Discovery Channel App for iPhone

TechCrunch has a review of a new Discovery Channel App for the iPhone. It looks to be focused on Discovery Channel fan boys and girls, with links to schedules, news, and video snippets from various shows. If you want to view a full episode of a show, you still have to purchase it from the iTunes Store.

AC-103 Spectre: iSniper from above

AC-103 is a AC-103 gunner simulation that costs you 99 cents because it is on sale at the moment

This is a fun game that got better when the new update that makes the controls much easier than before. You are a gunner upon a AC-103 Spectre gunship as u fly on mission that involve blowing up tanks, trucks, and foot solders with 25, 40, and 105mm shells. The night vision/infra-red interface makes it a cool looking game and a overall pretty cool app. The only downside is a rare glitch that doesn't end your mission when you win and then the time runs out giving you a mission failure.

I give this a 4 out of 5

Apple Support Fixed My Phone

After a couple of calls to Apple Support, a solution was found for my problem. Thanks to Kimberly and Barbara from Apple for the help. To fix your phone do the following:

1. Open up iTunes and take a screen shot of all your applications. You could write them down instead, but I found the screen shot a lot easier.
2. Delete all the 3rd party applications on your iPhone
3. Delete all the 3rd party applications in iTunes
4. Exit iTunes
5. Empty your Trash. Do a soft reset of your iPhone. (Just for good measure)
6. Restart iTunes
7. Download all your applications
8. Resync your iPhone

If you have purchased applications, don't worry. You won't get charged again. The iTunes store remembers what you have purchased before.

I know its a bit of a pain, but it worked for me. Apparently the 3.0.1 update somehow mangled the application files.

Hopefully this post will help the next poor soul that has this problem.

3.0.1 Broke My iPhone

Well I updated the firmware on my iPhone to 3.0.1 this morning. And much to my dismay, none of the downloaded apps work any more. All the built in applications works just fine. However, when you launch any 3rd party application it crashes. Basically, no 3rd party applications launch any more.

First I Googled the problem and found this discussion on the Apple support forums. So I have tried:

• Authorize and deauthorize the computer
• Delete and reinstall an application
• Reset the iPhone
• Delete all the applications on the iPhone
• Delete an app from iPhone and iTunes. Then download the application again and reinstall.

None of this seemed to work so I called the AT&T support number and got iPhone support. The nice support person suggested the deleting all the applications and reinstalling them option. If that doesn't work, restore the iPhone from scratch.

I am trying the install from scratch option at the moment. Tried the delete all the applications from the phone option and that didn't work. I will keep you updated on my progress finding a fix.

It is pretty ironic that after I start a web log devoted to iPhone apps, my iPhone can no longer run any apps. lol.

Update: Apple Support found a solution for me.

iNap@work

This iPhone app is just too funny! The app will allow you to make "productivity" sounds while are you taking a nap. Found the link via digg.

BBC News App

The BBCReader for the iPhone provides news and information from the BBC. This is not an official BBC application, but gets the news from the BBC Site. When you start up the app, there are 3 tabs at the top of the screen. Notice the little arrow I'm highlighting, this allows you to pick which information you want to appear on the currently selected tab.

Once you click on button, you get this control, which allows you to select the information you want displayed on the tab.

Here is the what the tab I configured for the BBC coverage of soccer looks like. Nice summaries of each article. If you click on a story, you are shown a snapshot of the Web page that the story comes from.

Finally, what sets this app apart and what the negative nimrods on the iTunes store seem to miss is the ability of the app to cache stories. It downloads and caches the story for you. Click on the info button and you can configure the application to read the stories offline. Very nice if you want to read your news on a plane.

One the whole a very nice app. I give it a 4 out of 5.

Sports Tap

Sports Tap is a free sports score application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The main focus of this application is, of course, showing game scores. The application does this quite well and is very comprehensive. It includes coverage of baseball, football, soccer, car racing, tennis, hockey and golf. Soccer coverage is the best for any sports application that I have seen to date. The app includes scoring for the English, Itallian, Spanish, German, French, Scottish, Dutch, Brazilian, Argentinian, Mexican, and American soccer leagues. A must have app if you are a soccer fan.

In addition to scores, the app also includes news headlines, standings and stats for the sport you have selected. The information is up to date and the stories current and relevant.

The app also includes some customzation features that allows out identify our favorite teams. This puts your teams scores at the top of the page for the selected sport. Here are some samples of what the news screens look like:



All in all, this is a great app for the sports fan. I give it a:
5 out of 5