The iPhone 4 Solar Charger

I haven’t had any problems with the iPhone 4 battery so far (I managed to make it last 38 hours once), but in case you were wondering if there was a way to use solar power to get more battery life - well, here it is.

The Frostfire Mooncharge Hybrid Solar Battery Case For iPhone 4 gives your device 5 extra minutes of calling or 50 minutes of stand-by mode with 20 minutes of direct sunlight, but if you charge the battery inside the case via USB you get 5 additional hours of calling. So, not really powerful when it comes to solar charging - not unless you leave the phone in direct sunlight for a couple of hours.

The case comes at $70.  [Frostfire via GigaOM]

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Apple Showcases Location-based Apps in the App Store

With the recent announcement of Facebook Places, it seems like Apple thought it was about time to showcase location apps in the App Store. So here it is, an “On The Grid” section [iTunes link] that lists apps such as Facebook, Gowalla, Foursquare and Twitter. The only paid app in this new section is GeoFences.

Check out “On the Grid - Location-based Apps” here.

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FLUD, “Sexy News Ecosystem” - More Like A Pulse Clone.

Oh boy. Another visual newsreader on MacStories. Yeah, sorry about that guys - but I had to cover this. I know that you’re probably getting tired of reading about this new trend of visual newsreaders (where by “visual” one means squares with titles and thumbnails, arranged in a list) and that you’ve had enough with dozens of clones of clones in the App Store, but this one had to be covered.

Rememeber Pulse? That Pulse. Remember its UI? Remember its features? FLUD is embarassingly similar to it, in a way that I wonder how Apple approved it.

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iPliz for Mac Controls your Files via Email

It’s always best to have a backup plan. It’s one of those days; you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, you’re late for class, and in the process of scrambling to hike the mile across campus, you forgot to save a copy of your report to your netbook. Just imagine for a minute how bad this actually is: you forget to save a file in Dropbox, stuff your thumb drive into your backpack, or even email yourself a copy of that fifty five page college thesis all at the same time. That report amounts to 50% of your grade, and you can’t return to your dorm out without being late to only the most important session of the semester. So what do you do?

Most people would panic, but being the Mac savvy connoisseur that you are, you pull out that fancy netbook of yours and email yourself with the name of your report. In seconds, you’re sending commands between your email client and your Mac that allow you to find the file, upload it to your current machine, and print it out in the nick of time. iPliz is a niche application for users who don’t employ the best backup strategies, but the ability to email your Mac for files is just cool.

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Courier: Great New Mac App from Realmac Coming Soon

Courier is an awesome new app from Realmac Software (which I’m lucky enough to have already tested) set to come out on OS X “in about a week”. Or at least that’s what the teaser website says.

I can’t really say what the app does yet, but as you can see in the video (embedded below, together with the final icon) support for websites like Youtube, Vimeo and Flickr will be part of the application. All I can say is that Courier is great, and will probably turn out to be one of the best apps released on Mac this year.

Check out the video below, follow @courierapp for exclusive news and stay tuned for a review on MacStories as soon as the app will be available.

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