<![CDATA[Gizmodo: third party apps]]> http://tags.gizmodo.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gizmodo.com.png <![CDATA[Gizmodo: third party apps]]> http://gizmodo.com/tag/thirdpartyapps http://gizmodo.com/tag/thirdpartyapps <![CDATA[Microsoft Retail Store PCs Will Be Crapware-Free, But I'm Still Unsatisfied]]> No one likes uninstalling bloatware, trialware, and craplets from their freshly unboxed PCs. Microsoft finally acknowledges this by skipping the unnecessary third-party software in Microsoft retail store PCs. That's truly great, but they should do a little more than that.

I realize that the key reason behind all that preinstalled junk is to make a profit. After all, there are people who'll spring for subscriptions because of anti-virus nagware or purchase a full version of an application after playing around with the trial. For most of us though, we just plain take a mocking from Mac users as we hit the uninstall button over and over again.

All PC users suffer this process unless we jump through hoops like pleading with Dell or Toshiba during the ordering process, paying Sony off, or purchasing a cheap Walmart product. But now, we've finally got official agreement that the crapware doesn't belong on our PCs and a place to purchase PCs with sparkly clean installs. This is an incredible move by Microsoft, and it must've taken quite some balls for someone to propose actually going through with it. Only trouble is that we'll still see bloatware on PCs purchased from other retailers or through direct channels from makers.

So, dear Microsoft, you're doing something wonderful in your retail stores, but it needs to go one step further. Please cajole everyone else to sell PCs without the crapware, too. Pretty please. [Electronista via Crunchgear]

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<![CDATA[InstallerApp For Mac Installs Jailbreak Apps Without Jailbreaking Your iPhone]]> Ripdev's InstallerApp makes installing third-party jailbreak applications on your iPhone slightly easier, by eliminating the need to jailbreak your iPhone at all. You just need to pay $7 for the privilege.

The process works by installing an app onto your iPhone that's not quite jailbreaking, but is enough to allow those not-quite-official applications to get on there. If you gave us the choice of paying $7 or running jailbreak on our phones—which is fairly easy as long as you have some tech knowledge—we'd choose real jailbreak. [Ripdev via 9 to 5 Mac]

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<![CDATA[iPhone 1.1.3 Jailbreak Has Issues With GPS, Official SDK?]]> It seems the first iPhone 1.1.3 jailbreak by Nate True we all rushed to install is throwing a handful of problems, some of which are fixable and some of which leave us wishing we had waited a little bit. Here's what we know so far from personal experience and what we've read on the internet.

Google Maps Faux GPS has problems working unless you install Navizon.

• Cannot change EDGE Settings. Jesus's EDGE is now nonfunctional because he can't enter in the custom settings for his provider. This is not a big deal for people actually on AT&T or one of the three official providers in Europe, but for people who've SIM unlocked and are wandering about on other networks, it's a huge deal.

• The jailbreak may break official third party apps from the SDK? We don't know if this will be the case, but iPhone Atlas claims that the method Nate used to jailbreak disables "Nikita," which is a component in the iPhone that installs signed software. Signed software, in the iPhone's case, would be official third party apps that are signed by Apple to make sure they don't corrupt or kill your device. If this is broken and unfixable, then jailbreakers may be unable to get in on the SDK action in February.

The official iPhone Dev Team jailbreak was released yesterday, but we haven't had any experience with this yet.

What have you heard? Drop a note in the comments detailing the problems you've had with the jailbreak or just 1.1.3 in general.

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<![CDATA[Voice Dial iPhone Voice Dialing App Costs Money, But Works Well]]> Adam of Lifehacker points us to this Voice Dial application for the iPhone, which allows you to record voice samples for any contact on your address book and bring it up just by talking. You can activate voice dialing with the two-press home button trick introduced in iPhone 1.1.1, but you can even put tags on actions like checking your websites, opening email or doing some Google Mapping. Voice dialing is one of the iPhone's missing features we lamented about in the iPhone Book we wrote, but Voice Dial (even if it costs $33) goes a long way to patching it up. Plus, $5 off now for a limited time! [Makayama via Lifehacker]

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<![CDATA[Third-Party iPhone SMS and MMS Apps Fill Functionality Holes]]> Big holes in the iPhone's SMS/MMS functionality have been filled with two apps, SMSD and MMS. SMSD allows you to forward old SMS messages to new recipients, as well as sending new messages to multiple people. MMS, on the other hand, lets you send MMS messages (but not receive them yet) from pictures on your phone. This one's still early beta, so be careful if you really need your phone to "not crash." Our only hope is that these apps can be ported over to the "official" iPhone third-party SDK once that's available next year. [MMS and SMS]

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<![CDATA[Sync Your iPhone, iPod Touch Over Wi-Fi]]> If the Zune can wirelessly sync over your home network, why can't your iPhone? A developer's made an automatic GUI syncing tool that essentially rsync's a folder on your computer to a folder on your iPhone/iTouch. That by itself is pretty lame and quite limited—especially compared with a full sync you get when you dock your iPhone regularly—but future features are coming that will let you sync your iTunes library, your photos and your contacts. Now that's something we want to see. [Google Code via Everything Cafe via Appletell - Thanks Marcus!]

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