Tuesday Afternoon News

<a href="http://www.mactalk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/6737828_6c245b49d8_o.jpg"><img class="imgright size-full wp-image-388" title="6737828_6c245b49d8_o" src="http://www.mactalk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/6737828_6c245b49d8_o.jpg" alt="6737828_6c245b49d8_o" width="300" height="214" /></a>The iPhone's reign of best selling smartphone in the US has passed. <a href="http://www.macrumors.com/2009/05/04/blackberry-overtakes-iphone-as-bestselling-u-s-smartphone-in-q1/">The most sold smartphone in the USA for Q1 2009 was the Blackberry Curve</a>. It helps when you give them away for free and make it available on every carrier.

<a href="http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/05/04/apple_hints_app_store_rules_may_loosen_with_iphone _os_3_0.html">AppleInsider reports</a> that Apple may become a little less uptight when it comes to allowing risque iPhone apps on the App Store, due to parental controls coming in iPhone OS 3.0.

Do you need more juice for your laptop when on the road? <a href="http://www.hyperdrive.com/HyperMac-External-MacBook-Power-s/91.htm">Well HyperMac are selling external batteries for the MacBook</a> - you just charge them up before you go and then plug it in to the MacBook when you need it. They have one model that is 222-watt-hours and will feed a MacBook Air for 31.5 hours.



Trent Reznor has publically given his 2c on Apple's approval process for iPhone apps on the App Store. He makes a good point that songs, movies and TV shows, that are quite violent or can be interpreted as offensive, are allowed on the iTunes Store, yet iPhone apps are not. <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/03/trent-reznor-responds-to-apple-you-want-obscene-ill-show-you-obscene/">TechCrunch has more details.</a>

Enjoy some photos of <a href="http://appletam.ning.com/photo/albums/tam-prototypes?id=3141923%3AAlbum%3A549&amp;page=1">ye olde prototypes</a> of the 20th Anniversary Mac.

Wanna use an external mic on your iPhone to record audio? Perhaps in conjunction with the excellent <a href="http://www.iprorecorder.com/">iProRecorder</a>? <a href="http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20090501144335832">This tip from macosxhints explains how to wire one up.</a>

<a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/05/invented-text-messaging.html">The LA Times looks into why SMSs are limited to 160 characters.</a> An interesting story about the creation of SMS and the progression of it's prevalence over the past decade and a half.

Wanna get into marketing your App Store creations? <a href="http://blog.appstorehq.com/post/103207193/iphone-app-marketing-what-works-and-what-doesnt">AppStoreHQ is running a survey of developers</a>, asking about their marketing attempts and finding out what has and what hasn't been successful. They've published a preliminary set of results that you can check out.

One of my favourite iPhone games, <a href="http://stephthirion.tumblr.com/post/102601801/the-shadow-over-eliss">Eliss, got an update recently</a> - the developer made it a bit easier to slide into for beginners. So if you've tried it out and found it difficult, check it out again, you might be surprised.

<a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/140399/2009/05/ftc_google_apple.html">The US Free Trade Commission is investigating Apple and Google's</a> relationship because of some law where someone can't be on the board of two rival companies. Are Apple and Google rivals? I don't know. I guess that's what the FTC are going to investigate.