Apple first started opening its Apps store to developers and the public in June 2007. In just a short time(not even 3 years!), it has tens of thousands of Apps available there for sale and many more being added on a daily basis. This is changing how people view mobile devices i.e. from just a conventional phone for calling purpose only to an integrated entertainment cum business tool for the busy executive.

Below are the list of the Top Selling non-gaming Apple iPhone Apps for 2009:-

10. The Moron Test

Category: Entertainment
Seller: BERKELEY MALAGON
Price: $0.99
Requirements: iPhone OS 2.2.1 or later, iPod Touch

9. Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite

Category: Business
Seller: Quickoffice
Price: $9.99
Requirements: iPhone OS 3.0 and later, iPod Touch

8. Pocket God

Category: Entertainment
Seller: Bolt Creative
Price: $0.99
Requirements: iPhone OS 3.0 or later, iPod Touch

7. ColorSplash

Category: Photography
Seller: Pocket Pixels
Price: $1.99
Requirements: iPhone OS 2.0 or later, iPod Touch

6. SlingPlayer Mobile

Category: Entertainment
Seller: Sling Media
Price: $29.99
Requirements: iPhone OS 3.0 or later, iPod Touch

5. Golfshot: Golf GPS

Category: Sports
Seller: Shotzoom Software
Price: $29.99

4. TomTom US & Canada

Category: Navigation
Seller: TomTom International
Price: $69.99
Requirements: iPhone OS 3.0 or later, iPod Touch (only the iPhone 3G and 3GS do not require TomTom car kit for turn-by-turn directions to function)

3. Textfree Unlimited

Category: Lifestyle
Seller: Pinger, Inc.
Price: $5.99
Requirements: iPhone OS 2.2 or later, iPod Touch

2. MLB.com At Bat

Category: Sports
Seller: Major League Baseball
Price: Free*
Requirements: iPhone OS 3.0 or later, iPod Touch

1. MobileNavigator North America

Category: Navigation
Seller: NAVIGON AG
Price: $59.99
Requirements: iPhone OS 3.0 or later, iPod Touch

Please do take note that some of these Apps are not suitable for the Malaysia market and is more for the US market. i am sharing the list here to show what the range of top selling Apps are and also maybe give some local iPhone developers some ideas on what apps to work on and which can be customized for local contents to suit our Malaysian market!

To all the GPS and iPhone 3G/3GS enthusiasts out there, there is finally a good GPS App with updated maps that are available out there. The Papago GPS App is able to use the community-maintained maps from malfreemaps.com which has the most updated maps for Malaysia. Below is a great write-up by Tan Kit Hoong. It is also available at http://star-techcentral.com/reviews/story.asp?file=/2010/2/17/prodit/20100211165050&sec=reviews&new=1&cat=5&rid=1356

Papago iPhone App

iPhone 3G/3GS users rejoice, for there is finally a car GPS navigation application that works reasonably well on the iPhone.

We’re talking about the Papago! M6 Pro for the iPhone which recently appeared on the Apple App Store.

Retailing for US$19.99 (about RM68) the Papago! M6 Pro’s big draw is that it features the community-maintained GPS maps from Malfreemaps.com, which is probably the most updated ones available for this country right now.

The software fulfils the need of those looking for proper GPS car navigation on the iPhone instead of the rather basic Maps application but it does have some issues.

Features

The Papago! M6 Pro has all the features of a modern car navigation unit — you get 3D buildings, junction view and turn-by-turn voice prompts.

In fact if you’ve used the the company’s purpose-built standalone car navigation units before, the Papago! M6 Pro’s interface will be quite familiar.

There are actually two versions of the software available on the App Store — the US$19.99 (RM68) one comes with 3D building and junction view support, while the US$9.99 (RM36) doesn’t.

Interface-wise, the icons are a little nicer-looking and the layout is slightly different from the car navigation units, but they’re easy enough to figure out even if you’re a newbie.

We’ve said this before when reviewing the standalone car navigation units and it applies equally here — in terms of user-friendliness, the Papago!’s interface is just a little below Garmin Nuvi units and definitely much better than the TomTom software (which you can also buy from the App Store) and even MapKing (which is popular on Windows Mobile smartphones).

We won’t go into detail on the navigation system — suffice to say that you can find points of interest like restaurants and such, as well as enter in road names and addresses to find where you want to go.

All pretty easy to use, and thanks to the maps from Malfreemaps.com, there are extensive listings of restaurants, hospitals, roads etc., covering all of Malaysia as well as Singapore.

The one big advantage of the iPhone version is that it supports both portrait and landscape orientation on the iPhone.

Just turn the iPhone either way and the maps and menus will rearrange themselves to suit the orientation.

Menu navigation is a tad slow — while not deal-breakingly slow, the interface is a little bit laggy and could do with some speed optimisations.

Once you set your navigation, though, the refresh rate is fast enough for navigation, although it sometimes loses the GPS signal due to the iPhone’s relatively poor GPS hardware.

Nevertheless, I had very few issues with it — signal rarely dropped for very long (unless you’re in a tunnel) and the software is very quick in recalculating your position if you take a wrong turn.

Issues

There are a few problems specific to the iPhone however — apart from the hardware limitations of the iPhone, using the Papago! software for car navigation heats up your iPhone really fast.

While I don’t think this will cause your iPhone to suddenly ignite into a ball of white hot flame, it does have one undesirable effect.

If you’re using a car charger, the iPhone’s built-in temperature sensors will turn off charging to keep the temperature down if the unit gets too hot.

This means that the iPhone’s battery power will slowly deplete when this happens, even if the car charger is still plugged in.

However, I found an easy workaround for this — if you bring the iPhone up to your car air-conditioning vent for a couple of minutes, the temperature will come down enough that the temperature sensors will allow charging to resume.

So, if you have a an aircond vent mount for your iPhone, we would suggest using that instead or risk having to cool down the device every 20 minutes or so by holding it up to the vent.

There also seems to be a bug where if you connect the iPhone to a 3.5mm stereo jack while the Papago! software is running, it doesn’t automatically transfer audio to your car stereo.

What you’ll get when you do so is complete silence.

Again, we found a workaround — if you had music in your iPhone playing while running the Papago! software, then the voice navigation will also come through, although, of course, with the voice prompts heard over your music.

The last issue is not really a Papago! problem and it has more to do with Apple — as you probably know, unless you have a jailbroken iPhone, the device’s file system is essentially closed from users.

This means that should you want to load in any of the often-updated map updates from Malfreemaps.com into the iPhone, you simply can’t.

Instead you’ll have to wait until the Papago! software is updated on the App Store with the latest map data.

Conclusion

After a couple of weeks using the Papago! M6 Pro I have to say that the software is pretty impressive as it works as advertised and the Malfreemaps data included is recent enough and detailed enough that it got me anywhere I wanted to go.

The Papago! definitely won’t replace a purpose-built car navigation unit — it isn’t quite responsive enough and it’s a bit disruptive when you get text messages and phone calls while you’re navigating — but it works and is probably the cheapest alternative to getting a true car navigation unit if you already own an iPhone 3G or 3GS.

For the price Maction Technologies is asking for the Papago! with Malaysian maps, it’s practically a steal, really.

Pros: Intuitive interface; 3D buildings; junction view; extensive map data.

Cons: iPhone heats up a lot during navigation.

There have been a lot of buzz around the new Apple’s launch aka the iPAD. So, i thought i should also blog about this. In my personal opinion the iPAD is essentially an “oversized” iPod Touch/iPhone. Having said that, knowing Apple’s previous launches, they can normally turn something very ordinary into an extraordinary launch.

Here is what my “predictions” for the iPAD:-

1.  Apple die-hards will still get one unit for themselves……  :-)

2.  Apple will likely launch a whole new service for ebooks similar like the iTunes Apps. Apple has just found a new way to monetize ebooks. This unit will definitely give other ebook readers like Amazon’s Kindle a run for their money. In the near future, the iTunes will be selling a lot more ebooks than they are currently offering and this can be another potential boost in revenue for Apple.

3.  Tablet PCs will give the laptops a run for their money and there will be more launches of tablet PCs by other manufacturers in the future to tap into this market(if Apple is successful in this launch). Tablet PCs are not something new but failed to kick off in the past. It is yet to be seen if Apple manage to pull this off using the iPAD. My view is that this launch will generate enough buzz and excitement and will eventually contribute to Apple’s revenues in the future.

Below is the video on the launch of the iPAD by Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs:-

Below is another article by New York Times which commented on the new Apple’s iPad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/technology/personaltech/28pogue-email.html

http://www.apple.com/ipad/

For now, i am happy with my iPhone and has no intention of getting the iPad.  :-)

How do you find out what movies are showing at your local cinemas and the showing times of each movies? Things that i have personally done in the past includes buying the local newspaper and browsing at the “Movies” section as well as driving all the way to the cinema to check them out.

Introducing the new iPhone CineApp application………………With this new application, you do not need to do that anymore.

With the CineApp application, you are able to do the following:-

1.  Add a cinema into your favourite’s list for easier access in the future.

2.  Connect to Google map to get the direction to your cinema of choice

3.  Check and compare movie showtimes for every cinemas in your vicinity.

4.  See what is being shown in the “Now Showing” and “Coming Soon” tabs

5.  Watch trailers and video clips of the selected movies

6.  Read synopsis and reviews of the movies of your choice

and many more……  :-)

Below are some of the screenshots of the Applications:-

With such ease of use and features, i will undoubtedly give it a thumbs up to this Application.

To find out more about this App, you may go to their website at http://www.appsolution.my/gallery/cineapps.html

The first iPhone virus has been created by a 21-year-old Australian student, Mr Ashley Towns from South Sydney.

The virus, which can spread from phone to phone, changes the iPhone’s wallpaper to a photograph of singer Rick Astley – best known for his hit Never Gonna Give You Up in the eighties.

The wallpaper features the words “Ikee is never gonna give you up“.

The virus can only infect phones which have been jailbroken by their owners. Jailbreaking allows the owners to run non-Apple approved applications on their phones.

“When people jailbreak their phone, it allows them to install a service on their phone called SSH,” he said.

“Generally you should always change your password after setting up on the iPhone as all iPhones use the same password. This virus pretty much exploits people’s laziness to change their password.”

With the creation of this virus, it is proven that anyone could easily hack into an iPhone.

“I think to raise awareness for one, somebody with more malicious intent could have done anything – read your SMSs, go through your emails, view your contacts, photos – anything,” he said.

Mr Towns says he is unaware if he is breaking any law by starting the virus.

“I’ve been informed that I may have broken some, but not being a lawyer I do not know,” he said.

“The virus itself is not malicious and is not out to hurt people. It’s just poking fun and hoping waking people up a little.”

He says it is the first virus of its kind.

“Yes, especially the first that spreads from phone to phone,” he said.

Mr Towns says he does not know how many people the virus could affect.

“Due to the nature of it, it’s kind of hard to tell, I know my phone hit about 100 alone but from there I have no idea,” he said.

But he says apart from changing the wallpaper on a user’s phone, the virus is not harmful and quite easy to get rid of.

The virus does nothing malicious.  All it does is to change their wallpaper to Rick Astley,” he said.

He says it takes a couple of minutes to remove by simply changing the phone’s password and deleting a few files from the phone.

With this first virus on the iPhone, it may prompt many more hackers to start developing similar threats on the iPhone in the future.

Hopefully this will not get out of hand to the point of being annoying.

Do you fancy to have the iPhone 3GS functionality but are currently stuck with the iPhone 3G and are not planning to upgrade your current iPhone 3G in the near future?

Below are 3 Applications that can help transform your iPhone 3G to have features that are similar to the iPhone 3GS for FREE:-

This application “Say N Dial” has the similar functionality as the Voice Dial feature of the iPhone 3GS. Please take note that if you have many contacts of very similar names, this application may not work very well as it may tend to confuse itself with similar sounding names. So, do not be surprised if you ended up calling someone that you do not originally wanted to call using this app.

Ever wanted to have the Zoom and Flash functionality of the iPhone 3GS? This application is a great one to do just that. It allows you to capture images and will do a modification on the captured image to make it looks brighter. It also allows you to perform a zoom whenever you want to. This is certainly an application that i will recommend for those of you who do a lot of photo-taking using the iPhone.

The iPhone 3GS comes with the standard battery indicator on the top right corner of the phone. If you are using the iPhone 3G and would like to know the remaining battery life on your iPhone 3G, you may want to consider installing this app. It provides a good estimation of the remaining minutes that the iPhone can last if it is put on standby mode, talktime mode on 2G/3G network, internet browsing mode on EDGE/3G/Wifi as well as video or audio mode when using the iPod function.

Of course, these are not going to fully replace the iPhone 3GS functionality. It is however a good or reasonable compromise to enhance the iPhone 3G handset. Have fun testing out these functionalities and do drop us a comment if you have found better apps that can do the tricks.

The iPhone 3GS comes with a cool new feature called the VoiceOver. This feature is however not available on the iPhone 3G phones. VoiceOver speaks out what appears on the iPhone screen so that users can hear what is on the screen without seeing it. VoiceOver can even speak in many different languages as specified in the international settings.

VoiceOver will tell you what elements are on the screen as you move your fingers across it. When an element is selected, VoiceOver will speak the name or give the description of the item. If text is selected, VoiceOver will read the text. If a control button is selected and Speak Hint is turned on, VoiceOver will tell you the action of the item or give instructions for you to proceed e.g. “Double tap to open” etc. VoiceOver also plays a sound whenever you change screen.

To get a better overview of what the VoiceOver feature can do, below is a good video which guides you on how to use this feature on the iPhone 3GS:-

With this new VoiceOver feature on the iPhone 3GS, it is even helping a new group of people to be able to make use of the iPhone 3GS – the visually impaired. This new feature makes the iPhone the “eye” phone to the visually impaired. Recently, there is an article on the NST Online about “Trends: An eye on the phone”.

The sole telco provider for iPhone in Malaysia, Maxis will be re-listed on the Bursa Malaysia on 19th November 2009. This IPO exercise is to raise an estimated amount of RM11.7billion. Today i was at the Maxis Center to collect the Blue Form. There were many people at the Maxis Center enquiring about the IPO as well as to collect the form. Attached is the picture that i managed to capture on my iPhone when i was there.

Below is the local news on the thestar.com:-

KUALA LUMPUR: Maxis Bhd is offering for sale 2.25 billion shares, or 30% of its total equity, to new investors with an indicative offer price of RM5.20 per share.

This means the initial public offering (IPO) will raise at least RM11.7bil for the major shareholders of the company, that is, Malaysian tycoon T. Ananda Krishnan and Saudi Telecom.

From left: Sandip Das, Information, Communications, Culture and Arts Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, Raja Tan Sri Arshad Raja Tun Uda and Datuk Seri Nazir Razak at the prospectus launch yesterday.

The final price of the shares on offer, however, will only be determined on Nov 10 after the completion of its institutional book-building exercise.

The final price could be at a discount of around 5% from the indicative offer price.

“It was envisaged that the re-listing of Maxis would attract the attention of local and regional investors, enlarge Bursa Malaysia’s capitalisation and also add to the range of large, well-managed companies available on our stock market,” Maxis chairman Raja Tan Sri Arshad Raja Tun Uda said yesterday at the launch of the company’s prospectus.

With a market capitalisation of RM39bil when the shares begin to trade on the main market on Nov 19, Maxis would reclaim its position as one of the largest component stocks on the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KL Composite Index.

According to Datuk Seri Nazir Razak, group chief executive of CIMB Group, which is the adviser for the Maxis IPO, the exercise is the largest-ever IPO in South-east Asia and the largest in Asia Pacific this year.

Nazir said he expected Maxis’ listing to grab the attention of international investors to the local stock market, with the seductive factors being the company’s large capitalisation, solid fundamentals, good track record, healthy growth prospects and strong liquidity.

“Maxis generates steady cash flow from its mobile communications operations, and enjoys strong upside potential for its broadband and data services,” he said.

Maxis currently commands about 40% of the domestic mobile telecommunications market.

While the mobile penetration rate in Malaysia has already exceeded 104%, based on the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission’s latest statistics, Maxis chief executive officer Sandip Das believes there is still ample room for growth.

“People say the mobile market is saturated, but I disagree. The mobile market in Malaysia is mature, but it is not saturated,” he said, adding that east Malaysia was still “under-served” as penetration rates there were less than 40%.

As for the other two pillars of growth, Maxis has allocated a capital spending of RM1.3bil to boost its broadband and data services capacity this year.

Thus far, Maxis has already secured four cornerstone investors that have committed to subscribe about 28% of the Maxis shares on offer, and to hold on to their equities respectively for up to at least six months. These include local fund managers Permodalan Nasional Bhd and Employees Provident Fund and US-based Fidelity Investments.

Of the total shares on offer, only 2.83% will be allocated for retail investors while the remainder 27.17% will be for institutional investors. In its prospectus, Maxis disclosed an aggressive dividend policy that targets a payout ratio of at least 75% of its net profit as dividends.

“The growth prospects and strong cash flows generated by Maxis will ensure that the company is an attractive investment on Bursa Malaysia for the global and domestic investor community,” Raja Tan Sri Arshad said.

Dropbox has been around since May 2008 although it is only recently made available as an iPhone app. Dropbox is an application which allows you to synchronize folders on your local computer to other computers easily via the internet. The Dropbox iPhone App enables you to access those files on your iPhone seamlessly now! For this app to work on your iPhone, you need to have at least the iPhone OS3.1. The other great thing about this app is that it is FREE and it comes with a free 2GB storage. For additional storage, it is chargeable at US$9.99 per month for 50GB or US$19.99 for 100GB. For myself, the 2GB storage is good enough for my personal usage.

Key features of the Dropbox application are:-

1.  It loads and synchronizes quickly and seldom crashes(i have not experience any crashes while using the Dropbox app)

2.  This app is free and it comes with a free 2GB storage

3.  You can share the folders with anyone by sharing the login and password with them.

4.  You can share files(word, excel, pdf), powerpoint presentation, music and videos easily and seamlessly with others using this app.

To understand how it works better, i have included a video below which provides a good introduction as well as detailed steps on how to use this wonderful application.  :-)

i would give it a thumbs up for the ease of use as well as its usefulness and practicality. i would personally rate this app as one of the coolest iPhone app. If you have not downloaded it yet, i would strongly urge you to go check this out!

For more information on Dropbox as well as to download the Dropbox application onto your PC or laptop, you may check out the website below:-

http://www.getdropbox.com/

Have you ever wanted to get the lyrics to your favourite songs but do not know where to get it? With the Tunewiki apps, this may not be a problem anymore. Tunewiki is a cool app that provides worldwide radio station channels on your iPhone. With the wide varieties of genres available on Tunewiki, finding your favourite song or radio station will be a problem of the past.

Tunewiki offers a few great features as below:-

1.  It automatically syncs lyrics to the streaming songs that are being played. If no lyric is available, then it will will display “:: Sorry No Lyrics Yet! ::“

2.   It has hundreds of radio stations worldwide powered by SHOUTcast radio.

3.  It allows you to find your favourite music videos on Youtube.

4.  and the best part is, this app is FREE.      :-)

With all these great features, i would highly recommend you to download this great app. One thing to bear in mind though is that you will need at least an EDGE, 3G or Wifi connection for this app to function smoothly.

Below are a couple of screenshots of this TuneWiki app as well as a video from Youtube showing you how to run it:-

Do check out this wonderful app and feel free to give your comments on it.  :-)