Like most "mobile versions" of websites, Google News was simplified for use on devices featuring what Steve Jobs once called "the baby Internet." Sadly, this simplified version also showed up by default on the iPhone, leading to an experience that was, to put it charitably, subpar.

That's all changed now that Google has redesigned the mobile version of Google News for iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre users. The new mobile version is far more feature-rich than the old one and is more consistent in its appearance (i.e., it's almost indistinguishable from the desktop version) compared to the old "mobile-optimized" Google News.

It also includes a handy "Jump to" link which brings up a window that allows you to skip to the news section of your choice, saving your thumbs from severe scroll fatigue.

There's no need to download anything. Simply go to Google News on your iPhone and check out the changes.

[Via MacRumors]

CIO.com has posted an article (single-page reprint here) covering one company's foray into the app development scene. Recently, clothing retailer Gap held an app development contest. The goal was to develop the "best" app to represent the retailer on the iPhone or iPod touch. Gap partnered with Mobclix, the mobile ad exchange operator (more here), to come up with the contest for the best Gap-branded iPhone app.

The contest ran for three months and had 100,000 400* submissions. While the winning entry isn't available for download on the App Store yet, and Gap doesn't currently have a release plan, CIO.com has a list of 5 attributes that contribute to a quality iPhone app. One of my personal favorites is the consideration for how far to stray from Apple's UI guidelines. On the one hand you have an easy-to-use app that everyone can understand, but on the other hand you have to consider how "similar" you want to be to everyone else.

I won't spoil the fun and tell you all of the different attributes, but if you want to check out the winning app, you can see the submission video in the second half of this post.

Mobclix contacted us to correct the count of the number of app submissions.

[via Macworld]

Every time I walk through Warehouse Stationery (New Zealand's equivalent to Office Depot) or Dick Smith's Electronics (pretty much Best Buy), I'm struck by how probably half the products in each store are pretty much useless to me since I've got an iPhone.

Thanks to the apps that come pre-packaged with the iPhone and the more than 100,000 third-party offerings now available in the iTunes Store, the iPhone has gained functionality that might have seemed hard to fathom under three years ago when Steve Jobs first announced the device.

"A widescreen iPod with touch controls... a revolutionary mobile phone... a breakthrough internet communications device... these are not three separate devices. This is one device." So Steve Jobs told us all back at Macworld Expo 2007. But since then, the iPhone has grown to be much more than just those three concepts.

What follows is a sort of anti-buyer's guide, a list of products and devices that you may never need or even want to buy again (or receive as a gift) if you have an iPhone. Some of these are certainly open for debate, but more than a few of them are products that, for all intents and purposes, are completely unnecessary if you have an iPhone. (Items in bold also apply to the iPod touch).

That was fast. We just learned Magellan was going to offer a car kit for the iPhone and it has already hit the FCC. GPSTracklog.com has a detailed drawing of the new device, and it looks to be quite complete. Magellan has said the kit will be on sale before the end of the year, and even give the iPod touch full nav capabilities.

The car kit is supposed to allow any iPhone GPS app to work with it, so you're not limited to the Magellan app. It works in portrait or landscape mode, and has a speaker for hearing directions and also link to your iPhone for Bluetooth based calls.

The Magellan Roadmate app itself [iTunes link] has a boatload of good features, and we're anxious to get our hands on the app for a full test. Holiday travelers will have a lot of good choices for navigating to your destinations. Remember when we thought the plain old Google Maps app was cool?

Thanks to Rich for the tip.

[via GPSTracklog.com]

Here in the USA we're preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving. The typical celebration includes a turkey dinner, family and football on television (and perhaps a drunken uncle or two). Before you set up the folding card table for the kids, check out these iPhone/iPod touch apps meant to make the day more enjoyable.

Thanksgiving Jokes

Serving the "perfect" dinner while dealing with annoying relatives is stressful, so cut the tension with corny jokes, courtesy of Thanksgiving Jokes [iTunes link]. This free app is based on Dustin Kirk's Stacks platform, which puts flash cards on your iPhone or iPod touch. There's a large variety of topics available from math to trivia: nearly 13,000 in total. Dustin breaks from academia with Thanksgiving Jokes and focuses on groan-inducing one-liners. And you thought the turkey was dry.

Turkey Recipes

In my day, recipes were taped to cabinet doors. Today there's cooking software and even a dedicated television network. iPhone users can download Turkey Recipes [iTunes link] for $0.99 and pick from 27 recipes. Once you've selected the one you like (or added your own), you're a click away from generating a shopping list. Back in the kitchen, flick through the easy-to-read instructions (just wipe your hands first) and compare your finished product to the included photo. Just don't be too hard on yourself.

It must be nice to be Evernote CEO Phil Libin right now. His company's product / service, Evernote, is about to break 2 million customers, they're past the days of initial development and beta testing, and the future is looking bright.

I had a chance to chat with Mr. Libin last Friday about Evernote, the service that acts as a cloud-based repository for all of the information in your life. Last year during the closed beta test of the service, TUAW's Brett Terpstra interviewed Libin, who called Evernote "universal human memory extension." Whatever information you want to put into the Evernote cloud -- text, photos, voice memos -- is available for searching and viewing from your Mac, PC, or iPhone. Handwritten or printed text runs through a recognition routine that makes it searchable text, something that I've found incredibly useful when storing my business cards in Evernote. You can send web pages to Evernote from Firefox with the click of a button, or tweet notes to Evernote by addressing them to @myEN.

Libin ran me through a short history of Evernote, mentioning that many of the first reviews and discussions of it were provided by TUAW. The Mac app and the service began a closed beta in February, 2008, moving to an open beta in June of that year. As Libin noted, "We never really told anyone when we came out of beta; we just gradually removed the word 'beta' from the site and the software." Since then, Evernote has signed up almost 2 million users.

When I asked Libin if Evernote was meeting the company's expectations in terms of growth, he replied that "we're right where we thought we'd be now." In terms of the present and near future, there's a lot going on. Localized versions of Evernote will be available by the end of 2009 for several European countries, with a Japanese localized version on tap for early 2010. Libin noted that "the Japanese market is huge! Evernote is listed in many Japanese magazines, half of our Twitter traffic is in Japanese, and we're even thinking about opening an office in Japan."

A couple of years ago I used the Mac version of Awaken from Embraceware to get myself out of bed in the morning. It's a well-done app that uses your computer as an alarm clock with lots of programmable options, a tidy full-screen mode and more.

Then I had kids, and Awaken slipped off my radar; the sound of screaming is even more effective (but less customizable) than my favorite podcast. Therefore, I missed Awaken for iPhone and iPod touch. Earlier this week, Embraceware released version 1.2 with a number of improvements, including landscape mode, new "8-bit" and "Classic LCD" display mode (I'm loving the 8-bit), and three new flashlight modes, including a clever CF bulb for the eco-anxious. Shake the phone to turn the flashlight on and off. As is the case for all third-party iPhone alarm clocks, the app needs to be running to activate the alarm (you can use sleep mode to drift off to music).

There's much more to version 1.2 which you can check out here, including some pesky bugs squashed. Awaken for iPhone and iPod touch is available now [iTunes link] for $1.99US. And if that won't get you out of bed, try having some kids.

Now this is how we like our rumors: Cheap, fast and totally unsubstantiated. Phil Schiller told Gizmodo that Apple's holiday lineup is in place, but the rumor mongers seem not to care. Last week we heard that AT&T was considering an 8GB iPhone 3GS.

The latest speculation to hit is that a new iPod touch will be released before December, according to iPhone Alley. Citing a "reliable source" who couldn't go into details (mmm-hmm), iPhone Alley speculates that it could be the touch with a camera that we all expected several weeks ago.

Given that the iPod is typically updated in September and that some people have already begun holiday shopping (not us, of course), we'd be more than a bit surprised if this happened.

The press release I received tonight said it all: "TweetDeck for iPhone -- now with added awesome." I use TweetDeck on my Macs, but had used another competing app for tweeting from my iPhone. After this update, which is the first major upgrade to this free Twitter client, I may have to reconsider!

The features in TweetDeck 1.1.1 [iTunes Link] have been given a squirt of goodness, with these new features added to the mix:

• Video tweeting via integration with 12seconds (record video and send to Twitter or Facebook using 12seconds platform)
• Facebook integration (updates, FB columns, wall posts, etc.)
• Landscape composing (for those with stumbly thumbs)
• Trending Topics to see what's happening RIGHT NOW
• Save Draft for later
• Bit.ly support
• And some additional goodies...

As with the Mac and Windows versions, the TweetDeck for iPhone user interface makes great use of columns, each of which can show a different feed, direct messages, or mentions for multiple accounts. Be sure to watch the video above, and if you're still looking for an iPhone Twitter client, give this fun freebie a try.

Time Magazine has published their list of 2009's best travel gadgets, and the iPod touch and MacBook have made the cut. Time notes the MacBook's size and high green ratings as well as the iPod touch's speed, Wi-Fi compatibility and library of games worked in their favor.

I do my share of traveling (as does Steve) and find that my iPhone plus a couple of well-selected apps are enough to get the job done most of the time.

It's strange that the iPhone wasn't included, since its connectivity isn't limited to Wi-Fi as the iPod touch is. It's even stranger that several apps also made the list, like Yelp (tap the masses for dining tips) [iTunes link] and the Zipcar App (find a quick-and-easy rental), but not the device that would get the most out of them. Perhaps it was the high cost of service for the iPhone?

Stranger still is their inclusion of the Droid. We assume it made the cut based upon its proven track record. I mean, it's been out for a whole 3 days now.

[Via MacDailyNews]

There's an exciting announcement at All Tech Related this week that has us saying, "We can't wait!"

ZodTDD, the developer behind GpSPhone (a Nintendo Gameboy Advance emulator for the iPhone and iPod Touch), announced the development of an N64 emulator for the iPhone and iPod touch. Zodttd believes that the current generation iPhone and iPod touch have the graphic CPU horsepower necessary to run those games. "...I can't promise it will run games top notch just yet, as things are too early to say. There's hope though, with a 3D accelerated graphics plugin, as well as an ARM dynarec."

As iPhone Savior points out, the toughest challenge could be fitting the controls onto the screen in an unobtrusive yet usable way. That was my main complaint about Resident Evil for iPhone [iTunes link] -- my hand is often in the way of what I'm trying to see.

Note that this will require an jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch.

[Via iPhone Savior]

Apple announced early this morning that there are now over 100,000 apps available to iPhone and iPod touch users in the the App Store. Customers of the App Store have purchased over two billion apps, and it is the world's most popular applications store.

In this morning's press release, Apple senior vice president for Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller noted that "The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world."

Schiller's statement was echoed by top executives from EA Mobile and Smule. EA Mobile's Travis Boatman, VP of Worldwide Studios, praised the App Store as an innovative marketplace to over 50 million iPhone and iPod touch owners, while Smule's CEO Jeff Smith took the perspective of a small, new development house that has skyrocketed to success. "With 10,000 downloads a day, worldwide customer response to our I Am T-Pain App has exceeded our wildest expectations," said Smith. "The App Store has given us a unique opportunity to create and grow a very successful business, and we're looking forward to an exciting future.

By comparison, the Google Android Market had just over 10,000 apps as of early September, almost 65% of which were free. An analysis of iPhone and Android app purchases shows that iPhone users are more likely to purchase apps, while users of Android-based smartphones appear to like getting their software for free. Developers for the most part will go where the money is, and at this time, that appears to be the App Store.

[via Engadget]

It's funny -- when the iPhone App Store first opened up, the first thing I asked for next was a way to manage apps from directly within iTunes. But when that finally did show up, I was still left unsatisfied for some reason. I'm not sure why -- app management offers drag-and-drop functionality with your app icons, and that's about the easiest way to organize things across the home screens. But for me, it still seems unwieldy somehow -- dragging icons onto full pages stlll creates empty pages, and dragging icons between screens is awkward to me.

I'm not an interface designer, but having more than one home screen open at a time seems like it would be nice, and being able to assign my own tags and categories to apps (combined with an auto-sort function) seems nicer. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that we can manage apps from iTunes, but it just seems harder than it should be.

Fortunately, iTunes 9.0.2 snuck a few updates to the system under our radar last week -- you can now put more than 176 apps in the organizer, and those will move on to grayed-out homescreens. You can still access them on the iPhone by using Spotlight, but those grayed-out homescreens only serve as a buffer to hold your overflow apps while you're organizing them. Doesn't really help the actual experience of sorting apps, but it should give you some breathing space when dealing with lots and lots of apps.

Speaking of buffers, it would also be nice to have a "shelf" to store app icons on while you're moving them around (you can use the bottom 4 apps as a minishelf, but that's not really enough). Maybe you could pile them into different areas on a screen and then drag them in the way you want onto your homescreens. Like I said, it's great that we do finally have an app management system in iTunes. But my feeling is that it's a little too much like the awkward iPhone-based system, especially with large numbers of apps, to be much help.

Last week, we learned that Apple would be revamping some US retail stores, including a new iPod touch-based point-of-sale (POS) system. A new scanner accessory allows Apple to replace the old Windows CE-based sales handhelds.

Gary Allen of ifoAppleStore has given AppleInsider an exclusive look at the thing, and it's pretty cool (that is, if retail hardware is your bag). It's an iPod touch with a magnetic stripe reader, a barcode scanner and Apple's proprietary payment-processing software. The iPod rests inside what AppleInsider calls a "slip-on shell" that plugs into the dock connector; it includes its own battery to power the two scanning peripherals.

Apple Store employees will use the devices to accept purchases made with credit cards, debit cards and cash; they can even make returns and activate a new iPhone.

It looks like a clever device. If you see one in the store (or if you use one), tell us what you can.

[Via The Apple Blog]

Fear of flying is nothing to laugh about. Having a panic attack while on an airplane, or not being able to even board a commercial flight because of fear, are both more common than most people would imagine. One solution is to learn how to relax, and to become knowledgeable about the sights, sounds, and feelings of flying.

Virgin Atlantic has had an amazing 98% success rate in curing fear of flying though its Flying Without Fear classes. These are seminars held throughout the UK that provide flight knowledge through a Q&A session with Virgin Atlantic flight crews, followed by a psychology session to make attendees aware of what makes them afraid and provide techniques to combat the fear. At the end of the day, attendees are taken on a short flight to try out their new knowledge and prove to themselves that they can fly without becoming paralyzed with panic.

To reach a much larger audience, Virgin Atlantic has just released the Flying Without Fear app [US$4.99, iTunes Link]. While the app doesn't include a visit from a flight crew or a psychologist, it's designed to make the techniques that have been so successful in Virgin Atlantic's in-person classes available to owners of the iPhone and iPod touch.

Virgin Atlantic President Sir Richard Branson provides a video introduction, followed by video-based explanations of what's going on at every phase of your flight. There's a built-in FAQ section with answers to questions such as "What if all the engines fail?", a set of relaxation exercises, and even a fear attack button (at right) for those scary situations that can occur in flight.

Of course, the app can't be run during takeoff and landing when you're asked to "turn off all electronic devices," but hopefully you'll gain enough confidence through using the app prior to your flight that you'll be able to stay calm.

[via CNET]