MacRumors iPhone and iPad Blog: Apps, News, and Rumors

Last week, there was a bit of publicity surrounding Apple's December rejection of an iPhone application highlighting the work of online political cartoonist Mark Fiore, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his work earlier in the week. After Fiore's disclosure that his NewsToons application had been rejected by Apple last December for "ridiculing public figures", Apple invited him to...

Apple yesterday released two new iPhone commercials, posting them to the company's iPhone ad gallery. The two ads continue Apple's recent pattern of narrative-style commercials showing off multiple applications used in succession. 'Dog Lover' tells the story of a family adopting a new dog, using the iPhone to find an available dog, share pictures of her, find dog parks, and stream webcam...

Yesterday, the Nieman Journalism Lab reported that Mark Fiore, who earlier this week won a Pulitzer Prize for his political cartoons, had submitted an iPhone application highlighting his work last year, but was rejected by Apple. The rejection was based on prohibitions in Apple's developer agreement against ridiculing public figures. In December, Apple rejected his iPhone app, NewsToons,...

Opera today announced that its Opera Mini browser for the iPhone and iPod touch, released just days ago, has already surpassed one million downloads and is the #1 downloaded free app in all 22 of Apple's featured country App Stores. Apple said "Yes", and iPhone users around the world said, "Yes, please". Opera Mini was downloaded more than one million times in its first day of availability in...

Almost as soon as we were ushered into the age of modern driving with the invention of the automobile we entered the age of distracted driving with the inventions of shiny things to keep us distracted: let it be the car radio or more recently the cell phone. Recent research by the National Safety Council on distracted driving has shown that cell phone usage when driving can cause a driver to...

Apple is continuing its rapid-fire release of new iPhone commercials, this time posting one entitled 'Shopper' to its iPhone ad gallery. The new ad again uses a narrative style to feature iPhone applications, demonstrating how an iPhone user could research espresso machines, ask for opinions from family and friends, and check prices. The commercial first features Safari, showing the mobile...

Close on the heels of last week's release of its new 'Commute' iPhone commercial, Apple yesterday released yet another ad entitled 'Concert' and posted the commercial to its iPhone ad gallery. Like other recent commercials, 'Concert' demonstrates the iPhone's features in the form of a narrative. In this ad, the narrator uses Shazam to identify a song she had heard, downloads the song from...

Apple yesterday released a new iPhone commercial entitled 'Commute' and has posted it to the company's iPhone ad gallery. Like other recent ads, 'Commute' features three App Store applications in the context of a situational narrative, showing how one might use the iPhone during his or her daily commute . - MassTransit ($3.99) - Here, File File! ($9.99) - WSJ - The Wall Street Journal...

Wolfram Alpha, the company behind the online computational knowledge engine that was launched last year, announced today that the price of its iPhone app will be reduced to $1.99 from $49.99. Additionally, the company has launched a new site optimized for mobile devices. The app's drastic price decrease and the availability of the new mobile site that can be accessed for free both serve to...

Starbucks announced today that its Starbucks Card Mobile app now allows users to make payments through the app in more than 1,000 locations in Target stores throughout the U.S. At its initial release in September, the app's payment system worked only in 16 stores in the Seattle and Silicon Valley areas. To accompany the expanded payment trial locations, users have options to find...

Apple yesterday issued a minor update to its MobileMe Gallery application for the iPhone and iPod touch, offering improvements for adding friends' galleries. The update offers a more convenient way to add your friends' galleries so that you can view their photos as easily as your own. From the Galleries screen, tap Add a Friend and then Choose Contacts (the number in parentheses indicates how...

MapQuest yesterday announced the launch of a major update to its MapQuest 4 Mobile GPS application for the iPhone, bringing basic turn-by-turn voice guidance and off-route assistance to the free application. We're pleased to announce that basic Voice Guidance is now available on our MapQuest 4 Mobile iPhone app. This is an exciting feature that really differentiates us from most other free...

The Discovery Channel yesterday announced the launch of its official Mythbusters iPhone application, bringing "sneak peak" video content, fan interaction, and casual gaming to fans of the popular television series. The MythBusters App for iPhone and iPod touch features more than 300 minutes of ad-free, short-form video content, including exclusive sneak peeks, outtakes and behind-the-scenes...

Yahoo! today announced the release of two new applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, offering new tools to assist users with searches while on the go. Yahoo! Search The first application, Yahoo! Search, is a standard search application offering voice search, local results, maps, and personalized results. Maximized for speed, the Yahoo! Search iPhone app revolves around an innovative...

Navigon yesterday rolled out a series of three regional U.S. GPS turn-by-turn navigation applications for the iPhone at an introductory price of $24.99 each, significantly cheaper than its more comprehensive MobileNavigator North America currently priced at $79.99. The three regional applications divide the continental United States into three overlapping segments, permitting customers to...

iPhone developer Amro Mousa reports (via Ars Technica) that Apple has added a new feature to its iTunes Connect interface for developers administering their iPhone applications submitted to the App Store, allowing developers to schedule sale prices for their applications in advance. Developers previously were required to manually update pricing tier selections if they wished to adjust App...

PayPal yesterday launched a major upgrade to its free iPhone application, offering a number of new features including the ability to initiate money transfers between users' accounts by "bumping" iPhones. + Brand new look and feel! + Bump: Easily start by bumping iPhones. + Withdraw funds from your PayPal balance. + Request Money: Get paid faster, it's the easy way to ask for the money you are ...

Simplify Media late last week announced that it is moving in a "new direction" and will no longer be offering its popular iPhone applications that allowed users to stream their iTunes music libraries to their iPhones and iPod touches via Wi-Fi, 3G, and EDGE. After developing the technology behind Simplify Media for over 4 years, it is time for us to take it in a new direction. In order to focus...