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Hundreds of Web developers, designers, and ordinary geeks gathered this weekend to build usable applications for Apple's iPhone. The barcamp.org event was hosted at Adobe Town Hall and featured dozens of sponsors. The hack-a-thon began on Saturday morning, and wrapped up late Sunday afternoon when each team had a chance to present its app.

Some teams included a group of Yahoo! developers, and others included complete strangers who had just met the day before. I give credit to all teams who participated, but here are the 10 most memorable creations:

10. iPhoneVote This application was the first one presented at the hack-a-thon, and it was used as a voting system for the event. You would tilt your iPhone in portrait mode to vote yay, and tilt it horizontally to give a negative vote. There was a laptop set up in the front of the room, and it was updated in real time. Unfortunately, I don't think the app reset each time a new team would present, so the votes just tallied up into the 80s. Even though it wasn't used for its official purpose, it was a great burst of hope for future apps like this, and boosted the morale of the developers in the room.

9. AppMarks If you have an iPhone, make AppMarks your Safari home page. The interface models the iPhone front door, but instead, each icon links to a Web app or HTML bookmark. I mentioned AppMarks in this blog post a few days ago. AppMarks is cool, but I want to see more functionality. If the AppMarks people want users to add AppMarks as their home page, they need to always be thinking of new features. There are other products, like Mojits, that are right on their heels.

8. PickleView The only sports application presented was called PickleView. Ryan Christianson from the Walt Disney Internet Group explained that in baseball, a pickle is a play in which a base runner is trapped between bases with fielders tossing the ball back and forth and usually ending with the runner being tagged out. Most will remember it well from the 1990s classic,The Sandlot.

Their iPhone app visualizes a box-score view of your favorite teams’s stats, and then displays a mock Twitter feed of PickleView's friends. I am not sure if that's how this app works, but the developers have a cool concept.… Read more

The large screen and landscape viewing mode that come with the iPhone could make for a cheaper video iPod that can't phone home.

Apple watchers Piper Jaffray released a report Monday predicting that Apple will soon update its high-end iPod lineup with a wide-screen model that looks an awful lot like the iPhone, just without the phone and data connections. It's been a while since Apple released a new iPod, and rumors have been circulating for a long time that Apple has plans for a wide-screen iPod.

With the launch of the iPhone, Apple does indeed have that … Read more

Even companies that aren't selling the iPhone have taken to promoting its virtues.

AppleInsider spotted a Web page hosted by Best Buy's Canadian operation where customers can sign up to receive more information on the "revolutionary new device from Apple." That's a rather forward way of hawking a product you're not selling, eh? Neither Best Buy Canada nor its U.S. counterpart have plans to sell the iPhone any time soon, a corporate representative in Best Buy's U.S. offices confirmed.

As we all know, AT&T was the launch partner for … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--iPhone Developer Camp kicked off here Friday night with about 300 developers, testers, designers and people with or without an iPhone working on new Web applications.

Missing Web apps on your new iPhone? You might find what you're looking for here. Adobe Systems' open office space has turned into hubs of tech geeks frenetically tapping on their keyboards to create new and improved Web applications and games for the iPhone. And there are some serious code writing, documenting and hacking going here at the iPhoneDevCamp, and it's all voluntary work.

Early Saturday afternoon, people were still … Read more

I'm not talking about open source here, though open source is as guilty in this as any other software. Indeed, sometimes more so (e.g., developers writing code for other developers). I'm talking about all of the software world, and particularly enterprise software, though not exclusively so.

I started thinking about this during lunch with my grandmother on Thursday. We were talking about ways she could communicate with my parents down in Argentina (Skype, iChat, etc.) and she said:

I can hardly use a computer anymore. It's constantly changing. I'm just too dumb to use it.

Of course, that self-deprecation is probably exactly what the digerati would encourage, but the truth is, it's not my grandmother's fault. It's the software world's fault, largely building tools for itself that only "the elect" outside Silicon Valley can comprehend.… Read more

Donald Bell has some great tips on how to minimize storage woes on the iPhone. It's a convergence device, yes, but at 4GB and 8GB, you may have to make some tough decisions when it comes to loading it up with songs.

Using a combination of your favorite manual playlists and iTunes' built-in Smart Playlist feature, the tips can help you optimize your iPhone's storage.

Learn how to do it in seven easy steps: Optimize your iPhone using playlists.

For more helpful advice on how to get the most out of your gear, visit CNET Tips and Tricks. … Read more

Less than a week after the iPhone was released, a group of dedicated individuals announced in a wiki this morning they have successfully unlocked the phone, potentially allowing the use of carriers other than AT&T.

The site and its various mirrors also plan to issue an Internet tool to "expand the functionality" of the device, perhaps later today. The site, which describes itself as "a place for people who want to make iPhone even more awesome than it is already out of the box," reminds those who want to try any these tasks that … Read more

Wow! I come back home after attending some 4th of July parties in Chapel Hill, and I find there are more flames on my recent blog posting than in any fireworks show I've seen. How did this happen? And what does it mean? And what am I going to do about it?

The answer is pretty simple. I wrote a long and convoluted blog posting about identity theft, its epidemic proportions, and the challenges of raising children in such a hostile environment. I then explained how the unthinking act of supplying one's Social Security number (SSN) to any agency not directly connected with Social Security is a violation of the original design of the SSN, a violation of instructions printed on the card (until 1972), a violation of consumer protection and privacy laws passed as recently as 1974, a violation of expert testimony presented to Congress in 1992, 2000, and as recently as last month. Based on these facts, I argued that the reason identity theft is epidemic in this country is precisely because people have either ignored these facts or have been simply unaware of them. I then finished with a twist, noting that the iPhone activation procedure asks customers to do precisely what the security experts agree you should never do, which is to supply a Social Security number as personal identification information. And if you have been following the blog, you know that my wife Amy is going to be getting an iPhone, so I was using the blog to share with her (and all the other parents reading along) some friendly family advice informed from my 20+ years as a computer scientist.

Well, when she picked her jaw back up, she said "You buried the lead!" I turned my article upside down, putting the most important stuff up front; CNET then (re)published the blog in their big news section, and the fireworks began!

That is how it happened.… Read more

Apple forums are buzzing with reports from several iPhone users that their shiny new gadgets are suffering from poor call volume and dismal battery life. Indeed, CNET's own photo production manager said his iPhone, which he purchased last Friday, was plagued with such issues. Though we felt the call volume on our review iPhone was somewhat low, we haven't experienced any battery issues. In fact, we've experienced impressive battery life times in our CNET Labs tests.

So we want to know, is this happening to you? Are you experiencing dismal battery life and unacceptable call volume? We'… Read more