Aaron Sorkin, responsible for everything from The West Wing TV series to The Social Network, is rumored to be somehow, someway, in consideration or talks — basically being courted by Sony — to write the movie version of the just-released Steve Jobs biography.
Sorkin is one of the smartest screen writers in recent times, with a pitch-perfect ear for dramatic dialog. He made the relatively boring subject of Facebook into a highly engaging movie (as opposed to terrible writing, which made a lot of fantastic looking movies painful to endure) and could likely inject similar sizzle in the Steve Jobs movie.
Let’s hope they make this deal and get it done. Then all they have to do is cast Steve Jobs. What do you think, TiPb nation, Noah Wiley again?
Brand new to iPhone 4S, heard all about Siri, but wondering how to get started? No problem! Here are the basic things that Siri can do for you, and the example commands to get Siri to do them. Everything has a learning curve and even Apples magical voice activated assistant needs to be spoken to gently in order for her (or him in the UK and France!) to give you what you need.
Messages: “Tell Michele500, I’ll be right there.” or “Send message to JadeStar”
Calendar: “Set up a meeting with Chuck Henricki at 9.” 
Reminders: “Remind me to call Petaf.”
Maps: “How do I get to Steve Poirier’s?” (Currently US only.)
Mail: “Email Seth about WWDC.” or “Search email for SockRolid.”
Weather:“What’s the weather for today?”
Stocks: “What is Brad’s stock price?”
Clock: “Wake me up tomorrow at 10 a.m.” or “set a timer for 10 minutes so I can take Kevin’s CrackBerry cobbler out of the oven!”
Contacts: “What’s Maicols’s address?”
Notes: “Note that I spent $25 on JBaby knitted capacitive gloves.” or “Search for notes on JJWicks’ funny comments on iPad Live.”
Safari: “Search the web SeBorSam.”
WolframAlpha: “Who was in the cast of Sleepy Hollow?”
Find My Friends : “Find Carolyn”
Bonus Tip “Siri, what can you do?”
While these basic commands are interesting, Siri really shows her power when you start to combine them together. Try out something like, “Remind me to call Rene when I get home.” Siri won’t always be able to do what you want, and it will make mistakes and get things wrong, but once you get the knack of it, you can accomplish some pretty amazing stuff.
Let us know your favorite Siri commands and tips in the comments!
Daily Tips range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)
Craigslist! for iPhone is now on sale for low price of free! This app allows you to search Craigslist listings as well as post your own.
With my big move to California coming up, Craigslist is one of my new best friends to assist me in the search of a home to rent. I just took advantage of Craigslist!’s sale and I can already tell it’s going to be a great asset. The interface is clean and clutter free, yet I’m still able to refine my search to 2 bedroom homes in my price range that accept dogs. If you use Craigslist, there’s no reason to to pick up this app.
Easily surf through a centralized network of online communities with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, gigs, resumes, discussion forums. etc. Craigslist! makes the whole browsing and posting experience a breeze.
Searching:
Posting:
Other handy features:
iCraigslist! is available on the iPhone and currently on sale for free!
Camera+ has thrown together some great comparison photos depicting just how much the iPhone camera has improved over the years.
The comparison photos really speak for themselves, and the difference is especially noticeable with the iPhone 4S photos when compared to older models. They even go on to compare with more expensive DSLR cameras for reference. As expected, from the original iPhone to the latest iPhone 4S model, the camera quality has obviously improved immensely.
Feel free to drop into our iPhone 4S pictures forum for even more evidence of how well the iPhone 4S camera performs.
While Apple has done amazing things with iPhone accessibility features, especially FaceTime and Siri, this prosthetic arm-as-smartphone really has to be seen to be believed.
Trevor Prideaux was born without a left arm, but that hasn’t stopped him from using his smartphone just like everyone else. Trevor, along with medical experts and communications engineers from Nokia, developed a custom prosthetic arm that doubles as a smartphone holder.
“I can now take calls and make texts just by using my one hand, while the phone sits inside my arm.” says Prideaux. “The phone slots smoothly and securely within my limb and is easily removable, when required. I think this would help a lot of people with prosthethic arms – especially those who were not born with the disability.”
It’s really pretty cool, and rather interesting to say the least. It’s great to see those with disabilities are still able to enjoy the full benefits of using a smartphone these days.
The only glaringly obvious problem? He’s using a Nokia C7 instead of an iPhone!
The biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson was released yesterday and Amazon is already saying it’s going to be the top selling book of 2011. Sunday night on CBS’s show 60 Minutes, Isaacson spoke about the process of writing the book and what he learned about Jobs.
The timing is so weird to me that Jobs’s biography was planned to be at this time and is now so close to his death.
Seven years ago, Jobs asked Isaacson to write his biography. Isaacson thought this was a little odd since Jobs was still young but what Isaacson didn’t know is that Jobs was about to have surgery for his pancreatic onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.cancertreatmentforums.com');" target="_blank" title="cancer" href="http://www.cancertreatmentforums.com">cancer.
Isaacson interviewed Jobs more than 40 times and interviewed about 100 of Jobs’s friends and coworkers and even critics and competitors. Jobs’s wife wanted the book to be honest and real and that meant discovering and writing about the bad things too.
In the 60 Minutes segment last night, they shared some of the interviews with Jobs that Isaacson recorded. One of the interviews they shared was about when he was a kid and he and his friend we’re talking about how he was adopted:
style="color: #333333;">[Steve Jobs, audio: I was, I remember right here on the lawn, telling Lisa McMoylar from across the street that I was adopted. And she said, "So does that mean your real parents didn't want you?" Ooooh, lightning bolts went off in my head. I remember running into the house, I think I was like crying, asking my parents. And they sat me down and they said, "No, you don't understand. We specifically picked you out."]
Isaacson said after this, Jobs knew that he wasn’t abandoned but that he was chosen and special.
The interview with Isaacson lasted for about a 30 minutes and the part the resonated with me the most throughout the whole thing was at the very end when Isaacson was talking about Jobs and the afterlife.
style="color: #333333;">Isaacson: I remember sitting in his backyard in his garden one day and he started talking about God. He said, “Sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I don’t. I think it’s 50-50 maybe. But ever since I’ve had cancer, I’ve been thinking about it more. And I find myself believing a bit more. I kind of– maybe it’s ’cause I want to believe in an afterlife. That when you die, it doesn’t just all disappear. The wisdom you’ve accumulated. Somehow it lives on.” Then he paused for a second and he said, “Yeah, but sometimes I think it’s just like an on-off switch. Click and you’re gone.” He said and paused again, and he said, “And that’s why I don’t like putting on-off switches on Apple devices.”
I’ve always wondered why there really isn’t an on-off switch on Apple products and if this really is the reason, then wow.
You can read the transcript of the 60 Minutes special on their onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-20124391/steve-jobs-revelations-from-a-tech-giant/?tag=contentMain;contentBody');" target="_blank" href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-20124391/steve-jobs-revelations-from-a-tech-giant/?tag=contentMain;contentBody">website. You can also watch the segment online as well.
Jobs impacted all of our lives in ways we see and don’t see and in ways that will continue for many years to come. I really wonder if I’ll be telling my kids or grandkids about Steve Jobs like the way I asked my parents about Ben Franklin or Einstein or Edison.
And in the words of one of my favorite Apple commercials “And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
Ever since Siri was launched, the HAL jokes have been coming thick and fast. I doubt anyone out there hasn’t asked Siri to “open the pod bay doors” or something similar. Now those wonderful folks at ThinkGeek have plans to make the link even more obvious with IRIS 9000, a HAL themed dock for the iPhone 4S.
It’s not expected out until 2012, and it’ll cost you $59.99 to get it when it does. The dock has that famous glowing red eye, that will pulse in time with Siri’s voice. You can use the microremote to trigger it from across the room, and then talk with Siri as normal. Just with a HAL look to the whole thing.
While Apple has been making big pushes into China, they still haven’t fomented an alliance with China Mobile yet, and China Unicom remains the only official carrier of the device.
However, word is that a deal is in the works, and the next model might be an LTE iPhone for both the Chinese and USA market. Chairman Wang Jianzhou said:
“We have not yet got agreement with Apple. Apple promised to provide, when they develop the iPhone for LTE, that it will include TD-LTE. We are discussing the details.”
Hopefully next year will be the LTE iPhone, and that it will work globally.
Former Apple iPod and iPhone hardware chief Tony Fadell has come up with a new way to imagine your home thermostat — the Nest Learning Thermostat. It’s a touch-controlled system that makes your home energy needs simple and easy to control remotely via an iPhone or iPad app.
The product is just a programmable thermostat. But the genius of Nest Labs is that it decided to make the iPhone of thermostats–a device that looks cool and is smart enough to spare the owner the frustrations of unfriendly technology.
According to Nest, the thermostat takes roughly a week to pick up on your energy routines and adjusts your temperature accordingly. A display changes colors to red or blue to distinguish between heating and cooling, and the design is very Apple-like. The greatest part about the Nest Learning Thermostat is the iOS app for your iPhone or iPad, letting your remotely adjust Nest’s settings and get all the vital information you need on-the-go.
All-in-all, this looks like a great way to save on energy consumption with the help of your iPhone.
What apps have earned a coveted spot on your main iPhone 4S home screen? Is it still default, just as Apple shipped it? Or have you moved everything around just so, including the dock icons?
Do you organize by function or type of app, or by aesthetics and icon color? Do you allow folders on your home screen or folders in your dock? Do you hide away any built-in apps like Stocks? Do you put your most used apps on the edges or in the center?
Much like Gameloft, Sega is going to be offering a few titles down to a dollar in time for Halloween. Again, they’re not really Haloween themed in any way, shape or form, but at least these are interesting titles that we’ve not seen discounted dozens of times already.
Apparently Sega may be dropping the price on more games to follow, and a quick look at their app list show a number more $0.99 titles, though many of those were already at that price.
For today only, the TiPb Store has the Jawbone ICON Bluetooth headset on sale for only $44.95! — that’s 55% off!. That’s military developed NoiseAssassin technology in four hot styles — get them before they’re gone!
The IRIS 9000 is a little box with a built-in microphone that sits next to your iPhone 4S and lets you use Siri from across the room, HAL style.
Simply place your iPhone into the Iris 9000 cradle and use the included micro remote to trigger Siri up to 50 feet away. Just tap the Iris 9000 remote button once, listen for the Siri chime, and speak your command. The built in mic on the Iris 9000 picks up your voice from across the room and the embedded speaker amplifies Siri’s spoken responses.
In addition to fine Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey good looks, you can use IRIS to make and receive phone calls with the built-in speakerphone, but the coolest part is the glowing LED eye that flickers when Siri talks to you.
The only problem I can see with this is if there’s anyone else in the room, or any noise going on to get in the way of IRIS picking up your voice. But then again, it can only be attributable to human error, right?
Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers have an incredibly distinguished pedigree when it comes to design, they were much of the driving force of the original iPod, which revolutionized the music world a decade ago. Today they’ve announced something that’s not really Apple related, but is still incredibly cool. It’s called the Nest, and it aims to be revolution in the world of thermostats.
For one thing, it’s the first thermostat I’ve seen that isn’t utterly hideous. But the real innovation is that it learns from you. Over the course of a week, it recognizes your patterns for setting the temperature, and adjusts itself automatically and accordingly.
It can also connect to your WiFi, so you can control it via smartphone or PC from elsewhere, and with the learning algorithm and connectivity, you should be able to use it reduce your energy bills. Hopefully enough to offset the $249 price tag.
Full press release follows:
Nest Learning Thermostat Programs Itself, Saves Energy
PALO ALTO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nest Labs today announced that it has created the Nest Learning Thermostat™. Nest learns from your behaviors, preferences and surroundings to create a custom heating and cooling schedule, keeping you comfortable when you’re home and conserving energy when you’re away.
“Under the leadership of Tony Fadell, the company is poised to make a significant impact on an industry that has been virtually void of innovation for the past 30 years.”
“It was unacceptable to me that the device that controls 10 percent of all energy consumed in the U.S. hadn’t kept up with advancements in technology and design,” said Tony Fadell, co-founder and chief executive officer of Nest Labs. “Together with the team, Co-Founder Matt Rogers and I set out to reinvent the thermostat using advanced technologies, high-quality manufacturing processes and the thoughtful design elements the iPhone generation has come to expect. The resulting Nest Learning Thermostat is like no other thermostat on the market. We hope it will not only save money and energy, but that it will teach and inspire people to think more about how they can reduce home-energy consumption.”
According to the U.S. Department of Energy and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, the annual energy bill for a typical single-family home is approximately $2,200, with heating and cooling (HVAC) accounting for approximately half of the bill. The programmable thermostat, developed in the 1970s, promised to help people conserve energy, but 89 percent of owners rarely or never set a program (source: ACEEE, 2010). The devices are simply too complicated. In fact, Energy Star revoked its certification of all thermostats in 2009 when it became apparent that people weren’t actually engaging with programmable thermostats to reach their proper functionality.
Nest Learning Thermostat
Nest addresses the programming problem through a combination of sensors, algorithms, machine learning, and cloud computing. Nest learns behaviors and preferences and adjusts the temperature up or down accordingly, making you comfortable when you’re home and saving energy while you’re away. Nest also provides people with tips and information to help them make energy-saving choices.
Product Features:
Pricing and Availability
The Nest Learning Thermostat is expected to be available at www.nest.com and retail outlets in mid-November for a suggested retail price of $249.00 (U.S.). To be one of the first to experience the benefits of a Nest Learning Thermostat, go to www.nest.com to pre-order yours today.
The Nest Labs Team
The Nest team is committed to helping reduce home-energy consumption. Team members draw upon their years of technology, design and go-to-market experience from world-class consumer-facing companies including Apple, Google, Logitech, Sling Media and Twitter.
“Nest has built an unprecedented team of experienced designers and engineers with backgrounds spanning Silicon Valley,” said Bill Campbell, Apple and Intuit board member and Nest advisor. “Under the leadership of Tony Fadell, the company is poised to make a significant impact on an industry that has been virtually void of innovation for the past 30 years.”
About Nest Labs
The creator of the world’s first learning thermostat, Nest Labs is focused on reducing home-energy consumption. The Nest Learning Thermostat learns human behaviors and preferences, automatically adjusting the temperature so you can stay comfortable while saving energy and money. Founded by former Apple SVP of the iPod division Tony Fadell and former iPod and iPhone lead engineer Matt Rogers, the Nest Labs team enjoys bringing new life to previously ignored home products by applying the best of today’s technology and design. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Nest Labs is privately funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Google Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Shasta Ventures, Generation Investment Management and Intertrust. For more information, visitwww.nest.com.
Every day, TiPb gets flooded with announcements for new and updated iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps and games. So every day we pick just a few of the most interesting, the most notable, and simply the most awesome to share with you!
Ray Marching: You are the Sun to control the ray. Your army, photons will march along the ray. Flowers are waiting to be saved from the threat of darkness. Can you rescue them? [Free for iPhone - App Store link]
imo instant messenger: Stay in touch with friends on your existing IM accounts: Facebook Chat, Google Talk, Skype, MSN, ICQ/AIM, Yahoo, Jabber, Hyves, VKontakte, Myspace, and now Steam! [Free for iPhone - App Store link]
Powder Monkeys: Ready yer cannons and set sail on a high seas adventure as you lead the Powder Monkeys in their quest to rid the world of the evil bugs plaguing all monkey-kind. [$0.99 for iPhone and iPad - App Store link]
LinkDots: It is not tic tac toe, connect four or Minesweeper, the old time classic games that have granted us such great moments. LINKDOTS goes further than that. You earn points depending on the complexity of your figures. [$0.99 for iPhone - App Store link]
Wake N Shake: Experience what it feels like to wake up with a sudden jolt of energy. The intense physical motion required to shut off the alarm raises your heart rate, and wakes you up instantly. No more dragging yourself out of bed. Jump out of bed and get your day started! [$0.99 for iPhone - App Store link]
Any other big app or game releases or updates today?
Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.
Garmin has announced an iPhone fitness app called Garmin Fit and also an accessory called the ANT+. The fitness app will allow users to track their workouts including pace, distance, time and calories burnt. It can also map your runs and automatically uploads your data to Garmin Connect which is a web community for Garmin Fit users.
The ANT+ adapor clips into the 30 pin dock connector on your iPhone and it can then connect wirelessly with various Garmin accessories such as a heart rate monitor and even a foot pod senor. The foot pod sensor allows users who are using a treadmill or similar to track speed, distance and even run cadence.
The Garmin Fit app is available in the App Store for and is compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The ANT+ adaptor is available directly from Garmin at a price of $49.
I run a company that specializes in iOS device repair, web development, and consulting. I rely on my iPhone everyday to not only keep my appointments and consultations straight, but as a tool to manage all aspects of my work life. Every iOS upgrade has made it easier and easier to stay organized. And where iOS fails, many third party apps have stepped up to the challenge quite well.
This is one of the most important aspects of my business. I need a way to sort through contacts and organize them efficiently. Fortunately iOS makes this task easy. I’ve made groups within my Mac address book that will sync across all my computers, iPhones, and iPads.
The ability to be able to send contact cards to clients and business partners is also extremely important. With my iPhone I can simply send a contact card via text or e-mail. I use contact cards not only to store ways to contact a client but notes that I may want to remember later.
I’ve always depended on apps like Things or ToDo by Appigo to handle projects and task lists. Since the introduction of Reminders in iOS 5 my habits have changed a bit since Apple has made it even easier to handle tasks without the use of third party apps.
I’m also a die hard iCal user. I frequently use shared calendars and sync all of them across all my devices so I can access any of my information from any computer, iPhone, or iPad. I always had issues doing this back in my BlackBerry days. Either calendars never stayed synced or there was no easy cloud syncing option for Mac users. That’s changed a bit since then but I still find that my iOS has offered better solutions than most other mobile platforms.
Besides using my iPhone for wireless hotspot tethering I have a tendency to need to work on the go or while traveling. Between my MacBook Pro, iPad, and iPhone this has never been easier. When it comes to web development I can use HTML and PHP editor apps on my iPad to make changes to client’s websites on the go. I can also develop websites on my iPad and easily pick up where I left off when I get back to my office on my iMac.
I also use apps such as LogMeIn Ignition from my iPad and iPhone while on the go. If I ever forget to save a file to my Dropbox or Box.net account I can easily access it from anywhere as my iMac is always connected to the internet. Long gone are the days of forgetting files and documents or transferring them via physical media devices.
I can even balance our books and do our accounting functions on the go with QuickBooks mobile. So whether I’m in the office or traveling I always know where we stand and what’s going on back at home.
As a small business we use Square in order to accept credit card payments from clients. The adapter will plug in to my iPhone or iPad and allow me to accept payments on location or from the office. As long as I have a wifi or cellular connection I’m good to go. This is extremely important considering the nature of our business and the need to sometimes take payments at a client’s location instead of our own. This has never been easier with systems like Square or Intuit GoPayments for iPhone and iPad.
We are a company that has instituted an all Apple eco-system. While our solutions may not work for everyone my iPhone is not only a device I enjoy using but one I heavily depend on to conduct business on an everyday basis. Everything from my reminders to my appointments to my client management and file systems can all be accessed and updated from my iPhone. And where there isn’t a built-in iOS feature to meet my needs I’ve found third party apps that fill that gap.
My iPhone makes my life easier and more stress free on a regular basis when it comes to business. The best part is after the work day is over I can also use my iPhone for play. It really is an all around work and play device that I depend on in several ways each and every day.
I run a company that specializes in iOS device repair, web development, and consulting. I rely on my iPhone everyday to not only keep my appointments and consultations straight, but as a tool to manage all aspects of my work life. Every iOS upgrade has made it easier and easier to stay organized. And where iOS fails, many third party apps have stepped up to the challenge quite well.
This is one of the most important aspects of my business. I need a way to sort through contacts and organize them efficiently. Fortunately iOS makes this task easy. I’ve made groups within my Mac address book that will sync across all my computers, iPhones, and iPads.
The ability to be able to send contact cards to clients and business partners is also extremely important. With my iPhone I can simply send a contact card via text or e-mail. I use contact cards not only to store ways to contact a client but notes that I may want to remember later.
I’ve always depended on apps like Things or ToDo by Appigo to handle projects and task lists. Since the introduction of Reminders in iOS 5 my habits have changed a bit since Apple has made it even easier to handle tasks without the use of third party apps.
I’m also a die hard iCal user. I frequently use shared calendars and sync all of them across all my devices so I can access any of my information from any computer, iPhone, or iPad. I always had issues doing this back in my BlackBerry days. Either calendars never stayed synced or there was no easy cloud syncing option for Mac users. That’s changed a bit since then but I still find that my iOS has offered better solutions than most other mobile platforms.
Besides using my iPhone for wireless hotspot tethering I have a tendency to need to work on the go or while traveling. Between my MacBook Pro, iPad, and iPhone this has never been easier. When it comes to web development I can use HTML and PHP editor apps on my iPad to make changes to client’s websites on the go. I can also develop websites on my iPad and easily pick up where I left off when I get back to my office on my iMac.
I also use apps such as LogMeIn Ignition from my iPad and iPhone while on the go. If I ever forget to save a file to my Dropbox or Box.net account I can easily access it from anywhere as my iMac is always connected to the internet. Long gone are the days of forgetting files and documents or transferring them via physical media devices.
I can even balance our books and do our accounting functions on the go with QuickBooks mobile. So whether I’m in the office or traveling I always know where we stand and what’s going on back at home.
As a small business we use Square in order to accept credit card payments from clients. The adapter will plug in to my iPhone or iPad and allow me to accept payments on location or from the office. As long as I have a wifi or cellular connection I’m good to go. This is extremely important considering the nature of our business and the need to sometimes take payments at a client’s location instead of our own. This has never been easier with systems like Square or Intuit GoPayments for iPhone and iPad.
We are a company that has instituted an all Apple eco-system. While our solutions may not work for everyone my iPhone is not only a device I enjoy using but one I heavily depend on to conduct business on an everyday basis. Everything from my reminders to my appointments to my client management and file systems can all be accessed and updated from my iPhone. And where there isn’t a built-in iOS feature to meet my needs I’ve found third party apps that fill that gap.
My iPhone makes my life easier and more stress free on a regular basis when it comes to business. The best part is after the work day is over I can also use my iPhone for play. It really is an all around work and play device that I depend on in several ways each and every day.
Batman Arkham City Official Map App is a companion app for the popular Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 game Batman: Arkham City. It features completed maps with the locations of every Riddler Trophy and solutions to every Riddle.
This officially licensed map app for Batman: Arkham City serves as the perfect digital companion to the game. This app features scrollable, zoomable maps for every area in the game, complete with locations of all the Riddler Trophies and solutions to all the Riddler’s Riddles — more than 350 collectibles in all!
Batman Arkham City Official Map App is available on the iPhone and iPad for $2.99.
Apple has released another update for the Apple TV, this one is numbered 4.4.2. It appears that Apple has been having some strange problems with recent Apple TV updates with widespread reports of devices having to be restored using iTunes after the 4.4 and 4.4.1 updates. If you are already running version 4.4 or 4.4.1, Apple wants you to perform a system reset before updating to this latest version.
Apple TV devices with software version 4.4 and 4.4.1 have an issue with updating software to later versions. The recommended way to resolve this is go to Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset All Settings, prior to updating. Note: If you apply the software update without resetting all settings first, the updater will reset the settings for you.
Once you have reset the settings, you can update the software in the usual way. Apple has issued an apology for this inconvenience and hopefully this will be the end of strange update problems for the latest Apple TV. Let us know if you update and how it works out for you!
For today only, the 
