Nov 03

Spring is over (we feel it, the thermometer as well), nevertheless, LuxiPhone goes for some “Spring Cleaning” or “Springboard Cleaning” (to use iTerms)

LuxiPhone will undergo some maintenance between today  and tomorrow EOD. Vitovox and myself ask in advance to forgive us if the website might not respond at its best while we’re having our hands at it. We’re working hard to make it even more responsive and fast to load.

We’ll post as soon as everything will be back to normal.

Thanks in advance for your patience.

Vitovox & Ka.

written by Ka

Nov 02

Ever went to Spain and would have loved getting some Tapas & Drinks the proper way (in Spanish)? Want to appear more “local”?

There are a few options if you don’t already speak Spanish:

1) Take a course, spend money and time, repeat that a few times till you get the right level.

2) Marry a Spanish girl or guy and try to see if you get to learn the language

3) Get Jibbigo on your iPhone!

Jibbigo-_-Voice-Translation-iPhone-App

Jibbigo won’t let you look less geek but will make you “automagically” speak Spanish helping you out in any foreing country where Spanish is the main language. So how does Jibbigo work?  Jibbigo is an iPhone application that costs about 25$. This application is able to listen to somebody speaking English and translate it to Spanish (and other way around). Looks promising, isn’t it? Well, the video is actually even better! Check it out.

The other good thing is that it doesn’t need an internet connection to do its magic but a 3Gs is recommended.

(Thanks to Appadvice for the news)

written by Ka \\ tags: , , ,

Nov 02

Rejoy! How many of us played Command & Conquer till late at night (early in the morning)? I remember loving the game.

Finally the Realtime strategy genre of the Appstore got some beef: here is Command & Conquer Red Alert for the iPhone (and iPod Touch).

commandandconquer

Single tap to choose units, drag to scroll, pinch to zoom… All the gestures we’re used to in the iPhone, now to control your tanks and other units in this nice remake of the original 1996 hit. You ge to choose between the Soviets or the Allies and then play with the same set of units as the original game, plus a few extra that belong to this new release.

12 levels of pure strategy… I know I’ll be running to the Appstore… Now!

(Thanks to Appadvice for the news)

written by Ka \\ tags: , , ,

Nov 01

The day the Palm Pre launched in Germany, I was among the first ones to stand in line (there was no line) to get one.
Not that I disliked my iPhone but rather out of technological curiosity.
I think the Pre has got the looks, some cool features like the touchstone and its inductive charging.
The days passed and my enthusiasm faded day after day. It took me 5 days to realize that this is not the iPhone killer (days in which I was walking around with 2 devices anyway).
At this day, there is nothing even close to our dear 3Gses.
So if you are curious like me and want to give palm a shot, I know at least 2 other personnes selling theirs..
Moral: love your iPhone

written by vitovox \\ tags: ,

Oct 29

One accessory 100% made in Luxembourg finally hits the shelves. Yes, our ViKaSkins are going retail trough Orange. Obviously only the standard skins. For a custom skin with your own design, you still have to order them online here.

But still, it’s nice to see a big name like Orange selling a local accessory.

CIMG0028

written by vitovox

Oct 28

Today Vox switches to Orange. Say goodbye to Vox, welcome Orange!

Was curious to see if anything changed a part from the website. Said to myself that most probably would have a been a bit too soon to see changes in their offers. How wrong was I… They did change their iPhone offers. Not only changed, they improved them a lot!

Look here below:

Orange_iPhone_OfferThe basic iPhone package gets 75 minutes of free calls to Europe a month! The 50Euro/month iPhone package gets 150 minutes a month of free calls to Europe and the 75Euro a month package gets a whopping amount of 200 minutes a month of free calls to Europe.

A lot of people here in Luxembourg have family/friends abroad. I guess this change will be pretty much appreciated by a lot of customers. Went rapidly to check if Luxgsm or Tango had anything similar in their offers but still not.  I shall say:” Welcome Orange!”

Maybe this will relaunch a bit the race between our three iPhone providers.

I invite you to go to check their entire site for the full details of their offers.

written by Ka \\ tags: , , , , , ,

Oct 26

You know how rumours work? They are contagious, as soon as something appears somewhere, everybody talks about it.

The rumor we bring you today is… A new device from Apple. What? This isn’t new? You already heard this one? Well, actually this time to back it up (and increase its credibility, somehow) there is an image taken from a Chinese website. Here it is, for your curious eyes:

iphone_4g_sim_tray1-540x343
What you can see in this post is a SIM Tray. A tray labelled as “iPhone 4 generation / iTabled SIM Tray”, supposedly made to fit a device we don’t know yet about. The Chinese website let’s his customers order it, most probably as spare parts, in case you lost it. Well, for the moment we only know where to find the tray if lost, it’s the device itself that we don’t know where to find ;)

Let’s see how this rumor develops…

(Via Appadvice)

written by Ka

Oct 24

Sympass is a program for companies that offer special discounts to their employees in a miriade of different services in Luxembourg, Germany, France and Belgium including cheaper cinema tickets, zoo visits, Phantasialand, perfums etc…Sympass members get a card and a booklet (that I lost on day 1) with all the shops that offer their discounts up to 50% but most often in a range between 10-25%…Sounds great on paper but the reality is that besides cheaper movie tickets, I have never taken advantage of their service because I didn’t know if the shop was a sympass partner or not and that their mini-booklet with hundreds of adresses wasn’t very readable and never at hand.

Capture d’écran 2009-10-24 à 21.18.33How handy would an iPhone app be in this case? I’m psyched! I always carry my phone with me (unlike that booklet) and the feature list of the app is impressiv, making full use of your iPhone’s potential.

Feature list:
- Standard search (keyword based)
- Around me list
- In Region finder
- In Branche finder
- Tickets list with details: (billeterie ex: Phantasialand, Europapark, Zoo’s, Cinema etc)
- Promotion alert list
- Latest Partners

Obviously this app is exclusively addressed to Sympass Members but I bet that the app will improve the way those members have been handling their card and advantages.

Thanks to Patrick Jeitz (IT manager of the project, also worked on the Yellow.lu app) for the inside infos. I’ll wait impatiently for the first screenshots and a beta-version ;-) If you’d like to follow the dev behind this app, read Patrick’s blog here

written by vitovox

Oct 24

A double post. We read in the press that VoxMobile will no longer be. By next week it will be rebranded into Orange. What this change will bring to consumer, no one knows, only time will tell (or their press conference due next week). But I guess the worldwide Orange know-how will stir the small luxembourgish market up a bit and maybe become a serious challenger to other providers.
Another news is that the new Yellow.lu app 2.0 we announced last week didn’t have any troubles passing the Appstore approval process… It’s yours for the takin’ as we speak. I had a (quick) look at it and it felt snappier, but I will go through it a bit longer and we’ll give you an indeep review soon.
One obvious change is, that offers more services besides being a directory. Like traffic cams view, farmacies, an “around me” feature and many more. An obvious hit at their competitor Editus, but in a less “childish” way with a more polished user-interface (less standard iPhone programing, for people familiar with the sdk and x-code, cocoa and the likings). What are your thoughts? Do you like it better? Is it worse? Comments below please.

written by vitovox \\ tags: ,

Oct 21

Just a quick post to notify whoever doesn’t check the Appstore at least 4 times a day (for updates or new apps) that a new version of Dropbox (what a good service this is!) has been posted to the Appstore yesterday.

This update is meant to fix a few things, most notably, the compatibility with OS 3.0. Lot of people didn’t upgrade to 3.1 either because of the know “random shutdowns” or because no jailbreak was available, those same people couldn’t use Dropbox on their iPhone as the application simply would not run on an iPhone running an OS lower than 3.1

We could argue the speed of the approval process as this update came out AFTER 3.1.2 was released and a JB being available, still, always good to see updates flowing in.

My recommendation? Signup with Dropbox (using this link we’ll get a bit more space each) and install the iPhone app right away. Personally love it!

written by Ka \\ tags: , , ,