Once upon a time, iTunes did exactly what it sounded like it should do: play music. It was the digital jukebox for your mac, Rip, Mix, Burn, remember that?

Looking at the sidebar in iTunes now, I’ve got Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, iTunes U, Audiobooks, Applications, and Radio, and that’s just the main library. Next is the iTunes Store and a “Purchased” smart list, the Genius feature, iTunes DJ and (finally) my custom Smart Playlists. That’s a lot to pack into one application, especially considering that many of the features have nothing to do with each other. There are very few times when I’m wanting to watch a movie that I care to look through my music collection. Music and video are two different functions, and in my opinion, deserve two different apps.

Actually, I’d like to see Apple release an entire “iApps Suite,” separating out audio, video, and applications. Strip Movies and TV Shows out of iTunes and integrate them into a new “iVideo” app, or something similarly named. Hide the video content from the iTunes store in iTunes and create a link for an iVideo store inside the new video app.

Similarly, I’d like to see Apple break out the App Store into it’s own dedicated application. Leave the functionality exactly as it is now and simply move it into its own app. There are many times that I’ve got iTunes open, most of the time just to listen to music, and have no interest whatsoever in my collection of apps.

Maybe my desire for Apple to break apart iTunes is because of my background in Unix, and the Unix philosophy for writing applications that “do one thing, and do it very well.” Or, maybe it’s because the direction iTunes has taken doesn’t seem very “Mac like.” Take the bundled applications for example. Mail, iCal, and Address Book are very often lumped together in the same app. Thunderbird (with the lightning extension) does this, as do Outlook and Lotus Notes. Apple sees sending and receiving mail, calendaring, and storing information about contacts as three separate functions, and wrote three separate apps to handle it. The iLife suite is another great example of separating applications that do different things. iPhoto ties into iWeb, Garageband, iMovie, and iDVD, but they are still separate apps for separate purposes.

I thought for a while that audio, video, and apps were all lumped together in iTunes to make it easier to sync to iPods and iPhones. But, iCal, Address Book, and iPhoto have no problem syncing their data. iPhoto will, by default, open when you plug-in an iPod touch or an iPhone, but Address Book and iCal sync silently, if configured to do so in iTunes. If iTunes were to be separated into different apps, perhaps the iSync utilities role could be expanded to handle what is synced where. That almost sounds like the job of a system preference to me.

Now I think that the three functions of iTunes are tied together because of the iTunes store. Since Apple used the same distribution model that had been successful with music for movies and TV shows, adding the functionality to iTunes and the iTunes Store offered the path of least resistance. Similarly, when it needed to build another store for applications, Apple built it on top of what was already successful.

I don’t see Apple changing directions with iTunes any time soon. If it were to create three apps out of the one iTunes, it would have to create them for Windows as well. I don’t have access to the source code, but knowing what I do about programming and development, I can’t imagine that would be an easy task. Perhaps this is a third-party opportunity for some ambitious indie devs out there? Or, maybe, just maybe, if we get the right people’s attention, a conversation might start that leads to some real change.

Since last year, Apple has allowed all iPhone developers to request 50 promotional codes for their application when first added to the App Store, a policy that makes it easy to offer free applications for trial, review or a competition. It allows easier initial promotion of an app, removing the need for a more complicated process of ad-hoc distribution or offering iTunes gift cards.

A few weeks ago, Apple stopped offering promotional codes to developers of applications rated 17+. This decision sparked controversy, with developers angry that they were no longer able to easily offer promotional copies of their software to reviewers.

The change was particularly difficult to stomach for many developers due to the already ambiguous interpretation of the 17+ rating. According to Apple, the guidelines for this rating category are as follows:

Applications in this category may also contain frequent and intense offensive language; frequent and intense cartoon, fantasy or realistic violence; and frequent and intense mature, horror, and suggestive themes; plus sexual content, nudity, alcohol, tobacco, and drugs which may not be suitable for children under the age of 17.

Although the statement seems fairly definitive, in practice, various other applications are being awarded a 17+ rating. For instance, any app that offers access to the Internet also falls into the 17+ category as it could be used to access objectionable content.

Developer Response

Various news agencies picked up on the change, putting pressure on Apple to re-consider its decision. It seems that Apple has responded and, unusually, reversed the change in policy to now offer promo codes regardless of age rating. The Unofficial Apple Weblog is reporting that various developers have this functionality re-enabled, though no official comment has been made by Apple.

Light at the End of the Tunnel?

To date, the approval and rating system for the App Store has remained somewhat of a mysterious frustration for many developers. Although it is understandably difficult to operate a consistent process across the thousands of applications submitted, developers have voiced frustration at the lack of dialogue with and information coming from Apple.

As John Gruber eloquently expressed:

I can imagine that for the developer on the other end the experience must be like that of speaking to a wall. A monolith.

While no official comment has been made by the company, this turnaround — seemingly in response to developer criticism — could mark the beginning of an improved back-and-forth process. It will be interesting to see whether, as the App Store grows, developers and technology publications find their voice valued by Apple to a greater degree.

For corporate users, there are many apps within the iTunes App Store that enhance the default iPhone experience. Let’s take a look at the available options and see how you might be able to leverage these apps to improve the use of your iPhone within the Enterprise.

Email + Calendar

Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync

Although this doesn’t fall into the standard “app” category, having this collaboration toolset is fundamental to most users within medium to large enterprises. In the iPhone 2.0 release, Apple added Exchange ActiveSync support, giving every user access to both their corporate email and calendar.

Unfortunately, a limitation of this support is that you can only accept meeting invitations; you cannot send them. Compared to the native Exchange support on Windows Mobile, BlackBerry Enterprise Server or Motorola’s Good Mobile Messaging, this is an oversight on Apple’s part.

For users in environments without Microsoft Exchange, other third-party Mac software vendors have stepped in to provide alternate ways to support ActiveSync. These include Communigate, Notify Technology and Google.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Having your customer data with you when you’re away from the office is pretty important. Thankfully, the major vendors in the CRM space have provided apps to connect to your corporate data.

Salesforce Mobile (free, but requires a Salesforce license)

Salesforce.com recently released the 3.0.1 version of their Salesforce Mobile application. If you have a Mobile User License, you can view/edit all of your Salesforce.com data.

Oracle CRM On-Demand (free, but requires an Oracle license)

The team at Oracle released five applications for connecting with their on-demand CRM product.

• Business Approvals for Managers
• Business Approvals for Sales Managers
• Business Indicators
• Mobile Sales Assistant
• Mobile Sales Forecast

Daylite Touch ($49.99/year per user)

The team at Marketcircle released this app last week. For more information about Daylite Touch, please read my First Look article.

Search2GO for Salesforce CRM ($9.99)

The Search2GO app enables Salesforce.com users to search for leads, contacts, accounts and so-called “opportunities” within their account. The cool feature of Search2G0 is that users can access their Salesforce.com data without the additional Salesforce.com mobile license. There’s also a Lite (free) version that provides read-only searching.

Expense Management

Another important tool for business travel is being able to maintain your expenses. Here are some great choices.

Expense2Go for Salesforce (free)

Expense2GO lets folks manage their business expenses and synchronize the data with the online expense management application in Salesforce.

XpensTracker (7.99)

In terms of popularity, Silverware Software’s XpenseTracker is at the top of the iTunes Business Apps list for expense management. It’s rich feature set, combined with its pleasant UI, provides a complete solution for the corporate traveler.

Others in the category: iXpenseIt ($4.99) and iXpenseIt Lite (free).

File Management & Manipulation

As a corporate user, having your files with you is critical. Plus, being able to have PDFs of your boarding passes and itineraries is just plain helpful when you don’t always have access to a printer.

MobileFiles Pro ($9.99)

The folks at QuickOffice built MobileFiles Pro for the true mobile professional. This application makes it very easy to add your files to the iPhone via a simple web browser interface. You can read many different file types (Microsoft Office, iWork 08, PDF) as well as create/edit Microsoft Excel 2003 files (.xls) right within the application. Further, if you use MobileMe, you can access your iDisk files as well.

Documents-To-Go (price unknown)

Dataviz is the file management king of the SmartPhone world. They are currently at work on their version for the iPhone. Dataviz expects their iPhone version to ship sometime in the second quarter of 2009.

Others in the category: ReaddleDocs, Air Sharing and DataCase.

Task Management

For corporate users, having your tasks with you on the road and being able to update/sync with them back at the office is crucial to “Getting Things Done.”

One item of note: If you use Microsoft Entourage, you’ll have to wait for the new update that supports Exchange Web Services to have Notes and Tasks synchronization capabilities.

iMExchange ($7.99)

iMExchange enables you to sync your Outlook Notes, Tasks and Categories to your iPhone. It works with both Exchange Server 2003 (SP1) and 2007.

Others in the category: Keynotes and Key Tasks

Itinerary Management

If you’re on the road, the best way to keep track of the flight and travel information on your iPhone is by using one of the following apps.

FlightTrack Pro ($9.99)

Using this app, as long as you have a TripIt account, you can synchronize your flight itinerary. FlightTrack Pro lets you see where planes are in-flight (only if you’re tracking other flights, as you can’t check your own flight status in-flight), and it has a fantastic UI.

TravelTracker ($9.99)

TravelTracker uses more of the TripIt API to sync not just your flight information, but your notes and itineraries, including hotel and car reservations. Although this is more expensive, it’s also a more comprehensive application.

Others in the category: FlightTrack and Flight Status

Virtual Meetings

Cisco WebEx Meeting Center (free)

Using the WebEx Meeting Center App, you can easily join an online/virtual meeting. The app sizes the information appropriately for the iPhone screen so you can view the meeting data accurately. The bonus to this application is that it’s free to join meetings. If you want to schedule meetings, you will need an iPhone-enabled WebEx account.

Conclusion

I’m sure that I haven’t included every potential corporate application available in the App Store. However, the purpose of this article is to expose you to which apps will best help you as a corporate user of the iPhone. Please comment below and provide additional suggestions/recommendations of apps you think are best for use within the Enterprise.

Like the majority of Apple products and solutions, Apple’s App Store is sleek in its presentation to the consumer. However, one of the less polished aspects is the developer back end, iTunes Connect. Don’t get me wrong, this is functional, but it’s not targeted at the consumer market and as such it just does the necessary job without any of the usual Apple polish.

While you can get email notification of the availability of official monthly reports, it is up to you to open your browser and log into the web page. There you can view and download daily, weekly and monthly sales reports by using a basic user interface that lets you manually select one file (raw text data files) at a time to download. You can then take this raw data and do any fancy data analysis that you require with software such as Excel or Numbers.

Thus a new market has been created for applications to assist businesses in taking control of their App Store reporting. As a lone independent App Store developer I wanted to find such an application that would provide a ‘one-stop’ place to enable me to appraise the performance of my applications.

AppViz, by ideaswarm, is just such an application. To get the best appreciation of what it has to offer, a glance at the Dashboard tab presented on launch tells the story.

The Dashboard gives you an excellent summary of your state of play, enabling you to quickly see totals, charts and trends on sales, revenue, upgrades and downloads for one or all of your applications. After installing AppViz you simply provide it with your iTunes Connect username and password and it can do the rest. When you want to see the latest stats, you just fire AppViz up, tap Command-i and it will go off and find any new sales reports for all your applications. You can also import any reports you have already saved to disk directly from file if you have them.

The Dashboard provides a great summary, but if you would really like to dig down to specific data, the Graphs tab gives you the power to do so, allowing graphing Sales or Geography (with a map and pie chart), Revenue, Downloads and Upgrades by any date range and country.

To see the original, individual Apple-provided reports all nicely presented in a grid that can be sorted, the Reports tab gives you an easy user interface to access it all. If you do want to do your own manipulation of the raw data, AppViz has an Export function to write these original reports out as a file for loading into a spreadsheet.

Finally, AppViz can download App Store reviews from all iTunes stores. This lets you easily stay on top of your App’s user feedback. If a user edits their review, AppViz will update it accordingly, too. Being able to sort the reviews by the date that they were downloaded just makes it too easy to see what’s new at a glance.

AppViz is $29.95 and a free, 30-day trial is available. I’m currently halfway through my trial and have been extremely impressed by the functional utility provided, as it’s letting me focus my time on more enjoyable things. In the 15 days that I’ve trailed so far, AppViz has had two updates (provided by way of the standard Check For Updates menu option) and is in rapid development, taking note of comments from existing customers. I’m looking forward to seeing what other great timesaving functionality will be included in the future.

AppTheater is a new site with an interesting concept — provide videos of iPhone/iPod touch applications allowing you to thoroughly preview before you buy. Hundreds of videos are already available, and the site has a respectably wide coverage of most popular App Store games.

The creators of the site provide a little more background about the idea for the site:

How many times have you bought an app on the App Store only to regret it? AppTheater is the premiere video sharing site devoted to iPhone and iPod Touch games. We’re here to promote games and save you money — preview games before you buy them.

How Does the Site Work?

In a very similar way to YouTube, you’re able to browse videos by application category, tag, or through a search facility. Clicking on “Channels” will show all the various categories of application — at present, almost all the videos featured are games, with very few (if any) in other categories such as finance, travel and sports.

This isn’t necessarily a problem, as games are certainly the most difficult apps to appreciate without a video demo — it’s fairly obvious from screenshots how a currency converter or weather application will function when purchased. Links to various apps are included from within the interface, taking you directly to the App Store.

The more you dig down into the site, the less populated and ‘busy’ it would appear to be, with only a few members in various categories. Hopefully this will change as popularity grows and additional applications and filmed and uploaded. As with any socially orientated site, as the user base increases it will have a great deal more value.

I’ll be interested to see how AppTheater expands, and whether it becomes a useful tool for researching iPhone/iPod touch apps before purchase.

It’s that magical moment every week, when we all come together to find out what’s been happening in the App Store.

As the TheAppleBlog raced through the past seven days, like an angry rhinoceros in a flak-jacket, we’ve gathered the best news from the jungle of fact, infused this information with our own vital opinion, and hurled it back at you.

The big news this week was that rockstar-cum-demi-god Apple CEO Steve Jobs dismounted from his golden pony, deciding to take some time to focus on his health issues. Stepping in as acting CEO whilst Jobs recuperates will be a gentleman named Tim Cook.

As the Internets rang out with thousands of voices asking who Tim Cook is, TheAppleBlog stepped forward and boldly proclaimed, “We’ll tell you who Tim Cook is and, furthermore, we’ll tell you why he’s fit to stand at the helm of Apple.”

Plus, while the aforementioned was going down on the Cupertino Campus, elsewhere, Dan Lyons (aka Fake Steve Jobs), appeared live on CNBC and managed to rile the folks at the channel.

Meanwhile, over at the App Store this week, I’ve been looking at Mother Camp, QuadCamera and BoomBox.

Mother Camp ($2.99)
If you’re involved with the kind of projects than need project managers, and those project managers are somewhat web-savvy, who pride themselves on their organizational skills and encourage clear-lines of communication, you’ll no-doubt have come across Basecamp — an awesome tool for collaboration, asset-management and project planning. Mother Camp brings several core-features of Basecamp to your team’s iPhones and it’s so low-priced that it won’t impact on your project budget.

QuadCamera ($1.99)
The iPhone camera is dire. You know it, I know it, we both know I’ve whinged about it enough. However, there are tools that, while they won’t replace even the cheapest point ‘n shoot, will bring that vital injection of fun to your grainy iPhone camera. Lomography geeks may be pleased to note that QuadCamera effectively replicates the ActionSampler camera, capturing a moment by taking four pictures in quick succession.

BoomBox (free)
There are those moments when you’re sat in a bar, chatting with a few friends and, suddenly, you get the urge: to make this occasion even more perfect everybody absolutely must listen to the classic live recording of This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) by Talking Heads. First get everyone in the bar to be quiet, then activate BoomBox — an app that lets you find and stream just about any tune you can think of, powered by Blip.fm — find the track and gather round as you all groove to the music drifting from your iPhone’s tinny speakers. Another perfect moment.

That’s all for this week, I’ll be back next Saturday with more App Store picks and musings. In the meantime, drop by the comments and let me know which apps you’ve been looking at.

Having prevented the listing of any web browser apps in the App Store since it’s launch, the past 24 hours has seen Apple begin to authorize this type of application on a widespread basis. The company has been reluctant to sell any applications competing with those found on the iPhone by default, such as Safari, Mail and the iPod app.

The applications in question would seem to have been submitted several months ago, and the bulk approval today marks a shift in Apple’s policy towards this area. These new applications include:

Edge Browser (Free) – A full screen browser with no intrusive toolbars.

Incognito ($1.99) and Squeaky ($3.99) – ‘Stealthy’ browsers, which doesn’t record any browsing history.

WebMate: Tabbed Browser ($0.99) – The first ‘tabbed’ browser for the iPhone

Shaking Web ($1.99) – Aims to assist in reading web pages through a technology to compensate for the movement of your hand.

This ongoing approval of browser-based apps is likely to continue over the next few days. It’s great news for Apple fans, as a whole new range of functionality can be introduced to your mobile browsing experience. It remains to be seen whether this will encourage mobile browser releases from competing developers such as Firefox and Opera. Whether any of the browsers approved over the past few days offer a real potential replacement to Safari is debatable, but releases from Firefox and Opera could really push Apple to innovate their own mobile browser at a faster pace.

Many hope that this change of policy will carry forward to areas such as email — an area where the iPhone is arguably not making the most of the technology available. Personally, I feel that any extra competition to keep Apple on their toes is a great thing.

What are your thoughts? Are there any other areas for which you’d like to see Apple relax the restrictions placed on developers?

Grab a party hat, don your celebratory garb and prepare to get your freak on because, praise be, it’s the first ever Weekly App Store Roundup of 2009.

Indeed, with Macworld drawing near, attendees should immediately check out our very own Conference Schedule – it’ll make sure you’re consistently in the right place at the right time.

In the meantime, those who can’t make it can attend vicariously through TheAppleBlog: we’ll be bringing you the latest Macworld coverage throughout. And, if you can handle even more Apple-happenings being foisted into your giddy brain-box, then read on for my picks from the App Store this week.

This week I’ve been looking at Shoutcast Radio, SledMania, Fnorder and Crayon Physics.

SHOUTcast Radio (free)
Back in my Windows days, a permanent fixture for all my media-playing needs was Winamp – it was light-weight, refined and functional where Microsoft’s Windows Media Player was sluggish and over-bearing. However, the killer feature for Winamp was it’s support for SHOUTcast Radio — providing access to bajillions of ‘net radio stations streaming the nichiest of niche tunes. Of course, these days, iTunes handles ‘net radio quite comfortably, over on the iPhone though, SHOUTcast Radio may become my new go-to app.

SledMania ($0.99)
Browsing through the most recent releases to the App Store brought even more Windows nostalgia flooding back. Back on my first Windows computer, I spent many Winter-evenings indoors whiling away the hours on a mini-game called SkiFree (which those of just the right age and geekiness may also remember). The game has retained quite a following: it’s mildly unsettling to note that a troupe of particularly passionate fans have even created SkiFree fanfiction. With a similar pixellated style, SledMania captures some of the spirit of SkiFree, albeit without a genuinely terrifying abominable snowman careening down the hill behind you.

Fnorder (free)
Amidst a torrent of awful practical joke and novelty apps, comes Fnorder. It’s another utterly useless app except there are two things to note that elevate this above the steaming carcasses of fart sound generators and iPhone magic tricks. Firstly, the app was co-designed by Steve Jackson, the excellent game-designer behind several titles including Munchkin. Secondly, Fnorder is actually an amusing and occasionally spooky purveyor of weird advise, described by its creators as, “… the I Ching for paranoids.”

Crayon Physics ($4.99)
There’s a ton of exciting creative stuff happening over in Finland: Mikko Walamies, the guy behind Rolando’s artwork and Secret Exit, the two-man team currently creating long-awaited Zen Bound, both hail from Finland. Indeed, it’s a veritable hot-bed of digital creative talent and, as it happens, Petri Purho, creator of the award winning Crayon Physics game, is also a native Finn. The game is exceedingly clever. In order to solve puzzles, you draw your own objects which then react realistically with the game environment. It’s far less complicated and way more fun than my description sounds, so go grab it and have a play.

Just One More Thing

I’m feeling a tad fruity as it’s that time each week when I draw your attention to something exciting, interesting or irksome happening over in the App Store. This week it’s the latter, as I draw your hawk-like attention over to Pay Me Modile App [sic].

Enabling you to track loans to friends, including related notes and the initial lending date, this is a simple idea for a useful app. Furthermore, it even integrates with your iPhone Address Book meaning you can send friendly reminders to your more unreliable acquaintances quite easily. It’s great and the developer should be commended and cuddled for creating such a handy tool.

The problem is, there’s a spelling error in the title which lets the entire app down. All but the most sheltered of us are prone to making blaring, public mistakes, so it can be unpleasant to then be subjected to such pedantry.

And yet, the App Store is big business — times are hard, competitors are multitudinous. Hard-working developers just can’t afford to slip up in this economically tempramental climate.

Where Mint.com, Rolando and Tweetie are upping the game and providing serious bang for one’s hard-earned buck, errors like this — while not impacting on the quality of the app per se — belay an expeditious approach by the developer, lacking in focus and ultimately leading some consumers to question the quality of the final product. Let’s hope 2009 brings a renewed focus for App Store developers, allowing us to celebrate yet more innovation on the iPhone.

Apparently the fresh air of Finnish Lapland over the holiday season didn’t off a burgeoning bug in my system, so I’m toddling back off to bed with a cup of cocoa in order to recover. I’ll be seeing you next Saturday with more apps, in the meantime, drop me a message and let me know what caught your eye in the App Store.

Rolando has arrived, amid murmurs that it may be the best game out for iPhone and touch. And with compelling gameplay, awesome artwork and foot-tappingly funky music, it’s certainly my favorite game of the year.

Alongside being the season for frivolity and festivity, it’s that special time of year when the game industry ramps up the release schedule and hustles all the latest would-be hits out their studio doors and on to our computer and console screens.

Looks as good as it plays (cartoon finger not included)

This year, sat next to the DS and PSP, a new contender has joined the handheld race: with the iPhone being touted as a proper platform for gaming, the App Store is bursting at its digital-seams with fresh-faced gaming delights.

One of these bright young things to arrive at the App Store is Rolando, a puzzler-cum-platformer created by London-based game studio HandCircus. The publishers, ngmoco, seem to specialize in releasing weird, wonderful and compulsively fun gaming experiences: the kind of games which play just as good as they look, and they look appetite-whettingly delicious.

Immediate Fun

Opening with a clever playable menu screen, Rolando starts showing you the ropes — and letting you twist, turn and touch them — from the very start. And, as you progress through the game, the main menu grows, becoming more vibrant, adding new toys and revealing characters hidden in the shadows. A seriously smart and considerate move by Hand Circus, in that fun pervades the traditionally mundane menu screen.

The visual design, by Finnish artist Mikko Walamies, is a joy to behold, surpassing the mass of half-baked twaddle prevalent in the App Store. The characterization is particularly accomplished. It’s as if the little guys and gals always existed and you’re just dropping in on their ice-cream colorful world to help out. The good guys are amusing, smart and yet vulnerable. The bad guys are dark, horrid, grumbling beasts.

Tilt ‘n’ Touch

Big Puzzles and Big Bad Guys

Each level is a blend of physics-based puzzle solving and traditional platforming, rolling up the most effective features of other games – Lemmings, Katamari Damacy, Mario.

 Across the ‘net there have already been utterances of Rolando’s similarity to Sony’s flagship PSP-title Locoroco. If anything, this is somewhat flattering for both parties: Rolando’s actual control and gameplay mechanic is a leap beyond that of Locoroco’s, integrating the latter’s simplicity and rendering it more so intuitive with touch commands and tilt control.

Conveyor belts, bombs and diamonds at the fireworks factory

And for all it’s simplicity, the controls actually achieve a satisfyingly effective level of versatility; tap and drag to select a few Rolandos, tilt to get them rolling and then swipe up to make them jump. And just touch an object to interact with it, such as tapping the button on a cannon to release a bomb or cranking a lever to open a gate.

A typical stage will have you aiding your merry band of Rolando’s across spikey pits, through mechanical doors, past slidey gates and over rivers of gunk, and possibly escorting Rolandoland’s snoozing King.

Scruffy Tunes

Manchester's Mr. Scruff

Not only am I from the UK, I’m a Manchester lad. I’m from the city that brought you The Smiths, 10CC, Autechre, Joy Division (and Factory Records too) and Jim Noir.

I’m exceedingly proud of the musical heritage of my hometown and particularly pleased to tell you that the music for Rolando was provided by Manchester’s very own Mr. Scruff.

Plucked from Scruff’s own back catalogue, the soundtrack fits the game perfectly — like the last piece of a funky jigsaw. Taking away the sound, the game is an outstanding specimen compared to its piers — colorful, joyous, moreish — ngmoco and HandCircus went above and beyond the call of duty by incorporating Scruff’s sounds, bringing even more polish to an already gleaming gaming experience.

Summing Up

Turning the Cogs

Not all of you will share my immense enthusiasm for Rolando.

Not everybody may thrill at the occasionally devious and frequently challenging puzzles or reminisce at the retro joys of hopping, skipping and jumping through dark caverns and over perilous spikey pits.

Nor will everybody grin giddily when the good guys get cheeky and the bad guys mutter their comic threats and I’m afraid that not everyone will groove along to the soundtrack, despite it’s ear-wormingly catchiness.

Cheeky Rolandos

But, fortunately, I know that most of you will: you’ll thrill and reminisce while grinning and grooving all the way through Rolando.

You’ll also pick up on many more of the multitude of delights which I failed to mention here (both because an article should only be so long and because it’s such a pleasure to discover these things for yourself).

At the end of it, you’ll tell your friends, you’ll tell folk sat near you on the bus, you’ll tell everyone with an iPhone in earshot, because this is the kind of game that makes you feel good. And because what we have here is the benchmark for what a complete iPhone (or touch) gaming experience could be and, furthermore, should be.

Rolando ($9.99) is available now on iPhone and iPod touch at the App Store.

This week I pick my 12 favorite apps of the year as we lead 2008 around the back and shoot it’s face off, while gently beckoning a fresh-faced 2009 through the front door.

Just because it’s the holiday season, doesn’t mean Apple news stops happening. Quite the contrary in fact because this week we got all existential with Psystar’s ever-more-fantastical litigation, waxed lyrical with the creators of 12seconds.tv, and even chucked in a special Mac-themed gift — from us to you – for good measure.

Seeing as it’s not just the end of a week but the end of an entire year, I thought a special year-end Roundup was in order. Below I’m bringing together some of the best apps I’ve featured over the year and a few that I didn’t have space to mention. (Note, those looking for my Twitter app recommendation should check out my 12 Twitter Apps article.)

This year, I’ve been looking at Evernote, Harvest, Urbanspoon, Locly, Klick, iPolaroid, Backgammon Online, Cookie Bonus Solitaire, BeatMaker, FourTrack, Stanza and Palringo.

Organization & Productivity

Evernote (free)
It’s the app that tends to be a constant in everyone’s list of essential iPhone apps, enabling you to create quick lists, voice memos and even geo-tagged photos when on the move. Plus, paired with the fantastic (and also free) desktop app, it’s a tool that’ll keep your life in order and your mind clear. Combine this with Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders, providing organizational tips and tricks for creative folk, and your life should be a little less stress free and lots more productive.

Harvest (free)
The folks over at Harvest have created the ultimate tool for freelancers and small businesses wanting to stay on top of time-keeping, invoices, estimates and project management. Alongside the app itself, there’s also a desktop web app and even an OS X dashboard widget. Note that this is an old-school web app — installed by visiting the site and bookmarking it to the home screen. 

Out & About

Urbanspoon (free)
Having just made the move to London, I frequently partake in the many gastronomical delights on offer in the city. When I’m at a loss as to a suitable dining location on one of my frequent food-themed expeditions, Urbanspoon makes the decision for me using a natty little shake-activated slot-machine-style interface (complete with clunky sound effects).

Locly (free)
And for those times when I need other local services, or just a point in the right direction to the nearest ATM, bar, restaurant or hotel, Locly is my multi-faceted GPS-enabled weapon of choice. It can even search for nearby points of interest using Flickr and grab Wikipedia information on the local area.

Photos & Images

Klick (free)
It’s the Swiss Army Knife of Flickr apps, albeit without the toothpick, tweezers or tiny protective shiv. Klick allows you to upload direct to Flickr (with tags), browse photos from your contacts or based on your GPS location, plus even mark favorites and comments. A wonderful app, bewildering both in its feature-set and for the fact it’s still, inexplicably, free.

iPolaroid (free)
Frequently perturbed by grainy photos from my iPhone, I set out to find an aesthetically effective solution to this problem. Rather than employ an iPhone photo editing app — many of which on the store tend to promise much more than they deliver — I settled on iPolaroid. This app applies various retrotastic digital processes to your photo before setting it in a Polaroid frame. It’s silly, brilliant and draws attention away from the dire iPhone camera.

Games & Play

Backgammon Online ($4.99)
Steeped in history and consistently exciting, Backgammon is a wonderful game: skill, luck and competitive yet inane banter makes it an essential multiplayer experience. The thing is, the few Backgammon apps that are on the store are designed more as singleplayer time wasters. This game steps up to the mark by incorporating the FIBS.com game server, meaning there’s an almost constant stream of potential contenders to take on.

Cookie Bonus Solitaire (free)
It’s sometimes the simple games that really endure. Downloading Cookie Bonus Solitaire back when it was originally released, I expected a basic (and perhaps boring) solitaire experience. My expectations were duly slapped to the floor and stamped on, like a young Gary Coleman fighting an angry polar bear, when I discovered that this game incorporates online play, a weird yet compelling scoring system and even several sly cheats.

Sound & Music

BeatMaker ($19.99)
It may seem somewhat pricey, but it’s astoundingly good value considering how feature-packed this iPhone-based sequencer is. Anyone familiar with desktop music-making (from Garage Band to Logic) will know how a sequencer works and be familiar with sampling, effects units and maybe even recording sound too. BeatMaker does all that, and then a little more, on your iPhone or iPod touch. For both amateurs and pros, this is a fantastic creative tool to carry in your pocket.

FourTrack ($9.99)
And where some may feel that BeatMaker is geared towards electronic music producers, FourTrack will appeal to  acoustic musicians (especially guitarists and singers). This is a four track recorder, iPhone and touch compatible, with panning, punch in and out, levels, multiple song storage and even easy sync to desktop. As a composer and producer, this is my ultimate essential tool whenever I stray from my Macbook Pro.

Words & Sentences

Stanza (free)
Having dipped in and out of e-books for several years now, I’d never really enjoyed reading in digital form until Stanza. The app is connected to several online libraries containing tons of free reading material. Most importantly, this means I have access to several (free) Doctor Who books and this is an unexpected yet entirely welcome benefit to having an iPhone with Stanza installed.

Palringo (free)
There are several iPhone IM apps out there that cost a few bucks — including IM+, MobileLinked IM, BeeJive IM and MobileChat — but, while I have standards, I’m also cheap. Not wanting to shell out for an IM app means I chose Palringo: it’s got all the features I need for those moments when I (very rarely) simply must chat with someone on my iPhone.

Back in ‘09

That’s it for the 2008. I’ll be back next year with the first weekly roundup of 2009. Here’s hoping we see more polished, useful and entertaining apps and fewer shoddy, flatulence-based cash-ins.

Before you run off to celebrate the future’s impending arrival at the present, drop by the comments and let me know what apps are your must-haves from 2008.

12seconds.tv has just launched a new iPhone app ($0.99) in the App Store that allows you to output video files from your iPhone and share them with your friends on the web. It’s just not the video that you had in mind. This clever little app lets you take three photos, or pick them from your photo library, and then add a voice note over a nicely animated slideshow, complete with Ken Burns effects.

The name of the service comes from the maximum length of any video, just 12 seconds, no more (and no less either, at least from the iPhone app). The videos are uploaded to the 12seconds.tv community site where you and your friends can view them, link to them, or embed them in a web page.

The 12seconds iPhone app has a very different feel from staring into a webcam. The ability to select the photos and have some control over the composition of the video before recording the audio creates some distance between the author and the video. The result is something that still feels intimate and personal, but has a stronger sense of telling a story, even in 12 seconds, than you might get from talking into the camera.

Here’s a quick video demonstration from Sol Lipman of 12seconds.tv.

What’s Good?

The whole process is fairly simple and relatively painless. To select your pics, you can take snaps right in the app, but I think most people will prefer to take pictures with the built-in camera app and then switch to the 12seconds app to select the existing pics from the camera roll. After you’ve selected your pictures you can record audio to go with the animated slidshow.

You can sign up for an account on the 12seconds.tv community site from within the app, but most of the settings and configuration is done on the web page. You can link your Twitter account to your 12seconds.tv profile so you can automatically send out a tweet when you add a new video.

What’s Less Than Good?

One frustration is that there is no “undo” for any of the steps in creating your 12 second video. If you select the wrong picture, you have to press “back” and start over. If you mess up your audio note, you have to start over. And starting over here means from the beginning.

Because the app is tied so closely to the 12seconds.tv website, it does not work at all if the web page is down or if the iPhone is in Airplane Mode. You can take pics with the camera and save them in the camera roll, but you’ll have to select your three images and record your audio when you are in range of a network connection, preferably 3G or Wi-Fi. Edge is just too slow to upload video reliably.

Video Twitter?

The 140 character limit makes Twitter more accessible and certainly less intimidating than writing a full blog post when you want to just share a random thought, witticism, link, or just complain. The constraints of 3 pictures and 12 seconds will have a similar effect for video micro-blogging. It’s enough to share a moment, but not so much that you actually have to script anything out. Of course, what makes Twitter popular is that there are 6 million or so other people throwing their voice into the wind, and some are paying attention to you. The future success of 12seconds is going to depend on how quickly the rest of the world picks up on the idea of sharing 12 second videos.

Is It Worth It?

12seconds.tv is not the video recording experience that we were hoping for, but I actually think that the unique constraints of three images and 12 seconds is interesting in itself. If you are out and take a few snaps with the iPhone camera, you could post a link and comment on Twitter, or you could actually talk about what’s happening and convey a lot more with your own voice. I think the possibilities are worth looking into. Of course, the real trick to see if I keep my interest in 12seconds.tv is if my friends adopt it and I stay engaged.

I used to always fill up my car completely so I could do a quick MPG check against my trip meter, but with the price of gas lately I’ve been reluctant to spend $60 or $70 at the pump. I needed a tracking log so I could figure out my MPG across several partial fill ups. Some of you may also be interested in maximizing fuel efficiency or even hypermiling. AccuFuel (formerly named MPG) stands out among the various mileage tracking choices in the iTunes App Store. “Polished” is a word that gets used frequently in iPhone app reviews (at least for the good apps) but it certainly applies to AccuFuel.

Using the app is simple. You click on the “+” button on the gas pump on the main screen each time you fill up. Then you enter in the odometer reading, gallons, and price per gallon. You can also specify if this is a full or partial fill up so AccuFuel won’t get confused if you only decide to drop five bucks in the tank and top off the tank later in the week. After at least two complete fill ups, AccuFuel will calculate your fuel efficiency and present a graph along the bottom of the home screen.

AccuFuel can track your fuel usage for multiple vehicles. When adding a new car, AccuFuel will let you select from a list of vehicles to automatically display the expected fuel efficiency, but only from 1998 and newer. For older cars, you can enter the details manually so you have a baseline against which to compare your actual mpg.

You can export your entries as comma separated values in an email message and send them to yourself for backup or use in another application like Excel or Numbers. One cool feature is that these email messages contain a link that will push the .csv entries directly into AccuFuel.

One thing I’d like to see in the next version is a graph of gas purchase prices over time. That data is already in AccuFuel along with the fuel efficiency data and it seems like it would be easy to tap to toggle between different graphs for MPG and $/gallon.

I tried several fuel efficiency apps, and AccuFuel definitely stands out as the easiest and best looking app. There are apps that include fuel efficiency along with other features, but AccuFuel is the best for a straight efficiency tracking app.

AccuFuel is available in the iTunes App Store for $0.99.

Every now and then, I walk out into a parking lot and totally blank on where I left my car. Far more often, I head out to visit a client in the downtown area and find that I have to run out to the meter to put more change in because something came up and the visit ran long. Parking Meter addresses both of these situations and helps you find your car and reminds you to extend your meter if you need to do so.

For parking, the app will record your location using GPS (if available) and allows you to take notes on where you parked (eg, section B3) and take a photo with the built-in camera of your iPhone. When you are done with your trip, you can pull up this info to remind yourself of where the car is located. There’s a link back to the built-in Maps application so you can get directions back to the car if you need them.

When you set your parking location, you can also set a reminder for the expiration time of your meter. Parking Meter can set off an audible or vibration alert a certain number of minutes before time expires, but this only works if the app is running. What I really liked is that you can set Parking Meter to send an email alert, either to a regular email account or to an SMS gateway so you get a text message before time runs out on the meter. There’s a handy little list provided to get the most common SMS email gateway addresses. Just don’t make a small typo as you enter your address — Parking Meter will delete your entire entry when you click back on the field to edit it.

There are other apps, like Park’n Find, that offer more detailed info about your parking location but I like the combination of GPS location and email/SMS reminders for meters. Sound off with your preferences in the comments.

Parking Meter is available in the iTunes App Store for $1.99.

One of my first tickets ever was on a road trip in college to visit friends in another state. A highway patrol car was parked behind an obstruction right where the speed limit on the interstate dropped from 70 to 55. While I didn’t slow down fast enough, the officer was clearly positioned to take advantage of the speed change and hand out tickets. Nowadays, I’m not much of a speedster but I do drive around town quite a bit and the last thing I can afford is a speeding ticket. There are a couple iPhone apps that try to help you be mindful of safe driving and avoid speed traps and the one that I’ve been using this last week is Trapster.

Trapster uses the built-in location services of the iPhone to display where you are on a map and shows user-reported speed traps, red-light cameras, and speed cameras (the ones that actually issue tickets) that are nearby. Users can improve the system by reporting new locations to trapster.com right through the iPhone app. The advantage of this system is that the updates are much closer to real-time than they would be with a web-based system where users report when they get back to a computer.

The app is designed to be used while driving…or at least while you’re in your car. Being at a complete stop when using this is probably a good idea.

Trapster will announce the type of locations within your search area (this can be set by the user) and give you an audio warning as you approach new speed traps. The only thing I found annoying is that Trapster would continue to announce these alerts over and over again as long as they were in my search radius. I was able to control this a little by tuning the search radius and the frequency of announcements, but I never found a setting that worked just the way I wanted. I was also disappointed that Trapster would move my current location on the map and then redraw after I reached the edge. I would prefer that it just kept my location centered (like you can setup in the built-in Maps application).

A recent update to the app also allows it to work reliably in European countries with localized settings. Trapster is a free download in the iTunes app store.

There’s nothing worse than finding the perfect car, negotiating a fair price, and then getting totally worked over by the finance manager when you go to get a lease or a loan. To help you compare financing options, iLeaseMyCar provides a simple iPhone loan calculator. There are web calculators, but an iPhone app provides some advantages for use when a network connection isn’t available or is too slow, particularly for iPod touch owners that may not have access to WiFi at a dealer’s showroom.

The app is well designed and attention to detail sets it apart from some of the other choices in the app store. The layout includes 4 buttons across the “dock” at the bottom that let you choose between a loan calculator, lease calculator, advice on negotiating loan options and terms, and program help. The advice is simple, but straightforward, and the help covers all the options available in the program.

Setting the loan details is straightforward. Just tap on the value that you want to adjust and type in the new value. I actually prefer the slider mechanism used in the Auto Loan / Lease Calculator because it gives you immediate feedback on adjusting loan values, but iLeaseMyCar remembers what you’ve entered so you can quit to check email and return to where you were without losing anything.

I’d love to see some additional features like saved loans, a payment schedule with principal and interest, compare two loans, and so on. There’s certainly room for improvement with all of these apps, but my sense is that the good folks at Not Too Shabby Software have a solid base on which to build.

iLeaseMyCar is available in the iTunes App Store for $0.99.

Update: For a limited time, the best deal appears to be the brand-new iLeaseMyCar Pro which has special introductory pricing of $1.99. iLeaseMyCar Pro adds reverse loan and lease calculations to calculate other factors from the payment and also allows you to add taxable and non-taxable fees.

In addition to fuel costs, some people are religious in tracking their automobile repairs as well. I keep a file of service receipts, but I hardly ever do any analysis of this information to try and figure out how much I’m spending on repairs or how often. Now that one of my cars is getting a little long in the tooth, I decided I might want to take a closer look and see what it actually takes to keep the old lady of the garage running.

Care Care ($4.99) is an iPhone app that lets you track automobile expenses and fuel costs for multiple vehicles. It essentially takes a fuel cost tracking app and adds a separate entry item for service costs. The setup is fairly straightforward. Select your vehicle from a list of popular makes and models and then you can begin entering your fillups at the gas station along with other service items. When you add a new service entry, you can select from a list of common repairs and services like oil changes, radiator service, etc. or “other” and then enter the odometer reading and cost. You can enter some brief notes as well.

The service tracking is pretty limited and I’m not sure that I personally need an iPhone app to do this for me. My paper file folder with service receipts works pretty well for my limited needs. If you want to track this info on your mobile device, and also need something to track fuel consumption, then Car Care may be a good choice for you.

The categories and notes are basic, but cover the most common issues. I like some of the features of the fuel consumption as Car Care provides graphs of MPG and fuel costs over time and also gives a “Carbon Footprint” number, which I haven’t seen in other fuel tracking apps. In fuel tracking, Car Care also tells you how your mileage varies by the grade of gasoline that you use (you have to provide this info when you fillup, of course).

I continue to prefer AccuFuel for pure fuel consumption because of its simpler user interface, but these little extras in Car Care are tempting and may be just the thing for some of you that really want to track both fuel and service in one place.

I once spent almost 3 months trying to track down a song that I had heard a few times on the car radio while commuting to and from work back in 2000. I was pulling my hair out because I kept missing the DJ to catch the name of the record. To make things worse, the track was an instrumental so I couldn’t find the lyrics on Google (which had launched just a year or two prior). I managed to catch that it was a tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan, but it still took me another few weeks to finally identify “S. R. V.” by Eric Johnson, written to honor one of my all-time favorite musicians.

If only I’d had an iPhone. And Shazam.

Shazam is possibly the coolest application that I have seen on the iPhone. If you haven’t seen it yet (how is that possible?), the software is pretty straightforward — it uses the built-in microphone on the iPhone to take a 15 second sample of music. It then sends that sample to the Shazam elves over the Intertubes who toil away night and day to compare that sonic signature to a database of almost 5 million pieces of recorded music. Once a match has been found, Shazam shows you the artist and track information and provides links to purchase the song in the iTunes music store or watch a video on YouTube. It saves a list of songs you have “tagged” with Shazam and lets you email the links. Frankly, it’s amazing to watch as it works and is one of the first apps I show to friends who haven’t played with an iPhone.

Shazam does a pretty good job of picking up background music so it works great to pick up songs playing on the car radio. If you’ve ever had that experience of wanting to know the title of a song you just missed, run, don’t walk, to download Shazam from the iTunes App Store.

As we pointed out last month, Carticipate offers some simple hope for those that are looking for ways to reduce their car usage and spending on gasoline. The promise of Carticipate is to bring people together that are looking for ridesharing by helping you identify other riders or drivers that are headed to the same destination from your local area. The problem is that 2 months after release, there still don’t appear to be any people posting potential rides in the community.

There aren’t any other iPhone apps for ridesharing at the time this review was written, but there are some good web sites like PickupPal, ZimRide, 511.org, Ridester, vpsiinc.com, and others that work quite well from an iPhone. From the comments on our earlier article, it looks like PickupPal is working on an iPhone app, so we’ll keep you posted as options develop.

Carticipate is a free download in the iTunes App Store, so it won’t cost anything to try and find ridesharing opportunities in your area. Your might fare a lot better if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area (where iPhone concentration and eco-awareness are higher). While the community is being developed, take a look at the web sites listed above to share rides. We hope to be able to report on more options for iPhone users in the near future.

While the price of gas has been dropping from $4.00 down towards $3.00 in recent weeks, I still pay attention to which stations offer lower prices when I go to fillup. I’ve found differences of up to 20 cents per gallon between stations that are just within a mile or two of my home in Colorado. That savings can add up quickly if you’re careful about where you buy gas.

There are a couple of iPhone apps that attempt to help you find the cheapest gas, wherever you happen to be, by combining pricing information from the internet with the location services of the iPhone. I looked at GasBag, iGasUp, and Where to see which one would help me find cheap gas, particularly when I was in an unfamiliar part of town. In my usage for a week, I found iGasUp to have the most complete and the most current pricing info, even if it was a little glitchy in map mode. It had more stations in my area (Denver, CO) and the pricing was consistently more accurate than the other apps.

The difference is found in the source of the pricing data. iGasUp uses OPIS data, which is compiled automatically from actual credit card transactions. GasBag and Where both rely on user submissions to their web sites (Where uses the data from gasbuddy.com). The data in these two apps was inconsistent and sometimes out-of-date, as you might expect when you are relying on volunteers to take the time to record what they paid. Both apps were also missing a fair number of stations in my part of town, which was frustrating at times.

iGasUp did show some glitches with occassional bad data, which would show up as a outlier in the data with a price drastically below the next lowest station. Usually this was limited to one bad entry and it was fairly obvious that there wasn’t really a station offering gas a full 20 or 30 cents under the lowest price to be found elsewhere. iGasUp was also buggy in map view (the default view is a list of stations sorted by lowest price). I couldn’t get the map to stay at a certain zoom level. I just stayed in the list view to avoid this situation. You can still click on the address of a particular station in list view to get to a map with directions to that location.

iGasUp is available in the iTunes App Store for $2.99. Because the underlying data is not free, iGasUp includes price updates for one year. You’ll have to rebuy sometime next year. Still, you’ll save the $3 pretty quickly if you take the time to check prices when you need to fill up.

If you’re looking for an alternative, Where is a free download, but the underlying gasbuddy.com data may not be as complete or up-to-date.

For my day job, I do a fair amount of driving around town. For tax purposes, it’s really important that I track the miles I drive for work, and to do it right I need to record the odometer readings. In the past, I’ve used a simple written log book, but this last week I’ve been using a few trip log apps for the iPhone to see if I could make this whole process easier for myself.

The trip log that I liked best is MileBug from Izatt International. This is a nice little app that does a good job of making the process relatively painless. The biggest obstacle to using any app like this is the time required to enter the details for your trip. The simplest measure would be, “Does it take more or less time than it would to write it down on paper?” I think MileBug passes this critical litmus test.

You can track odometer readings for the start and end of each trip, and you can do so for multiple vehicles. MileBug lets you track trips by Business, Destination, and Purpose and set presets for each of those items for quick entry. You can setup reimbursement rates for each business if you need to track rates for the standard federal tax deduction for some trips and a corporate reimbursement that may have another rate for other trips. MileBug will automatically start the next trip from the last known odometer reading to save a little time. I appreciate how the odometer dials roll over, instead of just running from 0 to 9 like in some other apps. It makes it a little simpler to update your mileage when you roll past 9 on one or more of the digits.

To get the data out of MileBug, you can email reports. This sends a table of text with a summary and detailed entries. The email feature integrates with the built-in Mail app on the iPhone which makes it easy to use your address book to make that process easy too.

There are a couple of things that I think could stand improving. Adding a new destination always adds that new entry to your preset list which could become quite long. I chose to use generic entries like “client”, “HQ” and “home” for destinations and used purpose to denote if it was billable or not. Because I wasn’t entering the individual destinations, I just put the details in the “notes” field. There’s also no way to import data back into MileBug if you were to lose it, in say an app update gone bad, or after restoring your iPhone without a backup. I can live without the import, but I have to remember to email the reports regularly.

If you need more detailed records, you might look into Trip Cubby which offers some additional options, but at a much higher price. I particularly like that you can use a keypad to enter odometer readings in Trip Cubby instead of spinning little dials. Still, I prefer MileBug for its simplicity and it works perfectly for my needs.

MileBug is available in the iTunes App Store. The app is priced at $2.99 for a limited time.