The application is very straight forward and easy to use. Basically, the user receives 100 free iPhone tips, from beginner tips to expert tips.

Here’s an example:

Truly brilliant I tell you!

Read more about the Free iPhone Stand..

One does wonder then, is the iPhone capible of being a “business phone” as well ?

Mochasoft have released an iPhone Application which puts a positive score in the “yes” column. Mochasoft’s VNC client is able to connect to a VNC server (tested on RealVNC, TightVNC & UltraVNC) and allows a user to view a computers desktop remotely.

This enables people who are “on the go” to log on, from anywhere in the world, to a pre-configured computer that has an active internet connection and to interact with the desktop in a similar way as if they were sitting directly in front of that computer.

You might ask, who would use such a thing? – “I would” would be my 1st answer and here is why:

As an I.T. Support technician I am often required to be many places at the same time. The posibility would exist where I could log into my office computer, view invoices, client records, and email (even though it would possibly be easier to access it from the iPhones Email) etc – I would also be able to do the same for any remote clients who’s net work I support.

The software comes in two versions, a lite “free” version which has no support for the windows ctrl-alt-delete function, and has no right mouse click, and a paid version (approximately $6), which at the time of this article being published is currently subject to release after Apple’ software team’s review.

Read more about this at Mochasoft’s VNC page

In the picture below, it can be seen that the iPhone 3g has a noticably more yellow screen than its predicessor the iPhone “2g”. Speculation as to why this has happened revolved around what some say are Apples laxed quality control standards and their sourcing of screens from different vendors.

While that speculation may or may not be true, the word-on-the-street is that Apple have deliberately lowered the screens colour temperature in order to get richer colours, deeper blacks and generally more defined images from the screen.

Error or not, it is still a good idea to keep your firmware current through the iTunes restore updater.

Well, its available via the iPhones operating system (2.0) by pressing the Home & Sleep/Wake buttons together. The screen of the phone will then briefly flash and whatever was onscreen at that moment, will be saved to the Camera Roll.

This feature can also apparently be enabled on 1.1.4 through the use of a .plist file.

• First and foremost (to ease us into the bad) here is a bittersweet problem -
  With bandwidth being as expensive as it is in South Africa – One really wonders what the overall total cost of ownership would be for running an iPhone in this country.

  Recent international figures indicate that consumer usage of bandwidth may be up to 30 times higher than on a regular phone.
  All that ooohing and ahh’ing over a rich web experience and the host of available things to do on the phone would undoubtedly lead to more usage and may result in overall prices.

• The prospect of having GPS functionality on your phone is great, but the truth is that the A-GPS technology that is present in the new iPhone (a technology which factors in hot-spot and cell phone tower location data into positioning calculations) is only really as good as the information the iPhone is being fed. Does Vodacom have this functionality present on their cell towers, and if so, how wide-spread is it?Then there are the maps, which are a separate issue altogether, what map data will the phone make use of, can it be updated, would there be a choice of 3rd party mapping, and how complete are those maps?
  

• On the iPhone (1st Gen) – There was also an apparent issue with connecting to a laptop via bluetooth, to use the phone as a dial-up modem for laptop surfing. A few hacks were discussed to make this a reality. Has that issue been resolved in the iPhone 3g?The new specifications are still reporting to have “Bluetooth support for headsets only” – This isn’t nearly enough of a standard if the iPhone wants to compete with the other vendors in this arena.
• The battery life is not actually as long as it reportedly is the iPhone specs informational pages. Some people see the iPhone as an expensive teenagers toy, whilst others hope to embrace the host of features it offers to use it as a successful business tool. How will the limited battery life effect this?The battery is also not user-replaceable and this could lead to more expensive ownership in the long-term.
• Video Camera & MMS – There is still no video recording, and the only apparent way to send images from the phone is via email, and not by MMS like some of the other phone vendors allow.

Some people were “put-out” by how quickly the iPhone 3g was put out after the iPhone 2g – My gut tells me that Apple have done this new version of phone largely in response to the wide spread jail-breaking of the 1st generation iPhone, and in an attempt to drive market penitration in many more countries. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if a 3rd generation of iPhone was to hit the shelves a year and a half – two years from now…

Simply put, it’s a complimentary theme installed as a plugin on your WordPress blog or website that will format your content with this Apple-inspired, full-featured theme when your visitors are using an iPhone or iPod touch.

I thought the iPhone/iPod touch shows my website fine the way it is now?

Yes, that’s true for the most part (minus flash support). However, first of all not all blogs are created equal, and some sites don’t translate well in the viewport of the phone. Secondly, many WordPress sites today make heavy use of different javascripts which significantly increase the load time of pages, and drives users on EDGE batty. So we’ve come up with WPtouch, a slim, feature-rich, highly-customized ‘theme application’ of which includes an admin interface to let you customize page icons and your logo.

Well, what if my users don’t like it and want to see my regular site?

There’s an option in the footer on WPtouch for your users to easily switch between the WPtouch view and your site’s regular appearance. It’s that easy. You put a little snippet of code into your current theme which will be shown only to iPhone/iPod touch users and give them the ability to switch between the two easily, but we’ll get into that later in the instructions.

Will it slow down my blog?

Not bloody likely! Unless of course you’re getting slammed with all sorts of traffic because you’ve installed this sexy thang. The entire package for WPtouch is only 660kb. It was designed to be as lightweight and speedy as possible, while still serving your blog’s content in a richly presented way.

Download..

It wont be long now before the iPhone is available for purchase in South Africa. This begs the question, how will it become available? What will the rules for getting one be?

If Vodacom are the only providers to have initial exclusivity, then there could only be a number of ways in which a user would be able to get a phone.

We already know that users can fill out an online web form to be “called” once the iPhones become available, but this doesn’t guarantee you a phone.

There is still mystery surrounding whether the iPhone will be available on contact only (which I fear might be the case) or whether it would be available for over-the-counter-purchase. If this is the case, expect long lines at the Vodashops in the malls or around city blocks with midnight camp-outs and thermos flasks of hot drinks.

Either way, what should be considered is that initial numbers will be limited. Regardless of pricing, I still believe that there will be a huge deficit which will not meet the demand for consumers. Once stocks are sold out, it is very likely that they will take a couple of weeks, or near a month to replenish. You have been warned !

What are your thoughts on securiting an iPhone, do you have any special tips for being one of the first to get it when it arrives, or one of the lucky ones to secure a unit before they are all gone?
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