Our WWDC liveblog has the story -- Apple demoed a whole slew of apps (more than any one person would ever need) at the keynote today, but for my money, the most interesting were probably the least useful: I bought an iPhone to play games with.

Sega was up first, demoing that version of Super Monkey Ball they've been working on. The real key on this one will be the amount of content they can come up with, and the devs have said they're planning to put in lots of levels -- the more the better. It will debut for $9.99 right at launch.

Pangea was up next, showing off a few ports they've put together -- Cro-Mag Rally is a "caveman racing game" that uses the accelerometer (surprise) to drive a vehicle. This is, unfortunately, the problem you run into when you get a really innovative set of controls on a gaming device. It takes innovation not only to come up with the controls, but to find new ways to use them. Just as the Nintendo Wii suffers from thousands of useless minigame collections, the iPhone at App Store launch will likely suffer from thousands of "accelerometer racing" games, with only one or two really worth playing.

But Apple saved the best for last -- a company named Digital Legends was invited to show off their action/adventure platforming game, and it showed real promise (you can see some good screenshots on Engadget's liveblog). Unfortunately, this one won't be out until "a few weeks" after the App Store launch, but hopefully for every touch jewel puzzler and accelerometer racing game we have on release day, we'll have a truly innovative gaming delight later in the iPhone's lifetime.

An Apple patent application under the name "Illuminated touch pad" has been published by the US Patent & Trademark Office. There are several innovations detailed in the application, but it pertains primarily to touch sensitive inputs that provide light-based visual feedback. Among the variations included is a system that provides feedback with variable intensity (or color) based on direction and speed of the object in the sensing field. It's a possible indicator of some future advancements in the interface of the iPod classic.

The technology presented could be used in a multitude of devices, current and future. Ultimately, it's another indicator that Apple will continue to refine the user experience in innovative ways. Of course, I never had many doubts in that area. The MacNN has a detailed description of the patents applied for.

When Steve Jobs announced five new apps for the iPod Touch yesterday, people were ecstatic -- for about ten seconds. Once he mentioned the upgrade would cost current iPod touch owners $20 (they're included on all new units), most of the comments from participants following the keynote in TUAW's IRC channel were largely unprintable.

Apple's customers aren't usually the sort to take things lying down, however, so now there's an online petition calling on Apple to make the apps free to current customers. As I write this, there are close to 600 signatures and climbing.

It's worth noting that Michael Rose and John Gruber pondered the possibility of iPod touch updates and user costs back in October 2007, as Apple's quarterly earnings report indicated that the iPhone's subscription accounting model was not being used for the touch. At the time it wasn't clear what would happen when functional updates to the iPod touch were released; now we know that they come with a price tag.

[Thanks, Daniel!]

Though there was plenty of other news at the Keynote today, iPod Touch users got a little love thrown their way today -- for a price. Master Steve announced that effective immediately, there are five new apps available for the Touch: Mail, Stocks, Notes, Weather, and Maps. Oh, and it will set current Touch owners back $20.

• Preview mail before you open it, display grapics and photos inline, and view HTML, PDF, Word, and Exel attachments.

• Stocks, Weather, and Notes all appear as widgets on your home screen.

• Google Maps determines your approximate location if Wi-Fi is on and gives you directions, marks specific locations (Starbucks?), and has both hybrid and satellite maps to show you the way.

Granted, it's not as exciting as the iPhone update (nor is it, ahem, as free) -- but at least we've got notes and mail now, right? That ought to count for something.

iPhone hacker eok writes to let me know that he and Samuel have gotten SIP registration and signalization working. They took a few mobile terminal shots, but the real work is being done via ssh. Samuel is working on connecting the audio in/out to the pjSIP. If you have iPhone or iPod touch coding skills and want to get involved in the project, connect to #touchmods on irc.undernet.org. It looks like most of the work will be done on European time.

Oh, and if anyone is giving away free iPods to worthy developers? eok recommends that Samuel gets one first. He writes that Samuel has been the driving force behind the compilation.

Over at the iPod touch fans forum, user Marian reports that he's managed to confirm that the iPod touch audio input pins are active. He modded an old docking cable, connecting the line-in pins to an audio source. He then used my voice recording app to capture the signal. You can see pictures of his setup on his personal blog.

I'd really appreciate it if any of you own an iPod mike (iTalk, MicroMemo, whatever) could test it with VoiceNotes on a touch and see whether these pre-built solutions are also compatible.

Update:Marian writes that he's recorded from audio line in. You can find a sample he recorded here. He's now working on attaching a mike. Unfortunately, since I exclusively record using the voice-optimized AMR codec, the quality is just so-so.

Gruber's got a good post up on the topic du jour for most Mac blogs-- the iPhone's newly announced SDK and how its release will affect already created (and to-be-created, for that matter) web apps. I'm not sure I agree with him that web development for devices like the iPhone will be bigger than native app development after February (assuming Steve gives us a full SDK, and not a widget maker), but I do agree that web apps for the iPhone need more-- either Flash, Silverlight (shudder), or some other quality runtime.

However, I think the most interesting part of Gruber's article is in the note at the end. When we say iPhone (as I've done throughout this post), we really mean "iPhone and iPod touch." While lots of people have picked up touches, I tend to still consider the iPhone the vanguard of this situation. And so, while the SDK will also be able to create applications for the iPod touch (even Steve himself relegated it to a PS in his big announcement), the iPhone tends to get all the press.

But I'd like to know what you think, readers. Is it OK for us to say "iPhone" and mean both devices? Should we spend the extra time typing to point out that everything that runs on iPhone runs on the iPod touch? Or should we use them interchangeably-- make "iPod touch" mean both the iPhone and the iPod/iPhone Frankenstein monster that is the touch? What do you think? It's a small issue, sure, but little things can mean a lot.

It looks like iPod touch hacker Niacin has achieved read access to the iPod touch root. Following up on the iPhone jailbreak earlier today, this is another step forward into opening up both the iPhone and iPod touch for general read-write access and third party application support. More news as it develops.

Niacin has been working with Dre and the entire iPhone/iPod touch dev team to make this happen.

Update: Niacin confirms that the TIFF exploit exposes the root partition for both the iPhone and iPod touch.

The iPod touch jailbreak effort continues to grind forward in slow steady steps. "Martyn", hardware expert and hacker extraordinaire, posted on Craig's List until he found a lady whose iPod touch screen had been smashed. Since the unit was not covered under Apple Care, said lady swapped the dead touch for a nice pretty iPod nano. He took the smashed touch back to his lair and extracted its chips. At this time, Martyn is dumping data from those NAND chips and expects to finish recovering that data by tomorrow morning.

It will take some time after dumping the raw data to make sense of that information. Don't expect me to be able to test out the iPod touch applications on the iPhone for some time to come. It is still unclear whether the data is encrypted or not and whether Martyn and his peers will be able to reconstruct the complete file system. Visit the touchdev wiki for more details as they develop.

Late last night, iTouch hacker Martyn gained access to many of the iTouch's ramdisk files. He did this by interrupting the restore process after about 82-88 seconds. This put the iTouch into a state where iTunes still saw it in "Restore" mode but iPhuc was able to read files. Behold "martynmode". Before I headed off to sleep, effort was being made to use gdb breakpoints to stop iTunes at the right spot.

The big success last night was Martyn's recovery of the onboard asr file. However, Apple had zero'ed out the encryption key this time around. Attempts to edit then load the dmg files also failed. I believe that this morning, "Smiley" will attempt to mod iPhuc to read the XML sent back from the iTouch.

Unfortunately, the effort goes slowly without a clear line of sight to the goal.

Well, it's here. And here's all the dish on my first hours with the iPod Touch.

Impressions

Feel. Man, this thing definitely has a completely different feel and weight from the iPhone. It feels way way thinner.

Squeeze Control. It seems to be confirmed that the iPhone headset squeeze control does not work with the touch. I'll test when I have time.

Video Out. Does not work with the Belkin dock.

Audio jack. At the bottom!!?? Why?

Didn't work the first time. A lot of people are reporting flaky iTouch behavior. The first time I connected my new iTouch to iTunes, this was the error I got. Removing the USB and reconnecting it made it work.

Calculator. Same as iPhone. Absolutely the most boring accessory ever shipped.

Keyboard. All the sounds on the Touch are clickier and lighter than on the iPhone. It's a very palpable difference.

Safari. Works great--once you remember to switch on WiFi. All my Javascript bookmarklets are working fine.

Clock. There are a *lot* fewer sound effects to play with the built-in alarm, and since there's no speaker, you can only get alarmed through your headphones. No vibrate either. Sounds are: checkmate, jump, time passing, time's up, updown.

Cheerios! Brian Mulllally writes that the icon for the iTouch test mode serial number is, *hee*, a Cheerios box.

Diagnostic Information. I keep saying: "No" and "Don't ask again" but it keeps asking and asking and asking...

Hack after the jump...

If you're planning to run out and grab an iPod Touch from an Apple Store this weekend (they're on sale there now, doncha know), Deep Thought has an important tip before you go. Before you even get chance one to use your new gadget, you'll have to make an iTunes account you won't need one-- see Update below.

Of course it's not that surprising when you think about it (since you'll need an account for the WiFi store for sure), but an account just to use the iPod Touch? A little strange, no? The Touch might not have a contract like the iPhone, but clearly Apple wants you to check in on the signup form before you get to play with your new iPod.

Update: Well, maybe not. Our beloved commenters say this is just plain not true. When setting up the Touch, you can apparently skip making the account, and while obviously you need it for the WiFi store, you don't need it to just use the iPod. Thanks, guys!

Update2: DT has posted a retraction as well. In his defense, as I said in the comments, the original statement that said an account was required came directly from an Apple PDF. Not all of us have the resources or the cash to buy or use one of these things as soon as they're released, but all of us are committed to letting you know about any pitfalls before you spend your hard-earned money on one. If you are planning on buying a Touch, enjoy it, account or not.

[via MacBytes]

I completely missed one of the biggest changes made to the various iPods today-- they're now all capable of video out. Apple is selling Component and Composite video cables right now, and listing them as compatible with the new Nanos, iPod Classic, iPod Touch, and even the iPhone.

Does that mean video out is being added to the iPhone via a software update? If it's been available on the iPhone before, I've never heard of it. Then again, the composite video cable is listed as compatible with iPod Video, so this ability has been around at least since earlier this year, even if the quality isn't very good.

But the iPod Touch's bigger screen does mean a better resolution. Are you willing to spend $50 for the cable just to watch your iPod on the big screen? Might come in handy for sales presentations and the like, but there are so many other ways to stream things to your TV at home that it doesn't seem like that big a draw to me.

Note: The picture is actually the Viewsonic Viewdock, not the AV cable. But it does pretty much the same thing.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Continuing the grand tradition of the iPhone guided tours, Apple has posted an iPod Touch Guided Tour. Get an eyeful of the new snazzy user interface without leaving your desk!

This guided tour isn't hosted by the iPhone guy though, so say hello to the iPod Touch guy!

I need to come clean: I thoroughly enjoy working on my PowerBook far more than my iMac G5. Why? Other than the obvious portability factor: it's the keyboard. Aside from an ergonomic (where'd those go, anyway?), the PowerBook's keyboard is about the best darn keyboard I've ever laid hands on. Every standard desktop keyboard just feels big and clunky, and the keys have a lot more travel to them. I can type much faster on my PowerBook's keyboard, and nowadays it's gotten so bad that I stumble and trip up on regular desktop keyboards. When you blog for a company like Weblogs, Inc. who revokes one day's lunch privileges for every typo they find, this can become a serious problem (just kidding about the lunch thing, but let's just say I'm missing a toe or two).

If you're nodding your head in agreement to any of my keyboard obsessiveness, I think Kensington has a good solution for all of us. I found their SlimType Keyboard for Mac at a CompUSA last weekend, and wow did it feel like my PowerBook. Its layout is slightly different from both a PowerBook and standard Apple desktop keyboard, as the Home/End and Page Up/Down keys are lined vertically on the right of the Delete/Return side of the keyboard, but its keys have the same low rate of travel and a very similar, solid feel. I haven't grabbed one yet, but they retail for $40, and some of the online retailers that Kensington's product site link are selling it for as low as $30.

If you pick one up or already own one, feel free to sound off with your thoughts.