We just plot you as a pin in the Google Map. Yes, you can zoom in and out with the multi-touch gestures.

For all the features in 3.0, see the version history page. We submitted it a couple hours ago, hope it is approved soon!

Posted at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (0)

Remember I was thrilled to see MacWorld mention our app? Well, they did it again.

This time in an article iPhone apps round-up: Wine reviews, Hanukkah apps, and the inauguration where we get a second mention.

Also we got another mention to add to our iPhone Siddur Buzz from the JTA.

We have some cool social features coming down the pipe for the Siddur, so it should be an attention getter.

Posted at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

Download the New Year's Blowout Horn in time for the New Years! It is an app we built for a company we co-own named IntuApps. In short, it is a app you can blow into, and it will replicate the sound and action of a new years party horn. It is free and can be downloaded for your iPhone at the iTunes store.

Here is a video of it in action, I hope the glare isn't too bad:

Posted at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

AppVee has reviewed the Little BlackBook iPhone app. He did a fairly thorough review and I am happy with his comments. The video is below.

Posted at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

We are currently at version 2.8 for the iPhone Siddur, that is 12 upgrades in a short period of time. I live on this Siddur, it is incredibly useful and even interactive. The Jewish iPhone community, overwhelming, loves it.

For 3.0 features, we want to make the Siddur more "social." The first step is a much requested feature, called Mishaberachs. A Mishaberach is basically a way to say a prayer for sick people. Now, many folks, unfortunately, have someone they say a Mishaberach for. But at the same time, it is a wonderful thing to say Mishaberachs for people that you don't necessarily know.

So we built a Mishaberach system that not only lets you add your own list, but also:

1. Let's you share the names with the iPhone community
2. Lists your Mishaberach list in the siddur in the relevant places and/or lists the public Mishaberach list in the siddur in the relevant places

Let me show you how it works...

(A) We replaced the "Help" icon on the bottom right navigation with a "More..." button, it opens up and gives you the Mishaberach option, Settings option (which just explains how to access your settings) and the Help info.

(B) Click on Mishaberach and you are taken to pick either "My List" or "Public List." Public list requires internet....

(C) You can then enter a name into your list. First name and Mothers name (currently Hebrew only), person a male or female and if you want the name on the public list or not. If you select public list, you must have internet access to submit the name (if not, you can't submit it to the public list).

(D) Here is the "My List" view, right after you added a new name. See the confirmation prompt. Behind that, you see the list view. You can either delete, change the order or add a new one. You cannot edit right now, instead, just delete the name and add a new one (same thing), just more time for you typing.

(E) Here is the public list view (not much you can do here) and yes, you need Internet to see it:

(F) "My List" names appear directly under the portions of the Siddur text where they come into play. Shemona Estri and Torah Reading:

(G) If you have Internet, it will give you a plus sign and link to open up the public list: Clicking on the plus sign will open up a list of names, the number of names is based on your settings, and the names are random and should never show yours in the public list:

(I) In the Settings area, we added two options for Mishaberachs. The first is if you want to see the public list option (the hyperlink and plus sign) in the Siddur. And the second is, if so, then how many names do you want to show there?

That is the first true "social" feature of the Siddur. We hope to add a bunch more in the 3.x versions including added features to the Luach for Yahrzeits, Birthdays and Anniversaries. More social Minyanim features. And then something really cool that you will think is really cool - but I won't share yet. :)

Once 2.8 is approved, we may release a 2.9 with small revisions or may just release 3.0 with this feature and some small text revisions - it depends on if there are pressing issues with 2.8.

Posted at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (5)

Remember I told you my replace Incase for my iPhone broke? Yea, the case I got to replace my original ripped case, is now in. I got the slider again, they were quick, I am happy again.

Wish I had more time to expand on this, but honestly, what can I say.

Well, I am a blogger, so I can say alot about nothing... But I have like no time and I want to blog a few more things before sundown.

Posted at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

This is the second time in 5 days that I have to restore my iPhone to factory settings. I have no idea why. First time was Thursday night, right before leaving work, I was going to sync my iPhone with iTunes. I plug it in, and iTunes pops open a message that reads, "iTunes cannot read the contents of the iPhone "XXX iPhone". Go to the Summary tab in iPhone preferences and click Restore to restore this iPhone to factory settings."

Here is a picture:

Thursday night, I ended up staying two hours later at work (about 9pm) and wasn't able to do something I needed. It was bad timing.

This morning, well, I just hit restore, let it go and then sync it up again. It can run, I don't have to worry about needing to go somewhere. I do have meetings, but they are all in the office today - so no worries for me.

I am currently up to the resyncing my apps part.

I suspect there is something corrupt on my iPhone and I may have to start from a really old back up, like from my original iPhone backup. But I really don't want to. In all honesty, I use MobileMe for my contacts and calendar, so that data - appears to be safe. I can alway re-download the apps I want. And then reconfigure my preferences, but I rather not go through that. This process of restoring takes a couple hours - but it is more hands off. The process of starting over, well - that can take days and is very hands on.

I am not the only one with this issue, just check Google and see all the complaints.

Posted at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

You don't know how excited I was to see the iPhone Menorah that we built at RustyBrick, included in a review at Macworld named Review: iPhone holiday apps.

Heck, Macworld magazine is one of the few magazines I read offline. And to see one of our apps mentioned, well - it is really nice.

However, yes - there is a but... Our mention is only at the wayyyy bottom of the article in a short two liner under the title of "Not just Christmas." The author, Ben Boychuk, wrote:

I would be remiss to not make note of a handful of Hanukkah-related applications. In addition to Andrew Grant’s Hanukkah Holiday List app, LilBros and RustyBrick sell Menorah lighting applications.

Not only that, we did not even get the privilege of getting a true Macworld review, you know, the ones with those little mice, from one mouse to five little mice. How sad...

But overall, I am happy!

Posted at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Category: Apple Macs , iPhone | Comments (0)

We decided to enable people to translate Hebrew to English or English to Hebrew. There are English to Hebrew dictionaries and translators, but not Hebrew to English. Why? Cause no one made a keyboard that was approved by Apple, until us. So we made it work from Hebrew to English, in addition to English to Hebrew.

We used the Google Translate API to do the translation. That means two things:

(1) You need internet to make the app work.
(2) This app is free, cause the terms says "the service may be used only for services that are accessible to your end users without charge."

Here is one screen shot, more at Hebrew / English Translator iPhone App:

To be notified of when it goes live, go to the Hebrew / English Translator iPhone App and sign up there.

Posted at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

We did it! We made a complete Tanach for your iPhone. You can read all of Tanach, directly on your iPhone. But not only that, you can also search it! I posted the details at rustybrick.com/iphone/tanach, and you can sign up there to be notified of when it goes live (or to download it directly when it does go live).

Here is a screen by screen demo:

Browse through the Tanach, including Torah (Chumash), Nevi'im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (writing or scriptures) and all the books within them:

Search for specific words or phrases of Tanach:

Email or Bookmark verses by clicking on a verse:

Here is the bookmarks page:

Here is a look at the text, this Megillah of Esther:

Here is viewing the book of Bereshit (בראשית) by parsha view:

Here is the same book but by chapter view:

We put the "settings" feature in the app, so you can adjust your font size:

So happy that the Hebrew iPhone Email was approved, cause that gave us the go ahead to build the Tanach iPhone App.

Again, to download it go to rustybrick.com/iphone/tanach.

Posted at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (4)

Last night, Apple gave developers the ability to give out promo codes for their apps, so they can give their apps out for free to certain people.

You are limited to 50 promo codes per application, per version. People are complaining that this is too small of a number, but honestly, 50 per version, not per developer and not per app, per version of an application. So as long as you release a new version, you get a new 50.

That being said, I want to give the first five people who comment a free app from the RustyBrick selection. So go find an app you want, comment below with your app preference and make sure you use your email address, so I can email you the code.

The first five comments that are approved get a free RB iPhone app.

To redeem the codes you go to US iTunes Store > Redeem (right) > Enter Code > App Downloads instantly.

Posted at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (18)

Ronnie today is at the iPhone Tech Talk right now in Millennium Broadway Hotel.

From what I hear so far, it seems like he is learning a thing or two. Plus he is meeting important contacts and so on.

Topics being covered there include:

• iPhone Development Overview
• Introduction to Objective-C and Cocoa Touch
• iPhone User Interface Design
• Getting Started with iPhone Web Applications
• Technical Q&A
• iPhone Development Tools Overview
• iPhone Game Development Technologies, part 1: Graphics & Video
• Using Advanced Web Technologies on iPhone
• Developing iPhone Applications with UIKit
• iPhone Game Development Technologies, part 2: Audio, Touch Input, Accelerometer, and Multiplayer
• Integrating iPhone with IT
• Advanced UIKit and Device Features
• Maximizing Your Application's Performance on iPhone
• In-house Application Development for iPhone
• Submitting to the App Store using iTunes Connect

Posted at 3:31 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (2)

We take a lot of pride in our iPhone Siddur, I mean, really, there is nothing that comes close to it in the app store and we are constantly improving it and adding new features. It shows.

The folks at AppCraver.com reviews our Siddur and gave it a nine out of ten, which is pretty up there for their reviews.

The best part of the review is that he had his wife give it a spin. I'll quote you:

To get an idea of just how intuitive Siddur really is, I handed my iPhone to Lorri and told her to take it for a test spin. To Lorri a phone is something you talk to people on. Apps? She couldn’t care less. Within minutes, she was able to put the app through its paces and declared it a winner.

Building out a logical user interface wasn't easy when it came to building on a new platform. But over time, it really started to click and it shows.

Not only is this Siddur incredibly packed with tons of features, those features (seem) to be easy to use and logical to use.

Thanks for such a wonderful review.

Posted at 2:49 PM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (0)

I take my iPhone out of my pocket this morning and I noticed it cracked. Very very upsetting. The bottom piece has a crack in it. What is crazy is that this is not the first time this has happened.

My original Incase ripped and they kindly replaced it with a more sturdy and solid slider case version. But this more solid version cracked also, in a similar position.

Here are some pictures:

Off to contact them to see if they can replace this one also.

Posted at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (2)

One of the top requests is to build a Hebrew keyboard. The Hebrew keyboard is not officially supported by Apple yet, so we built one based on an image. Why is this important?

Now, people can type, email and search in Hebrew. Well, kind of at least.

Our first app that supports the hebrew keyboard is a simple app that basically allows you to type an email subject and an email body, in Hebrew, and then sends that data to the native Apple email client.

Here is how it works:

Gray bar is where you enter in the subject and the white area is the body of the email. There is no spell check or auto complete. :)

When you are ready, you hit "Send to Mail" and it puts that content directly in the Mail application on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

If you want to add English or numbers to the email, here is where you do it.

There are Hebrew keyboards for the iPhone but only through Jailbreaking your iPhone.

Now, if Apple approves this, then this should be the first Hebrew keyboard approved for the iPhone. In addition, it gives us tons of possibilities for other apps. Such as a way to search tanach, and other jewish texts. It also gives us the ability to create more interactive Jewish and Hebrew apps.

Very excited to get this live. We posted this tonight to Apple for 99 cents. Again, this app is more of a test to see if Apple will approve it and if so, we can take it from there.

Posted at 5:47 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

A lot of people who are interested in the changes we make to the iPhone Siddur also want to see screen captures. So, we just released version 2.7, which will likely be available for download by the end of the week. Changes include:

* Changes Location Manager to Scroll Wheel
* Zmanim & Minyanim use same Location Manager system
* Location is remembers from previous setting
* Location Manager opens automatically when location can't be found
* Clicking on date at top of Zmanim will open up date selector tool
* Upload revised Chabad Krias Shema
* Added in missing portion in Chabad Benching
* Misc text corrections
* Updated Help Documentation

But here are pictures:

Here is what it looks like to scroll through locations:

Adding/Editing/Sorting/Deleting Locations:

Date Selector:

Same features on Minyan screen:

Removed several redundant options from Settings screen:

Posted at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (0)

I played Twinkle Twinkle on the Ocarina on my iPhone, how about on the keyboard on my iPhone.

Here it goes:

Posted at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Category: Music , iPhone | Comments (2)

Saturday night I downloaded and shared the Ocarina instrument for your iPhone. In any event, I have been messing around with it a bit, maybe 30 minutes of time from then until now. I can play music off a sheet.

Here is me playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star:

And the coolest part is not my music abilities, but the ability to watch others play music on this application around the globe:

How cool!

Posted at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Category: Music , iPhone | Comments (0)

I am in awe. Just downloaded Ocarina for my iPhone, I am in awe. Two videos below show you how it works. Well, kinda - cause it is even cooler than this.

Posted at 9:56 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (3)

We just pushed version 2.0 of iPhone Kosher app to Apple. Hopefully it will be published soon. The update is pretty significant. Here are the details:

(1) Added hundreds of restaurants from Israel, England and France.
(2) Added a start screen signup/settings
(3) Users can now add reviews
(4) Users can now add/edit/delete restaurants
(5) Users can now read detailed reviews

Now for the screen captures:

(1) Things we ask as start up:

(2) Notice the update button on the top left (it can also run automatically on start up), notice the plus button on the top right. This is what it looks like when it is updating:

(3) Confirmation it has been updated:

(4) Action buttons to add/read review, change data, add/remove from favorites:

(5) Adding a review slides up this first page:

Clicking next slides up the next page:

This is the third and last review page, at top right, you can post the review or hit the back button to cancel that:

Confirmation:

(6) Reading Reviews:

(7) Modifying Restaurant details gives you the details in edit mode. There are three or so pages of details that can be modified. All modifications go through our approval. Yes, you can also try to delete on place.

(8) Adding a new place gives you a blank form to work with. Again, we approve them all manually:

Those are some of the new features that should take this app to the next level. I am very excited to enable the iPhone users to contribute to this app and database.

Posted at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (1)

When I wrote about the Anti Semitism on iTunes App Reviews I know that more than one of you went to iTunes and reported the comment as offensive. In fact, I know at least five people did. I am sure more did, especially after I pointed it out.

Guess what? It is still there!

Here is a screen capture I took last night of the review in iTunes:

Apple, what do I need to do? Call Steve Jobs?

Posted at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (4)

Getting hungry just thinking about it! You can get the new Kosher iPhone App by searching for "rustybrick" or "kosher" in the App Store or by using this link.

The price is only $1.99 now, but the next release will give you the ability to add new kosher institutions, edit them and even review them, as long as you have Internet. You can use the app without internet, but you need Internet to add/edit/review. The next will release will cost more money, so if you download this one now, you will lock yourself into this price.

Posted at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (1)

We uploaded the iPhone Menorah to Apple's App Store today, I assume it will be approved by the end of this week and available for FREE download to your iPhone or iPod Touch. Here is a preview of what it does....

Login screen:

Tells you when Chanukah is:

Has the blessings and prayers in Hebrew:

English:

And Transliterated:

On the night of Chanuak, it tells you how many to light and in which direction (we use our custom for this, sorry):

And you see that "audio" button? Well, if you click it, you hear a beautiful recitation of the blessings. Honestly, it is really nicely done by our friend Moshe Kiss.

To be notified when it is available, fill out your email at iPhone Menorah page.

Posted at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (0)

We have built several iPhone apps over the course of a few months. Some are more useful than others. But to call one of my apps "pointless" or "shameful" to the iPhone, well - that just crosses the line.

TechRadar's 16 totally pointless apps that shame the iPhone, which is on the front page of Digg now, claims that my parking meter app is pointless.

I'll quote you:

11. Parking Meter

If you really can't remember where you parked or when the meter runs out, you've probably forgotten how to drive too. Get off the road!

This guy clearly does not drive or own a car in a city with more than 100 people. I live in NY, when you park your car at a mall or any large parking lot, they label the parking spots in color, numbers and letters for this purpose. How many times have you received a ticket cause you were in a meeting, lost track of time and forgot to fill the meter in time? How many times have you had to walk around a parking lot longer than you wanted to, because you forgot exactly where you parked. Heck, there is even a Seinfeld about this!

Several comments at Digg back my app already. But comeon people, back me up.

This Gary Marshall guy must wake up! NYC makes a ton of money on expired meters, its a business and to say that people who have let the meter expire have "forgotten how to drive too" and "should get off the road," is plain dumb.

Posted at 6:48 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (4)

We are almost done building out a Kosher application for the iPhone. Here are some screen captures. Note, we get our data from a new site named notjustgefilte.com and they have over 2,000 records in their database. They are constantly adding more and this application should add a ton to their database. Here are the screens:

Start Screen:

Nearest Kosher Restaurants to my current location (uses GPS):

Search for specific locations, like where I am going now:

Kosher Restaurant detail view (we will make it prettier):

Kosher Symbols database:

Kosher Symbols detail page:

Blessings for before and after you eat:

Yes, there are more blessings when you scroll down.

Also, there will be a favorites section, I just didn't show it.

We hope to release it shortly.

Posted at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (6)

Got back from a meeting recently and got pretty excited to see the news on Techmeme that AT&T is working with Apple to bring a tethering option to the iPhone.

What that means is that you will be able to use your iPhone as a wireless modem for your computer to connect to the Internet (over 3G where available). I had this with my Treo, where Verizon Wireless charged me $5 more per month to add the "tethering" package. But now, with the iPhone and AT&T, I was unable to do this (at least legally). So I had to buy a wireless broadband card from Verizon Wireless to make sure I have Internet access on my laptop everywhere I go.

I will "soon" be able to drop the Verizon Wireless service ($60 per month) and just add on a tether option to my AT&T iPhone plan. Can't wait!

Posted at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

Via CrunchGear, here is the video demo of a hacked in keyboard for the iPhone:

Posted at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

I am very excited to announce that today, we posted the first release of the iPhone Little Black Book. The name says it all. It basically is an application to securely keep track of your dates. It is a database application that hooks up the contacts to the places you took them and also to gives you details about each date. So if you went out with Jill 3 times, you can add where you took Jill and write about each of those three dates. As you build up your database, you can rate the contacts, the venues and the dates themselves. The beauty is that you can search this for later and quickly find a hot date or great place to take a date, at any time.

Let me take you through some of the screens of the iPhone Little Black Book:

Cover screen, pretty no?:

Individual contact screen has the ability to take a new picture or use a picture from your photos. You can copy a contact from your contacts or add a new one. You can rate the person, tag the person and add notes, plus more. As you can see, the contact has a link the "dates" you went on with this person and "places" you took this person. Clicking on those buttons will filter the results by this contact for the places or dates.

Venue detail screen: As you can see, this is a record for a venue. You can enter in the venue's location, pictures, web site, rate it, tag it, and so on. Here is a screen shot:

Dates in List View: Here is a screen capture showing the dates you went on in chronological order and by favorites order:

Customized Skins: Right now we offer three different "skins" to choose from:

Secure & Lock Down: You can lock down the app to a secure it with a password:

As you can imagine, there are tons of way to expand this application. This is just the beginning and I am excited for Apple to approve it.

To be notified for when this 99 cent app goes live (introductory price only), sign up at the iPhone Little Black Book page.

Posted at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (6)

I let my home screens, all 8 or so of them, get messy. I am way too lazy to move my iPhone icons around until they are perfect. The way you do it on the iPhone is good for one or two changes, but not for mass app movement.

So, a feature request for Apple would be to be able to organize your iPhone apps on your desktop. Probably part of iTunes or something.

You load up iTunes, click on your iPhone, then click on "Organize" or something like that. Then you are shown all your home screens on one screen. You can then move each app from one location to a different location, all via your mouse.

That would seriously speed things up for me.

I doubt it is on the top of Apple's todo list and I honestly should submit it as a request, but maybe if others agree, we can all submit this as a request to apple.

Posted at 3:18 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (4)

This morning, a friend of mine, pointed me in the direction of a New York Post article named FAITH GOES WIRELESS. The article praises (no pun intended), a product called JewBerry. It is basically a Jewish prayer book for the BlackBerry.

Why am I a little upset with the NY Post article? Well, to be honest, the iPhone Siddur uses technology that JewBerry hopes to use in the future, according to the article. The iPhone Siddur already uses GPS and localization features to locate the nearest minyan, it already uses GPS to figure out the times to pray (including into that, altitude), it had all the features and more. In fact, we might even add in the feature to find a minyan now (although most people don't request it, it was an idea I had on day one).

So why did JewBerry get the feature and not the iPhone Siddur? Don't get me wrong. Jonathan Bennett, the creator of JewBerry is an awesome guy. In fact, we shared with him our minyan technology, and he hooked us up with some Chabad nusach text. He is a really nice guy and deserve it.

My only question is, how do I get major publications to cover the iPhone Siddur? Almost all of the buzz already created around the iPhone Siddur is either Jewish paper related or blogs. How do I get it into a major publication?

Posted at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (8)

Below are some of the articles, blog posts and discussions I found around the iPhone Siddur since we launched it. If you have ways of getting more buzz out to the appropriate market, please do.

• Siddur now available for iPhone, Jerusalem Post
• Siddur available for iPhone, JTA
• Get your prayer on...the iPhone, jew-ish.com
• El Siddur podr leerse en el iPhone, sisoyjudio
• Siddur and Zemanim Now Available for iPhone, Matzav.com
• SIDDUR AVAILABLE FOR IPHONE, Jewish Times of South Jersey
• Siddur software available for iPhone, jewishsf.com
• Phone a Prayer ?, Emanuel Rochester NY
• Barry Schwartz creates a siddur that you can download to your iPhone, Jewish Community Online
• iPhone App Developer Spotlight: Barry Schwartz and Siddur, Intuitive
• iPhone Goes Jewish, Moment Magazine Blog
• Let us pray ... in the App Store, RedEye
• Barry Schwartz creates a siddur that you can download to your iPhone, TheJC.com
• Bargains of the Day: the Kosher iPhone, The Pagan Prattle Online
• iPray: Ancient Prayers , the Jewish Insight.com
• Siddur & Zmanim for iPhone/iPod Touch , Philadelphia Jewish Voice
• Siddur & Zmanim for iPhone/iPod Touch, Chabad Info
• IPhone Siddur Application Weirdness, mosslover.com
• Made In Israel: Kosher iPhone Apps, Venture Capital Cafe
• Some of the iPhone Siddur Buzz, JTA
• iJewish – Software by Rusty Brick

Of course, there are reviews at iTunes (mostly positive) and discussions at the Google Groups.

Posted at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

I cannot wait for when Qik comes out with a legit version for the iPhone. Kevin Rose blogged a video of Qik for the iPhone, which will be available in the iTunes Store for free soon. Here is his video:

Can't Wait!

Posted at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

Last night, our iPhone pregnancy tool - Expecting was approved and posted to the iTunes App Store.

It is fairly more advanced than any of the other pregnancy tools. Not only does it a due date calculator, but also walks you through each week of your pregnancy. It gives you week by week tips and what to expect. It allows you to add notes to each week and even take pictures for each week. Helps you remember your next doctor's appointment. It has a checklist tool, a contraction timer and a contacts database with 1-click calling.

For more information on this nifty tool, check out the Expecting page, it has screen captures and so on.

Also, to access it via iTunes and maybe even by it for $4.99, see go here.

Posted at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

Over the weekend, Apple changed their policy in iTunes to only allow those who own the application to review them.

Now, if you try to review an App that you don't own, you get this:

I am very happy about this. Why? Well, it stops people from giving bad reviews to apps solely because they won't pay for them. It also may slow the amount of anti-semitic app reviews.

Glad to see this.

Posted at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

We are working on version 2.2 of iPhone Siddur, you can see all past version information if you like. But here, I wanted to demonstrate some of the new features in 2.2.

(1) We changed the user interface of the Luach a bit, and also added Hebrew dates. As you can see, you can select "English," "Hebrew," or "Upcoming."

Here is the Hebrew view:

New upcoming view drops the shake feature for a button, it was confusing people. Plus, you can click on a date and the top changes to show more detail:

Note, horizontal does not work.

(2) Skip/Jump or Font Controls in the Siddur:

The right or left arrow can either (a) right to left from section to section, (b) left to right from section to section or (c) make the font larger or smaller.

The down arrow will skip you to sub-heading directly in that a section.

Outside of these changes, here are the changes for 2.2:

• Siddur Jump & Skip navigation controls added
• Turn off landscape mode option added to settings
• Luach Modified to allow both "Secular" and "Hebrew" date searches
• Luach removed Shake for List View and added button, which shows more details
• Add וידוי for ashkenaz before תחנון for Mondays and Thursdays (only for in Israel)
• Fixed error in edut hamizrach-shacharit-psukei d'zimra, just before 'Baruch She'amar' in "Lamenatseach"
• Fixed error in edut hamizrach benching, skips last lines of 3rd bracha and first lines of 4th bracha
• Removed more side borders
• Added Candle Lighting and Havdalah times for Yom Tovim
• Settings for "Arrow Behavior" Left-to-Right Sections, Right-to-Left Section, or Font Size
• Setting for KM or Miles
• Add email catcher to see if user wants email updates
• Fix Israeli cities, missing a ton of records
• Replace Hashem's name in Edut Mizrach with the full name
• Upload new GoDaven.com Database

Fun stuff, while this economy and market crashes.

Oh, we just added "Over the internet (air) Minyan Updates." So in version 2.2 and beyond, all GoDaven.com data can be updated without a new version. We check if you have an active Internet connection, then check to see if there is a new Minyan database update, if there is, we push you the new data without you noticing anything...

Posted at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (4)

A couple weeks ago, my Incase iPhone case ripped and I was sad. After I blogged it, Incase commented telling me to call them to replace it for free. They replaced it for free.

In fact, they actually let me try a different case. They recommended I try the Slider Case. I was told it is less "grippy" then the Protective Case, but stronger and has the ability to quickly pull off the bottom to dock on your dock.

So I got the new Slider Case today and I will be giving it a try. Honestly, I am very concerned that I will be missing the grip factor I am used to on my old case. That case simply stayed put. Never slide on my car's arm rest area, never slide on the dashboard, and most importantly, it stayed in my shirt pocket when I flushed the toilet. So we will see.

Here is a video of me demonstrating the case and docking it. The dock feature is something I like, so I have to weigh the pros and cons. Incase is cool enough to let me decide.

Posted at 4:05 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

I am not sure if you noticed, but when you click on an iTunes link from your iPhone, it doesn't open the App Store anymore. This started happening when Apple posted the 2.1 software update. I noticed it a few times when clicking on a link from an article about an App, and the page not coming up. I brushed it off as a bug with the URL and then forgot to buy those apps.

But it is not a webmaster or App developer issue. It is an Apple issue. I tried this will several links from my iPhone, from several developers, using the LinkShare link or the iTunes Store link, the same issue happens.

When you click on a link, it tries to open it in Safari and send you to the App Store on your iPhone, but it does not. Instead, you get:

If I wasn't lazy, I would check the useragent and tell any iPhone users to search for the app in the App Store, as opposed to clicking on the link. But I am lazy and I hope Apple just fixes it soon.

But many are complaining about this issue at the Apple Discussions forum.

Posted at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (2)

Last week, I blogged about the Shabbat Shalom app we created for the iPhone or iPod Touch.

Well, now it is live and free at iTunes or App Store. To get it, click here.

Note, we found two minor bugs. So we will wait for feedback to collect over the weekend. And then release a new version some time early next week.

This app is really out there for free to (1) help Jews learn about Shabbos and (2) promote the iPhone Siddur app.

Please post your feedback at this Google Groups thread, please.

Posted at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1)

Via LaughingSquid Nick Bilton and Danielle Bilton's iPhone cupcakes won the Cupcake Decorating Championships.

How tasty do these looks?

My two favorite things; iPhone and Cupcakes!

Posted at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Category: Food , iPhone | Comments (1)

So cool!!! Arrington blogged that the Earthscape iPhone app is now available for FREE.

So I downloaded it and it is basically Google Earth desktop on your iPhone. The neatest part is you can upload pictures directly to the app, which makes it incredibly easy for folks to picture-up the earth...

Here is a picture of where I work:

I did upload a picture, but since I was indoors, it geotagged it not exactly near my office building...

Here is a demo on how it works (I did not make the demo):

My email woes are getting better, but still things are not 100% right.

Posted at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (0)

This Sunday, I had to leave the TV during the end of the grueling Jets game. I wanted to know if they can make a come back at the end, but I could not watch it. So I opened my iPhone, dialed into the Sportacular app and went to the Jet game.

It gives you great details for the game in progress, here is a screen shot of one of the pages that I frequently refreshed:

I love the simple illustration of where the ball is, who is on offense, what down it is, how many yards to go, the score, etc.

Posted at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Category: Sports , iPhone | Comments (0)

This morning, I was checking out the latest reviews on our iPhone Siddur and I noticed our first anti-semitic review. Here is a picture:

I reported the review as "offensive" this morning, about 3 hours ago. It is still there. I assume it might take a couple days to be taken offline, if it ever does get taken offline.

I have been writing about search stuff, in the public eye, for about six years now. I have written thousands of articles. Most people who have read stuff about SEO or SEM or even Google have seen my name. I have never received a racist or anti-semitic comment before today. I do not keep my religion private, I am very open about it. But I guess Jewish apps are being targeted by some people.

Does it bother me? Honestly, no. The thing that bothers me is that the review may hurt the overall average. :) I know better not to let ignorance bother me. I got touch skin from writing so much. :)

How can you help? Well, go to the Siddur iTunes via this link and report that guys review (sort by most recent) and then if you really want to make me happy, review that app and the rest of our apps. Here is a link to all RustyBrick iTunes apps.

Posted at 9:33 AM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (5)

Update: This is now live and can be downloaded for free. More details over here.

שבת or Shabbos or Shabbat is the every Friday night through Saturday night. It is basically the time Jewish people don't do work, we pray, learn, eat and sleep. Shabbos starts and ends at very specific times and it is important that we don't do work related activities on Shabbos, so knowing the time we need to stop working is important.

In addition, knowing not to call someone on Shabbos is important. So if you have your in-laws in St. Louis, like I do, I know that they end Shabbos later than I do, but at what time exactly, would take time to look up.

So, we decided to make an iPhone App, similar to Yahoo's iPhone Weather App, that tells you the time for Shabbos anywhere. This way you can scroll from page to page, to find out what time Shabbos is here, or in St. Louis or in Jerusalem or anywhere.

Here are some screen captures of what we are calling the Shabbat Shalom iPhone App:

Starter Screen:

Times Screen that shows the location, Jewish date in English and Hebrew, the local time, the parsha, candle lighting (configurable), Havdalah (configurable), R' Tam Havdalah, next week's candle lighting and parsha (smaller):

Clicking on the "i" at the bottom will open up the edit screen. Right here you can add, edit, delete and reorder the pages you have on this app:

Adding a location looks like this:

(1) Search for your location and...

(2) It populates the information, which you can override:

Flip away....

I will personally find this very useful and hopefully the Jewish community will also.

Oh, the price is free (it is a promo product for the Siddur) and you can sign up to be notified when it is available over at the Shabbat Shalom iPhone App page.

Posted at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (2)

This morning we received emails form Apple that they have issued some of our financial reports for the past month, August 2008. Here is a screen capture of the reports currently available in iTunes Connect:

They issue a report for every currency, I guess. And more are coming in.

I am not sure if this means that I will find a deposit of funds in my bank tomorrow of if it will take an additional X days for the funds to appear. All I know is that these reports state how much Apple will pay us for the month of August.