I only follow a few sports teams, but for the teams I do follow, Sportacular (that's the iTunes link for the free version, and here's the paid version, sans ads) is definitely my app of choice. For nearly every professional sport you can think of, the app will track scores, plays, schedules, standings, and anything else you need to know about everything from NFL to college football to the English Premier League and the PGA.

Right after iPhone OS 3.0 came out, the developer added in push notifications, and now I've got push updates coming whenever the Cubs have a game starting and ending (or at least, when they did -- there's always next year) and whenever a Bears quarter ends. Sportacular even has a few social features happening -- you can make picks and discuss each game with other fans using your Facebook login, as well as read news and updates about each team in the games you check out.

The app was updated to version 1.6 last night, and the new features include better game pages for NFL and NCAA football, and option to manage and track your fantasy football team in conjunction with their fantasy football app on Facebook. The one bummer I have is that they don't have actual media of the games -- for that, you'll probably have to go for an official app. But especially as a free download (the ads are definitely non-intrusive), Sportacular is really impressive with everything it does to help you track your favorite sports and teams.

Apple has applied for a patent for an "automatically adjusting media display in a personal display system," a kind of head-tracking eyewear that gives the user "the impression of being in the theater."

From the claims of the patent, the device looks not unlike a pair of goggles that display a cropped version of a larger media file. As the wearer moves his or her head, a gyroscope and accelerometer in the goggles adjust the crop of the media file, making it appear to the user as if they were in a theater-like experience.

The patent also includes provisions for techniques to reduce eyestrain, determine when the user reaches the "edge" of the media file, and zoom in and out.

The application was prepared in February, and its number is 20080276196.

[Via Electronista.]

Late last night, we got word that Dan over at Uneasy Silence had discovered a URL embedded into two iPhone programs. The URL, which is formatted to include your iPhone's equipment ID (IMEI), apparently contacts Apple when you use the weather and stocks programs.

TUAW took a look at these programs and can confirm that the URL appears in both. When we tried connecting to Apple, the URLs did not return any data, further supporting Dan's concern that these were used for tracking purposes. We tried with both valid IMEI numbers and spoofed ones.

So is Apple using this data for nefarious tracking purposes? That point remains less clear. It's possible that Apple added this URL for future use to restrict data access to those iPhones with valid AT&T accounts--your IMEI gets registered with your phone number. It's also possible that Apple uses this URL to track activity, i.e. how much use per account for internal auditing.

One thing that is very clear, as Dan points out, is that active iPhone users have consented to data collection in the end user agreement. Beyond that, what data is collected, and how it is used remains fuzzy. Perhaps Apple will now issue a statement clarifying the situation and put user fears to rest.

Update; Gizmodo reports that sniffers detect no actual IMEI data being sent at this time. If you'd like to personally confirm the two URLs we found, you can easily do so by copying the two executables to your computer and issuing the strings command.

We wrote about the 1.0 of Slife in February, and I thought it was a fascinating application-- there's nothing you look at more every single day than what you do with your own life, and yet here's a piece of software that lets you look at how you spend your time in a different, more objective way.

And now they've sent word that Slife has entered version 1.3, with numerous additions to the interface. The program can now work in the background, and apparently it no longer has to scan your hard drive for all the different applications to track-- if a new app shows up in your usage, it'll start tracking it automatically. They've also added a few social networking options (which sounds like a better idea than an actual feature to me-- do I really want people knowing how much time I spend playing World of Warcraft?) with their Slifeshare service. You can track your friends' activities, even down to what app they're using at the moment.

But while I'm personally not interested in completely sharing my pastimes (I'm sure there's an option to turn it off), I do really like the idea of the program, and I love the abilities it gives you to take a close look at exactly what you do on your computer when. Slife is available as a free trial (will track 3 apps), or as a full application for $34.

Mike Piontek can't stop making his phenomenal Delivery Status Dashboard widget cooler. As if features like compatibility with a zillion shipping services and Growl notifications aren't cool enough, a couple of recent updates have brought some handy performance enhancements and compatibility with even more services.

First up is support for Purolator, Google Checkout, and FexEd SmartPost. Next is a new drop-down menu on the tracking number entry box that remembers the last 10 numbers you've tracked with each service. Finally, new buttons appear on the widget when you mouse over to both magnify the widget for easier viewing and open a new Delivery Status widget altogether, making it easier to track a second package from the same service (by default) while still allowing you to select any other service in Delivery Status' expanding list. Of course, plenty of bugs have been fixed since the last time we've mentioned this widget, which is still provided as donationware from Piontek's site.

Update: Corrected the spelling of Mike's name -- sorry!

People seem to enjoy tracking the time they spend on various projects, so it's no surprise that a plethora of project-tracking apps are cropping up. We've mentioned dozens in the past, including iRatchet, iBiz, Billable and even On the Job, but now users have a new choice on the 'simple and streamlined' end of the spectrum with Project Calculator from blue banana software. Project Calculator features many of the fundamentals one would need for recording the time spent on projects, such as tracking multiple projects, manually editing projects and the time spent on them, exporting to various formats (CSV, PDF, HTML, etc.) for sharing with clients, wages/cost calculation, searching, filters and much more.

A demo is available, while a licenses costs a mere $14.90.

Mike Pointek has updated his rockin' Delivery Status widget with Growl notifications, making it pretty much the most feature-packed, well-designed and useful shipping widgets that has ever graced this blogger's Dashboard. In addition to now being able to notify you of changes in your package's status, Delivery Status can also run multiple instances to keep track of more than one delivery, track shipments from ten different companies and services (sixteen if you count each one of Amazon's international sites separately), refresh as often as you like and easily take you to the package's shipment details at the shipping service's site.

Delivery Status is provided as donationware from Mike Pointek's site.

Midnight Apps, as promised, has announced Cha-Ching 1.0 is landing Friday, April 20th, 2007. Cha-Ching is an excellent personal finance management app that I feel safe calling a Quicken killer, at least for many people's needs. Since its beta days, Cha-Ching has featured things like a simplified UI, tagging and other goodies to bring a little fun to tracking one's cash and credit flow, but this final 1.0 promises even more new features. So many new features, in fact, that the company will be announcing one big one each day this week until Friday, when 1.0 will be released for download (in light of this promotion, I tip my hat to their site designer for the sketchup and 'not quite finished' touches on the site). Today's feature: Spotlight Integration - users will be able to search for any transaction or tag from the comfort of a Spotlight window, which means they can also create things like Smart Folders to get a quick glance at transactions without even having to open Cha-Ching.

Stay tuned to Midnight Apps all this week to hear more about the great new stuff coming in Cha-Ching 1.0, but if you're on the fence with whether to purchase, you might want to act sooner than later: now that the app is all growed up, it's going on a 'reverse sale' that ends Friday. Through its time in beta, Cha-Ching has cost $20 and is still at that price - but only for today. Each day this week, Cha-Ching's price will be raised by $5 until Friday, where it will take on its full price of $40. If you ask me, a happy user of Cha-Ching since January when I attended the developer's presentation at the Apple Store during Macworld 07, Cha-Ching is a great value even at its full price, so any day you buy this week will be a bargain. But you don't have to take it from me: you can download a demo of Cha-Ching in its current 0.5.2 beta version to get your finance on and decide for yourself.

I just noticed that my favorite freelancing app, iBiz, is now in a v3 beta phase. At first glance the most notable change is that brushed metal has been given the pink slip, but there is a veritable storm of new features under the hood, including:

• a Document Monitor so iBiz can keep track of project files and how much time you spend on each
• iCal syncing via Sync Services - goodbye to manual lifting
• a Billing Section for more better tracking of invoices, estimates, payments and deposits
• new job events to help track commute mileage, as well as 'non-billable' for the freebies
• AppleScript and Automator support - if they keep this up, your clients won't even need you anymore
• Quick Timers and an improved menu bar utility
• HTML templates with full-blown CSS support

and a ton more. iBiz went universal a while ago, and users of previous version can upgrade to 3 for a mere $19.99, though its retail price has increased from $29.99 to $49.99 (in my opinion, from tinkering with this beta: it's still more than worth it). iBiz Server, for multi-employee and computer environments, is $89.99, which includes two client licenses.

I've always thought keeping track of school-related courses, assignments and projects was a little clunky with apps like iCal and Entourage, and apparently Logan Rockmore agrees, so he created assignment planner. Answering the call of students everywhere, assignment planner brings a number of classroom-focused abilities to the time management table, including:

* filtering assignments by completion status and type
* course and textbook tracking
* color-coding assignments based on your criteria
* Dashboard widget to quickly monitor assignments

Naturally, a demo is available, but assignment planner's price is just right: $5 scores you a license for this Universal Binary app.

Thanks Ronald

Moneydance 2006 (awkward name and all) is a well-rounded personal finance app with a nice selection of features including: online banking and bill payment, budget management, recurring transactions, investment tracking, report generation, Quicken/Money import, database encryption and a whole lot more.

It might be missing a few features when compared to big dogs like Quicken 2006, but it's priced accordingly: a license is $30 no matter what OS(es) you need it for, and when I say cross-platform, I mean it: Moneydance 2006 works on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, Solaris, OS/2, and Unix.
A fully functioning demo is available that allows for entering up to 100 transactions - so what are you waiting for? Go grab a copy and stop making excuses for ending up budget-less and broke every month.