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Barnes & Noble is one of my favorite book stores here in town. I just recently checked their iPhone app and I was very impressed.

B&N Bookstore is the name of the app in App Store should you search for it. Let’s see how this free iPhone App measures up beyond the basic functionality of searching for books, music & dvds.

In the first screen you’d see a bookcase where you can swipe to see book covers like in a carousal. Under that is the area where you see different sections like Recommendations, Bestsellers, New Realeases, Review & Studio. This is tagged as the Discover section and is like virtually strolling through the bookstore.

I was looking at the Bestsellers and you can see the online and list prices there. Nice.

One of the newest features is that now you can read book reviews right from your iPhone! Extra nice!

Now comes the cool factor for you iPhone owners. Let’s say you have a book in front of you that you want to check a price for.

Go to the ‘Search’ page and click on the green camera button. Take a picture of your book cover and the app will find your book from the millions of books in the store!

Amazon’s iPhone App has had this feature for a while but I was still impresses with how accurately and swifty it found this Drupal Book for me.

And the Stores page lets you quickly find a Barnes & Noble around you with a simple click of the familiar ‘Locate me’ button near the search box.

B&N Bookstore App is a must have for a book lover, IMHO. Plus, the the price can’t be more right - Free.

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Hello there! Hope you found a nice app, or a cool hack or the latest iPhone news. Don't miss future updates, grab our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter and get free updates.

If you have used a previous generation iPhone, you are probably aware of this little trick.

If you are a new iPhone 3GS user, you might not have stumbled on this yet and will appreciate it.

While listening to music on your iPod (iPhone), if the screen locks out you don’t have to unlock the screen to skip, forward, pause etc. Just quickly press your Home button twice. The iPod screen will be overlayed in your locked screen. It lets you

• Skip to previous song
• Skip to next track
• Shows you album cover
• Adjust volume

If you use the Apple’s earphones, you can do this right in it. If you use some other earphones like I do, you might like this handy little way Apple has provided us.

Also, did you know that Apple has been renaming everything in their site from iPhone 3G S to iPhone 3GS? I like it. Do you have a tip to share of your own? Hit the comments section.

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It’s great that the iPhone can receive so many Internet radio stations that I can listen to anywhere I am with the 3G connection.

Wouldn’t it be great if I could play that huge selection through my car’s speakers?

Now, I could. With a FM Transmitter.

What is a FM Transmitter?

If you are unaware of this cool little device, it’s time to learn what it is. A FM transmitter is a small dongle that you could plug into your iPhone or iPod (dockable models) and all your music will be transmitted in a FM radio channel of your choice. Now, you just have to tune your car radio to that station to listen to music from your iPhone/iPod.

HHI All-in-One FM Transmitter

Features

• Hi-Fi Stereo FM transmitting at 88.1-107.9MHz
• iPhone hands free supports taking through car soeaker system
• Charge your iPhone/iPod
• Flexible goose pipe fitting to make it convenient for any car make/model
• Standard USB-A output socket also provides charging for iPod shuffle, Zune, mobile phones, GPS and other devices as well
• High quality silicone gel on the sides and back to prevent scratches

HHI FM Transmitter sells for $35.99 and you can drop it down to $24.99 with the coupon code ‘ifmall‘. This deal ends March 31.

Here are a few more good FM Transmitters

• iPhone and iPhone 3G Fm Transmitter with LCD Display
• Griffin iTrip Auto FM Transmitter and Auto Charger for iPod (Black)
• iTrip Style FM transmitter with Car charger & REMOTE for iPhone 3G iPod Touch 2nd Gen iPod Nano 4th Gen.
• TuneBase FM for iPhone or iPod

Whichever one you choose, enjoy the new found freedom and the huge addition to your listening pleasure while driving.

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I am a NPR news junkie. I listen to it in my car. I listen to it at work. Except for at times when I am away from my car or when I am not at work.

If you didn’t know, NPR is National Public Radio that offers a huge variety of programs, local news, national news, music, talk shows, business news, politics, etc.

Not anymore. I can listen to it from my iPhone with the Public Radio Tuner app that’s available for Free.

Public Radio Tuner brings your local NPR station via your iPhone no matter where you are in the world.

In fact, Public Radio Tuner goes beyond NPR and is actually a unique collaboration between American Public Media (APM), National Public Radio (NPR), Public Radio Exchange (PRX), Public Interactive (PI) and Public Radio International (PRI).

• This app has over 200 high quality public radio streams
• Easy to use interface
• Search by call letters, frequency, city, region or format
• Favorite a station to stream again
• Use GPS to find your local station

Public Radio Tuner is a godsend for news-junkies like myself. I hope you’d like it too.

Download Public Radio Tuner

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Today was the MacWorld 2009 Keynote day.

Phil Schiller handled the Keynote today as opposed to Steve Jobs who is going through a patch of bad health.

iTunes received a fair bit of attention today at the Keynote. But, not in terms of technology innovation like the announcement of the Genius feature last time.

iTunes music store is going completely DRM Free!

Here are a few more iTunes stats thrown around in the Keynote:

• iTunes has sold 6 billion songs
• iTunes holds over 10 million different tracks
• There are now over 75 million accounts on iTunes with credit cards
• Today, 8 million songs are DRM free and all 10 million will be by the end of March

You can now buy DRM free music from iTunes. You now get a ‘Create MP3 version’ when you right click on the song.

iTunes Plus

You can also get DRM Free upgrades to your existing iTunes collection through a iTunes Plus Apple Program that features songs with high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding.

Upgrading individual songs to DRM Free iTunes Plus tracks will set you back about 30 cents a song, 60 cents for a music video and $3 for most albums.

Also, iTunes Plus has now made it so that you can download songs from both WiFi or cellular network.

Other than this and the announcement of a 17″ Macbook Pro, there wasn’t much news on iPhone 3G or iPod Touch. So we were like meh!

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iTunes ia a great media player and has seen a lot of improvements lately. But one feature that it is sorely lacking is keyboard support for controlling playback of your media. 

You cannot pause, play, forward, skip a playing media with a keyboard hotkey. You can’t let iTunes run in the background and control your media without reaching for your mouse.

iTunes Media Keys lets you do just that. It is a small utility that lets you control playback in iTunes right from your keyboard.

You can Play/Pause, Stop, or skip to Next Track or Previous Track with this small utility. Nothing fancy just that important functionality we have all longed so far in iTunes.

We have also written previously on how to remove DRM from iTunes media.

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Internet RadioBox is an excellent iPhone & iPod Touch App that lets you listen to your favorite MP3 radio station streams.

You can now take your Internet radio stations anywhere you go with a 3G/EDGE network connection. If you listen to Internet MP3 radio streams, you are probably aware of the vast SHOUTcast network that has hundreds and hundreds of streaming content.

Internet RadioBox Features

• Supports MP3 Streams
• PLS & M3U playlist support
• Full SHOUTcast Radio integration
• Create favorites and access your favorite stations easily
• Recent history shows recently played stations
• Shake-to-shuffle to change radio station
• Works with WiFi, 3G or Edge
• Works even in locked mode
• Set your own custom wallpaper

The App itself is very well laid out and nice to look at and interact as well. It will set you back $4.99 but it is on sale at the moment for $2.99 in AppStore.

CastCatcher & FlyCast are couple other Apps that are similar to Internet RadioBox.

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If you have been looking to remove DRM protection from iTunes music, look no further. The freeware named DVDneXtCOPY iTurns Free does this for free by converting your iTunes music library into DRM-free mp3 files!

iTurns Free works by stripping the DRM protection from audio purchased from iTunes music store. It installs a virtual CD burner on Windows (works on Windows only).

How to Remove iTunes DRM

1. Install iTurns Free
2. Select iTurns Free as the default burner in iTunes Settings
3. Click on iTurns Free icon in your task bar and choose where to store converted iTunes files
4. Simply create a playlist of songs you want to remove DRM
5. Burn playlist. Voila!

In a few easy steps you have made drm-free MP3 songs from your iTunes music collection. This also works on WMA (Windows Media audio) files as well.

iTurns Free - Free vs Pro

The free version works just fine to convert iTunes or WMA files to drm-free mp3. The pro version that sells for $29.99 however gives you a handful of extra options. You can convert to MP4, OGG Vorbis, built-in burning engine, etc.

The way this software works doesn’t even violate any copyright law and gives you the value for the money you spent by using the music you bought on multiple computers or players, etc. You can now port your purchased music to any player of your choice!

Download iTurns FREE

[via Lifehacker]

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If your car doesn’t have an audio in jack, you are going to love this. A FM transmitter can broadcast your iPhone/iPod Touch music wirelessly to your FM car/home stereo. You just plug the FM transmitter into the dock connection and start playing your music.

AV Labs has a cool looking iPod Touch/iPhone FM transmitter. It lets you even adjust the FM frequency you are broadcasting on. It sports stereo quality sound and comes with a free car charger adaptor as well.

Buy.com has the AV Labs FM Transmitter for iPod/iPhone on sale for $13.99 + Free Shipping. That’s $26.00 off the original $39.99 price tag. Most of the reviews for it seem good at Buy.com.

The car we use on road trips has a audio-in jack and I am still tempted to get one at this price.

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Midomi is an awesome yet free iPhone music app. You can find songs by humming, singing or putting your iPhone near a speaker using Midomi. You can read the full Midomi iPhone app review here.

For a short period, you can get a free Midomi Microphone from Midomi. You have to do the following:

• Download Midmomi mobile for free on your iPhone
• Submit a review in iTunes for Midomi mobile
• Email your iTunes nickname (not iTunes account name) to support@midomi.com with your mailing address.

We did it and after a week we were just notified that it’s been shipped. Sweet!

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We all like to have our own custom ringtones for our cell phones. It kind of defines us in a way. Gives us some flair. Make a statement.

With iRinger, you can create a ringtone for iPhone from any audio or video file. It is amazing at the number of audio and video formats iRinger supports! It can extract audio out of video files and even Youtube videos.

Requirements for iRinger

• Works on Windows XP & Vista
• Requires iPhone firmware 1.1.2 or newer (supports iPhone 3G as well)
• iTunes 7.5 or newer
• standalone freeware - no installing/uninstalling

How to use iRinger

1. Import the audio or video file you want to convert
2. Choose the section of the audio for your ringtone
3. Optionally choose ringtone length, volume, fade in, face out, loop.
4. Optionally add audio effects such as: Delay, Flanger, Boost, Reverse, etc.
5. Preview the audio
6. Export the ringtone to iTunes to transfer to your iPhone. (no jailbreaking required). You could also export directly to iPhone using SCP/SFTP and skip iTunes.

Download iRinger - The iPhone Ringtone Factory!

Enjoy the new set of ringtones that you create for your iPhone. My favorite ringtone of anytime is teh screaming chimpanzee. Have you tried that?

[via Life Rocks 2.0]

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Simplify Media lets you stream your entire iTunes library to your iPhone or iPod Touch over Wi-fi or the 3G/EDGE GPRS network.

This just makes your iPhone all the more powerful and making the 8GB/16GB limit meaningless when it comes to your music! Also, you could add upto 30 of your friends libraries for you to access.

Simplify Media is free for the first 100,000. It has been featured on Lifehacker, so you have to really hurry to get it for free!

Download Simplify Media

After you install the iPhone App, install the Simpligy Media desktop client. It is supported in Windows, Linux as well as Mac. It can also display album art, lyrics, artist bio, etc unlike the iPod app.

Enjoy your whole library of iTunes music right in your iPhone/iPod Touch.

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