Shazam Limits Free iPhone App, Adds $5 App

Shazam, which names songs by listening to a clip that’s playing on the radio or stereo, is one of the most popular cellphone applications to date — and one of the rare few to turn a profit. It’s been downloaded more than 10 million times and has sold out its inventory of advertising space, according to maker Shazam Entertainment. After listening to and identifying the song that’s playing, Shazam also links to iTunes, taking a cut from the fee people pay to download songs from Apple.

However, Shazam says it makes most of its money by selling the app to paying customers, such as on BlackBerry smart phones or through deals with carriers such as Verizon , chief executive Andrew Fisher said.

“When we started, we charged for the product,” he said, adding that the free iPhone version was a “departure.”

Shazam had hoped that mobile advertising and iTunes downloads would sustain the free app, but with the recession, that has not happened. The company is now fixing that detour by tacking on a $5 charge (like all paid app downloads from its App Store, Apple keeps 30% of the charge). Mr. Fisher says mobile advertising was one of the first victims of the recession, and he doesn’t expect ad rates to bounce to levels to sustain free apps for at least two years.

A free version of Shazam will still remain on the iPhone, but it will only name up to five songs a month. To get more, customers will have to cough up for the premium edition. Existing Shazam users, however, can keep using their free, unlimited versions.

“Historically, people have been conditioned to pay for applications,” Mr. Fisher said. He said he doesn’t know how many people will download the premium version. It adds music recommendations, top-hits charts and a search feature to look up a song by name or artist.

[via Wall Street Journal]

Get a Free iPhone 3GS! Yes, that is correct! Why pay for one when CNN, BBC, NBC, and other news sites have proven this system LEGIT. Get it the simple way .... straight to your doorstep! Interested? Then find out how to get a Free iPhone 3GS!

Read rest of entry

Adobe Gets Aggressive With iPhone Flash Failure Message

Company hopes that Apple's customers will voice their frustrations and demand Flash

Adobe's Flash supports a large portion of the internet's rich content. And it will soon be coming to almost all smart phones, opening a world of internet possibilities. All the smart phones, that is, except one of the most popular smart phones on the market -- Apple's iPhone.

Apple remains cold and aloof about the topic of Flash. While the iPhone could easily support hardware-accelerated Flash, CEO Steve Jobs has stated in interviews that Flash is irrelevant and not something that iPhone customers have demanded. He insists the iPhone is the perfect internet phone -- even if it can't run Flash.

Adobe seems to be hoping to push Apple's customers to demand the feature with a new humorously passive aggressive browser failure message.

On the iPhone customers trying to use Flash now get a message stating:

Apple restricts the use of technologies required by products like Flash Player. Until Apple eliminates these restrictions, Adobe cannot provide Flash Player for the iPhone or iPod Touch.

Before the message merely read:

To view this content upgrade your browser and flash plug-in.

Will the new message inspire users to complain to Apple, or will it merely annoy iPhone users, making Adobe look bad? It should be interesting to see how Apple's customers react to the new, more pointed error message.

[via Daily Tech]

Get a Free iPhone 3GS! Yes, that is correct! Why pay for one when CNN, BBC, NBC, and other news sites have proven this system LEGIT. Get it the simple way .... straight to your doorstep! Interested? Then find out how to get a Free iPhone 3GS!

Read rest of entry

Free The iPhone! Latest iPhone Version Gets Jailbreaked Again

Apple's hardware team can't seem to keep their close platform closed

Apple has a big headache. That headache is iPhone unlockers and jailbreakers. With iPhone jailbreaking, the powerful handsets are no longer constrained to only run the apps that Apple allows. And with unlocking, users can jump onto other networks, leaving Apple's partner AT&T and its patchy 3G network behind.

Apple has long and unsuccessfully waged war with the unlockers. It has tried to brick their iPhones. It has tried to release new firmware versions to try to lock them out. But ultimately, time and time again, Apple's best hardware and software engineers are finding themselves outwitted and befuddled by the persistent hackers.

Leading the crew is George Hotz, a 20-year-old New Jersey native who goes by the aliases geohot, million75, or mil online. When he was just a teen, he became the first to develop a procedure to jailbreak the iPhone allowing its use on other networks. The move netted him a hot car, extra iPhones, money, and fame. Now slightly older and a month out of his teenage years, Hotz continues to be among the most prolific iPhone unlockers, consistently outsmarting Apple.

Now Hotz has released his latest masterpiece, blacksn0w, a free unlocking utility that works with the latest iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS hardware (the latest 05.11.07 baseband, which locked out previous hacks). The unlock works with a new version of Hotz's popular purplera1n jailbreak hack, dubbed blackra1n. Together the hacks can both free the phone from the AT&T network and Apple's app restrictions.

[via Daily Tech]

Get a Free iPhone 3GS! Yes, that is correct! Why pay for one when CNN, BBC, NBC, and other news sites have proven this system LEGIT. Get it the simple way .... straight to your doorstep! Interested? Then find out how to get a Free iPhone 3GS!

Read rest of entry