Is Facebook’s long-awaited iPad app going to make its debut at Apple’s iPhone 5 unveiling event, which is expected to take place Oct. 4?

That’s the rumor, according to Ben Parr of Mashable, who says his unnamed sources have told him a Facebook iPad app will be announced at Apple’s iPhone 5 event along with a new Facebook iPhone app and maybe even an HTML5-based mobile app store.

Apple and Facebook officials weren’t available for comment on the report Monday, although Apple always declines to comment on speculation. And, so far, Apple has yet to confirm that the next-generation iPhone will be announced Oct. 4 or even be called the iPhone 5.

But the information, while exciting to those who have been waiting months for a Facebook app on the iPad, does have some odd aspects given that the event will no doubt be focused on the iPhone 5 (or iPhone 4S, or whatever name Apple gives its new iPhone).

The announcement of a Facebook iPad app and a new iPhone app would make sense at an Apple event if the apps were shown taking advantage of some new features in iOS 5, the latest version of Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad operating system, which will ship on the iPhone 5.

But it’s also worth keeping in mind that iOS 5 places Twitter front and center.

Twitter, not Facbeook, is the social network built into iOS 5 and integrating into the iPhone’s photos, contacts and Safari Web browser apps. It has been reported that Apple at one point wanted to integrate Facebook into iOS 5 before going with Twitter, but that obviously didn’t happen.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive and co-founder, showed off what his social network’s new Timeline-style profile pages would look like on an iPhone at the company’s F8 developer conference keynote last week and that would either have to be presented in a updated app or maybe an HTML5 version of Facebook.

The one bit of Parr’s information that seems to me to be unrealistic is that Facebook would launch an HTML5-built mobile app store of its own at the Apple iPhone 5 unveiling. Apple has built a major business on selling apps for its devices through its iTunes App Store and now its Mac App Store.

Why in the world would Apple want to let Facebook unveil an app store of its own that operated outside of the Apple ecosystem? Why would Apple give stage time to Facebook apps, and not iPhone or iPad apps, at an event announcing a new iPhone equipped with a new version of its own operating system?

However, if Parr’s sources are correct and Apple, the world’s most valuable tech company, and Facebook, the world’s most valuable and most popular social network, were to team up for an app store, it could be huge and a threat to both Google’s Android operating system and the Google+ social network.

We’ll all find out what’s what when Apple unveils its next iPhone.

[Thanks: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com]

Now you can take Turntable.fm to go with its new iPhone app. It provides all the features you’ve come to know and love in the browser-based version — creating and joining listening rooms, virtual DJing, chatting and social media integration — in a pint-sized capacitive touchscreen form.

Turntable.fm is one of a number of music-streaming services to attract a following in recent years. Spotify, which has Android and iPhone apps, is one option. Rdio, which offers offline syncing, has iPhone and iPad apps. And Pandora remains a classic in the music-discovery arena.

The layout and user experience of the Turntable.fm iOS app is much like that of the Turntable.fm website.

After opening the app for the first time, you log in through Facebook (like with the web version) before arriving at the familiar main screen: A tidy list of rooms with the name, the song playing there, the number of people listening in and the number of DJs. You can search for a specific room or create your own.

Once you’ve entered a room like, say, “Coding Soundtrack,” you’ve got your avatar-filled virtual jam space with a “This song is … Lame or Awesome” meter at the bottom and up to five DJs seated across the top of the screen. Selecting an individual avatar in the room (to follow, or just check out their name) is all but impossible unless there’s only three or four people in there, a problem often shared on the browser version.

In the upper right, you can access the chat log and your queue or share what you’re listening to on Facebook or Twitter, or through e-mail. If you’re DJing from the iPhone, rather than a Mac, Windows or Chromebook laptop, your avatar is (appropriately) holding an iPhone.

If you exit the app while you’re still in a room, music will continue to play.

Generally, the app is slower than its web-based counterpart. It took me a few seconds to enter any room, and another three to five for the song to start playing. And of course, you’ll sacrifice streaming quality for portability by using your phone’s 3G connection. Occasionally, my music would cut out for a few seconds. That’s the price of admission with a streaming mobile app.

With Turntable.fm’s iPhone app, you and your friends can easily take turns playing DJ without breaking out a laptop, making it ideal when you’re out and about at a park, or at a coffee shop that’s playing less-than-stellar beats (just use your headphones, please!).

[Thanks: http://www.wired.com]

Seattle-based Decide today is unveiling a new Twitter feed and category on its Web site that will allow iPhone fanatics to track all of the action, from rumors that the new gadget will feature voice control to possible launch dates in October. The feed — which can be found here on Twitter— includes reports from tech news sites such as Cnet, Engadget and Mac Rumors.

The iPhone 5 rumor feed is being set up in conjunction with Decide’s foray into the mobile phone arena, a category that the startup says was one of the most requested on the site.

As you may recall, Decide recently launched a service in June to help consumers decide the best time to buy cameras, laptops and TVs. Adding phones to the lineup was a natural move, especially with the upcoming release of the iPhone 5.

Decide CEO Mike Fridgen, a former executive at Seattle online travel search company Farecast, said that mobile phone shoppers often feel the pain of “buyer’s remorse” if they make a bad decision. Shoppers also will wait longer for a new phone model to be released than other consumer electronics categories. (Typically, five months).

Courtesy of Geekwire

“When you think about it, mobile phones are the gadget status symbol or our age, like wristwatches a generation ago, and making a bad purchase decision can be devastating,” he says.

That decision, of course, typically comes with the added baggage of long-term service agreements with the wireless carrier. The classic exampleis the iPhone buyer who purchased a phone on AT&T’s network without knowing that it would soon arrive on Verizon.

Decide is looking to help consumers avoid that pain by telling them when certain phone models will be released, at what price points and with what features.

Maveron led a $6 million venure capital round in Decide in April, with participation from Madrona Venture Group, former Amazon.com executive Ram Shriram; former Expedia CEO Erik Blachford; former Farecast CEO Hugh Crean and Zillow chairman Rich Barton.

[Thanks: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com]

Dolphin for the iPhone version 1.0 offers features like the Webzine, which presents web pages in an easy to read article format, Gestures to quickly perform custom functions, easy, one-click sharing to Facebook or Twitter, the Speed Dial to access bookmarks quickly, tabbed browsing, SideBars that contain bookmarks and tool bars, the customizable MenuBar, and customizable user agents. Users of Dolphin for Android should feel right at home with the iPhone version.

Dolphin for iPhone is free and available in the iTunes App Store now. Take a look at the video below to see the Dolphin Browser in action on the various platforms it is available.

[Thanks: http://www.mobileburn.com]

For those unfamiliar with Flipboard, it’s a neat, magazine style way of reading all of your various news feeds from Facebook to Twitter to all of the stuff on your Google Reader RSS feeds. You can then tailor your experience to your liking. It’s fantastic and has been downloaded 3 million times but access to it has been limited.

It has only been available on the iPad.

And it appears that expanding to the iPhone and iPod touch isn’t the only expanding that Flipboard will be doing. The company apparently is going to be branching out beyond news stories and plans to add TV shows and films to its content. As of yet, it appears that no deals have been cut with studios.

I’m excited to see how Flipboard translates to the smaller screen but if it looks anywhere close to as beautiful as it does on the iPad, I’ll be satisfied.

Anyone else excited?

[Thanks: http://www.gottabemobile.com]

Facebook still holds the title for the most downloaded app for the App Store to date, due to its 750-million user base. It still remains to be seen if Google+ can compete with or surpass Facebook as a social media platform.

According to estimates, Google+’s user base has tripled from last week’s mere five million to 18 million by Tuesday. And considering Google+ is currently in invite-only mode, it’s an impressive feat that the iPhone app has jumped to the top so quickly.

When Google+ announced the launch of the G+ iPhone app, there was an unprecedented excitement hitting the social media waves via Twitter.

However, despite launching the Android app the same day that Google+ launched, Android users don’t seem to be taking to G+ as quickly as iPhone users. Facebook for Android is currently the second most-downloaded free app on the Android Market, following Google Maps at the number one spot. Google+ comes in at eighth place following Angry Bird, Pandora, YouTube and others.

What slightly differentiates G+ from Facebook mobile is that rather than grouping your friends together using “Friend” group names the way Facebook does, G+ uses “Circles.” These Circles allow users to have a more exclusive sharing platform — sharing just the right information with the right people.

G+ also has “Stream,” which act like a Facebook Status. But, what G+ has that Facebook apps don’t currently have is the “Huddle” feature, which allows fast group messaging for those in your circles.

However, despite Wednesday’s excitement over the G+ iPhone app, there has been disappointment too. Many users were complaining about the app being too slow, and are frustrated that IOS5 is unsupported, for now.

Punit Soni, who helped develop the iPhone app responded on Tuesday via Google+. Some of the issues he addressed go as follows:

1. It doesn’t keep me logged in. Even though I had told it to. Oh, wait, now it is.
Soni: We have not seen this issue so far. But we are going to do another round of testing on Authentication and iterate.

2. I don’t see a way to upload a photo, like the Android app has. Never mind, I found that, you have to click on the photos app where the camera icon is very small.
Soni: Thanks for the feedback. We will take another look at our UI flows.

3. It frequently freezes on me.
Soni: We discovered an issue where the App freezes when there are posts with tons of comments on it. We have a fix for it and it’s coming soon.

4. It has crashed twice so far. UPDATE: Six times.
Soni: This may be related to the lack of IOS5 support. We are digging deep into other crash reports as we speak.

5. No way to share.
Soni: That is a feature we are working on for both Android and iPhone. Coming soon.

And the complaints don’t stop with iPhone users. One blogger posted in a forum a concern over the Android G+ Photos Feature stating, “Every day I post a pic to G+ it creates a completely new sub-album under the Photos From Posts album. To make matters worse, if I post photos to more than one circle/privacy-condition, I will have multiple albums for the same day.

“As a result, I now have to scroll through a crap-ton of albums in the Gallery app. And if I decide to share/upload a pic straight to Picasa, I have to scroll through an obscene amount of folders in the Picasa uploaded just to tell it which folder to upload to.

“It hasn’t even been 2 weeks yet and it’s getting to be a problem, and I can imagine how much worse it will get only a month from now.”

There has also been some criticism over the amount of users Google+ was able to achieve in its first three weeks, compared to its main rival, Facebook. One thing to consider is that Google+ reached a certain, chosen capacity and is currently allowing new users to sign up by invitation only.

Paul Allen, who gave himself the title “Google+ unofficial statistician,” who also founded Ancestry.com, posted on Google+ that the total user base jumped to 18 million after more than 750,000 peopled joined on Monday alone.

[Thanks: http://www.ibtimes.com]

One of the best things about smartphones is their ability to help you get things done. The more useful apps you add to your device, the better the gadget becomes. But a new iPhone app from Clever Sense uses artificial intelligence technology to take service apps to a  whole new level of awesome.

Dubbed “Alfred,” the app is marketed as a “personal concierge” that can predict what you’re looking for, even if you aren’t sure yourself. It does so by analyzing the vast amounts of data already available online. And it improves its results by “learning” what you like and don’t like from the choices it gives you, similar to the way the Music Genome Project that powers Pandora radio learns which types of songs you prefer and plays those.

For now, the predictive capabilities of Alfred are limited to four areas: restaurants, bars, nightclubs and coffee shops. But Clever Sense has plans to expand the technology to include a wide variety of other categories, according to a report from Business Insider.

At the heart of Alfred is Clever Sense’s Serendipity Engine, which crawls the Web for data that it can use to fine-tune its search results. This includes things like reviews on Yelp. The Serendipity Engine also harnesses data from social interactions, such as Foursquare check-ins, Facebook “Likes,” and other social data, to further personalize which venues it recommends for each user.

Right now, all the data input into Alfred is anonymous. But the app allows integration with Facebook and Twitter, which may be used to better the results. So if, say, your friends are saying something positive about a particular bar, Alfred will weigh this data heavily in determining which search results it delivers.

Alfred is currently available for free on iTunes. Click here (iTunes link) to get give it a try, and let us know what you think!

[Thanks: http://www.digitaltrends.com]

Taking to China’s Twitter clone, Weibo, the girl from Guangdong posted her photo along with her personal information onto the microblogging site stating her desire to own an iPhone 4. Apparently, her father won’t let her have one. Taking things to the extreme, she offered anybody who did buy her one a roll in the hay.

As you’d expect, netizens called her out for her crazy action and materialistic desires, while others lampooned her post with iPhone 5 rumors.

Alright, we get that iPhones and iPads are incredibly beautiful and shiny gadgets, but isn’t this going too far? What holes would you jump to get yourself a new smartphone?

[Thanks: http://dvice.com]

The Outdoor Channel has launched a free iPhone/iPad/iPod touch app in the iTunes App Store. Key features of the app, according to the network, include:

• The ability to access video clips of Outdoor Channel shows, exclusive “talent footage,” and highlighted event clips. According to the network, the app takes advantage of Apple’s new AirPlay technology, allowing users to stream video from their iOS device directly to an Apple TV box.
• News on hunting, fishing, shooting, off-roading, adventuring, conservation and industry events.
• Information on Outdoor Channel programming, including show descriptions, talent overviews and schedules.
• The ability to search the network’s programming schedule.
• A range of social features, including the ability to connect to the Outdoor Channel Community (allows viewers to create and access profiles, share tips and stories, and upload photos), and to access the network’s Twitter and Facebook feeds.

The app was developed by Outdoor Channel’s Winnercomm division, in partnership with PointAbout. It was created using the latter’s AppMakr app-building platform, which powers apps for such companies as The Disney Store, Newsweek, and Huffington Post. “As a digital leader in the outdoor space, the debut of the Outdoor Channel App creates a rich, multiscreen experience for our valued audience,” Todd Merkow, Outdoor Channel’s president of digital media, said in a prepared statement. “With OutdoorChannel.com attracting over a million unique visitors a month, the newly launched app will offer our loyal fan base more digital options to engage with their favorite shows and talent than ever before. We’re especially proud to be among the first apps to let users stream video to their TV’s via Airplay-enabled devices and plan on adding other functions and features in the near future.”

[Thanks: http://www.itvt.com]

Later on June the 15th, Comex, memeber of iPhone Dev Team, answered an iPad user who asked him about the jailbreak with ‘It’s almost ready.’ But no words from Comex have been heard since then.

Today Joshua Hill of the Chronic Dev Team has once again given an update on the state of iPad 2 jailbreak by posting a tweet on his Twitter account:

We don’t know what exactly are the “lots of other exciting projects” that Joshua Hill has tweeted about, but what interests us is the fact that the Chronic Dev Team is working very hard on the iPad 2 jailbreak and will most probably release it in the very near future.

Previously, it has been confirmed that Greenpois0n is not going to jailbreak iPad 2, rather the Chronic Dev Team is going to make an entirely new program for jailbreaking the iPad 2. It is possible that development of this new program has caused some delays in the iPad 2 jailbreak release. Stay tuned.

[Thanks: http://technorati.com]