iLounge

By Charles Starrett

Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Monday, December 21, 2009
News Category: Mix

Magellan has revealed further details of its upcoming Premium Car Kit. The adjustable, rotating car mount is compatible with most skins and cases, and features Bluetooth for hands-free calling, a noise canceling microphone, a built-in GPS receiver for greater accuracy, an auxiliary audio output, the ability to recharge the connected device, and compatibility with the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and second- and third-generation iPod touch units. The Magellan Premium Car Kit is available for pre-order now and will sell for $130.

A new listing on the Moscone Center events calendar may reveal Apple’s planned dates for its 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference. Currently, the calendar shows a listing for a “Corporate Event” on June 28 - July 2; AppleInsider notes that previous Apple events have been reserved using the same title. If so, the dates would overlap with the three-year anniversary of the original iPhone’s launch on June 29, 2007. Apple has used its WWDC event to announce new iPhone hardware the last two years, revealing the iPhone 3G in 2008 and the iPhone 3GS earlier this year.

The iPhone was the subject of ridicule during a skit from this past weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live. Discussing reports from last week that Google may be preparing a self-branded Android phone to further challenge the iPhone, Seth Meyers, during the show’s Weekend Update skit, said, “Also a challenge to the iPhone: making phone calls.” The joke was met with laughter from the crowd; SNLis filmed in New York City, which has often been cited as having problematic iPhone coverage. A clip of the joke appears in embedded form below.

Update: The clip has been pulled from YouTube due to a copyright claim from NBC Universal.

Tapulous, makers of the Tap Tap series of iPhone and iPod touch games, has revealed that its sales have approached $1 million a month. While declining to reveal precise sales data, Tapulous’ CEO, Bart Decrem, believes that the company is well positioned to take advantage of what he believes will be strong growth in mobile app commerce over the next two years. “It’s going to be big and all of a sudden people are going to say, ‘holy cow, where did those guys come from?’” Decrem told Reuters. Overall, the company said its games have now been downloaded over 20 million times, with more than 600 million games played.