Pocket Zoo™ with Live Animal Cams is an iPhone app that no only teaches about zoo animals, but you can watch them live. It has recently been updated with a meerkat and two penguin video cams.

Pocket Zoo™ with Live Animal Cams is a wonderfully wild portable zoo for kids & nature lovers.

Find out what it’s like to have your very own zoo at your finger tips with brilliant animal photos, videos, sounds, fun facts and Live Animal Cams.

• 30+ Live Animal Cams! *150+ Amazing wildlife videos!
• 40+ Original illustrations, beautiful photos, real animal sounds and fun facts!
• Watch Live Animal Cams (yup, real live video streaming from zoos all over the world – straight to your iDevice) and more than 150 animal videos.
• Discover a zoo at your fingertips, with 40 original animal illustrations and an earth-like zoo map
• Hear them! Tap the amazing animal photographs to hear real sounds (ever wonder what sound a panda makes?)
• Slide the photos up to get teacher-approved animal details & fun facts
• Learn about endangered animals by viewing “survival status”
• Snap it! See the animals doing something interesting? Capture an image from the cams, and share it with friends via email or Twitter – or save it to your Photo Album

Pocket Zoo is available on the iPhone for $1.99. Screenshots after the break.

[iTunes link]

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

TiPb’s developer spotlights are like DVD/iTunes Extras for the App Store — a weekly look behind the scenes at the programers and designers that bring you the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps and games you love. This week Rene talks with Ryan, Abhishek, and Feng from TeleNav…

…And with the help of Todd, they responded with the fantastic video posted above. Many thanks to everyone at TeleNav for this!

Apple TV isn’t the only iOS device getting iCloud TV Show streaming today, as our writer at large, Chad Garrett, also spotted it on his iPhone. It seems limited to TV Shows (no movies), and to the US for now, but it’s nice to see Apple adding functionality to iCloud so quickly — even before the formal launch this fall.

Are you seeing TV shows under your purchased content in iTunes.app?

Update: Not all shows yet, apparently. Perhaps some networks haven’t (yet) agreed to be part of the service?

Apple had finally released iOS 4.3 for Apple TV 2, adding the ability to stream purchased shows via iCloud (I’m betting this is US only?) and watch Vimeo video. As noted by Apple:

• iTunes TV Shows: Purchase your favorite TV shows directly from the iTunes Store, and watch the shows you already own, commercial-free in HD.
• Vimeo: Browse and play videos from Vimeo, access your video inbox, and mark videos you want to watch later.

If you’ve gotten the update, let me know if you notice any other changes and/or improvements.

(Developing…)

Every day, TiPb gets flooded with announcements for new and updated iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps and games. So every day we pick just a few of the most interesting, the most notable, and simply the most awesome to share with you!

• Melon Truck: Game Play consists of launching melons from a melon truck to baskets that vary in points. There are total of 60 Levels, 6 of which are bonus. Each level must be completed with a minimum score of 1600 in order to proceed to the next locked level. [$0.99 - iTunes link]

• Smokin’ Brothers: The ultimate barbecue and grilling simulation game for iPhone and iPad. Get trained as a player with the highest BBQ Master of the Smokin’ Brotherhood, located in Sydney Australia, and travel around the World to face challenges of increasing complexity. [$0.99 - iTunes link]

• Ripley iSword: It's life or death when you play Ripley iSword! A cut-throat game that allows you to experience sword swallowing first-hand. [Free - iTunes link]

• First Words: Growing Up: Your child will start off by learning the sounds of letters through synthetic phonics (two levels are available basic and advanced) and how these associate to specific words. [$1.99 - iTunes link]

• igobubble app: Create or blow "living" bubbles that carry thoughts, images, sounds, videos and other fun content. [Free - iTunes link]

Any other big app or game releases or updates today?

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

Geom-e-Tree is a great geometry app that creates fractals-like trees and has been updated with new themes.

Create an infinite number of fractal-like trees with a few simple gestures. Surprise yourself and friends with the variety and complexity of the patterns you discover just by changing the number, angle, and the common ratio of your tree’s branches. It’s math and it’s art – and it’s totally captivating.

• Touch the screen to make your tree grow and change.
• Watch your tree morph in real time.
• Increase the number of branches for fuller trees.
• Lengthen or shorten the branches to make the canopy change shape.
• Spread the branches up to 359 degrees for kaleidoscopic patterns.
• Choose from 20 serious, zany, colorful themes.
• Explore the many levels of this geometric landscape on your iPod, iPhone, or iPad!

We’ve added rainbow and “psychedelic” themes, some wild black and white themes (Magpie and Op Art), as well as a few monochromatic themes (India Ink and Pop Sticks). The new Themes tab displays all the themes and allows you to choose one for the current Tree. The Arboreturm remembers the themes of newly added trees. Geom-e-Tree also includes all the themes from our new version of Geom-e-Twee!

In mathematics, a fractal is is geometric shape that is split into parts, each of which is a smaller copy of the whole. This app is great twist on that idea and it’s fun to watch your trees grow. They even snuck in some famous fractals! Even my 11 month old daughter enjoys this app – she stared at it in awe of the colorful trees growing.

Geom-e-Tree is available on the iPhone and iPad for $1.99. The junior app, Geom-e-Twee is available on the iPhone and iPad for free for a short time.

Screenshots and video after the break.

[Geom-e-Tree - iTunes link] [Geom-e-Twee - iTunes link]

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

InstantCam is a new app that claims to decrease the time it takes for you to take a picture with your iPhone. One of the loudest complaints about the iPhone camera, is the time it takes from pressing the camera icon on the home screen to actually being able to take a picture. This app claims to dramatically speed up the process.

Have you ever missed that special moment just because it took too long to start the camera app and press the right button? Do you have children and find it difficult to keep up with their pace? Then this app is perfect for you! InstantCam allows you to launch and start shooting pictures lightning fast! If you want you can even let the app shoot pictures automatically as soon as it’s possible! InstantCam is also very smart and saves the images in memory to be as fast as possible when you need it. The images are then saved when the opportunity arises or in the background after closing the app.

Features:

• Minimalistic user interface so that you can concentrate on whats important
• Continuous shooting (burst) of images (automatic or manual) with variable speed (up to ~1-2 frames/s). All in full resolution!
• Gestures to easily control the camera functions
• Photograph by tapping the screen
• Start burst mode using long press
• Focus on double tap. If you want you can even have the app take a photo as soon as the focus is found!
• Toggle Light/Torch by swiping the screen (if supported).
• Flash the screen on capture

I have been playing with this app for the last few hours and it definitely cuts down on the opening time of the camera lens. My rough tests appear to show that it is ready to shoot in half the time that the stock app takes.

The app costs $0.99 and is compatible with the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad 2.

[$0.99 - iTunes link]

 

In celebration of their 4th birthday, Readdle is having a two day, 30%-off sale on all of their apps! Here’s a few of their popular ones:

• PDF Expert for iPad: [$6.99 - iTunes link]
• Scanner Pro: [$4.99 - iTunes link]
• PDF Converter: [$4.99 - iTunes link]
• Calendars: [$4.99 - iTunes link]
• ReaddleDocs for iPhone: [$2.99 - iTunes link]
• ReaddleDocs for iPad: [$2.99 - iTunes link]
• Printer Pro for iPad: [$4.99 - iTunes link]
• Printer Pro for iPhone: [$2.99 - iTunes link]

Head on over to Readdle’s iTunes developer page [iTunes link] for more apps.

If you pick any of these up, let us know what you think!

[Readdle]

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iPhone 5 to launch in second week of September, iPad 3 to follow later in the year? Facebook for iPad found hidden in the latest iPhone app update? Is that a Galaxy Tab 10.1 in this iPad podcaster’s pocket?	T-Mobile prepping for a 4G Windows Phone? Mango has been Released to Manufacturers (RTM) More Mango for Developers: 7712 update & SDK Beta 2 refresh

All Things D has heard from reliable sources that the iPhone 5 will not be launching until October. It was previously thought that the iPhone 5 would launch by September at the very latest.

Sources with knowledge of the situation say reports claiming AT&T has blacked out employee vacations during the last two weeks of September in preparation for the retail debut of the next iPhone are misinformed. Instead, it's going to be an October surprise — the month in which Apple will be launching its next generation iPhone.

All Things D is usually well connected with sources familiar with Apple products; so this could be a very reliable snippet of information. The only concrete information we have so far is the release of iOS 5 in the fall. No new iPhone would be released until iOS 5 is ready to roll. Fall does not even start until September 23, which would make October a more likely month for iPhone 5 after all.

It will be interesting to see if Apple has its usual early September iPod event; surely iPhone 5 would have to be announced either before that or at the same time!

[All Things D]