One of my all-time favorite games just came way down in price- from $7.99 to just $2.99.

Bejeweled is one of the great, endlessly fun, casual games that works great on the iPhone. At just $2.99 it is definitely worth having on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

You can get it HERE in the App Store. 

In the past two posts we set the stage and then argued that the iPhone IS a netbook. Little did we know that on the day when the third and final part of this was posted the Wallstreet Journal would be jumping on the same bandwagon in an article entitled, Time to Leave the Laptop Behind – For more mobile workers, phones increasingly give them much of what they need — with a lot less hassle.

The article correctly mentions the iPhone as one of, if not the, devices leading this trend. It notes-

Faster Internet connections over wireless 3G networks are getting more pervasive. Cutting-edge devices like Apple Inc.’s iPhone are sporting bigger, touch-sensing screens that make it easier to surf the Web. And mobile software is finally getting good enough for users to get their work done when they’re on the go.

There are some excellent arguments why the iPhone might be considered a netbook. There is also, however, a case to be made that this is nonsense. In this third and final post we will look at some of the arguments as to why…

The iPhone is not a netbook (and offer some final thoughts)

As a newbie to the whole iTunes culture, I would like to take a moment to examine the App Store. 

It’s a relatively recent addition to iTunes but it takes advantage of the major difference between the iPod Touch/iPhone and all other forms of the iPod (and many other media players):  the ability to run programs.

The App Store has the same excellent level of organization as the iTunes store in general, whether using iTunes for the computer or the iTouch/iPhone itself.  Applications regarding a certain topic are relatively easy to find and the entire store is searchable for specific types of applications (such as using the term “workout” to search for exercise applications).  I particularly like how iTunes displays the Top Paid Apps and the Top Free Apps, so you know which apps you’re paying for (which leads to the fun task of treasure hunting.  That is, finding free apps that are worth more to you than the paid apps).  Being that the entire environment was developed by Apple, the graphics are superb.

The sheer volume of applications available is stunning.

Last week Steve Jobs went so far as to suggest that Apple already has an entry in the netbook universe- it is called the iPhone.

From the very beginning of this website we’ve taken the position that the iPhone isn’t a phone as much as it is a computer. And the rapid proliferation of applications for the iPhone since July 11 certainly bolsters that argument.

In this, the second of three posts, we’ll look at some of the arguments FOR the iPhone being a netbook contender.

Word on the street is that the next update for the iPhone will, among other things, add support for line-in accessories.

This is especially great news because I tried to record a talk the other night using my device and the quality was lousy. I discovered that while it is fantastic as a dictation machine when it is close to the mouth of the speaker, it doesn’t fare quite as well when there is significant distance between individual speaking and the iPhone’s the microphone. The ability to add a high quality, noise canceling, directional mic for recording in large lecture halls will be great.

While we have no idea when the new firmware version will be released, in the meantime a new voice recording option is available right now.

Griffin is offering their new iTalk Recorder as a free download. At least for now.

There were some interesting developments in the world of Apple hardware this past week.

More accurately, there were some interesting “non-developments” in the world of Apple hardware this past week.

During Apple’s quarterly financial report questions were raised regarding the fact that Apple had not released an expected $800 laptop at their “notebook event” and that there doesn’t appear to be a low-priced netbook on the horizon. Steve Jobs, actually, went so far as to say

We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that

That’s an awfully powerful statement for him to be making.  It wasn’t, though, the most powerful statement.

Yup, our favorite Twitter client for the iPhone and iPod Touch just got updated again.

Stone Design released version 1.4 of Twittelator Pro, their premium Twitter client, as a free update.

Twittelator Pro was already far and away the best Twitter app we have seen and this new version adds…

Like iNewz, the new app Newsdesk provides quick access to headlines from a selection of major news outlets without the need to first subscribe to individual RSS fees. As they describe it–

While ordinary RSS readers give you hundreds of links to wade through, Newsdesk cuts it down to just the single story on top of each site’s frontpage at any given moment. Since it only takes a few seconds to see what the major stories are, you can make sure you stay updated throughout the day – no matter how busy you are.

Box.net is one of the many online storage options now available. They have just  released an iPhone app that lets you access your “cloud-stored” files.

Box.net offers a number of different storage options ranging from 1gb of free storage to a $20 a month options that provides 15 GB of storage. I should note that the free option limits individual files to a max of 25 MB and a total of 10 GB of bandwidth usage per month while the paid options offer the ability to upload files of up to 1 GB in size with unlimited bandwidth usage per month. 
Since I already have both SugarSync and iDisk storage (with SugarSync offering their own app and A.I. Disk providing access to my iDisk) I opened a free 1GB account. Signup was a breeze and I was ready to go within 30 seconds.

I do a tremendous amount of my online reading with my iPhone / iPod Touch these days. One of the biggest changes I have now (since my handheld is always connected to wifi or 3G) is that I find myself using it almost entirely as my RSS reader (the computer takes a back seat).

This is, however, a mixed blessing. On the one hand, RSS feeds allow me to get exactly the kind of news that I want to get. On the other hand, since RSS feeds allow me to get exactly the kind of news I want to get, it also means I get a narrower perspective on the world. I don’t necessarily get the diverse perspectives I like to read about issues. Nowhere is this more pronounced than the current US presidential election. If you watch Fox news and MSNBC at the same time you’ll hear the exact same stories reported, but you wonder if they were actually looking at the same event. Of course, there is nothing wrong with taking in differing perspectives and then finding your own “truth”.

That is why I was excited when a new application was released a few weeks ago. Instead of giving me just the specific news that I want to get, iNewz allows me to choose a number of different news sources and get my information from them collectively. For instance, if I am getting information about politics, I can now automatically pull from three US sources, one British source, and one Canadian source.  This gives me a much broader world perspective.  If I want to know how the US is being portrayed outside of the country I can get US news from seven different Australian news sources, five Canadian sources, five Irish sources and more. It’s a great way to have a wide perspective in a global world.

Unfortunately, iNewz suffers from two major flaws.