iDog therefore iBark.

TomTom iPhone Kit

Handtec has the TomTom iPhone kit priced and available for pre-order. How much you ask? £113.85 that’s how much. Ouch, is all I can say. Considering you can get standalone TomTom units for about that price, or even less if you shop around, I’m not sure a iPhone TomTom kit represents all that much value if it ends up at that price (official pricing and availability has yet to be confirmed). Sure it’s meant to include the software, maps and a cradle with GPS enhancer/power, but when you get to the price of a standalone then the value of such a purchase really comes under pressure. When it comes to something for a car, having a dedicated device isn’t really a problem as storage isn’t an issue.

For those who aren’t sure what I’m on about check out the promo-video below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

[Via TechRadar]

The answer is yes, for all those with more money and/or more iPods/iPhones than sense. The Parasync dock supports up to 20 of Apples pride and joys simultaneously allowing you to get your sync on. Now I can see this being useful for museums or attractions that dole out iPod touches to attendees with guides on them, but for the rest of us, simply why you would ever need that many is mind boggling.

Hit the jump for a promo-video of the dock in action

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hit the break for some action shots.

 

Today we’ll be looking at a new series of comics called Fallen Justice, which is based around a league of Guardians that protect the people and help the less fortunate to build and develop their homes and societies. The Guardians are lead by Justice Theta, a super hero who’s addicted to helping people but is suffering from overload with too much to do.

Fallen Justice is an interesting idea if a little samey. I’ve read a lot of comics with similar story lines, but if you look at all the major comics, even Marvel/DC comics, plot lines are all very similar between the various comic series. It’s no Watchmen but it is relatively entertaining and has potential.

The first of a set of seven planned episodes is currently available in the App Store for free, a hook to attempt to peak your interest, with a second episode planned for launch next week which for a very limited period will also be free. The apps themselves are simple self contained comic reader apps with no options to speak of. There is a draggable progress bar that you can bring up with a tap (shown below) that lets you see where you are and jump to a certain page. Normal scrolling is achieved by the now standard swipe, however because the app is orientated in landscape only, a decent swipe to least halfway is required to turn the page. This means that one handed reading is certainly difficult with the pane bouncing back because you can’t swipe far enough with one hand. I’d much prefer a portrait set up personally, or at least the option, but that would mean having to totally reformat the artwork. Other comics such as the new Star Trek movie prologue, using the iVerse comic reader, I feel got the combination of app and art design right being able to turn the page with a small flick and giving you transition options, but if you can deal with the Fallen Justice app it has well drawn and imagined characters.

Will Fallen Justice be a hit? I guess it’s early days with the first in the series. A comic lives or dies by it’s story lines and art direction. The art is reasonable and the story is ok. The first episode is free so you’ve got nothing to lose. The second will also be free initially so I suggest if the first one peaks your interest you quickly download the second to see if the plot maintains your interest. The normal pricing once the promotional period expires will only be $0.99 (£0.59) so I guess it’s not exactly breaking the bank but whether it deserves your cash I guess is up to you. Worth a look if you ask me. The one thing that comes to mind however when reading this comic, and others on the App Store like it, is that having separate apps for each episode is stupid and clutters up your home screen. With in-app purchasing enabled with the 3.0 firmware, why have we not seen a universal comic reader app that lets you buy episodes right within the app? Make the reader free and sell the content, simple and effective. Maybe I’m over looking something crucial here, but I’m hoping iVerse or Graphics Lab can get their act together and make a comic reader app with store built-in in the near future so we can get rid of the app clutter.

Fallen Justice episode one is currently available free in the App Store.

You can re-use redsn0w v0.8 we released a few weeks ago to jailbreak today’s 3.0.1 update. Just let iTunes update or restore you to official 3.0.1 then run redsn0w. The only “trick” is that when redsn0w asks you to identify the IPSW used, point it at the 3.0 IPSW instead of the 3.0.1 one. After the jailbreak, reinstall ultrasn0w 0.9 if you need the unlock.

I can confirm that the jailbreak works fine so all those holding off it’s all gravy.

[iPhone Dev Team]

It still works

In a post from MacRumors.com, people have discovered that the 3.1 beta disables tethering.  This has made a couple of people nervous about wether or not they should update to 3.0.1 to prevent the infamous SMS hack or deal with it to keep their internet tethering capabilities.

Well, I took the plunge and I’m happy to report that internet tethering still works.

Block the Haxor!

The patch to solve the SMS vulnerability of the iPhone firmware up to 3.0 is live and available in iTunes. So get on and download the patch (some 280Mb!) before some joker hijacks your phone. Currently Redsn0w is not able to jailbreak it but it seems like just a verification error. Hopefully we’ll get an update for that soon, till now, update to protect yourself or run the risk (although pretty minor) that someone might hi-jack your phone.

So people who are sitting on the fence, another reason to jailbreak and pretty much due to the networks and not Apple. Thanks AT&T, you let us have it if you’re on a blackberry, Android handset or pretty much any other smartphone but you just hate your iPhone users enough to stop them.

 

Instapaper is one of those beautiful apps that fills a feature gap with aplomb and panash. If you’ve ever come across an article, seen a comic or a crucial piece of documentation that you simply don’t have time to do justice to but want to save it for later, then Instapaper is for you. Instapaper allows you to simply ’save it for later’ using a bookmarklet that links and downloads articles to your Instapaper account. From there you can load up the Instapaper application to pull down the saved articles for later on or offline viewing. It’s a very simple function that used to be fulfilled by apps like AvantGo in the days of webclipping on the Palm Pilot. The beauty about Instapaper is that you can save articles from litterally anywhere you have a browser using a simple bookmarklet which is marvellous. On a personal note Instapaper is also great for saving articles and information that as a blogger I want to post about later, allowing me to go back and easily retrieve that interesting story.

That’s all very well, but why not just use bookmarks to go back later? That is exactly what I used to do before I found Instapaper. Bookmarks work well enough if you’ve got a reliable connection (ahem AT&T/O2) and the website you’re pulling up isn’t too complex (at least on the iPhone), but what happens if you want to read the article underground in the Tube or where there’s no signal. With clips saved to Instapaper you can read them where ever you are and forgo the possible lengthy load times of complex websites. Complete reflowed text or graphically formatted, Instapaper presents an easy to use, fast and efficient system for getting to the information once you’ve got the time. Of course if you then want to look into it further, a quick tap and you can open the article in Safari and find what you need. Once you’ve read the article you can simply archieve it or delete it, or if it’s really good make if a favourite.

Some nice features of Instapaper Pro include adjustable font styles and sizes for ease of reading, tilt scrolling using the accelerometer and quick switch between as is, graphical formatting and text reflow. You can also turn off rotation which is particularly helpful when reading in bed. A recent update has also given you the ability to send articles to Twitter directly or via multiple clients or to Tumblr. You can also email articles right from within the app, so all communication lines are covered.

One of my favourite features of Instapaper, however, has to be it’s clipping integration with Twitter clients on the iPhone such as Twitterfon. Twitter often presents a prime example of something interesting to read that I simply don’t have time for at the time of reading the tweet. Instead of having to go back and search for the tweet that carried the link, I can simply send it to Instapaper and have it available for when I’ve got a bit more time. With more and more people posting interesting articles to Twitter, Instapaper integration is a true godsend in my opinion.

Now, if you can do without tilt scrolling and a few other niceties such as unlimited articles then, Instapaper free will probably do you well. If however you’re like me and don’t like ads in your apps and want more storage then check out Instapaper Pro for $4.99 (£2.99) in the App Store. Check below for some more screenies.