Predictions are over and the chatter is on. The long awaited iPhone 3G has been announced and will hit stores on July 11th. The addition of 3G and GPS technology in the iPhone now makes it the most competitive device on the market, especially at its $199 price tag! The usability factor has jumped by a huge margin after seeing all the games and productivity tools demoed during the keynote.

The App Store: Probably the greatest thing that has ever happened to mobile computing. Never has anyone been able to download apps of all sorts on the fly from a unified location. I think it’s cool having the ability to download apps over the air straight to the iPhone if they’re 10MB or less. Developers also get a big a treat from what Apple is providing them – a platform to easily develop software and then distribute with complete control of the pricing. Who knew that iTunes was going to turn into the single most important Apple product?

What we have seen so far: Medical apps, games, productivity tools, music creation, eBay, and even GPS enabled social networking! What more can you ask for from something that’s been in the works for such a short time? Speaking of GPS, I am very excited about using it in conjunction with Google Maps. I plan on traveling a lot and snapping pictures that get geotagged automatically will come in handy.

The TypePad application was pretty impressive even from the limited features we got to see. It has the ability to post entries with images that you can take on the fly, or choose from your library. It would be nice to see tools developed for other blogging engines like WordPress, which is the one I favor.

Mobile Me: Apple stated a long time ago that they would be revamping their online services. They weren’t kidding! Integration of email, calendar, address book and photo galleries on all of my machines is more seamless than ever before. Whenever I add a new contact, modify a calendar event or receive email, everything will stay in sync across the board.

Apple’s Guided Tour is definitely worth the watch to get a good idea of what Mobile Me is about. My .Mac account will be getting an upgrade as soon as Mobile Me is launched. The web applications that have been built feel completely natural and a pleasure to use. I will definitely be renewing my subscription in a couple of months.

I discovered Penzu from a Twitter post by one of my friends on Twitter and I definitely think it’s worth recommending. Penzu is a private journal & diary that can be used on a daily basis for anything you want to write down. One great thing about this service is that it’s completely private. Other people won’t have access to your entries unless you specifically permit them.

Isn’t this just another blogging thing?
What makes Penzu different from blogs is primarily its interface and functionality. It’s not complicated, nor is it messy. You have your writing space shaped after a ruled piece of looseleaf paper, and buttons to save, print, share, insert images into your entry. These are dated entries meant to be accessible by only yourself.

It’s online based, so what if can’t get online?
This is clearly a drawback of having anything online based, but most people have free access to the web almost all the time. I’ve been looking to start writing a private journal and I’ve considered both having it handwritten in a notebook and having it stored online. I chose the latter method simply because I have internet access all the time. I tested Penzu on my iPhone and it functions just like it should.

Yes, if you’re an owner of a PDA phone (or an iPhone/iPod Touch), you already know that you can use the built in application to store your thoughts, and so forth. I look at it this way; A single interface on both my computer and mobile device while having it all backed up online is more convenient than having to manually backup all the time. If you’ve been looking for a private online solution to spill your thoughts out onto, Penzu may be perfect for you.

The trend of micro-blogging and documenting people’s lives on the internet is getting bigger by the day. Plurk is the latest player in the game, joining Twitter, Pownce, and Jaiku.

Plurk is pretty much does the same thing as the other services, except this time, with style! The biggest thing that sold me was that all “Plurks” are displayed on a scrollable timeline. Replies are threaded which makes it a lot of easier and better than Twitter in terms to keeping up.

One thing I noticed is that Plurk is more conversational than Twitter since it’s easier to make every message you post turn into a mini chatroom. You’re given “Karma” points for being active; replying to plurks, adding friends, uploading a custom profile picture, and more.  Continue reading to see the profile screen, and more!

I came across an article over at BBC.co.uk stating that web users are becoming more selfish. They’re spending less time on websites, and using direct links mostly through search engines to access data.

Basically, what it’s trying to say is that people in general are spending less time looking for what they want. I don’t understand how this is “selfish.” The web is a developing platform where infinite amounts of data can be stored and accessed by virtually anyone. Last time I checked, searching and getting info quickly was as normal as anything else.

There’s a misclassification with the term “web user,” and I believe it’s being used too broadly. A user can jump on a computer and quickly look up something about the second world war and be done in 45 seconds. This same user may have a list of websites that he/she visits often for much longer periods of times. One cannot say that people who use the web are getting more selfish. “Savvy” is a word I prefer to call it. More after the jump…

Times is an RSS Reader application with a unique approach at how news/blog feeds are presented to you. Dustin MacDonald, known for creating the popular Wallet application is the man behind this cool application.

The first thing you will learn about Times is that it’s very well thought out. The animation and transition effects throughout the application look very pleasing, and makes it a fun application to use. From the perspective of a traditional RSS Reader, your subscribed websites would generally be grouped into one section, while the article feeds would be displayed in a window right next to it. Times takes the approach that aggregates your feeds into a newspaper-like design.

You have the ability to create categories for the different types of websites you subscribe to right next to the ones that already exist. Times comes with a big list of popular websites/blogs you may want to follow, but you can definitely add new feeds and remove existing ones at your command. If you’re an existing user of an RSS Reader, you can import your .opml feeds directly into Times so you don’t waste time creating new feeds for everything. Continue reading after the jump…

It’s be a harsh few weeks but I finally got around the upgrading my WordPress installation. It’s the first time I did it so I was a little worried that I’d do something wrong and kill my installation, but all went well. I must thank the WordPress developers for making the upgrade process so easy. I’ve been anticipating the redesign dashboard, and so far, I’m loving it! Everything is right where it needs to be, easily and quickly accessible.

As I am quite impressed with the new look, I plan to put together some kind of an analysis regarding interfaces. Look out for that! =)

It’s been a while since I last came across a new application that blew me away like Acrylic’s Times. Created by young developer, Dustin MacDonald, this is a new and surprisingly pleasurable way of keeping up with the latest news from your favorite websites! I’ve been playing with the trial version for a little while now and I can only give positive remarks. The amount of detail that went into this application is very impressive. Basing its ground on Mac OS X technologies like Core Animation, navigating through the fluid interface is simple and delightful.

Get the trial & Enter to win!
You can head over to the Times homepage and get yourself a trial copy of the application. You can also win 1 of 5 copies of this program – Desktop Vibes is holding a giveaway so don’t forget to enter! If you truly care about a new and efficient way of checking your RSS feeds, I think you’ll find this quite handy.

The worldly renowned Word Wide Developer’s Conference by Apple is right around the corner. Beginning on June 9th and extending through the 13th, there will be a lot of things going down in the Apple world. The iPhone 2.0 software is due for release alongside the App Store, and judging from what we saw from the iPhone Software Roadmap, things are looking pretty bright!

I’ve been an iPhone owner since day one, and I don’t think I would ever settle for anything less if I were to change phones. For my interests in the software and all things creative, I started working on an iPhone related web project. I can’t say too much about it at the moment, but I’ll be talking more about it as it develops. I am sure many people will find it a very helpful resource, and hopefully a nice place to hang around. Stay tuned for more info! =)

Illegal downloading of applications is probably just an inevitable as the sunrise every morning. No matter what companies do to protect against it, hackers always tend to find a way around it – at times, rather quickly. Is this something that should be taken lightly, or seriously by the companies and law makers?

After conversing with a number of people regarding this issue, it seems like the most common excuse was the following: “If I’m not a professional and won’t be making any money from it, why should I pay for it for only playing around with it?” Technically speaking, this is a pretty valid response, but what about people who do make money off of it?

Without a doubt, Photoshop (or any other application package from Adobe) isn’t exactly the most affordable. There are a lot of people out there in the world (pros and non-pros) running cracked versions of software of all different types. A lot of these people have it just for the sake of having it, while others actually make money from them by offering professional services to those in need. This is my primary issue. More after the jump…

The recent buzz around the blogosphere has been about ISPs capping bandwidth and charging by the Gigabyte. To some, this is a complete disaster while others couldn’t care less. The idea of capping bandwidth is not new as companies around the world have been practicing this method of service delivery (like Australia).

With the recent advancements in transfer speeds alongside things like online HD movie rentals and video communication, these people decide to introduce the cap now, when they’re supposed to be doing quite the opposite! Imagine how quickly an average internet user will suck through 30 to 40GB of bandwidth in one month – HD movie rentals, international video conferencing, browsing high bandwidth web content (Youtube!), and so forth.

I just don’t understand why ISP companies want to be greedy and make more money this way now. They know that people will go above their capped limits and the easy money will flow right into their pockets. Eventually, I believe that internet access will reach a point where it’ll be so cheap, companies will be forced to just have one monthly rate. More after the jump…