Wound magazine, which celebrates edginess and originality through works that inspire in art, fashion, architecture and design, officially unveils their summer issue across three different platforms. Wound Digital (online) and iWound (iPhone) receive their global premiere alongside the established print bible Wound Quarterly in a landmark launch.

Interested in a digital fashion magazine on the iPhone? Well, there is one right now. Check out iWound which is the iPhone app of Wound. For more details and a further review, you have to check it out here.

Can I say that the iPhone 3.0 update went kind of horrible?

1. I was first fixed up with a brick because it could not unlock my simcard. And then I spent an hour trying to unbrick my iPhone by restarting a couple of things and all sorts of things.

2. My updates are weird. Some of my apps went wrong and kept on crashing. The updates showed apps which should have been updated but did not get updated.

3. My iPhone is now slow. I don’t know why.

4. There are bugs, like this one:

5. The best feature of 3.0 (I think) was Push, which didn’t come with many apps. Well they are slowly rolling it out.

6. Some apps wanted to update with my Singapore account. The master app update wanted to update with my Netherlands account.

7. IM+ 3.0 started to crash, didn’t want to update, was plain annoying.

So I chose BeeJiveIM 3.0, worked like a breeze, had to pay for it but its the best app with Push thus far.

Send me more messages now!

I’m blogging again because I’m blah with work. You know those days where you spend five hours on one part of the project only to find that the bug is on another part? And you are using some really exotic hardware arrangement where you can ONLY find in Building A when your development board is in Building Z and of course you won’t have a debugger.

Well I’m exaggerating. But you kind of get the idea.

So back to the story. I’ve been checking out the iPhone 3GS. And I’m thinking of the things I like / and dislike about it.

(1) Looks

Well, I really like my iPhone 3G in White, and I didn’t expect it to shrink the phone to half the size because of the size of smartphones so far. I still think its a little to fat for me, especially with the cover. Maybe for the next iterations but not for now. I can imagine if there was an iPhone 4G that would be the case to switch, but if you have a good formula, why change it? (It should come in baby pink though, and put Swarovski and price it at twice the price – I know someone who will buy it)

(2) 3G S

I want this for the speed. But S goes for both Speed and Slow, depending possibly on your carrier. To me, its not a big jump, but its nice. I run Sims 3 on the iPhone, Metal Gear Solid, Monopoly, etc without any problems.

(3) Compass

This is a very nice thing to have – right now the problem with Google Maps is this. I have two points on a map, and it has a pin. Which way does one actually go? Left, Right? Forward, Backward? You only know when you move, which is horrible if you are attempting to cycle. Bad bad bad. TomTom has shown their new directional application – with no price included – I expect alot. But people will buy it.

(4) Videos. 3MP.

Okay, this isn’t that great a thing. 3MP Camera isn’t that great either. But I’ve had very nice results for the 2MP camera, I use it even more than my normal Sony Camera.

(5) Nike +

I really want . this .

(6) Well…

I guess that’s it isn’t it? I say if you haven’t gotten an iPhone, and despite my apprehension in not wanting one, now I cannot imagine not having one. But if you are already holding on to an iPhone 3G, its not exactly worth it for the tweaking of what should have been there. Besides with the SDK 3.0 being released on the 17th June, you’ll already get a nice bang for your buck.

I admit, after I was semi-coerced into the iPhone gang, I can’t live without it, especially on Holidays! Since I’ve taken it for a run in UK and Belgium already, I kind of understand the data roaming via T-Mobile. Anyway, here is the must-haves for travel according to Summerrainx. You can see my laptop bag edition next time.

Contrary to popular belief, I have not exactly very high maintenance. Honest!

(1) Trusty Bag

I recommend the LV Speedy 30. It was an impulse buy, but now I use it for everything including groceries. I throw it around but it still mantains its shape. And you can carry three days of clothes, and makeup, and skincare (Which trust me I have alot). You can even throw in an Airport Express, iPhone and charging cables if you want. Not big enough for the MacBook though.

(2) Passport + Money

Too simple to explain this.

(3) Sunscreen

Paul & Joe Body Protection Cream with SPF30. Because all of us can dream about staying young forever.

(4) Makeup & Skincare of some sort

If I’m trapped on an island with three pieces of things, I would take my pressed powder, lipgloss and facial foam.

(5) Apple Airport Express

Its kind of weird to say this, but when I was in Standford, I was stranded without wireless internet and only wired Internet! And I kicked myself for not brining along my AirPort Express because it is so small and handy and easy to set up. And well, you just need to have a wireless portable router you can put in your bag, because you may never know when you might need it. I wished it could charge my iPhone though, but it no longer does. Apparently it did previously.

(6) iPhone with a ton of Apps + Charger

- Remember to set your phone to non data roaming: Settings > General > Network > Data Roaming = OFF

- iTranslate / Translate to ask the nice waitress for beer.

- VOIP something to call home / work and avoid the expensive roaming fees expecially if you have wireless. Recommended: Skype, Vopium, Fring (with SIP Voipstunt).

- Lonely Planet App for the street guide on your gadget. However, I found that the good ole’ paper guidebook actually works better.

- Tube / Train offline map for the country of your choice: I found London Underground Tube useful… until it meant going to Zone 6 which was not on the map. Then it was back to asking the drivers. Plus unless the App is supplied by the Train / Transport themselves, you would probably won’t know if places are under renovation anyway.

What do you want from the new iPhone? Apparently alot of things. Now this bumpup I hope it ain’t too much since I personally got an iPhone myself now and I don’t want to feel too obsolete. I do wish that I had compass though.

And another set of ’specs’ according CultofMac:

* 32GB and 16GB to replace current capacities
* $199 and $299 price-points to be maintained
* 3.2 Megapixel camera
* Video recording & editing capabilities
* Ability to send a picture & video via MMS
* Discontinuation of the metal band surrounding the edge of the device
* OLED screen
* 1.5X The battery life
* Double the RAM and processing power
* Built-in FM transmitter
* Apple logo on the back to light up
* Rubber-tread backing
* Sleeker design
* Built-in compass
* Revolutionary combination of the camera, GPS, compass, and Google maps to identify photo and inform about photo locations.
* Turn by turn directions
* July 17th, 2009 release date

I met Sander recently, who created the iPhone App game iSjoel. Its a Dutch game obviously and when it was released in the Netherlands in February it stayed on the number one spot for a few weeks in the Netherlands iTunes App Store.

iSjoel is a very Dutch game, you get a pile of wooden round pucks, and you aim to shoot them across the board into one of the four holes to earn points. iSjoel, the iPhone App, is actually a very addictive game, because you’ll realize that due to the dynamics of the game it isn’t as easy as it apparently looks. For me, even after many game plays I only managed 115 points.

Well, since iSjoel costs less than a bar of snickers, its quite a nice deal to check out and to save time.

The payouts though, seem to belong to the Belastingdienst – or the Dutch Tax Office.

Assuming an App costs 0.99USD:
- Apple gets 30% = 0.30USD
- Developer get 70% = 0.70USD (Yeah right!)

Belastingdienst first takes away 52% or something like that, so effectively that leaves only 48% or about a mere 0.34USD for the Dutch developer. Assuming that if you manage to get on the top ten in the Netherlands, not International mind you! And that you get an high profile which hopefully people will download. If you don’t get onto the list, well, you can blog about it and maybe get slashed dot. (For the record, the price point of Dapple is too high – initial 4.99USD for it? Even after Slashdot.org he sold 17 units that day. Well Myst is going for 4.99USD, and Myst is well.. legendary)

So assuming that it sells about 10K units on the App Store for its entire run, since it stayed on the top one for 2-3 weeks. Netherlands have x number of iPhones wandering around, with x-y Credit Cards registered with the App Store, so make an estimate.

That makes about a profit of (0.99 * 0.7 * 0.48)*10,000 = 3326USD? Well, it won’t make you rich, but it is nice, since you would probably have gained the expertise of Cocoa and Obj-C for iPhone App number 2. Well, it also means that the Tax Office is taking away too much.

Its something to think about if one wants to launch an App on the iPhone App Store. Really.

Otherwise, back to iSjoel:

Usability: 4/5

Fun: 3.5/5

Would I buy it: 4/5 (I already did!)

I got an email recently to review the brand new Off! Remote, which was released on the Apple App Store. It retails for 0.99USD and it comes from the maker of VLC Remote, Rob, as Apple annoyingly allows only beta testers from the USA, Rob has kindly sponsored the App so that I can review it. The remote however, works for both WinXP, Vista, Windows 7 and Mac OSX 10.5 and later.

Simply put, Off is for the lazy human being in you, because from now onwards you do not even need to manually switch off the computer, you just use Off to do it for you. So basically after a great movie you’re sitting on the couch and want to fall asleep, you just switch it off with your Off remote instead of putting your hand to depress the on/off switch.

Very soon we’re going to be like Wall-E, and develop disproportional arms and legs because technology is doing everything for us.

Before you log in, you are required to install the Off-Helper from Hobbyist Software. If you don’t do that, the remote will scan endlessly for all the computers on the wireless network. Another thing is, the Off! Remote works only on all computers connected to your wireless network, similar to how the iTunes remote connects to iTunes. So don’t expect to just point and it works instantly.

The Off! Helper needs to then be switched on via the System Preferences. You can put a password so that your Off! Remote just switches off that particular computer.

Only then, you are ready to start the scanning for the computers on the wireless network. The scanning takes some time though, at least for my wireless network. But it eventually found Summer’s MacBook.

With that, you get four different options – Off, Sleep, Restart and Lock. Its pretty intuitive to use the remote after this step. Although when you press any option and you want to change the option you seriously need to stop it on the computer very quickly because it executes in only a few seconds. And if you want to shut down you need to make sure you are able to stop all processes because probably things like Firefox, Transmission, etc will start bugging you to manually shut things down.

Otherwise, the interface is very clean and if you can take the effort to set things up for the remote, its actually nice to be really lazy and not even get off the couch for anything again.

Get it: here.

I’m back from London! And I have a ton of backdated and new blog posts! Luckily this week is going to be a light week, because Dondersdag and Vrijdag is Koningendag (Queen’s Day)! So I’m going to have a nice long weekend and I’m going to blog for iedereen!

So I went to the Apple Store at Regent Street, and I decided to go searching for an iPhone case. Now, so far there have been only one case which has caught my eye, its the Vaja iVolution Crystal Top case, unfortunately it costs approximately 220USD for a very quality Argentina leather handmade case. Its gorgeous, there is Swarovski crystals, but it is too expensive.

Another picture for you to know how to-die-for this case is:

So it was funny when I saw something absolutely ridiculous but I totally wanted. An iPhone 3G case with monkeys dancing on hearts on the background of a baby blue background.

Its adorable. But I did not have a case and the iPod Touch 1st Gen Agent18 pink case wasn’t working for me anymore. I liked the fact that it was made of Silicon, because if you use your iPhone in the gym often as an iPod, there could be many instances where you drop it. A Silicon case actually increases the grip on the iPhone, instead of say, a leather bound or plastic case.

The case is very female orientated, because I cannot imagine a guy carrying a baby blue case with monkeys. Furthermore the monkeys were very random, and so were the multi-colored hearts. But it was of good quality and the colors didn’t seem to be able to be scratched off.

There were cut outs for the earphones plug, camera, on/off silent button and charging/syncing cable. There are perforated silicon for the standby button and the volume up/down button. It is well-made, cute and something which I can say “I was searching for this”. I did not find too much screen space being shown because I prefer to actually see the entire screen and leave the home button area open.

However, if you use the iPhone sync dock, you would find that the case makes it a little fat to fit it in. The price is also expensive – 24.95GBP, you might find this slightly cheaper in other countries, but you know the flat rates in the Apple Store. Furthermore, it seemed to collect the lint in my jean pocket which my Agent18 case never did.

The Apple Store has an option for email your receipt to save the environment which I thought was super cool as well, since people always miss out the r in summerrainx I was pretty happy to flash my moo cards around.

It’s cute isn’t it!

As promised, once Vopium came out with the iPhone app, I was going to review it. Now, after registration at the website, you get a link which brings you directly to the App Store allowing you to download it to your iPhone. Previously, it brought you to the Web Interface.

The main page for Vopium is very VOIP-orientated. The keypad was simple and nice. The great thing about it is that it was very focused around the address book as well, so you could access your contacts as well. There is even a voicemail (which I never tested).

(1) Calls

Calling was nice, there are two ways of calling: via WiFi and by your local call minutes.

If there is WiFi present, Vopium will automatically use it to connect to your contact. However, if there is no WiFi, Vopium will proceed to make a local call, which in turn will redirect it to say… a call to Singapore.

When I tried to use Vopium WiFi to the USA, I could not connect (for some reason, not sure) to two different numbers. So I tried Vopium with my local call minutes to Singapore, and the call quality was relatively good. I would only be able to tell if it is really good if I had a few more test cases.

(2) SMS

Previously, I really liked the SMS provided by Vopium’s web interface. Which turned out to be the same thing here. The + allows you to access your contact list in order to send an sms, which is a really nice thing.

It did not provide the same kind of “conversations” or “sms history” like the sms on the iPhone itself. But it having SMS as opposed to what Skype and Fring did not have, was a nice touch.

And finally, in the “More”, you can both check the balance as well as top-up, making the iPhone app an all-in-one contained app which is really nice.

What I didn’t like? Phone calls still need some polishing. Vopium now offers 30 free call minutes and 30 free smses as opposed to 100 free smses. Although the website still seemed not updated yet. Otherwise, if the call plan and minutes fits you, Vopium is a good choice for making international phone calls.

What do Software geek and fitness have in common? Well, I imagine if the default sky in Windows XP to the be only sky you usually see, then you should really get on that ass!

So I have been trying to incorporate more fitness into my life, because Summer is coming and its time to bring out the bikinis to party at a nice beach or short shirts everywhere! And what a nice thing to know that Nikewomen has really upped the fitness social by including their very own Training site. This is unrelated to the Nike + iPod and its a standalone site.

I think its a nice idea, with no Nike purchase required but a lot of very tempting Nike gear. Few steps is required, you get onto their website and ignore the annoying audio pop-up experience.

(1) Get on the NikeWomen Training Website to create your profile.

(2) You pick a program from Core, Strength and Cardio. If you are beginner like me, I suggest you take Core to have a mix of both, at least thats what my instructor told me.

(3) You Tailor your workout by choosing your start date (No more Garfield’s “Diet starts tomorrow”) and workout level (frequency of the workouts)

(4) Finally, you add your buddies and invite other people to join and support you (Super idea, please invite me – I’m summerrainx!)

With this, you can then either download the widget, or the iPhone app (free!) or log onto your profile online to see your “daily” workout.

On the iPhone app: With this, Nikewomen will then configure a nice workout for you with many videos, for example the Twist and Fold, 4-Point Plank. Its an excellent start but I wished that it included a little bit more cardio. Each exercise would be 10 points each, and the iPhone app has Home, Workouts and Leaderboard to compare how you are faring amongst your friends.

There is so much potential in this! Maybe for a beginner like me I find it really nice, so if any of you could add me to your “buddy list” I would be more than happy to “train” with you!

Join the Nike Training Club: here.