Crave

You can control the iPhone's music playback within the Gokivo GPS app.

(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)

You have two main options when it comes to GPS apps for the iPhone: apps with offline maps and apps with online maps. Examples of apps with offline maps are the Navigon, the iGo My Way, TomTom, or the recently added Magellan RoadMate.

These apps are excellent for frequent users as they don't require a live data connection to work. All the maps are included with the app and downloaded to the phone. However, they tend to require gigabytes of storage space and take a long time to install. If you plan on going on a long road trip, they are good fits.

If you are a casual user, however, it's better to use an online GPS application. These applications are just a few megabytes in size and therefore take a few seconds to download to the phone via a 3G connection. This means you can immediately get one the moment you suddenly need turn-by-turn directions.

The first online GPS app for the iPhone is the AT&T Navigator, which works pretty well. Unfortunately, it's only available to AT&T customers and is rather expensive ($10 per month) for what it offers. The good news is, you now have other and more flexible choices.

HP App Studio

(Credit: HP)

HP just opened up its new Printer Application Studio to coincide with the release of the HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web slated for the end of this month. The site will offer visitors the chance to browse apps that extend the usability of the Web-connected printer, all available as free downloads directly to the device.

In a similar fashion to Apple's iPhone App store, HP's version can also be accessed using the "Get More" button on the large 4.33-inch touch screen. I had a chance to preview the store in a live demo with HP and the layout is very simple, with small icons and a place to submit user ratings, reviews, and suggestions for future applications. The marketplace is already populated with several applications from HP's partner companies. Some examples include:

• Snapfish: View, edit (lightly), and print your snapshot photos
• Google Maps: Print maps and directions
• Fandango: Buy and print movie tickets
• DreamWorks Animation: Print coloring pages and movie-themed games for the kids
• Weathernews Inc: Print up-to-date weather information
• Web Sudoku: Print out puzzles and games

HP also has the last piece of the puzzle in the form of the HP Software Developers Kit that will eventually give consumers and developers the tools to create their own Apps for submission to the App Studio. In the meantime, HP will continue to update the store with new apps throughout the year.

More pictures after the break.

After months of anticipation, singing robot T-Pain has finally unleashed his secret weapon: an iPhone application that gives users the power to make their tone deaf voice sound...just as crappy. But digitized! The iPhone application is called I Am T-Pain, and it might be the end of music as we know it.

Even though T-Pain isn't the first artist to use the Auto-Tuner, this is the easiest and cheapest way to obtain the popular vocoder software that disguises and corrects improper pitch by distorting the human voice.

The $2.99 app is a portable version of the tool that includes an instrumental collection of T-Pain's greatest hits in addition to a "Freestyle" mode to cover your own songs. You can also record yourself singing and easily upload the tracks to various social networks.

I installed the app on my iPhone and it works pretty well, but instead of "Buy you a Drank (Shawty Snappin')" I went for Cher's timeless hit "I Believe" on today's episode of The 404 Podcast. Check it out and let me know if I have a future in the recording industry.

Check out more screenshots of the I Am T-Pain iPhone app after the jump.

Navigon shows an image to help you pick the right freeway, which is helpful but can be annoying, as the image takes up the whole screen for a few seconds.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

I'm a big fan of GPS navigation devices. Actually, I depend on them. It's therefore natural that on my iPhone 3GS you'll find both the newest turn-by-turn GPS navigation applications, the $70 Navigon and the $80 iGo My Way. Both have just recently been released to the App Store. (In my car I also have the Tom Tom One XL.)

After about a week of using the iPhone apps in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as in a few other states, here are my impressions.

First of all, both Navigon and the iGo can turn your iPhone (3G or 3GS) into a decently dependable GPS navigator. They both take about 15 seconds to load on my iPhone 3GS and about the same time to lock in with a GPS signal when outdoors. This is much faster than the Tom Tom, which can take up to a minute or two. Overall, the iGo My Way seems to pick up the signal faster than the Navigon, but it also loses the signal more easily, especially when in a big city with lots of high-rise buildings.

My biggest disappointment with both is that they don't offer real-time traffic updates, which you can get anywhere in the States with Google Maps.

Both apps offer beautifully rendered 3G maps that can be viewed vertically or horizontally, and a very convenient way to enter a new address or find a point of interest (POI). They come with good databases of POIs, too. I was in a few rather remote areas and was able to find what I needed. However, the database is not very updated--twice, both apps took me to restaurants and bars in La Cross, Wis., that were no longer there. Unfortunately, you can't tab on the listed POI to call its phone number, which defeats the main purpose of the iPhone, which is, after all, a phone.

Here's an interesting solution for anyone who has a killer idea for an iPhone app but doesn't know the first thing about software development: Moobila turns your idea into an app and markets it on the App Store.

Actually, the company specializes in turning existing corporate software into iPhone apps, thereby eliminating the need to train or hire programmers.

But Moobila also provides an opportunity for budding entrepreneurs to see their ideas turned into potentially money-making software. You pay for the development; you keep whatever revenue it generates.

Want to see a few proofs of concept? Moobila has already developed three iPhone apps, including tape-measure replacement iFlipMeasure and iPicolo, which lets you upload a photo to multiple social-networking sites at once.

You'll have to contact Moobila for a quote, of course, as no two apps are alike when it comes to development. But hourly rates start at around $15-20, according to a company rep.

We love having guests on the show, but it's always good to get back to our bread and butter: making fun of silly tech news! Today we cover several stories that've slipped through the cracks, including the new "Alice in Wonderland" movie, a new autotune iPhone application in the works, a new Queen of Text Messaging, and a huge Calls from the Public.

Johnny Depp as a ginger Mad Hatter.

(Credit: Disney)

I hadn't heard about this, but Jeff shells out some news about the upcoming "Alice in Wonderland" remake, directed by 404-favorite Tim Burton. Check out the video below to see the pictures and hear our comments, but so far we're pretty impressed with the CGI and makeup used on Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, and Matt Lucas. Wilson, film buff extraordinaire, has a healthy dose of skepticism based on Burton's recent disasters, but we'll have to wait until March 2010 like everyone else to see how it all pans out.

We also have more news to report about Autotune. Turns out T-Pain is in the process of developing his own Autotune application for the iPhone. Expect the usual dose of hatred from Beff Jakalar, but I'm personally a huge fan of autotuning no matter how much it's overdone. How can you listen to this and not want to get up and dance?

Thanks to everyone that's been leaving us voicemails. Rest assured that although we've had a long string of guests, we'll play all of them in the coming weeks. If you want to hear yourself on the radio, give us a call at 1-866-404-CNET and tell us how much you love/hate the show. You can also e-mail us at the404{at}cnet(dot)com. Check us out on Twitter and Facebook as well!

Version 1.5 of Google's mobile operating system is well on its way to bringing flashier features to Android phones. Some, like the virtual keyboard, are as sturdy and sensible as a bread roll, while others, like "live" dashboard folders and video recording and playback, pack in much more flavor and fat.

Until that blessed day arrives, here are nine free Android apps that take our G1 somewhere in between. You can download them all via the Market icon on your Google Android phone.

(Credit: Vimeo.com)

Moov: It calls itself a mobile interface, but in reality Moov is a launcher. From the dashboard view, slide open the keyboard and begin typing the first few letters of your MP3, application, address book contact, and so on to get a list of search suggestions popping up on a separate screen. Moov even helps you out by offering tabs that let you search your term in the publisher's other apps: Fbook, Quickpedia, Local (Yelp), and Dial Zero. I have to give Moov's developer, Next Mobile Web, a little credit--most of their apps made this top list, too. One setup note--for best results, make Moov the default search organism, or else you'll waste time choosing to search through the contact list or through Moov, and this app subsumes Android's own search.

Fusion Visual Voicemail: If you haven't yet discovered visual voice mail, don't waste another second. It's high time you scissor off the shackles of regular, "blind" voice mail. By simply forwarding your voice mail calls through PhoneFusion's service, you'll be able to see the messages stacked up in your in-box and listen to calls in any order you choose. You can play and pause the message, mark it unread, call or text the caller (extremely useful if you're in a meeting or another locale where it would be imprudent to field a call.) You can also add the contact, or even resurrect a deleted message. While PhoneFusion's visual voicemail service is free, it's likely that PhoneFusion will soon follow the lead of competitors on other platforms and offer premium services to transcribe voice messages into text, making them truly "visual."

(Credit: Apple)

We could stare at the countdown tickers on Worldometers all day. Wow, 10.3 billion toilets have been flushed so far today! So it's no wonder we love the Apple App store contest with its mesmerizing flipping numbers counting us down to the 1 billionth app download, when some lucky punter will win shedloads of Mac stuff and a $10,000 iTunes gift card.

As the hour approaches--we're topping 988 million and change at the time of this writing--Mobile Squared, a U.K. research company, is helping us game the system by figuring out when the crucial moment will occur. According to its totally unchecked calculations, D-Day is this Thursday afternoon, April 23, U.K. time (Thursday morning in the U.S.)--so that's two days for another 13 million downloads, app fans.

Mobile Squared notes that it took almost six months to reach its 500 million app downloads on January 19, and the following 500 million downloads have taken just 94 days, so the rate is picking up.

If you want to get in on the action, you don't even need an iPhone or iPod Touch: just enter online at the Apple Web site. We'd love the irony if an Apple hater won, so get involved.

(Via Crave UK)

The 404 studio starts its transition from toxic-waste dump site into a full-on video production system with the help of Buzz Out Loud star Jason Howell. Seriously, there are about six cameras in here pointed at things I don't even want to mention.

(Credit: Print Screen/CNET/Tricaster)

Lots on today's show. First, the Interwebs have tracked down the location of the suspected Domino's Pizza where a few employees rolled dough down their backs and stuck cheese up their nose. Speaking of douche bags, there's a new book coming out highlighting the antics of "that guy." You know, the one that strikes up a conversation at the urinal or, like Justin, who sends you pictures that leave you having nightmares. Rounding out the first half of the show, a 6-year-old boy can't return a brand-new PSP to Wal-Mart after he discovers pr0n on it.

On the second half, we've got some great voice mails, including a call from a special someone in Hawaii who wants to have Justin's babies. Stephen Colbert gets a treadmill named after him aboard the International Space Station. If you're addicted to the Internet, there's an application on the Mac that will help. And finally, AT&T allows parents and jealous boyfriends and girlfriends to track the location of their loved ones. Call it a social network and it's not big brother; it's awesometown.

Again, please RSVP for tomorrow night's BOL and 404 meetup at the Delancey in New York City at 7:30 p.m. Right now, only age 21 and up can come. We're working on trying to get 18+ to get in, but no guarantees. It is a bar, after all. If you can't make it though, please call in at 1-866-404-CNET (2638) to leave a callback or message about something asinine one of us said.