Rex Is Excited

What you are you seeing in these screenshots may seem like a real iPhone application, but it's not. It's a web page displayed in full screen, completely out of Safari, behaving and looking exactly as any native iPhone program would do. The best thing: It is not a new feature of the incoming iPhone OS 2.2 update: The secret feature is "hidden" in the current 2.1 version and only requires one thing: HTML code embedded in the web page itself. No iPhone modification is required. If you are browsing this from the iPhone, you can try it yourself very easily:

1. Click here to go to the Web page. Safari will open this time.
2. Click on the + icon and add the page to the iPhone home screen.
3. Go out and click on the saved application.

Magic! [AppleInsider]

Filed under: iPod Family, Internet, iPhone

It was only a couple months ago that Starbucks announced that AT&T would take over hotspot services from T-Mobile. Now the WiFi hotspots are rolling out to some of the Starbucks stores. David Chartier, of previous TUAW and now ArsTechnica fame, recently posted an article on his personal blog about the portal and what it offers. He also took the picture that you can see above.

According to David, AT&T is giving WiFi users 2 free hours of access per day. But AT&T didn't stop there -- they designed an iPhone-specific portal to sign onto the service. A local Starbucks manager told David that all 7,000+ Starbucks stores in the US should be "finished by summer."

I should note that this iPhone portal isn't specific to Starbucks -- every AT&T WiFi hotspot features the same interface -- and all devices are eligible for the 2 free hours of access (not just iPhones and iPod touches). Any WiFi device should be able to logon to the service. It is nice to see AT&T finally giving connectivity away for free.

[via 1FPS]

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The 'Find Me' location feature in Google Maps on the iPhone and iPod touch is great, but if you are in an area with wireless access points that have yet to be mapped by Skyhook (the company that provides the location-acces point data for Apple), your shown location will rely upon cellphone tower position alone and so be far less accurate.

Recently, Jazzdogg on the Australian MacTalk forum contacted Skyhook with regard to manually submitting the longitude/latitude of his own access point to improve the location feature. In response, Skyhook created a form that allows anyone to do exactly that. Whether to improve the accuracy of your iPhone's pseudo-GPS when at work or home, or to map out access points about town, you can now supplement Skyhook's database manually without having to wait for Skyhook to map your community...

Filed under: Found Footage, iPhone

16 13-year-old Max has been working on his YouTube download utility for, well, a very long time. He's been plugging away at it over on the IRC channels wheedling experienced programmers into donating their time and energy to help it become real. And now, with a insanely big assist by iPhone developer Pumpkin, it has.

The software is available from Installer.app and you can read more about it at Max's site. Congratulations Max and Pumpkin and everyone else who chipped in on the project.

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iPhone/iPod touch only: Freeware application Touchpad Pro turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a multi-touch mouse for any operating system. You'll need a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch, then just install Touchpad Pro from Installer.app. To get it working with your computer, you'll need to install VNC (it's already running on your Mac) and follow the instructions on the site. Once it's running, you can use your iPhone's screen like a MacBook Air trackpad, which means you get the regular mouse actions in addition to two-finger scroll, double-finger-tap right-click, and a ton more (check out the video for the full demonstration). Touchpad Pro is freeware, iPhone/iPod touch only.

Filed under: Software, Apple TV

I've been looking for a good way to get a subtitled movie - with a SubRip (srt) file - into iTunes, my Apple TV and my iPod. I hadn't found much joy before this morning. Then I stumbled upon Submerge. I need to do some tweaking in the detailed preferences yet, but it seems to do the trick quite well.

Submerge supports most video formats, including mov, avi, and mp4. In addition to SubRip, it also supports the SubViewer 1 & 2 (sub) and MicroDVD subtitle formats. By allowing the aspect ratio to be forced in the conversion, Suberge can make better use of screen real estate on various devices. And if you want to speed things up, there's also support for the Elgato Turbo.264. Overall, it seems to be a great solution. Of course, if there's a better program for doing this for under $10, I'm looking forward to hearing about it in the comments.

Submerge is $9 and has a free trial available for download.

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Filed under: iPod Family, Cult of Mac, Bugs/Recalls, iPhone

In this trivial video, someone shows what happens to the iPhone when the stopwatch has been running for over 1,000 hours. You may ask yourself, "Who runs their iPhone's stopwatch for over 41 days?" And we asked ourselves the same thing. But what happens is most definitely surprising -- and brings a whole new meaning to geek.

[via Daring Fireball]

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Filed under: iPod Family, Odds and ends, Internet Tools, iPhone

If you're a space freak, then you'll want to have a look at these three super-cool web apps for your iPhone or iPod Touch.

iSkyGaze tells you where to find various objects in the sky, depending on your location and the time of day. Sure, it'll show you where to look to see the sun and moon, but iSkyGaze also helps you spot things in deep space, like the Orion Nebula. This cool app even tells you how far away the object is, and the best time to see it.

Want to know how the sky looked on any given date from the past 10 years? Starry Night Mobile will tell you. It can also predict what your overhead view will be 10 years into the future. Just enter a zip code, landmark, or address and let the app do the calculating for you.

If checking out satellites or the International Space Station as it passes overhead is more your thing, then you'll love LookUp. Once you enter your location, the app will tell the precise time various orbiting objects will zoom by, complete with exact elevation stats and how much time you'll have to see it before it dips below the horizon.

Oh, and here's a bonus app for all you werewolves.

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Since I've had my iPhone, I've found a few things that I wish I could do with it. I wished that I had a fuel-economy tracker app for my car, an expense tracker for work-expenses and others. I knew I could've set-up a custom web-page backed with a database, but it just seemed that there should be an easier way.

It seems Google thought so too, as they've just released a powerful new Forms extension to their Google Docs app, Spreadsheets. Using Forms, you can essentially create a survey or email-based input form for a spreadsheet you've created. This has great implications for those needing to create ad-hoc surveys for your work-mates, friends, family and more. However, there's nothing stopping you from inviting only yourself to the form.

To get started, go to Google Docs (sign-up if necessary), create a new spreadsheet. If you want, you can add a few columns with a header row to make things a little easier in the next step. Then, go t...