At the front end of the new MobileMe launch, Me.com consists of a slick Web 2.0 interface for your Calendars, Contacts, Photos and Mail. This is an in depth look into the online Calendar portion of the suite.

Once you have MobileMe synchronized with your computers and mobile devices, you can make changes online at Me.com and your other computers or devices will be automatically updated. This means that virtually anywhere you have access to the internet, regardless of what computer or mobile device you may (or may not) have access to; you can make changes to and access your data.

For those who have become accustomed to using iCal, the Me.com calendar carries over almost every feature- with the exception of an alarm function to the web. This powerful web application is based on the latest Web 2.0 technologies, and allows for a near desktop application replication.

To create a new calendar appointment, simply click on the calendar at the appropriate time, much like you would in iCal. The familiar event bubble will pop up corresponding to what color calendar you’re in. You can then enter text for the name of the event, drag it to correctly represent the time or double click on it to see even more options. If necessary, you can even drag the appointment across your calendar to change the date.

The MobileMe application even allows for Keyboard Shortcuts, for example, if you would like to delete an event, you simply press the delete key.

To create a new To-Do, press Control and “K” and your To-Do list will appear with a new event.

Read more after the jump! Read more…

Most people are amazed with some of the applications that have been coming from the App Store.

AppStore, apart of the iPhone OS 2.0

Apple claimed a catalogue of over 500 applications on the App Store’s July 11th launch. Just a week later, this has grown to over 700 applications- with many developers anxiously waiting for their applications (or updates) to get updated.

For those who have updated to the new firmware 2.0, you probably have found a number of applications you are really enjoying. However, the more you explore, the more pleased you might get. There are really hundreds of awesome applications on the App Store- some of which you may not know about. Here are a couple of ways to keep on top of the App Store- from the latest additions, hottest applications and updates to current applications.

Chris Pirillo recently created a Slinkset based application, that is a social news site for iPhone applications like Digg. You can find the most popular applications, voted on by users, and comments about each application. This is a great forum to be introduced into new applications, and read comments that are actually relevant (unlike a typical iTunes review).

MacRumors editor Arnold Kim has created a website, dubbed Touch Arcade, which provides extensive coverage of iPhone games. This is a high quality site for those looking just for iPhone gaming coverage.

PinchMedia offers RSS feeds from the App Store in four categories: Top Paid, Top Free, Updated and New Apps. You can subscribe to these feeds in your favorite RSS browser to watch as new updates and applications roll in; and stay on top of the most popular applications.

There are many apps to be discovered, and loads added each day. It is up to you to stay on top of them!

With last weeks release of the iPhone 2.0 OS for iPhone and iPod Touches, Apple has added a host of new features. Among the most prominently covered is the App Store, however there are many other refinements under the hood- take a look.

The 2.0 firmware adds a large number of fixes, refinements and additions to the iPhone platform. Free for existing iPhone owners and a $9.95 upgrade for iPod Touch owners, 2.0 adds the App Store as well as Microsoft Exchange support and many other enterprise level features. Below are some lesser known additions to the iPhone OS 2.0 firmware:

If you are entering a URL in Safari, for example, you’re probably aware of the .com button. In the new 2.0 firmware, if you would like to type in .edu, .net or .org, if you hold down the .com button and you are presented with “.net, .edu, .org and .com” as an option.

Like QuickTime movies, the new Safari version found on iPhone OS 2.0 allows you to see embedded YouTube videos. If you click on an embedded YouTube video, the video launches in the YouTube application.

If you see an image you would like to save while in Safari or Mail, if you tap and hold down the image, a prompt will ask if you would like to save the photo. Your saved photos can be found the Camera Roll as well.

If you want to take a screenshot from your iPhone or iPod Touch, hold down the home button and click the Sleep/Wake button at the top and the screen will flash. Whatever was displayed on your screen will be added to your Camera Roll.

If you want to jump to the top of a page in Safari, or your Inbox in Mail, simply tap the Menu bar (where the time and battery information is displayed) and it will jump to the top.

Continue reading after the jump for more new features! Read more…

So while the writers at theiLife.com have been patiently waiting for the release of the 3G iPhone outside the 5th Avenue Apple Store in New York City; we have had the pleasure of being interviewed by many other blogs, papers, radio stations, as well as various other media outlets. Here is an up to the minute list of all the published interviews with various publications:

Interview by Fortune!

Store Line Check by Racked. We’re the site that’s liveblogging!

Matt R. and Geoff K., were quoted by the New York Sun.

Matt Dodd was featured in an interview with NBC 4.

NYPost.com video featured a number of iLife writers!

We are seen a number of times in this Fox 5 video!

Matt Dodd was featured in an article in Information Week.

Geoff K. was quoted in Bloomberg News.

We’ve on CNN Money.

We’ve been video posted on NPR.

The article on MacLife about waiting on the line is up here.

Matt Dodd and various other bloggers were featured on the 10 o’clock Channel 11 news here.

CBS used Matt Dodd’s new iPhone in this segment.

Apple has posted an image of theiLife crew activating their new phone in the store!

We were told we have appeared on multiple TV news channels such as CW11, CBS, NBC, and more as well as WCBS 880 Radio and Fox News Radio.

With the new iPhone 3G coming out later this week, take a look at what some other companies are doing to compete with the iPhone.

The iPhone is considered by many, to be the most revolutionary phone to ever be released. It is a totally new experience for may users, with it’s 3.5 inch touch screen; mobile web browsing with Safari (Apple’s web browser), using either WiFi or the AT&T mobile internet services; a full built in iPod for music listening and more. On top of all these amazing features, it also functions as a phone! The iPhone was the first “smartphone” that slickly combined many features in a manor that only Apple could pull off. However with every revolutionary product, competitors come out of the woodwork, most of them are clearly cheap knockoffs, and some of them are somewhat acceptable replicas, however, every once in a while someone comes out with a product that clearly out does the original. As of yet, however, no one seems to have come out with a real “iPhone Killer”. So far, the most notable iPhone doppelgänger is LG’s VX10000 a.k.a. “the Verizon Voyager”, which is available on the Verizon Wireless network. While the Voyager is an okay competitor, the iPhone still tops it for many reasons, not the least of which is that the Voyager runs on a poorly designed Verizon platform, which is somewhat lacking, while the iPhone runs on a derivative of Apple’s powerful OS X.

Clearly something is missing here, really one of the most significant things keeping all iPhone competitors down is the lack of a solid grounding in the OS and UI department. Apple has years of experience, as well as a solid OS to work with, while every other manufacturer has to start from the ground up and basically reinvent the wheel. But what if there was a company with a solid background in designing intuitive interfaces, that could design an OS as elegant as Apple’s OS X. Then perhaps the major phone manufacturers could concentrate on what they do best and build phones. Perhaps from this marriage of elegant software, with efficient hardware, would come a phone that could truly rival the iPhone. Well one of the most well known technology companies is working on just that, an elegant open source operating system. You know this company as one with a history of recognizing the potential in small projects with sufficient funding, as well as being the company that reinvented search. Google has stepped into the mobile phone ring, and for real this time, not just integrating services with other mobile operating systems, but with a whole new mobile operating system, called Android.

Google, the worlds biggest and most well known search company, has recently teamed up with Andy Rubin, the creator of the Sidekick, to create an operating system for many mobile platforms, called Project Android. While many people have been talking about a “Google Phone” for as long as they have been talking about an “Apple Phone”, Google is not expected to release any specific hardware to run Android. One might make the comparison to the so-called OS wars between Apple and Microsoft: on one hand you have Apple with their tightly controlled hardware, which depending on your viewpoint, is either a Pro or a Con; while on the other hand you have Microsoft which currently dominates the OS usage rates, (though not for long) because of it’s “open” Operating System, meaning it isn’t tied to any specific hardware, the only requirement is that the machine has to be capable of running it. Google has taken the more open road here as well, opting to not make the limiting factor the hardware, but the ingenuity of the person attempting to install it.

Android also has a SDK that has already been released for developers to play with. Using Java, developers can make applications from scratch that do anything from enable you to check your email, to playing the hottest new game. Along with its operating system, Android relies on Linux 2.6 to run its core services such a security, memory, and any other behind the scenes work a computers operating system would normally do.

So while many companies have tried to accomplish the task of making a phone that is sleeker, faster, and just better than the iPhone, Google has come at it from a different perspective. Instead of spending all their money on building a sleek phone, Google has spent their time on making an operating system and letting the companies and people install on the phones they like. And by allowing developers to make applications for Android before it has been released, they have allowed the people to make the operating system they would like instead of letting Google’s development team spend many tireless hours guessing how to make it perfect. So with Android’s expected release to be sometime later this year, many wonder if the iPhone will be able to stand supreme among its competitors. Or will phones running Android become the Phones to beat the iPhone? We will soon find out.

The site has been in a dormant state for the past couple of weeks. This is about to change. Behold July 11th!

Its been almost a month since WWDC 2008 and it is finally come time for Apple to deliver its goodies. All three major announcements from WWDC- Mobile Me, the iPhone 3G and the iPhone OS 2.0 firmware update are expected to be delivered this coming Friday. You can rest assured theiLife will have continuing coverage of all three events. We be in line at the 5th Avenue Apple Store in New York City later this week and will bring you the latest coverage (live, of course) of not only the iPhone 3G launch but MobileMe and the new iPhone OS firmware 2.0. Keep posted for more details coming soon!

Last night, I saw Wall E in theaters with a couple of friends. After reading the great reviews I decided that Wall E might be worth my trip to the theater- and my $10! Indeed it was.

For someone who goes to the movies maybe once a year, going out to see Wall E was definitely worth it. Wall E tells the story of a robot who has survived for over 700 years cleaning up garbage on the Earth but has developed a personality. Wall E is an acronym for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class. Once joined with a large fleet, the protagonist Wall E is the last robot surviving from the failed cleanup efforts.

Like other Pixar movies, Wall E is very light on the surface, but touches many larger issues about humanity all while appealing to virtually every demographic. The movie deeply roots itself with issues of consumerism. All the humans have been controlled by a huge corporation named Big N’ Large and have since trashed the Earth. The humans have since evolved to become large, lazy, materialistic creatures that do nothing but watch video screens.

Wall E proves how far Pixar has come with animation- you know this when you see an ‘animated’ movie and it never once occurs to you that it is animated. Everything in Wall E, from Space scenes to the apocalyptic Earth look incredible, and aren’t devoid of other unique Pixar characters. In short, Wall E is a typical Pixar production taken to the next level. If you can, go see it right now- you will enjoy Wall E. Bonus points for anyone who can catch all the Apple references!!

Since the release of the 3G iPhone at WWDC last week, there are still many questions unanswered and speculation regarding the new iPhone.

This years WWDC keynote brought us the hotly anticipated 3G iPhone. Aggressively priced at $199, it is clear that Apple wants to take on the smartphone market and get iPhones in more hands this year. True to some rumors, the new iPhone is launching for $199 in 22 countries later next month. Thanks to subsidization by AT&T and the other official iPhone carriers in other countries, Apple was able to cut the price of the iPhone in half.

While this is ultimately a win-win situation for both AT&T and Apple, it could cause some consumers headaches. One of the greatest parts of the iPhone started with the privilege to activate at home through iTunes. This slick implementation of Apple’s existing software allowed for consumers to avoid the hassle of activating your phone in the store- and for Apple employees to quickly sell more iPhones, Macs or iPods.

Although it is still preliminary speculation at this point, it seems that because of the subsidization, In-Store activation is going to be required. This means that if you want to buy an iPhone, you must purchase the phone and activate in the store regardless if you’re in an AT&T store or an Apple Store. During busy times, such as the holiday season or during launch day, July 11th, this could mean many Apple Store employees being tied up with activating iPhones instead of helping other customers with Mac or iPod sales- which just leaves both sides aggravated.

It also means that the unlocked market is going to suffer. Because Apple gave consumers the liberty to purchase the hardware without any binding contract, many people took their iPhones onto other GSM networks such as T-Mobile. It is believed that over 500,000 iPhones have been unlocked and brought onto other networks around the world. This time around, because AT&T is paying for a portion of the iPhone hardware, requiring immediate, ins-store activation would make sense to further deter these people from bringing the iPhone to other networks.

However, some theorize that since Apple already requires a credit card for an iPhone purchase, they could charge AT&T’s subsidization amount back to their card if the phone wasn’t activated within a certain period of time. This could allow Apple to continue to activate phones through iTunes, but keep AT&T from loosing money.

Because there hasn’t been any official announcement, theoretically, we won’t know for certain until there is. The iPhone 3G is set to launch on July 11th. If you can’t wait, check out our new dashboard widget. Stay tuned for more information regarding the launch and launch coverage of the new 3G iPhone here at theiLife.com.

For those of us who are counting down every last second until the 3G iPhone launch, we have got a new Dashboard widget for you! This widget is styled after the new iPhone 3G, and comes in two colors- Black and White. More details of the coverage from the iPhone 3G launch coming soon, but for now- get yours today!

Download iPhone 3G Countdown Widget (Black) [332KB]
Download iPhone 3G Countdown Widget (White) [332KB]

There are few target audiences that Apple’s products fail to appeal to these days, but one market they have yet to tap is the growing legion of digital gaming fans. Since Microsoft’s buyout of Bungie Studios in 2000, there have been few games for Apple fans to look forward to, excluding the valiant efforts of dedicated Mac exclusive developer Pangaea and cross platform games from developer Blizzard Entertainment. Steve Jobs continues to remain seemingly uncooperative with the game industry, rejecting an offer from PC mega-developer Valve to port its Half-Life 2 series to OS X.

But when Apple announced its ambitious touch screen iPhone device in early 2007, many gamers hoped that Apple would break into the mobile gaming market. The device seemed to be ideal for game design, featuring a large bright screen, input in the form of a touch screen and accelerometer, a 3D acceleration chip and the ability to download games from anywhere with cellular reception. Also, by entering the market four years after the release of the Nintendo DS and the PSP, the iPhone will have a substantial technical advantage over its competition. The PSP uses a 333 MHz CPU, the DS uses two co-processers, clocked at 67 and 33 MHz, where the iPhone utilizes a 620 MHz ARM chip. The iPhone has similar advantages in terms of RAM, storage and wireless capabilites. In fact, the only thing holding the Apple device back is its less than ideal input capabilites.

After repeatedly denying that they would allow 3rd party software development for an entire year, Apple confirmed that they would open the device up to developers, subsequently causing a flood of speculation into the prospects for gaming on the device. The first demonstrations of the iPhone’s gaming abilities were promising to say the very least. At Apple’s iPhone SDK announcement in March, Apple engineers demonstrated the capabilities of the platform with their internally developed game titled Touch Fighter, a Rouge Squadron/StarFox like flight combat sim. The game utilized the touch screen for aiming/shooting, the accelerometer for direction, and was fully 3D, even utilizing the OpenAL API to perform a limited 3D sound function. Mega-publisher EA, who had previously committed to develop more games for the Mac platform, demonstrated a mobile version of the first stage of its upcoming Spore franchise. And Sega showed off a build of Super Monkey Ball, making good use of the accelerometer, a control scheme that had gained much acclaim on the Nintendo Wii system. Apple and the other developers that had time with the SDK claimed that some of these applications, such as SMB had been developed in a period as short as just two weeks. The demonstration was a success; anticipation for iPhone games became frenzied.

During the past week at WWDC, iPhone gaming came back into the spotlight. Apple demonstrated numerous games, including additions from Pangaea Software in the form of two ports: the puzzle game Enigmo, and a port of its cult classic title Cro-Mag Rally. Moo Cow Music presented a suite of instrument simulations in an application called Band, featuring a virtual drum set, guitar, bass, keyboard and multi-function blues simulator. Band also allows for a number of recording features and the ability to combine tracks from multiple recordings, putting it several steps ahead of more casual games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

But the real test will come once developers start to push the iPhone 2.0 platform into the same arena as the DS and PSP game systems. Vying for the hardcore gamer market is not something that any mobile phone system has been successful in doing as of yet, despite the efforts of Nokia’s N-Gage platform. Enter Digital Legends Entertainment, formerly one of the few N-Gage exclusive developers. Their entry into the iPhone foray is the platform exclusive Kroll, a third person sidescroller title that bears some resemblance to God of War, to which the developer has compared Kroll to.

Resting the fate of the iPhone’s hardcore gaming potential on an untried N-Gage developer isn’t exactly fair however. To fill that niche steps in John Carmack of iD, who has promised that his studio will create an iPhone title. As of now, no commercial titles have been confirmed, but several videos have popped up of Doom 3/Doom Arena running on iPhone hardware. As if that wasn’t enough, a multi-player, networked version has also been demonstrated. There’s no question that the level of graphical prowess is rapidly approaching that of mainstream mobile game systems, but whether or not the iPhone can successfully emulate the gameplay of a dedicated gaming device remains to be seen.

Apple has a real chance to get gaming right this time around, let’s only hope they have what it takes. If you liked this article and would like to read more about iPhone gaming, check out our guide of upcoming iPhone games.