Bloom: Highlight of the week here at Gizmodo HQ is Bloom, Brian Eno and Peter Chilver's generative music app in action above (crank up the sound!). Touch the screen and create instant loops in a Music For Airports piano style which will degenerate and evolve in real time. You can also watch it do its own thing, creating a generative loop that's always different. Because why shouldn't a few spare minutes in line or on the can be enhanced by improvisational iPhone-assisted ambient sketches? Take the pain away...for $4.

RjDj: In a similar vein and just released today is RjDj. It records sounds from your environment via the iPhone's mic and then processes them into a playback loop, adding delay and shifting pitch according to preset "scenes." The effect is really, really cool, even just walking around the house. An ice cream truck rolled by my open window and I almost fell over, just now. There's a free version with one scene, and a $3 version adds another processing scheme. Check out the video above for some serious beatboxing with RjDj—neat stuff. Thanks, Gaby!

i.TV: Your weekend needs a well-structured plan for backlit entertainments. And thankfully the value quotient is very high with the free i.TV, which is a nicely designed TV schedule app that does a lot. Aside from giving you a nice schedule grid, it also pulls descriptions, reviews and images from each show, YouTube trailers for any movie on TV, and allows you to bookmark individual shows, channels or genres to keep track of them individually. Oh, and it also finds nearby movie theaters for showtimes and trailers for current theater runs, too. Free.

iNietzsche: Your sensory deprivation hovel also needs Nietzsche, obviously. iNietzsche provides a random quotation from our favorite nihilist at varying levels of translation precision. Free.

CameraBag: And for when it's time to go back into the world, CameraBag. It's not new this week but I want to right the wrong of missing it by mentioning it here anyway, because it's very cool. There are a lot of cheap-o photo effects apps in the store, but CameraBag is the first I've seen to add unique effects from actual classic cameras/film types to your iPhone's pics. You can add the distinctive vignetting of a Holga, a nice Kodachrome color effect, and a few others. Sure you could do all of this in Photoshop too, but CameraBag is a one-stop shop. $3

This week's app coverage on Giz:
•A sneak peak at the forthcoming South Park iPhone app shows downloadable show clips, wallpapers, contact icons and looks generally great. No streaming episodes though, yet.

•A nifty trick blocks ads in mobile Safari, for jailbreak only.

•Those greedy sonsabitches at MLB.com are already selling next season's version of the MLB at Bat baseball news and stats app, because you're forced to buy the same app again for each new season.

•TouchType adds a highly desired feature—the ability to use the landscape keyboard for emails for 99 cents.

•iPhone OS 2.1 is caught scrimping on the email downloads while in sleep mode.

•And a peak into the innards of the iPhone software 2.2 beta reveals Street View for Google Maps, the ability to turn off auto-correct while typing and Japanese emoji icons.

This list is in no way definitive. If you've spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.

You're more likely than ever to buy a smartphone, not just because they do so much more than dumb feature phones, with real email, decent web browsing and downloadable applications, but because they're cheaper than ever. With the exception of some expensive ass unlocked-but-unsubsidized European models, you generally don't have to pay more than $300 for a balls-to-the-wall smartphone—though the voice plan plus data fees can easily run you $80 or more per month. Here's a rudimentary overview of your choices (more now than ever before), why you might pick them, and why they might suck for you.

ANDROID by Google
The splashy new entrant into smartphone land, Android is Google's Linux-based open source mobile platform meant to bring real, constantly connected internet to phones. Even though it's debuting on a single phone, the G1 from HTC, expect to see the free OS show up on tons of phones, from HTC, Motorola, and others. It's totally modern and powerful, and the fact that it's open source makes it incredibly appealing to some developers, so most signs point to awesome applications and mobile internet.

Why You'll Use It Unlike BlackBerry, iPhone or Windows Mobile, there are no limits on what application developers can do. So its real strength is the power that developers hold—we're hoping to see some of the wildest, most innovative applications hit Android first. You'll have tons of hardware options, from low to high end, and pretty much any input you want—touchscreen, QWERTY, whatever—once the ball gets rolling. This is the ultimate geek phone.

Why It Sucks Developers have to plug a lot of holes right off the bat, like the complete lack of business features. If they fail to come through, it could fall flat. Not as elegant as the iPhone (though it beats, say, Windows Mobile, by leaps and bounds), it still doesn't quite pass the "mom" test.

BLACKBERRY by RIM
Research in Motion's BlackBerry started out as a glorified two-way pager before evolving into what most consider the best smartphone for email. It is also a shining validation of tightly integrated hardware/software model—they make the phones, they make the operating system. Previously it was a phone that corporations gave to people in suits because of its BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which integrates it with a corporation's email, plus its Exchange support and high security. Now, though, it's increasingly popular with real live people. The BlackBerry Bold offers the latest version of the standard OS, while the recently announced Storm uses one modified for a touchscreen.

Why You'll Use It It has the best email experience around—in part thanks to their traditionally awesome keyboards, so the touchscreen Storm is something of a risk. The OS is really to easy use, with everything neatly presented up front using rows and rows of icons. There's a reason it has surpassed Windows Mobile in marketshare and is the corporate drone phone of choice. Also, RIM seems intent on juicing up its already solid dev community, so expect even more great apps in the future. (Catching a pattern with the importance of apps?)

Why It Sucks It's totally closed and proprietary. You've gotta buy a BlackBerry phone to get the OS. If you're not using the Bold, Storm or the Flip Pearl, it's not very sexy and can easily look dated. Also, in past models, the web browsing experience was absolute garbage. Now just finding its stride as a consumer device, it's not as media-centric as some others, but that is fortunately changing as well.

IPHONE OS X by Apple
Some haters still stay that the iPhone isn't really a smartphone, but for all practical intents and purposes it is. Running a stripped down but very real version of Mac's OS X, it's one of the most powerful and modern OSes of the bunch.

Why You'll Use It It's the most attractive and usable smartphone around, period. It has the best mobile internet browser, largely thanks to multitouch navigation. But its killer feature might be its ability to run third-party apps, which come from one of the most vibrant dev communities around, and are often—but not always—actually useful. Not to mention that, as an iPod, it's also the best music phone on the planet—at least until that mystery Zune phone appears.

Why It Sucks For being so powerful and modern, it can't do things even the dumbest phones do, like MMS, or copy and paste, a smartphone standard. Also email and corporate features aren't quite up to BlackBerry standards, lacking email search among other deficiencies. Apple tightly controls it, which might hurt development and innovation. And the whole making a phone call thing itself still kinda blows.

WINDOWS MOBILE by Microsoft
Unlike the iPhone and OS X, the only thing Microsoft's smartphone OS shares with actual Windows is the name. It has its roots in Windows CE and originally went by the Pocket PC moniker before becoming Windows Mobile. Mostly for corporate troopers, the current version number is 6.1, and it comes in touchscreen and non-touchscreen flavors. It recently fell behind RIM's BlackBerry in marketshare.

Why You'll Use It Diehards swear by its power, even if it isn't so easy for Joe Six-Pack to pick up and run with. It runs on handsets from a bunch of manufacturers, and unlike the BlackBerry and iPhone platforms, you can build your own device to run it. So much of the most advanced mobile hardware you'll lay your eyes on runs Windows Mobile, including the HTC Touch HD and Sony Xperia X1. It's got a corporate soul, so it's designed for business users, and it has specialty applications (like in the medical field) that some professionals need and can't get anywhere else.

Why It Sucks There's a reason premiere Windows Mobile handset makers have become increasingly adept at covering up the user interface: It's frankly terrible, especially when it comes to touch navigation. It isn't a great media phone, has a god-awful native browser and doesn't look so hot either. Unfortunately the next version, WM7, is over a year away.

PALM GARNET
Oh, whither Palm. Without getting into the complicated story of Palm's various fits, seizures and splits, the Palm OS goes all the way back to 1996, when it powered Palm's PDAs. All but dead now, its last hurrah was on the Centro before Palm plunged ahead with Windows Mobile. Supposedly work on its Linux-powered follow-up is well under way, but it's been delayed multiple times.

Why You'll Use It Though dated, the Palm OS makes a great starter smartphone, hence the success of the cheaper-than-dirt Centro. The learning curve is shallow and it provides most of the smartphone features you expect, even if it does look like it's still trapped in 1996.

Why It Sucks Uh, it's basically dead. You probably won't see it on another phone post-Centro, Palm's more pricey phones use Windows Mobile, and prospects on the upcoming Palm OS overhaul are dicey. (They should take Android and use it as a powerful foundation for the next Palm OS, but that's just my two cents.)

SYMBIAN by Nokia
Symbian is the world's most popular smartphone platform, thanks to Nokia. The most prominent variant right now is S60. While it doesn't seem so ubiquitious in the US, abroad it's far more common. It powers some seriously sick hardware, like Nokia's N series, and has a solid dev community, though the free side of that isn't as big as on other platforms.

Why You'll Use It Did you miss the "world's most popular smartphone" thing? Buy a Nokia multimedia phone, and you buy Symbian. It offers a lot of the best smartphone features—strong email, web and calendar, plus a large global development community—in a package that is far more usable than Windows Mobile. Also, it works with Macs with far less hassle than Windows Mobile.

Why It Sucks It can be overly complicated, and still not as easy to use as a BlackBerry or the iPhone. If you're not using a really solid piece of hardware, it can be really sluggish. Also, connecting to the web can be annoying. And while it's on handsets from a couple of other manufacturers, for the most part, you had better love Nokia hardware.

And that's pretty much the lay of the land, at least for now.

Something you still wanna know? Send any questions about dumbphones, dumber people or Mark Wahlberg to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

Unlike most music-creation apps, it doesn't take an existing musical instrument and cram it awkwardly into the iPhone's interface. Instead, it creates a completely new "instrument" designed specifically for the iPhone. Essentially, you're provided with a colored screen and a quiet drone. As you tap the screen in various places, different tones play depending on where you tapped. They then loop, creating a unique piece of music on the fly, one that changes gradually on its own once you stop tapping.

You can also just let it create music on its own, coming up with a new, unique piece every time you run it. It's also beautiful, with the tones appearing as colored spots that slowly fade. It's as satisfying to actively play with as it is to let do its own thing.

Bloom is available on the App Store now for $3.99, and if you're a fan of ambient music or music in general, you'll be wanting to get it right now. [Bloom (iTunes link) via The Apple Blog; Thanks, Purns!]

[BoingBoing]

After your phone restarts, head to Settings>Wi-Fi and hit the arrow next to your home Wi-Fi server. Write down the IP address you see. Then pop back to general settings and set auto-lock to never. On your computer, download this replacement hosts.php file.

Then, using an FTP client like FileZilla or Cyberduck with SFTP (secure SSH connection over FTP), open an SFTP connection with your iPhone's IP address as the host. U/P is root and alpine. The connection will take a bit, and might fail a few times, but say yes to any prompts and keep trying.

At your iPhone's root, navigate to the /etc folder and move the hosts.php file there somewhere on your computer for safe-keeping (don't lose it!). Then replace it with the one you downloaded and restart your iPhone. Now you'll start seeing glorious blank spots or compressed frames wherever ads used to be. It'll nuke ads at most sites serving them through a third-party server. That wasn't so bad was it? One word of caution: Changing the hosts file can play hell with some apps, so watch out there.

The method will work on iPod touches too. Let us know how it goes. [James Is Bored via Lifehacker]

The battery is simply dead, the salesmen will contest. Hold that power button and you'll see the Apple logo flicker for a moment. See? Real iPhone! Or at least, decent iClone! That is, until you open it to replace the battery:

It looks like there are just enough electronic components to light up an Apple logo...powered by a couple of watch batteries. The only thing worse would be if we saw a miniature hamster on a wheel inside. In case you're interested in what a real iPhone looks like when its guts are spilled on the table, check it out here. [English Russia]

Hanging out at sites like Giz may have instilled in you an insatiable, pocket-emptying gadget habit. But now we're entering a new era—the old guys on the TV are saying that soon we may not even have pockets, let alone money for them. Don't panic though: You've probably got a wealth of gadgetry sitting underutilized in your living rooms, closets and basements, just waiting to be given powerful new (not exactly authorized) features. For free.

I've collected the best firmware replacements, software mods and homebrew hacks from the DMCA-flouting, EULA-hating frontiers of gadgetland that'll breathe new life into your stable of hardware and maybe—just maybe—let you feel that lusty new-gadget rush again.

Turn Your Xbox, Old PC or Apple TV into a Genuine Media Center

Xbox Media Center is about as refined as an unauthorized hack can get, playing back virtually any audio and video format, running a bevy of console emulators and still playing your Xbox games. To be honest, this should almost be viewed as a natural update for every Xbox, which at its core is a slow but functional PC with an easy TV connection. (Any actual PCs you have lying around can run a PC-ported version of XBMC.)

Boxee is a very slick fork of the XBMC project for Mac, and it's available for Apple TV. As shipped, the Apple TV works fine within the closed iTunes ecosystem, but Boxee's support for virtually every video codec and free online video like YouTube, CNN, BBC, and Revision3 will suit your new, more destitute lifestyle a bit better.

Difficulty: Easy to Moderate. Installation is pretty straightforward in most cases, with simple Boxee and XBMC setup programs available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Before you load XBMC, though, you have to mod your Xbox with one of these methods, many of which require a specific game. After that it's all install wizards and lollipops.

Installing anything on the locked-down Apple TV used to take some serious finagling, but there are now tools that will create an automated Boxee installer on a flash drive. Just plug the drive in, restart and you're good to go.

XBMC Online Manual

Boxee

Make Over Your iPod, Archos, iRiver or Sandisk with Rockbox

It's hard to look at the current generation of media players and not admire their diverse capabilities and extensible software platforms. That's not to say that your 5th-gen iPod doesn't play back music perfectly well, or that your iRiver H10 still isn't a kickass media player, but they do feel a bit dated. Rockbox replaces your MP3 player's operating system with something more substantial, effectively making it a completely new device. You get endless codec support, advanced audio options, dozens of games, useful apps like a calculator and a text editor, plus you can choose from tons of different interface skins for a unique look and feel. Rockbox's tweaking possibilities mean you will earn admiring "what is that?" questions from friends, and it won't cost you a thing. If your player isn't supported yet just hold on—everything from the Zen Vision:M to the Toshiba Gigabeat S has a fairly active dev team.

Difficulty: Easy. Rockbox has an automated tool called the Rockbox Utility available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It does the work for you. Even better, it often automatically configures your player to dual boot with its original OS.

Rockbox Official Site

Convert Your PC or Notebook Into A Much More Expensive Mac

It's undeniable that Macs are too expensive. For many, they are considered a luxury item whose added cost doesn't justify the benefit. Luckily Apple's switch to an Intel platform opened up a world of unauthorized OS X installations which can turn your existing PC into a powerhouse Mac Pro workstation, or morph your MSI Wind or Asus EeePC into the Mac netbook that should be in their goddamn product line anyway. Check the hardware compatibility list to see if your PC is eligible for the upgrade.

Difficulty: Moderate to Hard. If you're not morally opposed to downloading iATKOS and Kalyway, which are pre-patched Leopard install DVDs (this is bit torrent territory), then the process is much like installing any other OS. If you insist on building your own patched install from a DVD you own, then, well, good luck. Always check hardware lists first, though, because driver support is everything.

OSX86 Project Page

Flash Your Crappy Router Into a Top-Line Piece of Hardware

The DD-WRT project exists for a simple reason: Most routers are physically very similar, but are priced differently because of functionality derived from software. The DD-WRT firmware unlocks the potential of the most basic routers out there—too many to name but damn if yours isn't on the list. As it turns out, your budget model is kind of impressive: Program-specific traffic throttling, professional level wireless security and radical signal boosting are just a few of the dozens of new features that can be enabled.

Difficulty: Easy. If you can't manage this one, then you don't deserve a router—installation just takes a few clicks on the device's default configuration pages. A word of caution, though: Make sure your router configuration page is totally compatible with your browser before the operation, as some choke on Firefox and can botch firmware upgrades. Stick to IE if you have the choice.

DD-WRT Project Page

Download Updated Maps For Your Old GPS

I'm referring of course to capital 'D' downloading here, mainly because at the moment GPS map updates are a racket. You could spend hundreds of dollars on map data that is freely available on Google Maps, Microsoft Live and MapQuest, among others, or you can just, you know, not. Map packs for Garmin, TomTom and Magellan units are floating around torrent sites and usually don't require much more than a simple CD image mount and run routine to set up. (Guilty conscience sold separately.)

Difficulty: Easy to Moderate. If you're just running a copy of a CD, then you'll be able to use the installation wizards. Some more involved methods for Windows CE-based devices require some SSH file transfers, but these are relatively rare.

Jailbreak Your iPhone for Wi-Fi Internet Tethering

Two internet plans are enough, but to sign on to a mobile internet contract when you've already got unlimited iPhone data feels kind of stupid. Jailbreaking your iPhone is now about as easy as performing a firmware upgrade, and there are actually multiple tethering apps. PDANet and iPhoneModem both work a treat, but keep in mind that excessive usage could draw AT&T's attention and ire: Tethering is not allowed on the data plan, even though it works fine. Both apps are available in Cydia, where you can also find a limited assortment of other apps that don't have a place in the app store.

Difficulty: Moderate. Jailbreaking can be managed through the Dev Team's fantastic Quickpwn tool, but it does take a few minutes and can go wrong if instructions aren't followed closely. After jailbreak, Cydia and Installer fill the role of the gray-market app store, functioning as simple package managers that are arguably as polished as their more legitimate younger brother.

PDANet and iPhoneModem take different approaches to tethering, but neither requires more networking expertise than it would take to, say, set up a router.

iPhone Jailbreak

PDANet

iPhoneModem

Turn Your Wii Into a Free Emulation Machine

It's more than a little infuriating to have to repurchase your childhood library of console games from the Virtual Console, especially when free PC emulators and accompanying ROMs abound on the old intertubes. All you need is a copy of Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess, an SD card and an SD reader and you're ready to install A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia, which is pretty much all anyone has ever really needed since this whole "Video Gaming Television Machine" thing got under way in the first place. Throw in extended media playback and some helpful widgets for an extra value-add.

Difficulty: Moderate. This is one of the only hacks here that needs additional hardware to work, even if it's basic. The good news is that once you find a copy of Zelda and load up your SD card, the process pretty much takes care of itself. Further app installs are taken care of through a intuitive dedicated channel.

WiiBrew WIki

A great resource for similar projects is our industrious sister site Lifehacker, where you can find a veritable treasure trove of tutorials and tricks. Have you postponed any gadget purchases until you're sure your bank is solvent? Have any other budget hardware resurrection techniques that we missed? Let us know in the comments.

The iPod has sort of lived a long life at number one. Things like, that if you look back to transistor radios and Walkmans, they kind of die out after a while. It's kind of like everyone has got one or two or three. You get to a point when they are on display everywhere, they get real cheap and they are not selling as much.

I have to agree with him that eventually, these wonderproducts die, although looking at the numbers, it seems that it still has a lot of life inside because the consumer electronics market that saw the Walkman and the transistors radio are not the same as today's. But obviously, Apple sees the same thing and the iPhone and iPod touch are efforts to keep the momentum going.

He also had some words for the fanboys out there who never question Apple's decision and defend its failures no matter what:

[Steve Jobs and I] don't like the fact that it's a bit of a religion. I would like to have the users influence the next generation. With a religion you're not allowed to challenge anything. I want our customers to challenge us.

Amen. But maybe some customers are challenging Apple already in products like the iPhone which, without an SDK, saw a flourishing industry of not-official third-party applications that are still coming out to solve the cellphone development's limitations. Woz compares the iPhone SDK limitations to Google's Android in the interview:

Consumers aren't getting all they want when companies are very proprietary and lock their products down. I would like to write some more powerful apps than what you're allowed.

Indeed, Señor Woz, indeed. Head to the Telegraph to check out the rest of this thoughts. [Daily Telegraph]

The requirement was written to help consumers dispose properly of batteries, which could end up leaking toxins into landfills. Since Apple tends not to develop unique products for specific regions, it would most likely revamp its entire iPod line if the directive goes through.

That having been said, the directive hasn't been ratified yet, and there's still a chance for Apple to ask for an exemption or modification. The company already offers free recycling for its ipods and iphones, and supports third-party waste management as well. [Apple Insider]

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The folks at Area Mobile, in proclaiming said iPhone-killer status, were most impressed with the browsing experience, noting that the HD's spacious 800 pixels of landscape resolution allows for surfing without zooming in and out on a lot of sites. They also note that the TouchFlo 3D is as snappy as ever, and does a fantastic job of hiding Windows Mobile's inherent nastiness. Check out more in the video below, should you sprechen sie Deutsche:

[Area Mobile via wmpoweruser]

Even though Sprint is the only major carrier actually bleeding out subscribers , they were source of the fewest iPhone 3G AT&T converts—only 19 percent. Surprisingly—and probably gleefully, for AT&T—nearly half came from its biggest and most bitter rival, Verizon. At a 47 percent attrition rate, more fled from it than T-Mobile (24 percent) and Sprint combined, and almost double T-Mobile.

Granted, that's in part due to the fact that Verizon is simply bigger. But besides showing just how much of a boon the iPhone 3G was for AT&T in terms of bringing in new customers, it throws into relief just how much Verizon needs its own headline-grabbing handset—a role they're obviously hoping will be picked up by the BlackBerry Storm. But whether it'll actually pull in new customers, stop some from bolting or just slow 'em down out the door remains to be seen.

In the meantime, iPhone sales swallowed 17 percent of the smartphone market between January and August of this year—largely thanks to the 3G, which shoved it up from 11 percent—pushing past the Curve, Pearl and Centro. Not too shabby.

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. —(Business Wire)— Oct 06, 2008 According to a new report from The NPD Group, the leader in market research for the wireless industry, 30 percent of U.S. consumers who purchased Apple’s new iPhone 3G from June through August 2008 switched from other mobile carriers to join AT&T, the exclusive mobile carrier for the iPhone in the U.S. By way of comparison just 23 percent of consumers, on average, switched carriers between June and August 2008. Nearly half (47 percent) of new AT&T iPhone customers that switched carriers switched from Verizon Wireless, another 24 percent switched from T-Mobile, and 19 percent switched from Sprint.

“The launch of the lower-priced iPhone 3G was a boon to overall consumer smartphone sales,” according to Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for The NPD Group. “While the original iPhone also helped win customers for AT&T, the faster network speeds of the iPhone 3G has proven more appealing to customers that already had access to a 3G network.”

According to NPD’s “iPhone 3G Report,” before the launch of the iPhone 3G, iPhone sales represented 11 percent of the consumer market for smartphones (January through May 2008); however, after the launch of iPhone 3G, Apple commanded 17 percent of the smartphone market (January through August 2008).

The average price of a smartphone sold between June and August 2008 was $174, down 26 percent from $236 during the same period last year. During June through August 2008, the top four best-selling smartphones based on unit-sales to consumers were as follows:
1. Apple iPhone 3G
2. RIM Blackberry Curve
3. RIM Blackberry Pearl
4. Palm Centro

Methodology: The NPD Group compiles and analyzes mobile device sales data based on more than 150,000 completed online consumer research surveys each month. Surveys are based on a nationally balanced and demographically-representative sample, and results are projected to represent the entire population of U.S. consumers. Note: Sales figures do not include corporate/enterprise mobile phone sales. For more information about NPD’s offerings in this business sector, visit http://wireless.npd.com.

[VPO]

Namely, the ability to turn off the keyboard's auto-correction feature and support for Japanese emoji emoticons—the typically adorable little icons that Japanese teens (and adults?) can't live without. Lack of emoji support has actually been blamed for slower iPhone sales in Japan, so there you go. I'm not sure who would want to live without keyboard auto-correction though—that would take a mastery of multitouch typing that I have yet to see. [Mac Rumors - image is a 'Shop, not the actual implementation]

Fring: Fring was my favorite IM app back in the jailbreak days, and now it's finally available in the App Store proper, tying together into one app Google Talk, AIM, Skype, MSN, Twitter—just about every IM or IM-like client you can think of, as well as adding VoIP calling when you're connected via Wi-Fi (and not 3G, even though the grab above shows a 3G icon during call). And unlike another recent and solid IM app Beejive (which is $16), Fring is free. Give it a whirl. [via Mobility Today]

Spectrograph Wallpaper: Takes input from the iPhone's mic (or your second-gen iPod touch with microphone-equipped earbuds) and gives you a neat looking spectrograph analysis in a variety of colors, which you can then export directly to your phone's wallpaper. What does a fart look like? Find out for $3.

Rimshot/Cricket Generator: Two classic sound effects, one app! Rimshot for the good jokes, and crickets for the rough ones (watch for Burns's cricket poison). If you ever see this being put to use by anyone claiming to be any kind of comedian real or imagined, chug your drink and leave immediately. Free.

10 Seconds Ago: I'm just going to let the developers explain this one for you:

It does "delay" the incoming sound via microphone by 10 seconds. This gap between the scenery you are currently looking at and the sound you here may give you strange feeling of passing time. You'll find yourself a bit more conscious about the ambient sound in our daily life.

Yes, it's Japanese, in case you were wondering. And free.

Sad Trombone: Maybe this should be a sign that it's about time to wrap it up for the week and get some rest, but the existence of "Sad Trombone" (whaa whaa) made me laugh out loud. Which in itself is a great moment for a sad trombone effect. The irony! $1

This week's iPhone app coverage on Giz:

•Barack Obama's official iPhone app does all kinds of grassroots organizing goodness.

•iPhone-Backgrounder (for jailbreak) gives all apps, even legit ones from the App Store, the much-desired ability to run in the background.

•Flash on the iPhone is hinted at again by the Adobe folks, but progress is still slow waiting for Apple approval.

•Facebook's redesigned now has a shiny new redesigned iPhone app to go along with it.

•Tap Tap Revenge will feature NIN songs after an official licensing agreement between the developers and Apple-loving Mr. Reznor.

•We gave Star Wars: The Force Unleashed a hands-on look.

•Microsoft (via subsidiary Tellme, but still) plans to develop an iPhone app for voice-recognition searches.

•Excellent news, this: gone are the "looks cool" app reviews in iTunes, because it is now mandatory that you actually own an app you're going to review. What a concept!

•Heart Monitor measures your pulse with the iPhone's microphone.

This list is in no way definitive. If you've spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.

After buying the iPhone I remembered that I could get annoyed every five seconds with its built-in push mail. I checked the preferences and I saw Push was turned on. Then I waited.

I waited. And waited. And then waited some more. But nothing arrived. Push wasn't working.

In fact, according to reports in support forums, the whole thing is not working well yet. But what's not working at all is the Push Notification services that Apple promised to developers. Apple has yet to put these online, so third-party applications can receive information from the network in the background, in real time, without having to waste battery life or processor power pooling the servers every few minutes.

Apple was supposed to have the Push Notification service in place in September, but September has passed and there is no fix in sight. Hopefully it will come out soon because, for businesses, developers, and people addicted to instant-everything, at this point the iPhone is not the solution they were looking for.

It sorts your contacts by battleground states and turns them into a checklist, making it easy, and almost obligating, to harass your loved ones to vote O. (Worth noting for tinfoil types: It does keep track of how many people you call, but it's totally anonymous.) It finds local events and Obama news using GPS, constantly updated. And it delivers more video highlights and newsreels than you'll be able to stand (though videos were kinda crashy for me). There is some hucksterism, yes, like a dedicated button to call and make a donation—it makes it easier than ever, which is part of the power here. Also it's a campaign app, what do you expect?

This is something like what politicking at the grassroots level will look like by the next election—local and immediate, but definitely national in scope. It makes you feel like a part of the campaign. Download it if you're an Obamaniac to have a constant flood of hope in your pocket, or if you're a McCainite, to see what your candidate's campaign should be doing. It's free, so the only excuse is your gag reflex. [iTunes via Launch Pad]

Thanks, Google, for putting up your 2001 search index because otherwise we wouldn't have found the true iPhone, a forgotten gem from the last century. Back then it wasn't made by Apple, but with its 56K Built-In Modem, high resolution display, QWERTY keyboard and 800-entry address book, it got a Best of CES award and provoked exactly the same reactions from haters and fanboys all over the world:

functional and inexpensive
by imagesbyamy, May 08 '00
Five star rating

Pros: easy to use, quick dial-up, cost efficient
Cons: not a cordless (woot!?)

think that at 1/3 the cost of a computer (bare minimum model), the iPhone is very functional. This product enables the non-technical person to access all information on the internet as well and send and receive e-mail, do online banking, and even...

Iphone= piece of cr*p
by diverdown , May 08 '00
One star rating

Pros: NONE
Cons: ALL

I know I have already written one review on this product, but I feel the need to vent some more.
The iphone is one of the worst technological items I have used.
I warn anyone interested in it to stay away.....far away.

Some things just don't change.

Here's a mini-review from a retro-Brian Lam at net4tv:

The iPhone is another information appliance that found its way to many members of the press and CES attendees. infoGear placed several of its second-generation iPhone units in the press rooms and the show's surrounding areas so that people can surf the web and check e-mail on the go while sampling the device. I was glad it was free to use, because at a hefty $399 I was not impressed by the 16 color grayscale display and the 7.4" touch screen. According to infoGear, the unit has been available since July 1999. The prior version shipped in January 1998. It has been through six software upgrades to date. We discovered that the unit's browser is Mozilla version 1.1-compatible. As a result, it does not support Java, JavaScript, RealAudio (or support for any audio on the web for that matter) and even background images on webpages! The e-mail application was plain-vanilla; it was unintuitive to set up and switch between separate e-mail accounts. The phone felt small for my hands as was the dialing pad. At the rear of the unit were two jacks for separate phone lines so that anyone can stay online while using the speakerphone or headset simultaneously. The iPhone was the only so-called webphone that was in full use at the show as there were no working alternatives from competitors.

And like the iPhone, it was available in black or white for $399. [Epinions and Lifetrends - Thanks jopari!]

Like copy and paste, the only way to bring system-level functions to the iPhone remains via jailbroken software. If you have the "BigBoss & Planet-iPhones" source loaded, iPhone-Backgrounder should show up as a default install option. Our tipster says he's got Pandora playing while receiving background IMs while syncing at the same time (crazy!). He reports some bugginess with duped IMs and the like, but on the whole it's working as expected. [iPhone-Backgrounder - Thanks Horn!]

To our developers

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.

We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.

Maybe the move was prompted by a certain little green robot's openness but, most likely, the reason has been the iPhone developer outcry.

Still, they haven't dropped their stupid gag order about iPhone App store's rejections, but who cares? [ADC via MacRumors]

The bad news is that that's pretty much what the situation was a few months ago, so that's not really saying a whole lot. If it's spiffy enough to match Steve's criticisms, then maybe there's some hope, but the ball is in Apple's court, and it's been gathering dust there for a while. [AppleInsider]

This is one is composed of an incredible 142 separate shots. I wish I had that kind of patience. [p0psharlow via Flickr via Cult of Mac]

When the T-Mobile G1 was shown off in NYC last week, it didn't have the gusto of a Stevenote. There was no "boom!"—no "one more thing!" And as a result, many (including us) felt a bit underwhelmed, and were quick to interpret the device's inconsistent GUI as an indicator that the lack of attention to detail would doom it.

But allow me to remind all of those getting their naysay on this early in the game that we've seen only a fraction of what the G1 can and will be able to do with the open-source Android OS. And when Google's mobile machine is finally humming at full power—with an army of coders cranking out add-ons for the Market, today's skeptics—including some of us—are going to have to eat crow. It's not about pretty icons, Apple fanboys, and its not about business use, Windows Mobile Nerds: its about giving people the true tools to build whatever they want without lame App Store limitations and OS handcuffs. It's about giving phone makers shackled to Symbian and Microsoft's phone OS the chance to build with something different and better and free. And who's going to complain about that?

Back to Apple for a minute: The iPhone has brainwashed us into thinking everything that's revolutionary and exciting in the gadget world needs to be a sex object. Now, I enjoy an Apple hardware brainfuck as much as the next, but a phone is never a better phone because of hardware alone, and Google knows this too. And it will be entering the market at a time when iPhone’s software strategy is starting to show wobbly legs. If you’ve been reading our weekly app roundups, you’ve probably noticed the story shifting away from clever developers doing cool things no one previously thought possible to more about what Apple won't let iPhone developers and users do with their phones. As a result, we’ve seen tons of variety, but not a lot of depth. There are a ton of clever calculator apps of various kinds. There are a ton of games, a ton of flashlights. But in the groundbreaking and unexpected functionality department, all anyone can hear lately is crickets. And Apple's lawyers trying to get the crickets to sign an NDA.

No one else makes a legitimate phone OS with all this support that can be tweaked down to the very roots. For one thing, I'm excited to be able to download an entirely different version of all of Android’s core applications if I don't like the default 1.0 versions—and that’s every app, everything from the dialer to the contacts manager—something that's technically possible in WinMo but often comes off more as an awkward re-skinning and not a top-down integration. I'm excited to add system-level features to my phone for free, and not just apps that are only allowed to bounce around on the surface. These are the benefits that an open platform will allow developers to provide to Android users, and the benefits that Google hopes all mobile phone customers will come to expect from their phones as a result.

This is all banking on the platform being successful, of course, which is obviously up in the air this early on. But would Google mount such a huge undertaking as Android if they were only expecting to be a different flavor of Windows Mobile? That seems hard to believe.

Everyone who gave the G1 a quick run-through last week was in reality testing a product still in beta. Because as we’ve said repeatedly, Android is now in the hands of its developers (from within Google itself as well as third-parties), who will have unprecedented access to all parts of a mobile phone and a centralized distribution network (Android Market) in order to do things that have only been teased until now. It’s all banking on the Market, and its ability to attract grade-A content that will provide even novice cellphone users with many opportunities to greatly customize their phones.

To do this Android will need one thing: critical mass, on both the developer and consumer side, in that order—with each reinforcing the other. Its pre-release may be sold-out, but on October 22 there probably won't be campers and local news crews stretched for miles outside of the T-Mobile store. That's because Google knows who they need to go after first—the developers. The geek community. It wasn't a coincidence that at launch, Sergey Brin came on stage on Rollerblades bragging about his accelerometer phone-toss app that he wrote himself. This first release is all about getting developers into Android, and giving them a similar open dev environment that Larry and Sergey will be the first to tell you they couldn't have built Google without. The iPhone didn't get that until version 2.0, many firmware releases later—and it's still not nearly as open as Android will be. (The iPhone also couldn't reliably hold a call without dropping for many until version 2.1, but that's besides the point.)

Open source has failed many times before, critics will say. Here's why Android will not fail in this regard: governance. Google told us that priority number one right now with Android is setting the standards by which the project will operate—what makes a device Android 1.0 compatible, how often full system upgrades will be offered, and the like. One thing that's fairly evident, though, is that an upgrade path will have to be fairly regimented