Faruk Ateş compares the iPhone 5’s opening weekend sales against the top 3 opening weekend records for movies as well as the all-time grossing movies (even adjusting for inflation). (Via Horace Dediu.)

Dave Caolo reviews some of the improvements to the Reminders app. This is an app that I never use because it’s so difficult to navigate unless it’s through Siri. It’s nice to see that setting time- and location-based reminders has gotten far more simple (but still not as simple as using Checkmark).

My thanks to Karbon for sponsoring the RSS feed this week to promote their awesome, newish iPhone app, Scratch. Scratch is one of the 3 apps in my iPhone’s Dock. It launches quickly and is great when you just want to jot a thing down and not think about where to jot it down. Scratch lets you act on that text (like send it to Simplenote, or email it, or whatever) or you erase it if it was something temporary. Anyway, I’m a big fan and this $3 app that’s already been updated for your iPhone 5.

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Great ideas need to be captured immediately. Scratch for iPhone cuts through the barriers of note taking and gives you a clean slate to get your idea down fast. You don’t have to come up with a title or navigate a long list of notes. Just open Scratch, type, and worry about it later. Scratch remembers everything so you don’t have to.

Once you’re ready to work with the note, Scratch gives you the options you need to move the text where it belongs: Dropbox, email, your favorite text editor or just about anywhere else.

Download Scratch for iPhone today.

Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

This week on The B&B Podcast, Ben are I were joined by Ryan Cash, former marketing director at Marketcircle and founder of Snowman, makers of the iPhone reminders app, Checkmark.

We talked with Ryan about his transition and motivation to go from working for a medium-sized company to starting his own indie iOS dev shop, the challenges of building and shipping an iPhone app, and more. All in less than half an hour.

Yesterday I was a guest on Brett Terprstra’s new show, Systematic. Brett is just an awesome guy, and I had a blast talking with him. This is the first time on a podcast I’ve talked at length about martial arts. We also talked about blogging, how I got into doing this gig full-time, working from home, faking it, and sleeping.

This is a really nice review.

If you’re just looking for pics, CNET’s got some great shots.

The side-by-side comparison of the iPhone 5, the Nokia Lumia 900, and the Samsung Galaxy S III, proves that a 4-inch screen doesn’t have to be an unwieldy screen.

And the side-by-side comparison of 1080p 16:9 video playback on one each of the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 4S, shows just how much more content the iPhone 5 screen can display without being all that much bigger to navigate.

Great overall review of the new iPhone in classic Jim Dalrymple style. The issue that is most important to me is if the new screen is still easily usable with one hand:

I am able to easily navigate through the iPhone 5 menus and options using one hand. My thumb reaches the top of the screen to tap on options and hit the back button without shuffling the phone in my hand.

This is a mobile device, not a desktop computer. We want to operate an iPhone with one hand. This is a device that we use on the go, with a coffee in one hand and an iPhone in the other. We can send an email, visit a Web page or make a phone call.

We can also use the multitude of apps available, but the second you require two-hands, you take away functionality and convenience from the user. That is a design failure.

Um, wow. Who goes to YouTube to research a breaking news story?

I love this article by Brian Lam:

Should you get one? If you want, sure. […]

[T]he things that makes the iPhone the best smartphone are the ecosystem of apps, Apple’s wonderful support, and the general sensation of swish that the operating system gives me when I use it. And the care and sophistication and polish that pull the entire thing together.

(Via Michael Mulvey.)

My thanks to Snitchware for sponsoring the RSS feed this week.

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Finding the perfect weather app isn’t easy. Most apps rely on free information; providing the bare minimum and accuracy that leaves much to be desired. They lure you in with fancy effects and a flashy interface, distracting you from what matters most — the weather forecast. WeatherSnitch throws these tired gimmicks to the wayside. Focusing on highly detailed, highly reliable weather forecasts and an interface void of any ads, clutter and other convoluted features that get in the way.

Powered by SnitchWeather, you have access to 30,000 local weather stations in over 240 countries. Get detailed 15-day forecasts, precise hour-by-hour forecasts and near real-time observations for millions of locations around the world. Try it today and see for yourself why iTunes named WeatherSnitch 2 the best iPhone weather app in App Store Rewind 2011.

This week you can get WeatherSnitch 2 for only $1.99.

Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

Good news for those who spend a good amount of time visiting the Denver area and who were seriously thinking of switching to Verizon but decided to stick with AT&T for one more year.

Not too shabby: More than 2,000,000 iPhone 5s were pre-ordered in the first 24 hours. And AT&T says it was the fastest selling iPhone so far for them.