The Facebook iPhone app is broken [updates below, it appears to be an API problem], and has been for a while now. Every single user profile page contains zero updates or posts. Instead, each loads a stream that reads “USER has no recent posts.” Judging from Twitter searches, tips coming in, and a Facebook thread, this has been the case since at least yesterday, and possibly before that.

To be clear, Facebook’s main News Feed is still being populated with updated items, but if you want to see elements from any individual user, you’re out of luck. And that’s bad when one key feature of the iPhone app is the ability to pin friends’ profiles to your main screen in order to more easily access such information. And it’s really bad when, again, this is one of the most popular apps that there is.

After Hewitt’s decision to stop iPhone development, Facebook’s VP of Communications Elliot Schrage left us a comment reaffirming Facebook’s commitment to Apple and, in particular, their iPhone app. He wrote that Facebook “has a great team of engineers taking over iPhone related development.”

So a full team has replaced Hewitt, but they can’t seem to keep the app from breaking. And I’m not sure they even realize it is broken. But plenty of users do.

Update: In an email, a member of Facebook’s communication team confirmed the issue and says they’ve alerted the engineering team. But I’m still wondering how Facebook’s new iPhone “team” could have either missed this issue or have let it go unresolved for a day or so now?

How many Facebook developers does it take to fix an app? We’ll find out, I guess. The answer should be one: Hewitt. But sadly, that’s not the case anymore.

Update 2: Facebook has responded again that “this is the result of a backend Platform API issue, not the iPhone app. We are pushing a fix shortly.” So it’s a API problem that only affected the iPhone app. That sounds like an iPhone app problem to me — especially considering that Facebook controls both.

Update 3: Joe Hewitt has written to say that, “The FB API has glitches from time to time which break not just the iPhone app, but every app that builds on it, from Blackberry to Seesmic.” So I’ll guess we’ll just chalk up all the iPhone-only complaints to the fact that it’s so popular.

[thanks Andy]

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One caveat: it’s not built, authorized or in any way endorsed by Google.

Spotted by Stuart Dredge over at Mobile Entertainment, the unofficial Google Wave iPhone app seemingly slipped past Apple’s usually and notoriously rigorous quality assurance and trademark compliance team and made its way to the App Store (iTunes link – up to you to decide if this is something you want to pay for).

There, it is the top result for a search on ‘google wave’ right before Waveboard, another iPhone app for the company’s experimental collaboration and communication tool that wasn’t built by Google.

But at least the latter developer didn’t blatantly use its trademarked logo, company and product name.

The Google Wave iPhone app was in fact made by CLapps, a small developer of games for the iPhone and iPod Touch platform.

CLapps – or rather, its sole employee David Crampton – notes in the app’s description: “I have no connection with Google or Google Wave but just supply a means by which to use it on your iPhone”. Somehow, I think the search giant’s lawyers are still going to have some objections to the naming part.

Expect it to disappear from the Store and (maybe) come back under another name in 3, 2, …

PS: while Google hasn’t yet published an official Google Wave iPhone app, simply pointing your browser to wave.google.com works mighty fine.

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If you visit the regular Techmeme site now on devices like an iPhone, a Palm Pre, or the new Verizon Droid, you’ll see a site optimized for touchscreen phones. The site include three main tabs, “Top, ” More,” and “New.” These represent the three key areas of Techmeme’s main site. This tabbed navigation allows you to easily jump through the sections. Each section contains the main headlines and a right pointing arrow which you click on to see the discussion items.

As you’d expect, clicking on any headline opens that story (in a new browser window). Thumbnail pictures are also pulled in for main headlines. And there’s a ‘back’ button to make navigation easy.

Even if you don’t have an officially supported device, anyone can access the new site by visiting techmeme.com/m/. But why not do a native application, such as an iPhone app? “We might make a native app in the future, but with Android phones multiplying and capable browsers appearing on so many devices, it just made sense to start with something with broader support,” founder Gabe Rivera tells us.

Just yesterday, Techmeme announced that it had doubled it staff to 6 people.

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A new feature in Gmail Labs allows you to change your contacts’ circular chat status icons in Android logo status icons. But the key is that these icons only change for users who are currently online on their Android phones.

Google’s official stance on this is as follows:

These icons can help you decide whether to tailor your conversation to the type of device that your chat buddy is using. For example, when you know the guy on the other end is using his Android phone, you may decide to send shorter, more concise chat messages.

Of course, they don’t tailor these icons for any other type of phone, just Android. It seems if Google really wants to help with mobile chat experiences, they could also have BlackBerry icons, Pre icons, etc. I would bring up iPhone icons, but Apple would probably sue Google if they tried to use that — I wish I were kidding.

This is a fun little feature for Android users, and as I said, totally innocuous. But I do wonder what else Google has up its sleeve for cross promotion as they continue to move into new businesses. Remember, the Droid was already advertised on Google’s homepage, something they rarely do. And remember too what got Microsoft in trouble in the 90s: Bundling products with its dominant operating system.

Again, before everyone gets their panties in a bunch, this example clearly isn’t a big deal. But think forward a bit as the web becomes more and more of the dominant platform rather than the operating system. And Google controls that domain. And product creep is happening.

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Developed by the guys at Big In Japan, ShopSavvy is an app that allows you to use your device as a portable barcode scanner. You point your phone’s camera at any barcode and it will read it, do a product look up, and give you information about the product, as well as where you can find it online or at nearby stores and for how much. Obviously, something like this is a window shopper’s dream.

And while you might think retailers may hate something like this, because it gives shoppers all of their competitors’ information, increasingly, they’ve been working with ShopSavvy to come up with ways to allow you to make buying in their stores even easier. And honestly, what are the retailers going to do anyway? All of this information is out there on the web, ShopSavvy just gives you easy access to it. Are they going to ban mobile phones in their stores? That’d be a great story for us if that were to happen.

So what took so long? Well, for a while, the iPhone lacked a key feature needed for the barcode scanner: A camera that had auto-focus. The iPhone 3GS gained that, and so the team should have been good to go. The plan was originally to release the app this summer, but a internal mix up involving a team member who had since departed registering the app to his iTunes account caused a delay (more on that here). After some back and forth with Apple, Big In Japan was finally able to get that resolved.

While it’s great to see this product on the iPhone, it is a little buggy right now. The main issue is that it’s hard to scan the barcodes properly. Big In Japan says a fix for that is coming shortly, based on what they’ve learned from beta testers, but keep that in mind when using the app for now.

My own tests confirm that it is a little hard to scan, but it seems to work most of the time. For example, I just scanned the protein bar I’m eating, and ShopSavvy pulled it up right away and gave me a pricing rundown. Nifty.

ShopSavvy is available for free in the App Store. Find it here. Also read about Big In Japan’s other big plan for the iPhone (100 apps in a year) here.

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There were a number of problems with the Kindle/Instapaper support. The biggest is that the system was completely unreliable. The way Instapaper works on the Kindle is that you have to set up the service to email your Kindle either daily or weekly wrap-ups of the articles you bookmark on the web. In my experience, about half the time this would work, the other half, these summaries simply would not get sent. Arment says he’s tried talking to Amazon about the issue, but has never received a response. Considering that Kindle users are paying $0.15 for each of these emails sent (an unfortunate side effect of the Kindle’s free built-in network), and it still is completely unreliable, this is totally unacceptable. So Arment has come up with a new way of doing Instapaper + Kindle: USB transfers.

To be clear, this isn’t the most ideal solution, since at least the over-the-air sync required you to do nothing and now you’ll have to attach your Kindle to your computer. But USB transfer will be infinitely more reliable and 100% cheaper (as in, free). This new process (which Arment stresses is still very much “beta”) allows you to download a Kindle-compatible .mobi file. These files are populated with your 20 more recent Instapaper saved articles. This also isn’t ideal if you want to see older articles you have saved, but I suppose you could always re-save them if you really wanted them on your Kindle.

On the upside, Instapaper will now work with non-U.S. Kindles (the email service was previously U.S.-only). Also nice is that many articles will now contain images, which previously were not transfered via the email route.

Along with Kindle-ready .mobi files, Instapaper now also allows for ePub downloads, the format that many other popular e-readers use (like Sony Readers). The idea is the same with the Kindle support, you get your 20 most recent articles converted into .epub files which you can then read on these devices. There is also now print support for all Instapaper folders.

Arment notes that because the over-the-air Kindle solution is completely unreliable with no support from Amazon, he plans to completely discontinue it next week in favor of the USB method. And if you’re wondering why you can’t simply use the Kindle’s built-in web browser to visit Instapaper, the answer is because the Kindle’s built-in web browser is awful and Instapaper currently doesn’t work on it (though Arment seems to suggest he is still trying to fix that).

While it’s the Kindle that is the dedicated reading device, it’s interesting to note that Instapaper’s iPhone app is at least a billion times better for consuming Instapaper content away from your computer. Not only does it seamlessly sync over the air, but you can mark items as read from it, visit the actual content on the web, and do about a dozen other more useful things. Of course, the downside is that the iPhone has a backlit screen (harder on your eyes) and is much, much smaller than the Kindle. An Apple Tablet + Instapaper app might be the perfect remedy for the latter.

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The New York Times’ Saul Hansell provided context at the telecom level, while ex-monopoly telecom BT’s JP Rangaswami placed his and BT’s bet on the future of open platforms such as Android. JP’s partner in crime at BT and subsidiary Ribbit, Kevin Marks, supported Arrington’s vision of a game-changer in voice, while Robert Scoble was happy to defend the iPhone with faint praise just so he could have something to argue about with Arrington. He also elicits some new CrunchPad details from Mike.

Of course, my perspective is the true correct one, that the iPhone will continue to dominate as Android devices demolish RIM, partner virtually with Windows Mobile over the Silverlight bridge to carve up the volume play, and batter the telecoms into submission so that Apple can ride through the big gaping hole and launch the iBook. A great conversation that will continue.

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How right he is.

Facebook’s VP of Communications Elliot Schrage has just left us a comment on our post from yesterday explaining that while Hewitt may be moving on, Facebook “has a great team of engineers taking over iPhone related development.” May an entire team blossom, apparently.

Schrage left the comment because there has been much brouhaha over developer Joe Hewitt’s decision to stop working on the Facebook iPhone app because he’s fed up with Apple’s App Store policies. Schrage obviously wants to make it clear that Hewitt’s stance does not in any way signify how Facebook as a company feels towards Apple. We don’t really think our story yesterday implied that, but okay, noted.

Here’s the full comment that Schrage left on the post from yesterday:

This is Elliot Schrage, VP of Communications at Facebook. There’s been a fair amount of confusion and speculation about Joe’s comments and whether they reflect the official position of Facebook. They don’t. Facebook’s relationship with Apple and our commitment to the iPhone platform remain strong. IIn fact, though Joe himself will be moving to new projects, Facebook has a great team of engineers taking over iPhone related development. More generally, our work bringing Facebook Connect to the iPhone and with iTunes, iPhoto and other great products over the past year should illustrate our commitment to expanding our relationship with Apple and finding new ways to offer new services and features to the people who use both our products.

A beautifully crafted (minus the typo, of course) piece of PR work there. Are you reading this, Apple? Facebook is asking nicely not to be put in the penalty box.

Seriously though, while Facebook may not be on the same page as Hewitt with regard to the App Store policies, we are. As much as I think Apple generally makes great products, the App Store continues to be rife with hypocrisy and heartache. And it’s only going to get worse as it continues to grow. It’s good to see a developer of Hewitt’s caliber take the stance.

[photo: flickr/appsara]

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I bring this up because today brought some very interesting numbers from the research firm, Strategy Analytics. According to them, Apple has surpassed Nokia as the most profitable phone maker in the world. I’ll throw some numbers at you in a second to show why this is really incredible, but the key takeaway is that this is why, at the end of the day, Apple wins.

While the press and rivals obsess over market share, Apple quietly comes in and makes an insane amount of money. It’s the same in the computer industry. Small market share, huge amount of money. The most important thing for all of these are companies is the bottom line. Apple wins that battle.

According to the report, Apple made $1.6 billion in operating profit off of the iPhone in Q3. Nokia, meanwhile, made $1.1 billion. Let’s put this in perspective. Recent numbers suggest Nokia controls roughly 35% of the worldwide handset market. Apple? About 2.5%.

Not 25%. Two point five percent.

Since the launch of the iPhone in 2007, just about everyone has been clamoring for more variety in Apple’s offering. People wanted iPhone minis, they wanted CDMA iPhones, etc. But Apple stuck to its guns and has basically sold one phone, which it could manufacture efficiently, when rivals like Nokia are busy peddling dozens. Sure, there are a few variations on the iPhone (included memory, and now the 3G/3GS), but basically, it’s one phone that is pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars of more profit than the market leader.

To people who follow Apple closely, this should be absolutely no surprise. It’s the same thing it does in the computer industry. Despite having a much smaller market share than its rivals, it makes more money than most of them. The key, of course, is that Apple maintains its high profit margins, while the competitors shuffle to battle each other for market share.

That’s not to say that Apple doesn’t care about market share for either its computers or the iPhone, it undoubtedly does. But it’s a secondary goal to running a successful business. A business which is now absolutely thriving in an awful worldwide economic environment.

If Apple wanted to boost its computer market share, it could do so in a heartbeat simply by slashing into its margins and chopping hundreds of dollars off its machines. That’s why those “I’m A PC” shopping commercials this summer were humorous. They’re attacking Apple for not competing in segments (low cost PCs) that it has absolutely no desire to compete in. Would those commercials be effective if Apple chose to sell a $500 MacBook? No, because Lauren probably would have bought it (remember, her first stop was the Apple store).

Most consumers obviously shouldn’t like the idea that a company is purposely charging more for its product to keep its margins high. But Apple has a winning proposition for that because it builds machines of such high quality that to many users it seems like they should cost more than they actually do. Or as Apple COO Tim Cook put it in a earnings call over the summer, “Our goal is not to build the most computers. It’s to build the best.” When you do that, apparently you can keep your margins high and in turn, make insane profits.

The iPhone is a bit different because Apple has a partner that it has convinced to pay it an insane amount of money for each device sold and then subsidize the cost of it for consumers. Remember that when the iPhone first came out it was $600. That’s the price Apple clearly felt comfortable setting for it to maintain what it thought was a good margin.

That price, of course, was ridiculous (though, admittedly, myself and plenty of others paid it). A few months later, Apple realized this too, and slashed a couple hundred dollars off the price, thus slashing it margins. But then they figured out a better way. Previously, they had been getting a cut of every monthly AT&T iPhone contract. But with the iPhone 3G, Apple decided to give all that money to AT&T in exchange for one upfront payment, and the promise that AT&T would subsidize the cost of the phone down to $199 (and $299). Jackpot.

So basically, Apple is now making a huge margin on every iPhone sold, while AT&T more or less picks up the tab. (Don’t feel too bad for them, they still make plenty on those monthly contracts.) Now you see why Apple doesn’t mind that exclusive agreement even while us consumers bitch to no end? There are 1.6 billion reasons why they like that deal (okay, probably some smaller percentage of that, but still).

And because Apple makes all of this money, they have money to pour into making that next great product. A product that will likely be high quality — and sell with a high margin. Hopefully some of that $34 billion in cash (with no debt) is being poured into finalizing the tablet as we speak.

This influx of profit also allows Apple to take the plunge into new markets, like it did with the iPhone. Earlier today, blogger John Gruber recalled what former Palm CEO Ed Colligan said when he heard that computers makers like Apple could enter the phone market:

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

Not only did they walk in, they walked in, changed the landscape, and have what now appears to be the best business model industry-wide.

Just as with the computer industry, while all its rivals were busy jockeying for market share, Apple secured the high ground and figured out the best way to bathe in profits.

[images: Touchstone Pictures and flickr/jaci xiii]

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Now, to be clear, as we previewed last month, the upcoming version of Tweetie, 2.1, will also support Twitter’s new geolocation feature. But the new version of Birdfeed, 1.2, does it in a way that highlights it much more. And in fact, when Twitter geolocation support finally does roll out (it’s due very soon, we hear), Birdfeed has a good shot to be the go-to app for it at launch.

So what’s so good about it? Well, unlike Tweetie 2.1, which forces you to click into a menu system to get at the geolocation feature, Birdfeed puts it front and center at the top of every tweet composition screen. If you opt-in to using the feature (and it’s important to note that Twitter geolocation is opt-in), you can choose to either tweet with your location sent out each time, or use it on a tweet-by-tweet basis. If you choose the latter, you’ll see a bar along the top that reads, “Add a location to this tweet”. Clicking on that with start a “Determining location” function, and in a few seconds, you’ll have your location pinned to the top of that tweet under which you’ll write the actual tweet. Simple.

Currently, there isn’t any granular support to pick and choose how much or little detail of your location to show (what city you’re in versus what block you’re on, for example), but I suspect that may be something coming from Twitter’s end once geolocation launches.

On tweets sent out with this geolocation data, you’ll see a hyperlinked location beneath the timestamp on the tweet’s landing page. Oddly, there is no obvious way to tell which tweets are geotagged and which are not from the main stream, currently. If you click on this location on the tweet screen, you’ll be taken to that location on a map and show a marker with that Twitter user’s name and their tweet on top of a Google Map.

Birdfeed 1.2 was submitted to the App Store for approval 2 days ago, developer Buzz Andersen tells us. He remains committed to improving the application going forward, but notes that it has been slow going because he has other projects he’s currently working on as well. Still, Birdfeed is just as solid as it was several months ago and now with great geolocation implementation, could well see a spike in usage from the LBS lovers. Watch for it in the App Store sometime in the next couple of weeks.

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Urbanspoon has been one of the most popular apps for the iPhone since it launched alongside the App Store in the summer of 2008. By blending location data with a fun, accelerometer-based way of finding good nearby restaurants, it even caught Apple’s eye, which soon began featuring it in its television commercials, fueling its success. And that success led to IAC eventually purchasing the self-funded startup in April of this year for a price in the seven-figure range.

But Urbanspoon didn’t stop thinking about what to do next, and the first stop is the BlackBerry. It just made sense since there’s a good overlap between the type of people who use BlackBerrys and the type who use Urbanspoon, co-founder Ethan Lowry tells us. So the company teamed up with Xtreme Labs, a popular development shop, to create the app.

Like its iPhone brethren, the app features the familiar slot machine-style interface to allow you to tailor your restaurant searches. For devices like the Storm, which has an accelerometer, you can use the app by shaking it. For other BlackBerrys, you simply click a button to set the wheels rolling. “It’s one of the snazziest BlackBerry apps there is,” Lowry says.

The reason Urbanspoon outsourced part of the development of the app rather than do it all in-house like they did with the iPhone is because there are too many types of BlackBerrys that need different versions. For example, there are four different versions of the Urbanspoon BlackBerry app alone, we’re told. Despite it being acquired by a large company, Urbanspoon remains a small team, and they simply don’t have the resources to devote to all these different devices.

But the team is already thinking ahead. Lowry said there was some debate as to whether they should go with BlackBerry or Android first as their next target. He’s excited about Android now, as opposed to a year ago when things were still up in the air about the platform, and believes that it will definitely be their next target. Other platforms like Windows Mobile and webOS (which the Palm Pre runs) will have to wait. Though the team is also debating crowd-sourcing the creation of apps for other platforms to its users — an approach with other small teams like Foursquare are taking.

In terms of monetization of the app, it remains for now mostly a user grab. There will be limited monetization through ads and the like (which BlackBerry has a revenue share agreement for), but it will be minimal, Lowry says.

Go here to get the app, it will work on most of the newer BlackBerrys.

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Now that in-app purchasing for free apps has been live for a few weeks in the iTunes App Store, and Apple is now ranking the top-grossing apps, whether they start out as free or paid, we have some initial data on what kinds of apps are pulling in the most money from in-app purchases. (In-app purchases allow apps to offer a free version and then make money by requiring consumers to pay for additional features or content). Today, Distimo put out a report (download it here) which breaks down the top 40 grossing in-app purchasing titles by category (see chart below). Games, social networking, and book apps are doing the best job upselling consumers from free apps to paid enhancements. Music, news, and finance apps, not so much.

Games top the rankings of these best performing apps, with ngmoco’s Eliminate Pro (iTunes link) currently the No. 8 top-grossing app, validating ngmoco’s shift from a paid to freemium model. Mafia Wars (iTunes link) is another example. Seven of the top 40 grossing apps with in-app purchasing are games.

After games, social networking apps such as iRose (iTunes link), TweetPush (iTunes link), and Boxcar (iTunes link) are doing the best job convincing users to pay up after they download the free versions. Social networking apps take six of the top 40. Then comes books, with four of the top 40, including Comics (iTunes link)

It seems that apps which are addictive (like games) persistent (like social communications apps), or lengthy and easy to sample (like books) are doing the best with in-app purchases. It trickles down after that. There is one music app in the top performing apps—RJDJ (iTunes link), one news app, one finance app, and so on. People just don’t want to pay for songs, news, or stock quotes.

The Distimo report also compares the average price for the top 100 mobile apps in the iTunes App Store, the Android Market and the Blackberry App World. The Average price of an app in iTunes is the cheapest at $3.42, followed by Android at $4.30, and Blackberry Apps at $5.61. With more than 10 times as many apps as any of the other app stores, all that competition and proliferation of $0.99 apps probably explains why iTunes apps are the cheapest, even among the top 100. Also, Blackberry apps all have a minimum price of $2.99. Research in Motion just announced that developers will be able to include in-app transactions next year. It doesn’t appear that there is any official way to include in-app transactions in Android apps yet.

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Knocking, made by Pointy Heads Software, is basically a photo-sharing app on steroids. With it, you can pretty much instantaneously share up to 100 photos at once between two iPhones. This works by establishing a connection between the two phones, during which one user selects another user with the app and “knocks” the pictures over to them. The video below shows just how simple and fast this process is.

Naturally, for this to work, both people must have the Knocking application. But the app, which is free for the first 50,000 downloads, has other advantages, such as being able to control the photo viewing experience on another phone. So, for example, if I want to send some pictures to my mom and show her specific ones, I would simply create a Knocking connection and send them over where I could then control which ones she is seeing. She would also be able to save any of those pictures to her phone with the click of a button.

MMS allows you to send multiple images but the sending process is slow, and the selection process is cumbersome. With Knocking, you can easily share entire albums, not just individual pictures. And MMS limits you to sending 5 pictures. Again, Knocking’s limit is 100. And even with that many photos, it takes only a couple of minutes to sync them all between the two phones.

There is also Facebook Connect integration to allow users to share their “knocks.” And Knocking works over both 3G and WiFi.

You can find the Knocking app here. Again, it’s free for the first 50,000 downloads.

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Well, not exactly.

Apparently, Apple contacted Someecards a couple days ago because of some new content in the app — Someecards pushes new cards into the app just as it does on its site. There was one in particular that Apple did not find amusing, and wanted clarification on: A card making fun of President Obama Halloween costumes. It’s fairly easy to see why Apple wanted some clarification, the card involves race. Here’s what it says: “Just double-checking that your Obama costume will involve a mask and not shoe polish.”

Fans of Someecards will know that they use these types of provocative jokes all the time. The intent, it would seem, is not to be racist, but to use a joke to make a statement about race. “It’s kind of hard to explain humor, but I basically said it was making fun of racist behavior,” Someecards co-founder Duncan Mitchell tells us that he told Apple.

It is hard to explain humor. You either get a joke, or you do not. Apple, it seems, does not. “They said that they thought we could both agree we should remove the card. I said that we probably wouldn’t both agree that we should remove the card, but that we would remove it if they said we had to,” Mitchell says. “They said we had to.”

Anyone who has ever talked to just about any spokesperson at Apple will immediately relate to what Mitchell is saying. If Apple contacts you about something, they’re really contacting you to make you do what they want. If you don’t, there is often the threat of repercussions of some sort. In Someecards case, it would have meant pulling the app from the App Store.

As I’ve said many times, the App Store is Apple’s store, they can choose to do what they want with it. The problem is that Apple is perplexingly hypocritical when it comes to what apps get rejected and what apps get accepted. For example, apps that feature interactive Asian upskirt shots are fine. So are apps called Asian Boobs which feature young Asian women wearing next to nothing in sexually provocative poses. Also apparently fine is Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler’s famous work.

For whatever reason, Apple has decided that anything having to do with making fun of public figures is prohibited. Though satire is protected in this country, it’s apparently not okay in Apple law. Apple literally has no sense of humor when it comes to that. But guess who does? Google.

In a seemingly coincidental bit of timing, Mitchell says that Google contacted him just hours after his call with Apple. They were calling to see if he’d be interested in making the app for Android. Their big selling points? “They pitched us on all the cool new phones that were coming out, and they also wanted to stress that they wouldn’t censor the app,” Mitchell tells us (emphasis mine).

Google, it seems, has a much better sense of humor than Apple. And they’re definitely playing their cards right in attempting to set up Android’s Market as a more open alternative to Apple’s App Store. With over 100,000 apps now, the App Store is a juggernaut that keeps on growing. But it would be a mistake to believe this growth will continue on in perpetuity no matter what. Apple should be careful about pissing off developers (which it has done plenty of times already) when an alternative like Android is finally gaining some momentum.

Regular readers will know that unlike a couple of my colleagues, I’m firmly an iPhone guy. Despite the advances that competitors are making, I still truly believe it is hands-down the best mobile device out there. But, as I hope you’d expect, I’m not above calling out Apple’s bullshit when I see it — as I do, very often, with regard to the App Store.

I simply believe they are making a mistake with the way they’re trying to contain this environment. At first, it made sense from Apple’s perspective because the company is all about controlling the user experience. But as the App Store continues to grow, the app approval model be harder and harder to maintain. What happens when we get to a million apps in the App Store? What about 5 million? Is Apple prepared to hire thousands of people simply to approve apps? The more they hire and the more apps that keep coming in, we’re going to continue seeing more and more screw-ups and hypocrisy. And developers are going to grow more and more frustrated. This situation is simply not tenable.

Lighten up on your heavy-handed rules, Apple. And just lighten up in general.

[photo: flickr/swami stream]

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As a small team, Gowalla, like its rival Foursquare, doesn’t have a lot of resources to devote to building apps on all the mobile platforms, so this is a good solution for the time being. Eventually, the plan is to have native apps for all the big platforms, Williams says.

But the most-loved child will remain the iPhone app for the foreseeable future. In fact, version 1.3 of that app has just been submitted to the App Store for approval, we’re told. Williams says that it should alleviate a lot of the check-in and place adding issues that users were experiencing in previously versions, which we touched on here.

Yesterday, Gowalla also added Twitter feeds to venue pages on their web site. This allows you to see what the official Twitter accounts for those places are saying at any given time. They also began appending place’s Twitter names to your tweets when you check into a place on Gowalla. See an example here.

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Let me remind everyone that Apple rejected a Someecards application last month partially due to the fact that one of the cards included was mocking Hitler (and more specifically, the film Inglourious Basterds). They flat out rejected it, didn’t require a certain rating for the satire, just rejected it. So when you see Mein Kampf in the store, complete with a swastika as its icon, you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit dumbfounded.

Not only that, the app is rated 9+. So apparently, 9 year-olds are good to go to read about the “Jewish plot” and other anti-Semitic bile. Also perfectly fine for the App Store are apps that focus on upskirt pictures, and Asian Boobs. But satire? Nope, that’s too hardcore.

This version of Mein Kampf is in Spanish, so maybe that’s what allowed it to slip by the App Store guardians. But that’s no excuse. If the Nazi logo didn’t raise a red flag, I’m not sure what will. The point is that Apple is so ridiculously hypocritical (or, at the very least, incompetent) with its selection process and it just keeps getting worse.

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Today in San Francisco, AT&T held a Tech Showcase to show off some of the new innovations they are working on in their labs. One such thing I got a demo of was a way to use your iPhone to search television content simply by using your voice. While you may think something like this is less than ideal, it’s fast and very accurate. Watch below as the demonstration goes from simple to more complex. And, of course, a regular touch-based remote is included as well to select things.

By the way, none of this is actually happening on the iPhone or on your actual TV. Instead, your iPhone is connected to AT&T’s service where it does the voice filtering on its end — and it’s still this fast. This project isn’t quite ready for consumer use, but as you can tell, they’re not far off either. I would replace my cable box with something that has this in a second.

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That’s not to say it’s not a nice looking product — it is, but there have been some changes that make me confused as to what Apple exactly is trying to do with this thing. From a design perspective, it makes sense. The new remote now has the brushed aluminum and black button exterior that graces both Apple’s MacBook Pro line and the iMac line these days. The original Apple Remote was all white plastic (aside from the top sensor), that matched the older iMacs that it originally launched with.

Back in those days, the remote made more sense. First of all, it came with most new Macs. This, alongside Apple’s Front Row software, made it seem obvious that Apple was going to start taking media (beyond just music) very seriously across the Mac line (for a while it even came with Mac laptops). But today, the remote doesn’t come standard with any Apple product aside from the Apple TV (for obvious reasons). Instead, it’s a $19.00 add-on, even for the new huge 27-inch screen top-of-the-line iMacs (which seem like a natural fit to watch media on).

Also odd: while the original white remote had a magnetic back to allow it to easily stick to the side of the iMac, the new remote does not. That means this remote is yet another piece of clutter sitting on your desk if you opt to buy one. It would seem that Apple doesn’t really care about you using this remote anymore, even though without it, Front Row is basically useless. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to use it over simply using iTunes if you have to sit at your computer to do it anyway.

But the oddest thing about the new remote has to be that Apple has for some reason decided to move the Play/Pause button from the center of the navigational circle to the lower right side of the device, shifting the Menu button left to make room. That might make some sense as just a straight-up ergonomic design change, but the weirdest thing is that the center of the navigational circle is still a button, that does the same thing as the Play/Pause button.

Yes, Apple has added a new useless button. Again, Apple. The company that hates buttons.

Apple’s documentation for the new remote provides little insight, but they do label this new center button as “Select” rather than Play/Pause. But again, it does the exact same thing. Could there be some new funtionality for Front Row in the future that takes advantage of the Select button? Maybe. But even launching something like the new iTunes Extras content now being packaged with movies doesn’t seem like it would need its own button.

Here’s something else: Apple doesn’t even bother mentioning it on the main Remote page on its site, but this new remote does work with the Apple TV. Again, from a design perspective, this makes sense as the new remote looks much more like the Apple TV than the white one that currently comes with it. But again, the remote’s phantom button does nothing different from the Play/Pause button aside from the fact that holding down Play/Pause brings up movie chapters, while holding the phantom button does not seem to. Odd.

There is one definite advantage of the new remote: It’s much easier to change the battery. I have friends who have stacks of old dead white remotes simply because they didn’t even realize you could previously change the battery. So that’s nice, but does it really warrant the $19 price for a larger, heavier remote that no longer sticks to the iMac? Probably not.

If you want a good remote for iTunes and the Apple TV, just use your iPhone or iPod touch. Apple’s own Remote app makes it much, much more useful than either of the physical remotes. You can, for example, do a search by typing on the device’s keyboard rather than being forced to do a ridiculous amount of clicks to manually enter each letter on the Apple TV’s onscreen keyboard. It’s also much better for scrolling through a bunch of titles. Really, it’s better in every way imaginable. The only downside is that you have to own an iPhone or iPod touch. But if you own an Apple TV, chances are you probably own one of those as well.

I really don’t understand Apple’s thinking with these remotes. It would seem that they’re clearly inching towards products with less buttons and more touch elements, but this new remote is the opposite of that. There’s been a touch screen remote rumored for some time now, but this is what we got instead? What gives, Apple?

Update: A few things from some insightful commenters:

1) It’s also a bit odd that the new remote does not feature an Apple logo anywhere on it. The old one did on the back.

2) It’s true that aluminum is not a magnetic metal, but neither is plastic, which the old remote was.

3) I had forgotten about this, but the old Apple Remote is very similar to the original iPod Shuffle. It’s certainly possible that Apple was using the same manufacturing for both, and with that Shuffle long retired, it was easy to move to a new type of remote.

4) Apparently, the Play/Pause separate button also allows you to stop/start content when you’re not specifically in that section. That could very well be why Apple did this, but that is also not very intuitive since the buttons do the same things the rest of the time.

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When the iPhone OS 3.1 update rolled through town, it brought with it a handful of new features – but it also killed off one, not-so-official feature: unauthorized data tethering on AT&T.

Early this morning, the endlessly ingenious iPhone hacking community released Blacksn0w, a carrier unlock for the iPhone 3G and 3GS. Even if you have no need to plug in a different SIM card than what was originally intended, however, Blacksn0w still has its perks. Namely, it brings the aforementioned unauthorized data tethering right on back.

We’ve just walked through the process, and it went off without a hitch. If you’re interested in doing the same but don’t want to do it alone, we’ve thrown together a handy step-by-step guide, just for you.

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Previously, Loopt was more of a passive service — you started it up on some device and it kept track of where you were. Other users could see where you were if they opened the app too, but generally it wasn’t about pinging your friends to let them know where you are and what you were doing. But Pulse makes Loopt much more of an active service. It recommends hot places, hot events, and lets you know what your friends are up to.

This new feature is already live on Loopt’s website, but as we alluded to back in May, this will also be a part of the Loopt 2.0 iPhone app, which should be released shortly. But things have even changed since then. As you can see in the screenshots, a key feature of this new Loopt is the idea of the “Check In.” Obviously, this is a direct reaction to competitors like Foursquare and Gowalla which are built around that very idea. This is a key part of the new Loopt as checking in helps it recommend things for your friends to do.

But Loopt is also using other data to recommend places. It has a partnership with Zagat to get restaurant information and pulls data from sources like Citysearch to further its recommendations. All of this data has allowed Loopt to create what founder Sam Altman refers to as a “local search engine.”

And this is altering Loopt’s business as well. As we’ve previously covered, location is a potentially powerful tool for business models involving things like coupons. Foursquare is starting to delve into this, but it isn’t yet making money from it. This new version of Loopt is taking full advantage of this. The company has already struck deals with partners such as Jack In The Box to serve up virtual coupons when users of Loopt are nearby a restaurant.

Fans of Loopt will still recognize many of the features of the service, but everything has been improved, Altman says. One thing not included however is Mix, Loopt’s service that helped users potentially find dates. That was spun off into its own app last month.

Loopt also offers some things that Foursquare doesn’t such as the ability to see where all your friends are checked in on an actual map (rather than just a list of where they are). And you can also see not only that friends are at a particular place, but how others have rated it (with a smiley face or a frowning face). This allows you to see if a restaurant is not good, for example.

The iPhone is proving to be a boon for location-based services, but it also has a very big weakness: Third-party apps cannot run in the background. This is one reason why the previous version of Loopt didn’t work well on the device; it kept track of your location, but only when you had it open. Loopt recently launched a new feature that allows you to get around this by pinging your phone to get your location with the help of the carrier. But that service costs extra money, a huge barrier. Moving to the concept of check-ins seems like a better way to keep people using your application.

So can Loopt take on the younger location-based upstarts with its new features? We’ll see, but Loopt has a couple of big advantages: 1) It works on over 100 mobile devices (Foursquare, for example, works on only a few right now — but any phone can access its mobile website). 2) Apple seems to love Loopt. They’ve included it in commercials, and routinely feature it in the App Store.

Disclosure: Loopt offers a TechCrunch branded version of the service here.

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Way back in March, Apple announced that the latest and greatest build of the iPhone OS would open up a whole new world to third parties: richly featured accessories, complete with tie-in software. No longer would accessory makers be limited to headphones, cases, and FM transmitters with hardware controls – now they could make glucose meters, guitar amp controllers, and FM transmitters with onscreen controls! The possibilities were endless.

8 months later, what is there to show for it? There’s a $120 car cradle that boosts the GPS accuracy of the iPhone, some fancy running shoes, and.. er.. well, that’s about it.

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So what’s new? Well, there are a ton of small bug fixes, but also some pretty big additions. There are two that you’ll probably care the most about: New-style rewtweets and geolocation support. We got an early alpha build of 2.1 to try out, and it’s looking good.

Retweets

While Twitter has yet to enable the new-style retweets or geolocation for most accounts, Tweetie 2.1 offers a glimpse of how it will work. Tweets from accounts with the new retweet function show up in Tweetie 2.1’s stream. As promised, these are the tweets from the actual person who originally sent it, rather than the person doing the retweeting.

But Tweetie 2.1 highlights these retweets in a nice way. First of all, you see both the user icon for person who originally tweeted the item and the person retweeting it. The original tweeter’s icon is big, while the retweeter’s icon is small and stuck in the lower right hand corner (see image). These tweets are also tagged with a pinkish-red triangle in the upper right hand corner to let you know this is a retweet. Clicking on these tweets takes you to a page that shows you the tweet from the original source, but also says at the bottom “retweeted by @USERNAME.”

The way to retweet something in Tweetie 2.1 remains the same: You click on a tweet (or swipe a tweet in the stream) and hit the box with the arrow icon. The top option is “Retweet.”

There’s a growing concern that Twitter’s new retweet rules will cause some confusion (it already has) in users’ streams. But the way Tweete 2.1 handles it is solid, both giving recognition to the original tweeter and showing the tweet to be a retweeted item by someone you follow. Other third-parties thinking about how to handle the new retweets should look to Tweetie 2.1 as an example.

Geolocation

Likewise, Tweetie 2.1 also shows off Twitter’s new geolocation support. Again, for accounts that have it turned on, these tweets show up in Tweetie 2.1 with a tiny red location pin in the upper right hand corner. Clicking on these tweets takes you to the tweet’s page which also has a little map preview below it showing what city the tweet was sent from. Clicking on this map loads up a larger Google Map inside of Tweetie 2.1 that pinpoints the actual location with a red push pin.

If you want to geotag your tweets, you hit the 140 character counter at the bottom of the tweet input box. This brings up tweet options including a new “Geotag” button in the upper right. Clicking on this will first load up Twitter to ask you to authorize the app to see your Twitter location. Assuming you allow this (and again, this isn’t yet turned on for most users — though it is live for some), Tweetie will places a small red pin right next to the 140 character counter to indicate your tweet is geotagged.

Lists

One thing not currently available in this build of Tweetie 2.1 is Twitter’s new Lists element. “In a perfect world Tweetie 2.1 will have list support, or at least experimental support for it.  It should be 100% by 2.2,” Brichter said when I asked him about it.

Twitter fully rolled out Lists to all users at the end of last week (after testing it for a few weeks with a group of users). Reactions to the feature have varied, but generally seem to be good. And third-parties are already popping up that are either built around the Lists API or are supporing it (Seesmic Desktop added it today).

Brichter also confirmed to me that Tweetie for Mac version 2 will support Lists as well. But he says that will be coming after Tweetie 2.1 for the iPhone is available.

Timing

Brichter says that if all goes to plan, Tweetie 2.1 could hit its final beta testing stage later this week. If that happens, he’ll presumably submit it to the App Store for approval soon after that. And those who were up in arms over the fact that Tweetie 2 cost money even for people who bought the original Tweetie, put down your pitchforks: Tweetie 2.1 will be a free upgrade for Tweetie 2 owners.

For those interested, here’s a big list of the changes in 2.1 so far:

• Geotag work
• New retweeting
• Post ‘message’ parameter through to custom Image endpoints
• Switch to WhatTheTrend
• Reorganized Search/More UI
• Accessibility work
• Image compression options
• Vidly, Mobypicture, and Posterous as video options
• New protocol handler to make it easier to install custom URL shorteners
• Fix TextExpander goofups
• Fix Japanese double-posting bug
• Fix email conversation
• Fix handling of iTunes links
• Google Mobilizer option (and custom Mobilizer)
• Fix rare hang when viewing reply chains
• Fix calling from address book page
• Fix cases where saving state doesn’t complete
• Disable browser rotation option
• Overlapr
• Report Spam
• Fix rare crash translating tweets
• Disable “mark as read” button when no unread – history=1 for j.mp
• Fix upsidedown image viewer and browser
• Disable Pinstripes option
• Fix tweetie:///post? style protocol handler
• Reorder Settings
• Link to Manual

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If you are a comics fan, you are going to like this (unless you’re a print purist). Panelfly is partnering with Marvel Comics, one of the largest comic book companies in the world, to bring all your comic book fantasies to the iPhone. Marvel’s line up of comics is quite amazing — the original Spider-Man series, X-Men, X23, Age Apocalypse, and Iron Man. These titles are now being offered in the Panelfly iPhone application, going back to the very first issues. [iTunes Link]

If comics are to survive the digital age, they need to become available in electronic form. And that’s exactly what this partnership does. Until now, reading the original Spider-Man or Captain America on your iPhone wasn’t possible. For instance, Stephen Lynch, CTO of Panelfy, says that it’s almost impossible to get your hands on the original versions of some of these comics, but now with this partnership, you can read the very first issue of Spider-Man, X-Men, and Ironman on your iPhone.

The application is free, but each issue costs $0.99 to download into Panelfly’s reader. Now, if only Apple hurried up with that Tablet, you could actually read them in full screen.

In August, Disney acquired Marvel for $4 billion.

Update: Marvel has also partnered with Comixology and Iverse to provide their comics.

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Startups like Bump Technologies, which recently got some funding, and My Name is E are trying to kill the paper business card, but even in 2009, many of us, including myself, still use business cards. The biggest hassle with business cards is getting the contact information into your address book as fast as possible — that’s where Business Card Reader [iTunes link] for the iPhone comes in.

Business Card Reader scans and “reads” the picture using ABBYY’s text recognition technology and enters the data into the iPhone or iPod touch address book. Basically, you open the application, and choose either to take a new picture of a business card, or if you’ve already taken a picture, you can upload that as well. After you take a picture, or upload a picture, the application scans the business card, and after about 15 seconds, you get the address book field to edit the scanned information if there are errors. Once that’s all done, it adds the new contact into your address book. It’s really that easy.

After playing around with the application for a few days and testing out different types of business cards, the accuracy, in my opinion, is about 85%. The only errors I got where if the companies name was in a logo format, and their logo had a weird font, but other then that, the app worked pretty well. If your a mobile networker, this is an app you’ll definitely like.

Business Card Reader is $5.99 from the App Store, where you can buy it today.

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The company has set a goal to release 100 apps before the end of 2010 for the iPhone. How are they going to do this? By pulling together a bunch of developers from around the U.S. to make an app development power house. Currently, the team has assembled 25 developers and 25 user interface guys to work towards the goal. The team members mix and match, pairing up to do one app at a time. When they complete that one, it’s on to the next one, with a new set of partners.

The concept is actually much more straightforward than pulling new app ideas out of the blue and making them. The reason Big in Japan decided to do this was because they were being approached by so many brands and companies to help them build iPhone apps, that there was no way Big in Japan could keep up with the demand the way the team was previously structured. So now, when a new app request comes in, Big in Japan looks it over, decides if they think its a good fit for their large team to do, and then pass it along to the app developers.

And it’s a good deal for the developers because they are all working together towards a common goal: Money. The way the model works is that this pool of developers collectively own half of the company (which is a sub-division of Big in Japan). As such, they get half of the revenue from the company to split up between them. So the better each of them do, the better they all do. And it’s based on a country club model, Big in Japan co-founder Alexander Muse tells us. Basically, these developers buy their seat, but if they decide they want to move on, they can sell it to someone else.

Muse expects that 25 apps will be launched this quarter from the project. And he hopes to continue that pace through the end of 2010. Realistically, he admit that maybe only 80 or so apps will actually be available when all is said and done in the App Store. He, like everyone else, realizes that it can be tricky to get apps approved at times by Apple, and he suspects that some developers will get fed up and simply stop working on those apps. Still, 80 apps in a year from one house would be very impressive.

Big in Japan made a name for itself with its ShopSavvy application, which won the Android Developer Challenge last year. ShopSavvy still has yet to launch for the iPhone, but Muse recently wrote that it will be launching very soon.

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