Have you played the Angry Birds app? If you have not, you should go and try it. It is the number games app on the iPhone. It is available on most platforms including the iPad, Android and other tablet PCs. Recently, it was also made available on the Google Chrome browser. It is quite an addictive app.

The question is “Have you played a real live Angry Bird game?” T-Mobile has recently put up a live structure in Terrassa, Spain(a town near Barcelona) hooked up to a smartphone for fans of Angry Birds to play the game complete with flying birds and exploding pigs.

This is really awesome. Since it was put up a few days ago on Youtube, it has already garnered millions of pageviews. Check out this cool video below:-

Kudos to T-Mobile for coming up with such an interesting live game and advertising gimmick. This is what we call great advertising that have viral effects. Wonder when Malaysians will get the chance to play this game live. Maxis, Celcom, Digi?

Cloud computing is and will be the next big thing in the computing world. Everyone is talking about the power of cloud computing and how it will change how we run our lives in the future. In line with the future of Cloud computing, Steve Jobs has announced Apple’s next big thing at Apple’s WWDC called the “iCloud”. This will be Apple’s next big thing that will differentiate Apple’s products even more as compared to their competitors like the Android or Blackberry.

iCloud’s ability to automatically and seamlessly integrate and synchronize not just data, but the applications across various devices is likely going to impress the already loyal customers to the Apple products.

Once you are used to having your contacts, calendar, emails, music and apps managed through the iCloud, it’s going to be awfully difficult to change or make a switch to a different platform. This is how Apple intends to make sure an Apple user becomes a hardcore Apple fan.

In addition to that, all this comes with a price point that is pretty difficult to resist – free. This feature is also not easily duplicated as well since the Android platform is much more fragmented. Moving forward, with the iCloud, all data will be stored and backed up, songs, photos, emails, calendar, contacts and other info will be updated wherever you are. Let’s wait till Fall 2011 to see if iCloud is as good as mentioned……  :-)

For the summary of the coverage of the iCloud at WWDC, please view the video below:-

This new story isn’t a hoax as what we have reported in our earlier story about “Bigfoot caught on iPhone”. This is a real life story of how a Chinese teenager is willing to sell one of his kidney(right kidney) in exchange for an iPhone and an iPad 2. Xiao Zheng, a 17 year old Chinese teenager sold off one of his kidneys through a broker from an online transaction that valued his kidney  at 20,000  Yuan(or £1,825) so that he could get enough money to exchange for an iPhone and an iPad 2.  The Chinese teen, who lives in the south-eastern province of Anhui apparently met the broker on the Internet. The broker has arranged everything for him, and all he need is to travel to Chenzhou, a province in central China to have his kidney was removed in a hospital.

His mother was very very devastated when she found out what her son has done. She was quoted as saying…

“When my son came home he had a laptop computer and an iPhone.  Where did all that money come from? Only when he could bear it no longer did he tell us.  He said, Mum, I sold my kidney.  When I heard it I felt like the sky was crashing down on our family.”

Xiao Zheng’s mother then reported the incident to the police but unfortunately the police were unable to locate the broker.  The police also investigated the hospital where the kidney was operated on and found that The hospital was not authorised to perform transplants of any kind and that no official record of the surgery has taken place. This is truly a well planned organized crime involving body parts for sale.

This is indeed a very sad story about a teenager who is willing to sacrifice his kidney in exchange for some cool gadgets. This served as a reminder to all parents to properly educate our children to not succumb to this kind of peer or cool gadget pressure. This has certainly breached the moral and ethical values that we can tolerate. May these brokers be put behind bars soon and may this trade be stopped immediately.

Say NO to body parts trading!

There has been some news circulating in Youtube that a bigfoot was captured using an iPhone. A lady by the name of Samantha posted it on Youtube not long ago and the video just went viral and captured more than 600,000 views already. Well, is it true that bigfoot exist and was captured by the iPhone or it is just a hoax?  ……  iPhone Malaysia Bloggers went to investigate and has found this out.

The original video seems to have been removed by Youtube. Below is a re-production video by KXLY.com:-

From the video, iPhoneMalaysiaBloggers feel that it is definitely a “hoax”.

Why are we still putting this up then?

Well, we feel that there are many things that we can actually learn from this on the blogging or internet marketing standpoint.

As an internet marketer or bloggers ourselves, viral marketing is a very effective tool to get our websites or blogs to get traffic. If you have the right kind of news that can spread like wildfire and you posted into your Youtube channel and then onto your website or blog and when others start to share the stories around, there is a lot of traffic that can be generated to your website or blog.

This is the strategy that many people uses to get traffic to their websites.

In this case, it is not a “bigfoot”. We would call it a “fakefoot” but it does have some good lesson in it if you are planning to start your own blog or website.

Market Share Report for SmartPhone Sales in 1st quarter 2011

From the report, it is noted that Nokia still maintains its lead as the gloabal smartphone maker in the first quarter 2011 with 24.2 million smartphone shipped during the quarter. Comparing year on year, Nokia has in fact lost market share to second-place Apple. Nokia’s market share has dropped to 24.2% compared to 38.8% last year. Nokia has shipped only 12.6% more units compared to last year.

This is a small percentage increase compared to Apple who is chasing them very closely from behind. Apple has in fact done very well with in 1st quarter 2011 with a total shipment of 18.7 million units. This is a whopping increase of more than 100% compared to last year’s shipment of 8.7 million units. This is also Apple’s record number of units shipped in a single quarter to date. Apple’s sterling results and solid number of units shipped was mainly contributed by its triple digit growth in China as well as the launch of iPhone by Verizon.

With this report, it goes to show that the smartphone market is undergoing a rapid growth with most providers registering some very solid numbers. So, if you are not growing quickly enough, you will in fact lose market share which is the case for Nokia and Research In Motion(the maker of Blackberry devices).

Another notable observation is that, both Samsung and HTC have also turned in some very strong shipment numbers in this quarter with a growth of 350% and 229.6% respectively. This also goes to show that Android based phones are quickly gaining popularity as well.

There have been a lot of speculation as to when Apple will finally launch the white version of the iPhone 4. According to some insiders, some Apple retail stores in the US have already received the white iPhone 4 and it is expected to be launched within a week.

The white iPhone 4 models is expected to boost the iPhone sales during a time of year when most customers would prefer to hold off buying a new iPhone with the expectation of the launch of the next-generation models which will normally be announced during the summer.

In 2011, however, Apple is rumoured to forgo the tradition of introducing the next generation of iPhone.  According to some trusted “inside” sources, the next generation of iPhone, likely to be called the “iPhone 5″  will be produced in September this year and will be launched sometime nearer to the end of the year holiday seasons in the US.

Such a move makes sense as it will enable Apple to align the iPhone5 to be released simultaneously on both GSM and CDMA networks, meaning both AT&T and Verizon will be able to sell these new handsets at the same time. Anyway, all these are still rumours and only Steve Jobs will have the final say on this…..

Below is the picture of the new WHITE iPhone 4

Tim Cook recently said that Apple plans to compete in the market for prepaid mobile phones. He also said that Apple will be designed not just for the rich.

How do we interpret this? Well, iPhoneMalaysiaBloggers believe that Apple is probably working on a new version of iPhone that may be used for the Prepaid market and may not be tied to any contract of carriers. We believe that this is important in order for Apple to continue to compete with the growth of Google’s Android mobile platform.

China is an emerging market where Apple has found big success in a short period of time. Cook reportedly admits that Apple has “great achievement” in China. Since the Chinese mobile users are mainly the traditional prepaid market, this will make it a good target market for a cheaper iPhone.

The company has also said that it aims to expand its partnerships with its carriers. Apple currently has 175 carrier partners, while its rival, Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry has 550 partner companies.

Tim Cook also believes that the PC market will be overtaken by the tablet market eventually and the competition will intensify in the tablet market. He has also hinted that there may be new interesting products that are in the pipeline.

i would still classify this as rumour at this point in time. Let’s keep our fingers crossed on these and see if there are any new announcement coming from Apple in the coming months…. i am sure many of us are looking forward to a more affordable iPhone.

Apple has recently announced that their AppStore has  more than 10 billion iPhone and iPad apps been downloaded since it was launched on the 10th July, 2008. Yes, it is not a typo error. It is 10 billion apps with a “B”(10 zeroes behind the “1″) and not an “M”.  This is a really incredible and impressive number of downloads from the Apps Store. What does that number mean? It means that on average, there are 18 million apps downloads per day or more than 200 apps per second. So, by the time you finish reading this very short posting, more than 1000 apps has been downloaded.

Apple has just revealed their list of top selling applications sold via  iTunes in 2010 thus far. Below is the summary of the key highlights from their iTunes Rewind 2o10.

Top Ten most downloaded paid apps(highest total number of downloads) in 2010 for iPhone/iPod touch category

2010 Champion:  Angry Birds

2010 Runners-up:  Doodle Jump

2010 3rd placing:  Skee-Ball

4th placing:    Bejeweled 2

5th placing:    Fruit Ninja

6th placing:   Cut the Rope

7th placing:   ALL-IN-1 GAMEBOX

8th placing:   The Moron Test

9th placing:   Plants vs. Zombies

10th placing:  Pocket God

Top Ten most downloaded free apps(highest total number of downloads) for iPhone/iPod touch category

2010 Champion:   Facebook

2010 Runners-up:   Angry Birds Lite

2010 3rd placing:    Words With Friends Free

4th placing:  Skype

5th placing:  Tap Tap Revenge 3

6th placing:  The Weather Channel

7th placing:  Paper Toss

8th placing:   Bing

9th placing:   ROCK BAND FREE

10th placing:   Talking Tom Cat

Top ten highest money grossing apps(total revenues received) for iPhone/iPod touch category

2010 Champion:   MLB.com At Bat 2010

2010 Runners-up:   Angry Birds

2010 3rd placing:  Call of Duty: Zombies

4th placing:   Bejeweled 2 + Blitz

5th placing:   FriendCaller 3 Pro

6th placing:   Zombie Farm

7th placing:   TomTom U.S.A.

8th placing:   TETRIS

9th placing:   Plants vs. Zombies

10th placing:   Doodle Jump

Top Ten most downloaded paid apps(highest total number of downloads) in 2010 for iPad category

2010 Champion:   Pages

2010 Runners-up:   GoodReader for iPad

2010 3rd placing:   Numbers

4th placing:   Angry Birds HD

5th placing:  Keynote

6th placing:  Glee Karaoke

7th placing:  WolframAlpha

8th placing:   Pinball HD

9th placing:   Friendly for Facebook

10th placing:   Star Walk for iPad

Top Ten most downloaded free apps(highest total number of downloads) for iPad category

2010 Champion:   iBooks

2010 Runners-up:   Pandora Radio

2010 3rd placing:   Netflix

4th placing:   Google Mobile App

5th placing:   Solitaire

6th placing:   Movies by Flixster

7th placing:   IMDb Movies & TV

8th placing:   Kindle

9th placing:   Google Earth

10th placing:   Virtuoso Piano Free 2 HD

Top ten highest money grossing apps(total revenues received) for iPad category

2010 Champion:   Pages

2010 Runners-up:   Numbers

2010 3rd placing:   Keynote

4th placing:   LogMeIn Ignition

5th placing:   SCRABBLE for iPad

6th placing:   Documents To Go Premium

7th placing:   Angry Birds HD

8th placing:   Real Racing HD

9th placing:   Plants vs. Zombies HD

10th placing:   Proloquo2Go

Congratulations to all the winners. If you have not downloaded these games/apps yet, you may want to do so.

Searching for a phone that is fiery, rare, unique and expensive? Search no more. Why not own the T-Rex iPhone 4. British Jeweller Stuart Hughes has yet again produced a rare breed of iPhone 4. The new History Edition of iPhone 4 by Stuart Hughes not only features beautiful diamonds, it also includes the actual tooth of a T-Rex. Instead of using the typical glass surface at the back, this iPhone has the actual tooth of a T-Rex – splintered into polished meteoric stone which dates back to 65 million years ago. Stuart Hughes’ corporate GoldStriker is famous for its customized luxurious electronics gadgets. Below is the photo of the iPhone 4 History Edition which is expected to be retailed at US$62,700 per piece. Only 10 pieces of this fiery, rare, unique and expensive iPhone 4 that will be made available.

Stuart Hughes has made history in October 2010 when he launched the most expensive iPhone 4 which costs US$8Million.

The handmade bezel contains approximately 500 individual flawless diamonds that total more than 100 carats; there’s 53 additional diamonds in the back, and the main navigation button is made of platinum, holding a single cut 7.4 carat pink diamond. Below is the record holder for the iPhone 4 at US$8Million. Only 2 units of this iPhone 4 is made available.

A few days ago someone has discovered a new hack into the iPhone iOS 4.1 software which enables him to break into your iPhone to make phone calls even if your iPhone has been password locked. There is a special sequence that you will need to follow in order to do this.

All you have to do is as follows:-

1.  Grab a password protected iPhone running on the iOS 4.0 or iOS 4.1

2.  Slide to unlock

3.  Press the “emergency call” button

4.  Key in *** or ###

5.  Hit the call button and immediately press the power(on/off) button immediately after

Voila………. you have just broken into the iPhone.

iPhone Malaysia Bloggers have tested this on both the jailbroken and non-jailbroken iPhones running the iOS 4.1 and found that both can be broken into. We have also tested it out on the iOS 3.13 iPhone 3G and it was alright(meaning it cannot be broken into). On the iOS 3.13 iPhone 3G, the screen just goes blank.

Well this is the bad news………..  :-(

The good news is ……….    :-)

Apple has acknowledged this security flaw and will get it fixed in the iOS 4.2 which will be released in November 2010(not too far away). So, in the meantime, if you are using the iPhone running on the iOS 4.0 or iOS 4.1, please make sure that you do not lose your iPhone even if it is password locked. Some beta users of the iOS 4.2 Beta 3 users have reported that the problem is solved and they do not see the problem in the iOS 4.2 Beta 3 version of the software.

Below is a video on how this is done:-