Webware

Trillian IM is finally available to iPhone users.

(Credit: Trillian)

It took a few months, but finally, Trillian IM is available to iPhone and iPod Touch users through Apple's App Store. The application costs $4.99.

Cerulean Studios, the company that created Trillian, said that Trillian for iPhone sports several features users will already find on the company's desktop software. The app displays contacts, grouped and sorted by their respective categories. Users can also view multiple chat windows in a tabbed display. Thanks to updates Apple has made to the iPhone and iPod Touch, Trillian for iPhone also supports copy and paste. As with Trillian for the desktop, users can set their status, choose an avatar, and set up different status messages.

Because the app is always connected to Cerulean Studios' Astra server, users can synchronize content across multiple IM clients. In other words, any changes made on the iPhone version of the app will immediately be reflected on the company's Windows client and the user's Astra profile. Any contacts users add will also be synchronized with their other clients.

According to Cerulean Studios, all chats are maintained on the server, so they are kept in case of a lost connection. The app will also alert users when they receive an instant message, regardless of whether Trillian for iPhone is open or not. When an IM is received, users will see a dialog box, hear the Trillian IM-notification sound, and be able to start Trillian and reply to the person.

Those interested in using Trillian for iPhone will first need a Trillian Astra account. Luckily, the iPhone app allows users to sign up for Astra from within the app.

This is a map I saved online from my desktop.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

Google Earth made a splash when it spun onto the iPhone last October, giving users the capability to explore the virtual globe for free from virtually anywhere with an Internet connection. But without some practical mapping features, like turn-by-turn navigation and street maps, Google Earth was largely a discovery tool that didn't have much real-world impact.

This week, Google Earth 2.0 for iPhone gets more useful by pulling those Google maps you saved in the My Maps section of the Google Maps Web site into the app's mobile orbit. In Google Earth, you'll tap the settings icon (the "i") and sign in to your Google Account. Just below the login field, there's any entry for My Maps. Tap it to view your saved maps, and tap again to select the map you'd like to zoom to. While you can view a saved location or route in Google Earth, the app doesn't replace Google Map's directions-dispending feature.

Google Earth for iPhone still spins its digital globe each time you switch locations, so if your maps are halfway around the world, expect a delay. It's also still slow to load each time, and the 2.0 model only makes the app larger, growing about 3MB in size since the first edition. But it has also gained other subtle features in version 2.0, including support for thirteen additional languages (listed below) and icons that glow as confirmation that you've tapped them.

Google Earth 2.0 for iPhone is available in 31 languages and dialects: English (U.S), English (UK), French (France), German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Arabic, Thai, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malaysian, Romanian, Slovak, and Croatian.

Download: Google Earth for Windows|Mac.

Video host Vimeo on Wednesday is launching support for users on iPhone/iPod Touch and Google Android devices. The company has re-encoded the entirety of its staff picks and HD video showcase, both of which are the most heavily trafficked areas of the site from Vimeo's members, and referrers like Twitter.

"We've been working on it for the last few weeks," Blake Whitman, Vimeo's director of community told CNET News. "This is sort of the prelude of offering Plus members iPhone support; and in the future, an app," he said. In the meantime, the only member videos that get chosen to get the mobile encoding treatment are those that get picked by the site's editors. "In the future, like the next several weeks--maybe longer, we'll be offering Plus users the option to transcode their videos to an iPhone version too." Whitman says those special encodes could end up as a download option alongside the links to the source file, letting users save a copy that could be played back offline.

Even with the change, Vimeo continues to face stiff competition from Google-owned YouTube, which automatically encodes an iPhone-friendly version of any video that's uploaded. The popular video-sharing service has also re-encoded most of its back catalog to make its videos playable on it, and other mobile devices that don't run Adobe's Flash player. That said, YouTube had a leg up on many of its competitors (Vimeo included) by being built into the phone's OS.

The new feature, and mobile-friendly version of the site should be live right now. Whitman says that those on iPhones/iPods and Android devices will see a special mobile version of any video page for those that have been re-encoded, however some videos that work on iPhones and iPods may not work on Android right out of the gate.

Some Vimeo videos can now be watched on iPhones, iPods, and Android devices.

(Credit: CNET / Vimeo)

When the long-expected development of smartphones and handheld devices into primary computers reaches maturity, Google wants to make sure it occupies just as strong a position on the small screen as it does on the big one.

Google set the stage for that future Monday when it announced a $750 million all-stock deal to acquire AdMob, which is considered one of the strongest ad network providers for the mobile-computing world. It's a familiar strategy; just as Google bought DoubleClick in 2007 to blend search ad expertise with display ad expertise, so it plans to add AdMob's network of partners to its own mobile search ad efforts.

For all the work Google does in other areas--Google Apps, Android, Google Voice--advertising has always been, and will likely remain, its most important source of cash. It dominates the most lucrative segment of online advertising (search) and wants to expand its efforts in display advertising as well with a revamped DoubleClick Ad Exchange and increased efforts to court the major advertisers of the world.

But unlike the PC-based Internet, the mobile Internet-advertising business is still very small and very fragmented, with dozens of companies claiming to play a leading role. AdMob founder and CEO Omar Hamoui said he had no idea how much market share his company had in the business of providing mobile ads to Web site publishers, although AdMob is considered by outsiders to be one of the strongest companies in this area due to its work with ad units for iPhone applications.

Google's AdMob deal is about blending the respective advertising strengths of the two companies in a fast-growing market.

(Credit: Google)

Few doubt the staying power of mobile computing, however. Even with mobile advertising accounting for just a fraction of overall online advertising in 2009 ($416 million out of a total online spend of $24 billion according to eMarketer figures quoted by Google), AdMob has been cash-flow positive for about a year as advertisers show increasing interest in trying out mobile ads on smartphones like the iPhone and Android-based devices.

Google said it thought getting AdMob's 140-person team inside its company was "a pretty unique opportunity," said Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google, in an interview following the announcement of the deal. Gundotra and Hamoui both cited the cultural fits between the two companies as helping to streamline a deal; San Mateo, Calif.-based AdMob counts three Google veterans among the 10 executives listed on its management page.

It's not clear yet how Google will integrate AdMob into its existing structure. Google already operates DoubleClick Mobile, an ad delivery service that allows publishers to sell mobile ads directly to advertisers through a variety of ad networks, including AdMob's. What it doesn't have is its own display ad network with the reach and heft of AdMob's 15,000 and growing name-brand advertisers, which allows mobile publishers to essentially outsource their ad sales.

AdMob's success with iPhone ad sales has gotten it to this point.

(Credit: AdMob)

It's also not clear whether AdMob will now become "the" ad network for DoubleClick Mobile customers, but that might exclude a lot of business: Google lists its own AdSense, the MBrand and Decktrade networks from Millennial Media, and AdMob as just some of the ad networks if offers for DoubleClick Mobile customers.

In addition, Hamoui said AdMob would continue to sell ads across many different types of phones, rather than focusing on Google's Android. The whole reason AdMob has grown to the level it has was because it was able to separate its technology from specific phones like the iPhone or Android, which gives advertisers a much broader reach than if the ad network focused on any one phone, he said.

Google is now positioned to offer a one-stop shopping experience for companies interested in online advertising, combining search and display ad possibilities on both regular Web sites and mobile sites and applications. As has been the case for so many Google products and initiatives this year, that will likely raise an eyebrow among federal regulators.

As such, Google said while it doesn't expect to encounter significant regulatory issues with the AdMob purchase, "closer scrutiny has been one consequence of our success. On that basis, we wouldn't be surprised if there were some regulatory review before the deal closes." Google said it hoped to wrap up the deal "in the next several months."

Google took great pains Monday to point out how small a deal this was in the grand scheme of the advertising market. It created a Web site devoted to the deal where it quoted competitors in support of its point that mobile-ad budgets are tiny at the moment compared to the overall amount of money spent on online ads.

But Google's willingness to cough up $750 million in stock--making this its third-largest acquisition once it's finalized--shows just how important it thinks this market will become over the next decade.

When asked how quickly Google might see a return on this deal, Gundotra emphasized the future possibilities over short-term financial concerns.

"Getting that group of talented people into our company is an unbelievable return," he said. "It's likely lead to products and innovations we haven't even thought of yet."

Securely see stored passwords on your iPhone.

(Credit: Siber Systems)

We have long regarded the RoboForm browser toolbar for Windows as an uberconvenient freemium tool for storing and securing scores of passwords. In contrast, the new iPhone app, RoboForm for iPhone, is decidedly less acommodating.

The problem isn't so much that you have to have a free online account to use RoboForm for iPhone, or even that to have the online account you must first fill up the desktop version--either the free or premium software--with credentials. Part of the trouble is more that restrictions in Apple's SDK inhibit RoboForm's usefulness. Other flaws stem from the application itself.

It's helpful to understand how RoboForm works on your PC. RoboForm installs as a system tray icon and as a browser toolbar. It works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. When you enter your log-in credentials, RoboForm offers to save them, storing a file protected by 256 AES encryption on your computer. Selecting that credential later on from RoboForm's list fills in the log-in. In addition, you can keep credit card information and other sensitive data secured away in RoboForm, filling in online forms with a click when you go to buy an item online, for example. RoboForm secures passwords, includes a password generator, and uses one master password to manage the rest of your passwords.

The iPhone version of RoboForm is a cross between a data store and a unidirectional syncing app. It can give you access to the passwords you store via RoboForm for the desktop, which makes the iPhone version inconvenient for new users. First-timers would have to first set up an account, install RoboForm, input their passwords, automatically install the company's GoodSync syncing plug-in, and sync the secret data to an online account for which they would also have to register. In contrast, existing users only have to sign up for an online account, if they don't have one already, and sync data.

Once on RoboForm for iPhone, you sync to the online RoboForm account to transfer over your passwords and other credentials. Sounds reasonable so far, but here's the catch. Since Apple doesn't allow multiple third-party applications to run simultaneously, you can only fill in passwords from within RoboForm for iPhone--by clicking the Login button--and only then once you've entered your master password.

RoboForm on the desktop automatically installs a syncing plug-in.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

A rival app, 1Password for iPhone, encountered similar hurdles when it debuted in July 2008 (review). Both 1Password and RoboForm for iPhone solve the tangle to some extent by including an in-app browser. The key to successfully using either app is to retrain yourself to open the password app to browse, instead of the Safari browser.

Assuming you believe that the benefits of RoboForm for iPhone outweigh the drawbacks of surfing the Web through a password app, there are two other solutions that might make RoboForm on iPhone less handy in some users' eyes. The iPhone's Safari browser features autofill in the iPhone 3.0 operating system update. If you opt out of that, you can take advantage of certain Web sites, like Google's Web apps, that offer to remember log-in credentials for you. RoboForm VP of Marketing, Bill Carey, counters that the software, in production for a decade, is more accurate in determining when to fill in credentials, and in some cases is more secure than browsers' password managers.

In addition to the awkward workaround for using RoboForm's smarts are other downsides. First, there are the known limitations. You cannot currently update or edit log-in information from within RoboForm on iPhone, making data currently one-directional--it flows into the iPhone, not out of it. RoboForm for iPhone won't work if your master password is four characters long. Your free account at RoboForm.com can't contain special characters, like the + or - symbol. RoboForm's publisher says that the company is working on fixes.

RoboForm downloads passwords to the iPhone from your online account.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

We also encountered weak spots in testing RoboForm for iPhone. RoboForm for iPhone's practice of placing the Login button on the same screen as the exposed password pricks our nerves. Sure, you've already logged in with a Master password at this point, so theft is not an issue, but potentially flashing that information in public is. In addition, we received a "page invalid" error message when attempting to log in to Gmail. The same action worked flawlessly on RoboForm for Windows.

RoboForm's Carey informed us this is a known issue in which long URLs like Gmail and Wachovia Bank break on mobile phone browsers. The fix is fast, but since you can't edit on the iPhone yet, you'll need to be in front of a computer. In RoboForm on the PC, click Tools, then Edit Passcards. Change Gmail's log-in URL to http://www.gmail.com, then sync online and sync the iPhone app.

Kludgey workarounds like this make the app workable while development continues, but the weak spots are many, and the alternative options to using RoboForm on the iPhone are at this stage more robust. Existing users will get the most from RoboForm for iPhone. New users may want to weigh other options for the time being.

If you're a fan of comic books, you should also be a fan of the iPhone. Apple's smartphone is home to several neat comic-book apps designed specifically for those who want to enjoy harrowing stories of their favorite heroes in the Digital Age.

I've sifted through the many apps related to comic books and found a handful that you'll want to try out. Whether you're a DC Comics fan or you're partial to Marvel, I think you'll like what you find in these apps.

Get your comic on

Clickwheel Comic Reader if you plan to read comic books on your iPhone, the Clickwheel Comic Reader will be able to satisfy that desire.

When you start using Clickwheel Comic Reader, you'll be able to sift through comic books and find one you want to read. The app doesn't have many of the classics like those you would find from an app like Comics or iVerse Comics (see below), but it does have some comic books you might care about. Either way, the app displays all your favorite content in full color on your iPhone. And since it's free, it's probably worth trying out if you don't mind reading a relatively small collection of books.

If you want to read some comic books, Clickwheel might be your choice.

(Credit: Clickwheel)

Comic Envi If you're more into comic strips than comic books, we have you covered too.

With the help of Comic Envi, you can check out some of your favorite comic strips. You can check out old, well-known comic strips, Web-only offerings, and more. You have the option of viewing them in a slideshow or by moving them with your fingers. You can also check out the daily updated strips or some of the titles in the archive. It's a neat utility, but beware that you will need to pay 99 cents to get it.

Check out Comic Strips with the help of Comic Envi.

(Credit: Comic Envi)

Despite increasingly better software, blogging on phones is still a real pain compared with doing it on a regular computer. However, credit is due to WordPress, which has gone to great lengths to make the latest version of its iPhone app much better for users to both create and manage their blogs on a small screen (and without a keyboard).

Besides a new look, one of the biggest changes is that the app remembers exactly what you were doing between sessions, so that if you quit it, or get a phone call, it will take you right back to the page or menu you were looking at. This also keeps you from losing anything you hadn't saved if you're interrupted--even if you were in the middle of a writing a sentence when your phone rang. This should change the beginning of such a conversation from "I am so mad at you right now" to a simple "hello."

In addition to remembering what you were doing, the app does a much better job at letting you manage user comments. The approval screen itself looks almost identical, but the app now lets you quickly switch between the ones that have been approved and the ones that still need to be looked at. It also displays each users' Gravatar (user icon) next to their username and URL, which ends up taking up a little more space than it did in the previous iteration of the app but adds a sense of familiarity with its desktop sibling.

Other small changes include the app remembering which order you uploaded the photos in so that they display in that same order in your post. Although the app still hasn't been updated to include videos, which means 3GS owners will have to add whatever video they shot through WordPress' Web interface instead. The app also now stores passwords in a user's keychain, which means those credentials could be accessed by other applications you may want to give access to later on down the line--like, say an app that lets you post videos to a WordPress blog.

Oddly enough, the new WordPress app is completely different from the original, which still exists but will no longer be updated. The company attributes this to having switched between having an outside contractor make the first version, whereas this new one was built in-house.

The new look makes it simply to hop between comments, posts and pages. User Gravatars are now visible too.

(Credit: WordPress)

If you're as excited for the World Series as I am, you're probably looking for some resources that will help you stay up-to-date on all the drama surrounding the Fall Classic between the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies.

I've compiled a list of different resources to help you prepare for the big games, which begin Wednesday. For iPhone users, I've thrown in a couple of apps for when you're on the go. So without further ado, let's get going on the baseball chatter.

World Series time

MLB World Series Major League Baseball's World Series page is a great resource for those who want to learn just about anything related to the Fall Classic.

When you get to the site, you'll be able to read the news, watch videos related to the game, and watch all the interviews you might have missed. When the game's playing, the site will give you some updates on the progress both teams are making. You can also play World Series trivia games, buy MLB merchandise, and more. It's a great place to learn more about the World Series.

MLB's World Series page is there for the taking.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

Even with the most practiced digits, composing long e-mail on the iPhone's virtual keyboard is the slow, awkward pits compared with typing on a desktop keyboard. However, Google released a small new feature on Monday just for long-winded iPhone e-mail authors that makes typing lengthy Gmail messages easier on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Before, the composition box was fixed. Starting today, verbose e-mailers will see blank lines appear below the cursor as you reach the bottom of the window. If there's a limit to how many lines you can add in a Gmail message, we haven't found it yet. We went crazy with the carriage return and created an estimated extra 100 lines for text without trouble. To review your message, just swipe up and down to scroll.

At this point, Gmail's composition window won't contract when you delete lines; expansion alone is the name of the game.

The expanding Gmail composition box is part of Google's iterative Web project for slowly introducing new features to Gmail mobile one at a time. The composition feature is available to iPhone and iPod users who reach Gmail via Gmail.com from the Safari browser.

Google's Gmail-for-mobile project began in April 2009.