The Web Services Report

Dropbox was one of the companies that I was shocked to see didn't have an iPhone app when the App Store launched last summer. The service seems like it would mesh perfectly with the iPhone. After all, one of Dropbox's competitors, Soonr, launched its iPhone sync app in January. Unfortunately, Dropbox was MIA from our favorite mobile device for a long time. However, on Tuesday Dropbox released version 1.0 of its iPhone app. So, how does it stack up? Is it worth the wait?

This iPhone app is a great addition to Dropbox's offering. If you already use Dropbox and have an iPhone, then this free app is a no-brainer. If you don't use Dropbox, this app could be the thing that pushes you over the edge. It works beautifully, giving you instant access (with a network connection) to any of the files in your Dropbox. It also includes a "Favorites" feature in which you can designate a particular file to be automatically downloaded to your phone for offline viewing.

The app can view images (jpg, tiff, gif), music, movies (mov, mp4, m4v), Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Pages, and Numbers docs, PDFs, Keynote presentations, HTML pages, txt files and vcards. If you need to access a document in your Dropbox, this app will most likely allow you to view it. One of the cooler features is the music and movie streaming. If you have music or movie files stored in your Dropbox, they can be played back easily.

Finally, Dropbox lets you upload photos from your iPhone's photo library or take a new one to upload. While this functionality has already been implemented by many other apps (Flickr, Facebook, various Twitter apps), it still rounds out the offering nicely.

It's unfortunate that we had to wait so long for this app, but Apple's approval process, which often takes longer than five weeks, is partially to blame. As I said above, this app is a no-brainer if you already use Dropbox and it certainly acts as an incentive to new users.

You can download the Dropbox iPhone app here.

As if being the No. 1 free iPhone app of 2008 wasn't enough for Pandora, it has launched version 2.0 of its app just six days into 2009.

New features in this release include a progress bar for songs (finally!), 30-second previews for bookmarked songs, the ability to create a new station from a song or artist, artist information, cover-flow view for song history, and some sharing features.

While this update isn't anything revolutionary, it certainly rounds out the cool features in the app, like embedded iTunes purchasing. With Tuesday's Macworld announcement of iTunes downloads, now being possible over 3G, this could prove to be a very useful feature.

Creating new stations from artists or songs will add a lot to the capability and usefulness of this app as well. The new cover-flow view for song history behaves almost exactly like Apple's. The album covers flip over to reveal information on the artist and why that song was played. One annoyance here is that you cannot bookmark or purchase songs from this view. I suspect that this is an easily correctable issue.

The 2.0 update for Pandora improves upon an already killer and must-have application for the iPhone. It's available in the iTunes store.

Soonr, a Webware 100 winner in 2007, has a fresh new look and a killer iPhone application.

Soonr's free service and accompanying App Store download allows users to store up to 500MB of files, which they can access on the go, from the iPhone or a standard Web browser.

New users create their account on their iPhone and then download a desktop application (available for PC or Mac) which handles the synchronization of files. In the same form of other desktop-syncing applications, the user only has to choose the directories that they want to keep updated, and any changes made will be automatically uploaded. All of these files are easily accessible from the iPhone app.

Not only does Soonr allow you to have very quick access to your documents from the iPhone, but it also allows you to share the documents with other users. These users can view and comment on the file.

Unfortunately, Soonr does not currently enable users to edit these documents. But its application does include a wireless-printing feature, enabling users to send documents to networked printers when on Wi-Fi.

My only real gripe with the iPhone app is the lack of full-screen support within the document viewer. The iPhone's document viewer does a better job of actually displaying documents than Soonr's.

Soonr is a great solution for iPhone users looking to have constantly synchronized documents on the go. Soonr is very easy to use, fully featured and, best of all, free.

Via MG Siegler at VentureBeat.

iTunes Link

If ever there was a Web service that experienced a rapid fall from grace, it was online video start-up Joost. What started out as a much anticipated new service ultimately fell short of expectations and has recently struggled for attention. Friday, Joost released an iPhone app for its service that might be a game changer. Joost's iPhone app lets users stream and watch any of Joost's 46,000-plus videos for free.

Say what you will about Joost's library of content, the concept behind this app is fantastic. The ability to stream a movie, TV show, or other piece of video content on the go is great. I know the technology is nothing revolutionary--after all the iPhone has had a YouTube app, complete with streaming video, since the device launched. Even given that, when you load up Men in Black on Joost, it just feels like a whole different ballgame. This isn't a video of a dog on a skateboard anymore. This is real, Hollywood-produced content, delivered to your phone, for free.

I have not experienced the major hiccups that very early users, like MG Siegler did, so those issues seem to have been taken care of. I did notice some occassional stuttering of the stream over Wi-Fi. I am, however, disheartened by the lack of streaming support over EDGE or 3G. Joost requires a Wi-Fi connection to work.

Even though Joost appears to have a really slick UI (in many ways it does), it breaks some of the conventions for UI design set forth by Apple. Flicking to view the next page of search results does work. However, it does not slide over as you would expect, rather a spinning wheel is displayed while the next page loads. Joost also did not implement the incremental find that we have all grown accustomed to for searching.

For me, Joost's iPhone app falls just short of greatness. I really like what they are going for here, but I would certainly like to see more content added to Joost's library and support for 3G at the very least, if not EDGE. Even though the videos appear to choke at times, even over Wi-Fi, 3G should be more than capable of streaming video.

I hope that Hulu and Netflix, with their expansive content libraries, are paying attention to what Joost is doing because they are both prime candidates for this sort of mobile application. I get excited just thinking about having access to all of those videos (almost) anytime I want.

Facebook on Tuesday released version 2.0 of its popular iPhone app (iTunes Store link). This release contains a lot of the functionality that is in the full version of Facebook, making the iPhone version much more attractive. Some key features added include friend requests, notifications, people search, photo tagging/captioning, full News/Mini Feeds, message attachments, and inbox search.

The application, overall, seems to be more snappy and definitely has a better look to it. The inclusion of friend requests and notifications is big here, adding a whole new level of usefulness to the app. People search is also an extremely useful addition to the app, allowing you to find people who aren't already your friends. Additionally, photo tagging is integrated very well and along with captioning, makes the photo uploading part of the app fully functional.

A point of pain and confusion among my friends since Facebook launched their iPhone app has been the lack of message attachments. Messages would not display their attachments, creating miscommunication between those using the iPhone app and those using the browser based version. Thankfully, that issue has been resolved in this update.

This is the version that a lot of people were expecting at launch for Facebook's iPhone app. Many were disappointed by the lack of wall posting (which was quickly added) and other features on day one and this update should do well to satisfy them.

Utilizing Apple's ad hoc distribution program, Stitcher let a beta version of their iPhone app loose on 100 testers today. While the app suffers from some stability issues, due to its unfinished nature, Stitcher provides a slick solution to those looking for customized audio programming.

Stitcher is trying to be to news and information what Pandora is to music. The service provides you with a variety of audio programming, broken down by topics, such as sports, technology, and world news. Sources for the app include CNN, CNET, ESPN, AP, WSJ, Reuters, and a variety of local sources. As you rate the various audio streams and podcasts, Stitcher learns what you might like and serves up content.

My favorite potential application of Stitcher is to create your own customized station for listening to on your daily commute. You could make a station that kicks off your morning with the sports scores from the night before, followed up by the top headlines from CNN, stories from your favorite local news station, and capped off by discussion of the hottest tech stories from CNET.

While there is a bigger market for music, I think that there is a sizable market for customized news and information. A lot of people listen to news and sports on the radio and Stitcher makes it easy to have a highly personalized stream to get you caught up on what matters to you.

Stitcher is a free, ad supported app. There is no word yet on when the app is going to be available to the general public, but the limited beta test ends at the end of this week.

Have you ever been forced away from watching your favorite sports team because of some prior obligation, only to find yourself sneaking away to the nearest TV to check on the score? Well, then ScoreMobile's new iPhone app is for you. Essentially, ScoreMobile has taken its already killer iPhone web app and translated it over to a nice downloadable package. Right now, ScoreMobile offers real-time scores and stats for MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, NCAAF, NCAAB, and even CFL for our Canadian readers.

Even though I have dropped a lot of jaws by showing off the instantaneous video highlights that MLB.com's iPhone app provides, it is certainly lacking in the statistics department. ScoreMobile picks up the slack. The application gives live standings, lineups, and a variety of other statistics. Even though it doesn't have video highlights like MLB's app, the statistics provided here are much more robust.

The lack of sports applications that are available for the iPhone is really amazing to me. There is certainly a large market of sports fans out there, waiting to be tapped into. Despite the apparent void of good sports applications, ScoreMobile's app for iPhone is clearly the best available right now. It serves up rich and timely statistics and has a slick UI. The best part is that it's free, so it's worth your click to download it at the very least. You can give it a try here.

One of the most requested features for the iPhone is the ability to tether the phone to feed 3G or EDGE network data to your computer. That feature was briefly a reality Thursday, thanks to Nullriver's NetShare application. MacRumors reports that, priced at $9.99, the application seems to have, somehow, slipped below Apple's radar, but was pulled down after about 20 minutes of availability in the App Store.

The application basically turns your iPhone into a portable Wi-Fi hotspot, giving all of your Wi-Fi-enabled devices internet, wherever you have a cell signal. There are similar solutions available for iPhone users who have jailbroken their handsets, but they are significantly more complicated than Nullriver's offering, and since they require a hacked phone, don't hold mainstream appeal.

Wireless carriers have almost always been opposed to tethering smartphones with unlimited data plans. Many telcos even state in your contract that if you tether your phone, you may be responsible for additional fees associated with the data that you use. Of course, for an additional cost, you can tether some phones, such as a Blackberry, but Apple's iPhone doesn't offer legitimate tethering at any cost.

Those of us who were not quick enough to grab the app while it was available on the App Store seem to be out of luck for now. Links to the application now pop up with an error message that reads, "The item you've requested is not currently available in the US store." It's not exactly clear what happened with NetShare, how it slipped through the cracks, or why it was pulled. The app may have accidentally gotten through in the avalanche of new applications that are being added to the store, however it seems unlikely that someone at Apple would have signed off on this app, not knowing what it did. It would appear that either Apple, AT&T, or both had cleared the application, then quickly reconsidered. Apple has not yet responded to a request for a comment on the issue.

Along with over five hundred other applications, Facebook's iPhone app made its debut today. The application gives you easy access to your friend's updates and profiles, along with Facebook Chat and your inbox. Facebook's app also lets you take and upload photos directly to Facebook.

Viewing Facebook photos is really great in this app. They have implemented the same "flick" style of navigation that the iPhone uses and photos flip over to reveal comments. Overall, the UI is pretty intuitive and uses a lot of the same conventions that Apple does. Taking photos and uploading them to Facebook could not be simpler. Just tap the camera icon, take the picture, and tap to upload.

The installed application is a great improvement over the previously released web based version, which does not offer as high a level of functionality or as fluid of an interface. While I was initially skeptical as to the benefits to a standalone Facebook application, as opposed to just using the web based one, features like photo uploading and chat justify its existence.

Facebook has built an extremely slick iPhone application. My first impressions are extremely positive and Facebook has definitely earned a spot on my first page of icons. Its navigation is very fluid and the feature set is complete and easy to use. It was important for Facebook to have an application at launch for the iPhone App Store, with competition coming from a variety of other social networks, MySpace included, so it's good to see them bring such a solid offering to the table.