iPhone Approll

There are a few multinetwork IM clients for mobile phones, but JiveTalk is the one I keep coming back to on the BlackBerry Curve. It may not have the translation engine of Shape Service's more established IM+ All-in-One Messenger (all platforms), but it does have the emoticons, some file-sharing, and a more generous trial period than both IM+ All-in-One-Messenger and Mundu IM (all platforms), another excellent choice. JiveTalk costs about $30 for a lifetime license and is free for iPhone users.

Semantic search tool Powerset has put out a new iPhone app this week. Those looking to search on the go can now use the service's plain English searching capabilities to scour the entirety of Wikipedia and Freebase (coverage). The app comes after months of Powerset staff fumbling while trying to use their own product on the popular mobile device.

The new tool will pull up everything the desktop version does, although I found performance to be a tad slower--even over Wi-Fi. Outline, one of my favorite Powerset features that gives you quick links to each section in a Wikipedia article, has also made its way into the pocket version. While not as convenient as the desktop version which sits beside the actual Wikipedia article, it's a great way to skip down to a lower section of an article, which is normally an activity that makes you look like a complete idiot while you continuously drag your finger up and down the screen of your phone. There's also a much needed search function, something the iPhone's version of Safari is lacking from its desktop sibling.

I expect the company to come out with its own native app that will save past searches and let you store local content depending on how popular this version becomes. I've embedded some screens below. Also embedded after the break is a demo video of it in action.

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This morning, Six Apart unveiled its newest iPhone creation, a very svelte-looking port of Blog It, which the company introduced back in April. The simple tool lets you write and cross-blog a post or status update to several services at once. The company is hoping people will use it as a home base to manage all their updates. It's also a somewhat early look at some of the features users will be getting in the upcoming native blogging application announced on Monday.

The tool started out as a Facebook app and has since pulled in about 10,000 users. According to Six Apart's Open Platforms technical lead, David Recordon, the top user request was to get the service onto other platforms, and the iPhone is just the first. Another was to get a WYSIWYG editor built in so people won't have to deal with inserting all sorts of HTML gobbledy goop while typing out a quick post on the road. That was added just a month later.

The app uses the same open standards architecture as the Facebook app, meaning you can log in quickly with your OpenID or from any of the blogging platforms. The only legwork that must be done is setting up all your accounts one by one. If you don't feel like numbing your fingers on the iPhone version, you can add these same accounts in the Facebook version of Blog It--the two share the same login information.

Flixwagon, a tool for live video broadcasting to the Web via smartphones, is working on a version for the Apple iPhone and Windows Mobile devices.

Tel Aviv, Israel-based Flixwagon is still relatively new. In January, the company launched a free downloadable application for video broadcasting for the Symbian mobile operating system, used largely by Nokia smartphones such as the N95. In February, MTV became its biggest customer, by deploying 23 street reporters with Flixwagon-enabled phones to report on Super Tuesday.

Now, the company is developing support for additional mobile platforms so that it can appeal to an even wider set of customers and media partners. Sarig Reichert, the company's co-founder and vice president of marketing, said that it's working on applications for Java, Windows Mobile, and the iPhone. (Demo here.) That will give Flixwagon entree to tens of millions of phones. In the coming weeks, it also plans to update its technology to include greater controls over the quality of video people can capture and post to the Web.

The company's better-known rival Qik has started offering support of the Windows Mobile operating system by invitation only.

With Flixwagon, people can record a video with the click of a button and have it broadcast to the Web within seconds, depending on the mobile phone connection. On the back-end, Flixwagon trans-codes the video file from the phone to a Flash widget, which at its best output, delivers 320x240 video at 15 frames per second. With a bad connection, ... Read more

Apple wowed the cell phone industry a year ago with the first version of the iPhone. And now its new software development kit and soon-to-be-launched application store featuring third-party applications could change the game yet again. (To get a closer look at the third-party software unveiled Monday, click here: "Video roundup: New apps coming to the iPhone.")

The big news Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco was of course CEO Steve Jobs' announcement of a 3G version of the iPhone. But the company also made several software announcements that could set a new standard for getting new and innovative applications to market quickly.

There's no question that Apple's launch of the iPhone last year changed the handset market. The touchscreen device loaded with a full Web browser that allows people to shrink and enlarge Web pages set a new standard for what people can expect when surfing the Net on their phones.

But with the SDK and the soon-to-be-launched application store, Apple has shown the true power and vision of the iPhone, which goes well beyond simple Web browsing on the go. The company has created a powerful platform for developing new applications, plus a set of simple tools that can be used to quickly and easily bring new mobile applications to market. And it's created an App Store, linked with its popular iTunes music and video store, where these applications can be easily searched for and downloaded.

"A device is nothing without

A newly negotiated deal with Apple could hurt exclusive U.S. iPhone carrier AT&T in the short term, but the cell phone carrier sees a big upside for the future.

Following the much-anticipated launch of the iPhone 3G at an Apple event in San Francisco on Monday, AT&T announced that it had struck a new deal with Apple. The new arrangement between AT&T and Apple is similar to other contracts AT&T has negotiated with other smartphone manufacturers such as Research In Motion and Samsung.

(Credit: Apple)

Since the first iPhone was launched last summer, AT&T and Apple have shared ongoing revenue from iPhone users. But now AT&T will pay the upfront cost for the iPhone 3G and subsidize the total cost of the phone by making customers agree to a two-year service contract.

The arrangement will benefit consumers by allowing the new iPhone to be sold at a much lower price point. The 8GB version will cost only $199 and the 16GB version will sell for $299 with AT&T's subsidy. This puts the iPhone on par with other smartphones such as RIM's BlackBerry and Samsung's BlackJack.

But the new deal comes at a price. AT&T executives said on a conference call with analysts and investors on Monday that the arrangement will put pressure on the company's profit margins and dilute earnings for the next year and a half. That said, the company believes that the new price point ... Read more

Before tossing out your first-generation iPhone for the iPhone 3G we're all anticipating on July 11, you'll need to wipe off personal data, including your passwords and user IDs. CNET's Tom Merritt shows off three paths to iPhone data-cleanliness using iTunes for Mac and Windows. The first method is simple, but will likely leave a swatch of information behind. The second method is for the ultraparanoid with a lot of time on their hands, and the third method averages techniques to get the data coffers mostly spotless. Check it out.

Next month, among the slew of third-party apps hitting the iPhone's App Store, blogging tool TypePad will be giving its users a new way to blog on the go. The native application was just announced at Apple's WWDC Monday morning, but I got a sneak peek at it last week. I think it's going to be a lifesaver for bloggers who want to monitor and administrate their blogs while away from a laptop or home PC.

The app will let you write and edit posts on your phone and save them for later, helping people avoid that potentially great write-up from getting lost because you're in a cellular dead spot or your browser crashes. Six Apart's Open Platforms Technical Lead David Recordon tells me the company is expecting users to treat it as more of a monitoring tool to keep an eye on comments, traffic, and posts from other contributing writers.

Video: TypePad app for iPhone

Last year, the company introduced two smaller-scale efforts that offered similar features--one for its hosted blogging solution Movable Type, and another for TypePad. Both ran in Safari, whereas the new app runs natively and gets access to Apple's new developer service that allows for application notifications that can be pushed over the air without wearing down the phone's battery with extra processes.

Similar apps for other blogging platforms including WordPress and Blogger should be expected in the coming weeks. I'm also expecting to see Six ... Read more

eBay application on iPhone

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

On Monday, eBay announced and demonstrated its new Auctions app at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Users can log in to their accounts to buy and sell items wherever they are. The app integrates with Webkit, allowing people to write out full descriptions just like they would in Safari, which has been formatted to match the finger-friendly screen. Users can also browse and sort through auction photos the same way they're used to doing with native albums.

While eBay has recently been taking steps to improve its Web 2.0 initiatives with social widgets and a really slick looking Adobe Air app, the company hadn't done much to optimize its site for Apple as many others have. There has a been a version of the site that's optimized for mobile phones since mid-2006, but it's not nearly as eye friendly as the new native app. Developer iRibbit produced its own iPhone optimized version of the site that was certified by eBay (see ZDNet coverage), but the native app has the potential to store more information while offline as well as take advantage of the iPhone's hardware like the built-in digital camera for taking pictures of items without using a separate device and photo-hosting service.

The app will be free with the launch of the App Store, available "early next month."

Update: To help with notifications--like if you get outbid, Apple is providing ... Read more

The location-based social network Loopt, just announced and demoed its native iPhone application onstage at WWDC. The application, which will be free at launch, helps you connect with and find friends around you. Using the location technology built in to the iPhone, Loopt will drop pins onto a map, showing where your friends are.

Loopt also contains other social-networking features, such as calling, texting, and sending invitations to meet up. The example used was seeing if any friends are in your area for lunch. Once you have located friends, you can send them an invitation for lunch, and if they agree, you will be one touch away from directions to their location. As Sam Altman from Loopt put it, "You will never have to eat alone, or at a bad restaurant again."

This is an exciting step in bringing location-based networking into the mainstream. With native third-party applications for the iPhone and the rumored GPS feature, expect to see many applications leveraging these same sorts of capabilities in the future.