Here's yet another interesting take on the burgeoning App Store environment. A company called Gendai Games has a game creator IDE/app called Gamesalad, designed to let you put together rapid prototype-style games for the Mac. They've been doing this for a while, and they even let you export your games out to the 'net using an online portal. But here's the kicker: they're also planning to let you take those games right out to the iPhone.

Their roadmap page talks about downloading to a test iPhone straight from a Mac, but presumably, they'd either have their own app on the App Store in which you could play your games, or even output it to some sort of wrapper app that you could then release on the App Store yourself. Their press release says they will allow for games "to be sold and marketed on the App Store," and that seems to us like there's compensation involved somehow, either through their portal, or through Apple's setup.

Very interesting. Unfortunately, most of this is forthcoming -- their development environment is available for a free download right now, so you could start working on creating your masterpiece right away if you want, but you'd have to wait until sometime "in the next few weeks" to see what iPhone features they have planned. Part of the iPhone's draw as a programmer's platform is that it's relatively easy to develop for, and an environment like this promises to make it even easier and more accessible. Whenever you have a low barrier of entry to development, release, and sales, you end up with two things: a market possibly flooded with junk, but on the other end, lots and lots of creativity.

One of the oft-unsung but quite awesome things about living in New York City is our urban help line, NYC 311. Whether it's a leaky hydrant or a burnt-out streetlamp, a missing manhole cover or a mixed-up parking sign: there's only one number to call for any non-emergency question, and they will track down the information you need. I'm pretty sure that the only time I've stumped the 311 team was when I called to ask who could help evict the family of stray cats that had set up housekeeping in our backyard-the verdict was that I had to trap the whole colony before they could come and collect the furry trespassers.

A centralized helpline and problem reporting infrastructure is great for megaburgs like New York, but what kind of resources are smaller communities turning to when they need to know what's broken? One website is trying to leverage the power of citizen self-organization to help cities keep things working: SeeClickFix. Founded in New Haven and inspired by fixmystreet.com, the site allows participants to report issues and concerns, define 'watch areas' where they can be notified of problems, and generally help their towns help themselves.

The SCF team has just released version 1.0 of the site's iPhone app [iTunes link], which allows participants to report issues right from their phones, complete with geotag to provide the map location of the problem. Version 1.2, in the works, will let iPhone users vote on problems and close them out without going to the website.

How have you used your iPhone or your Mac to do something positive for your community today?

MacTech has released their MacTech 25 for the second year in a row-- it's a list of the top 25 most influential people in the Mac community (as selected by the community itself), and it reads like a who's who of people doing great stuff : John Gruber, the suave-looking Aaron Hillegass and Brent Simmons all make return appearances. This year they chose everyone who's ever programmed for MarsEdit (as Daniel Jalkut is happy to say), not to mention both co-founders of Rogue Ameoba, Paul Kafasis and Alex Lagutin.

Who's missing? Anyone from Apple-- MacTech specifically left them off the list to make sure they didn't hog the Spotlight, so to speak. They say that Apple employees are allowed to be put in the Honorable Mentions section, but as far as I can tell, while Leo Laporte, David Pogue and Merlin Mann all made it, no one from Apple actually did. Better get cracking on those influencing techniques for next year, guys.

We've definitely caught the Twitter wave here at TUAW (we even have our own account), but it is by no means the only 'what are you doing' or lifestream service on the block. Another big player is Jaiku, which brings a fairly different perspective and set of features to the table. While Twitter focuses primarily on asking 'what are you doing?' and offers straight text input, Jaiku allows you to add RSS feeds from virtually any other blogs, sites or communities you post content, generating a sort of play-by-play for almost everything you're creating on the web. This definitely swings Jaiku over to the lifestream category, and it has a number of other features that will likely appeal to those who are looking for more than a plain text mini-blog, such as 'channels' that allow Jaiku users to all post in one theme-specific area (likening it to a giant chat room), as well as an actual comment system on posts.

A major boost for web services like Jaiku (where we also have an account), in my opinion, is great software that can hook into them. While using a browser to interact with these services is fun and all, nothing beats the speed, flexibility and (ideally) extensibility of a well-written desktop client, and Juhu for Jaiku is exactly what I'm talking about. Doing for Jaiku what Twitterrific does for Twitter, Juhu is an app that lives in the menubar, giving you a resizable window for peeking in on what your Jaiku contacts are posting. Posts, RSS links and channel chatter are all available in Juhu's nice, compact UI, as are some of the nice little touches Jaiku offers, such as adding an icon to your posts and specifying your location.

All in all, Juhu is a great client for a feature-packed service that's been progressing very nicely. Fortunately, just like Jaiku, Juhu is provided free and is also open source under the MIT license. If you've been looking for a different take on the lifestream service, Juhu makes Jaiku a great option for Mac OS X users.

It's been a while since we first mentioned Sophia Teutschler's CoverSutra, a new iTunes interaction and manipulation app, and it's come quite a ways since its v1.0 debut. From the start it's offered things like global keyboard shortcuts for controlling iTunes (including one for toggling Shuffle), Apple Remote integration and album artwork that can live on your desktop underneath all your other windows (for that nice Exposé peek-a-boo effect), but recent developments have brought two major new features. The first is integration with the increasingly ubiquitous Growl notification system of which we're big fans, but the second big new feature finally made me decide to buy a license: integration with the Last.fm music community. For those who haven't seen it, Last.fm can watch what music you're playing (on both Mac OS X and Windows) and upload what is more or less a history of all the songs you listen to (it doesn't upload the songs themselves; it isn't the next Kazaa/LimeWire). From there you can share your playlists and discover new music through both friends and strangers who also use the site, and even embed your Last.fm playlist in a website or blog. It's a great service for any music enthusiast, and now it's built right into Sophia's excellent iTunes controller app. Consider me sold.

A demo of CoverSutra is available from CoverSutra.com, while a license sells for €9.95 or roughly $13 USD.

The web just keeps showing its love for Twitter, the new social service that asks the simple question: "what are you doing?" The service has exploded recently, capturing users from all around including Leo Laporte, Darth Vader and even your favorite Apple blog! Naturally, when a site becomes this infectious, plenty of add-ons, scripts, apps and widgets are sure to crop up, and Twitterlex by Brett Taylor is yet another Twitter related product.

Like Twitgit which we previously mentioned, Twitterlex displays the latest updates from your friends, and allows you to post your own. Of all the widgets (and apps) I've seen so far, Twitterlex has the best UI in terms of a sleek, compact interface that lets you see your friends' updates as they happen. Sure, Twitterific from the Icon Factory has the sexy transparent smoke thing going on, but I love having everyone's names and updates displayed without having to manually scroll through a list.

Still, to each their own, and thanks to the Twitter Fan Wiki and an enthusiastic community that seems to be growing exponentially, you each have no shortage of options for playing with Twitter.

Safari isn't the only browser that can pimp it these days, as it looks like Camino has its own custom parts shop now. Pimp My Camino (started by John Hicks; he who set up Pimp my Safari) keeps track of the plugins, addons, haxies and scripts (and more!) for Mozilla's fantastic Camino browser.

I don't know how long Pimp My Camino has been around, but they already have a whole slew of stuff like CamiScript (applescripts for saving sessions, grabbing site feed URLs, etc.) and CamiTools (a feature-packed pref pane), ready and ripe for you to blow an entire afternoon tinkering with.

CreativeBits, a design and OS X-centric creative community, has produced a really slick looking update to their widget that acts as a portal for their site. Users can view the latest articles, forum posts, critiques and links. Clicking on a title in the widget opens the entire article in your browser, while the widget includes its own forward and back navigation if you'd like to simply browse the latest CreativeBits goodies right from the comfort of your Dashboard.

Are you familiar with Second Life? It's a virtual online community where you create your own custom avatar and interact with other losers whose first life isn't fulfilling enough other interesting people in a magical fantasy world beyond your greatest imagination! (Okay, okay, so I'm being a little hyperbolic and also mean with the strikethrough; in the words of the Great McNulty, "I kid, I kid.")

So, anyway, Apple has a feature up on Second Life at the game section of their site. This is cool, but: is it really a game? Recently, Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing fame did a virtual book signing where he was interviewed in talk show style in Second Life, and I've read numerous articles on odd uses of this online space: professors using Second Life for virtual classroom discussions and anthropology students studying Second Life, for example. In any case, Second Life will cost you $9.95 for a basic, non-landowner account and will run very slowly on a 12-inch Powerbook. If you have a G5, you'll do much better in your explorations. Look up in the sky for a largish avatar named CK Semple while you're there. That's me, trying to fly and suffering from lag...