Yup, CBS is now streaming a handful of shows on its iPhone app, TV.com.  Got a long airport layover? Why not watch Star Trek or Letterman?   Or wait for your mom to grocery shop in the car with CSI:Miami. The great thing–especially when compared to Joost–is that TV.com works over 3G, so you don’t need to be within range of a WiFi access point.  We’d keep writing, but we’re off to see if we can get The Price is Right.

Tags: 3g, csi, iphone, tv, video, wifi

The idea of an FM receiver in the iPhone has excited many a commentator over the last several years, because sometimes, you’ve got to set aside podcasts and iTunes and just listen to the radio.  The hyperlocal nature of terrestrial radio makes it a cultural staple, yet it’s conspicuously absent from the iPhone.  Apparently, that may be changing when iPhone 3.0 hits some time in the next 8 - 10 months.

And how about song-tagging, so you can purchase the currently-playing song from iTunes.  Some folks think High Definition (that is, digital) Radio is required to do this.  Actually, the text labels embedded in most FM broadcasts should be sufficient to drive links to iTunes Music Store…. if this was Apple’s style.

iHeartRadio and similar apps already pipe HD-quality data into the iPhone (over 3G)–and those don’t offer links to the iTunes store. If an FM chip is coming in iPhone 3.0, it will probably be used first and foremost for navigation-related features like traffic advisories and weather, and if we get radio out of the deal (like on some of the Nokie N-Series phones), then it will just be a happy little bonus.

Me, I’ll take photo messaging and a camcorder app, please.

Tags: camcorder, fm, gps, hd, hd radio, iphone, itunes, navigation, nokia, radio, software, video

Apparently, in addition to being a fantastic consultant and musician from Cleveland, Ted is also an app for your iPhone — one that covers the Technology, Entertainment, and Design conference.  It’s main thrust is to give you access to the podcasts and recordings made and posted during and after the conference.  Hey, this app gets my download on account of its name alone.  (And Apple selected it as the App of the Week last week, to boot.)

Tags: business, conferences, ted, video

In the spirit of BGR’s “Top Ten Things We Hate About Our iPhone“, I’ll pile on with a top ten list of my own:

1) Spoken UI elements - Sometimes you need to hear it, not see it. Particularly true of caller ID.

2) Screen rotation in E-mail - This one is a must. Fat-fingering email compositions can be very frustrating in portrait mode.

3) Copy & Paste - While this doesn’t kill our routine every day, having access to a simple clipboard for text snippets would be extremely helpful.

4) A standardized import/export format for Contacts - We can already get iCal files into Apple’s calendaring app, and subscribing to them via the web is simple enough, but those of us who use our Macs for serious business REALLY need is a conduit betweem CRM apps like Salesforce/Now-up-to-date/etc. into iPhone contacts.  This is an absolute must.

5) Video recording - Seriously.  We still can’t record video on the iPhone?  Apple, get your head out of your posterior.

6) MMS messaging- See comment on #5.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that media messaging is a required feature on all cell phones (especially “smart” ones).

7) Better Bluetooth compatibility - Starting with Bluetooth File Exchange, please.

Random wallpaper - Yup, we want our iPhone to choose our wallpaper for us, just like our desktop computer does.

9) Universal charger compatibility - All those old iPod chargers that output the right voltage and have the right plug?  You can’t use ‘em.  Time to fix that, Apple.

10) More than four page panels for apps - It didn’t take long to fill up the four available pages with apps. Let’s add another page or two.

Tags: 2.3, apple, features, iphone, mms, recording, software, top ten, video

Watching video on the iPod Touch or iPhone is far from ideal–but it’s fun to burn the time while waiting for a doctor’s appointment or during a lonely lunch hour.  Naturally, YouTube is many iPhone geeks’ first resort because it’s bundled with every iPhone and iPod Touch.

Today, though, uStream’s iPhone/iPod video viewer app showed up on the appstore, and it looks promising.  The content is all across the board here. Some of it is not exactly video material (like a webcam inside of a radio booth during a talk show), but a lot of it is excellent, if NPR-esque, stuff.

The uStream client for iPhone does not (yet) allow broadcasting, and the uStream app, like Joost, is incapable of using 3G. Check it out.

Tags: iphone, ipod touch, joost, television, tv, ustream, video, wifi