That was a Japanese textual emoji. It’s a text-based representation of the graphical emoji that you’ve seen before back 2 years ago when Apple refused to put those cute graphical emoji on all iPhones, except for Japanese ones. Eventually there were iPhone apps that would let you enable them on iPhone OS 2.x or 3.x. Now on iOS4 you can also get the textual versions too.
How? Just go into Settings – General – Keyboard – International Keyboards – Add New Keyboard… and add Japanese (Romanji).
Once you do that, just open any app that uses the keyboard (your favorite Twitter app, Messages, Mail, etc…) and hit the globe key at the bottom left (highlighted in red below). Hit that globe key until you see see the Japanese on the keyboard. If you already have the graphical emoji already installed, you’ll have to hit the globe key twice.
Hit the 123 key and you’ll see the ^_^ key in the bottom right (highlighted in red below).
Now you’ll see a little popup with a few textual emojis and a right pointing “More” arrow (highlighted in red below). Hit that “More” arrow.
Now you’ll see more textual emoji that you can scroll down the page to view. Just hit any one that you desire to put into your message.
When you’re done, just hit the globe key to get back to the regular English keyboard.
So, you got the new iPhone 4 like me. It’s full of great improvements in the software and hardware. Besides multitasking and folders in iOS4, the iPhone 4 has a front-facing camera that you can use for FaceTime (video phone call, if you haven’t heard of it yet). Unfortunately it needs wi-fi to use. If you don’t sit in your house with a wireless network, a coffee shop with free wi-fi, or other location with wi-fi you’re pretty much shit out of luck for using FaceTime.
After I got my iPhone 4 set up and had some time to kill, my friend & I tried out FaceTime. It’s pretty damn cool! But say you don’t have any friends available to try out FaceTime (or no friends at all)… What do you do?
Apple sent out an email on Friday informing iPhone 4 owners that they can call Apple and test out FaceTime with them! For free!
All you need to do is to call 1-888-FACETIME from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm CDT and an Apple representative will show you the basics and a few advanced tips. I haven’t tried it yet, but just to see what it’s all about might be worth it. Just remember to need to have wi-fi on.
If you’ve tried calling Apple to try out FaceTime, let us know what happened and what was talked about.
I hope you all had a chance to check out the WWDC keynote today. Steve Jobs let us all see the iPhone 4 an dmore info about iOS4 (the name of the iPhone OS 4.0), and iAd.
Watch Apple’s New iPhone 4 Promo Video:
So, there it is. The iPhone 4. I won’t bore you with the specs about it (you can find it on Apple’s iPhone site), but here is my take on it:
I CAN’T FUCKING WAIT TO GET MY HANDS ON IT!!!
The iPhone 4 is packed with loads of great features! I was this excited too about the 3GS last year, but now I’m even MORE EXCITED than last year! HA! Just over 2 weeks away until it’s in my hands!
Wow, this thing is fast! It’s faster than Flash! (no pun intended)
I like these little tab thingies. Very cool.
I also like the thumbnails on the home page (what they call Speed Dial).
Crap. There are tons of CSS issues and right off the bat, we’ve become enemies.
What is that nasty blue border that surrounds links when I click on them?
Filling out forms feels so weird. They completely did away with the native UI.
Red bar at the top, all the time… annoying.
What’s the difference between a bookmark and a saved page?
Mobile View? Really, Opera? I’m already on a mobile device.
Sigh. Is it just me or is the UI sloppy? Or maybe I’m just used to Apple’s UI perfection.
Nothing left to say. Sorry, Opera.
Opera Mini is fast, but it has issues with rendering CSS and I’m not too crazy about the user interface it has. Some things just don’t make much sense as to why it was done in the app. I think Opera Mini still needs a lot of fixing before overpowering Safari from the iPhone. I’m quite happy with Safari for now.
How bad can a news organization screw up? It appears that CNN just has again. For reporting on the story of the sale of Atebits’ Tweetie iPhone app to Twitter, CNN.com gets a screenshot of tweetie.com, which has nothing to do with Tweetie app developer Atebits whose URL is http://www.atebits.com.
Oh, CNN. When will you get competent people that will make sure they get the correct info? How about double checking your stories before publishing them?
I’d like to thank @majorh for tweeting this out & bringing it to my attention.
If you haven’t heard yet, Twitter has bought Atebits, the company behind the popular Tweetie iPhone app and Mac desktop application. Twitter plans on making the app their official iPhone app, renaming it “Twitter for iPhone” and making it free (currently $2.99 for the App Store). The story has been making big news around Mac, iPhone, social media, and tech sites since the news broke last night. You can read all of those articles on your own and get the gist of the entire thing.
I haven’t used Tweetie for the iPhone yet, but I have played around with the Mac version. It didn’t like it, although the design of the user interface is nice. I prefer using TweetDeck on the Mac. As for the iPhone, I’ve been using Twittelator Pro for almost 2 years now. I bought the Pro version on a recommendation of a good friend and I was not disappointed. Twittelator Pro was definitely worth the $4.99! I’ve recommended many time over the past 2 years. When Tweetie came out, I didn’t buy it. And when Tweetie 2 came out, I didn’t buy that either. Now that Twitter is going to re-release a new rebranded version of it, I’m willing to at least try it out. I wasn’t going to spend the $2.99 to try it out. I’m quite happy with my Twitterlator Pro. I’ve been very unsatisfied with all other Twitter apps for the iPhone and to blow $2.99 on something I don’t even like using on the Mac just make sense to me. I wasn’t thrilled with TweetDeck for the iPhone, although, as mentioned earlier, I do like it on my desktop.
I think Twitter is making a move to make it’s name more well known and making their own official apps for mobile devices, having already done so for Blackberry devices. I believe it’s a smart move on their part, but I don’t like Tweetie. I am glad that they didn’t buy Twittelator. I wonder what device they’ll do next – Android, Palm, Windows Phone?
This purchase by Twitter is very interesting nonetheless and I’ll be watching for the new Twitter for iPhone app for it’s release to see if it’s popularity continues. And I might even try it out. If you’re like me and wanting to try out Tweetie, just wait.
If you want more info directly from Twitter on all of this, they’ve created a Twitter account (DUH! Of course!) for you to follow called @TwitterMobile.
I’m willing to do a swap for some needed Gowalla items. We can set up a swap somewhere in the northern Delaware area. Get hold of me on Twitter or leave me a comment here. First come, first serve. If you don’t have anything I need, that’s cool. I can still drop an item for you to pick up.
I was able to go out and check to see if this was finally true. And YES IT IS! I scored several items and 2 of the new bonus items from last week (2-piece Luggage and Gowalla Cling).
Now I’d love to hear, by a blog post or a post in the support forum on GetSatisfaction.com, of what happened. I think most of us Gowalla users are technical enough to understand.
Yesterday, Josh Williams of Gowalla posted about 2 new features in Gowalla: Trips and Bookmarks.
Custom trips have been talked about by many on Gowalla’s GetSatifaction.com forum and now they’re available, but their creation is only available from the web site. You can access near by trips from the app so you can do them. You can create as many as 5 trips, each including up to 20 spots. Not bad. More improvements to that will be coming also in the future. You can also create bookmarks now for your favorite spots, from the web site and from the app.
Today we’re thrilled to announce the launch of two new features: Trips and Bookmarks. Let’s talk about Trips first.
Until today, all Trips in Gowalla have been curated by the team at Gowalla with a little help from select friends. But our goal has always been that you would help us create these trips. And today you can. Simply login to your Gowalla account on the web, visit a spot page, then click the Add to Trip button. You’ll be able to name your trip, give it a description, add up to 20 spots of your choosing, then publish it to Gowalla. Your published trips will be viewable in the Gowalla app by your friends.
Here’s where it gets fun: We’ll be looking for unique and exciting trips created by our community to feature in Gowalla. Featured trips will be promoted based on the quality and relevancy of the trip, the number of people who have completed the trip, and will be given their own custom pin artwork that will be rewarded to those who have completed the trip.
As of today, you can create as many as 5 trips, each including up to 20 spots. As we improve the feature we’ll allow you to create more trips, order their lists of spots, and categorize them into logical groups like Pub Crawls, Nature Hikes, and the like. Also, for now, you may only complete featured trips and trips created by your friends. This is just the first step in making trips a truly key part of Gowalla’s future. We have lots more to do.
Today you can view nearby, featured and friend-created trips in Gowalla 1.4 on your iPhone by tapping the Browse button in the upper-left of the Trips tab. Our forthcoming Android and WebOS clients currently in development will also support this feature.
I’d also like to tell you a bit about bookmarks as well. Now when you visit any spot page at Gowalla.com you can bookmark that spot. You’ll be able to find all your bookmarks in Gowalla for iPhone by tapping Browse on the Spots tab. This simple feature makes it easy to find your way back to a favorite spot. Soon you’ll be able to add bookmarks from your mobile device as well.
Today’s release of Trips and Bookmarks to our community is simply a first step. There is a lot of depth here to be explored. We’re excited to hear your feedback as we continue to improve these, and other, features. Thanks for going out with Gowalla!
EA Mobile has released their second iPhone game in the SPORE universe today, SPORE Creatures. It starts off where SPORE Origins left off. You come out of the prehistoric water onto land where you need to continue to evolve to survive.
You can customize your SPORE Creature with over 45 unique body parts like legs, mouths, shells, and wings, plus different skins, shapes, and colors. EA Mobile says there’s over a billion possible combinations within the SPORE Creature Creator. Plus there are 20 levels across 4 different sprawling zones: Sandy Shores, Barren Desert, Dark Forest, and Icy Mountains. You will need to avoid snapping, carnivours plants, shooting urchins and more while trying to solve puzzles to complete each level. And like SPORE Origins, you will need to collect DNA to evolve. There are 5 abilities to max out to build your survival skill-set.
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