iPhone Atlas

No matter how much music you have on your iPhone or iPod Touch, sometimes you get bored with it or just want somebody else to drive.

That's the appeal of apps like Pandora and Slacker, which build personalized radio stations based on a particular artist, then let you customize those stations to various degrees.

A psychedelic nugget by the late great Syd Barrett, recommended by Effin Genius.

A new app called Effin Genius, from Seattle company Melodeo, takes a different approach: instead of forcing you to enter the name of an artist or musical genre--or anything at all--Effin Genius analyzes the playlists in the iTunes library on your iPhone or iPod Touch, then creates identically named playlists of other music it thinks you would like.

I tried it out last night. It took about 10 minutes to analyze the 3,000-plus songs on my Touch, but once the process was done, it came up with some pretty amazing playlists. For example, I have an playlist called "Psych," which contains rock and jazz songs that are a little noisy or abrasive, but not completely insane. For the most part, Effin Genius looked at the artists in that playlist and recommended other songs by them. The new Can and My Bloody Valentine songs alone made it worth listening to. Other good picks included guitar goddess Marnie Stern, a freak-folk song by Helio Sequence, and the always reliable Kings of Leon, none of which I own. If you really love a particular song, there's a link to buy it on iTunes.

Unfortunately it also included some horrible rap and hip-hop--including, hilariously, "U Can't Touch This" by Hammer--and '80s pop hits from Def Leppard and George Michael. I don't have those artists, or anybody like them, on this playlist, although I do have some Police and other '80s pop elsewhere on my iPod. Of course, any time a song comes up that you don't like, you can skip it and tell the app never to play it again. Presumably, Effin Genius learns more about your preferences over time and adjusts accordingly.

As is the case with other radio apps for iPhone, you can't go straight to a particular song on the playlist--you must listen in the order the songs are delivered--and you need an active Internet connection. The streaming worked great over my home Wi-Fi network.

Effin Genius, whose name is a take-off on the Genius feature introduced in iTunes 8, costs $1.99. That's not much, but it's more than Pandora and Slacker, which are free.

Overall, Effin Genius is an interesting take on the problem of what to do when you're bored with your own music collection. But I'll have to play with it a little more before I decide whether to remove Pandora.

(Credit: Apple)

Apple's App Store hit another milestone Tuesday, topping 3 billion downloads.

The store, which launched in July 2008 with just 500 applications, now offers more than 100,000 free and paid apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Apple didn't break down how many of the downloaded apps were paid and how many were free, but the App Store does provide lists of its most popular apps in those categories.

The App Store reached the 1 billion download mark in April and the 2 billion mark in November.

The success of the App Store has forced other mobile companies to try to mimic its success. LG, Research In Motion, Nokia, Google, Palm and Microsoft all have their own stores or plan to open one.

So far, no one has been able to match the number of applications or downloads from Apple's store.

Apple found a nice Christmas gift under its tree this year.

App Store downloads for the iPod Touch were 1,000 percent higher on Friday, Christmas Day, than the average of the three previous Fridays in December, according to a report released Monday by research firm Flurry.

Downloads for the newest generation, the iPod Touch 3G, soared more than 900 percent on Christmas, noted Flurry's "2009 Holiday Report: Christmas Growth." But the 1,000 percent leap in iPod Touch downloads overall may have been triggered by a flood of iTunes gift cards, believes Flurry.

The rising popularity of the iPod Touch also gave Apple reason to celebrate. Of the estimated 58 million iPhone and iPod Touch devices on the market, about 40 percent of those, or 24 million, are iPod Touch devices, according to another Flurry report released in November.

With a large number of Touch devices likely given out as holiday presents (it was one of Amazon.com's top three electronics sellers), App Store downloads for the iPod Touch jumped past those for the iPhone for the first time, outpacing them by 172 percent. The trend continued the following day, with iPod Touch downloads on December 26 exceeding those for the iPhone by 104 percent.

(Credit: Flurry)

The volume in overall App Store downloads also grew by more than 50 percent in December (with estimates for the final week of the month) over November, surpassing Flurry's estimate of only 20 percent.

Flurry's Vice President of Marketing Peter Farago spoke with CNET about the success of the App Store. Though some forecasts question how much further the App Store can grow, Farago thinks this is just the beginning. "The growth has been meteoric for Apple for iPhone and iPod Touch penetration," he said. "They're already past 50 million units in the marketplace for iPhone and iPod Touch."

Farago notes that while the iPhone is a killer device that gives people a portable computer in their pocket, Apple knows it needs third-party developers, which is one reason the company controls the store. And developers will go wherever they can get a good customer base, realizing that they can build an app once for the App Store and draw in a lot of consumers.

Even recent criticisms leveled against the App Store haven't dented its growth. Though some developers have complained that the App Store is hard to deal with, Farago says there are a lot of success stories from people who have created and sold apps through Apple.

Farago also sees the iPod Touch as Apple's silent killer, with a huge market share that will help the company in the years to come. "What I'd be scared about if I were a phone maker is that Apple has a relationship now with all these teens and pre-teens using a device that is basically an iPhone with the radio turned off," he said. "They've got 24 million [customers], and with Christmas, probably add a couple million or so to that. All those kids are getting trained to be iPhone users in the next two to five years."

Google's Android Market can't compare with the App Store at this point, but its recent download volume should offer Android vendors some holiday cheer. December downloads from the Android Market store grew by more than 20 percent over November. Downloads for Motorola's Droid, in particular, rose 93 percent on Christmas Day compared with the three previous Fridays of the month. The Droid also captured 48 percent of all download volume versus other top Android devices, including the myTouch 3G, G1, and the HTC Hero).

(Credit: Flurry)

Farago also sees the Android market off to a promising start. The installed hardware base isn't there yet, but that may start to change next year as Flurry expects about 50 new Android devices to hit the market. Once enough of those devices get into the hands of consumers, more developers may be drawn to create Android apps.

Of all Android devices, the Droid is so far leading the way. "It's the most successful [Android] headset that enables downloading pretty easily," said Farago. "For a phone that's not the iPhone, it's got a pretty good installed base."

Though Android may always play second fiddle to Apple, at least in the foreseeable future, that doesn't mean the Android Market can't have a significantly good business, notes Farago. Flurry predicts that by the end of next year, 150,000 apps will be available for Android phones, up from around 20,000 to 25,000 now.

Flurry provides analytics for mobile app developers to help them track downloads for their applications. As such, the company is able to determine which mobile devices are downloading which apps.

(Credit: Magellan)

Following the launch of its turn-by-turn navigation app for iPhone, Magellan has released its Premium Car Kit for iPhone and iPod Touch. The Premium Car Kit features an amplified speaker for spoken directions, a Bluetooth speakerphone for hands-free calling, a built-in GPS receiver that should improve positioning compared with the iPhone 3G's built-in GPS as well as adds GPS positioning to first-generation iPhones and the iPod Touches.

The mount lets you rotate the iPhone to portrait and landscape views, and has a built-in charger. Essentially, it will behave exactly like TomTom's Car Kit; however, the Magellan kit has an adjusting arm that will let it accommodate an iPhone or iPod Touch with a protective case.

The Magellan Premium Car Kit will cost $129.99. When TomTom's kit debuted for slightly less than that price, it was universally regarded as too expensive, so we can already guess what sort of reception Magellan's kit will get.

Magellan's Premium Car Kit for iPhone is available now for preorder.

Music-tech entrepreneur Aviv Eyal, who's behind the excellent Livekick concert-tracking site, has a new project: a DJ app for the iPhone and iPod Touch called DJ Mixer Pro. (It was formerly known as DJ Player Pro, but the name has changed to avoid a conflict with another app.)

DJ Mixer Pro lets you manually adjust the BPM on each channel, or sync them automatically with one touch of a button.

The concept is similar to Touch DJ, an Amidio app that I wrote about last month. While the iPhone naturally restricts you to playing one song at a time, these apps function like a virtual DJ booth, letting you play two tracks simultaneously, jump to any point in either track with a touch of your finger, crossfade between them, match beats, adjust tempos, and add various effects.

I was impressed by Touch DJ's technical capabilities, but DJ Mixer Pro is even more extensive. Amateurs like me will love the sync button: as you're playing one track, the sync button will adjust the speed of the second track and place the downbeats in the right place so they're synchronized. You can also adjust beats per minute (BPM), and DJ Mixer can change tempo without changing pitch, so your sped-up tracks don't sound like the Chipmunks. (If you want the Chipmunks, you can turn the pitch correction off.) The loop function is easier to use as well--you can select a specific number of beats in the song, rather than having to start and stop the loop with finger touches. This made it really easy for me to create a couple different loops of the gunshot chorus in MIA's "Paper Planes" (four and eight beats long). You can also do some interesting things bouncing between tracks--I created two separate loops of Nirvana's "All Apologies" and played them over each other. Finally, DJ Mixer offers more indicators about each track, including volume levels and colored bars to match each drumbeat. This video shows you more. Best of all, it's only half the price of Touch DJ--$9.99.

But there's one nagging usability issue: uploading music to the app is complicated. Apple currently does not allow other apps to access the iTunes playback app, and tracks need to be electronically manipulated before you can mix them. This means that users have to upload their music separately into DJ Mixer. This was also the case with Touch DJ, but where that app used a piece of desktop software to accomplish the task, DJ Mixer uses a Web server.

And therein lies the problem. According to Eyal, when DJ Mixer launched in late November (as DJ Player), the company's servers were inundated with users trying to upload songs to pirated versions of the app--he estimates that between 90 percent and 99 percent of the uploads were from users who didn't pay for the app. This created a lot of load on the servers, and hampered legitimate users.

So now, to upload your music to DJ Mixer, first you need to e-mail customer support with a copy of your receipt from the iTunes store or a screenshot showing your purchase history with the DJ Mixer app on it. Then you must go through a Web interface to perform the uploads. The company e-mails you back for each upload as it becomes ready, after which you have to open the app, hit "downloads," and enter your personal numeric code. Finally, you have to wait as the app downloads each song from the Web server and performs the necessary conversion--a process that takes about 15 or 20 seconds per song.

It's a pain, but the app is good enough that it's probably worth going through this process. You'll only have to do it once, and then you'll be set up for some pretty serious DJ'ing.

The Need for Speed series returns to the iPhone with NFS:Shift.

(Credit: Screenshot by Antuan Goodwin/CNET)

Need for Speed SHIFT for iPhone (photos)

EA Mobile has released the second iPhone game in the Need for Speed series: Need for Speed Shift.

You may remember that we took a look at Need for Speed Undercover not too long ago and found it was a fun, arcadelike take on racing with a decent number of fully customizable vehicles. Shift is an evolution of that game but with more realistic racing physics in place of the hokey storyline. Also new to Shift are customizable racing views. Users can now select between chase-cam, hood-cam, bumper-cam, and cockpit views. The cockpit view is unique to the vehicle you're driving, but unfortunately there are no working gauges. The cockpit view is also the only view that features damage modeling in the form of a windshield that gets more messed up the as you hit things.

This Nissan Z features an accurate interior, but no working gauges.

(Credit: Screenshot by Antuan Goodwin/CNET)

On your first outing with Shift, you'll be treated to a quick tutorial that teaches you how to drive with an iPhone. Shift pretty much plays like Undercover, but with a few key differences. Its steering is still controlled by tilting. The vehicles still auto-accelerate and brake when the screen is tapped. However, the race-breaker, slow-motion feature is gone and the controls are supposedly more realistic. In practice, this means that you can no longer win races without touching the brakes and that the transmission is now manual, which can be frustrating for novice users who just want to drive.

Fortunately, there are driver aids that can be activated that automatically brake and shift for you and assist steering that make your ham-fisted inputs smoother and more accurate. Users who want an easy to play, arcade-style racer can turn on the driving aids and win a few medals on the bus ride to work; and users who want more of a racing-sim experience can set all systems to manual for more control over the game. Driving aids or not, drifting is maddeningly difficult this time around. I prefer the drifting mechanics of Undercover.

If you have a favorite animal, chances are you can now find it in the form of an iPod speaker. We've seen everything from pigs and pandas to cats and dogs. Heck, even insect lovers aren't left out in the cold, thanks to Vestalife's array of winged speakers.

One of these is the $130 Firefly, an iPod and iPhone speaker dock with a solid feel, compact design, and pleasing audio quality. For those who are after a different-looking portable speaker with a reasonable smattering of extras, this unit could fit the bill.

Read the Vestalife Firefly review.

Vestalife Firefly Speaker Dock for iPod (photos)

(Credit: CNET)

As we close out another great year at Download.com, we've been putting together several end-of-year software collections. Just like last year, Jessica Dolcourt and I have split up the iPhone apps of the year into two groups. Jessica has put together the iPhone Starter Kit that's perfect for grabbing the best productivity apps to make your life more...productive. My job is quite the opposite. I went through my favorite games of 2009 (and quickly realized I had too many), and was able to narrow it down to 17 of my most played games. If you're looking to waste some time, this collection was made for you!

I tried to make a collection of games that would have something for everyone, so I included quick casual games along with strategy, tower defense, first-person shooters, word games, and more. Obviously, I recommend every game in this list, but hopefully you'll be able to find a genre you like so you have something to play over the holidays.

Without further ado, here are my favorite games for 2009.

We recently got our hands on a trio of iPhone games all currently available in the App Store. Whether or not you think iPhone games need buttons to work, we were fairly impressed by each of these offerings.

Whether you're looking for stocking stuffer ideas or a game to keep you busy on a long holiday trip, we highly recommend checking out any and all of these solid titles. Best of all, they won't break the bank and are perfect for gamers of all ages.

(Credit: Sega/Other Ocean)

Super Monkey Ball 2 ($9.99)
Now before you balk at its $10 price tag, realize that Super Monkey Ball 2 offers most of what its console-counterpart would. We're talking over 100 levels of monkey ball tilting and rolling, mini-games, and Wi-Fi multiplayer. Not to mention, this is arguably one of the prettiest iPhone games we've seen, and it maintains a very solid framerate throughout.

So how does it play? While it may take you a few minutes to get used to the accelerometer functionality, we were really impressed with how well the title controlled. Though it's a bit tough to make turns on a dime--and stopping is harder than we would have liked--the second iPhone Monkey Ball game is sure to entertain previous fans and newcomers to the series.

(Credit: Bitforge)

Orbital (99 cents, Free)
It might look like a simple puzzle game, but the amount of depth and strategy found in Orbital is mind-blowing. The basic object in Orbital is to destroy orbs by carefully aiming your cannon towards them while bouncing off the walls and other orbs already in the playing field. Each orb contains three hits (the number is displayed inside each orb), and will explode once it has run out of collisions. There's also a danger zone located at the bottom of the screen which you'll want to avoid reaching--think of maxing out the number of bubbles like in Bust-a-Move.

Two different game modes (Pure and Gravity) allow for the same basic mechanics, though your strategy may change between the two. What really got us hooked to Orbital was the multiplayer as it allows two people to switch back and forth turns, each trying to destroy each other's orbs.

There's a free version of Orbital available too, which allows for unlimited multiplayer and a score of up to 15 in the single player mode.

(Credit: Critical Thought)

GeoSpark (99 cents)
GeoSpark instantly reminded us of Geometry Wars with its oddly shaped vector graphics and presentation. But underneath its familiar appearance, GeoSpark is truly an addictive game, forcing you to move quickly.

The objective in GeoSpark is to grab like-objects by linking them together to score points. You do this by essentially dragging these shapes together (you can link up more than just two in a row) and then letting go to cash in your score. You must accomplish this all while avoiding non-matching shapes--the catch being the more you chain together like-items, the stronger gravity you create. When this happens, other objects begin to flow towards your chain, and if one touches it, you lose your points.

GeoSpark has that emergency screen-clearing button found in Geometry Wars, but instead of shooting objects, it's your job to link matching ones together.

As we mentioned earlier, all three of the iPhone games featured here are available now on the App Store and are compatible with both the iPhone and iPod Touch. Check out more screenshots from all three games in our slideshow below!

Three iPhone games make for perfect last-minute gifts (photos)