Accuweather and the weather widget are all well and good,but if you’re more savvy than the average weatherwatcher, you’re probably addicted to Wunderground.Wunderground is currently testing their iPhone-specific minimal site design, so hop on over and check it out.
Today’s update encompasses a ton of product and pricing information, as Apple has refreshed the entire iPod line (which the iPhone is a part of), and has drastically reduced the price on the first iPhone model for the holidays.
Accuweather has posted an iPhone-specific version of their Accuweather widget, which allows viewing of animated radar loops for the weather geek in you.
It’s a little funky trying to hit the “info” button to customize the zip code, but it works, loads fast and animates smoothly, even if it could be polished a little for iPhone display.
Currently under development, Telekenisis is a prototype remote controller for your Mac, which allows file browsing, iTunes control and more via iPhone’s browser. Read More »
do.Oh is a funky little to-do list and poll widget for iPhone by Ben Brown of People Make it Better.
From the blurb:
Why you should use do.Oh:
- You like todo lists
- You like zany polls
- Looks great on an iPhone!
- It works with Twitter and Facebook! OMGWTF!
- No tags, categories or confusing options of any kind…
- It helps you do your chores! Because someone’s got to be your mom.
- Our logo looks like an emoticon
- You will not be asked to invite your friends.
- So easy to join…
Just so we’re clear, not just anyone can get a plug for representin‘.
Oh wait, yeah they can. But it really helps if your app is as cool as this one, and you’ve got a kindred sense of humor. And your app’s name is fun to say.
The second of two games released by Akradiusz Mklynarczyk for iPhone this week, Sudoku is certain to wind up in many a bookmark list.
Excellent performance, and confirmed working & scaling appropriately in portrait mode on shipping iPhones.
From Akradiusz Mklynarczyk comes the first of two games that have been written entirely in AJAX for the iPhone.
Diamenty plays similarly to Bejewled:
The goal is to make lines, horizontally or vertically, of three or more matching gems.
Swap two adjacent pieces, and if you make a line of three or more pieces, it will disappear and new pieces will fall onto the board.
The more matches you make, the higher your score.
Diamenty is confirmed working (with very good performance) and scales appropriately to portrait orientation on the shipping iPhone. An impressive feat for a Javascript game. Have fun!
On their developers’ site, Apple has posted a fairly lengthy overview on developing applications for iPhone.
Of particular interest is the section on what extended CSS descriptors iPhone supports. From the articles:
To specify a style sheet that is just for iPhone without affecting other devices, you use the only keyword in combination with the screen keyword, as follows:
<link media="only screen and (max-device-width: 480px)"href="iPhone.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />
Have we mentioned that we’re dorks?
Grab the extraordinarily useful wallpaper pattern than we whipped up today, and you too can revel in newfound geek cred.
In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the ‘Hitchiker’s Guide’ has already supplanted the great ‘Encyclopedia Galactica’ as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words ‘DON’T PANIC’ inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.
37 Signals just announced that Ta-Da Lists are compatible with iPhone.
Part of the larger Basecamp web-based project management package, Ta-Da Lists are a free multi-user list management app that works very well on iPhone (registration required).
Macworld/PC World have recorded a video blog entry where they subject iPhone to a ton of stress tests, including keying, scratching and dropping on pavement, repeatedly and violently.
The short of it is, the thing’s built really solid and the screen is astoundingly resiliant. Good news for us because we couldn’t bring ourselves to put ours into either of the cases we bought for them, because the device is just so beautiful all by itself, and the cases available at launch (that we’ve tried on)… aren’t.
We’re a little over 18 hours into our first foray with the iPhone, and it’s a good time to post up a list of first impressions, and development considerations. For the device itself, I think we’ll be leaving the formal review to the pros. The short: we’re hooked, and couldn’t be much happier with the product as delivered, or the purchase/activation process. It couldn’t possibly live up to the hype, but it comes extremely close.
Right up until the very end when Apple hands the ball over to AT&T and they fumble.
I’ll forgive them the first day, but their systems obviously weren’t even vaguely prepared for the onslaught of activations, and a six hour wait for activation with their new toy might send some over the edge. In short, I wouldn’t want to be on Mr. Jobs’ speed dial today.
Now that we’re up and running, and we’ve really had a chance to use the things at length (both 4 gig and 8 gig models), a few thoughts are coming to mind.