The Bleeding Edge 175: Apple iPhone Activation Video

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Features, Handhelds, Podcasts, Portable Audio / Video, Videocasts, Videos,

Read More | The Bleeding Edge

Pantech Brings C150 to United States

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Cameras, Smartphones, Music, Wireless / WiFi,

Pantech has decided to bring its C150 to the States and AT&T. This 2007 iF Design award winner features an integrated VGA cam and MP3 player, Bluetooth capability, and GSM and e-mail support. At a slim 12.7 mm width, we found the C150s already on the AT&T site for $199.99, $49.99 less with a two year contract, an order online discount for $49.99, and free with any new subscription. It seems these days that phone companies will go to extreme lengths to compete for our business, so we get to pick and choose for a change.

Read More | AT&T

Find iPhone Battery Life with Death Watch

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Handhelds, Internet, Portable Audio / Video,

Those clever folks at PC Magazine have devised an iPhone Death Watch for those of you who are worried about your new toy’s battery and are already fretting over its expiration date and possible withdrawal while you exchange it. Simply enter the date of purchase and the calculator will tell you when to plan for the end and its subsequent replacement.

Apple claims that after 400 charges, an iPhone retains only 80%. Since this was all the info the mag could get out of the company, they just used one of their own to estimate how long between charges, added in the length of trickle charging over a USB port, and came up with 1.5 days. They also stretched the amount of charges to 450, multiplied the two together, and voila, the Death Widget was born. If you get too paranoid about the countdown and take the issue too seriously, we suggest that you take off another couple of days to account for all that calendar reassurance.

Read More | PC Magazine

Smash The Mole Deals With Your Inner Frustration

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Smartphones, Video Games,

Games for cell phones are cropping up left and right, but in this case it helps to stay centered. Smash The Mole works on the same concept as the real game. Move Sven Tomato left/right and up/down and bonk Vlad Furry and his mercenary moles as they pop out of the tomato garden. Smash The Mole is part of the Garden Stories series of games that are simple enough for those of us who still can’t get past level 6 in Tetris. Compatible with over 350 types of cell phones, it’s available at The Mighty Troglodytes’ website for only £1 (~$2.00.)

Read More | Mighty-Troglodytes

AppleCare Now Available for iPhone for $69

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Handhelds, Portable Audio / Video,

It’s taken Apple almost a month to get their iPhone extended warranty plan out there, but in this case, better late than never definitely fits. The AppleCare for iPhone package lengthens “hardware repair coverage” by twelve months, resulting in a two year warranty when added on to the one-year of coverage you get with the purchase of an iPhone. Even better, if you happen to own an iPhone Bluetooth Headset, the AppleCare plan covers that as well. You can buy AppleCare for iPhone now for $69 USD.

Read More | AppleCare for iPhone

AT&T Claims 146,000 iPhone Activations in First Two Days

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Corporate News, Handhelds, Portable Audio / Video,

Numbers are finally starting to come out in regards to how the iPhone performed at launch. While no sales figures were given, AT&T is reporting in it’s second quarter financial results that 146,000 iPhones were activated in the first two days that the product was on the market. While this number seems pretty low to us, we have to keep a few things in perspective. First, this accounts for June 29th and 30th. The iPhone went on sale at 6:00 PM on June 29th, so this is really a measurement of a 30-hour period rather than a full 48 hour one. Secondly, as we all know, iPhones are not activated at the point of purchase. We are sure plenty were bought as gifts or to be resold, and thusly weren’t activated right away. Last, it was widely reported that there were plenty of activation issues surrounding the iPhone launch. We got emails from people who purchased at launch and weren’t able to activate for over 24 hours - some even longer than that.

Another interesting tidbit about AT&T’s report is that 40% of the 146,000 activations were for subscribers new to the AT&T network. That’s a high percentage, all thanks to Apple‘s first foray into the mobile phone space. Very impressive.

Samsung Becomes Official in Gold

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Smartphones, Corporate News,

Samsung has been chosen as the official phone for the 2008 Olympics, so of course it will arrive in a Special Edition 18k gold. The P318+ will feature extras such as special wallpaper, ringtones, and video clips, and will display an Olypic stamp on the case. Although there are no details on price and/or availability, we know that John Tesh does the music for some of the Olympic festivities, so we are thinking that they should include him in at least one of the wallpaper choices. In our version he looks rather natty, don’t you think?

Read More | Akihabara News

How To: Change iPhone Email Signature

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Software,

We’ve been using our iPhone for answering many an email while on the go, and one question we hear from other iPhone owners deals with how we changed the “Sent from my iPhone” text from the email signature. We figured a quick how to was in order. It’s quite simple, really, but if you tend to stay away from the Settings menu, then you would never see it. From the iPhone home screen, hit Settings, and then scroll down and tap Mail. You will see a Signature area that you can tap. Once you do this, you are editing your iPhone signature. You can get rid of the default altogether and roll with no signature at all if you like, or you can edit it to your specific preference.

Whatever you end up putting there will be used in both new emails as well as any responses you send. Let us know what you end up putting in your iPhone signature in the comments.

Colorware Now Offering iPhone Paint Jobs

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Design, Handhelds, Mods / Hacks, Portable Audio / Video,

With the iPhone selling as well as it is, we are betting there are plenty of opportunities for people to get theirs mixed up with that of someone elses. After all, do you really want to turn it on and verify that the wallpaper on any iPhone you happen to grab really is your bulldog in his pink tutu? This is why we are intrigued by ColorWare‘s latest addition to their custom paint services; that being for the iPhone. While it isn’t the cheapest thing in the world (but really - is anything involving the iPhone cheap?), we know from first-hand experience that ColorWare’s work is pretty darn impressive - just check out the paint job they did for our 3G iPod back in the day. To get a painted iPhone in your hands, you can take advantage of one of three options - you can pay them $149 USD and mail in your iPhone and they will do it up nice and send it back, or you can just purchase a brand new iPhone from them, which they will then paint and send to you. That runs $649 USD for a 4GB model, and $749 for an 8GB version.

Read More | Colorware

BlackBerry 8820 To Be Released

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Smartphones, Corporate News, GPS, Handhelds, Internet, Portable Audio / Video, Wireless / WiFi,

Research in Motion will be launching their BlackBerry 8820 with plenty of new and updated features, such as built-in GPS with BlackBerry Maps, 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi support, an enhanced multi-media player, voice dialing, trackball navigation, and a micro SD/SDHC expandable memory slot that will hold 32GB. Rim’s smartphone still has an easily manageable QWERTY keyboard, a 320 x 240 display, SMS and MMS text messaging, IM, and web browser. The BlackBerry 8820 will be available in Europe in the next few weeks, with a North American AT&T launch during the latter part of this summer.

Read More | RIM