Weekly wrapup: iPhone OS 3.0, Pandora on Vudu, Sony Reader, SpiralFrog, and more

by Steve O'Hear

March 22nd, 2009 | Posted in last100 weekly wrapup | No Comments

Here’s a summary of the last week’s digital lifestyle action on last100. Note that you can subscribe to the weekly wrapups, either via the special weekly wrapup RSS feed or by email.

Internet TV

Voodoo Chile: Pandora lands on Vudu set-top box

No longer a ‘one trick pony’, Vudu’s ambition to become a fully-fledged platform, capable of pulling in content from a range of third-party services, appears to be bearing fruit. This week the company announced that owners of its set-top box now have access to Internet radio service Pandora.

Boxee releases remote control iPhone app

Another ‘remote control’ app has landed on iPhone, this time for media center software Boxee.

Mobile

iPhone 3.0’s dichotomy: playing catch-up while pushing the envelope

At a special press event in Cupertino today, Apple previewed the next version — 3.0 — of the iPhone’s OS. And in doing so, the company showed once again how on one level it’s playing catch-up by delivering features that all other existing smartphones (and some feature phones) already have, while at the same time pushing the envelope further than its competitors.

iPhone’s ‘In App’ purchases will be a boon to micro-payments

If it wasn’t already clear who owns the customer – Apple or its mobile carrier partners – this week’s announcement that ‘In App’ purchases will be a prominent feature of the next version of the iPhone’s OS suggests, once again, that power resides very much with Steve Jobs and co. in Cupertino.

Google helps add 500,000 public domain eBooks to Sony Reader store

Not sure if this is such a big deal but owners of Sony’s Reader – which includes my dad – can now access over half a million public domain books via the company’s eBook store, courtesy of a new partnership with Google Book Search.

Digital Music

Ad-supported music download service SpiralFrog enters the dead pool

I can’t say I’m surprised but it’s sad nonetheless. Ad-supported music download service SpiralFrog appears to be no more.

That’s a wrap for the week. Thanks for reading.

– Steve

last100 is edited by Steve O'Hear. Aside from founding last100, Steve is co-founder and CEO of Beepl and a freelance journalist who has written for numerous publications, including TechCrunch, The Guardian, ZDNet, ReadWriteWeb and Macworld, and also wrote and directed the Silicon Valley documentary, In Search of the Valley. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.