Apparently, Apple is looking at possibly buying Nuance. Nuance is the maker of software for voice recognition that is used in a slew of products including the Microsoft branded Sync system in Ford cars.

The Apple brand has moved up the list of most valuable brands considerably. The Apple brand is now said to be worth $153.3 billion making it more valuable than Google.

As Chase explains, “the best camera” refers to the fact that whatever image-capturing equipment you have on you is the best at the time; for many people, that means their iPhone, iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS.  With The Best Camera app, you can take photos, add effects (see below) and then share them on the social site, via your Facebook and Twitter page, via email, or simply save them into your camera roll, all from within the one application.

Chase has also published a book intended to show off exactly what’s possible from the iPhone’s camera, and with tips as to how to make the most of it.  The application can be downloaded here [iTunes link] while the book is available from Amazon.

Overview:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lotlwm38OM[/youtube]

The Best Camera app walkthrough:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvV4V59bVXs[/youtube]

A new app for the iPhone is perfect for those needing to track receipts for taxes or for an expense report for work. The app is called Mitek Mobile Receipt. To use the app you take a picture of the receipt with the camera on the iPhone.

The app software automatically rotates, scales, and crops the image for legibility and will attach the receipts to reports for the boss or taxes with a few button presses. The app is available now for $4.99 on the app store and could save you hours of tax time hassle.

It’s also possible to edit existing schedules, whether they have been initiated from the iPhone app or on the DVR itself.  Should you not have enough free space, existing stored content can be remotely deleted.

AT&T recently boosted the connection speed for their U-verse subscribers, together with adding more flexibility in controlling recordings and downloading movie content.  The company has been discussing an iPhone app for U-verse since September last year.

Press Release: 

 

New iPhone and iPod touch Application From AT&T Lets Customers Schedule U-verse TV DVR Recordings On The Go
 
DALLAS, June 25, 2009 — AT&T U-verseSM TV customers can now use a free application from the Apple App Store to make scheduling and managing recordings on their DVR even easier when they’re away from home. The U-verse TV Mobile Remote Access App for iPhone and iPod touch lets customers record their content from virtually anywhere and is another example of U-verse TV applications and DVR enhancements that have been rolled out to customers at no extra charge.
 
“This is the perfect example of how AT&T is bringing services together to deliver a better experience for customers,” said Jeff Weber, vice president of video services for AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “With AT&T U-verse, you get DVR capabilities you can’t find from any other provider, and this app gives users the freedom to schedule their DVR from their iPhone or iPod touch.”
 
The app allows users to easily search U-verse TV program listings from the full program guide, view descriptions of selected programs, schedule program or series recordings, manage or edit scheduled recordings, and delete stored DVR content.
 
The Mobile Remote Access App is available for free from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.
 
The launch of the new U-verse TV Mobile Remote Access App follows several DVR enhancements that are currently being rolled out to U-verse TV customers, including an exclusive new Total Home DVR feature that allows customers to schedule and delete recordings from any U-verse receiver in the home — all from a single DVR.
 
AT&T U-verse was one of the first providers to introduce Web Remote Access to the DVR in November 2006, and it brought three-screen DVR access to all U-verse TV customers with Mobile Remote Access to the DVR in April 2007. In 2008, AT&T launched AT&T U-verse Total Home DVR, allowing all U-verse DVR customers to watch standard and High Definition recorded shows from a single DVR on any connected TV in the home.
 
U-verse TV customers can also enjoy several other integrated applications, including personalized, on-screen weather, sports, traffic and stock information via AT&T U-bar; local and national weather forecasts with Weather On Demand; the ability to view personal photos on your TV that you have uploaded to flickr.com; and more.
 
AT&T U-verse customers enjoy quadruple-play integration, enhanced features and greater value, all made possible by IP technology. AT&T U-verse TV ranked “Highest in Residential Television Service Satisfaction in the North Central, South, and West Regions,” according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Residential Television Service Provider Satisfaction StudySM.DALLAS, June 25, 2009 — AT&T U-verseSM TV customers can now use a free application from the Apple App Store to make scheduling and managing recordings on their DVR even easier when they’re away from home. The U-verse TV Mobile Remote Access App for iPhone and iPod touch lets customers record their content from virtually anywhere and is another example of U-verse TV applications and DVR enhancements that have been rolled out to customers at no extra charge.

“This is the perfect example of how AT&T is bringing services together to deliver a better experience for customers,” said Jeff Weber, vice president of video services for AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “With AT&T U-verse, you get DVR capabilities you can’t find from any other provider, and this app gives users the freedom to schedule their DVR from their iPhone or iPod touch.”

The app allows users to easily search U-verse TV program listings from the full program guide, view descriptions of selected programs, schedule program or series recordings, manage or edit scheduled recordings, and delete stored DVR content.

The Mobile Remote Access App is available for free from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.

The launch of the new U-verse TV Mobile Remote Access App follows several DVR enhancements that are currently being rolled out to U-verse TV customers, including an exclusive new Total Home DVR feature that allows customers to schedule and delete recordings from any U-verse receiver in the home — all from a single DVR.

AT&T U-verse was one of the first providers to introduce Web Remote Access to the DVR in November 2006, and it brought three-screen DVR access to all U-verse TV customers with Mobile Remote Access to the DVR in April 2007. In 2008, AT&T launched AT&T U-verse Total Home DVR, allowing all U-verse DVR customers to watch standard and High Definition recorded shows from a single DVR on any connected TV in the home.

U-verse TV customers can also enjoy several other integrated applications, including personalized, on-screen weather, sports, traffic and stock information via AT&T U-bar; local and national weather forecasts with Weather On Demand; the ability to view personal photos on your TV that you have uploaded to flickr.com; and more.

AT&T U-verse customers enjoy quadruple-play integration, enhanced features and greater value, all made possible by IP technology. AT&T U-verse TV ranked “Highest in Residential Television Service Satisfaction in the North Central, South, and West Regions,” according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Residential Television Service Provider Satisfaction StudySM.

The App Store reviewer, finding that The Kama Sutra was accessible, then rejected the software under Apple’s “inappropriate sexual content” clause of the iPhone SDK agreement.  However the same text is viewable online, through the iPhone’s Safari browser, as a downloadable ebook through Amazon’s Kindle app for iPhone, and bought as an audio book through iTunes.

“Thank you for submitting Eucalyptus — classic books, to go. to the App Store. We’ve reviewed Eucalyptus — classic books, to go. and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains inappropriate sexual content and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states:

“Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”" Apple rejection letter

Eucalyptus’ author has now resubmitted the app, with a block on viewing The Kama Sutra.  Apple’s parental controls make make the app submission and approval process more straightforward, but the seemingly mixed messages their software reviewers are delivering will be harder to navigate.

[via Boing Boing]

What won’t be possible is VoIP over 3G.  According to Skype’s chief operating officer, Scott Durchslag, this is a limitation of Apple’s App Store terms of service.  Neither AT&T nor Apple answered a request for a comment on the Skype app.

iPod touch owners will also be able to download and use the software, though they’ll need to buy a microphone accessory since the PMP doesn’t have one integrated.  After iPhone OS 3.0 is released, however, 2nd-gen iPod touch users should be able to use the PMP’s newly-unlocked Bluetooth with hands-free headsets.

[via GigaOM]

Announced last December, even the news that it was a simple shooter rather than the stealth title many were hoping for didn’t dissuade too many from MGS:Touch.  However earlier pre-release footage neglected to show the gamer’s actual thumb movements in controlling the movement and sniper action, movements which we can now see are pretty intrusive into the gameplay.

Perhaps this is the stealth tactics part that some gamers wanted: predicting when an opponent will leap up behind your right thumb and shoot you before you’ve even realized he’s there.  MGS:Touch is available now, priced at $10 from the App Store.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zOOaPQ4hiE[/youtube]

[via Kotaku]

As well as the new iPhone OS, Apple are also promising the debut of a brand new iPhone SDK.  The specific features are still tightly under wraps, but it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise to see copy & paste, Flash support and maybe even some of the integrated social networking functionality Palm have been showing off on their Pre smartphone.

So join us on Tuesday, March 17th at http://live.slashgear.com/ for all the details as they’re announced, then stick around here on iPhone Buzz and at our sibling-site SlashGear for commentary and opinion afterward.  This could be the first real hint of what the iPhone 3.0 hardware might have to offer.

NewPlayer has been optimized for the hardware capabilities of the iPhone. NexTreaming states that “NexPlayer will be the best choice for the customers who want to enable mobile phones with an excellent player for worldwide network operators.” The application comes as part of the Companies range of products including NexTV, NexPlayer Lite, NexCam and NexMusic.

In addition, the streaming function is available to support multi-cast DVB-H of the European mobile TV standards, CMMB of the Chinese mobile TV standards and MBMS of the 3GPP standards and 3GPP based uni-cast streaming. The media player has abundant features with NexTreaming stating that the product has “already proved (itself) in the market through commercial references and being evolved.” NexPlayer is avialable for more than 120 handsets worldwide. The features and specifications include:

Standard

• 3GPP local/progressive download/streaming (3GPP Rel.4, Rel.5, Rel.6)
• 3GPP2 local/progressive download/streaming
• KWISF (Korean Standard) local/streaming
• ETSI DVB-H
• OMA BCAST / CBMS
• CMMB(China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting)
• MBMS(Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service)

Operator Proprietary Specification

• SKT : Timed Text / MIDI / Local / Streaming (June Service)
• KTF : Local / Streaming (Fimm Service)
• LGT : Streaming (VOD Service)
• China Unicom : Local / Streaming (AMC, 3GPP, 3GPP2)
• Orange : Streaming / Progressive download (FastTrack™)
• NTT DoCoMo : i-mode local/progressive download/streaming
• Vodafone : Vodafone Live, Radio DJ(RTSP Extension)
• T-mobile : Real streaming (RDT)
• KDDI : local

Protocols

• RTSP (RFC2326)
• SDP (RFC2327)
• RTP/RTCP (RFC3550, 3551)

Depacketizer

• H.263 (RFC2190,2429)
• MPEG-4 (RFC3016)
• H.264 (RFC3984)
• AMR-NB/AMR-WB (RFC3267)
• Extended AMR-WB(RFC4352)
• EVRC (RFC3558)
• AAC-LC/AAC-LTP (RFC3016)
• HE AAC (RFC3016,3640)
• HE AAC V2 (RFC3016)
• 13kQCELP (RFC2658)

Typical Functions

• Play/Stop. Pause/Resume
• Fast Forward, Rewind
• Random Access
• Repeat (Full, Partial)

Specific Functions

• Multiple instances (PIP)
• Time-Shift
• Streaming recording (Including PDCF)
• Snapshot (save as jpeg file)
• Thumbnail view
• File information extraction
• 3GPP/3GPP2 timed text
• i-mode / KDDI DRM
• DRM decryption integration (OMA DRM, SKT/KTF/LGT DRM)
• Supporting interfaces with ESG(EPG) and CAS

Experienced Chip

• Qualcomm
• NXP
• Broadcom
• Texas Instruments
• Spreadtrum
• Marvell
• Samsung

Experienced OS

• REX
• Nucleous
• Symbian
• Linux
• uITron
• ThreadX
• WinCE / Windows Mobile
• Windows 2000/XP/Vista

[via NexTreaming]

Because it uses HTML5 standards, rather than something unique to the iPhone 3G, it means that the software can be run on any other device which adheres to those standards.  That enables developers to code a single app which will run on multiple platforms, with the GUI and functionality identical on each; Gundotra demonstrated the GMail app running both on the iPhone 3G and on the recently-announced HTC Magic, which uses the Android OS, since both use the Webkit browser engine.  That same engine is also used by Palm for their Pre smartphone, and as such the app will run on that handset too.

As well as offline support, there’s also a floating toolbar that tracks the user’s email browsing, together with support for message labeling.  However despite appearing release-ready in the demonstration, Google have made no announcement regarding when the offline-capable GMail app might be released.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmjxmOtNZCk[/youtube]

Editing capabilities like copy and paste are critical to editing documents of any kind in programs including Word, Power Point and Excel. It is a wonder how the multi-touch capabilities of the iPhone are going to be implemented into this application. With the ability to edit documents with the iPhone there is less for people to complain about.

Here is a list of features supported in Documents to GO:

• View, edit and create native Word, Excel and PowerPoint files and attachments Supports Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint Includes support for Microsoft Office Word 2007 & PowerPoint 2007

• Full featured solution with viewing AND editing functionality

• Supports file and attachments received via e-mail, Bluetooth® or media card

• Unique InTact Technology retains original document formatting of edited files

• Integrated with BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Internet Service for reliable and instant access to e-mail attachments

• Spell checking for word processing files

• Advanced character/font formatting

• Advanced paragraph formatting

• Insert and delete tables for word processing files

• Insert and edit auto bullets & numbers in word processing files

• Sorting in spreadsheets

• Apply cell formatting in spreadsheets

• Insert and delete worksheets

• Insert, duplicate and delete slides in presentations

• English, French, Italian, German and Spanish versions available

[Via Dataviz]

Real Racing will also have online features, including the ability to automatically convert your most recent lap to a video and upload it to YouTube.  Firemint plan applications for Facebook and other social networking sites that would allow racers to show off their lap times, as well as hosting mini-leagues on their own servers.

Firemint are yet to decide whether to release Real Racing directly onto the iPhone or partner with a publishing house and release a Symbian version on Nokia’s N-Gage gaming platform.  All recent N-series Nokia smartphones have the accelerometer required to control the title.

Real Racing demo:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFavTmIGplo[/youtube]

Uploaded performance lap:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlkuaV_kw7g[/youtube]

[via Kotaku]

While encountering any sort of problems with a product is frustrating, I have to say I’m impressed with Apple this time around. Unlike with MobileMe where customers were pretty much ignored, they’ve really stepped up to the plate to provide a solution, fast.

Now, whether or not these bug fixes actually work remains to be seen. Looks like I’m off to tinker with my newly updated iPhone for the rest of the day. 

[via Gizmodo]

This firmware update is rumored to have many a performance bug fixed, along with connection fixes. Those 2% of users experiencing iPhone connection issues, will be paying extra close attention to these connection fixes. Let’s hope they do the trick!

And just so you know, AT&T stores will be receiving a big shipment of iPhone 3Gs tomorrow. However, you might have trouble walking in to get a phone (again) as this shipment is more likely than not meant to fill orders that have already been placed.

[via The Boy Genius Report]

The email read:

We are working on some bugs which affect around 2% of the iPhones shipped, and hope to have a software update soon.

Steve

Pretty weird, but Jobs has been known to respond to emails personally on occasion. So what does this 2% figure mean? According to estimated sales figures so far, this could translate to over 60,000 iPhone 3G users. I guess we just have to hope and pray the new software update will put a lid on this problem for good.
 
[via MacRumors]