Iron Ink Media: Inked Up

Isn’t this cute. An app from the web browser company Opera was approved by the Apple app store today and should be available for download later today or tomorrow. That’s right, a new web browser will be available for surfing on the iPhone. Don’t like Safari? No worries, help is on the way.

Opera claims that this web-browsing application will let you surf the web six times faster than with the standard Safari browser that is available on all iPhone and iTouche devices.

“We are delighted to offer iPhone and iPod Touch users a great browsing experience with the Opera Mini app,” said Lars Boilesen, CEO of Opera Software. “This app is another step toward Opera’s goal of bringing the Web to more people in more places.”

It comes as a bit of a surprise to us because Apple can be a bunch of Nazi’s when it comes to letting apps in that compete with Apple stuff. In this case, the Apple stuff is Safari. Maybe Apple is softening up a bit and willing to let competitors throw their hats in the ring. And…..maybe not. We have a feeling that they only reason they let this in is because either they don’t see it as a threat or they see some way to make money on it.

According to a New York Times story, Apple’s iPad might not be the only nifty little digital tablet on the market soon. The paper says that Google is working on its own Android-based version to challenge Apple’s newest device.

The Times reported that this would be “its version of a slate computer.” Their version of an iPad would be “an e-reader that would function like a computer,” the paper said.

It seems that Google CEO Eric Schmidt was blabbing about the new project at a party recently and that’s how this all got started. The Times also reported that Nokia could be working on their own slate/e-reader thing.

Well isn’t this cute. Apple has decided to remove the word “Google” from the search bar in the iPhone’s Safari browser. You know how when you put your search terms in you have to then hit the “Google” button to execute your search? Well, they are getting rid of that.

I guess we saw it coming. Google and Apple have been in a pissing match for some time now. Apple rejected Google’s Google Voice app. Google’s Android is supposed to compete with the iPhone’s OS. Google CEO Eric Schmidt stepped down off of Apple’s board of directors. You get the idea.

But now, Apple is apparently tweaking Google’s nips again by getting rid of the Google brand from Safari in the new iPhone OS 4.0. It could possibly be that Apple is actually considering a deal with Microsoft to make Bing the default search engine. We hope not, we aren’t huge on Bing.

Our bigger concern is that this spat between the two tech giants hinders the amount of cool stuff that we the consumer get. Please, Apple and Google, just play nice.

A recent market research study showed that smartphones that are based on Google Android have gained market share. In the months from December to February, Android phones have gained 5.2% during that time period while Palm and Microsoft platforms have seen their biggest losses.

Apple probably won’t flip out over this, but their market share dipped a tenth of a percentage point to 25.4% Then again, maybe that will totally set some Apple execs off, who knows? We would have to think that too much of a slip will be the final dagger that leads Apple to open up the iPhone to other service providers besides AT&T. As it is they are working on doing that.

Palm’s decline is a bit odd since their WebOS has gotten tremendous reviews. But when it comes to technology, we would have to think that Apple and Google are two of the top names in forward-thinking cool stuff.

Overall, 45.4 million people own smartphones now, which is up 21% from the previous three months. So, it would seem that the overall pie is growing and that should be a help to all involved.

On Monday, Apple announced that it would be holding a special, invite-only event to show off the latest version of the new iPhone OS. Leave it to Apple to pull this off right after the launch of the iPad.

The event on April 8th will allow everyone to “peek into the future of iPhone OS.” Hooray?

You can count on Macworld to provide you a blow-by-blow update of the event, which starts at 10 a.m. Pacific time. What new features will iPhone’s 4.0 OS have? Oh do tell!

Apple said today that they sold more iPad’s on Saturday than they did during the first two days of the original iPhone release. During its first two days, the iPhone sold 270,000 units, while the company moved 300,000 iPad’s on Saturday.

“The iPad did pretty much what I expected,” said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research.

Some estimated that Apple would sell some 525,000 for the entire weekend. They could have probably sold more, but some Best Buys and Apple stores were closed on Sunday for the Easter holiday.

The bottom line? The iPad launch went incredibly well.

Good news for fans of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2! You can now downloaded the game onto your iPhone and play it on the go. That’s right, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 is now available for play on your good ol’ iPhone.

There simply tons of fans of this game from the old Playstation, and the game looks remarkably like the original. You can play as Tony Hawk or 13 other professional skateboarders. And there are still tons of levels (14 we think) that you can unlock as you perform various tricks and stunts.

The graphics aren’t all that, but were they ever? And for the controls there is an onscreen D-pad to go along with four buttons for moves: flip, grind, grab, and ollie. No, these onscreen buttons won’t substitute for real game controls and the folks over at Cnet think that this actually makes things more annoying.

And this can all be yours for just $9.99. That’s pretty pricey and we would have to think Activision will drop that at some point. Then again, there are tons of fans of this game if they dig it, keep the price right where it is.

Well isn’t this something? The new iPhone that is supposed to be released June has very few details. We’ve heard about it being the iPhone HD and having a forward-facing camera for teleconferencing, but information has been scarce.

Now, we hear that it’s been leaked that this new iPhone will be running a new build of Google Android. Wow. Didn’t see that coming.

With Apple’s exclusivity agreement with AT&T coming to a close, the company can start shopping their phone around to other carriers. We are expecting a Verizon version soon, and that should help the iPhone really pound the rest of the mobile market.

Neither Apple nor Google has been able to confirm the Android rumor. But, neither company is stupid and this could be huge for both of them.

Apple has announced the release of the iPhone OS SDK 3.2 Gold Master version. This comes right after they released Beta 5 last week, finalizing the company’s preparation for Saturday’s iPad release.

What’s this mean to iPhone users? Absolutely nothing! This is on the developer’s side. And since you know we talk about all things related to mobile apps, this constitutes news for us.

So yeah, this is the Gold Master version, which means Apple says it’s fine for public consumption. This is significant and a huge milestone because this is the first SDK that will support the iPad.

Have fun, developers!

Accompanying reports that Apple is working on a new iPhone for Verizon Wireless, is a rumor that the company is also working on a new handset known as the iPhone HD. The new phone would run on the iPad’s A4 processor and sport a forward-facing camera for teleconferencing.

That’s a lot of detail for something that’s supposedly just a rumor.

Photo Caption: That doesn’t look like a forward-facing camera to us.

Another rumor from Engadget suggests that this iPhone HD could debut on Tuesday, June 22, ahead of the WWDC 2010. Again, that’s pretty specific information and we doubt that Engadget plucked that out of thin air.

The new iPhone HD is expected to take several large steps towards the iPad and distance itself from previous versions of the iPhone. Would that be just another reason to just wait and not get an iPad?