iPhone News Updated

Urban Airship Opens Turn-key In-App Sales System for iPhone

Urban Airship, the Portland, Oregon based iPhone infrastructure service provider, just announced that it is offering in-app purchase provisioning for iPhone apps.

The company says customers can implement the service in four minutes and will be charged 5 cents per transaction. The service also enables delivery of free content to app users for the same cost.

Urban Airship’s primary product prior to now has been push notification provisioning. The company says that both push and in-app sales are complicated enough to warrant outsourcing to specialists like themselves. We’ve written about the company’s vision at launch and its dramatic success on iPhone OS 3.0 launch day.

[Thanks: http://www.readwriteweb.com]

PocketDock brings line-out, mini-USB to iPhone

The SendStation PocketDock Line Out Mini USB solves two problems–both of which you can probably guess from the name. First, it adds a line-out jack to your iPhone (or nearly any iPod model).

What’s the big deal about line-out? Well, if you’re plugging your device into, say, a home or car stereo, the headphone jack just doesn’t cut it. It’s not sufficiently amplified, and it doesn’t deliver quite the same audio fidelity.

Second, the PocketDock supplies a mini-USB port, meaning you can use any industry-standard mini-USB cable to charge and sync your iPhone (and at the same time you’re using the line-out jack).

The little gizmo has other perks as well. According to SendStation, the line-out jack consumes a bit less battery power than the headphone jack, so you might get a little extra playtime.

Also, the PocketDock comes with a pair of audio cables: one mini-to-mini (also known as a patch cable) and one mini-to-RCA, the latter for plugging into a stereo’s composite-audio jacks.

I’m not sure all that helps justify the PocketDock’s $29.95 price tag, which strikes me as steep for such a small piece of hardware (it’s no larger than the iPod end of Apple’s stock USB cable). But I sure wouldn’t mind owning one.

What do you think? Is this something you’d buy? If you agree with me that it’s overpriced, what’s a fair price? Share your thoughts in the comments.

[Thanks: http://reviews.cnet.com]