Rolando 2 is the sequel to Rolando, a game which proved that the iPhone can compete with Sony’s PSP and Nintendo’s DS in the handheld console wars.

Just over a year after opening, the App Store is coming into its own. Indeed, there’s the dodgy dirge of novelty joke apps, but at the other end of the spectrum, we’re seeing publishers like ngmoco producing smart and fun apps.

Ngmoco is the publisher that picked up the original Rolando, reviewed here back in December, and pushed it in to the realms of essential iPhone titles. Rolando 2 is ngmoco’s latest release. The game features tilting puzzle platforming action with music from Mr. Scruff, and includes Plus+ network integration for achievement and score tracking.

Tap ‘n’ Tilt

Setting the scene for the game’s exotic island adventure, the opening sequence sees a deadly disease threatening the Kingdom of Rolando’s inhabitants. It’s up to the crew of the HMS Plunderful, joined by Rolando’s dozy royalty, to travel to a distant land in search of the cure.

Alongside setting up the game’s story, the playable opening sequence also acts as a handy tutorial. You play The Finger, able to control various Rolando characters and tweak elements of the environment.

Just like the original, the controls are ingeniously simple: tap an individual Rolando, or drag a box around several, then just tilt your iPhone to get them rolling. A quick swipe upwards triggers a jump, and certain yellow objects dotted around the environment can be tapped, dragged and twisted in various ways.

Rolling in New Features

Levels are a blend of platforming and puzzling — avoiding the bad guys and ensuring safe passage to the exit for the jaunty little Rolandos. Just like the original Rolando, most maps are centered around block pushing, button triggering and door opening.

Rolando 2 builds on the original, though, introducing new features and twists every few levels. This litany of loveliness takes the game from a simple platforming adventure into the realm of a multicolor spectacle.

There are the bomb trees, carrying, as nature apparently intended, a range of different bombs, including rolling sticky bombs and, less destructive but no less useful, water bombs — great for growing giant plants from tiny shrubs.

There’s the neanderthal-esque native, Rolando, who, after eating a hot chili, inflates and begins floating through the level. And there’s the Boom Finger which transforms your own finger into a digit of destruction, allowing you to off enemies and forge new paths through the levels.

If there’s one drawback to the game’s seemingly constant inventiveness, it’s that it occasionally feels a tad overwhelming — there are so many ideas crammed in, it obscures the purity of the game’s fundamentally fun tilt ‘n’ roll controls.

Ears & Eyes

On music and artwork duties, both Mr. Scruff and Mikko Walamies have returned. Walamies is behind the game’s charming characters, and he’s done so much with so little, injecting humor and character into a cast of, essentially, rolling ball faces.

The game exceeds expectations in the artwork department, too: Rolando 2 is now in 3-D, from the game’s Super Mario World-style game hub, to each individually crafted level.

Pie-eating, tea-drinking, funk-spinning Manchester DJ Mr. Scruff also features in Rolando 2. Not only do his gorgeous grooves accompany each level, he’s even got his own Music Shack where you’re able to take a leisurely roll through the soundtrack.

Diamonds & Disappointments

The iPhone’s connectivity isn’t forgotten, either. Ngmoco has integrated Plus+, a network connecting iPhone gamers with each other. You’re able to share scores, issue challenges to other players, and track in-game achievements.

There are a few issues, though. A sound is missing here and there, and certain game objects intrude on the gameplay, but it’s so incredibly infrequent.

My concern is that the constant barrage of new ideas and gameplay twists means that the game, like its petite, rotund heroes do so frequently, will become lost in a confusing jungle filled with shiny, new playthings.

I’ve heaped on praise and extolled its many magnificent moments, and yet it must be noted that there’s room, albeit a very tiny bit of room, for improvement.

Summing Up: Golden Apple Award

Rolando 2 is a wonderful game. What’s more, it exploits the iPhone as a gaming platform so effectively. It makes use of the iPhone’s user interface, never falling back on virtual control-pad buttons. There’s connectivity with Plus+ and even music from Scruff.

The characters look good enough to consume as, I imagine, some of the island’s native tribe members would do so, given half the chance. And the gameplay is fundamentally fun and consistently inventive.

All that sounds too analytical, though. It’s a convoluted way of trying to say it’s really a very good game. A more effective way of summing it up would be to give Rolando 2 TheAppleBlog’s coveted Golden Apple Award, so that’s what I’ve done.

All that’s left to say is that Rolando 2 is the new benchmark for iPhone gaming and, as such, I highly recommend that you download it.

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It’s hard to deny how handy it is to plug an iPod into a Mac, fire up iTunes, and watch your device sync with your computer automagically. Take the Mac or iTunes out of the equation, though, and syncing gets a little trickier.

If you don’t like iTunes, or you use Linux as your primary operating system, it’s still possible — easy, even — to sync your iPod’s media files. Just grab one of these three free, open-source music managers, and you’ll be up and running in no time. Like most open-source software, these projects have a strong community of users who are eager to jump in and help if you run into any glitches while installing or using these apps, so don’t hesitate to ask for help if you need it.

Banshee — One of the most robust media players around, Banshee syncs podcasts, music, video and audio files with your iPod. It also snags album artwork from MusicBrainz, lets you create smart playlists, and filters your entire library by album or artist. Banshee was designed for Linux operating systems, but also works on a Mac, so it’s perfect as an iTunes replacement.

Rhythmbox — This music management app does just about everything but sing along with your tunes. Rip CDs and organize them into playlists, manage automatically downloaded podcasts, grab lyrics and album art from the Internet, and easily transfer music to your iPod. Designed to work with the GNOME desktop, many Linux distributions come already bundled with this app, so check to see if you have it before downloading.

Amarok — This app has a load of integrated Web services that help you locate, buy and manage music from Web sites like Magnatune, a terrific place to buy tracks and support indie artists. Amarok imports your existing iTunes database, creates dynamic playlists, and supports more than 45 languages. If you need to sync a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch, then this is the app for you. Amarok was created for use with the KDE desktop, but it’s also possible to get it up and running on a Mac. There’s no official support for it yet, though.

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I’ll posture that not many of us know the anniversary of the date we purchased most of our cellular phones — at least not before the iPhone hit the streets. (And if you do remember, hopefully you remember other, important anniversaries, too!) But things changed on June 29, 2007. Lines formed, and tons of iPhones were sold. Similar happenings have occurred both summers since, as the iPhone hardware has been updated. And although I’m on my third iPhone model, I’m not concerned with what my next phone will be, because I’ll own an iPhone for life.

This concept seemed like a fairly singular thought when it crossed my mind recently. But then I saw a link on Gruber’s site to this photo on Flickr. The subsequent comments clearly indicate that I’m not alone in holding my iPhone above those that came before. No longer do I scour the Internet for news of the next big thing (unless it’s iPhone-related, of course).

iPhone for life (I’m not a tattoo guy, but if I were…) is a concept I absolutely believe in. It sounds awfully shortsighted and absolute, I realize, but I have faith in Apple. The company has proven time and again that it can innovate, and lead the pack. With my iPhone, I have all the features in my pocket that I could ever care to have. The army of developers who flood the App Store with hundreds of new apps each week mean that I’ll always be able to find whatever I want to extend the abilities of my iPhone. As competition, such as the Palm Pre, hits the streets, apps have become a big deal. And while marketing departments have hung their hat on the ‘apps’ buzzword as of late, they’re playing catch up in a big way.

Beyond just the iPhone, Apple has turned the act of purchasing — and using — its products into something special. The designs alone elicit awe and excitement. Apple gets at them early, too, with offerings like free camps so little ones can learn to love its products while they’re impressionable (my son is enrolled in Summer Camp at the local store over the next couple of weeks, and is totally stoked about it). Adding free technical support and workshops takes it that much further. There’s a feeling that you belong to something when you own an Apple product, and that is what I believe makes the brand as sticky as it is today. Apple is not just a brand; it’s a culture.

I’ve seen firsthand the way that the iPhone has taken the iPod’s “Halo Effect” to the next level. Many friends have picked up iPhones over the past 24 months. They’ve loved these smartphones so much that they’ve gotten excited about taking the plunge into an entirely new computer system as well. (Some are even going for a MacBook just because they figured it would sync with their phone easier — at the very least, a great excuse to jump on the bandwagon!) Once they’ve taken that step, almost unanimously, they’ve wondered to me how they ever got along on the PC for so long when such an awesome alternative was out there waiting.

Not everyone is a gadget junky, as I myself tend to be. This life tends to be one of neglecting the gadget you’ve got, while drooling over the one that will hopefully come. But I’ve found bliss with my iPhone. Using the iPhone is just a great experience, not necessarily perfection (blasphemer!), mind you, but it truly is a joy to use. Apple already had me as a lifelong customer with its computers. But the iPhone has nestled its way into a niche in my life that for a very long time, was up for grabs. No longer — iPhone for life, baby!

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Yes, the iPhone 3GS is still hot out of the oven (too hot, perhaps?), but if you’re a true gadget addict, then you probably can’t help but think ahead to what Apple could possibly cram into the next iteration to ensure consumer mouths continue to drool. Of course, if you’re like me and you were ensnared by only the promise of better internals and a video camera this time around, it shouldn’t take much to accomplish that.

According to Unwired View, future versions of Apple’s smartphone could boast a lot more in the bells and whistles department. They’ve assembled a variety of Apple patents that, together, represent an exciting vision of what an iPhone 4G (3GSX?) could look like.

See and Speak

There’s already some interesting work being done by third-party developers around image identification on the iPhone, but Apple looks to be aiming to bake real-world object ID right into the platform. The phone would be using a combination of technologies to identify things that you point it at, including the camera, RFID or barcode scanning, and context filters (i.e., museum, grocery store, small island fishing community, etc.). You can almost smell the ecommerce potential in something like this.

Never Forget a Face

iPhoto ‘09 brought us Faces, a feature which recognizes faces you tag once in photos and automatically groups them together. It’s black techno-magic, is what it is, and I won’t have any part in it. But if you’re less superstitious and old-fashioned, it can be pretty handy. Now it looks like it might be coming to the iPhone.

Face recognition can have any number of applications, including the ability to custom tailor access privileges depending on who’s handling the device. No music with explicit lyrics for Junior, for instance, but Daddy doesn’t have to remove Ol’ Dirty Bastard from his iPhone entirely.

Built-In CRM

If you’re an iPhone business user, this next feature might seem especially promising, particularly if you’re in sales. Customer relationship management (CRM) is a huge part of successful sales, and it generally involves making sure you stay up to date on the personal and professional lives of your clients.

This patent foretells a feature that notifies you if you have unread communications from a contact before you call them. That way, you’ll avoid awkward situations like calling someone to check on the progress of a contract when he’s just sent you a detailed email explaining everything that’s wrong with it.

Another business-related feature will inform you if a message you’ve sent out to multiple recipients has failed for specific individuals within that group, and then give you a chance to resend only to those members who didn’t get the memo. Both of these last two features obviously have applications beyond the enterprise, too, but they seem most relevant to the business world.

I Do Impressions

Want your phone to talk to you and sound like Sir Paul McCartney while doing so? Or, if you’re particularly self-obsessed, in your very own voice? The last patent of the batch outfits your iPhone with the ability to do just that.

Weirdly, the scenario Apple uses to describe the usefulness of this speculated app is kind of an iPhone-as-surrogate-mother situation. It imagines a bleak future in which you have to have your iPhone read to your child in your voice because you’re too busy. Even if this patent does become reality, I hope we never reach the point where that becomes something many of us require our phone to do.

I don’t know about you, but I’d say most of the fun of new iPhone hardware is the anticipation and speculation leading up to the actual release. Not that I’m against getting my hands on the physical hardware once it does come out, of course.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user onebutan-iphone.

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So there’s a new OS that’s based on the web, relies primarily on a web browser, and whose native apps are web apps. Old news, you say? We already know about Palm’s WebOS. No, I don’t mean that one. This one will primarily target netbooks. Still old news, you say, because we know a modified Android is coming to netbooks soon. No, I don’t mean that, either. I’m speaking of a Linux kernel with a modern web browser. Way old news, you say, since Linux distros and Firefox were available on netbooks even before Windows. No, no, I don’t mean that, either.

I’m talking about Google’s brand-new (on paper) Chrome OS. Introduced only a day ago, I’m disappointed we didn’t get a comic book to describe to us simpletons how this will revolutionize our life. Because it’s from Google. So you can run the company’s services. And see its ads.

With all the talk about how this impacts Microsoft, Linux, Apple and hardware manufacturers, the most important participant is ignored: the consumer. We already knew netbooks were primarily a geek’s toy, at best mildly interesting to general consumers, until Windows became available on them. Suddenly, they became an even cheaper cheap laptop, and sold in the millions. That’s still their consumer image today, and still fuels their sales. Google says people are clamoring for a leaner base from which to just launch a web browser, but that’s exactly how netbooks began — with the Linux/Firefox combo already mentioned — and consumers didn’t go there.

Besides, if Google just wants a newer web experience, it could port Chrome to Linux and work with a Linux distro to strip it to run lean. There’s no reason whatsoever for Google to write its own OS if this is all it wants, especially given that its first OS hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm.

Since this is Google, there are numerous posts hailing Chrome OS and questioning how it will change everything. I’ve seen the Wayne Gretzky “puck” quote bandied about. It’s nice to talk about skating to where the puck will be — Steve Jobs used it, and Apple seems to get there. The problem is that Jobs usually knows the users’ end goal, and therefore does know where the puck will be. Others do not. In fact, they frequently don’t even know the puck is going to be in the rink, let alone near the net.

Here are some things to consider before we get too excited about Chrome OS:

• It’s vaporware. Over a year away? That’s a lifetime in this market.
• In timing the announcement near Windows 7’s RTM, Google may hope to stall potential netbook gains Windows 7 might garner for Microsoft (i.e., The “Google OS” is coming, let’s wait). A market-freeze-via-vapor-announcement is classic Microsoft, and though it’s amusing to see its own tactic used against the company, it doesn’t make it any better coming from Mountain View instead of Redmond.
• Given Google’s track record, we can expect to see it in a year (assuming it’s on time) with a beta tag for maybe two years.
• Will being “Google” be enough to push the masses (there are those pesky consumers again) into buying netbooks in droves like the availability of Windows did?
• Netbooks are a familiar and traditional form factor; there’s nothing really different there. Consumers have shown they want a familiar and traditional OS on them.
• The real creativity in operating systems today is in the smartphone world, and will require a non-traditional form factor — not a small laptop — to carry over into larger devices.

Finally, Google’s announcement implies a certain disdain for a traditional computer OS, like it’s something that only hinders launching Google’s browser to use Google’s stuff. Sorry, while my browser is one of the apps I run all the time, I have many others as well. The web is nowhere near ready to replace this. It hasn’t the ubiquity, it hasn’t the reliability, it hasn’t the diversity and it hasn’t the speed. The idea that in a year we’ll begin moving from OS’s providing great flexibility and numerous functions — of which using the web is just one — to some “all-web” OS is not analogous to skating to where the puck will be; it’s analogous to people who once thought flying cars were just around the corner.

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Apple has released version 4.0.2 of Safari for both OS X 10.4 and 10.5 (but not Snow Leopard), as well as Windows XP, Vista and 7 beta. The 40MB update is available through Software Update and download via Apple’s web site.

The release notes, cryptic as usual, state the update improved “the stability of the Nitro JavaScript engine and includes the latest compatibility and security fixes.” A Knowledge Base article states that 4.0.2 addresses two vulnerabilities: cross-site scripting attacks and arbitrary code execution. Both of these vulnerabilities require visiting “maliciously crafted web sites,” but nonetheless are excellent reasons to update. Of course, the Mac version requires a restart, as updating Safari updates WebKit and the associated frameworks.

Those hoping for other changes, like a return of page loading progress in the address bar, or the refresh button going back to the left of the address bar, will be disappointed. Top tabbers, those who preferred the short-lived experiment of tabs being in the title bar, are also going to be displeased. It’s time to let go. Upgrading from the Safari 4 beta has to happen sooner or later, and what better reason than better security?

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If you’ve been enjoying your new iPhone 3GS, but have been missing the freedom of jailbreak since your hardware upgrade (and you were skittish about the early purplera1n release), then you’re in luck, because yesterday the Dev Team officially released updated versions of redsn0w and ultrasn0w that are compatible with Apple’s newest handset. That also means you can unlock the device (though earlier versions of ultrasn0w were technically compatible as well) without worry. Except for the usual worries, which are, as always, many and include potentially voiding your warranty.

As some of you may recall, the Dev Team was originally planning on holding off on a 3GS jailbreak release until after the official 3.1 firmware update from Apple dropped. In doing so, they were hoping to prevent Cupertino from plugging the exploit they use to access and jailbreak the 3GS with the next release. Dev Team member George Hotz (Geohot) took issue with that cautious stance, pointing out that playing cat-and-mouse with Apple was basically unavoidable anyway, so why not just tackle exploits as they become available, instead of trying to put one over on the software giant? In their post, the Dev Team doesn’t actually debate the merits of either position, they just plainly state that there was no reason to hold back the release with purplera1n already being widely available.

If you can get past the dangers inherent in any jailbreaking activity, and you really want to try out great Cydia and Icy apps like Backgrounder, Boss Prefs, and all the rest, head on over to the Dev Team Blog now for more info on where you can find the official releases. Call me boring, but I’m sticking with my vanilla 3.0 install until Apple irons out all the quirks of the latest device, just in case a trip to the Genius Bar becomes a necessary last resort.

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I’ve been playing with Fluent News on the iPhone for the last day, and consider it a fine first effort as a news reading app. However, when it comes to sharing the news stories you’re most interested in, it falls short.

Reading

On my iPhone’s first Home page, I have readers for the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and AP Mobile. I may very well be able to replace them all with Fluent News. It culls news from a myriad of sources’ mobile sites and aggregates them into its page views. By default, you see Top News, but are only two taps away from other categories (e.g., U.S. News, Business, Sports, etc.).

I’m impressed with the speed of the app, as it does most of its work in the background. I’m also impressed that it shows only one headline for a given major story, and then adds a button for “related” stories that lets you see other sources’ stories. This keeps the primary lists short, yet still allows you to see full coverage. And all from one app. It’s a very good idea, and for reading purposes is well implemented.

There’s an ad at the bottom of the first page of links, but instead of being stationary, it scrolls with the page, so the majority of the time you don’t see any ads when reviewing headlines. When you click on an article to read it, you see exactly what that particular source’s mobile news looks like. This means articles do not display consistently, but only because, say, the NYT mobile format does not look like CNN’s; it’s not a bug in the program. By grabbing these sources’ already-formatted data, it keeps things fast.

Finally, the data when pulled down is local to the phone, so you can read it even when not on a network (though of course you won’t pull in later data until connected). All in all, the reading experience on this thing is very good, and I like the idea of replacing several icons with just one on my Home page.

Sharing

So you’ve read a great story and want to share it with your friends/family/whatever. Fluent News allows this, but it falls down here. The app has ties to email, Twitter and Facebook.

For Twitter, go into settings and enter your account information. Then, when reading an article, click the Share button (you get all three choices) and click Twitter. What happens is that a tweet is composed for you, and all you can do is say OK or cancel. You don’t get to write the tweet, or modify it any way. Did you want to quote the article in your tweet, or shorten the URL? Too bad.

Clicking the email button transfers you to the email app. Here, at least, the pre-written text can be modified, but it leads to another issue with Fluent News’ sharing: Its article reader is “dead.” It’s a read-only environment. Click a link? It goes nowhere. Click and hold a picture to save it? Nope. Copy and paste? Nope. So even with an email there’s no way to quote from the article, or do anything else.

The above reader limitations wouldn’t be bad if the reader had a button to open the article directly in Safari, but for now it has no way to do so.

And the above isn’t even the worst part. I haven’t yet discussed the URL it sends. You might reasonably expect it to be a URL for the article you’re reading, but no. Instead, it’s a link to a Fluent News page that contains a link to the article you’re reading, and in some cases an ad for downloading the iPhone app (as if you only share articles with iPhone users).

Frankly, lots of people I share with are not going to get this. If they get an email saying this is a great article to read, and then click the link only to see a Fluent News page of links, they’re going to reply to me that I must have sent them the wrong URL because it isn’t the article I mentioned. I don’t see why Fluent News has to turn sharing a link into a page hit/ad for their site.

So how do I get around this?

1. Email the link to myself.
2. Click the link in the email.
3. Click the link on the resulting Fluent News web page.
4. Now I have the article in Safari, and can interact, email or Twitter as I normally would.

That’s quite a bit of extra work, but at least I know everyone will get a link that takes them directly to the article I’m raving about. Well, the mobile version of the article I’m raving about, which looks pretty weak in a desktop browser.

In some cases, the mobile page allows you to select the “normal” view, in which case that would be step 3.5 above. But in the example shown here, I don’t have the option.

Summary

If you don’t share lots of links, or are fine with pre-written text and a detour through a Fluent News web page to get to the article, or have no desire to interact with an article you’re reading, then none of this matters to you. For me, I’m using the reader, but will take the workaround above any time I decide to share a link, and hope Fluent News will save me a lot of trouble by adding a button to open the current article in Safari. And do it soon.

Fluent News is available in the App Store for free.

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VLC media player, an open-source application from the VideoLAN project, finally reached version 1.0 today. The software had its original start back in 1996 as a school project from engineering students at the Ecole Centrale Paris (though it wasn’t released as an open source project until 2001).

Through many point releases before today, VLC has continued to expand its capabilities, offering support for HD codecs, a diverse set of file formats, live recording, AirTunes streaming and more.

Crazy Formats, Got Ya Covered!

VLC is based on FFmpeg, which means it supports a wider variety of codecs and file formats than your typical QuickTime or Windows Media Player can handle, such as MKV, Og, or FLAC. (There are, of course, alternatives, such as Perian and other plugins to add additional support to QuickTime, but VLC has some more tricks up its sleeve.)

Since it’s a packet-based player, VLC supports playing content that could be partially corrupted or is incomplete. This reason alone makes VLC a popular media player for torrent lovers. VLC is a great addition to your system and is a recommended download for switchers who are used to viewing AVI files on the PC, since the AVI container supports a myriad of codecs that are not all supported natively on the Mac platform.

The 1.0 release of VLC, codename Goldeneye, is available for both Intel and PowerPC platforms (though it does require Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6) and can be downloaded here. If you’re using Mac OS X 10.4.x or earlier, you can download the previous build of VLC, version 0.9.9a, from here.

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Late yesterday evening, the folks at Google made official what many have suspected for months, or even years: They’re working on an operating system. The new OS, dubbed Chrome OS after Google’s recent entry into the ongoing browser wars, will have speed and Internet connectivity as its two top priorities, and be based on a Linux kernel, making it the ideal candidate for netbooks (and, as a result, probably the strongest competitor for Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 7).

Chrome OS is still a long way off, since Google says it won’t be available for consumer use until the second half of 2010 (when it’ll ship on some netbook devices), but when it does drop, it will no doubt change the OS landscape significantly and irreversibly. The question is, who will take the most significant blow as a result of Google entering the fray as a major third competitor in the mainstream OS wars?

The spin seems to be that Google is aiming their guns squarely at Windows 7 with Chrome OS, since netbooks appear to be the devices which would benefit the most from running the extremely slimmed-down OS. Basically, Chrome OS will run Chrome the browser, and that’s about it. User interface elements will be kept to an absolute minimum, and the sole purpose of the OS itself appears to be to get you online as fast as possible so that you can begin using web applications, which will be the bread and butter of Chrome. It’ll work automatically with any existing ones, and development for Chrome OS will be as simple as developing a new web app.

Considering my current set-up with my Eee PC 1000HE, on which I’ve created Chrome application shortcuts or Prism SSB apps for just about every major function I need, Chrome OS sounds like exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for. But Google’s OS, while said to be “initially” targeted at netbooks, will be compatible with any computer using ARM or x86 architecture, so it could be used on other systems, too.

So while Windows will definitely lose some users to the new OS, how will Apple fare? Will Boot Camp installs of Chrome allow people to ignore future iterations of Leopard a pass, in favor of what promises to be a much more lightweight and direct approach to how we use our computers? I think the days of a web-based OS being used as our primary operating system are much farther off than Google would hope, since many people still either aren’t aware of, or don’t trust, cloud-based information storage and retrieval for most types of data. And I think that will save Apple significant revenue impact in the short term. TheNextWeb is already thinking about a Google/Apple face-off as a result of Chrome OS, and I think they’re right, in terms of the long view.

What’s more immediately relevant, though, is what Google’s announcement means for Apple tangentially, by way of netbooks. Apple still staunchly refuses to play that particular game, despite the fact that other holdouts like Sony are finally coming on board with the concept. The first reply I received when I posted the news about Chrome on Twitter this morning was a friend asking whether this will finally push Apple to follow suit. It’s an obvious question, and one everyone from Redmond to Cupertino must be asking themselves right now.

Given a smart, simple solution that just works from Google, casual users who need a laptop but don’t necessarily need it to do that much will be flocking to Chrome-toting devices in droves, abandoning other potential notebook markets to do so. Despite Google’s announcement being software-related, I think the real impact will be in hardware, at least where Apple’s concerned.

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Pinch Media, an analytics firm for iPhone OS developers, has found evidence of a third-generation iPod touch. An “iPod3,1″ string has been showing up as the version identifier in its online logs, with first- and second-generation identifiers for the touch being “iPod1,1″ and “iPod2,1,” respectively.

In a blog posting, Pinch Media reported applications using its analytic tools on “iPod3,1″ devices first appeared in April, with usage increasing in May. Besides being popular, the applications being used appear to have no shared traits.

This isn’t the first time the “iPod3,1″ identifier has appeared, either. The identifier was found in a beta release of iPhone OS 3 in March, along with “iPhone3,1,” “iFPGA,” “iProd0,1,” and “iPod2,2″ identifiers. For that reason, this information should be treated as news, rather than rumor. However, there are rumors of new case designs for iPods, most notably ones with holes on the back for cameras, but it’s the identifier strings that matter.

With high confidence in the evidence of a new iPod touch, it can also be asserted that the new model will be released soon. For the last three years, Apple has introduced new iPods in September, including both generations of the iPod touch. Also, the current iPod promotion is scheduled to end on Sept. 8.

While the release of a new iPod touch in the fall seems to be a certainty, more nebulous is the question of the summer: Should I wait? The iPhone 3GS significantly outperforms the iPhone 3G due to a doubling of RAM, a new GPU, and a CPU running 50 percent faster at 600MHz. While the iPod touch would benefit from more RAM and a new GPU, the CPU is already running at 533MHz, making 600MHz less impressive. However, the CPU in the iPhone 3GS is under-clocked, its maximum being 833MHz. If this is due to power saving, rather than heat issues, it’s possible the next iPod touch could also see a boost of approximately 50 percent, and that would definitely be worth waiting for.

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One of the only reasons I’ve stuck it out with my MobileMe account, despite numerous quirks, annoyances and outright failures, is push email. For the iPhone to be useful to me as a business device, I need it to keep me up to date on my email in real time (or as close to it as MobileMe’s push can achieve). Contact and calendar syncing are nice, but both can now be done using your Google information if you’d rather not pay the $100 annual MobileMe subscription fee. Gmail push would complete the picture, and it could be on the way.

And by could, I mean it definitely exists, as demonstrated by TechCrunch’s hands-on with the app that makes it possible. Yes, it’s via a third-party app, and there is no official word from either Google or Apple that Gmail push on the iPhone has finally arrived. Not surprising, considering the money Apple stands to lose in MobileMe subscriptions if Gmail, which is not only incredibly popular, but free, manages to replicate the one trick MobileMe still has up its sleeve.

The app, called GPush, is the product of a development company called Tiverias, and it uses Gmail’s IMAP IDLE feature and Apple’s push notifications to deliver near-live updates from your Gmail inbox. All the app itself does is provide a login screen, after which point you never really have to open it again. Once set up, it will display text alerts containing the sender address and subject from each new email you receive. That is, if it’s allowed to.

The question surrounding GPush isn’t whether it can pull off what it claims to be able to. That it can do just fine, as TechCrunch’s tests prove. The question is, will Apple ever allow GPush to exist in a form that’s widely available to all users via the App Store? Cupertino has a vested interest in blocking Gmail push, since some users (like me, for instance) might walk away from MobileMe were it to become available, resulting in an obvious loss in revenue.

If Apple does block the app, regardless of what (if any) excuse it cites as the reason for the rejection, it will cast even more doubt on the already suspect App Store submission review process. Basically, it seems like the only reason to keep IMAP IDLE support out of the built-in Mail app is to block Gmail push, so it wouldn’t surprise me if GPush never sees the light of day. Let’s hope I’m wrong.

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I’m a huge fan of Moshi’s Apple-centric line of products and accessories. In fact, my entire collection of Apple products has now been complimented by Moshi. For example, I use the iLynx USB/Firewire hub and Celesta keyboard with my iMac; my iPhone is protected by the iGlaze 3G; and recently, my Macbook Pro experienced a thorough makeover.

Over the years I have owned a variety of Apple laptops, and each one inevitably ends up with scratches on the screen, discoloration on the wrist area, disgusting keys, and other forms of wear and tear. I decided to not endure this experience with my new aluminum MacBook Pro. My goal is to maintain a pristine look for as long as possible, and I intend to achieve this goal by combining Moshi’s products into the ultimate protection solution.

Clearguard MB: $25

The Clearguard MB is a thin cover for your MacBook or MacBook Pro keyboard. Installation is simple: lay it across the keyboard. After a few minutes of typing, it’s barely noticeable. It’s virtually transparent so your backlit keys are still visible in dark rooms. I have been using it for a couple of months, and you can clearly see how my keyboard still looks like I just slid the computer out of the box. Cleaning the Clearguard is a simple process involving dish soap and water.

The best part about the Clearguard MB is I no longer see key indentations on the screen (a problem MacBooks and PowerBooks have experienced for a long time). Below is a picture of the Clearguard after a couple months. See the keys on the right side? I’m impressed.

Palmguard: $20-$28

The Palmguard is used to protect the area where your wrists sit on the computer. For me, that’s the part that receives the most damage over time. I’m always amazed at how powerful skin oil is. Again, installation is simple: Line up the Palmguard carefully in the corners and then firmly slide your hand across. If you aren’t satisfied, it’s easy to take the Palmguard off and try again without leaving any residue.

In the past, I used a competitor’s product to protect the wrist area. One thing missing was something to place onto the trackpad area. The Palmguard comes with a separate piece just for that. The accuracy and clickability (I just made up that word) of the trackpad are not affected.

Moshi sells a variety of Palmguard products to match the color and size of your Apple laptop. Below is a picture of the Palmguard after a couple months. Again, I’m impressed.

iVisor AG: $35-38

iVisor AG is the flagship laptop protection product by Moshi. Not only does it protect the screen from scratches, dust and fingerprints, but it also eliminates glare. Remember when we had a choice between matte and glossy screens for our MacBook Pros? Well, this is as close as you can get to owning an aluminum MBP with a matte finish without swapping the screen.

Installation is shockingly easy. You just line up the corners, press down, and firmly slide your hand across the screen. The air bubbles you see while applying a protective layer on your iPhone are not a problem. I was nervous about this, but fortunately Moshi delivered on its promise. There’s a hole at the top for your iSight, and a transparent part in the black border so the “Macbook Pro” text on the bottom is still visible.

Below is the iVisor after a few weeks. No reflection, no scratches.

Conclusion

A MacBook Pro is an investment. It deserves to remain in perfect condition. What I love about Moshi’s products is that they can be installed in minutes and they perform to my standards: no air bubbles, no scratches, and no damage.

I purposefully did not include outer cases because I dislike adding bulk to the laptop. Also, a simple and artistic way to protect the top from scratches is to add a Gelaskin.

Moshi products are available for purchase at Dr. Bott and nuCourse.

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As you head out the door, you have your tickets, you set the alarm. What did you forget? Unless you’re boarding Oceanic Flight 815, you probably have little to really worry about, but there are a few things that will ease your anxiety and ensure that your trip is as stress-free as possible.

Sometimes you just can’t go back in time

Time Machine makes backups automatic, but your Time Machine drive is probably right next to the computer. You might have a problem with a magnetic disturbance, or you might simply face more mundane issues like floods or electrical storms while you are gone. Before you leave town, make a manual backup of your critical data and take your backup offsite. I keep mine in the glove compartment of my car parked at the airport (password-protected, of course).

If traveling with a laptop, don’t bring your primary Time Machine drive with you. It defeats the purpose of having your computer and backup in the same place; just ask Ed Baig from US Airways Flight 1549 — or some of the passengers of Oceanic Air…They always face disaster.

Be very afraid if Dennis Haysbert shows up on your doorstep

When the unforeseen occurs, are you sure you’re covered? What’s your deductible? Is data recovery included? Will it be excluded because of business purposes? Is it covered when it’s stolen from the car? Spend a few minutes and call your insurance agent so you know how to handle these things should disaster strike. Personally, I have all my computers “scheduled” on my homeowner’s policy. Juliet thought she’d be gone for a few weeks, and it turned out to be much longer. Her agent said it should have been on the business policy and not homeowner’s policy. Ouch. Good to know what your coverage is before disaster.

4 8 15 16 23 42

Some numbers are easy to remember; others are harder. If the police call saying they’ve retrieved your MacBook, can you prove ownership? It’s hard to even make a police report without the serial number. Time is of the essence, because you never know when you might slip away. Choose “About this Mac” from the Apple Menu and click on the operating system version twice to get your serial number. Keep it in your wallet or at least tell it to a friend you can easily reach, if you can reach them.

Because sometimes having a working phone is vital

If your iPhone dies while out of town, is destroyed by “other” people, or just flakes out on you, do you have time to go to an Apple Store? Is there even one around? No phone while traveling is rough, especially for people like doctors and other professionals. Pop out the SIM card of your iPhone, put it in a disposable GoPhone, and you are, pardon the pun, good to go. I travel with a GoPhone for just this reason. You may not have all your data from your iPhone, but you do have a phone, and can hold tight until you get home.

Can you go back to the beginning?

You are on the road, and now your Mac is acting wonky. Unfortunately, you don’t have a software toolkit. What one disk would you take to a deserted island? Your Mac OS installer DVD. As long as the problem is software and not hardware, you can solve a multitude of woes with this DVD. You can boot off the DVD, repair the hard drive, get online, and even run a backup. In a worst-case scenario ,you do an Archive and Reinstall. You might need to reinstall applications, but on the road, you’ll at least be up and running. Think of it as a do-over without the bright flash of light.

Gosh, I really guess I’m missing TV over this summer break. I might be “lost,” but my Apple stuff isn’t. What tips do you have for traveling with your Mac and iPhone, besides avoiding Oceanic Airline flights over the South Pacific and paying attention to your fellow passengers?

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In just a few days time (July 11), the App Store will officially celebrate its first anniversary. To mark the occasion, Apple has introduced a special section in iTunes, which gives kudos to some of the company’s top App Store picks. The apps on the list are mostly ones you’d expect to see, based on their general popularity or prior success, but there are a few unusual choices that make the list interesting.

The lists vary by country, but I’m pretty sure apps are common to all where availability allows. So for instance, here in Canada we get CP (Canadian Press) Mobile instead of AP Mobile, and miss out entirely on Pandora. I’ve highlighted some picks below, all of which should be available in most countries.

Favorite Apps

Photogene ($2.99, iTunes link) — This has long been a standby on my iPhone, and it recently became far more useful, thanks to the inclusion of MMS in iPhone OS 3.0. It’s a lightweight, but effective, photo editor in your pocket, so you can touch up and add fun effects, like speech bubbles, to pictures you take with your iPhone’s camera (or that you download from the web). Yes, you can use it to make your own instant Lolcats.

Dictionary.com Dictionary & Thesaurus (free, iTunes link) — Between the iPhone’s auto-correct and this app, you have no more excuses for poor spelling. I bought Wordbook before this Dictionary.com app was released (the day before, actually), and I regret it. This free app offers everything most of the paid ones do, and doesn’t require an Internet connection to function.

Favorite Games

Before I get into specifics here, I just want to point out that a few companies are very well represented in this list. Chillingo, ngmoco, Gameloft, and EA all take multiple spots in this top list, and rightly so. They’re the ones to watch in this space, with ngmoco especially topping my list of iPhone gaming heavy-hitters.

Zen Bound ($4.99, iTunes link) — I love this game, and it actually does help to focus, relax and center me. It sounds cheesy, but download the free trial and you’ll see what I mean. This is one of the few titles I recommend to friends without considering their general taste in gaming.

Rolando ($5.99, iTunes link) — I’m sure that if Rolando 2 had been out long enough, it would’ve made this list as well. If you’ve yet to experience just what the adorable little Rolandos have to offer, give either or both of these games a try. There never was a better game designed so perfectly for the iPhone/iPod touch platform.

Now that you’ve had a year with the App Store, what are your picks?

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A Question: Where do consumers go to relax and consumer technology vendors go to die?

If you guessed the living room, you’d be right. While Apple is in no danger of extinction, they are no doubt aware of the struggles that a host of startups and big vendors have faced in the consumer electronics market. While Apple has largely bucked the trend in recent years with the amazing success of the iPod and iPhone, no one — including Apple — would claim the Apple TV to be a runaway hit at this point.

So with Apple TV sales growing but not jumping off the charts, it’s worth asking what Apple will do next in the living room. Some have speculated they will produce their own television, others might suspect a Blu-ray player could be on its way. No matter what Apple does, they will likely tie any new products to their leading positions in online storefronts for content and apps as well as to existing products (and potential future ones).

If you’re interested in reading my analysis on what Apple will do next in the living room, head on over to GigaOM Pro to see my latest weekly update.

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When Apple introduced the Dock with OS X, people immediately either loved it or hated it. Over time, we all got used to it. Among some of the usability complaints about the Dock is the fact that, without hacking, you can’t simply get rid of it. Hiding the Dock will only get you so far — it still pops up at inopportune times. If you’re frustrated by the inability to completely hide the Dock, there is a simple solution.

I know what you’re going to say. “Just hide the Dock; it’s simple.” While that is true, it’s not a complete solution. Hiding the Dock doesn’t really get rid of it, rather it just moves it off the screen — barely. Moving your mouse, even slightly, to the edge of the screen brings the Dock back into full view, and launching a new app makes the icon bounce into view even when the Dock is hidden.

I love the convenience of the Dock, but there are times when I’m working in certain apps like iMovie, iPhoto, Photoshop and a few others in which application icons, windows and scroll bars go right to the edge of the screen. Trying to use certain elements in those apps which are close to the edge almost always invokes the Dock, causing a brief yet annoying interruption in my workflow. At the same time, I want access to the Dock without a trip to the Terminal or other convoluted method to bring it back on screen.

Dock Gone System Preference Pane

Enter Dock Gone, by Old Jewel Software. Dock Gone is an OS X System Preference Pane which allows you to turn off the Dock completely, not just hide it.

Like any great Mac application, Dock Gone offers more than one option to turn on and off your Dock: via the Preference Pane, a menubar icon, or a keyboard shortcut — which you can customize any way you like. You can even have it play a system sound when the Dock is turned on and off.

Dock Gone menubar options

Turning off the Dock using any method available with Dock Gone results in the Dock gently sliding off the screen, and playing the system sound if you have that setting turned on. Beyond the menubar icon, which you can hide if you so choose, you’ll not even notice it’s there — a great usability trait.

Whether or not you feel that such an app is worth having, I can say that Dock Gone performs as advertised, with perhaps the only ill side effect of using 9.2MB of my RAM to do nothing 99.9 percent of the time. Still, if the default behavior of the Dock is disruptive enough to you, it’s probably worth putting up with.

Dock Gone works on any Mac that can run OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or higher, and a single-user license is $14.95. A 15-day demo is available for download from the Dock Gone site.

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At the beginning of the decade, Intel was imagining that by 2010 it would have processors with over 1 billion transistors running at a clock speed of 20GHz. As we move into the second half of 2009, the reality is that we will soon have 3GHz mobile chips with four cores on them and 2010 will likely see 4GHz desktop chips with six and eight cores. Ultra-fast processors running at clock speeds over 4GHz have just been too expensive to power — and to cool off. So the other solution is to have more processors.

These new processors, based on the Nehalem architecture, or the Westmere 32nm process that will follow, will also feature simultaneous multithreading (what Intel calls “hyperthreading”) to allow for two threads to be executed on a single core. So instead of a superfast 20GHz chip, you could have a Mac Pro in 2010 with 16 cores capable of executing 32 simultaneous threads. Apple is preparing for this massively multi-core future with features in Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) that can take full advantage of all this raw power.

Time for Software to Catch Up

The introduction of dual-core systems was a brilliant success. Even code that was not built or optimized for multiple cores would run at least a little faster because the OS would use the second core, leaving more processing power available to the foreground app. The dual-core systems were noticeably more responsive to the user, and we loved them for this feeling of instant power at our fingertips. Quad-core and 8-core systems have been confined to the Mac Pro line, partly for cost, but also partially because the average user does not have software that can really take advantage of all those cores. Many people would be disappointed to learn that their quad-core iMac did not really seem any faster. Software applications, like Photoshop and Final Cut Pro, were designed by teams with significant engineering resources so that they could take advantage of a system with four or eight cores, and even then certain operations will still bottleneck the application.

What Have We Been Doing?

Multithreaded programming is not new on the Mac. We have had POSIX threads, or pthreads, (and NSThread on top of that) since OS X 10.0. The Mac has a scheduler that is multi-processor aware and can assign processes and threads to available CPUs as needed.

There are two ways that software benefits from concurrency (running multiple software tasks simultaneously). The first is to keep certain parts of the software, say the user interface for a financial management app, responsive while waiting for another task that is being processed, say downloading some stock quote data from the Internet in the background. The second opportunity is to design a function that can be parallelized, or split up into smaller chunks, like encoding a video by splitting it into sections that can each be encoded by a different CPU or core. The responsiveness of the app, and the performance of a parallelized function, are great for the end user. However, each developer is still responsible for managing the threads in the application and designing algorithms and functions for atomicity, parallelization and re-entrancy while avoiding deadlocks, resource starvation, deadly embrace, and so on. Concurrency is a challenging endeavor.

So Why Do We Need Grand Central Dispatch?

Grand Central Dispatch (PDF) is a new technology that will be available in Snow Leopard that helps developers more easily write software for multi-core systems. It does not make multi-threading automatic, or write thread-safe code for you, but it does add semantic and syntactic extensions to C, C++, and Objective-C to make code more readable and better organized with hooks into tools to analyze the multi-threaded performance of an application. Developer still have to do the hard conceptual work around figuring out concurrency in their application, but the implementation of those ideas is cleaner.

How Does Grand Central Dispatch Work?

The core functionality of Grand Central Dispatch is provided by organizing code into blocks and queues. A block is a self-contained unit of work that can represent anything from a simple step to a complex function with all the associated arguments and data. Queues are a method to schedule the execution of blocks and define the relationships between them. Instead of spawning and managing threads in the application, the developer marks sections of code as blocks and then places them in a queue. GCD steps in and manages all the queues and pulls blocks out and assigns them to available threads of the appropriate priority to be executed.

The Instruments utility in Xcode lets developers see how their code runs in GCD, so that they can learn how to improve performance. GCD also has a view of the entire system and the resources available to try to maximize efficiency across all running applications. It also relies on native hardware support for locking in Intel CPUs to implement some of its magic. This stuff won’t work on PowerPC, which is another reason why Snow Leopard is Intel-only.

What About the Users?

If you are an end-user, you will not benefit one bit from installing Snow Leopard and having GCD available unless the software you use is written to take advantage of it. It is not at all guaranteed that developers will jump to GCD. If a certain application would benefit from concurrency, then the developer has probably already started using pthreads to make the software more responsive and take advantage of current multi-core systems. If you look in your Activity Monitor, you will see that most applications have multiple threads already. Since multi-threaded code is hard to begin with, I do not see many projects choosing to rewrite all their pthread code to use GCD blocks and queues right away, especially since it means leaving all Leopard, Tiger and earlier users behind.

The low price on the Snow Leopard upgrade is a nice perk for existing Leopard users, but I think it is also meant to reassure developers that a very large percentage of their existing Leopard customer base will be able to run Snow Leopard-only software. If your app runs fine now using NSThread on Leopard, there is little reason to adopt GCD. So why build GCD at all?

I think the most obvious reason for building GCD is that Apple will be able to take advantage of it with all the system processes and included applications that people use all the time. Looking at my Activity Monitor right now, I see the kernel has 66 threads, Safari has 19, Mail.app has 18, mds has 16, SystemUIServer has 13, Spotlight has 6, and so on. Helping all those threads run more efficiently is going to pay off for the user experience on the Mac. If it helps a few other developers along the way, all the better.

The Future

Things get a little more interesting when you consider that future iPhones will likely have multi-core CPU’s and that Intel is advising developers to prepare for a future with “thousands of cores” available. Add in something like Larrabee, which presents dozens of additional cores to the system, and the wisdom of a systemwide approach to managing threads becomes apparent.

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Last month I commented that Apple’s substitution of Secure Digital Card (SD) slots for ExpressCard slots in the 15″ MacBook Pro made considerably good sense. It would be nice to have both, but the ExpressCard support wasn’t being heavily used, according to Apple, while SD was growing more popular. The 13″ MacBook Pro also gets an SD slot where the preceding unibody MacBook was slotless, so it’s pure value-added there.

However, as I learn more about the Secure Digital format, both what’s already available and what’s coming, I’m even more convinced that Apple made the right call.

For one thing, while ExpressCard 34 cards are smaller than the old PCMCIA CardBus cards they replaced, the standard SD Card format measures 32mm x 24mm in footprint (roughly the viewing area of a 35mm film negative or slide) vs. 75mm x 34mm for the ExpressCard, and it is only 2.1mm thick. That is especially helpful in computers as thin as Apple’s MacBook family — even more so if Apple builds a tablet or notebook smaller than the MacBook Air.

Another SD Card advantage is hardware standardization. The SD format shows potential for becoming the standard for removable storage in portable computers. The majority of PC laptops, and most netbooks, are available with SD Card slots, so Apple is no longer the odd man out in that context. Apple portables honcho Todd Benjamin told PCMag’s Mark Hachman in an interview that one reason the company went SD is that the format has become “really ubiquitous,” and not just in laptops. Consistent with Apple’s focus on consumer electronics and Mac market positioning as a digital hub, SD Card support is built into a myriad of consumer digital devices, especially cameras and Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs).

The iPhone doesn’t support removable storage as of yet, but in my opinion, it’s virtually inevitable that it will, and when it’s added, the tiny Mini SD variant (15mm x 11mm) is a likely bet.

SD Cards Just Have More to Offer

Currently, standard SD Card storage capacity tops out at a modest 4GB, but a much higher capacity variant, called SDHC, offers up to 32GB, and an eXtended Capacity SDXC spec that was unveiled at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show supports memory capacities above 32GB up to a potential 2TB, with data transfer speeds up to 104MB/sec and potential future throughput up to 300 MB/sec. The SDXC standard uses Microsoft’s exFAT file system (FAT64). Existing SD and SDHC host devices won’t be compatible with the new SDXC cards, but SDXC host devices will be backwards-compatible to work with SD and SDHC cards. A microSDXC card also is reportedly in the works for use in small mobile devices, with plenty of development headroom apparent in the SD format.

Cards conforming to SD (4MB to 4GB) and SDHC (4GB to 32GB) standards are supported by the slots in the new MacBook Pros. MultiMediaCards (MMC) can also be used in this slot, while MiniSD, MicroSD, and higher density formats like MiniSDHC and MicroSDHC can work but require “passive” adapters that conform to the standard SD width and thickness specifications.

MacBook Pro SD Card slots support a maximum throughput of 240Mbit/s, which exceeds the transfer rate of most SD media (about 17-21Mbit/s to 30Mbit/s, depending on type) by a substantial margin. MacBook Pros recognize cards inserted in their SD card slots as USB storage devices that can be mounted, read from, and written to as with any other USB storage device.

You can even make SD Cards (with a capacity of at least 8GB) bootable by changing their default partition table to GUID using Mac OS X Disk Utility and formatting the card to use the Mac OS Extended file format, instead of standard FAT32 DOS formatting. Macworld’s Roman Loyola has posted a video tutorial showing how to create a bootable SD Card. Loyola also reports that a variety of other Macs, besides the SD Card equipped mid-2009 MacBook Pros, including an iMac and a Mac mini, can be successfully booted from SD Card boot disks via a SanDisk MicroMate SD card reader.

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How’s your reality? Blasé, run-of-the-mill, so-so? Fear not — an augmented reality is right around the corner, so long as you own an iPhone 3GS. Yes, Android is well ahead of the game in this particular area, but at least one app is already awaiting Apple’s approval that makes use of this exciting, new technology. It’s called Nearest Tube, and it tells you where to find the nearest tube (station) in London.

Now, I’m not in London, and most of you probably aren’t either (though a few of you are), so what’s the big deal? The big deal is that this app shows off what the new iPhone 3GS is really capable of in terms of augmented reality, and also what it specifically isn’t, which may be more important in the long run.

First, the good. According to the developer’s tech demo (see video below), and CNET UK’s own trial of the software, it works as advertised, displaying a color-coded heads-up display of floating tube station markers with distance and station name superimposed on the live feed from your iPhone’s camera. Laid flat, the iPhone displays arrows pointing to each of London’s tube lines.

It uses GPS information and the 3GS’ built-in compass to determine your location and orientation. When you hold the phone up, it arranges individual stations by their proximity to you. CNET points out that that proximity is based on a straight-line distance, so it isn’t always entirely accurate, but it’s close enough to be practically useful. The usual compass caveats apply, including steering clear of magnetic interference. Making a similar app for any major metropolis, including U.S. ones, shouldn’t present that much of a challenge. Thanks to the Maps API, even more advanced directional abilities should be possible, too, including built-in walking and transit directions.

Now, the bad. The Nearest Tube app has to make do with images from the iPhone’s camera, instead of the preferable live video feed. This means that it’s basically just using GPS and compass features, and then pasting that info on top of the camera images. It can’t interact with the pictures themselves, as apps can on Android. That means no fancy image-recognition tricks involving famous landmarks for the time being.

Nearest Tube developer Acrossair has joined up with 14 other iPhone software companies to petition Apple to grant access to the video API in the same way that they have the device’s camera to make this possible. Hopefully, Apple listens and includes this in an upcoming firmware revision, or else we’ll still be playing catch-up with Google’s mobile OS for the foreseeable future.

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