Applications

PhotoList for iPhone lets you rate, label pictures

Touting itself as a media management app for iPhone and iPod Touch, PhotoList ($1.99) lets you create photo albums on the iPhone and then fill them with images you can label and rate. You'll be able to further sort images by their name or their star rating, which can be a convenient way to quickly find images in a large collection.

As with any application that requires you to build a media library from scratch, setup takes time, enough of it, in fact, that those with large collections in their iPhone camera roll might want to only use … Read more

NBA playoffs info and an excellent golf game: iPhone apps of the week

To go along with my obsession with software, games, and all things iPhone-related, I also have a healthy(?) obsession for basketball. March Madness is over, but there's still the NBA playoffs coming up on April 19. A few teams are still in the playoff race, even with only a few games to go in the regular season. While my team didn't even come close to making the playoffs (Hint: We Believed), I will still be watching a few of the playoff matchups and can't wait to see who makes the NBA Finals.

This week's apps include … Read more

Teach your iPhone five cool TiVo tricks

TiVo and iPhone, the gadget superpowers of home and pocket. Don't you think it's time they joined forces?

As it happens, your iPhone can perform all kinds of nifty TiVo tricks. Here are my five favorites:

i.TV Forgot to set your TiVo to record the big game/new show/classic "Simpsons" episode? No problem. Just find the listing in i.TV's guide and tap the TiVo icon. You can even choose which TiVo to use (if you have more than one) and tweak the recording settings. Hard to believe this handy app is a … Read more

Control Windows Media Center with Mediamote (review)

Mediamote is a free app that turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a remote control for Windows Media Center.

That's awesome news for anyone who runs WMC on, say, a laptop or den PC, and wants a way to control it from the couch. Mediamote sets up a simple ad-hoc Wi-Fi network between Windows and the iPhone.

I'm not sure I've ever seen an App Store listing with less information than the one for Mediamote, which is something of a problem: there's no indication that you need to visit the developer's Web site and … Read more

'Are My Sites Up?' comes to the iPhone

Are My Sites Up?, the uptime monitoring service, now has an application for iPhone users that lets them keep an eye on all their domains when they're away from their computer. While the service offers free SMS and e-mail notifications in the event that your site goes MIA, there hasn't been an easy way to add new sites on the go, which this app does in spades.

You can add and edit new sites to keep an eye on, as well as delete them entirely. There is, however, no way to set what kind of notifications you want … Read more

Dictionary.com on iPhone, slightly abridged

You use it online, and beginning on Wednesday, you'll be able to use the popular Dictionary.com reference service on your iPhones and iPod Touches.

The free Dictionary.com for iPhone is straightforward, but attractive, and has one or two highlights that give it some interest. It isn't the only dictionary application for iPhone by a long shot, but it is a solid effort that has brand name appeal for Internet vocabulary geeks--plus, it's got those helpful tidbits we mentioned. For instance, after typing a search term, you can switch between the dictionary definition and thesaurus without … Read more

Google improves Gmail for iPhone, Android

Google has released a new Web-based version of Gmail that gives iPhone and Android phone users a more sophisticated version of the online e-mail service, including access to messages that's faster and that works even when offline.

Google demonstrated the Web-based mobile version of Gmail last week and announced its availability Tuesday on the Google Mobile blog. "You'll notice that it's a lot faster when performing actions like opening an e-mail, navigating, or searching. And if the data network drops out on you..., you'll still be able to open recently read messages and to compose … Read more

Yahoo Messenger gets its own iPhone app

On Monday we noted in a First Look video that the Yahoo Messenger feature in the new Yahoo Mobile chat application for iPhone wasn't as strong as we'd like. On Tuesday, Yahoo released a distinct Yahoo Messenger for iPhone application that's free through the iTunes App Store, and tailor-made for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Yahoo Messenger for iPhone has many of the same core chatting features you'll find on Yahoo Messenger for the desktop: sending IM and SMS messages, support for emoticons, status updates, adding new contacts, and photo sharing (either an image from the … Read more

Skype's temporary iPhone vanishing act

Updated at 12:30 p.m. PDT with more information.

A week after its initial release in the iTunes App Store, Skype for iPhone has mysteriously disappeared. The vanishing act is temporary, Skype tells us, and began between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. Pacific Time.

According to a Skype representative,

"The Skype for iPhone app was down for a couple hours, caused by our own submission of a 'hotfix' to simply address some feedback and minor improvements. The release date for the 'hotfix' was incorrectly applied to the current version of the app."

Skype says the … Read more

Free calls and air traffic control: iPhone apps of the week

Do you have an app that you wish was on the iPhone, but hasn't been developed or ported over yet? Certainly we all have our wish lists when it comes to apps, but one that I've been waiting for since the beginning is the chat and VoIP program, Skype (Mac or Windows). Fortunately, the folks over at Skype have finally put together a great app for iPhone, and if you've never used Skype, I'm here to tell you why you will be soon.

This week's apps include Skype for iPhone and a simple game that … Read more