Digital Media

The app features every member of Congress, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

(Credit: Screenshot by Natalie Weinstein)

Apple's App Store has given a nod to an application that features bobble-headed caricatures of congressional politicians and provides contact information.

"Apple came to its senses yesterday and approved the app," Mad Magazine artist Tom Richmond wrote in his blog Saturday. "You have to wonder how much of the decision was based on the press [coverage] and image hit Apple had taken, and how much of it was simply that some overworked approval person rubber stamped it as a reject."

The Bobble Rep-111th Congress Edition app caught the public's attention this week after Richmond wrote a blog about the rejection and quoted from Apple's letter. The letter stated that the app violated the developer license agreement because it "contains content that ridicules public figures," according to Richmond's earlier post.

Apparently, someone at Apple didn't think it was particularly funny to see Richmond's 540 caricatured heads, which bobble around when an iPhone is shaken.

Richmond had called Apple's decision "truly ridiculous" and had written that the "caricatures aren't mean or very exaggerated."

The app costs 99 cents, which comes out to about one-fifth of a cent per politician.

(By the way, the 540 politicians includes the 100 senators, 435 representatives, and five nonvoting delegates.)

Say Tweetie, and most folks think: "I tawt I taw a puddy tat."

But as a social-networking kinda guy, Tweetie is the name of my favorite iPhone Twitter app.

Tweetie lets you access all the standard Twitter features on your iPhone. You can see and respond to the tweets you follow, post your own tweets, and search for tweets by keyword.

Tweetie offers a clean, friendly interface.

(Credit: atebits)

Tweetie has always offered a clean, simple interface. But with its newly-redesigned version 2.0, the app is even friendlier. The buttons to tweet, check mentions of your name, send a direct mail (DM), and search for tweets are now within easy access at the bottom of the screen.

Checking your own profile is also smoother. A single Profile screen displays your bio, location, and URL, as well as the number of your followers, those you're following, tweets, and favorites. Tapping on a category like Followers displays the names and photos of all the people tracking your tweets.

Tweetie 2.0 also sports a neat, new feature to let you update the list of tweets that you follow--simply drag your finger down the screen, and the newest tweets appear at the top with a pop.

Tweetie provides its own interface for viewing Web pages and other linked content in a tweet. Courtesy of the iPhone 3.0 update, the interface works in both portrait and landscape mode and offers options to view the page in Safari, e-mail a link to the page, or repost the link in your own tweet.

Options are plentiful when creating your own tweets. Like Twitter, Tweetie keeps track of every character you type, so you know when you're approaching that 140-character limit. You can attach photos or videos to your tweets, either by snapping them with the iPhone camera or grabbing them from your library. Your followers can then view them on yFrog, a site that lets you share images and video via Twitter.

You can attach photos and videos to your tweets through Tweetie.

(Credit: atebits)

Geotagging is another hot trend that Tweetie offers. You can add a Google Maps link to your current location in a tweet and search for other Twitter users in your area.

Like several other iPhone apps, Tweetie ran into trouble earlier this year with the Apple police, who initially denied approval of its 1.3 version over alleged naughty words in its Twitter Trends feed. Of course, Tweetie is just a conduit that displays whatever appears on Twitter, so it's ridiculous to ding the app for the content. Fortunately, Apple eventually OK'd the update, and it's been smooth sailing for Tweetie since then.

The Apple's App Store is loaded with other Twitter apps, and I've tried a variety of them--both free and paid, including Twitterrific and TweetDeck.

Twitter fans all have their own preferences. You can even vote for your favorite Twitter app.

But Tweetie is the app I've stuck with the longest, and the one I heartily recommend.

Tweetie 2.0 will set you back $2.99--even those of us who migrated from Tweetie 1.0 have to pay for the new edition. But the upgrade is well worth it. Tweetie 2.0 requires iPhone OS 3.0 or higher and is compatible with both the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Verizon is opening its Widget Bazaar up to third-party developers to create a richer application store for its Fios TV service.

(Credit: Verizon Communications)

Verizon Communications is about to open up its new Widget Bazaar to third-party developers to create an "app store" for its Fios TV service in a move that could forever change how people watch TV.

Verizon first announced the Widget Bazaar just a couple of weeks ago. Initially, the company described it as a storefront for new widgets or applications developed by Verizon partners for its Fios TV customers. At the time, Verizon executives downplayed the possibility of a sprawling Widget Bazaar teeming with thousands of applications developed by third parties.

Twitter widget for Fios TV.

(Credit: Verizon Communications)

But now Verizon is making it clear that the company has much bigger ambitions for the Fios TV app store, which includes opening its APIs and software development kit to third-party software developers. It also plans to create a process for approving those applications. And like the VCast app store, which was announced last week for new wireless applications, Verizon plans to allow developers to charge for their applications, and it will provide hooks into the company's billing systems so that developers can charge for their applications.

"From the beginning we said we wanted Fios to be a platform for innovation," Verizon CIO Shaygan Kheradpir said. "So we are not limiting innovation to any particular circle of developers. But we are taking things one step at a time. And we will start with applications from our partners, and then we'll move toward opening it up to third-party developers."

Details of how applications will be approved haven't been revealed, but it's likely the business arrangement for the Widget Bazaar will be similar to that of the newly announced VCast app store, which means that developers will likely keep 70 percent of revenue from their applications, while giving 30 percent to Verizon. This is the same ratio Apple uses in divvying up revenue for its popular iTunes App Store.

Kheradpir said Verizon will provide more details in the fourth quarter when it makes the Widget Bazaar developer SDK available.

Enhancing TV viewing
The first two applications created for the new Widget Bazaar were for the social-networking applications, Twitter and Facebook. Kheradpir wouldn't share usage numbers, but he said he has been surprised by the quick uptake in usage over the past couple of weeks. And already the company is evolving the applications based on subscriber feedback. For example, when the widgets launched, Fios TV subscribers were only able to read and access only basic information through the Twitter and Facebook services. But as of this past weekend, users are now able to post updates both on Twitter and Facebook.

Even as the company adds more functionality to the existing Widget services, Kheradpir said the company is being careful not to re-create the Web experience on the TV. This is a lesson that Verizon and others marching down the IPTV path have learned from Microsoft's early WebTV efforts in the late 1990s.

WebTV, which came with a keyboard, allowed people to surf the Net on their TVs. But Kheradpir argued that "surfing" isn't exactly what people want to do when they're sitting in front of their TVs.

"People don't necessarily want a full browser on their TV," he explained. "TV viewing is still very much a sitting back experience. And what people really want is a service that is relevant to the TV viewing experience and also provides a simple interface with one click access."

Kheradpir said that Verizon is not trying to completely change the act of watching TV, but instead the company is looking to enhance the TV viewing experience. He thinks that Verizon can do this by providing interactive applications that are contextually relevant to users and the media they are consuming.

This means allowing Twitter subscribes to view in real time Tweets about the TV shows or live events they're watching. The way it works is that the screen is split into two sections. And on one side a small window plays the video, while on the other side of the screen, the tweets fill up the screen.

On a personal note, Kheradpir said he found that linking Twitter to his Fios TV service actually improved his experience of watching the Academy Awards. The new Fios TV Twitter widget was being beta tested when the live awards ceremony aired in February.

"Awards shows like the Oscars can be really boring," he said. "But when I could watch it with the live Twitter feed, it was really funny. When Danny Boyle (director of the award winning movie "Slumdog Millionaire") took the stage, everyone started Tweeting, "Why is Rudy Guiliani up there?' I hadn't thought about it, but then I realized he does look a lot like Guiliani. It was really funny."

Kheradpir, who says he now relies on Twitter for breaking news updates, also said that Twitter on Fios allows people to be engaged in the discussion right from their couch. Instead of viewers being talked at by newscasters and others on TV, they can now contribute to the dialogue and discussion. And if their views are insightful, the Twitter community rewards them by re-tweeting their comments.

It shouldn't come as a big surprise that people would want to be more engaged while watching TV. Over the past decade since the Microsoft WebTV experiment came and went, the Internet itself has turned into a much more interactive medium. News stories posted on the Web encourage reader feedback with "Talk Back" sections. People have created their own blogs to share their views. User-generated video sites like YouTube have exploded. And now social-networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow people to easily link to other items on the Web and share their views on various topics.

And as people become increasingly more mobile, these tools have moved to cell phones, allowing people to remain engaged and interact with one another on the go.

But Kheradpir also believes that creating new applications for the TV is also about leveraging the big, expensive flat-screen HDTVs that people have in their living rooms. And he believes that for many people, sharing their digital content on the biggest screen they own makes sense.

"I've been shocked at the number of Fios TV subscribers who are streaming pictures from their Facebook pages onto their TVs in the past two weeks," he said. "But it's obvious when you think about why people want to look at pictures from Facebook on the living room screen. It is the biggest and best screen in the house."

Kheradpir added that these screens are the most underutilized technology in the home today. And he is probably right. With many digital cameras offering picture quality of 10 megapixels or more, it makes sense to view those photos on the largest screen possible.

For more than a year, Verizon has been offering Fios TV subscribers the ability to access their digital pictures and music stored on home PCs on TVs anywhere in the house. But now the company is allowing subscribers to also view their home videos on TVs throughout the home. And they will soon be able to attach any device with an SD memory card, like a digital camera or a cell phone, to also view and share pictures, video, and music throughout the home.

Verizon will offer an online simulator to allow developers to test their Widget Bazaar applications.

(Credit: Verizon Communications)

Using these basic capabilities in the Fios TV platform, Kheradpir said he envisions developers creating all kinds of new applications. For example, he said a new application could be created that allows people to stream Internet radio while syncing a picture slide show from a laptop or BlackBerry phone.

Kheradpir said the opportunity for developers to create new applications that take advantage of these capabilities is huge. As of the end of the second quarter of 2009, Verizon reported it had more than 2.5 million Verizon Fios TV subscribers. And because most people have multiple TVs in their home, this translates to about 8 million TV screens that developers can access through their applications, he said.

While he couldn't provide too many details since the SDK won't be available until later this year, he did say that Verizon has already created a Web site, code.verizon.com, where developers can go to share ideas and offer suggestions. It will be through this Web site that the SDK will be released, and it will also be the place where developers can submit their applications for approval on the Widget Bazaar.

He also said that the company plans to offer an online simulator to allow developers unable to access the Fios service because they're not located in Verizon's Fios territory to test their applications.

While Verizon's cable competitors are also leveraging their IP networks to offer new services to their subscribers, so far, no one else has opened its network to third party software developers. Still, Verizon is by no means the only company dabbling in widgets for the TV.

The most well-known competitor in this areas is Yahoo with its TV Widgets platform. Yahoo has partnered with HDTV and Blu-ray player manufactures to get its widget technology embedded in the hardware. Some of the manufacturers it's working with include LG, Samsung, Sony and Vizio. Using these TVs or Blu-ray players, users can get access to content from Netflix, Twitter, and Flickr through the Yahoo TV Widgets.

But Kheradpir doesn't seem worried about Yahoo or others who embed technology into consumer electronics products. He said that Verizon's value is in offering its subscribers a total solution.

"Our job is to make it as easy as possible for consumers to consume the applications or services they want to use," he said. "We make it simple."

The long-delayed SlingPlayer for iPhone will be hitting the iTunes App Store in the next 24 hours--but the software will only stream video over Wi-Fi, not AT&T's 3G data network. The restriction is a big blow to the usability of the software, which allows owners of Slingbox set-top boxes to stream their home TV in real-time to anywhere in the world.

The SlingPlayer app will cost $29.99--expensive for iPhone apps, but the exact same price as previous iterations of the SlingPlayer Mobile apps available for Windows Mobile, Palm OS, BlackBerry, and Symbian handhelds. SlingPlayer Mobile should work on all existing iPhones and iPod Touch models. Also, while Sling had indicated that the iPhone player would only work with the Slingbox Solo, Slingbox Pro, and Slingbox Pro-HD models, the company has now indicated that it will work with legacy models as well--though tech support will only be available for the aforementioned trio of models.

We'll have a more in-depth look at the software and an updated video soon. But so far as we can tell, the software hasn't changed very much since the beta version was unveiled earlier this year. Thus, Tom Merritt's hands-on video (embedded above) gives you a very good idea of what you'll be getting with SlingPlayer Mobile. (Update: See Jeff Bakalar's hands-on review and video.)

So, what do you think? Is the dearth of 3G access a deal-killer? Or will you be picking up a Slingbox just so you can stream video to your iPhone or iPod Touch via Wi-Fi? Sound off below.

Update (5/13/2009, 8:40am): The SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone app is now available.

(Credit: CNET)

On Tuesday, the first promotional codes that will make iPhone apps free to some users began trickling out of the App Store.

Apple is finally bequeathing apps developers with a way to let some media testers review an app at no expense and reward or attract a few lucky users. (The first invite has already floated into my in-box.)

This is Apple, so there are limits. Fifty promotional codes per product, to be exact.

Also, as wonderful as it is to see the passcodes allowed and implemented, they are not free trials. Developers angling to hook new customers will still need to lure them with free, light versions of the software or the less popular approach of offering an app free for a limited time and then ratcheting up the cost when the window closes.

Still, we're happy to finally see some leeway for developers, who will also get a reprieve from issuing gift certificates that often lose them money as a workaround for letting select reviewers evaluate apps for free.

(Via MacRumors)

Google acknowledged breaking the official rules of Apple's iPhone software development kit when it created the latest version of the Google Mobile application for the iPhone, but denied a more serious charge.

A Google spokesman confirmed Tuesday that Google Mobile uses undocumented APIs (application programming interfaces) in order to use the iPhone's proximity sensor to prompt a verbal search. iPhone developers were only supposed to use the APIs that Apple published in its SDK when they create their applications under the terms of that agreement.

Google has denied, however, a more serious charge that it was linking to private or dynamic frameworks in the Google Mobile application. That's considered a big no-no in the development community.

The problem with using undocumented APIs is that your application code could break in the future as Apple updates its software, but a lot of developers appear to have taken that risk in order to deliver a cool feature, such as Google's verbal search prompt.

Under the original terms of the SDK, however, applications using such techniques were not supposed to make it through to the App Store. As a result, other developers who played strictly by the SDK rules would not have felt it possible to create an application that duplicated Google's voice prompt using the proximity sensor, whereas those who had the resources to quickly rewrite anything that ran afoul of the App Store gatekeepers could push ahead and test Apple's limits.

Given Apple's uneven process for approving applications onto the App Store, the question has continued to come up as to whether Apple's ability to keep up with the flood of applications into the App Store has been stretched to the breaking point. It's not clear whether Apple knew Google was using the undocumented APIs when it approved Google Mobile, or whether it simply missed that code.

Google might be forced to rewrite the code for Google Mobile or change the way the application uses the proximity sensor if Apple decides to enforce the terms of the SDK. A number of Apple representatives appeared to be on vacation this week, and so requests for comment are not likely to be immediately returned.

You can turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into a remote control with this new app.

(Credit: Apple)

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 vestigial--if you have an iPhone, that is.

Apple has launched the latest version of its iTunes Store a day earlier than anticipated.

iTunes version 7.7, available now for Windows and Mac, includes the App Store, a method for delivering third-party iPhone applications.

The download appears to have some quirks: for this user, the version number remained at 7.6.2, and no direct link to the App Store was available, but it could still be reached by linking here.

Apple's new App Store

(Credit: Apple)

The newest version of the iPhone is due out Friday. The App Store will be preinstalled on the new iPhone 3G, but it will also be available as a download for owners of the current iPhone.

The App Store has 27 pages of applications, including games like FreeCell and Sudoku, as well as applications for Facebook, MySpace, The New York Times, Pandora, PayPal, and Twitter.

CNET Reviews will have more on the new applications shortly.

The Facebook application

(Credit: Apple)