The Blog of an African NERD

qStatus for the iPhone and iPod touch is here

Really excited to be launching qStatus for the iPhone and iPod touch. This app lets you update your Twitter and Facebook status at the same time. It is the best tweeting and status updating experience on the iPhone Bar None! It has many cool features too. Check it out at http://www.qstatus.com

qTweeter is here. iPhone Twittering will never be the same.

I have been involved in a lot of cool apps for Smartphones, particularly in the glorious days of the Treo.  But this one tops it all.  qTweeter is simply the coolest thing I have been a part of to date with regards to Smartphone apps. Big shout out to everyone that contributed to this project and worked extra hard to get it out. Check it out at http://www.qtweeter.com 

Ringtone Makers, Ringtone Shufflers and March Madness Ringtones

 

March madness is here and with our RingToneMakers, ToneFXs for iPhone and Ringtone Shufflers, you can enjoy it more and show support for your team on your iPhone, BlackBerry or Windows Mobile Phone. When I lived in Kansas City, I fell in love with the Jayhawks mainly because of their fight song, which I think is the best in the country. Now with iPhoneRingToneMaker and ToneFXs, I can really enjoy these sounds on my iPhone and do some really cool stuff, particularly during this March Madness period.

It starts with getting the fight song of your favorite team. Simply go to Amazon MP3, and search “College Fight Song”. You can do the same search in iTunes.  Another good source is your College’s website. For example http://www.ku.edu/about/traditions/songs.shtml.

Once you download your college fight song, then the fun begins. Simply drag it into iPhoneRingToneMaker and create your college fight song ringtone.

 

It gets better.  For me, I love these two KU songs- Sunflower song and I’m a Jayhawk. Not to even mention the chant “Rock Chalk Jayhawk KUUUUUUUUU”. Of course I have created all these ringtone. However, how do I enjoy them all? Thanks to the Ringtone Shuffling feature in ToneFXs, I can shuffle all these ringtones, so that for every phone call I get, I hear one of these ringtones. Cool stuff indeed!!. Here is a screenshot

There is even more you can do with ToneFXs.  This app lets you customize pretty much all the mains sounds your iPhone makes. You can customize your text message alert sound, calendar alert sound, even the keyboard sound! So when a text message comes in or a calendar alert, rather than hearing Tri-Tone, I can hear the KU’s Fight Song or Rock Chalk.

As you may know, with the iPhone, you can assign a ringtone to a specific contact. I have some close friends who are passionate fans of K State and University of Maryland. So I have created the ringtones of these schools and assigned it to them so I know when these knuckle heads call me.

As you can see, with iPhoneRingToneMaker and ToneFXs, you can further enjoy March Madness in new and exciting ways.

Oh by the way, for you BlackBerry and Windows Mobile Folks, you can have these same experiences with BlackBerryRingToneMaker and wmRingToneMaker. We also have Ringtone Shuffler for these devices to. You can find them at http://www.ringtoneshuffler.com 

ToneFXs 1.5 for the iPhone is now available

If you like custom ringtones on your iPhone, you will love ToneFXs. We have updated ToneFXs to version 1.5. It is a free update for currently registered users. Not much has changed on the surface. It is under the hood where a lot of work has been done.  We had to make some major changes behind the scenes to serve as the foundation for version 2.0. These changes we have made give us the power to do some really amazing things with sound customization on the iPhone. That being said, there are a few cool things in this new version.  Thanks to the encouragement of Jay Freeman ( Saurik ), ToneFXs is now WinterBoard compatible. Even cooler is that it lets you use any of the WinterBoard sound themes you have downloaded and apply them to any of the sounds of the major apps. We have also streamlined Ringtone Shuffling, maker it even easier and faster. ToneFXs is available in Cydia. For more info, please visit http://www.tonefxs.com 

Cell Phone Reunion Video

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

An interesting iPhone comparison

Maybach Music ringtone

While I was leaving NYC from the iPhone Madness last week, around the Holland tunnel area, I think I may have spotted Jay-Z’s Maybach. Of course you can’t see him cause the curtains are drawn and yeah they are perfectly like a Picasso painting. For real, press the play button on the Image above. Rumor has it that he has a house in this area and I had seen him in some paparazzi picture on theYBF entering what seemed to be a Brown Maybach. So off course the next thing down I-95 was listening to Maybach Music over and over and dreaming how I will move up from my 350 slk to a Maybach when am ready to be chauffeured around. By the time I got back to Maryland, it had to become a ringtone for my iPhone. Now here is the real sweet part about iPhoneRingToneMaker. I can actually make multiple versions of the same ringtone for my iPhone. So now I can choose if I want the chorus or that ridiculous verse he had on the song.

Political Ringtones for your iPhone, Treo and Windows Mobile devices

If you use any of our ringtone products and you are into the White House race, you can get some fun political ringtones for your smartphone. Learn more at http://www.slate.com/id/2189303/

Recommended watch for iPhone Developers

If you are developing for the iPhone and trying to do amazing things, this is one video from Apple's Developer site you should watch. It is titled "Leveraging iPhone Location, Acceleration, Orientation, and System Information"

In a common sense world, the next iPhone should be a QWERTY Smartphone

Common sense dictates that the upcoming iPhone should be a QWERTY Smartphone with an actual physical keyboard. In my opinion, the current iPhone virtual keyboard borders between a complete bust to manageable, depending on how much time you are willing to give to adjust to it. As a Treo user, even though I have adjusted quite well to the virtual keyboard, by and large it still is a pain and I don’t think current enterprise smartphone users will have the time and patience to get used to Apple’s virtual keyboard.
After all, there is a reason they call them “Crack”Berry. Have you ever seen a BlackBerry user typing rapidly to respond to an email just before a plane takes off? Try that as a relatively new iPhone user and you end flinging the damn iPhone in frustration. Enterprise users don’t care about the razzle dazzle interfaces of the iPhone. They need to get their work done fast and the iPhone virtual keyboard is just a huge hindrance. The auto completion feature that is supposed to make up for the typing inaccuracy sucks half the time.  In fact, the main reason I still keep my Treo apart from key 3rd party apps is because of the physical keyboard.
I find it hilarious how Apple executive Phil Schiller threw in his enterprise presentation
“for those of you that don’t know, typing on the iPhone is awwwwwesome”  When in reality, half the time, typing on this thing stinks( my opinion )

While Apple’s new enterprise features look impressive, they run a high risk of totally flopping because of the lack of a physical keyboard. Plus, with all the recent defections of a few former Apple executives and employees to Palm, you would think Apple has blood in their eyes and are just chomping at the bits to bury Palm for ever( If I were Ed Colligan, I’d be scared to death at this prospect). All these lead to a super thin Apple signature designed qwerty smartphone.
Now of course, we are dealing with hard headed Apple here with more than enough arrogance to think they can shove a virtual keyboard down the throats of enterprise users.