It probably wasn’t the most consequential update of the day, but we did get one big question answered from the iPhone SDK event in February: why the iPhone’s calculator icon got changed from round buttons to square ones. Apple apparently had a lot of requests for a scientific version of the calculator, and so in iPhone 2.0, you’ll be able to rotate the calc to landscape mode for a sci calc, including squares and square roots, sin, cos, and tan, factorials, and everything else you use to use the old TI-85 for back in the lab.

As we noted, probably not a huge sales point for people planning to pick up a new iPhone (which, at $199 for the 8gb, is pretty much everybody), but the added functionality will be a nice bonus for those of us require a calculator for every little bit of math that needs doing.

via http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/09/iphone-calculator-gets-scientific-in-2-0/

Posted on June 10th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iphone applications, iphone 2.0 os | No Comments »

The latest build of iPhone OS 2.0, 5a274d, includes a a preference panel that allows users to control settings for applications with push capabilities. The primary intent of this function: allow users to conserve battery life by turning push capabilities off for applications like Mail, which supports push for Exchange and Yahoo! Mail servers.

As we’ve noted before, push (which allows the iPhone to notify you of new mail as soon as it hits your inbox) or frequently checked email can slurp iPhone battery. Under current, public iPhone OS builds (including 1.1.4), users with psuh Yahoo! accounts can navigate to Settings > Mail then select the Yahoo! account and choose “Advanced” and select or deselect the “Use Push Mail” setting.

The new “Fetch New Data” preference in iPhone OS 2.0, 5a274d presumably controls push capabilities for both Exchange and Yahoo! Mail accounts, as well as future Apple or third-party applications that support push.

via http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2008/05/07/new-iphone-os-20-build-gets-push-preferences/

Posted on May 8th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone News, iphone 2.0 os | No Comments »