Applications

CBS Sports gets a March Madness iPhone app

On Thursday, CBS Sports Mobile released a March Madness On Demand application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Tracking the NCAA's college basketball tournament, March Madness, CBS Sports' iPhone app will stream videos of the games live over Wi-Fi, and will stream audio commentary if you've got a 3G or EDGE connection.

In addition to video or audio streaming, the March Madness On Demand app will show updated scores of ongoing games, news stories, bracket information, team stats, preview segments, and video recaps of past games in a screen dedicated to highlights.

The app's video and audio … Read more

Apple tweaks user reviews to show version number

This week Apple made a very small, but important tweak to the user rating system on its iTunes app store. It now shows which version of an application the user was running when they wrote the review. This has been applied retroactively, so that reviews written before the change will show which version the users had installed at the time they wrote it.

This is important on two levels, with the first being how transparent user reviews are. No longer do you have to wonder what version a user had installed when they said there was a problem, or broken … Read more

iTriage targets iPhone-toting hypochondriacs

If you regularly find yourself on WebMD or Wikipedia in an attempt to diagnose an itchy spot, chronic cough, or other mystery ailment, a new medical reference app for the iPhone and iPod Touch could save you some steps.

iTriage ($0.99) lets you search and browse hundreds of symptoms, diseases, and procedures in a logically, possibly overly designed app, that's intuitive to navigate. In addition to useful descriptions of the condition, treatments, and medical tests, the app also offers a plethora of support links to your insurer's advice line, medical Web sites like WebMD, and in-app Google … Read more

Apple to let naughty words flow on Tweetie 1.3

Apple has apparently had a change of heart about a Twitter iPhone app that sometimes presents users with language some might find objectionable.

The popular Twitter app for iPhone and iPod touch--called Tweetie 1.3--was apparently rejected because it gives users access to the Twitter Trends section, which displays the most frequent topics or words on Twitter at any given moment. This section sometimes lists swear words--including a particular four-letter word that begins with the letter F--that apparently raised Apple's disdain.

In an e-mail earlier Tuesday, app developer Loren Brichter said Apple quoted this part of the company's … Read more

Copernic Mobile: View PC files from your phone

Applications that let you access the files on your desktop from anywhere else are wonderful things, but the traditional remote-desktop app has one annoying flaw--you must browser for an e-mail, photo, or document in often tall, brambly file trees. Copernic Mobile (see slide show), in a sturdy prerelease build for Windows XP and Vista, offers the thorough indexing of a remote-access tool, but with a search component that makes finding those individuals files as simple as using a desktop search tool like Google Desktop--or Copernic Desktop Search.

It works by downloading Copernic Mobile's remote access application to your desktop … Read more

No update for you naughty Twitterers, Apple says

Since this report was published, Apple has decided to approve the app for the App Store. Read the updated story here.

Updated at 3:10 p.m. PDT with comment from Tweetie developer.

Remember the time your mom withheld your dessert because you said a bad word? Apple is doing something along those lines, with one major difference: it's because a bad word has been heard in the neighborhood.

According to iLounge, Apple has rejected version 1.3 of Tweetie, the popular Twitter client application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The reason? An offensive word appeared in Twitter's Trends data.

Somewhat similar to Google Trends, Twitter's Trends is a list of the most frequently used topics or words on Twitter at any given moment. This means this live list of words/topics changes constantly (I checked it just now and the offensive word--which starts with an "F," by the way--has gone). Yet, somehow it still bothers Apple enough to take action.

It seems that Apple, as a matter of policy, does not comment on the approval process for Apple applications. We have, however, contacted the company, and will update this post if we hear back.

In an e-mail to CNET News, however, Tweetie developer Loren Brichter said Apple quoted this part of the company's guidelines as a reason for the decision:

"Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive, or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod Touch users."

"The question then becomes whether is it an individual app's responsibility to censor everything it gets from the Internet," Brichter said. "Twitter themselves create the "top trends" list; Tweetie just displays it. The consensus is pretty much that it would be ridiculous to expect that.

"At the same time," the developer added, "this could have been just a goof on Apple's part. The App Store is still very young, they're working out the kinks."

Here's the long list of improvements in Tweetie 1.3 that all you naughty Twitterers with iPhones and iPod Touches are gonna miss out on--at least for now:… Read more

Six killer iPhone freebies

NPR, e-books, and auto-repair, oh my! The fantastic iPhone (and iPod Touch) freebies just keep on coming. Here's a look at six apps that have earned a permanent home on my handset. (Note: All links go directly to the iTunes Store.)

Kindle for iPhone Though not perfect in its 1.0 release, the Kindle app brings Amazon's 240,000-strong e-book library to your iPhone--and that alone is reason to celebrate. Don't knock it till you've tried it. Lose It! Trying to lose weight? Forget the diet du jour: It all boils down to math. If you … Read more

Another stage for American Idols--the iPhone

If you can't get enough of "American Idol," the producers behind the hit celebrity-making reality show are giving fans from the rabid to shyly closeted an official app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The release of the $1.99 app, called (verbosely) American Idol Season 8 Exclusive Videos, is opportune, just in time for the season's final 13 contestants to really battle it out as more Idols get axed.

Each week, the app will stream exclusive videos, many of them confessional, that take you deeper into the contestants' worlds--for instance, what inspires them and what … Read more

Another analyst lowers earnings estimates for Apple

Update at 8:52 a.m. PDT, with additional information from the research note and charts.

A Wall Street analyst on Monday lowered earnings estimates for Apple's fiscal second quarter and year, marking a second whack from a financial soothsayer in the past few days.

Doug Reid, an analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners, lowered Apple's fiscal second-quarter earnings estimates from $1.10 a share to $1.05 a share. Its fiscal second quarter ends in late March. For the fiscal year, Reid cut estimates from $5.31 a share to $5.10 a share, according to his research … Read more