The iPhone is mostly dummy-proof, at least in the sense that you won't find yourself accruing hundreds of dollars in fees because you stumbled on a bug in the mobile version of Safari. Or so I thought. As it turns out that very thing is possible, and not all that hard to pull off.

As I'm sure you know, Apple allows very few apps to run in the background on the iPhone. The iPod is one, but you might not be aware that Safari is another. Safari will continue to stream data from some web pages even while the app is "closed." It can be extremely useful for playing internet radio stations that don't have their own apps, but in the case of motion-jpegs, a filetype used for things like cam feeds, the user might not know the app is still streaming content, and potentially racking up some crazy data charges.

Obviously there are some pretty specific circumstances surrounding this problem. For one, you'd have to be in data roaming or traveling or somehow or another not on an unlimited plan. That's not something we'll see stateside too often. If you were caught in that situation, though, it would be pretty easy to generate a grand or two in overage fees I'm sure.

Luckily the solution is as simple as the problem. Just make sure you close any pages with auto-refreshing content if you're worried about it.

Source: MobileCrunch

In the rush to release an iPhone app, a lot of publishers have missed the mark, omitting their best content for something quick and dirty that kicks your ass outside after you've had your five minutes of fun. FHM's iPhone app is different, though. It's loaded with content, frequently updated, and it only costs $1.99.

I was more than happy to consider reviewing the app since I knew what hid between FHM's magazine covers. Everyone knows FHM gets the hottest women alive - just look at the Megan Fox shoot - and that's the bulk of material the app delivers to the iPhone. The app works on a card system that's actually a lot like the Palm Pre's OS. The two most prominent cards are "Non-stop Honeys" and "Girl of the Week." Each section allows you to view FHM photo content in a grid of four per screen, or zoomed to full-screen. You can then save or share the pictures you like and vote on your favorites.

The app also has a videos section with behind-the-scene content for a lot of the photo shoots. Again, content is updated regularly, so you should be able to find something new to watch as often as you come back to the app. To top things off, FHM feeds articles into the "Take Once Daily" sections, and adds that special FHM flavor with the "Useful/Useless Facts" section (who knew a five-minute kiss was illegal in Iowa?).

The whole thing is delivered in a slick little package courtesy of Zumobi. If you're a fan of the FHM magazine, there's no way you'll be disappointed in the $1.99 you spend on this app.

FHM provided the software for this review

It's hard to say just how I feel about the new app from Harvard Medical School, called the Swine Flu Center. On the one hand, it's certainly important to keep the public educated about H1N1. As a national emergency level virus, people should know what they're up against. Are outbreak maps on our phone the best way to do that? Maybe not.

The new application is part of Harvard Medical School's mobile initiative to get people educated about current medical issues. At $1.99 it's pretty cheap, and certainly has a lot to offer. The app has videos, diagnostic tips, prevention tips, and an interactive symptom checker.

As with any interactive medical tool, make sure you're talking to a physician before making rash decisions. These are guidelines, people, guidelines. Let's not freak out.

Source: TechCrunch

Military defense contractor Raytheon is apparently as interested in Android as the rest of us. The company has created an application that works like a mashup between a buddy list and Google Maps, giving users the ability to locate "buddies" anywhere on the battlefield.

The system, called Raytheon Android Tactical System (RATS), was developed on Android for the openness of the platform. Raytheon sees RATS expanding to uses like biometric scanning and off-site suspect identification. By developing on Android, Raytheon was also able to keep the cost of the software down. Think a couple hundred dollars per user, versus the typical tens of thousands per mobile terminal, something taxpayers are sure to be happy with.

Source: Forbes

Wolfram Alpha just released an iPhone app that differs in one major way from the web engine - it costs $50. And the WA guys think people will buy it, though they aren't sure how many.

A rep for the company contacted Gizmodo and said the following:

How many people will buy it? We're not sure, but looking at the other apps that are $50+, we think that we're of at least comparable in utility and functionality, if not more. And, part of what the company is also doing is making a statement about the non-trivial nature of WolframAlpha's capabilities, and how much the system has matured since launch.

So what does that mean for the future of the web version of WA? Does the company really expect users to pay $50 to take that free service mobile?

When I had the thought that someone should do some app organizing, giving consumers a way to find the very best iPhone apps out there, I didn't think it would be a high school sophomore. Jordan Satok had plans to surprise me, it seems. The 15-year-old web entrepreneur started appoftheday.com, a site that aims to give exposure to the very apps many of us are looking for.

The daily recommendations come courtesy of community nominations. You get just one nomination per day, and since the site ties in with Gravatar, the hope is that users will just log in with an email, keeping developers from going in to spam their own apps with votes.

There's a good read up on Wired's Gadget Lab about Apple's recent removal of in-app purchase restrictions for free iPhone apps. The article suggests that the move, when implemented with the Apple tablet, could be the defib the publishing industry needs.

There are already a couple apps out there using this model, though they weren't free to begin with. The McSweeney's app, for instance, allowed you to purchase six months of content on installation. From there it was a subscription service for more of the premium goods. Wired thinks newspapers and magazines could use this model to differentiate premium quality content from the everyday stuff like blogs and user content.

The key to the publishing transformation, though, is the Apple tablet. For my part, I really don't like to read content exclusively on my iPhone. I love the flexibility to do so as I please, but having content limited to just that little screen is exactly the reason I've avoided the McSweeney's app. It's just too small to use for all of my daily reading. A tablet would change that, offering the real estate necessary to make daily reading an enjoyable experience.

For more on Apple's plan to pluck a struggling industry from the brink, check out the original post at Wired.

Apple has decided to lift yet another App Store restriction, one that has bloated the App Store (that app count isn't entirely accurate) for some time. Developers are now allowed to have in-app purchases in free apps, a move that spells the demise of all those "lite" apps.

As things used to be, developers were required to charge for the download of an application if they also wanted to charge for content to be added later. By lifting the restriction, Apple has finally enabled developers to make just one version of an application that can then be unlocked through in app purchases.

I know this makes trial or limited downloads a lot more appealing. Downloading two apps for one purpose always seemed like a hassle to me. I'm glad things have finally turned the corner.

It's been pretty hilarious to watch all of the fake "there's an app for that" ads come out, just to see an actual app released a few months later. Such is the case with SmartStart from Viper. The free app hooks your phone up with a starter kit installed on your car and essentially turns your iPhone into your keys.

SmartStart does more than just ignition. You can start your heater, lock and unlock doors, pop your trunk, and set the alarm. Since the signal is carried over cell networks you can use the app from pretty much anywhere without range limitation.

All that convenience comes with a pretty hefty price tag, though. It's $299 for the car module if you've already got a Viper system, $499 if not. You get a free year of service but after that you're looking at $30/year to keep things running. Even at that price, though, I'd imagine a lot of people would be willing to buy. I mean, really, your iPhone controls your car. Now you just need to replace your Ford Focus with an Aston Martin.

If you've been waiting for Adobe to put Photoshop on the iPhone, you're wait is over. It's about what you'd expect (and certainly all you need) from an editing application on your cell phone. The app is even free, which I found fairly surprising.

The interface is probably the best part of the app. It's simple slider controls for most effects, which include standard adjustments for saturation, exposure, tint, and all that. You can also crop and use filters, which makes it pretty easy to put together a decent looking picture for a quick Facebook upload. Oh, did I mention the app is free?

The app includes integration with Adobe's online system and allows you to upload photos or just save the changes right on your phone. As I may have mentioned, the app is free.

It seems Apple has one less straw man to throw at investigators over the Google Voice rejection. AT&T has decided, at long last, to allow VoIP calling over 3G connections. VoIP over 3G has been the reason behind a whole slew of app rejections for the iPhone. The change probably comes as a result of the net neutrality discussion, but even so, it's something I expected AT&T to fight aggressively, not acquiesce to.

The policy change means you can now do some pretty cool stuff, like use Skype anywhere, or the new Vonage app that heralded the VoIP announcement. It also puts a lot of pressure on Apple to push the Google Voice app through. We all know the "duplicating iPhone features," defense is a load of crap, and this leaves Apple with very little reason for the rejection.

Of course, the policy change also means a lot more data traffic on AT&T's overtasked network. It'll be interesting to see how well that holds up.

Palm has finally given in to the idea that open development is the way to go on the Pre. At a conference today where the prime topic was the future of WebOS, the company announced that it would be allowing developers to distribute free apps over the web.

I would call this the Pre's saving grace if it weren't coming so late in the game, because it's an incredible idea. Developers simply submit the apps to Palm on a review-/censor-free basis and receive a URL back for full distribution. On top of that Palm is waiving the $99 fee for developers using the free distribution method. Regular app submission for the App Catalog will still cost $50. The last brilliant stroke in Palm's terribly tardy plan was giving each of the developers at the WebOS conference a free Pre with a month's service and a Touchstone dock. The whole thing is really a great idea...3 months ago.

At this point developers are working with such a small user base that even free phones and unbridled distribution may not be enough to win them back. The Pre needed to see healthy app growth at launch. Instead the store was stagnant as Palm struggled to get the SDK out on time. This new program could have fostered explosive growth then, but now it will probably look more like Palm's last flash in the pan.

Source: TechCrunch

Where there's a will there's a way, and Adobe's found one. The iPhone was the only smartphone on the market that couldn't comply with Adobe's designs for Flash on every handset. Apple has refused to budge, insisting that blocking Flash increases security for the phone. There's probably some truth to that, but it also isn't out of the question to think Apple might have its own reasons.

Well Adobe got sick of waiting for Apple to cooperate, so it developed away around Apple's blockade. For now the fix comes in the form of an additional export method for Flash programs. One option supports Flash, the other makes the program usable on the iPhone. This really opens some doors for Apple developers who might have otherwise shifted to other platforms for support.

To me this is just another great example of taking the control out of Apple's hands. Sure, Adobe had to play by Steve Jobs' rules, but it was still able to roll out a product that will have significant impact on the goods available in the App Store. Now what's holding up that Hulu app?

The App Store is growing at alarming rates, something you might assume to be a great thing for developers. It could turn out the other way, though. As more apps come pouring in the store becomes harder and harder to organize, leaving great apps to fall through the cracks for no reason other than that they're hard to find.

Apple's attempts to remedy the situation have been half-assed so far. There was the "revamp" featured with iTunes 9.0, which was nothing more than a reorganization of utter chaos. Apple also implemented Genius features for apps to help you locate new apps based on the ones you already have. For me, the service has been terrible. I've not found anything through App Genius that I wouldn't have found otherwise.

Cupertino is launching a new app discovery service called "Apps For Everything," a website that highlights apps in categories like cooking and music. It's a decent idea, but the fact that the site is run by Apple almost certainly dooms it for failure. Apple usually showcases apps that do a good job of showing off the iPhone or have that special quality only Apple can see. In my experience, those apps aren't things I use daily. Typically they're flash-in-the-pan style apps that work on a young platform but will diminish in use as the App Store continues to grow.

For the App Store to continue to be a success, Apple needs to dramatically improve organization or turn that organization over to the consumers. Give us access to a database of all the apps including ratings. Let a couple enterprising web developers put together a community to encourage exposure. And for god's sake, give iTunes the complete overhaul it needs.

Palm's Pre has been getting price cuts all over the place since launch, proving at once that Palm really wants to get the phone into your hands and that consumers don't like it enough to pay more than they would for a messaging dumb-phone. There's even a deal for the next couple days to get a Pre for free. Palm could be selling the Pre for full price, though, if they would just get it together already.

By get it together I mean release a full-fledged app store. The App Catalog is still a pathetic shadow of what it could be, with too few apps and no paid support. With the 1.2 WebOS update that just went live users can finally re-download previously purchased apps for free, but the update really didn't do much else. Nevermind that enormous changelog, which is mostly just optimization of existing features, Palm needs a major update to make the phone desirable. Until that happens, they can plan to watch Apple's own store grow exponentially, shrinking Palm's potential user base one iPhone at a time.