store

Dark and lustrous, Twitterrific for iPhone is one of the best-looking apps from the iTunes App Store I've seen all day. The application, originally built for Mac by software publisher Iconfactory, is a premium Twitter updater a free trial that sells for about $15. This iPhone app, however, comes as a free ad-serving version or as a premium version.

Twitterrific is also one of the more complex applications, and it takes its role as a Twitter service seriously, serving up a an environment, tweeting experience, and navigation--complete with hints!--all its own. Twitterrific has also maximized on the iPhone … Read more

When the native eBay app for iPhone was demoed at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco in June, Webware.com Editor Josh Lowensohn commended it for its slickness, storage capacity, and winning looks. The eBay for iPhone application is indeed easy on the eye and similar in look and feel to eBay Desktop that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux on the AIR platform. At least the home screen is.

After that, the application might as well be considered eBay Light. You can quickly take in an overview of your personal stats on the home screen to see … Read more

Microsoft hasn't committed to any iPhone apps. However, if I was a betting woman, I would put my money on something coming from Microsoft's Tellme unit.

Tellme is the speech recognition company that Microsoft bought last year. Among its many products is one that lets you speak a search term into a phone and get back a screen with information--say the location of the nearest gas station or pizza parlor.

Tellme CEO-turned-Microsoft executive Mike McCue has been spending a lot of time these days integrating his voice search technology with Windows Mobile. However, Tellme has also continued to … Read more

We've had a few minutes to play with the Remote App (download) for the iPhone. The (not surprising) verdict? It's an easy must-have for any iPhone or iPod Touch owner who enjoys listening to music at home.

Once you've upgraded your iPhone (or Touch) to version 2.0, just go to the App Store and search on "remote." (Amazingly, that--not "iRemote"--is the program's official name.) You can download it straight to the phone over a Wi-Fi connection (tap the word "free" on the upper right corner), and it auto-installs, adding a new icon to your home screen. … Read more

Loopt was one of the first companies to strut its stuff in an onstage demo at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference in June, and Sam Altman, the CEO of the location-aware social networking app, said the iPhone version is "the best version of Loopt we've ever created."

It shows.

Thanks to an early release of iTunes 7.7 (for Mac and Windows) and the App Store, that version of Loopt is available--for free--for anyone willing to risk the unofficial firmware upgrade today or the official Friday upgrade.

I've done the former, and Loopt's … Read more

When Apple launched its App Store on Thursday, I checked to see if I could find anything from Redmond.

There were applications from Salesforce.com and Oracle, but nothing from Microsoft. The company has made some noise about wanting to be on the iPhone, particularly with Silverlight, but it doesn't appear the software maker has anything imminent.

"I'm not aware of anything," said Scott Horn, a general manager in Microsoft's mobile communications business. Microsoft has said that it was looking at Apple's software developer kit and I wouldn't be surprised if some business … Read more

With so much fairy dust in the air over Apple's day-early release of the App Store and iTunes 7.7 (for Windows and Mac), it's easy to get caught up in the excitement. And we are excited. Being the intrepid reviewers we are, we're taking the unofficial iPhone 2.0 firmware for a ride to test out some of these apps. Be forewarned that the firmware has not yet been Apple-approved for wide release and cannot be vouched for.

More than 500 applications are already clustered in the App Store, many of them tiny apps and widgets … Read more

Now that Apple has officially launched the App Store, everyone seems excited about the possibility of expanding the functionality of their favorite cell phone and doing more with the same old hardware. I can't fault them for feeling that way, but I don't see any reason to spend money on it.

Undoubtedly, Steve Jobs will come out in January at Macworld and discuss how well the App Store is performing, thanks to strong iPhone app sales and even a few iPod touch sales thrown in for good measure. He'll discuss the benefits of using the App store and why we should all buy up "some of the best applications in the world."

It makes sense -- Apple has a vested interest in the success of the App store and certainly wants to see you buy more software than download for free because it gets a piece of the pie on all profits.

But as for me, I don't see any reason to spend money in the App store and I definitely won't. It's not that I'm protesting anything or trying to stand my ground, it's just that I think there will be so many great free apps in the store that I won't even need to worry about paying for software.

It may sound a bit radical, but trust me, I don't think you'll be spending too much money in there either.… Read more

As expected, iPhone and iPod Touch owners can now use their devices as remote controls for their iTunes libraries and Apple TV boxes.

The feature is now available as a download in the new iPhone applications store, which went live on Thursday morning. With the free, one-megabyte application installed, an iPod Touch or iPhone can use a Wi-Fi connection to control and search through an iTunes library remotely, flip around on an Apple TV, and control AirTunes speakers.

Most new Apple products already come with remote-control devices that perform the same functions, but using the iPhone download conveniently renders them … Read more