fon

It may not be the absolute glossiest Twitter app for iPhone and iPod Touch, but the newly-renamed Echofon for iPhone is among the fastest and easiest to use. Your friends' timeline, the logical default screen, show new tweets in blue, for instant recognition. It's joined by screens to filter out tweets in which your own handle name is mentioned, your direct messages, and your favorites. There's also a search screen that can search for people and topics, can turn up trends--some of the popular topics at any given moment--and can also tap your geolocation to display public tweets … Read more

It may not be the glossiest Twitter app for iPhone and iPod Touch, but it is among the fastest and easiest to use. You'll be able to post and refresh the screen from each of the four tabs. Your friends' timeline is the logical default, followed by replies, direct messages, and a search screen that can also show you public tweets from people nearby.

Composing messages is especially cool. After pressing the word balloon, you can begin tapping the keyboard or can press one of three buttons to geotag your tweet, take or upload a photo, and select a … Read more

There's a new Wi-Fi sharing service launching at Demo 07: Whisher. This service competes with Fon, but has a very different architecture. (See News.com story.)

Fon asks its customers to install Fon-powered Wi-Fi access points on their broadband connections, and it makes them all into a global shared network. Whisher, by contrast, collects the access keys to the existing routers that its subscribers already use. In other words, to put your broadband connection on the Whisher network, you give the service your Wi-Fi access point's ID and security code (WEP or WPA key), and then Whisher holds … Read more