We covered Jason Rohrer's Primrose when it first came out -- the creator of Passage, a critically-acclaimed indie game, had taken his first steps onto the iPhone with an abstract puzzle game, and in this latest interview with Edge, Rohrer says he's on the iPhone to stay. He says that when he first moved from strictly art/indie games to more commercial development on the iPhone, he worried that he was selling out: he wasn't a fan of cell phones at all or any Chinese-made gadgets sold by American companies, and yet the iPhone's platform seemed most "palatable" to him in terms of making games and a little money from them.

And yet he says the iPhone still has pros and cons -- even in an "open source, free software" world, Apple's system offers a choice: you can buy a packaged-up version of the software and throw a little money back to the developer (not a ton -- he says you've still got a better chance at making a living from Vegas than you do from the App Store), or you can still try building and installing your own version on your iPhone. As an open-source developer selling apps on the App Store, he says, "you're charging for the service and convenience, not the content."

Still, he echoes the sentiments of lots of other developers: "There is no quality filter, except for the whims of the masses." Apple's App Store offers up an intriguing system for many indie developers like Rohrer, who want to earn a little money for their games without setting up all of the complexity and burdens of a more traditional publishing channel, but it's still tough to keep from getting lost in the mix.

Back when we looked at Radar, a photosharing site with an accompanying iPhone app, I mentioned that while Twitter had monopolized the "text exporting" function from your iPhone, there would be a slew of companies to try and grab the rest of the media you want to broadcast. Radar, I said, wanted to be the photo app. And AudioBoo, it appears, wants to be the audio app (we've yet to see a strong video contender pop up with the 3GS, though YouTube is certainly serving for now).

I've been using AudioBoo (iTunes link) for a few weeks now, and I have to say, it definitely does what it says on the box: after a short signup session and the installation of the app to your iPhone, you can record and upload (and almost more interesting, listen back to others') audio quickly and easily.

You hit record, can talk for a while (i haven't hit a limit yet, though three minutes is what I originally heard, and that tends to be about right for these little mini-podcasts), then hit stop and upload, add a picture, title, and tags, and a few minutes later, your audio is right there on the web for everyone to hear. I've used it on my EDGE phone and my friend's 3G, and I have to say the experience is better on the 3G -- the upload speeds are much better (I generally have to wait on my iPhone until I get on Wi-Fi to upload the audio), and to my ears, the audio sounds better. Here's a recording I made at a Cubs game on my 1G with a few friends, and a recording my friend made on his 3G at a restaurant. Edge works, obviously, but the 3G seems to work better.

In a shot across the iPhone's bow, Palm is launching its new Palm Pre smartphone the weekend before Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference. This means any iPhone announcements at WWDC will be undoubtedly compared to Palm's new platform.

The Pre handset will cost $200 after a $100 mail-in rebate, and if you sign up for a two-year contract with Sprint. The monthly service costs roughly the same as AT&T's iPhone plan but offers unlimited text messaging -- a $20 option with Ma Bell.

Electronista points out that the Pre has some small technical advantages over the iPhone as well: a three megapixel camera, an optional inductive charger, and EVDO networking. Depending on the area, EVDO can be faster than both EDGE and GPRS, but not faster than HSDPA (the latter of which AT&T is rolling out across the U.S.). In any case, AT&T is already preparing its sales staff for the looming battle.

Also, Sprint claims that having a Pre will cost $1,430 less over the two-year contract period compared to owning an iPhone for the same period.

Meanwhile, for those of us on Verizon, we'll just have to make do with calculators connected by string. Which reminds me -- you all got the notice Verizon was upgrading us to nylon cord this week, right?

[Via IGM]

No, not the Edge network from AT&T, but a rather unique app from Mobigame that uses the motion sensors of the iPhone and some powerful animations to make for a unique gaming experience. Looking a bit like something out of the movie Tron, Edge allows you to control a cube through several hazardous environments and traps that get more and more complicated as you move along.

The best way to get an idea of what the game looks like is with this YouTube video Mobigame has posted. Edge has been available on other platforms like the Sony Ericsson handsets, but it will debut on the iPhone and iPod touch next week. There are 26 different mazes to navigate, using the iPhone touch screen and accelerometer.

Edge has been nominated for several gaming awards in Europe and has the potential to be a major hit on the iPhone/iPod touch. We'll be anxious to try this one ASAP.

[Via Fingergaming]

After the iPhone debuted, I posted this poll on TUAW, where I first got a sense of how much data YouTube videos and Mobile Safari web pages were pulling down through the network.

We're now about two months into iPhone 3G and I thought I'd repeat the exercise. How much data are you using on that 3G iPhone of yours? Are you still at 2.5G/EDGE levels of usage or has the 3G data bumped you up into new territory?

Pop into your iPhone's Settings > General > Usage pane and check out your Cellular Network Data usage stats. Drop a note in the comments and let us know about how much data you're actually using per month. (Assuming you haven't reset your phone, there will be about 2 months of data there.) And if any of you 1st Gen EDGE iPhone users have comparative data for month-to-month usage (rather than your total stats), that would be great to compare with the 3G numbers.



So have at it, readers. How much data are you using?

Earlier today, many iPhone owners on the east coast (including yours truly) were experiencing data problems with AT&T. Specifically, my data transfer all but disappeared, including web and email, over EDGE. The weird part was that my iPhone was reporting a strong signal. It seems I wasn't alone.

Electornista is reporting that the issue affected users from New York to Missouri, Massachusetts and North Carolina. AT&T responded and, as of this writing, it's been worked out. A representative said, "There was a routing issue affecting some wireless data use in the Northeast region ... technicians determined the cause and restored service at 11:56AM EDT."

So, flip on your iPhones, east coast-dwellers. We're back in business.

A few weeks back on the Talkcast, we had an interesting little discussion about just where Apple's boundaries were on the App Store -- so far, you really only get kicked off if you charge too much, if your apps vibrate wrong, or if you steal someone's copyright. Oh, and there's that one more little exception: if you provide folks with the ability to tether the iPhone's networking ability to your own Mac.

But now the rumor mill says that last one might just have been removed because Apple is planning a tether solution of their own. Gizmodo claims that one of their readers is corresponding with His Steveness himself (a fact we find obviously dubious, but hey it's Friday of Labor Day weekend, so we'll give 'em a pass). You'd think that Steve Jobs would reveal the fact that AT&T and Apple were trying to offer a tether solution through a slightly better venue than a quickly jotted "Sent from my iPhone" email, but remember how we first heard about the SDK -- the man knows how to stick important pieces of news in strange places.

The original emailer mentioned tethering for the fee of an extra $30 a month (which seems exorbitant considering that Netshare did it for a one-time charge), but then again, AT&T's networks are going to get even more waterlogged should something like this come down. So odds are if Apple does work out a deal, it's not going to be cheap.

Wired has published the results of the iPhone reception survey they were running, and clearly Antarctica needs way more coverage. But they also pulled a lot of useful data out of places where people actually live, and it probably doesn't surprise you.

3G performance is slow almost all over, especially in cities where the 3G service is getting overloaded. If you want to have fast speeds, hang out in Germany and the Netherlands -- those folks had the fastest speeds (and it's no coincidence that the 3G network there has three extra development years on its American counterpart). The worst reception is apparently in Australia, as Optus and Virgin users had their iPhones chugging along at just 759 Kbps.

What can we draw from this? Just like those Swedish scientists told us, it's the service, not the phone. But you know what Mark Twain said about statistics, so just in case you want to draw your own conclusions, Wired has kindly made a Google Spreadsheet of all the data available to anyone who wants it. Anyone want to try putting together that heatmap?

Not to be outdone by Qik, Flixwagon started offering their live streaming client for the iPhone 3G/2G this week. Flixwagon offers streaming video over WiFi or over the cellular data connection. In addition, the application offers 12 frames-per-second video. The company claims that they have very fast signup right from the iPhone, and the ability to change titles/details while broadcasting.

The last time we mentioned Flixwagon, it was still in beta, but they have finally opened up the service to anyone who has a jailbroken iPhone with either Cydia or Installer 4. The application weighs in at only 98 KB. For more information about this video streaming service, visit the Flixwagon blog.

If you are one of the lucky ones who got in on the GrandCentral beta, then you might be interested in a new iPhone app that integrates with the GrandCentral service. Grandialer (iTunes link) allows you to use your iPhone to call people using your GrandCentral telephone number.

The service can be used on EDGE since it's not a VoIP service. The application works by connecting your calls through GrandCentral and ringing back your iPhone. To set up the application, you just need to specify a ringback number for GrandCentral to call you back. To do this, just navigate to Settings > Phone number in the Grandialer application.

Grandialer is a free application and is available today on the App Store. For more information on the application you can visit the developer's site.

When the App Store first launched last Thursday, I saw Pandora and AOL Radio and immediately wondered if they would work on my first generation iPhone using EDGE. The quick answer is yes, however, you do make some sacrifices in one of the applications. Read my full review below to get the full details.

About Pandora (Download Link)
Pandora is a part of the Music Genome Project and allows you to create "stations" of your favorite artists. Pandora then pairs those artists to others you might like and plays an unlimited playlist based on your favorite artists. Pandora tracks your likes and dislikes and will play songs based on those results. Pandora lets you find new music for free, and who can argue with that?



About AOL Radio (Download Link)
AOL Radio is a CBS Radio partner that provides online streaming radio stations. Unlike Pandora, AOL Radio is a true streaming radio station in the sense that you can play local stations which support in-audio advertising. AOL Radio can use the location feature in order to find CBS affiliate stations that bitcast near you.



User Interface
Both Pandora and AOL Radio follow a similar user interface design: they both look like the iPod feature on iPhone/iPod touch. Both of the interfaces are nice, however, I have the same gripes for both. The volume controllers in both seem to be independent of the iPhone's volume controller. This can cause the audio to be distorted if you turn it up too much in the applications themselves since you can use the volume buttons on the side to control the audio volume as well.

Secondly, I would love to be able to quit the application and have the audio keep playing (I know, this is an Apple/SDK restriction, but it would still be nice). You can, however, lock the phone and keep the audio playing (which is a nice feature).

Both applications allow you to purchase the currently playing song from the iTunes WiFi Music store. AOL Radio also provides a link to find out more about the currently playing song on AOL Radio's site.

WiFi (or 3G) vs. EDGE Use
When you are playing the music over WiFi (or the 3G cell network), you get awesome audio quality. Both applications seem to provide audio quality that matches that of purchased iTunes songs. On EDGE, however, AOL Radio falls short by providing very low quality audio (I would guess 56k audio). However, Pandora on EDGE seems to maintain good audio quality when you have a signal that is greater than 2/5 bars.

So, who wins?
Since both of these applications are absolutely free and have equal pros and cons, I would recommend downloading both to see which one fits you the best. If you are on a 3G iPhone, both will work well no matter where you are (assuming you're within 3G coverage). However, if you have a 2G iPhone, you might prefer Pandora because it provides better audio quality over EDGE. You can download both applications by clicking the download links above.

Disclaimer: The Unofficial Apple Weblog and AOL Radio are both owned by AOL.

My relationship with my iPhone hasn't been an easy one. On the one hand, it's an absolutely brilliant platform -- I just love programming for it. On the other hand it's a money hole. To keep it legit, I'm forking over a wad of cash each month to AT&T and from there on to Apple (not to mention the $99/year new iPhone play tax). One of my biggest decisions on that end involved giving up my data plan. Leaving the $20/month data plan behind as my "optional extra" has saved me $240 over the course of the year.

Read on for more about the iPhone and EDGE and my 3G service dilemma.

Alex at iPhoneBlog.de (Germany) tipped us off to a simple "hack" they discovered while doing speed tests between EDGE and WiFi. It involves creating an ad hoc network with your computer or a hotspot and changing the default route of the network to point to the IP address of your EDGE connection. Accomplish that and you should be able to run applications over EDGE that are normally WiFi-only, such as the iTunes store.

I can't test it right now, but I'm sure that some of you will be eager to give it a shot. The speed tests in the video look decent considering the obvious handicaps. If you happen to sprechen Sie Deutsch you'll probably be able to glean more details from the post. You'll also want to check out the podcast on using Skype over EDGE.

Thanks, Alex!

Fortunately, AT&T Wireless has a list of the major markets that have HSDPA service. Unfortunately, you have to go through the list by state and city name before you can actually click on a map and see if your house or office is in a zone of 3G love. My house, which has sucky AT&T service at this time, is allegedly in a 3G-happy area (blue on the screenshot). That's the good news. The bad news is that I'm right near the border of one of those orange zones, which indicate no 3G service.

My sister currently enjoys EDGE service in her home town of Richland, WA, but is anxious to get her iPhone connected with 3G service. I hate to tell her that she's not on the list.

Yesterday, I wrote about AT&T's new $20/month unlimited data feature pack. Today, my daughter was home sick from school. Why is that important? Because we gave her a cheap AT&T Pay As You Go phone, which she uses to keep in touch when her bus is late or if she needs to contact us for some reason. Pay As You Go plus idle phone = Data Plan Experimentation!

Read on for details...