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Posts in iPhone

iBooks on the iPhone: Does It Work With MobileMe?

Apple has announced iBooks for iPhone, and while I don’t think I’me ever going to read a book on my iPhone, we’re fine with it. Thing is, Apple also announced they’re going to bring wireless syncing between devices running iBooks (iPad and iPhone), allowing you to read something at home on your iPad, go outside, fire up iBooks on your iPhone and start reading again back from where you were on the first device.

It sounds cool, but how does it actually work? First, I thought of MobileMe, constantly pushing reading status to the cloud and syncing back to our devices as we fire up iBooks again. But then again, this would require a 24/7 active internet connection, which is not always possible on something like the wifi only iPad. Also, it would require iBooks and MobileMe to really push statuses every single second, and that might be a problem for data usage.

So what’s gonna happen? I fear we’re headed towards a local wifi system again, but I’m betting on MobileMe. I think it can be the perfect platform for this, and Apple has the chance to finally find a good usage for it. I guess we’ll know more about the whole MobileMe in a few weeks.

No, You Won’t Be Able to Multitask On Your iPhone 3G

If you have an iPhone 3G, or a second gen iPod Touch, I’m really sorry for you guys. You won’t be able to use the new multitasking feature of iPhone OS 4.0 with them. Actually Steve Jobs mentioned that these devices will be able to do “many things”, but multitasking won’t be one of them. Clearly we know that they can indeed run backgrounding apps with jailbreak extensions, but Apple doesn’t seem to care about it. Also, no mentioned about first gen iPhones and iPods.

Anyway, I bet the jailbreak community will come up with new solutions and enable multitasking (which is there in the firmware) even for these devices. Until that time, you might want to upgrade to a 3GS. Or perhaps the new models that will come out this summer.

iPhone OS 4.0: The Main Features, the Little Touches. What Are You Missing?

The Apple keynote that ended a few minutes ago was one of the best iPhone-focused keynotes I’ve ever seen. Let me say this straight up: with the iPhone OS 4 Apple is going to completely reivent the iPhone experience, but let’s keep my impressions for later. Let’s focus on the features now.

In case you missed it, the iPhone OS 4 comes with more than 100 new features, built around 7 “tentpole” features that will lead the way towards a fresh, brand new iPhone. If you watched the keynote online (and we’d like to thank everyone who attended MacStories’ live chat. You guys have been awesome) you should now know what Apple has in store for us, but we’d like to recap anyway.

Check out all the new stuff that’s coming to an iPhone near you after the break.

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ReadMore, The Reading Log for Everyone

With the induction of the iPad on Saturday, the flood gates will certainly open to a whole new generation of book worms and novelists looking at uncharted, digital territory. I get the feeling that reading books and popular stories, rather than quick text content such as status messages and RSS content, will quickly become more popular among teens and young adults. And with all the new content being devoured, some of us data nuts are gonna wanna be-able-ta track our reading stats. Well there’s an iPhone and iPod Touch app for that (at least until you’ve run out of books to read smarty pants). Read more