The iPhone Addict highly recommends the Piel Frama leather flip style case for the iPhone 3G/3Gs. My iPhone 3Gs took a big fall from my waist to the concrete today, and might I add, I was on a ladder about 10 feet up. When it hit, I just knew I was going to find a broken iPhone or at least damaged extensively. I made my way down, walked over to it and inspected it. WHAT!!! NO DAMAGE to the Iphone at all, no cracked screen, not even chipped paint/plastic on the back cover. The extent of the damage was a little scuffed leather on the bottom corner of the case, (pic below). I’ve always loved Piel Frama cases for their craftmanship, luxury look and feel, and even the leather smell when new is amazing. Now I’m sold on the protection it has on the iPhone. To be honest, I don’t know how my iPhone did not get damaged in any way or even how this style case protected it from such a blunt fall as it took, but the fact is….it protected it.

Multiple sources have reported to MacDailyNews about telephone conversations they’ve had with Apple reps regarding changing their iPad orders from delivery to in-store pickup in the case of multiple iPad buyers.
In these cases, the purchasers have been told that in order to do such a change, the delivery order would have to be cancelled and a new in-store pickup order completed, but that iPad orders (which began this morning at 8:30am EST) have been “so overwhelming” that new iPad orders may not be available for in-store pickup on April 3.Apple’s online store is still reporting that customers who reserve Wi-Fi iPads will be able to pick the units up at their local Apple Store location “between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on April 3.”
Apple has yet to officially respond, though sources have noted that in two orders placed 30 minutes apart this morning, approximately 10,000 units had been sold in that time frame, suggesting a rate somewhere near 20,000 orders per hour if order numbers are issued sequentially as they appear to be.
Per Forbes, a more organized study of the numbers looks to be showing in excess of 50,000 orders in two hours, roughly in line with the earlier estimate.
“51,000 orders in two hours,” announced Victor Castroll shortly after noon. He’s an analyst with Valcent Financial Group and an AAPL Sanity member who, with the blogger-analyst who calls himself deagol, has been monitoring the spreadsheet.
The estimates of course come with several caveats such as not all of the orders being placed through Apple’s online store are for iPads, although it is likely that a very substantial portion of them are, given the excitement over Apple’s tablet device and previous launches.??Still, the data includes order numbers, not unit numbers, and it seems reasonable that some purchasers are ordering multiple iPads at the same time. Apple has restricted customers to two iPads per customer , limiting but certainly not eliminating this effect on the estimates.
With this in mind, a guess of 50,000 iPads sold in about two hours doesn’t seem that far off.

It’s here and if you played way too much of it in the arcade or on your console, you’re going to like this.
On Wednesday, Capcom released fighting classic Street Fighter IV [App Store, $9.99] for the iPhone and iPod touch handsets. Per touchArcade, the new version includes the eight classic fighters (Guile, Chun-Li, Ken, Ryu, Blanka, etc), each with a variety of fighting styles, attempting to win the Street Fighter tournament.
Other new features in the iPhone version include a training mode called “the dojo”, wherein players learn how to fight before taking on actual opponents.
Street Fighter IV retails for $9.99 and requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later to install and run.

This morning, Apple began taking pre-orders for Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models of the iPad, limit two per person. Wi-Fi models will be ready for home delivery on April 3 and Wi-Fi + 3G models will ship in late April. Apple is also allowing customers to reserve an iPad Wi-Fi for pick up at their favorite Apple store — also limited to two per customer — though no reservations are being taken for the Wi-Fi + 3G model currently.

It’s March and all that cool stuff you saw at CES and Macworld Expo is finally beginning to hit the shelves. Specifically, a new product from Case-Mate, which was previewed back in January, is now shipping. For those who don’t remember, Hug is a wireless induction charger that allows you to attach a case to your iPhone 3G or 3GS, then place the handset on a charging platter. You can grab it now from Case-Mate’s website for $99.99. Watch the video below.

It’s official: Apple finally announced that the Wi-Fi models of its long-awaited iPad will go on sale in the U.S. on Saturday, April 3rd. 3G-capable models of the device will be available in the U.S. and other countries in late April and Apple will begin taking preorders for the both models on March 12th.
In addition to the U.S. launch, all models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April. Users can preorder an iPad via Apple’s online store or reserve a Wi-Fi model to pick up on Saturday, April 3, at an Apple retail store.
Apple also noted that its free iBooks application offering access to the iBookstore will be available in the U.S. App Store on April 3rd, with other countries to follow “later this year.”
The company had initially announced global availability of the iPad Wi-Fi models for late March with 3G-capable units becoming available 30 days later, or in April. A series of recent reports cited manufacturing problems with supplier Foxconn that may have contributed to a delay.

On Thursday, New Potato Technologies introduced the FLPR, a dongle that allows the iPhone and iPod touch to function as a universal remote control capable of controlling devices such as televisions, cable and satellite boxes, stereo systems, lights, ceiling fans and almost anything that requires an infrared remote control.
The device, which connects to the dock connector, functions with the free FLPR app from the App Store. Once the app is launched, users can choose the device “type,” select “brand,” “name it” and “use it.” It’s that easy. FLPR comes pre?programmed with over 14,000 remote control codes, including all major electronics brands.
The FLPR app itself contains an extensive database of over 14,000 pre?programmed remote control codes which are compatible with hundreds of brands of devices out of box with no programming necessary. The device also works as a learning remote and if the remote control code for that old television in the guest bedroom is not in the extensive FLPR database, you can easily teach FLPR the code for that old relic, creating a brand new remote.
FLPR has a range of about 30 feet, is available starting today from the New Potato Technologies web site and will appear in-store nationwide at Best Buy starting March 28th, 2010 for $79.99.
The FLPR app requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later to install and run.

9to5mac.com has just posted a interesting little iPad tidbit — it seems as if Apple’s latest creation has the ability to make emergency calls.
The image above is a screen shot taken from within the iPad SDK emulator. To get to the emergency call screen the developer simply enabled the passcode lock and entered in the wrong password five times.
So why would Apple include this within the iPad? Is it a FCC thing because the iPad is a wireless device on a cellular network? Perhaps it’s something left over from the iPhone and will be removed before launch? Our take is that if the iPad can make emergency calls, it can make regular calls and maybe not out of the box but with a little hackery.
Do you think it’s possible we will see some sort of call feature when the iPad drops at the end of this month?
via-9to5mac.com

Although Apple officially announced that the iPad would go on sale at the end of March, the actual release date may be a few days sooner. According to a blog post from The Examiner, an Apple Store employee commented that Apple is planning on launching the iPad on Friday, March 26th at 6 P.M. in a similar fashion as the original iPhone launch. The author also claimed that Apple employees will be receiving the iPad for training on March 10th, commercials will begin airing on March 15th and those who camp out for the iPad will receive a “special gift.”
The much-anticipated 3G enabled version of the iPad will follow the Wi-Fi iPad launch by about 30 days, according to Apple.
In response to reports that initial volumes of Apple’s iPad in late March will be lower than originally planned and the launch will be only in the U.S. market as a result of this delay. Per DigiTimes, Foxconn’s component suppliers have said their supplies are on schedule and Foxconn should be able to ship 600,000-700,000 iPads in March and one million units in April.

If you are the owner of a hackivated iPhone today seems to be your lucky day as Push Doctor for push notifications has arrived via Cydia. Push Doctor supplies you with true activation certificates so unlike other workarounds, certificates are always unique.
Push Doctor is completely free and can be found on the NERV repository (http://www.cmdshft.ipwn.me/apt/) which you must add in Cydia. Keep in mind you will not see any application on your Springboard as all it will do is add certificates to your device. If you do give this a try remember to be patient as the server has been getting hammered all morning and push notifications may not work right away. So if you get any sort of error on install, simply try again at a later time.
via-cmdshift

AT&T is going to extra lengths to make sure their network runs smoothly for iPhone-toting attendees to this year’s South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. The company has been working with SXSW organizers to make sure they’re ready for the legions of iPhone-clad show-goers.
One of the things they’re doing differently is deploying a Distributed Antenna System, which packs the punch of 50 antenna nodes. They also beefed up cell sites, and rolled in three mobile temporary ones. Last but not least, they have upped their backhaul significantly. “Compared with last year, we have added fiber-optic connections to more than quadruple the backhaul capacity of each of the eight cell sites that serve the event area, and temporary sites will also be served by extensive backhaul.”

We’ve got Wired.com’s Geek Dad blog to thank for drawing our attention to this useful gadget called the RedEye ($188), which turns your iPhone/iPod touch into a universal remote that you can use to control your TV, stereo, cable and DVD player, among other things (basically anything that can receive an infrared control signal). Each person in a household can use their own iPhone/iPod touch as a controller, and more than one can be used at once. One touch will launch any activity, and the RedEye can also control different rooms from any location in your home.
To use the device, you first have to download a free app from the Apple iTunes Store, and then use the app to register your chosen devices with the RedEye. Your iPhone/iPod touch can then start to communicate with the RedEye bridge, which in turn converts the input from your iPhone to an infrared signal, which will then interact with your audio/video device, according to Geek Dad. It all seems fairly easy to use, although Geek Dad refers to some mildly frustrating elements of the set up process in his blog, but there’s a video to follow on the ThinkFlood website if you’re not too sure what to do. And as the blog concludes, what you end up with is a high-end universal remote for a fraction of the normal price you’d expect to pay for such a thing, so it’s probably worth enduring a little frustration during the initial set-up.

Digital Daily is reporting that, according to Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek, Apple might be facing manufacturing problems that will lead to constrained supplies of the iPad, or even a delay in its launch:
“We have … heard that the upcoming iPad launch may be somewhat limited as a manufacturing bottleneck has impacted production of Apple’s newest device. An unspecified production problem at the iPad’s manufacturer, Hon Hai Precision, will likely limit the launch region to the US and the number of units available to roughly 300K in the month of March, far lower than the company’s initial estimate of 1,000K units. The delay in production ramp will likely impact Apple’s April unit estimate of 800K as well. It is also possible that, given the limited number of units available in March, the launch will be delayed for a month.”
Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook runs Apple’s supply chain with more precision than an aluminum unibody chassis, however, so would a problem this large really be allowed to happen? DIgital Daily claims it’s a “big if” as to whether or not Misek is correct. Best case he isn’t. Worst case, despite Apple’s still current claim of the iPad shipping in late March, we may only see it in April.