In what has become and increasingly common trend the USA Today app just received an update that focusses on social network integration.

The update adds Facebook integration for sharing articles as well as the ability to work with an ever-growing number of Twitter clients. The new Twitter support works with Twitterrific, Tweetie, TwitterFon, and Twittelator.

In addition the update improves location accuracy for Weather and Snapshots and increases the ease of use via the top navigation slider bar in Headlines.

USA Today is a free app.
 

In order to prepare to review the (soon to arrive but not soon enough) SlingPlayer for iPhone I picked up a Slingbox Solo from Amazon. (The sacrifices I make for the site!)

It came today and… Slingbox is amazing. It took me a bit to get it configured properly but, once I did WOW!

Watching my TiVo from my iMac or my MacBook is amazing. The picture is superb. The degree of control is remarkable. It is amazing. And that is before the iPhone app has come to light!

There is, however, one thing I don’t like.

Anthony from the app dvelopment company  Rooftop Collective recently contacted us to share his App Store tale of woe. 

They have developed a really cool 3D app "3D Me" that creates a 3D image doesn’t require you to wear those dorky 3D glasses. The effect is really neat and is created throught the use of an animated gif.

I’ll let Anthony explain the problem himself…

As we’ve tried to launch 3D Me we’ve run into a roadblock when it comes to screen shots. 3D Me is a photography app that allows users to create, catalog, and share 3D-effect images. No 3D glasses are necessary. 3D Me achieves its 3D effect through the use of animated GIFs–please see galleries at 3dmeapp.com for more examples. However, the App Store doesn’t support the GIF file format! In fact the App Store supports JPEGs and nothing else. Because of this restriction we are not able to properly showcase our results–when providing a screen shot, we can do no better than offer a non-animated (and therefore NON-3D!) JPEG.

As a result, the App Store doesn’t show what the app can do. The result is this question… how do you sell an app when you are REQUIRED to use one system and one system only and that system will let you sell the app but not actually advertise it? We decided to help by showing you, our readers, a side-by-side shot of what the App Store shows and what the app actually does…

11 pages of goodness, where do I come up with these titles! Anyway, if the title doesn’t state it all, from my understanding, the new 3.0 firmware will have, yes, you guessed it, 11 pages of goodness. In other words, from the current 9 pages we have on the iPhone, we can now have 11 pages.

For those who just got an iPhone, that is from 148 applications to 180 applications that you can have on your phone. (which reminds me, my 31 months old son’s birthday is coming up). I know that some of you are thinking, who needs that many applications…let’s just say some people *ahem*. I’m not alone…

Ok, the title isn’t the best title I can come up with but that’s the first thing that came into mind when I heard about this. After searching SlingMedia for evidence of this fact, here it is. Get mad now!

Essentially, for those who has been anticipating the SlingPlayer mobile for the iPhone. Guess what! You better have the latest and greatest Sling box, specifically, the Slingbox Solo, Slingbox Pro and Slingbox Pro-HD. Apparently, the “new technology” within the iPhone SlingPlayer will only support those Slingboxes. There’s a classic case of marketing for you!

Half Dead is a great example of a game that can be fanastic but is, as of this point, anything but.

Quite honestly I can’t believe they would release this and have the nerve to charge $.99 for the current app.

Here’s why.

One of the things that Apple has taught me is that small design features both in hardware and software make a huge difference in comfort, easy of use, and overall enjoyment of using Apple’s products.

For example, the fact that all of Apple’s notebooks now have an ability to close and to remain shut without the need for a physical latch makes a huge difference in ease of use. I hadn’t thought about it until my wife complained that her last generation Macbook Pro is an absolute pain to open since each time it requires her to push the latch/button in and it is a pain. That’s no longer the case. All MacBooks now close without any physical device locking the two parts together. The lack of a latch is a really nice upgrade. A small thing but something that significantly increases the enjoyment of using their notebooks. No, it isn’t reason enough to upgrade but it is a minor tweak that goes noticed by few but appreciated by all.

Along similar lines, it recently struck me that Apple could easily make one small software tweak that could truly increase the ease of use and run-time of the iPhone. Like the MacBook latch, it isn’t a necessary upgrade or change but it’s one that would have a significant impact for those of us who are heavy users of the device.

Let me explain-

I love my iPod Touch and use it all the time. While the lack of a 3G radio means it gets better battery life than my iPhone 3G, it still runs dry rather quickly if I am using it to watch a movie or play a game. As a result, I often find myself swapping between Touch and iPhone or keeping one plugged in. Carrying an external battery does, of course, help and there is a new option available.

I reviewed the Mophie Juice Pack for iPhone 3G back in November and loved the device. While the fit wasn’t perfect, my Touch could be charged with it but, unfortunately, the placement of the headphone jack on the Touch’s bottom meant that the battery covered it and made it inaccessible. The new Juice Pack for iPod Touch takes the same design approach as the original but with one significant difference- it adds a pass through for the headphone jack.

I was incredibly excited to see the release of Skype for iPhone late yesterday.

I was super sad when it didn’t work for me at home after downloading it. The calls were choppy, the app was laggy and the overall experience was anything but good. The best I could say about it was that it LOOK good.

Form = excellent.

Function = bad.

Well I figured I would give it a try today and, as luck would have it, had a different experience.

I tried it at work and found the quality of the calls to be excellent. Back at home tonight and the calls were decent, as well. I’m not sure what the issue was last night but I am certainly glad to see it resolved.

It isn’t all good news, though. The app is incredibly laggy. It takes forever to start up and moving from one window to another can take forever. But it does work and work well and I have no doubt the app will be optimized for speed in future updates.