News

Talking Phrasebooks Top iPhone Travel Apps

It's been three weeks now since Apple launched the new iPhone and the App Store allowing users to download more applications to their iPhone or iPod Touch.

Coolgorilla are proud to announce that their range of Talking Phrasebooks have received over 350,000 downloads and rank as some of the most popular travel-related applications available on the new portal.

Whilst other publishers charge $9.99 for similar products, Coolgorilla's range of Talking Phrasebooks are completely free to download thanks to lastminute.com who sponsor the applications.

The Spanish version has been the two most popular phrasebook charting as high as No. 17 in the Free App Charts.

Portuguese and Greek versions are due for release before the end of the month.

BBC Active employ Coolgorilla for iPod and iPhone development

BBC Active has today re-launched their succesful Quickstart language-learning series, which has now been fully optimised for use with your iPod or iPhone.

Working with Coolgorilla, BBC Active has developed these new products so that in addition to listening to the audio course, you can also view the accompanying translations and course text on the screen of your iPod or iPhone. Chapters within each episode enable users to navigate easily around the courses, making it simple to pick up key phrases such as booking a hotel, getting directions or ordering a meal.

The series contains eight languages – Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish and come as part of a two-CD package retailing at £13.99.

Apple unveil 3G iPhone

Billed as "Twice as fast, Half the price" the widely anticipated 3G iPhone was unveiled today by Apple CEO Steve Jobs and will start shipping to stores from 11th July this year.

So, what's new? Here are the five key points where the new iPhone will differ;

3G Speed - The handset boasts surfing speeds almost three times faster than existing iPhone models and allegedly 35% faster than a Nokia N95 using the same 3G connection.

Battery Life - This was the main reason cited for the lack of 3G on the 1st generation iPhone as 3G is particularly hungry on battery juice. The new iPhone will provide up to 5 hours of 3G talk-time, 7 hours of video playback and 24 hours of audio playback, significantly higher than that of other 3G handsets.

GPS (Global Position System) - Using Google Maps you'll be able to accurately pin point your exact location within feet! Your position is highlighted in blue and will move as you travel from A to B. You'll never get lost again!

Price - Apple have massively slashed the price which will start retailing at just $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for 16GB. There will also be a 16GB model available in white.

Countries - The new iPhone will be available in over 70 countries by the end of the year! That's great news for Apple's fans across the globe and massive increase from the existing 6 countries.

Existing iPhone users can look forward to a free software update in early July which will provide some enhanced features including third party downloadable applications available from the App Store. One less popular announcement however is that iPod Touch users will have to pay $9.99 for the same update.

Coolgorilla opens jungle doors

Coolgorilla launched their new-look website today which allows developers to submit iPod, iPhone and Mobile applications for review and rating by the sites visitors.

The move aims to provide users with more mobile content whilst developers will benefit from being able to promote their applications to one of the largest ready-made audiences of iPod, iPhone and Mobile enthusiasts.

Roy Forsdick, Managing Director of Coolgorilla commented "With the number of quality free downloads for mobile devices on the increase it makes sense for Coolgorilla to open up the jungle doors and provide our website visitors with as much content as possible."

Independent developers may even find that Coolgorilla can help them turn their free applications into money-spinners. As one of the early pioneers of free, ad-funded mobile software, Coolgorilla have a wealth of large consumer brand clients who may well pay to have their logo appear on genre specific applications.

"For independent developers this is great because if they are interested we can supply an ad-funded publishing service. There's no reason why a teenager in his bedroom can't come up with an application that will impress the Marketing Director of a multinational brand. When this happens the developer will keep all the intellectual property and receive the lion's share of the advertising revenue."

Google Android - The Swiss Army Phone

The big "G" lifted the lid a little further on their soon-to-be-released mobile operating system last week. Google Android, which looks set to shake up the mobile industry, was briefly demonstrated on a touch screen mobile not dissimilar to the iPhone.

A few features were flaunted such the phone unlocking system which, rather than relying on a PIN Code or password, requires you to draw a shape on your screen to unlock the phone.

Most impressive however was the demo given of Street View for mobile which comes complete with a built-in compass! If you haven't checked it out already, Street View is currently available on the Google Maps desktop and renders street level photography in a way which enables you to control a complete 360 degree view of major US cities.

Samsung and LG have both announced that they will start shipping handsets with Android by the end of the year and both Motorola and HTC are expected to follow shortly afterwards.

If you're feeling geeky you can watch a brief YouTube video here.