Up until now, if you wanted to use the location-based service Gowalla on the go, you had to have an iPhone. Today, that expands to Android. But rather than building an app, Gowalla has extended support to Android using the mobile web. This works because Android’s browser is closely tied to the device and is able to access location information, which is vital for Gowalla. The goal is to extend this mobile web support to BlackBerry and a few other location-aware devices in the next week or so, co-founder Josh Williams tells us.

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.

This just keeps getting more and more ridiculous. Before I begin, let me start out by saying that all things being equal, I have no problem with the Apple putting Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf into the App Store, as they have today, as both The Next Web and Edible Apple spotted. It’s a book, it’s a rather big part of history, it’s in book stores, etc. That said, all things are not equal in the App Store, not even close. And by Apple’s own standards there is no way this should have been approved.

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.

Last month, I lashed out against cable companies and their cable boxes because they are junk. Absolute trash. The hardware is slow, the UIs are terrible, and the remotes are like Fisher Price toys. This is 2009, not 1989.

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.

I hold in my hand the new Apple Remote. In case you missed it, Apple quietly launched it alongside the new iMacs, Mac minis, Magic Mice, and MacBooks a couple weeks ago. Simply put: I don’t get it.

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.

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.

When Loopt launched in 2006 it was ahead of a curve that is just starting to be recognized: Location. Now, with services like Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, and even Twitter fueling the location-based services frenzy, Loopt realized that it needed to shift its strategy a bit. Enter Pulse, a new feature launching today.

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.

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.

By now, Tweetie 2 has probably stormed your iPhone. If not, you should check it out; in our opinion, it’s the best Twitter iPhone app out there (and yes, definitely worth the $3 [iTunes link]). But developer Loren Brichter isn’t resting on his laurels. Instead, he’s hard at work on Tweetie 2.1.

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.

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]

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 and iPod touch 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.

As the number of apps in the App Store rapidly approaches 100,000, the fact that growth is still accelerating is pretty staggering. It’s not hard to see why when app development houses are pumping out dozens of apps in short order. But at that volume, most of those apps aren’t going to be very good. Big in Japan, a respected mobile app development house, has a plan to up the ante in terms of both quality and output.

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 mobile version of Bing launched alongside the regular site this past summer worked well but lacked some of the bells and whistles that rivals like Google offer in their mobile experience. And with the mobile web becoming increasingly important, a focus on this area is crucial for a fledgling search engine. So today Bing has unveiled a new version of its mobile experience.

The main change is that Bing has been completely revamped for touchscreen smartphones and devices. Currently, this means the G1, the Verizon Imagio, the Samsung Omnia, the Zune HD, and yes, the iPhone. In its blog post, Bing even uses a picture to highlight how nice Bing Mobile looks on the Apple device.

Japan went crazy over the iPhone when it made its debut in summer last year, but China as another big Asian market for Apple seems to react differently. The iPhone officially launched in China today, offered by China Unicom, one the country’s three big cell phone carriers. But our friends over at major Chinese news portal 163.com are reporting [Google machine translation] that not too many people were actually queuing up to get one, at least in Beijing.

Perhaps you’ve been following the drama surrounding the Someecards iPhone app the past several weeks. If not, basically, Apple rejected the app on the grounds that it was making fun of public figures, like Roman Polanski and Hitler. Satire, it seems, it not okay in the App Store. And that’s fine except that potentially more offensive material like Asian T&A and upskirt apps, are apparently fine.

So Someecards decided to give in to Apple and remove any offending content. As such, their app was quickly approved (do what master says and get a cookie). But they’re not giving up the good fight. The guys behind Someecards realize the hypocrisy in Apple’s ways just as much as anyone. But they’ve decided to get their app out there the only way they can and move their fight over to Twitter.

A few weeks back, we shared a video by Swedish Design agency Ocean Observations which demonstrated a rather clever (but arguably useless) concept: Exposé for the iPhone homescreen.

We shared that video on a whim, and the resulting conversation and comments were outstanding. As a result, the same design firm has since churned out two more iPhone-related concept videos: Coverflow Multitasking, and Dashboard Widgets. Just like the last time, we’re left wondering: would you use these?

When Google announced what is clearly the best car navigation application on any mobile today, it didn’t just take a swipe at GPS navigation companies such as Garmin and TomTom. It took a swipe at Apple.

Beyond the advanced features of the Google Maps Navigation app (voice search, crowdsourced traffic data, Street View navigation), what makes the app noteworthy is that it launched on Google’s own Android phones first rather than on the iPhone. By doing so, Google is putting Apple on notice that it is no longer reserving its best apps for the iPhone. This is but the latest sign of a growing rift between Apple and Google.

With the Holiday Season nearly upon us, we at TechCrunch thought it would behoove us to share with everyone a definitive list of the best smartphones currently available (or launching shortly), so as to help with any possible purchasing decisions which may occur in the upcoming months.

In making our decisions, we looked at these phones from the standpoint of the consumer. Thus, developer struggles, business security, and other such problems were not taken into account. Instead, functionality, price, and the overall usefulness of various smartphones made up the criteria which we adhered to during our reviews. These phones can be found on a multitude of carriers, operating systems, and continents.

Late last night, I spent 1,500 words explaining why Verizon’s Droid, like the dozens of competitors before it, is not the ever-sought-after “iPhone killer.” I really should have just waited until this morning and listened to Verizon’s earnings call. After all, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg more or less said it himself.

When asked about a possible partnership with Apple in the future with the iPhone, Seidenberg had this to say, “We obviously would be interested at any point in the future that they would be interested in having us as a partner. … This is a decision that is exclusively in Apple’s court.“

Holy m-commerce, Batman!

According to eBay CEO John Donahoe, shoppers have already spent about $400 million on the popular commerce site using the company’s free iPhone application.

The number pales in comparison with eBay’s total sales figure ($59.7 billion last year), but it’s fairly significant considering the fact that the iPhone has a relatively small market share – about 15% of the smartphone segment – and mobile payment transactions are still new to many. Who would have predicted around half a billion dollar in sales a year would be recorded through the eBay iPhone app when it debuted on the App Store last year?

A few months ago, we wrote about mobile ad network Greystripe’s study that placed “iPhone moms” (mothers of young children who own iPhones) as one of the new and growing mobile advertising demographics on the street. In August, Greystripe claimed that iPhone moms made up 29.5% of all iPhone users. Today, the ad network is releasing a follow-up report which offers detailed behavioral characteristics of moms in their iPhone ad network. Similar to the “soccer moms” demographic, iPhone moms are a consumer segment that has vast potential for advertisers and app developers.

The report shows several interesting patterns. For example, over 59% of iPhone moms surveyed say they let their children use their iPhone. And 41% of moms who own iPhons download apps specifically for their children to use.