apps

Google App Engine sort of getting Perl support

Google programmers are adding support for the Perl programming language to its App Engine service for hosting Web applications, but so far it's not really an official project.

The work is the project of Google employee Brad Fitzpatrick, who disclosed the project on his blog Tuesday. But he's not a member of the App Engine team, and Google isn't promising Perl support, he said. By going public with the project, he hopes to intercept other Perl fans' work in the area.

"I (along with other Perl hackers here at Google) are now allowed to work on … Read more

ReQall's iPhone app saves brain cells, cell phone minutes

If you're not the type of person to carry around a notepad or voice recorder with you, there are a handful of Web services raring to help you out if you've got a mobile phone. ReQall, a service that launched back at Demo 07 has a great new iPhone application that does just that. I got in touch with Sunil Vemuri, ReQall's chief product officer who showed it off during one of today's CEO pitch sessions at the AlwaysOn Summit.

The application's killer feature is that it saves your notes both locally and to the … Read more

WordPress app hits the iPhone fashionably late

Just a week and a half ago WordPress for the iPhone was announced with a pretty killer screencast detailing what you could do with it. Tuesday morning it finally showed up on the app store (download it here), and I've had ample time to play with it. The good news is that it's very enjoyable to use and quite capable for creating posts on the go. The bad news? You've got to have an iPhone or iPod Touch to take advantage of it.

The key benefit to using this app is writing and publishing quick posts on … Read more

Five more must-have freebies for the iPhone and iPod touch

Let's hear it for software developers who don't charge for their work. Witness these five excellent apps for the iPhone 3G and updated iPod touch, then check out five more freebies you'll definitely want to install. (As before, all links will take you directly to the iTunes Store.)

Aurora Feint Bejeweled meets Bard's Tale in this amazingly polished puzzle/RPG game. Last.fm and Pandora Tired of your own music library? Name a favorite artist and these two apps will build you a custom radio station, then stream tunes over 3G or Wi-Fi. I can't … Read more

5 reasons to take the iPhone on vacation

Updated on 7/23/08 at 12:00pm PST.

Even if you won't get reception where you're headed, think twice about leaving your iPhone behind. The iPhone's all-new iTunes App Store makes it an even indispensable travel tool for international excursions, even if it's rendered essentially useless as a phone (unless you're not adverse to being charged oodles in roaming fees.)

Media console As romantic as travel sounds, a large hunk of it is wasted on waiting. There's airport check-in, long train and bus rides, and time to kill while a fastidious companion prepares … Read more

Lonely Planet Audio Phrasebooks for iPhone

Teaching yourself a few niceties in a foreign language requires more than an hour in front of a phrasebook. Piecing together sentences out of unfamiliar accents and sounds is neither easy nor accurate, and could earn you looks of bemusement or horror if your neophyte's pronunciation produces a garbled or unintended communication.

That's what makes Lonely Planet's collection of audio phrasebooks for English-speakers (about $10) so eminently usable. With phrases organized into categories for transportation, money, dining, and so on, travelers can easily browse for pertinent communications. Like print phrasebooks, the foreign spelling and transliteration are present. … Read more

Twitter app Twinkle shines on Apple's new device

One of the things I've noticed in the emerging wave of iPhone applications is that many of the highest rated applications could be found on the App Store's illegitimate precursor--Nullriver's application installer. Several of these applications have been under almost constant development for the greater part of a year, long before Apple made the SDK available. In the case of newcomer Twinkle, that extra time really shows.

You might remember our hands-on with Twinkle back in April. Its claim to fame is that it mixes in location-based services with Twitter, not only letting you tweet with your … Read more

Facebook platform 2.0: Is mobile the key?

Only a year ago, there was a huge buzz around Facebook's new application platform. Big money was made by some, while others simply threw together whatever they could and released it to the masses in the hopes of being the next iLike.

Today, the Facebook platform is alive and well, but the hot new platform is the iPhone. People are lining up for hours to get their hands on one, and developers see dollars in those lines: Unlike with Facebook apps, you can charge for iPhone software, and developers keep 70 percent of the money collected through Apple's app store.

One of the 550-plus new iPhone applications was Facebook's own, a slightly amped-up version of the Web-based Facebook for iPhone Web site introduced late last year. It's more useful than than the mobile Web site, but it's still watered down from its desktop cousin, with just a contact list and a chat app. Notably missing are the other Facebook applications that have helped make the social network such an appealing service for both users and developers.

It would make sense if the next step for the Facebook platform was a mobile version--something where whatever you developed would work on both desktop and mobile devices, starting with the iPhone and later Android. In that regard, Facebook's mobile iPhone application is only the beginning, and just a preview of what's to come.

I think we'll see at next week's F8 event a product or service that will help developers shrink down their applications to fit into Facebook's mobile application framework. It's a move that goes squarely against Apple's engrained apps marketplace by having developers spend resources on coding for Facebook instead of themselves; however, the result will be the augmentation of the mobile Facebook experience that's closer to what people have gotten accustomed to on their computers.

Facebook's UI has already begun to change to match the finger-friendly style. The latest profile refresh has moved the applications from a sidebar to different tabs--the same look can be found in Facebook's iPhone-optimized Web app. Such a style could easily be shrunk down to fit a smaller screen, whereas the old one could not.… Read more

First Look video: Yelp and Where for iPhone

Yelp and Where are two free location-finding iPhone applications that take vastly different approaches to direct you to what you're looking for.

While my personal preferences anoint Yelp for iPhone (review) the better service for its broader and more objective listings, Where for iPhone's (coverage) plotting of only partnered services will also have its cluster of followers. The bottom line is this: though serviceable, they both need work. Yelp's developers should hone the accuracy and breadth of this application's listings and stabilize performance against crashes. Where would benefit from letting users customize their choices by selecting … Read more

CNET News Daily Podcast: Web video, TV linkup gets closer

Reporter Caroline McCarthy gives us a rundown of two YouTube partnerships announced Thursday--one with TiVo and one with film studio Lionsgate, which Caroline expects won't be as big a deal as many people hope.

Also in this podcast: Google Apps gets hundreds of new templates for making specific types of content; Gmail and Google Calendar could be available offline as soon as six weeks from now; Amazon tries its hand at movie and TV downloads; and the man going after the tech vote in November. Listen now: Download today's podcast

Today's stories:

Offline access soon for Gmail, Google Calendar?… Read more