Results tagged “iphone”

Since 12:01 a.m., the NYPD has been doing this crazy thing whereby they enforce the law, issuing tickets to drivers using portable electronic devices in one of their regular 24-hour sting operations. And one driver we know has already gotten nailed. The scofflaw, who asked to remain anonymous, was shocked to find that he was being ticketed for what the cop perceived as sending a text message. But he wasn't texting, ociffer!

Lincoln Center Theater has terminated the contract of South Pacific stage manager Michael Brunner, after he was arraigned on Friday on a charge of unlawful surveillance. Brunner, 54, has admitted to using his iPhone to videotape one of the actresses in the hit revival. (Pervy spying? There's an app for that.) The actress, whose name is being withheld, discovered the iPod on a desk in her dressing room between acts, and said, "What the hell is this?" She then proceeded to finish the performance, and alerted theater personnel after the curtain call.

Broadway stage manager for the acclaimed, Tony award-winning production of South Pacific was arraigned last night in Manhattan Supreme Court on a charge of unlawful surveillance. Michael Brunner, 54, turned himself in for questioning after one of the actresses in the show found an iPhone in her dressing room filming her while she changed. The victim also saw Brunner in her dressing room before she walked in. Naturally, the Post has a fantastically awful headline: "A 'South Peep-cific' voyeur rap."

Today is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which commemorates the day that God forgave the Jewish people for the sin of the Golden Calf. And besides fasting and abstinence and using the JewBerry, this year there's a hot new way to atone, via iPhone! The mobile-app "Send a Prayer" costs 99 cents and lets users type personal prayers into their phones, which are printed out by a rabbi in Jerusalem and placed in the Western Wall. 10,000 prayers have been sent so far, with 10 percent from the NYC area. Chabad's Meir Simcha Kogan tells the Post the app is definitely kosher: "Everything in this world was created for a divine purpose." Wait, even AT&T?

Someone's created a new iPhone app with straphangers in mind. It's called MetroCost and it "can help you determine how much money you're saving (or losing) with an Unlimited Ride versus a Pay-Per-Ride MetroCard. All you need to do is swipe across the (picture of a) magnetic strip each time you ride, and MetroCost will do all the math for you." Now, can we get one that tells you when the MTA keeps the change?

It's been two years since lines wrapped around Apple stores as New Yorkers waited and waited to get their hands on a precious iPhone, but the masses are still unhappy with AT&T. That's right disgruntled iPhone owners: you are not iLone! CNET has gathered some of the complaints about AT&T's service and claims of coverage (one declares "My damn iPhone drops calls about 75 percent of the time inside my house"), and one New Yorker living near JFK airport aired his grievances on YouTube.

Who among us can sit comfortably for longer than 90 minutes without urinating? Okay, maybe adults under 30 and sober people, but we're neither, and our path to utter incontinence keeps depriving us of pivotal Hollywood plot points. Thankfully, a new technology is giving moviegoers with disadvantaged bladders an alternative to unsightly catheters and adult undergarments: the website RunPee.com, which is now available as an iPhone application, compiles the best opportunities to race to the restroom during motion pictures. The app gives you a cue for your exit, tells you how long you've got and even summarizes what you missed. It's the work of 42-year-old Flash developer Dan Florio, who tells 1010 Wins he got the idea while watching Peter Jackson's three-hour-plus King Kong remake. (Funny, we couldn't wait to go to the bathroom during that.) Florio's currently raking in about $800 a month with RunPee, and he spends his days watching movies to take notes. So basically, he's living the dream. But if he really wants to cash in, he'll get a RunSmokeJoint app ready in time for Tron Legacy.

You know things are bad when Mark Bittman flat out refuses his publisher's request to update his 1994 omnibus Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking on the grounds that overfishing and sustainability issues too frequently shift the labyrinthine rules of buying seafood, and no longer supply any diner with enough specific information that holds up in print. In a recent article, Bittman describes the "logistical and ethical nightmare" that's replaced the once-simple process of buying fresh fish, admitting that even the old standby wallet cards supplied by authorities like the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch have limits. When a waiter can't tell you what parcel of the Pacific your cod came from, for example, or if it met its end by trawl or longline, a piece of paper in your pocket isn't likely to help much, either.

While it's not the level of iNsanity the initial iPhone release prompted two years ago, people did/are lining up for the new iPhone 3G. Engadget reports, "A few hundred people lined up outside the Fifth Avenue Apple Store today for Apple's new iPhone, with the those The iLife guys up front descending into the store at 7AM to the sound of applause from the cheery horde of Apple Store employees. It was a far sight from the mayhem of previous launches -- the whole line was able to be contained in the elevated portion to the right of the store, no sidewalk necessary -- but it was still a fairly impressive turnout for a spec-bumped phone and a rainy night." And the line outside the Soho store doesn't look too bad either. But iPhone consumers, be careful: Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has previously attributed the rise in young muggers on the shiny device!

Artist Jorge Colombo has impressed many with his drawings created on his iPhone (by way of the Brushes application. Now, his drawing of a 42nd Street hot dog stand is this week's New Yorker cover. Colombo tells the New Yorker he "painted" the cover while standing outside Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum for an hour.

Jonathan Salva, 20, was indicted on rape charges for the February incident where a woman walking on West 28th was grabbed, choked and raped behind a Dumpster. The victim had just left the M2 Ultra nightclub around 4 a.m.; Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau said, "She had an iPhone, she was listening to music, and she didn't hear him come up behind her." Salva had stolen the woman's iPhone, but left his cell phone at the scene, which the victim gave to cops. Salva also used his home address and old cell phone number when trying to get a new phone. He previously admitted to stealing the iPhone, but denied raping the woman. Salva, held on $250,000 bail, was also charged with four counts of robbery.

After a teen stole her purse and iPhone while she waited for the N train at Fifth Avenue, 29-year-old shoe designer Sayaka Fukuda arrived home to find that her assailant had used the device to e-mail a photo of himself. Fukuda tells the Post, "I checked my e-mail and saw something in my outbox. I opened the attachment, and there he was with his black and red knitted [Spider-Man] hat." After combing through mug shots, cops zeroed in on 18-year-old Daquan Mathis. But before they made the collar, Fukuda initiated a correspondence with the suspect, telling him, "Thank you for your picture. I sent them to the cops, you're going to get arrested soon." To which Mathis allegedly replied, "I will kill you! I know where you live, I know where you work. I'll send people." Before he could make good on his threats, the NYPD arrested him Thursday; sources say he confessed to two other crimes, including another robbery on an N train in which he stole an iPod at gunpoint. Of course, this isn't the first time a mugger's been busted by the very gadget he stole.

File this under things our ancient cell phone cannot do: sketch the city! Jorge Colombo, iPhone owner and artist, has used the Brushes application to create some amazing city scenes, all finger drawn on the screen. Check out a movie of one in progress here. Sure it's missing the texture in other city sketches, like those of the late Marvin Franklin, but it's a lot more creative than texting!

A few more details about subway robberies being slightly up in 2008 compared to 2007. Apparently a third of those subway thefts were for cell phones. WCBS 2 reports, "Police say the easiest marks are the riders near the doors. Thieves time it so that just as the doors are about to close, they make their grab and take off, leaving the victim trapped inside the train, and helpless to do anything about it." One rider was philosophical "You know if [my phone] gets stolen, I'd rather let it get stolen than get stabbed or something like that." And just last summer, a cop told the Daily News, "A kid taking out an iPhone and using it is like waving around $300."

On the Apple discussion boards, a woman from NJ asked other users if iPhone photos automatically attach themselves to email, after she "found a raunchy picture" her husband sent to a woman via his iPhone: "He admitted that he took the picture but says that he never sent it to anyone. He claims that he went to the Genius Bar at the local Apple store and they told him that it is an i-phone glitch." Most users smell a rat ("this is not an issue with the iPhone so the glitch is probably with your husband.") and wonder about the picture itself. In the midst of the exchange, the aggrieved wife adds, "Well, if you must know ... it was a close-up shot of him pleasuring himself taken at the exact moment of maximum pleasure... Add that picture to the late night phone calls and some other miscellaneous texts and e-mails that I found ... and let's just say that my atty is working on the divorce complaint. Nonetheless, I wanted to remain open to the possibility that it was all some big mistake (I think that he is the big mistake) and thank everyone who provided input on this discussion."

The last iPhone dining application to make news was Urbanspoon, which frustrated Times critic Frank Bruni a little bit with its random slot machine approach to locating a good nearby restaurant. So we're curious to see if the latest iPhone toy, LocalEats, is more Bruni's speed. This feature seems pretty simple; drawing from a list of the 100 best restaurants in Manhattan and Brooklyn (as decreed by the folks at Where the Locals Eat), LocalEats uses GPS technology to refer users to the best nearby dining options. Which could come in handy when you're getting hangry in an unfamiliar neighborhood.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly explained why there are more younger muggers these days: It's the iPhone!

Urbanspoon is a free iPhone application aimed at the indecisiveness gripping a certain subset of young moneyed urban dwellers. Sometimes it is really hard deciding between dinner at Pastis, Spice Market or Buddha Bar! So with a shake, your iPhone becomes a cross between a Magic 8 Ball and a slot machine that uses GPS technology to land on a nearby restaurant, categorized by price, proximity and cuisine. But the app was not so killer for the Times’s Frank Bruni, who recently cruised around town testing it:

I was standing smack in front of Dressler [in Williamsburg], using the phone’s Urbanspoon restaurant-search application, which was supposed to pinpoint my location and recommend the best options nearby. I shook the iPhone… It directed me to a wine bar several blocks away. I shook again. It directed me to an Italian restaurant all the way over the Williamsburg Bridge, in the East Village.

Continue reading "Urbanspoon: iPhone Restaurant Roulette Frustrates Frank Bruni"

The day 1 frenzy over the new iPhone 3G has extended into this sunny Saturday: People were dutifully waiting outside an AT&T store near Astor Place at 7:45 a.m. There have been mixed results with people activating their new iPhones--while some have been successful, others are getting error messages, forcing them into iPocalyptic hysteria.

As reader djmac captured an iPhone 3G-related fight outside a Lexington Avenue AT&T store, the customers who managed to snag the new device were bereft when problems prevented their phones from activating both in the physical stores and on the iTunes store. (Gizmodo has tips for fixing some problems.) Many AT&T stores are reporting they don't have anymore iPhone 3Gs; some remain at the Apple stores.

According to Engadget, it’s “an absolute zoo” at Apple's 5th Avenue store, as consumers surged forth at 8 a.m. to purchase the next generation of iPhone, the 3G. Some of them have been camping outside the store (and at Apple stores around the world) since last week to be the very first geeks to own the new cell phone, and, with it, a priceless sense of self-satisfaction.

The amount of yelling makes it seem like a riot could break out at any moment... While the line doesn't seem as long as last year, the feeling of desperation is considerably thicker... Apple employees are doing their ego-booster/cult thing by standing at the door and cheering like maniacs... About 15 minutes after it all began, customers are slowly trickling out with phones in hand. Here's wishing you good luck, AT&T network!

This Friday, Apple is releasing the next generation of its extremely popular iPhone. Last week, the line for the new 3G iPhone started to form at the Fifth Avenue store.

Remember: If the offer is too good to be true and it's on Craigslist, it very well might not be true. The police have arrested a group of young men for robbing thousands of dollars from people responding to a Craigslist ad, with the sweet deal of about 10 iPhones for $2,000.

Attention Gawker commenters: Nick Denton needs you to pick up his dry cleaning. Though it sounds too good to be true, it seems that eager young Gawker interns are working their way up the new media ladder on the strength of their smug observations, sarcastic bon mots and impassioned diatribes on all things trivial. Will the "first!" be the first to be hired?

Remember how a few years ago a 19-year-old girl climbed down onto the subway tracks to get her phone and got killed by an oncoming V train? It seems the lesson still hasn’t been learned and commuters are still risking their lives to retrieve dropped objects: Tourist Bijan Rezvani recently explained his reasons for venturing down there to collect his precious iPhone.

It's the first time I've had a cool phone that does anything and also the first time I've gone around taking photos of things in my life, so the stuff I had captured was kind of important for me to keep.

The idea was a cross between a voodoo ritual and what an ex does behind closed doors -- and it was all about excorsizing bad memories. Yesterday locals and tourists alike gathered in Times Square for what was dubbed Good Riddance Day. They hauled in medical bills, photographs and floppy disks (remember those?), all to be destroyed, shredded and wiped from their memory. The NY Times reports that "the alliance, a business group that works to promote and improve the neighborhood, rented a five-foot-tall, beige industrial shredder and installed it in the lobby of the Times Square Information Center on Seventh Avenue near West 47th Street."

TREE LIGHTING: Earlier this year, New Yorkers Fountains of Wayne transformed Demetri Martin into a lonely suit living in Brooklyn in this video. Tonight the band will be rockin' around the Stuy Town Christmas tree. A reader writes in:I just happened to see this flyer hanging up for the annual christmas tree lighting. And what the hell is this...7:30-8:00pm, FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE. Seems like it's top secret, but there are flyers everywhere.Random! But if you're...

Two men walking along the East 79th transverse near Fifth Avenue were robbed at gunpoint by four men around 7:15PM on Wednesday night. The victims, ages 34 and 38, gave up their wallets and a cellphone for the robbers, who are described as young "black males between 18 and 20" years old" who "fled in the direction of the Great Lawn." The 34-year-old victim spoke to the Daily News and explained he and his partner...

One of the first rules of using your iPod in the subway is to ditch the white headphones. Apple's tell-tale earbuds can have the negative effect of drawing attention to the fact that you are carrying a ~$400 device on you (we've known this since 2005, when iPod robberies were all the rage). Probably not something that needs to be advertised. When Gothamist first purchased our iPhone on launch day this fact weighed heavily...

Austinist attended a town hall meeting about proposed noise ordinances that could undermine the city's future as the Live Music Capital of the World, and lamented the possible loss of Texas's only feminist bookstore. Throughout the week, they interviewed a bunch of indie fashion designers and D-I-Y websites—Etsy, Ornamental Things, 31 Corn Lane, and Aorta Designs—for the upcoming Stitch Fashion Show. They also did some extensive coverage of last weekend's Fun Fun Fun Fest, which featured over 80 indie rock/electronic/punk bands like Girl Talk and Battles—there's also a video recap of the festival, viewable in HD.