Apple released a new iTunes U app for iPhone/iPad as part of its educational event on Jan 19. iTunes U is a free app that allows you to access the educational audio/video podcast of iTunes Store on your iDevices. With the release of iTunes U app, Apple is transforming iTunes U into an educational platform allowing teachers to include course syllabus, handouts, assignments and other materials. As part of the launch, there are already over 100 courses optimized for iDevices from universities such as Yale, Duke, MIT, Stanford etc.

iTunes U on App Store

Words With Friends is social gaming at its best. Similar to an electronic version of Scrabble, you can play Words With Friends against a friend from your contact list, find a friend or play from a random opponent from its more than 20 million users. There is an HD version for iPad and ads supported free versions as well.

Words With Friends

Words With Friends Free

Words With Friends HD

Words With Friends HD Free

For its iOS devices, Apple is striking a good balance between hardware features and usability. Having good battery life is one essential usability feature high in Apple’s design agenda. Thus you do not find battery draining LTE components in iOS devices, as Apple is awaiting for those technology to mature.

Battery life on iPhone or iPad are acceptable and is the best among smartphones. You should not have to turn off features in order to get reasonable battery life. The following tips are just to highlight areas that impact battery life on your iPhone and iPad.

1. Display Screen. The screen is one component that uses much battery juice. By default, screen Auto-Lock is set to one minute on your iPhone and 5 minutes for iPad.  Make sure you know what you are doing if you choose the “Never” option. You can save on battery life by lowering the Auto-Lock minutes for iPad. To adjust, go to Settings app, select General > Auto-Lock.

2. Auto-Brightness. When the screen is brighter, more battery is required. Make sure Auto-Brightness is turn on to let iOS adjusts the display’s brightness according to your current environment. To adjust, open Settings app and select Brightness.

3. Location Services. With location service turned on, the GPS component in your iPhone or iPad is working, thus is draining the battery. Nowadays it seems like almost every apps wants to use your location. You can turn off location service from Settings > Location Services. It is advisable not to shut down location service for all apps as it is useful feature for some essential apps such as Photos, Reminders and Find My iPhone. Instead turn off location service for apps that you do not use for their location aware feature.

4. Bluetooth. The settings for Bluetooth is under Settings > General > Bluetooth. Turn off Bluetooth when not in use will save some battery life.

5. Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is another radio component that uses battery as it searches constantly for Wi-Fi network around you. You can turn off Wi-Fi from Settings > Wi-Fi. Turning off Wi-Fi is not recommended if you use Wi-Fi a lot, nothing beats the convenience of having access to the network automatically wherever you are.

6. Fetch New Data. For mail, contacts and calendars, you can disable Push to saw battery life under Settings > Mail,Contacts,Calendars > Fetch New Data. It is not recommended to turn Push off if you use iCloud for mail, contacts or calendars and require up-to-date data to be always available. If you do not use Push for mail, contacts or calendars, you can setup to a lower fetch frequency to save battery life. Instead of fetching every 15 minutes, set it to fetch hourly for example.

7. Vibration. If you receive a lot of calls, alerts or messages, you can save battery life by turning off the phone’s vibrator. Go to Settings > Sounds for the settings.

8. Equalizer. The Music app has an EQ equalizer feature which adjusts music on the fly and uses battery while doing so. Make sure it is off if you do not use it. The settings is under Settings > Music > EQ.

Mobile Safari in iOS 5 adds the ability to browse the web in “private browsing” mode. When you enabled private browsing in Safari, your browsing history, web cookies, cache, logins are not saved. Thus private browsing mode leaves no trace of your online activity to be discovered by prying eyes.

To enable private browsing mode, look for Safari under Settings app. Turn on the switch for “Private Browsing”.

With private browsing enabled, Safari browser switches from the normal blue color to a cool black, a great visual reminder that you are in a somewhat safer browsing environment.

If you have the time to kill playing a fun RPG-style game, then Battleheart is an obvious choice. Battleheart appears simplified with its touch based interface, but this party-based combat game is anything but as you progress. Highly regarded, Battleheart has been reviewed with labels such as “fabulous” and “fantastic”. Battleheart is a universal app at $2.99 for both iPhone and iPad.

Battleheart on App Store

With Photo Stream enabled in iCloud settings on an iDevice, a copy of the photo you just snapped will be automatically uploaded to Photo Stream. You can then access the photos in Photo Stream folder from any devices including the Mac.

iCloud will store only the last 30 days of photos. Older photos will be removed automatically by iCloud. There is no way for you to manually remove individual photo in Photo Stream. You can however reset your Photo Stream which will remove all your Photo Stream photos from iCloud.

To reset Photo Stream, you need a browser. Go to icloud.com website and sign in using your Apple ID.

Click on your account name at the top right corner of the page.

On the Account setting screen, click Advanced, and then click Reset Photo Stream. Click Done to close the Account screen.

In less than 2 hours, Apple will unveil the next generation iPhone in it’s “Let’s Talk iPhone” event which kick off 10am Pacific Time. Apple will not be providing live streaming coverage. For live updates, you can visit major Apple news site for their live blogging coverage:

• MacWorld
• Ars Technica
• Engadget
• CNET

As pointed out by German site iPhone-Ticker.de, German mobile carrier Vodafone is now listing iPhone 4 (8GB) Black & White and iPhone 4S (16GB, 32GB, 64GB) Black & White under the compatibility device listing for an iPhone 4 bumper. This seems to line up with the running rumor that there will be a low end iPhone 4 8GB model together with brand new next generation iPhone. Coming from Apple’s partner, this appears to be what we will see unveiling in about 30 hours in Apple’s October 4 event.

After 18 months of waiting, many fans definitely will be disappointed and underwhelmed by a simply beefed up iPhone 4. Many have expected a brand new design with a bigger screen for next generation iPhone. This does not sound like a good debut for new CEO Tim Cook.

There are lots of apps for messaging on the iPhone. But WhatsApp Messenger appears to be leading the pack with its simple approach to chat and messaging. There are lots of advantage of being simple: an interface that mimics that of iPhone’s Messages app; there is no login requirement to a chat network; no need to add in contacts as the app uses your existing contacts’ phone numbers. WhatsApp is essentially online chat dressed in a SMS suit, except you do not have to pay for the SMS charges, even for international chat. And the app is available for Android, BlackBerry and Nokia phones as well.

WhatsApp Messenger on the App Store

Finally, the October 4 date is confirmed. Apple today sent out invitations for a special event titled “Let’s talk iPhone”. Venue is at Apple’s Cupertino headquarter Town Hall auditorium and the event will begin 10:00 AM Pacific Time.

Apple is expected to roll out new iPhone hardware. It is still a wild guess if we will see an improved iPhone 4S, a brand new design iPhone 5 or both. iOS 5, iCloud and new iPods are also expected during this event.