Although the iPhone OS 3.1 has been around for quite some time now, it is only now that LinkedIn’s iPhone app is being updated to adapt to the new version of the iPhone OS. But like they said better late than never, right?

So, what does the LinkedIn iPhone app 3.1. has to offer for us loyal LinkedIn members  who continue to maintain our own LinkedIn accounts aside from our Facebook and Twitter account? Pretty much actually. And all these feature enhancements were based on the feedback from users which the LinkedIn team have gathered and took into account of before they updated their iPhone app.

One of the major new feature of the LinkedIn iPhone app 3.1 is that it is now easier to mark a LinkedIn connection as favorite. Once you’ve marked a good number of your LinkedIn connections as favorites you can go through this list anytime you want to send them some updates or other information.  You can also filter updates that are being sent to your based on these list.  Of course you get to do that with a simple swipe of a finger.

You can also now update your status from your profile page. Other new features include:

• Easier to discover, build, and manage your Favorites list
• Easier to understand and use ‘Download All’ functionality based on user feedback
• Set your status directly from your profile
• You can now send messages to multiple people more easily
• Fixed a number of issues reported by our users – thanks everyone!

So, what do you think? Are you still maintaining a LinkedIn account? Will these new features entice you to be more active on LinkedIn?

True to what was announced last week, Apple has started accepting pre-order for its much talked about product – the Apple iPad.  And while everybody else is probably still thinking right now whether they are going hit the pre-order button or not, I closed my eyes, took a plunge and just made Steve Jobs $553 richer. Yes, I did pre-order the Apple iPad, and I’m proud of it.So how was the experience? To tell you frankly, it was kind of uplifting to be part of this whole process. From the anticipation, to the online discussion, to the countless hours of reading articles that praised or criticized the iPad up to a moment ago when after clicking the refresh button of my Chrome browser – the store was up again. And there it was the iPad pre-order page – waiting for me to partake of this while shenanigan which Apple has mastered through the years.

Call me nuts or what ever but hey, this is the first time that I’ve participated in something like this. When the iPhone hype hit the web, I couldn’t participate. I couldn’t line up outside an Apple Store to be the first to grab an iPhone, simply because the region where I am currently located wouldn’t have the iPhone for a year after it was released in the U.S.

Thanks to the wonders of online commerce, the geographic and time barrier has been taken down. And thanks to a friend who agreed to receive my order, I am now one of those who can’t wait for April 3 when Apple will ship my iPad to my friend in the U.S. who agreed to send the iPad to me.

So, are blindly taking the plunge? Or have you placed a pre-order already? Which one did you get?

For those who are planning to placed their order, here are the different iPad models that you can pre-order.

Expect additional charges such as recycling fee and appropriate taxes to your total cost.  I got the 16GB WiFi iPad model with a price tag of $499 but my total cost upoin check out amounted to around $553.

So, now the waiting begins.

Pardon the double exclamation points in the title of this post. I just want to highlight the fact that I’m pretty excited about this announcement. I’ve been checking the Apple iPad site, every now and then, hoping that Apple will finally announce the date when they will start accepting pre-order for the iPad.  And so, just a moment ago, there it was – pre-order starts on March 12 and shipping on April 3.

Apple also announced that upon pre-ordering, you can choose to have it shipped to your address or arrange a pick-up date on Apple Store’s nearest your location. Like what have been reported before, Apple will be releasing only the iPad with Wi-Fi on April 3. But you can opt to pre-order either the Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi + 3G models beginning on the said date.

Later in April, the Wi-Fi+ 3g models will also be released.  At almost the same period, Apple will start making it available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

The iPad Wi-Fi only model is still priced at $499. While the 32GB model will have a price of $599 and $699 for the 64GB model. The iPad Wi-Fi+3G model will have a price of $629 for the 16GB version, $729 for the 32GB and $829 for the 64GB.

Other key points that you should remember include – 12 new apps will be preloaded on the iPad. Likewise, the iBooks app for iPad including the iBookstore will be available immediately for download from the Apps Store.  Incidentally, if you’ve purchase apps for your iPhone, you can sync them with the iPad and all the apps will work perfectly on it.

Now here’s the saddest part for us who are not based in the U.S., international release date other than the countries mentioned is still unknown, although Apple promises that it will be later this year. So, anybody kind enough who will be willing to buy the iPad for me? I’ll arrange for the payment and shipping. The best part is – this bloger  will be forever indebted to you.

Here’s the full Press Release issued by Apple.

iPad Available in US on April 3

Pre-Order on March 12

CUPERTINO, California—March 5, 2010—Apple® today announced that its magical and revolutionary iPad will be available in the US on Saturday, April 3, for Wi-Fi models and in late April for Wi-Fi + 3G models. In addition, all models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

Beginning a week from today, on March 12, US customers can pre-order both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models from Apple’s online store (www.apple.com) or reserve a Wi-Fi model to pick up on Saturday, April 3, at an Apple retail store.

“iPad is something completely new,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re excited for customers to get their hands on this magical and revolutionary product and connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.”

Starting at just $499, iPad lets users browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more. iPad is just 0.5 inches thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds—thinner and lighter than any laptop or netbook—and delivers battery life of up to 10 hours.*

iPad’s revolutionary Multi-Touch™ interface makes surfing the web an entirely new experience, dramatically more interactive and intimate than on a computer. You can read and send email on iPad’s large screen and almost full-size “soft” keyboard or import photos from a Mac®, PC or digital camera, see them organized as albums, and enjoy and share them using iPad’s elegant slideshows. iPad makes it easy to watch movies, TV shows and YouTube, all in HD, or flip through the pages of an ebook you downloaded from Apple’s new iBookstore while listening to your music collection.

The App Store on iPad lets you wirelessly browse, buy and download new apps from the world’s largest app store. iPad includes 12 new innovative apps designed especially for iPad and will run almost all of the more than 150,000 apps on the App Store, including apps already purchased for your iPhone® or iPod touch®. Developers are already creating exciting new apps designed for iPad that take advantage of its Multi-Touch interface, large screen and high-quality graphics.

The new iBooks app for iPad includes Apple’s new iBookstore, the best way to browse, buy and read books on a mobile product. The iBookstore will feature books from the New York Times Best Seller list from both major and independent publishers, including Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster.

The iTunes® Store gives iPad users access to the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store with a catalog of over 12 million songs, over 55,000 TV episodes and over 8,500 films including over 2,500 in stunning high definition. All the apps and content you download on iPad from the App Store, iTunes Store and iBookstore will be automatically synced to your iTunes library the next time you connect with your computer.

Pricing & Availability
iPad will be available in Wi-Fi models on April 3 in the US for a suggested retail price of $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64GB. The Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available in late April for a suggested retail price of $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB.  iPad will be sold in the US through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers.

iPad will be available in both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models in late April in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. International pricing will be announced in April. iPad will ship in additional countries later this year.

The iBooks app for iPad including Apple’s iBookstore will be available as a free download from the App Store in the US on April 3, with additional countries added later this year.

*Battery life depends on device settings, usage and other factors. Actual results vary.

Which one is your favorite?

Part 1

Part 2

Check out also Business Week article.

Did you know that users downloaded an average 3,7 apps each?

Did you know that one quarter of apps users download via AppStore are paid?

Did you know that average iPhone/iPod touch user is spending $10 on apps every month?

Did you know…

via GigaOM

Let’s talk about some of the features and how it could or could not “kill” the iPhone.
The Droid has crowned itself a killer because of its technical features that supersede technical problems the iPhone has such as higher resolution images (taking pics even in low light), a real keyboard (hello!) and the ability to run multiple apps simultaneously.  But is that enough for people that have spent hundreds of dollars on existing (and Droid incompatible) apps to ditch Apple?  Absolutely not, BUT it is grounds for non iPhone users to jump on the anti-iPhone sentiment that is growing in volume.

Droid is more likely positioned to be a BlackBerry killer or a Palm Pre killer than it is an iPhone killer because those purchasing Apple products have an almost religious affinity for anything Apple and wouldn’t consider looking anywhere outside of the sexy looking, techno-music-playing, expensive, hipster Apple stores because of a particular *emotion* invoked as if they’ve made friends with a product and the staff behind that product.

The Motorola Droid has one massive advantage that does resonate in the technology industry- open development.  That means that instead of the roadblocks and closed doors application developers have to go through to become anointed into the Mac App store, and instead of having to deal with the red tape of the Palm company clusterflip, developers are welcomed and encouraged to use the Droid platform openly.  Typically, when the tech sector (led by very vocal app developers) rallies behind a product, the public inevitably follows.

The iPhone has long been hailed as the shiny object du jour, but as developers hop off the bandwagon, there is a chance that an informed public will follow suite, while those that don’t read blogs or care about news but like that their phone is sexy and has an Apple on it will likely stay put.  The Droid isn’t going to kill anything, but it will take away enough market share to be a significant threat.

Verizon has made some interesting moves.  First, on November 6, a second version of the Droid will be dropping.  On top of that, it appears that Droid is not just the name of a device, but the name of an entire line to ‘i-Phone killing’ phones.

The use of the name ‘Droids’ – which are robots seen in Star Wars and several other sci-fi movies is a registered trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd..  Off the bat, that gives the whole thing an uber-geeky feel.

And perhaps the biggest negative of them all is the fact that the inaugural Droid is manufactured by Motorola, not exactly the biggest crowd favorite when it comes to phone functionality satisfaction.  Couple that with the fact that Verizon has kept a bigger padlock on their devices than most wireless carriers, and you can understand why this blogger – and many others – are skeptical.

I guess we’ll have our answer in a few days…

Actually, I won’t have my answer in a few a days because I’m stuck with the LG Dare for another year!  Bummer.

Scary Sounds

Now this app has several spooky sound effects to get you into the Halloween mood. It contains various eery sound effects including – Demonic Laughter, Screech and Howl, Wolf Howl, Wicked Witch Laugh and more.  Want to hear all kinds of screaming sound? This app got it.   (iTunes Link)

Halloween Word Search

Here’s a good way to while away time on Halloween’s night. Play a nice little word game with your friends or family on a Halloween theme and backdraft, complete with Halloween background music to set the mood. The words in the game are Halloween-related too.  (iTunes Link)

reMovem Halloween Edition

This game is the Halloween edition of the reMovem game. For this version, it’s a pretty simple game of popping out Halloween blocks by tapping onto two or more similar adjacent blocks. The game features some Halloween background music and tons of blocks with Halloween inspired designs.  (iTunes Link)

Ghost Pop by Jirbo

If the Halloween Word Search is not your type of game, this app might actually appeal to you. It’s a simple game where you need to pop out some white ghosts with red lips before they get into you.  The game allows you to make the ghosts bigger on the game settings. (Price: Free) (iTunes Link)

Halloween Photocraft

Here’s a nice little app that lets you add Halloween effects/graphics  to photos you’ve taken using the iPhone camera. It a fast and intuitive app that lets you crop and zoom, add themed graphics from 21 available themes, resize and rotate your photo using multi-touch controls, and send photos to Facebook, Twitter or email. (iTunes Link)

Ghostbuster

This app is in no way related to the popular movie. But it could be a nice Halloween party game that you and your friends can enjoy. The objective of the game is to capture, well what else but ghosts? The game has some nice graphics and sounds as well. (iTunes Link)

Halloween Deluxe

This app will surely get you into the Halloween mood whether you like it or not. It contains – countdown to Halloween with high quality sound effects, soundboard with 11 scary sounds, costume ideas, trivia and facts, background images that can be used as an iPhone wallpaper, and a nicely designed interface with easy navigation. (iTunes Link)

Singing Pumpkins

Here’s a simple Halloween app.  The objective is for you to lead a group of pumpkin in singing some Halloween tunes.  You can change their singing into spooky sounds anytime you want to. The app features some nicely rendered graphics and fun sounds. (iTunes Link)

Halloween Quick Turn

Another fun game to play during Halloween, this one task you to keep the jack-o’-lantern alive as he bounces straight up and down on your screen. You do this by tilting your iPhone as if you are controlling a steering wheel. It may sound simple but wait till the pace becomes faster and before you knew it, the game might over. (iTunes Link)

iLoseWeight

This app lets you document your fitness and health data and then view the effects of your diet and fitness regimen. It records weight, body mass index (BMI), fat and water relation. What’s good about iLoseWeight is its sophisticated graphic engine which lets you check your weight and BMI in relation to your target weight. It also gives you the option to password-protect  your data, and do back up and restore. (iTunes link)

Daily Burn – Calorie, Workout and Weight Tracker

Aside from helping you find workout programs to follow, this app also lets you track your body weight, body fat, and monitors your body progress over time. But most importantly it keeps tab of all the results of the exercises you’ve chosen to follow. In addition, when you start using this app, you can sync your data with your DailyBurn.com account, in case you’ve signed up with them. The good thing about signing up with DailyBurn is that the app saves all your data on the DailyBurn servers. You can then access your data anytime, anywhere. (iTunes Link)

RunKeeper Free

If you’re way of keeping fit is running, this app will serve you well. It lets you track information related to duration, distance, pace, speed, total rise, elevation versus speed, and path traveled on a map, whenever you do your running activities. The app also lets you store your running history via the runkeeper website. Best of all, the app lets  you share your running achievements to your friends and family via Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites. (iTunes Link)

Food & Fitness Tracker

This app is an extension of the SparkPeople.com, a popular diet and fitness site, so naturally it syncs with your account in their site if you have one. The app lets you track your food and calorie intake and match it with the site’s 1 million foods stored in their database. It also helps you keep track of your workouts and calories burned, a weigh-in page for graphing your weight and progress over time and gives you detailed weight and calorie reports. (iTunes Link)

Workout Mate Free

I really find this particular app  pretty cool. It  gives you a workout buddy which can count your sets and reps allowing you to enter a maximum of 100 sets and 100 reps. The app automatically pauses after each set and lets you save your workout history as well. And guess how the app does its  job? It counts your reps by traking your movements when you do push ups, crunches, pull ups and more.  All you need to do is to put your iPhone in your pocket and start exercising.

These are just five of the health and fitness apps available for the iPhone. There are still many out there, in fact as of last count these apps now number to around 100. And that’s just for the free ones. There are still a plethora of these iPhone apps in the paid category.

Honorable mentions

You might want to check out also the following apps – Fitness plan, StepTrak Lite, and WeightMan.

Dropbox (Free)

This iPhone app just became official last week. I just opened a free web account when the iPhone app came out, so I immediately grab it from the iTunes Apps Store. Dropbox offers an easy way of syncing your files online and across your computers. It also lets you share those files with people you allow. Specifically, the Dropbox iPhone apps offers the following features

• Access your Dropbox on the go
• View your files
• Download files for offline viewing
• Take photos and videos and sync them to your Dropbox
• Share links to files in your Dropbox
• Photo galleries
• Sync downloaded files so they’re up-to-date

Please note that this iPhone app works with the web version Dropbox service and is not intended as a stand-alone product. If you don’t want to open a paid Dropbox account, there is a free account with 2GB storage.

visit http://www.getdropbox.com

CloudMobile ($1.99)

Cloud Mobile offers easy-to-use and intuitive interface for managing and using your files in the cloud. It supports Cloud Files from the Rackspace Cloud. Specifically its features include the ff:

• Support multiple Rackspace Cloud accounts
• Container count / disk space for account
• List containers
• Create new containers
• Delete containers
• View container detail: object count, disk space, CDN info
• CDN enable / disable containers; set TTL; CDN URL
• Upload photos and movies (direct capture / library) from your iPhone to a container
• List objects in a container
• Delete objects
• View object detail: size, tag, content type, modified
• View / add / edit / delete object metadata
• View / play objects supported on iPhone: images, audio, video
• Links to Cloud Files and Rackspace Cloud status pages

Soonr (Free)

This is one of the first cloud storage iPhone apps that I installed on my iPhone. It lets you access, view, collaborate, search and print your files from the Soonr cloud servers. It offers automatic continuous backup of your PC or Mac files. Features of the Soonr iPhone app are the following:

• Dashboard shows team activities at a glance helping you prioritize your time
• View 42 documents types fast, without downloading large files
• Project Folders quickly organize files into online workspaces
• Share project folders with team members
• Create links for public viewing
• Full text search across computers and projects with advanced filters for more accurate results
• Continuous backup with versioning and remote restore capability
• Print from your iPhone to any shared printer
• Send a fax with your eFax account
• Email attachments into your online Projects
• Integrate with contacts on your iPhone or Outlook on the desktop
• Event notifications with SMS

Soonr offers a free account with 2GB online storage. It allows you to setup two other people to collaborate and access your files. For more access and storage you need to open a paid Soonr account.

http://www.soonr.com.

Box.net (Free)

Box.net is one of the most popular file sharing and collaboration service on the web. It’s iPhone app was also recently made available and it lets you easily access your files from anywhere and securely share content with anyone. Box.net’s lets you do the following:

• View your Box content on-the-go: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, PDF files, images and Box Web Documents
• Share direct links to your Box files and folders with any of your iPhone contacts
• Monitor updates to your Box account – see when someone’s uploaded the latest copy of that contract you’ve been waiting to see
• Upload images from your iPhone’s photo library or camera roll – great for sending a picture of your whiteboard notes to a shared folder on Box, letting you collaborate with colleagues

Box.net offers a free account with 1GB of storage. You can register at http://www.box.net.

ZumoDrive (Free)

ZumoDrive for the iPhone goes by the tagline – “Supersize your iPhone.”  If offers a free account with 1GB of storage. It supports various files including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and PDF. Conencting to the site using your iPhone is also fast via Wi-Fi, 3G or EDGE. ZumoDrive also promises that your files are protected by encryption and stored safely on redundant servers. Other file formats supported by ZumoDrive include -  PDF, TXT, Keynote 09, Pages 09, Numbers 09, code files (and other plain text files), music files, JPG, TIFF.

MobileMe iDisk (Free)

This iPhone needs no further introduction. It is connected to Apple’s MobileMe services. It allows you to assign a password to your files before sharing them.

MobileMe’s features include:

• View files on your iDisk
• Access Public folders
• Easily share files from your iPhone
• Quickly access recently viewed files
• View iPhone-supported file types–including iWork, Office, PDF, QuickTime and more. (Files larger than 20MB may not be viewable.)

Of course, MobileMe iDisk requires MobileMe subscription which is kind of pricey. If you want to test the service first you may register for a trial account which will last for 60 days.

Visit the MobileMe site – http://www.apple.com/mobileme.

This blog was created only last August 2009 but you can already find some useful tips and hacks regarding Jailbroken iPhone. Some of the great posts in the blog include – browsing your iPhone/iPod Touch files on a PC, Cydia iPhone apps recommendation, to installing hacked apps and more.

iPhone World

The site has a good materials and information about tips and tricks, and a comprehensive collection of articles on jailbreaking the iPhone.  From installing Cydia over SSH, freeing your iPhone’s RAM, tips about Winterboard theme users and other useful things you should know about Cydia iPhone.

iLikeMyiPhone

If you’re looking for unlocking tools, free iTune Songs to download, and activate, jailbreak and unlock various iPhone firmwares, this site is your ultimate source.

iPhoneinCanada

Has a good list on the top five iPhone Cydia/Installer third party apps. If you haven’t done so, you may want to download and install these apps on your jailbroken iPhone – PDANet, QIK, Quickgold,Bossprefs and Winterboard.

iPhone Software Central

Contains a pretty number of Cydia apps that you can download and install on your iPhone. Some of the good Cydia apps listed here include MobileTermina, NESapp, Bite SMS, Customize, and more.

iPhone Cydia Torrent Search

Useful Cydia iPhone goodies.

iPhone-Hacks

As the site’s name, you can find loads of goodies for unlocking and jailbreaking your iPhone here, including Cydia installation.

Rock Your Phone

This site has a good collection of cool apps that you can try out for free and then purchase it later if you find the apps interesting.

Folkd.com Social Bookmark for Cydia

If you’re looking for comprehensive write-ups about Cydia iPhone, here are links and resources bookmarked by Folkd.com. There are about 34 bookmarks available so you got a lot of chances to find what you are looking for.

iPhone Cydia FAQ

Here’s a good FAQ discussing everything that you need to know to have a pleasant Cydia iPhone experience.

Cydia Official Site

Of course our list of ten online resources for Cydia iPhone will not be complete if we don’t include the official Cydia site. There several valuable user guides as well as the different Cydia packages available.

Camera Bag (Price: $1.99)

This could perhaps be one of the best camera-related iPhone app. It lets you apply effects that mimic old manual cameras including Helga, Fisheye, 1976, Mono, 1974, Infrared, Cinema, Lolo, Instant and 1962. I’m sure you’ll have fun using Camera Bag. If you want sample photos taken using camera bag, check out this Flickr photostream.

Camera Genius (Price: $0.99)

Next to Camera Bag, Camera Genius is also one of my favorite iPhone camera apps.  This app extends your iPhone cameras functionality with features that you will surely love. It lets you capture group photos through noise or by uttering the word “cheese”. It has anti-shake stabilization that effetively reduces blur in your photos, a timer so that you can join group photos (if you have a dock), camera guides for composing and aligning photos, review button, and a bigger easier to tap photo button. In addition, the app also keeps track of the number of photos you’ve taken.

Lomo Camera (Price: $2.99)

I recently bought Lomo Camera after finding out that Camera Bag didn’t have the lomo effect. It’s a bit pricey compared to other iPhone camera app but hey, getting a Lomo Camera is expensive as well. And this the next best thing to owning such camera actually. What this app does is to let you apply various Lomo Effects to your photos based on the popular LC-A camera.

Toy Camera (Price: $1.99)

Another cool camera-related iPhone app. Toy Camera lets you add effects to your iPhone photos including vintage green, vintage warm, vintage yellow, low saturation, high saturation, toningsepia, Black&White, and HiCon Black&White. The app also lets you set your photo size from 426px to 1600px.

Night Camera (Price: $0.99)

If you find yourself in need of taking snapshot of something at night or in a low-light environment, Night Camera app can help you take decent looking photos using your iPhone camera. While this app may be effective in adding some light to your photos, using it may be a challenge at first since the app utilizes the iPhone’s accelerometer to determine whether your hands are stable and no longer shaking before it takes the shot.

Camera Zoom v1.1 (Price: $0.99)

If a 4x digital zoom-capable camera sounds good to you, well this app does the trick effectively. It’s a simple app made for the simple reason – to let you zoom-in on a subject before taking your shot. As this is for digital zoom only, don’t expect too much high-quality photo output from this app. Just about right for its price.

HDR Camera (Price: $1.99)

If you’re a digital photography enthusiast, you’d know that HDR photography is quite popular among photo enthusiasts today. Producing HDR photos is not easy though even if you have the most powerful photo editing software. If you have an iPhone, all you need is this app and you’ll have HDR photos in an instant.

Perfect Photo (Price: $0.99)

What if righ after you’ve taken a photo using your iPhone, you can immediately edit it? To be specific, what if an app lets you denoise, crop, rotate crop, flip the image you taken? Or adjust your photos gamma, brightness, contrast, sharpness, shadow balance, highlights and hue? Perfect photo, right? This app might just help you achieve that.

PhotoEffect (Price: $1.99)

Here’s another fun app to use on your iPhone which lets you add special effects to your photos. PhotoEffect lets you alter, personalize, and apply various effects to photos you’ve taken using your iPhone camera. These effects include – black and white, sepia, sunset, vintage, retro, toy camera, posterization and pop art. It also lets you resize your photos into either 600×900 pixels or 900×1200 pixels.

Camera Super Flash (Price: $1.99)

One of the low-down of the iPhone camera is of course the lack of flash. It’s not that we expect it to have one, after all it’s a mobile phone and not a digital camera. Thankfully, there are several apps available that adds a flash functionality to the iPhone camera and one of these apps is Camera Super Flash. Simply put, this app adds high-quality digital flash enabling your iPhone camera to produce bright photos. The app lets you save your photos up to 1200×1600 pixel resolutions.

There you go, 10 best camera-related iPhone apps the enhances and extends the capabilities of your iPhone camera.

Adium

We all need to continue communicating to our online buddies whether they are PC or Mac users. I sorely missed GTalk, my sole chat facility in my previous desktop and notebook PC, so I immediately scoured around the web to find the best chat platform – I found Adium, an open-source chat software that you won’t have a problem running on your new Mac.

What’s so good about Adium X is the fact that it integrates all your chat account. So, not only did I get my GTalk buddies but my Yahoo Messenger and even Facebook buddies on the Adium chat window.

Textedit

I know you’d miss Windows Notepad on the Mac. I did actually. It’s a good thing the Mac comes bundled with its very own, and as equally useful Note-taking software called Textedit.  Textedit is a no frills, no shrills straight-out text editor for your Mac. And if you want some formatting features, the software gives you basic tools for changing font color, sizes and styles.  Textedit also allows you to save your file into various format including Microsoft Word 2007 .docs format.

TweetDeck

If you’re a heavy Twitter user, you’d definitely want to have a desktop client for your Twitter account. There’s quite a lot of them available right now. But look no further than TweetDeck – possibly the best Twitter desktop client so far. TweetDeck is robust, sleek-looking and so light weight that you can just let it run in your desktop background. It also allows multiple Twitter account setting so you can see your all your Twitter updates without switching applications.

QuickSilver

The Mac’s Finder utility is useful and cool tool for accessing all your files, downloads, documents and essentially everything that is on your Mac HD. It’s the Windows Explorer of Mac users. While it may be useful for one-tier file structure, it becomes tedious once your file structure gets deeper with sub-folders and sub-directories. So, QuickSilver offers a better solution.

Quicksilver lets you find what you need quickly and easily through the use of keyboard shortcuts. It also hides in the background whenever you are not using it.

GIMP for Mac OS X

Although the Mac’s default image management software, iPhoto is good enough for handling your digital photos as well as for some image editing requirements, there will still come a point when you would want a powerful image/photo editor in your Mac. Well, you can always buy the expensive Adobe Photoshop, but if you run out of budget after buying your precious Mac – GIMP offers a free solution.

GIMP is a popular Photoshop alternative used by many who doesn’t want to spend too much on an image/photo editing software. It mostly does what the Adobe Photoshop can do.

Ecto Desktop Blogging Software

I’m not really fond of desktop blogging software before, but when I found out about Ecto, I decided to give it a try. I was surprise to find a great-looking, sexy desktop blog application that runs fast when connected to my blogs.

Ecto is an easy-to-use desktop blogging software that supports various blogging platform including Blogger, Srupal, Movable Type, TypePad and WordPress. It’s also a native Mac OS X app so you can use the default Mac editing options when composing your blog entries.

Audacity

If you think that you’ll be doing some recording and sound editing on your Mac, Audacity could help you achieve this task. Audacity is a free, easy-to-use and multilingual audio editor and recorder that lets you record live audio, convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs, edit Ogg Vorbis sound files, as well as MP3, WAV or AIFF sounds, cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together, change the speed or pitch of a recording and more.

Skim

If you would be working with PDFs on your Mac, you need to have a good PDF reader.  Skim for OS X is a good app to use since it is not only a PDF Reader but a note-taker as well. It lets you read and annotate PDF and view them as well. Skim also lets you highlight text, take snapshots, create presentations with transitions, magnify documents and add bookmarks.

NeoOffice

Alright, you’re already using a Mac but you might still be missing Microsoft Office and you don’t want to spend additional bucks to get Microsoft Office for Mac. No worries, we’ve got a free open-source Microsoft Office-like software for your Mac. It goes by the name – NeoOffice.  It is based on OpenOffice.org and brings with it integrated native Mac features and also allows you to import, edit, and exchange files with of course Microsoft Office.  Honestly, I haven’t installed this app yet on my Mac as I have no particular need to word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software. Perhaps later.

These are just some of the essential Mac Softwares that every new Mac user should have on their new Mac. If you have other suggestions, feel free to tell us by leaving a comment.

iPhone Applications for Wireless File Transfer

1) Discover

Discover is amazing! All you have to do to start transfer files from your iPhone to computer is download and install the iPhone app. That’s it! Later you will be able to connect to your iPhone using address that Discover app will generate and you are free to manage and transfer files. You can see how easy it is in the video below. Did I mentioned it’s FREE?!

2) Air Sharing

Air Sharing is another application for wireless file transfer between iPhone and computer. It have a bit more functionality than free Discover application, maybe that’s why it actually costs few dollars. Air Sharing have also PRO version with even more functionality and different features such as file operations (move, copy, paste, folder management), ZIP/UNZIP files, encrypted PDF and many more. Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch.

Desktop Clients Using USB Connection

So far I have used two desktop applications which allows you to transfer files between your computer and iPhone using USB cable.

1) iPhone Browser

iPhone Browser is very powerful desktop application for managing files on iPhone from your PC (yes, it works only on Windows). This app can do many things form simple file transfer to crating backups for your entire iPhone.

2) DiscAid

DiskAid is very intuitive application that creates easy way to transfer files between computer and iPhone. Speaking about supported devices it will work with all versions of iPhone (V1, 3G, 3GS) and iPod Touch V1 and V2. You can use this app for free only 14 days, later it will cost you $9.90.

148apps One of the most popular iPhone and iPod Touch application review sites that provide reviews and ratings for latest apps. Check out also latest iPhone app price drops and get your applications for lower price.

 AppVee Also a large website dedicated to iPhone app reviews and ratings. Most of the reviews are dedicated to games so if you love to play them on your phone check out for coolest games on AppVee.

AppCraver Great website whre you can find not only applicatin reviews but also interviews with app developers and store with coolest iPhone accessories. Speaking about reviews on AppCraver, there is a section of top free apps – if you don’t want to spend too much for your applications check it out.

WhatsOniPhone It is amazing how many app reviews you can find on this site – I think they reviews them all! Besides reviews you can find there latest hardware related to iPhone and developers corner – who told you that you can make your own apps?

Apptism Great resource for finding latest information on applications. Track your favorite applications and find latest articles, reviews on them. Here you can find also galleries of images how current application looks like and even videos showing how these apps works on your device.

I hope that these resources will help you to find and choose your applications. If you know more great resources covering latest apps feel free to drop a comment below!

and it’s been an eye-opening experience!

Gosh things have gotten expensive. The one item in particular that I flagged as a “do we really need that” purchase were paper towels. There’s always room to better greenify my life, but I’ll admit when it comes to two-ply Bounty, I take some excessive liberties.

In an effort to protect and conserve the environment, Greenpeace has released an iPhone application for its popular “Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide.”

Now you can find the greenest paper products as you mill up and down the tissue aisle.

Greenpeace recommends companies manufacturing paper products that:

1) contain 100 percent recycled content

2) at least 50 percent of which is from post-consumer materials)

3) avoid the use of chlorine or chlorine compounds in the whitening process.

Features of the application include:

• The ability to quickly compare household paper brands while in the grocery store;

• A list of environmentally preferable tissue, toilet paper, paper towel and paper napkin brands.

• Brand specific information including the percentage of recycled content, the percentage of p

Well-known brands such as Kleenex, Charmin, Angel Soft, Cottonelle, Brawny, and Scott do not fare well with Greenpeace.

The application is now available for download for the iPhone and Google Android.

Next, we have Facebook’s Zuckerberg announcing that Facebook has reached  milestone in terms of membership – 200 million active users.  And to celebrate their achievement, Facebook decided to do some good deeds as well as to document this milestone by way of the fan page Facebook for Good. You can do your part by purchasing some of the featured gifts in the Facebook shop.  Part of the proceeds from the sale of those items will go to some charitable institutions. It’s Facebook’s little own way of paying it forward.

A few days after releasing the Yahoo News App for the iPhone, Yahoo released its native Messenger iPhone app. It’s a full-featured YM iPhone app which I would really like to have on my iPhone. But unfortunately, the app is not available to all iPhone users yet. But if you are located in the US, you might want to check it out.

Gmail also joined the noise this week with two new features from the Gmail Labs – Inserting images and Sender time zone. Like I said in my previous post, I like the Sender time zone feature as it makes Gmail an instant time zone converter.

And finally the biggest news to hit the IT scene this week – Twitter is exponentially growing. Facebook may have reached its 200 millionth users, but look who is hot on the trail? Twitter of course. Twitter’s site traffic has reached the 10 millionth mark in March and continuous to grow everyday.  And with two of the major internet players rumored to be looking at possibly acquiring Twitter, we could only say that Twitter is now the hottest commodity today.

That’s it for this week. Who knows what will happen next week? Stay tune for more coverage here at RotorBlog.

Instant message: Send text messages back and forth with your friends, including emoticons and web links.

Photo sharing: Take a photo on your iPhone and send that, or grab one from your photo gallery to share.

Stealth settings: Sign in as invisible, or change your status to invisible once you’re in the app.

Custom status message: Enter a custom status message for your friends to see. You can even include a web link with it.

Recent conversations archive: Under Messages, tap a contact and you’ll see your most recent conversation. You can type in a message from there to start chatting again.

Special idle state: If you have to leave the app for whatever reason, like a call comes in or you click a link in an IM that takes you to Safari, the Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone app will keep you signed in but change your status to idle. That way you can continue to receive messages and provided you return to the app within ten minutes, pick up where you left off.

Additional settings: Tap the Settings icon to change the sort order of your contact list, or to show or hide offline contacts in your list.

In short, the Yahoo iPhone app has all the great features of the web interface and so you won’t really find a problem is using it. The app is not really hard to use, but if you want to see how it works first, you might want to watch this demo video prepared by the YM People.

Yahoo! Messenger for the iPhone demo video from Yahoo! Messenger on Vimeo.

Specifically the Skype iPhone app lets you do the following:

• Make free Skype-to-Skype calls from any Wi-Fi zone to other Skype users

• Call landline or mobile phones at low rates from any WiFi zone.
• Send/receive instant messages to/from individuals or groups via 3G, Wi-Fi, GPRS or EDGE (whichever is available)
• Receive calls to a personal online number on Skype
• See when Skype contacts are online/available to IM or talk

The Skype iPhone app also displays your Skype Contacts’ photos when you view your Contacts list. It also allows you to update your own Skype profile picture using your iPhone’s camera to take new photos of yourself, or use an existing photo from your iPhone’s photo album.

I’ve just installed the application on my iPhone and tried calling a friend’s Skype number. Unfortunately I couldn’t hear him speak since he doesn’t have a mic installed on his PC. But he said that he can hear me pretty clearly.

What I noticed though when making Skype-to-Skype calls or perhaps even when calling landline or mobile numbers is that it takes a longer time to connect a call. The application routes the call first before connecting. This might make an impression that the application is not actually working.

But other than that, I would have to say that the Skype iPhone app is pretty much a robust and well developed application. And I could see Skype getting a usage boost from iPhone numbers who have been waiting to have this application on their iPhone.

If you want to test the app, feel free to add my Skype account -> aczafra

via

So, what does this mean really? It means that whenever you have achieved a high score in Tap Tap Revenge 2, you can share it with your Facebook friends, or have it appear on your Facebook profile updates.  Other games which started adapting Facebook Connect include the following:

• Agency Wars
• Binary Game
• iBowl
• Live Poker
• Tap Tap Revenge 2
• Urbanspoon
• Who Has the Biggest Brain?
• Whrrl

Those are a few but we expect to see more applications getting into this frenzy in the coming days. So expect your Apps Store to prompt you with updates for the apps that you have already downloaded. I’ve updated my Tap Tap Revenge 2 installation it is now Facebook Connect – enabled.

So, how do you enable Facebook Connect on the apps that support it? You’ll know it by checking the options link of the apps. If the app has adapted Facebook Connect you will be asked to login in to your Facebook account. 

So, what does this have to do with Google Friend Connect? and what does this mean to Facebook Connect? It’s not really hard to deduce. Facebook Connect has been battling it out with Google Friend Connect on the web, so the smartest thing to do for the Facebook Developers is to make Facebook Connect available to the most popular mobile handset today – the iPhone. And they did. The sweetest thing is they beat Google Friend Connect to it.

Imagine the implications of this development to Facebook Connect once all the apps available at the Apps Store have enabled Facebook Connect. Now who says Google has started conquering the world with the recent launch of Google Voice? Facebook is stealthy doing its part to spoil Google’s objective.