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The Apple Blog
The Apple Blog, published by and for the day-to-day Apple user, is a prominent source for news, reviews, walkthroughs, and real life application of all Apple products.
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Flipswap - Good for You, Good for the Environment
Flipswap is a service that allows you to send in your old phone for free and get paid for it. They send your old phone to another country where someone less fortunate will be able to use it (while also covering shipping both ways). They will put your phone in a happy place:

If your cell phone is in working condition or can be repaired, we make sure it goes to a place where it can be reused. If your cell phone is broken beyond repair, we recycle it using the most environmentally friendly methods currently available.

It is a better deal than just tossing out your old phone.

In addition to finding a new owner for your phone, Flipswap will also plant a tree for each phone donated, so you can feel more environmentally conscious!

So how do they figure out how much your phone is worth? A complicated algorithm “that allows [them] to offer you a real time trade-in value for any phone.” My three cell phones added up to about $50, which is not bad considering they are old and partially beat up.

So whether you are done with your first iPhone and gearing up for the 3G, or you just want to get rid of your regular cell phone, you can use this and maybe get some more money to add to your 3G fund.

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Words that Leopard's spellchecker chokes on
We trust spellcheckers to be right, right? We expect that the spellchecker will yield an accurate correction, or at the least, real words. Oddly enough, though, I’ve stumbled upon a few misspellings that cause Leopard’s built-in spellchecker to throw up some amusing–though incorrect–results (a friend shared one with me; I discovered two of them). Mind you, I never added any of these to my spellchecker dictionary. These are all using the default English spelling dictionary; I even checked while using a new user account. At any rate, here they are, in no particular order:

The typo: instrucitons

The intended word: instructions

The suggested spelling: isntrucitons

The notes: The spellchecker does offer the correct spelling as one of the choices; how isntrucitons ended up in there is beyond me…

The typo: applicatication

The intended word: application

The suggested spelling: applicaticataion

The notes: FAIL.

Also, Dictionary.com offers up upland cotton as a possible alternate for applicaticataion and no alternates whatsoever for applicatication. That said, it was one heck of a typo on my part in the first place, but that’s no excuse for making up words!

The typo: positiove

The intended word: positive

The suggested spelling: positionve

The notes: Like the first one, the correct word was among the choices, but again, Leopard decides to have a little fun with our minds.

I’m guessing these are just bugs in the spellchecker. Hey, at least this bug is mostly harmless!

Are there any words that you have noticed that spellchecker gets incorrect? Let us know in the comments.

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iTunes 7.7 and the App Store Now Open for Business
If you fire up Software Update, you will see that iTunes 7.7 is available. You can find applications in the iTunes Store, but you can’t purchase them unless you have 7.7 installed. The new update is “exclusively for iPhone and iPod Touch” so if you don’t have either one, you don’t need to update.

You may need to go to preferences and check the “Applications” box to make it show up in your sidebar. On one computer it didn’t show up automatically, but did on the other.

The App Store has been a bit finnicky. In the Applications section in iTunes, you can choose “Get More Applications” and go straight to the App Store, but it hasn’t worked all the time. If you search for an app in the iTunes Store, you can get to it, if the App Store link is not working.

As of this writing, software for the iPhone and iPod Touch has not been released, so while you can purchase all the apps you want, you still won’t be able to get them to work on your iPhone. Soon, hopefully, it will be available.

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Quick Tip: Force Files to Open with Certain Programs
I usually blow through third party software installs, which sometimes leads to my file extensions being hijacked. For instance, if you’re not careful when installing Adobe Photoshop, it will take over all of your picture files, which is super annoying (Preview usually opens all pictures, which I love because it loads sooooo much faster than Photoshop).

There are two methods to chose which programs open which file extensions. This first method will change which program always opens the designated file, and the designated file ONLY:
1. Right click on the file and select “Open With > Other”
2. Select the program from the list that you always want that file to open with
3. Click the “Always Open With” checkbox
4. Click “Open”
5. Now whenever you double click on that file, it will always open with the program you specified.
This next method changes the program that opens all files with a matching file extension. For example, if all of your .jpg’s are opening in Photoshop and you want them to open with Preview you would use this method:
1. Right click on the file and select “Get info”
2. Go to the “Open With” section and expand it
3. Select the program you would like to open that file extension with from the drop down list
4. Click the “Change All” button
5. A pop up window will appear, if you’re sure you want to make the change click “Continue”
6. And you’re done! Now all of your files with that extension will open with the program you specified!
So I’ve gone over two different methods, with different purposes: the first method is used for single files, while the second is for all files with a certain extension. I hope this helps eliminate some future headaches for everyone!

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Surprises on July 11th
With the launch of the iPhone 3G, the App store, and hopefully MobileMe, coming this Friday, many people are getting excited. We would be remiss if we didn’t at least speculate about the surprises that might come when you open that 3G iPhone box.

One of the biggest surprises could come to developers who are not invited to have their apps debut on the app store. Forbes claims that only 16% of the 25,000 submissions have been accepted, and even those who have are still nervous about making Apple mad and getting the boot. They are not really allowed to advertise their applications yet, and must wait until the app store is launched before they can say anything. It would be devastating to have your submission denied with no reason given. Apple made it clear from the beginning that “inappropriate” apps would not be sold in the iPhone’s App Store. Four thousand programs is still a lot to have for the launch of a new product. It is phenomenal that Apple has had such a huge response from developers.

A good surprise would be to find that the iPhone 3G does in fact have haptic technology as has been rumored. Other touchscreen phones already have this technological gem, like the LG Vu. Over at Google code, the University of Glasgow Computing Science Department is working on a haptic interface for the iPhone. Apple has destroyed the homebrew crew before by integrating many features into its products that were the babies of indie developers.

Some sites have rumored a $100 price drop on the iPod Touch. I doubt this will happen, since the iPhone’s huge price drop can be attributed to the normal subsidizing of cell phones. iPod Touch will likely stay at the same price point for a while.

What is more appealing and even likely is that Apple might decide to squeeze the GPS chip into the iPod Touch, and deliver a turn-by-turn navigation system to accompany it. That would put them decidedly down a new market, which would be nice for us consumers. The Touch has a nicer screen and better functionality than any GPS unit I have ever seen, even the super expensive brands. I understand the need for location-based or location-aware apps on the iPhone, especially with regard to search, but turn-by-turn navigation is the most useful application for GPS hardware.

The surprise I most want to see is the GPS iPod Touch, and the one I most don’t want to see is a stingy Apple keeping a lot of devs out of the app store.

What are you hoping for?

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Song Summoner: Finally an RPG on Your iPod

Legendary game designer Square Enix has just released a game for the regular old iPods. They must have been feeling left out with all of this attention devoted to the iPhone 3G.

It is a turn-based game that allows you to battle enemies as the musical conductor, Ziggy. The songs on your iPod become the army you command. Using a turn-based tactics format, the usual for RPGs, Ziggy fights to save his brother Zero from the “Mechanical Militia.”

If you are getting beat, you can power up your characters (Tune Troopers) by listening to the music that created them. Play Points add skills and levels to your troopers as you listen to your favorite songs. The skills and abilities they have is based on the kind of song they are created from.

This game is huge, coming in at 129 MB, much bigger than any other game currently offered in the iTunes Store. It will cost you $5 and you can download it here (iTunes Store Link).

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