Zoowawa [US$0.99, iTunes Link] is a cute app targeted for toddlers between the ages of two and three. Your child is presented with a split screen displaying two animals. Tapping on one of the animals plays the sound that the animal makes.

Each half of the screen can be swiped individually to reveal 14 animal pictures per half, or 24 animal pictures in all. The pictures are brightly colored and the app has a very clean look to it. Zoowawa runs on any iPhone or iPod touch using OS 3.1.2 or better.

My daughter is finishing a masters in education and has familiarity with very small children, so I asked her about the appropriateness of this app. My first impression was that along with the sound, the printed name of the animal should be shown. My daughter told me that for most kids in the targeted age range, adding the text would be too complex since reading often doesn't start until a child is three years old or older.

She did have few problems with the size of the pictures, saying that they may not hold a child's interest for very long. Kids like big things and dividing the screen to make each animal half of the screen size was probably not the best idea. Even at full size, a picture may not attract the attention of a toddler for too long.

I also had a bit of a problem with the quality of the animal sounds. Most are not digitized animal sounds, but rather a recording of someone making the sound with his voice. Since for many kids this app might be their first introduction to animals, I think that sound accuracy should be important.

If an angry, perspiring Steve Ballmer took over control of my iPhone and said I could only have one third-party app on it, I know which app I'd keep. EA's Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition [US$4.99, iTunes Link] has been my favorite game on the iPhone since it first appeared. Just how much am I addicted to this game? I've played 272 games against three other AI players. At about 45 minutes per game, that's almost nine days of my life that I've spent enjoying Monopoly on my iPhone.

There was always one thing that bothered me about The World Edition: that it wasn't the game I remembered as a child. It uses cities from all over the world, from Gdynia to Montreal, transportation modes from rail to space instead of the four classic railroads, and had some other rule changes that were different.

EA just made my day, since they recently released Monopoly [US$4.99, iTunes Link], and this one is the original classic game. It uses all those streets in or around Atlantic City, N.J. like Baltic Avenue and Park Place, has the four original railroads, and seems to follow the original rules more closely.

Like The World Edition, you play against real or computerized opponents. For real opponents, Monopoly now provides Bluetooth play against up to two other players, or Wi-Fi play against up to three other players. My wife and I found the Wi-Fi play of the World Edition to be a huge battery hog; we'll be trying out the Bluetooth option soon.

The original Monopoly board game was a perennial stocking stuffer when I was a kid, and now the classic Monopoly for iPhone and iPod touch is sure to make a great gift for someone you love.

Just days after receiving final approval from regulators, the iPhone will go on sale this week in South Korea. KT Corp, the country's second largest mobile carrier, began taking orders for the iPhone today, with plans to launch the phone on Saturday, November 28.

Apple has confirmed the KT announcement, though it's offered no other comment. KT, on the other hand, is playing the announcement up. In a press release, Kim Woo-sik, CEO of KT's personal customer group, said, "We are thrilled to bring iPhone to South Korea. Our customers will enjoy the power and benefits of using the revolutionary iPhone on KT's 3G network."

Residents of South Korea will have access to the same array of iPhones available in the states. KT is offering the 8GB iPhone 3G as well as the 16GB and 32GB iPhone 3GS.

[via Associated Press, Bloomberg]

Despite some security-conscious enterprise experts pointing accusatory fingers at the rather bleak encryption story and only-recently fixed ActiveSync policy compliance on the iPhone platform, there's no doubt that IT and network professionals are grooving on the iPhone -- there are many apps designed for administrators to take control of their operations with a touch of a finger, and now Cisco has stepped in with an informational and alert resource that fits in your pocket.

The Cisco SIO (Security Intelligence Operations) to Go free app [iTunes link], requiring iPhone OS 3.0 or later, lets the paranoid properly alert and aware security professional keep tabs on the global threat landscape with Cisco's Cyber Risk Reports, Threat Outbreaks and Mitigation Bulletins, along with podcasts, blog posts and a slew of other branded content. There's also an IronPort-driven IP and email domain scanner, which will grab WHOIS data along with a brief reputation score for your hosts.

Having all this Cisco goodness in one place is handy, although the majority of the app's headlines link to pages on the Cisco site that remain largely iPhone-unfriendly -- even the press release announcing the app's launch is hard to zoom properly -- and there's none of the flexibility of a full-featured RSS reader to forward articles, bookmark or set read/unread points.

Still, as a gesture of goodwill towards the intersection of iPhone users and security professionals, it's a reasonable step. Cisco also has the WebEx Meetings app [iTunes link] and the Cisco Mobile telephony tool [iTunes link] in the store, both free.

[via TechCrunch]

The iPhone is getting yet another carrier in the great white north. Virgin Mobile Canada has announced that it'll start selling the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS in the coming months.

When exactly? How much? Can I get a Richard Branson ringtone? Actually, I can make my own ringtones, but what about the rest of it? We'll have to wait to find out. All the company said in its incredibly short notice was that it'll sell the phones online and in its brick-and-mortar stores at some point. Well, that and that its gotten some love from J.D. Power and Associates for its prepaid and postpaid wireless services.

The phones are already on sale north of the border through Rogers Wireless, its subsidiary Fido, Bell Canada, and Telus. While a Canadian friend tells me Virgin Mobile Canada has a reputation for inexpensive phones with prepaid service, Canadian mobile news site MobileSyrup expects Virgin to charge roughly the same prices with the same three-year contracts as Canada's other iPhone carriers.

Thanks EZ Mac Mike for the tip!

[via iLounge, MobileSyrup]

At the risk of invoking a round of reader rage, I'll admit that I've never really been that hyped on the idea of MMS on the iPhone (and, by the way, get off my lawn). If I want to send someone a picture, I've got their email address; I'll just send them a picture. No big whoop.

I do have some friends and colleagues who 'came up' on mainline camera phones and they gleefully pop pics back and forth via MMS. I also appreciate the ability to decode the snapshots my wife sends from her Motorola RAZR, but overall I wouldn't rate it among the top iPhone features I was eager to get from AT&T (not like the ongoing lack of tethering, which is making me grind my teeth in my sleep).

That prejudicial attitude may have made me a little skeptical when I met with FunMobility's CEO Adam Lavine this week to get a preview of his company's new free app FunMail [iTunes link], which promises to leverage the Semantic Media Project and add appropriate imagery to your MMS messages, short emails, Facebook wall posts, et cetera. It's available in the US App Store as of last night.

Sure, the app is simple enough to use (once you register and accept the company's TOS, which may subject you to occasional text messages from them if you don't opt out) -- type in your message, and the system gives you the text (up to 140 characters) atop your choice of image from a list of five, sourced from FunMobility's licensed libraries along with Creative Commons remixable content from Flickr and other repositories. If you want to include a hidden search term, putting it at the end of the message with a double-hash (##) will tell FunMail to search those words without including them in the sent message. You can send it to any mobile phone number in your address book, to email recipients, or to your Facebook friends or wall via Facebook Connect. The result is a little bit inspirational office poster, a little bit LOLcat, and in some ways strangely intriguing... but not really, you know, useful.

Like most "mobile versions" of websites, Google News was simplified for use on devices featuring what Steve Jobs once called "the baby Internet." Sadly, this simplified version also showed up by default on the iPhone, leading to an experience that was, to put it charitably, subpar.

That's all changed now that Google has redesigned the mobile version of Google News for iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre users. The new mobile version is far more feature-rich than the old one and is more consistent in its appearance (i.e., it's almost indistinguishable from the desktop version) compared to the old "mobile-optimized" Google News.

It also includes a handy "Jump to" link which brings up a window that allows you to skip to the news section of your choice, saving your thumbs from severe scroll fatigue.

There's no need to download anything. Simply go to Google News on your iPhone and check out the changes.

[Via MacRumors]

While Bill Gates looked on, Microsoft shareholders asked CEO Steve Ballmer about Apple at their annual meeting this morning. Steve's CEO-speak responses illustrate the larger problem.

Portfolio reports that one investor asked about the company's reputation with young customers:

"I'm just wondering why your marketing group can't do something to try to rein in this next generation, because you've got a real bad image out there."

He also said that Apple's ads make Microsoft look like "a buffoon." That's when the CEO-speak began.

"There's certainly always opportunities for improvement," Ballmer said. "[There is] ... a group of people with whom our market share is less."

When you hear "opportunity for improvement," you're screwed. Euphemistic language clouds meaning and hides the truth. Think "economic downturn" and "previously enjoyed" instead of "depression" and "used." Or "opportunity for improvement" instead of "problem."

Remember the Windows Mojave ads, in which producers tricked customers into thinking Vista was an unreleased version of Windows, only to then throw open the curtain and essentially say, "See? It's really Vista! You DO like it! There's nothing wrong here!"

Instead of telling people what they like, sanitizing language, insisting that the only reason the iPhone has 75,000 apps available is to make it usable on the Internet and denying your kids iPods, just say, "Our reputation with young people is poor and here's what we'll do about it." That's when you'll get something done.

[Via MacDailyNews]

Novelty and social applications are a big hit on the iPhone. A new one from the folks of Taptivate is sure to be a big hit when it is released in the near future. Voices for iPhone is touted as an "audio recorder with a twist" and even a "social voicemail" utility.

With Voices [iTunes Link], you're given tools to manipulate your own voice in many fun and odd ways. Whether you'd like to transform into Darth Vader or a chipmunk, you're good to go with Voices. Sporting a unique and very pretty user interface, the application boasts a lot of cool extras sure to show you how hard the developers have worked on it.

The app has a home screen-like selection window where you can choose the way in which you want your voice manipulated. A stack of your recordings can also be accessed with just a tap.

After initially seeing this app when it was in early beta, it has come a long way since then. The app is being published by Tap Tap Tap and is available for only 99 cents. Also, to celebrate the release, MacHeist is offering a special "Tweetblast" deal, giving away a free copy of Voice Candy for Mac to people who help spread the word on Twitter.

Here's some shots of Voices in action:

CIO.com has posted an article (single-page reprint here) covering one company's foray into the app development scene. Recently, clothing retailer Gap held an app development contest. The goal was to develop the "best" app to represent the retailer on the iPhone or iPod touch. Gap partnered with Mobclix, the mobile ad exchange operator (more here), to come up with the contest for the best Gap-branded iPhone app.

The contest ran for three months and had 100,000 400* submissions. While the winning entry isn't available for download on the App Store yet, and Gap doesn't currently have a release plan, CIO.com has a list of 5 attributes that contribute to a quality iPhone app. One of my personal favorites is the consideration for how far to stray from Apple's UI guidelines. On the one hand you have an easy-to-use app that everyone can understand, but on the other hand you have to consider how "similar" you want to be to everyone else.

I won't spoil the fun and tell you all of the different attributes, but if you want to check out the winning app, you can see the submission video in the second half of this post.

Mobclix contacted us to correct the count of the number of app submissions.

[via Macworld]

Every time I walk through Warehouse Stationery (New Zealand's equivalent to Office Depot) or Dick Smith's Electronics (pretty much Best Buy), I'm struck by how probably half the products in each store are pretty much useless to me since I've got an iPhone.

Thanks to the apps that come pre-packaged with the iPhone and the more than 100,000 third-party offerings now available in the iTunes Store, the iPhone has gained functionality that might have seemed hard to fathom under three years ago when Steve Jobs first announced the device.

"A widescreen iPod with touch controls... a revolutionary mobile phone... a breakthrough internet communications device... these are not three separate devices. This is one device." So Steve Jobs told us all back at Macworld Expo 2007. But since then, the iPhone has grown to be much more than just those three concepts.

What follows is a sort of anti-buyer's guide, a list of products and devices that you may never need or even want to buy again (or receive as a gift) if you have an iPhone. Some of these are certainly open for debate, but more than a few of them are products that, for all intents and purposes, are completely unnecessary if you have an iPhone. (Items in bold also apply to the iPod touch).

The Associated Press is reporting that an Atlanta Federal judge has denied an AT&T request to pull the Verizon 'there's a map for that' ads.

The judge has set a December 16th hearing to give AT&T another chance to make a case.

AT&T filed suit earlier this month looking for a temporary restraining order to stop the ads, and wanted a permanent injunction to halt them. The ads say that the AT&T network is not up to the quality or range of the Verizon network, and shows two coverage maps to make the point. AT&T claims the maps are misleading, and injures the company reputation.

Verizon has said the commercials are truthful and accurate.

The case pits the two communication giants against each other as they fight for increasing shares of the mobile market. AT&T has an exclusive on the iPhone, and that has brought AT&T an increasingly growing share of mobile customers.

Verizon was reportedly offered an exclusive on the iPhone more than 2 years ago but turned it down. There have been sporadic reports that Verizon would like to get the iPhone back when the AT&T contract expires, but with some Verizon ads targeting the iPhone as well as AT&T that looks to be increasingly unlikely.

That was fast. We just learned Magellan was going to offer a car kit for the iPhone and it has already hit the FCC. GPSTracklog.com has a detailed drawing of the new device, and it looks to be quite complete. Magellan has said the kit will be on sale before the end of the year, and even give the iPod touch full nav capabilities.

The car kit is supposed to allow any iPhone GPS app to work with it, so you're not limited to the Magellan app. It works in portrait or landscape mode, and has a speaker for hearing directions and also link to your iPhone for Bluetooth based calls.

The Magellan Roadmate app itself [iTunes link] has a boatload of good features, and we're anxious to get our hands on the app for a full test. Holiday travelers will have a lot of good choices for navigating to your destinations. Remember when we thought the plain old Google Maps app was cool?

Thanks to Rich for the tip.

[via GPSTracklog.com]

Earlier this week, South Korean officials gave Apple the go-ahead to sell the iPhone in South Korea. At this point, the ball is in Apple's court; the iPhone can launch at any time.

It was way back in December of 2008 that The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) dropped requirements that handsets use the locally-built WIPI mobile platform, and April of 2009 before those changes went into effect. In September Apple received permission to sell the iPhone in South Korea and just this week were formally issued a business license.

Since then, Korean carriers KTF and SK Telecom have been in talks with Apple regarding distribution, but no details of an official deal have been announced. We'll keep you posted with additional details as they become available.

[Via Macworld]

Last August, China Unicom Ltd (CHU) announced a 3-year partnership to officially bring the iPhone to China. As predicted in July, the CHU's iPhone is sold with Wi-Fi disabled, in accordance with the Golden Shield Project. Additionally, 3GS hardware is still unavailable in China.

Despite these hindrances, handset and App Store sales have been doing well, AppleInsider reports. It's estimated that $1 million in legitimate app sales have been made this year, with a little over a month-and-a-half left in the quarter.

Black market phones are a huge problem in China, and it's been estimated nearly 2 million are in circulation, most of them jailbroken and running pirated apps. Apple hopes to sell 500,000 iPhones in China by the year's end.

Next year looks brighter: Wi-Fi regulations were relaxed back in May, and CHU hopes to have a Wi-Fi enabled model available soon.

[Via AppleInsider]