BoyGeniusReport (BGR) somehow managed to get their hands on the new iPhone 3G a little earlier than anyone else. They have uploaded several high-quality pictures to show the comparisons between the 1st generation iPhone and the iPhone 3G.

In addition, Paul Thurrott posted some iPhone 2.0 firmware upgrade screenshots to show the upgrade process and some of the new iTunes 7.7 and iPhone 2.0 features.

[via MacRumors]

We love the quick tips that Tekzilla brings everyday. The other day they showed off a tip that we just couldn't turn down spreading. When you're in PhotoBooth you can use two key combos to either turn off the flash or temporarily disable the count-down.

Hold down the shift key when you press the take picture button and your picture will be taken without using the flash. If you hold down the option key when you press the take picture button your picture will be taken without using the count-down delay. If you hold down both the shift and options keys, your picture will be taken immediately and without the flash.

The guys over at the Google Mac blog have dropped a new little open source application called Visigami, which serves as a more "interesting" and "fun" way to browse and play around with images online. Basically, after installing the app, you can then pull in pics from Picasa, Google Images, or Flickr (iPhoto is just a suggestion so far), and then search, animate, zoom in or out on them, and even turn them right into a screensaver.

It's a pretty neat little application -- not exactly the kind of thing that anyone has probably been hoping for (it seems more fun than utilitarian), but if you find yourself often browsing photos online, this definitely seems like a more fun way to do it. And it's one more reason to praise all the great developers working on our platform -- it's little apps like this that make the Mac user experience so much better.

An anonymous TUAW reader writes: "How can I email more than one photo at a time from my iPhone?" Unfortunately, the built-in Photos app seems to disallow this. There is a workaround. If you use my SendPics application, you can send many photos at a time. SendPics is a utility I wrote that's meant to bypass the iPhone's scale-for-email behavior and send full resolution images.

To make this happen, use SendPics to send an email and then press Home. You'll leave the email program but it will remember the photo you added. Then re-launch SendPics and add another picture and repeat.

The downside is this: if you have an email signature, it will repeat for every picture you add--so you may want to edit those out once you've finished composing the email.

The anonymous reader reports that he was able to send up to 3 pictures at a time. I had no problem going higher than that but I'm running firmware 1.1.2.

Considering the graphical nature of the web, I'm surprised more features and plug-ins haven't appeared to solve the problem of downloading images from sites as well as iPlace does. Operating as a SIMBL plug-in for Safari (including the 3.0 beta), iPlace allows you to specify multiple locations on your Mac for downloading images, but that's not all. It then gives you a contextual menu item when right-clicking an image or a web page that will allow you to instantly download any image to one of your specified locations, or - and here's the kicker - bring up an image downloading window that shows you each image on the page, along with your download locations provided as drag and drop wells in a sidebar on the left. Opening this window on I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER, for example, brings up the long list of images you see above, all ripe for efficiently dragging and dropping wherever I want.

In a word: iPlace is awesome. There are of course enhancements I would like to see, such as the ability to scale these images up and down to make it easier to view more from the page at once, but for a spankin' new product straight out the gate, this is a really handy plug-in.

iPlace is provided as donationware from Tekuris.

The day is finally here. After an introductory video back in May and a more in-depth teaser earlier this month, the Pixelmator crew have begun sending out the private beta downloads and I just took it for a spin, creating the image in this post. It is indeed a sexy app - the UI is a gorgeous translucent black, and it really does offer a lot of functionality and innovation aimed squarely at Adobe Photoshop or, perhaps more appropriately, Photoshop Elements. While Pixelmator is still very much a beta and too buggy for shop or casual work, I am able to play with most of the promised features, including snapping pics from an iSight, the iPhoto browser and all the powerful color and manipulation tools.

Thankfully, Saulius and the Pixelmator crew gave me permission to write up some initial thoughts with screenshots, so check out a preliminary Pixelmator gallery I've put together of some handy features and clever details, and read on for more of my first impressions of this highly anticipated image editor.

The new .Mac Web Galleries sure are pretty slick, but their dependency on iPhoto '08 can have some unfortunate side effects. When I first installed iLife '08, I moved my original iPhoto library so I could tinker around with the new version using a few pics I had lying around on my Mac. I then created a Web Gallery with these images just to see how things looked. After deeming it safe to proceed, I replaced my original library to actually begin using the new iPhoto features - the only problem is that, somehow, the .Mac Web Galleries you create seem to be library-specific. In other words: when I created a gallery with my test library and then swapped it out for my true library, the .Mac Web Gallery listing in iPhoto's sidebar was no longer there. I couldn't find any kind of web admin panel at the .Mac site for managing these galleries either, so I quickly found myself in a predicament.

Fortunately, I'm not alone here, and I found this thread in the Apple Discussions forums that describes a method for deleting a gallery manually if it no longer appears in iPhoto's sidebar. The solution basically involves logging into your iDisk from the web (http://idisk.mac.com/UserName) and browsing to the directory that houses your galleries, then manually deleting it from there. For some odd reason, this folder doesn't appear in your iDisk on your Desktop like your other .Mac website files, even with hidden files turned on (I used the Show-Hide widget to quickly toggle hidden files. As far as I can tell, Apple simply doesn't sync this folder down to your Mac or give you access to it with the iDisk). The only problem I had with the solution as it is described in that forum thread is that I didn't find the _gallery folder where the forum poster said I should; instead, it's in iDisk > Web > Sites. Each gallery you have created is stored in its own directory under that folder, so you should be able to delete just the ones you want without affecting the others.

[Update 2: Matt Ronge, developer of upcoming Mac OS X email client Kiwi, enlightened me in the comments with an even easier solution to this problem: simply go to iPhoto's Web Gallery pane in preferences, and simply click Check Now to cause iPhoto to check your .Mac account for any new photos. This should also cause it to catch any galleries not already listed in iPhoto's sidebar, ultimately allowing you to manage and delete them from the comforts of iPhoto.]

[Update: Some commenters are reporting that the _gallery folder in question does actually appear in their iDisk when viewed in the Finder. I don't know why only some of us see it, but you could be one of the lucky few.]

Considering that your Sites (for the old homepage.mac.com pages) and Web folders are synchronized and fully available in your iDisk, I hope that this strange gallery behavior is simply the result of an oversight. While I understand Apple's desire to use software to manage this stuff instead of forcing users to dig around in folders, having manual access to this directory will be useful in a pinch, especially for users who, for example, buy a new Mac or need to have a sick Mac restored.

The old adage that 'a picture is worth 1000 words' is still going nice and strong. Considering the sheer number of pictures that Flickr is hosting these days, that could be a lot of stories to sift through - why not try out a desktop app to help with all the work?

1001 is a unique Flickr client from Adriaan Tijsseling, developer of the Mac version of blogging app ecto (the one with a slick new alpha version) and RSS newsreader endo. In addition to letting you upload your own photos to Flickr, I think 1001's primary appeal lies in its downloading and viewing abilities. It provides rich features for watching the stream of photos from your friends and groups, filtering the public photo stream with tags, blogging (of course) photos you like, displaying a Growl-like popup with certain photos you want to see and even using photo as your desktop wallpaper or screensaver. It's a really interesting way to interact with Flickr, and the only downside is a somewhat unique UI that might make it a little confusing to navigate 1001 your first time through. For a quick primer: 1001 allows you to pull down these photos by setting up one or more 'streams' that specify exactly what photos you want to see. You can create one stream for, say, just your friends (or even specific friends), and another for Flickr's popular Interestingness page. You can then toggle the different streams on and off depending on your mood, allowing you keep the streams from becoming a flood. Be sure to use the Streams button in 1001's toolbar, or check out the Streams menu to get started.

All things considered, this really is a great app for Flickr enthusiasts or even newbies starting out. Once you get over the very brief learning curve, 1001 is a powerful app that lets you view just the Flickr photos you want and use them in other places on your Mac. But what does all this Flickr wonderfulness (hey, if Flickr can use pseudo-words, so can I) cost, you ask? Surprisingly, it's donationware, and I encourage you to show Tijsseling some appreciation if you enjoy 1001 and would like to see ist development continue.

Graphic Converter from Lemkesoft is an arguably under-appreciated photo editor and basic organizer for Mac OS X. Provided free on some (maybe all?) Macs that Apple ships, it is a quietly powerful app for performing a good number of photo editing and basic retouching, and it even includes a basic photo organizer á la iPhoto, Lightroom or Aperture. For even more features, Lemkesoft just released a new v6 of Graphic Converter, bringing a long list of new and updated features, including:

• a save for web option
• basic layer support
• 'go to photo position' in Google Earth
• rulers for measuring various aspects of images
• support for Microsoft's new free-to-use HD Photo image format that rivals JPG
• compatibility with the Leopard beta
• and a ton more

My download is still working its way to 100%, so check out the new features for yourself or download a demo. If you were a customer of this month's MacHeist / MacUpdate promo in which you scored a license for Graphic Converter 5.x, you'll be happy to know you should be receiving an email (if you haven't already) with your new license for v6. Otherwise, Graphic Converter costs just 29.95 Euros / 34.95 USD.

While the iPhone's sleek, imageless design helps to keep things simple for everyone, I can understand some people's desire to customize their surroundings. While Apple isn't making this easy on anyone, keeping the iPhone locked up for themselves and all, that doesn't mean determined hackers aren't trying to pick the locks. For anyone interested in changing their iPhone's background from (arguably) boring black to something of their choosing, ModMyiPhone has just the how-to for you. Adventurer be warned, however: this is not for the light-hearted. This is a 15-step tutorial involving some ugly hacking with the Terminal app and digging around in your iPhone's guts. On the upside though, if something goes wrong I imagine you can easily get your iPhone back to square one with iTunes' Restore button, but I obviously am in no position to make any guarantees, so proceed with caution.

That said, it sure would be nice to see Apple officially open up the iPhone to this kind of customization with a future software update. It totally makes sense that they themselves are using caution with their first foray into mobile phones though, so I wouldn't hold my breath for a feature update like this anytime soon.

Thanks spoonet!

Tons of iPhone wallpapers out now-- here's a last roundup of what we've seen so far.

• The good bloggers at BoingBoing are going iPhone wallpaper crazy-- they've posted this terrific Sad Mac wallpaper, as well as a collection of erotic wallpapers, if you swing that way. Oh, and hey, unicorns!
• Hypoxic has some good pieces in his DeviantArt.
• Artist Coop also has a Flickr set of wallpapers up (some of them NSFW).
• In that same realm, Andy sent us his own Flickr set of cool-looking retro toy wallpapers.
• And speaking of Flickr, the iPhone wallpapers pool is also filling up with all kinds of things.

So there you go-- if you don't have something pretty on your iPhone yet, you're not looking hard enough. And if you need help getting these on your iPhone we've got you covered there, too.

[Update 2: The invite window is now closed! Thanks for participating everyone, invites should be sent out soon!

[Update: The plasq folks have informed us that the response to this invite offer has been absolutely amazing; well over 1000 requests. The good news? They have agreed to send invites out to every genuine request they have received so far. Cut off point is 12pm PST today. Your invite should be on its way later today or early tomorrow!]

We've been talking up Skitch - a fantastic and powerful screenshot snapping and sharing app from plasq - for quite some time here on TUAW (if you want to take a peek, watch this video tour of Skitch in action). The only problem is: since its introduction at Macworld '07, it's either been in a private beta or, more recently, a tight invite-only public beta, making it hard to get your hands on a copy. Fortunately, all that finally changes today for 1000 of you - because we have a big ol' batch of invites to give away! Amidst all the time they're spending on polishing Skitch, their MySkitch picture sharing service (for the record: Skitch works with Flickr and even .Mac as well), and a new m.myskitch.com site they launched just in time for the iPhone, the kind crew at plasq were awesome enough to give us 1000 invites to give to you, our dear TUAW readers! As icing on the cake, they made the process about as easy as it can get by putting together an automated invite system: simply email [sorry, invites are now closed] from the address you want tied to your Skitch account, and you're done! Wait a little while for your sweet, sweet Skitch beta invite to arrive, and soon you can be Skitchin' and sharin' with the rest of us.

Please help us make this a great experience for everyone. Companies run beta invites like this not only to help generate buzz for the product, but to ensure that they can sustain their services and provide a solid software experience for everyone. Don't send multiple emails from different addresses or re-send your request. We've never done a beta invite this way before, but the plasq crew know what they're doing and you'll receive your invite soon enough. With that said - go get Skitchin'!

TUAW reader Andrew went into the 5th Avenue Apple Store late this evening and noticed a large, covered rectangular display. It was clearly an iPhone (because you can kind of see through the wrapping). Andrew chatted up a couple of employees, neither of which would admit what it was. And although someone eventually promised that the wrapper would be soon removed, he gave up waiting after about a half hour or so. Here are his exclusive pictures of the (still covered) display.

Andrew asked one of the employes how the iPhone sales would work at the store. She told him that they would not be activating the phones at the store itself. This is pretty much in line with what I heard when I called my local Apple store earlier this evening. My Apple sales person was refreshingly honest. Not only did she admit that no one at the store had a clue about how things would work regarding sales, initial stock numbers, restocking, and so forth, but also that she had no idea as to when they would receive their training. She did add that she (and others at the store) were under the impression that the phone would probably have to be taken over to an AT&T store for activation, but she also claimed that you'd need a two-year commitment, an item that I know is up in dispute and a fact that Apple employees are not yet clear on. If the no-activation-at-store bit proves true, then might it be possible to buy an iPhone at an Apple store and then just insert a SIM card and go?

All that aside, what do you think is under that wrapping?

Update: Check out this good quality photo that just popped up over at Flickr (Via MacRumors)

Since I committed to stepping up to Aperture from iPhoto, I've been slowly learning that Aperture really isn't left out in the cold in terms of integrating with other applications or syncing photos to devices like the iPod and Apple TV. If you don't have Aperture installed, you simply won't see it as an option in things like Apple's system-wide Media Browser or iTunes for photo synching; that's what caught me, since I've been running my entire iTunes library on an older iMac downstairs, and Aperture on my MacBook Pro. Today I decided to tinker with a few things by plugging an iPod into my MacBook Pro, and suddenly I caught this option in iTunes for Aperture. This setting also appears in the sync options for the Apple TV as well, and works just as you expect; you can chose to sync your entire photo library, or you can pick and chose albums (or Projects, as they're called in Aperture), complete with image counts for every album in the list.

This should be great news for anyone who, like me, previously thought Aperture couldn't play with all the system-wide integration that iPhoto enjoys.

We may have been playing with Skitch and teasing you with screenshot galleries since the app's debut at Macworld '07, but today is the day that some of you can finally start teasing someone else for a change. That's right: the plasq crew have officially opened the flood gates and have begun sending out Skitch beta copies to users who signed up (you can now sign up at the official Skitch site). Not everyone will receive their copy right away, mind you: by 'invite-only public beta,' I mean that copies will more or less be sent out at a moderate but steady pace and only to those who sign up, as plasq wants to make sure they can maintain control over testing (after all: it is still a beta) and ensure their slick MySkitch photo sharing service can handle the load.

That said, if you get a copy, start testing away! It's a beta, so it'll act funny and it just might eat the family cat. Just remember: Skitch will be a commercial app when released as a 1.0 (though no official word on price yet), and the plasq crew is still kicking around whether they need to split some services or features off into a Pro version, so send in that feedback.