Search Google.com from your iPhone (or Android or webOS device) and notice the brand-spanking new Options drop-down on the top right. Tap it a list Google’s Mobile Blog says:

Finding the exact information you need sometimes requires filtering and refining your search results. Earlier in the year, we launched a collection of tools called Search Options which enable you to easily and quickly do this from a computer. Today in the US, we are making Search Options available on Android/iPhone/Palm WebOS devices so that you can slice and dice your mobile search results as well. For example, suppose you are shopping at a store for a camera, and you would like to see what users have been saying about a specific model within the past week. You can do this simply by searching for the name of the product. Then, on the search results page, use “Options” to filter by “Forums” and refine further by choosing “Past week”.

Let us know how it works for you…

[via PreCentral.net]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Quick Web App Update: Google Adds Options to iPhone Search

Is Apple’s iTunes App Store broken, a combination of developers racing to the bottom and users getting conditioned — and feeling entitled — to pay less than what an app is worth? Or, are some developers not yet savvy enough in terms of planning and marketing to take advantage of the App Store business model?

Since we covered Ramp Champ this morning, it’s timely to cover both the thoughts of the developer, Gedeon Maheux, and a response from Tumblr and Instapaper developer Marco Arment that are currently surrounding it.

The crux of Maheux’s post, Losing iReligion, is that the App Store is broken, that it’s too hard to gain visibility, and that if you miss the immediate exposure-on-landing of hitting a top list or featured spot, you’re doomed to obscurity.

In order for a developer to continue to produce, they must make money. It's a pretty simple concept and one that tends to get lost in the excitement to write for the iPhone. It's difficult for me to justify spending 20-50 hours designing and creating new 99¢ levels for Ramp Champ when I could be spending that time on paid client work instead. I would much rather be coming up with the sequel to Space Swarm than drawing my 200th version of a magnifying glass icon. But I'd also like to have some assurances from Apple about reducing the length of the App Store approval process, having the ability to respond to factually incorrect iTunes reviews, not be limited to 100 beta testers, or that large, prominent developers won't always get preferential treatment. In short, I'd like to know things will be fixed and I don't mean merely posting a page of marketing text in iTunes Connect.

Arment, argues that there are The two App Stores. The first is superficial, geared to Top Lists and $0.99 apps that are basically disposable by both users and their developers alike. These make quick money and then disappear. The second are the profound apps, which flourish only from user word-of-mouth and online coverage, and while they don’t get the initial boom, they have a longer tail before it comes to bust. He further argues that it’s when developers mistake one App Store for the others, and miss-target their efforts, that frustration occurs.

The Iconfactory's apps are able to compete strongly when people choose apps based on research, reviews, or feature comparisons. But that's not how App Store A's customers operate. Whether Ramp Champ is a better game than Skee-Ball is irrelevant to them because they'll never take the time to find out.

Anyone interested in development and why we get the apps we do (and the ones we don’t) should take the time to read both posts (linked above). Then come back and let us know what you think. Are there two App Stores? Which one do you shop at? And why?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

App Store Broken or Developers? Losing iReligion vs. the Two App Stores

Apple released iPhone and iPod touch 3.1.2 last thursday, and the changelog read like a who’s who of bug fixes. But did it fix what ailed your device? From battery life woes to “coma mode“, we want to know how you’re doing post-update — if you’ve updated, that is. Hit up the polls after the break and let us know!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Polls: Did iPhone 3.1.2 Fix Your Battery Life, “Coma Mode”?

Google has just announced that Dr. Arthur Levinson, former CEO of Gentech, has resigned from Google’s board of directors. Said Google CEO, Dr. Eric Schmidt:

“Art has been a key part of Google’s success these past five years, offering unvarnished advice and vital counsel on every big issue and opportunity Google has faced. Though he leaves as a member of our Board, Art will always have a special place at Google.”

Previously, Apple and Google shared two board members, with Schmidt resigning back on August 3, and now Levinson, they share a grand total of zero. Since both companies were facing increased FTC scrutiny due to interlocked directorships, this will no doubt reduce that pressure. Whether or not it reduces the pressure between Apple and Google over issues like Google Voice not yet being accepted into the App Store, and Google increasingly moving into Apple businesses with Android and Cloud OS, remain to be seen.

Levinson remains on the Apple board.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple/Google Ties Severed: Levinson Resigns from Google Board

TwitBit 2.0 Forum Review by llofte. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

Surprisingly, nearly 3 months after iPhone 3.0’s release, there are only a few twitter applications that offer push notifications. Twitbit is one of them. Version 1.x wasn’t compelling enough for me to use as my primary client, but the latest 2.0 update is rather impressive and brings Twitbit up to par with other great Twitter clients. The design is clean and simple yet not lacking in important features.

The home tab displays both your timeline and mentions. Just select which you want to view from the top. To scroll up to the most recent tweet, tap the time in the iPhone’s toolbar. Tapping on a tweet opens a new screen with the Tweeter’s name and username, the tweet, and some options. The tweet is displayed in a chat bubble below the user and includes the date/time and what platform the tweeter posted with. If the tweet was a reply, “In reply to…” will be attached to the tweet and tapping this will bring up a nice conversation view (direct messages also have conversation view). The tweet screen also includes buttons to reply, DM, retweet, and mark as favorite. Tapping the forward icon in the upper right corner allows you to open the tweet with the built in browser or mail a link to that tweet.

As you navigate through screens, the button on the top left will be named after your previous screen. If you find yourself several screens deep through navigation, tap the home tab to quickly return to your timeline.

A user’s profile screen includes the standard profile information including the options to follow/stop following, block, and bookmark. You can also send a user a public or direct message and view tweets that mention them from their profile. When viewing your own tweets from your user profile, there is an option to delete.

The Search tab is where you go to search for tweets in all of Twitter or by tweets near you. You can save any search term to for quick access later. To search trends, tap the bookmarks icon and select the trends tab at the bottom. From the top you can select current, daily, or weekly trends.

Search for users in the People tab as well as find all the users you have bookmarked and recent profiles you have visited. Your own profile will be listed on the top of the bookmarks list in blue. You can easily rearrange the list order by tapping edit.

Twitbit supports the use of multiple accounts and the account tab is where you go to switch between users. Tap the arrow for an account to set your push notification settings and edit your services. Twitbit allows you to post pictures to TwitPic, Yfrog, and Flickr and videos (3GS only) to TwitVid, Yfrog and Flickr all of which need to be authorized separately. If you have an Instapaper account, you can authorize it to use with Twitbit as well.

For even more settings, visit the iPhone’s Settings app and tap Twitbit. From here you can choose to display full names or usernames, how many tweets to fetch (20, 50, or 100), whether to highlight new tweets, and whether to scroll to the top when loading new tweets. Retweets can be formatted as “… (via @name)” or “RT @name: …”, image upload quality set as low, medium, or high, and nearby search radius as 2 km, 10 km, 50 km, or 250 km. If you don’t want your links to be shortened, you can turn that off too.

Twitbit is great application, but does has some disadvantages. There isn’t a way to access a list of users when composing a tweet, Flickr uploads do not include EXIF data, and the push notification sound is Apple’s default Tri-tone text message sound. The good news is that the developers have let us know they are considering adding these features in an upcoming release.

Speaking of the developers, High Order Bit is already diligently working on 2.1 promising features like full landscape support and the ability to iterate through your timeline from the tweet view. They are also planning to utilize those Twitter API updates for native retweet and geotag support.

Conclusion

Twitbit 2.0 is an excellent Twitter client! Notifications are quickly pushed to your iPhone in under 2 minutes, the UI is clutter free, and performance is smooth and snappy. If you’re looking for a Twitter application with built-in push notifications, I highly recommend Twitbit. If you’re unsure about making a purchase, you can try before you buy! Twitbit Lite is available for free and has all the features of Twitbit “pro” except for push and Flickr uploads. If you do choose to download Twitbit, be sure to let us know what you think!

Pros

• Push Notifications for mentions and direction messages in under 2 minutes
• Upload to Flickr
• Built-in browser and map
• Bookmark users

Cons

• No access to users while composing tweet
• Flickr uploads do not include EXIF data
• Only one notification sound option

TiPb Review Rating

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

App Review: TwiBit 2.0 Twitter Client for iPhone

Is Apple charging the big record labels $10,000 to create iTunes LP packages for them, and outright refusing to make the service available to the indies? That’s the allegation Gizmodo brought forward, based on a conversation with one such indie, who heard it from their labels digital distribution manager, who claims to have heard it from their iTunes rep.

Enter internet brouhaha. Some sites are calling the $10,000 fee exorbitant, and the lockout of indies untenable. Other sites are pointing out how much good quality interactive web development costs, and highlighting that Apple has only rolled out 12 iTunes LP’s so far.

Here’s the thing: when Apple announced iTunes LP, despite the fact that they’re using the fairly open WebKit framework to make it, they didn’t announce the specific TuneKit implementation as an open format, they didn’t announce an SDK, and they didn’t say they were offering it to every artist immediately.

It looks to us like this is just a case of Apple being Apple. iTunes LP is an experiment, clearly near-and-dear to them from Steve Jobs on down, and they’re starting with a few, select albums and trying to provide as premium and experience as possible. That kind of development work isn’t cheap, especially when you want to keep the numbers low at first, and it also means it isn’t open to everyone. Heck, it only even works on iTunes on your Windows or Mac PC at this point!

If they’re still nailing down the format specs, creating the development tools, and getting to set to roll out versions that will work with iPods, iPhones, and mythical, still unreleased Apple TV and iTablet devices, then this makes the kind of sense that does. And we’re guessing, when the dust settles and all the above is in place, Apple will open up iTunes LP and roll the format out wide, even to indies, because it will do what Apple really intends iTunes to do — help sell Apple hardware.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Regarding iTunes LP Costing Labels $10,000

Ramp Champ [$1.99 - iTunes link] is a skee-ball-like, old school boardwalk arcade or amusement park-style game for the iPhone and iPod touch. Co-developed by the Iconfactory and DSMediaLabs, it’s also gorgeous. Of course, I’d expect no less from the pixel perfectionists behind it (and behind other well-loved apps like Twitterrific and Frenzic).

The premise is simple: using your finger and the iPhone’s multi-touch screen, you flick balls up a ramp and try to hit targets, win trophies, score points, get tickets, and redeem those tickets for prizes. The art is sublime, from the included Clown Town, Breakwater, Spaceswarm, and Icon garden to the in-app purchasable add-on packs like the Ninja Attack and Tiki Island combo ($0.99 each). Other add-ons currently include Voyage, Halloween, and Challenge. This part of the app is implemented particularly well, and there’s even a “restore purchases” button should you even need to re-download the add-ons.

In-jokes abound for the attentive as well. Developer Ged Maheux points out the classic icon sizes 16, 32, 48, 64, 128, etc. used as ticket cost for the prizes. And, of course, the first prize I bought was the Twitterrific blue bird itself.

There are three “goals” to each ramp. The first one tends towards the easy, a cookie to reward us for playing. The second and third range from difficult to how-the-frak-do-I-do-this. (Obvious tip: try to time your shots so that you hit more than one target with each ball). That you can often get close works only to make it more frustrating and addictive to play.

The frustrating part may be a double-edged sword, however. Sometimes flicking the ball seems absolutely intuitive and under your complete control, and sometimes it seems like there’s no rhyme or reason to where the ball goes relative to how you flick. In the real world, and number of quirks in a ramp could account for chaotic end results. On the iPhone, it might just be a matter of tweaking the physics engine a bit more.

All-in-all, it’s a beautiful, engaging, casual time-filler of a game, perfect for occupying interstitial moments. As a test, however, I gave it to an 11-year old to try out. I only got it back an hour and half later. So, yeah, it works for a wide range of players and time constraints as well.

If you give Ramp Champ a go, let us know how how many goals you get, and which prizes you pick up.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Quick App: Ramp Champ Brings Skee-Ball Fun to iPhone