Time for our Wednesday feature that highlights some of the latest iPhone news! On a personal level, the biggest iPhone news for me is the arrival of Star Wars: Trench Run (iTunes link). The $4.99 title offers intuitive gameplay and controls, but can be quite challenging. And the graphics are more than adequate for a handheld game. What I like most about it is what I like about many iPhone games — you don’t need to block an hour or more out of your day. You can simply play whenever you find a few free minutes, which ironically holds true for most iPhone apps: they’re generally offering bite-sized chunks of functionality when you need them.

While I’ve been honing my Jedi skills, the rumor mills have ripened with news of an expected Concierge application for iPhone and iPod Touch devices. AppleInsider explains that the Apple-created software will assist with scheduling appointments at the Genius Bar or for Apple’s One on One training services. Normally, most folks would use the phone to call for an appointment, but a few button presses might be quicker and give us more training time in our X-Wings.

My training got a boost this morning, but not in my fighter — my knowledge of what’s really in the iPhone App Store. Sure, we all know that there’s a 100,000 applications, but I read this morning that 1 in 5 apps added to the store last month was actually a book. If that’s the case, does Apple really need to enter the e-book market as some have said? I’m not sure they do because they’re already earning revenue from the phone as well as the e-book applications. What’s to be gained?

ShopSavvy, one of 10 winners in the original Google Challenge contest last year, arrives today on the iPhone. With ShopSavvy, you scan a product barcode with your phone’s camera and the application does a price check, both online and at retail locations. This one was a long time coming and actually isn’t appearing for me on my iPhone’s App Store at the time of this writing. However, the Big In Japan blog offers a direct link to the app in iTunes, and it works just fine. I’ve installed the free application and it looks stellar, although the app is struggling on some bar codes. This may have to do with the iPhone 3GS auto-focus feature, but I’m not sure. The developers say

“Once you know how to scan with ShopSavvy for the iPhone it works great, but until you do it is a little hard.  Our beta testers (thanks for your help) came up with a bunch of ideas that will make it MUCH easier to scan and we should implement those in the next couple of weeks.  Look for an update every two weeks (I know this is annoying, but we promise the updates will be worth it). “

I’ve been running around the house scanning things, which is sort of silly since I already own these items, but what can I say: it’s fun. Well, it’s fun until you look at current prices — $29.99 for Beatles: RockBand? Ugh!

ShopSavvy for iPhone integrates Google Maps for the locations of retail stores nearby that sell the scanned item. You can also add items to a wishlist, create lists, and get price alerts. All in all, it looks just as functional as the Android counterpart and there’s no need to shop around for it — it’s free!

Citizens of Earth — your planet is upgraded to version 2.0 today. Do not be afraid — Google comes in peace! Seriously, don’t panic, it’s just that Google Earth for iPhone that got an upgrade. No need to run and hide from crazy mobile tech aliens. Much to the chagrin of Android handset owners, this update only hits Apple’s handset for now. New to Google Earth 2.0 is the inclusion of your own custom maps. I’m on a quest to hit every WaWa convenience store, so I created a Google Map to keep track. Silly, yes but now I can view my progress on Google Earth.

Also getting the update treatment are the data layers like photos, Wikipedia articles and various other points of interest. In the prior version, I had to be very precise when tapping an icon or I had to waste time zooming in farther. Tapping a spot close to multiple data layer icons now opens up a menu of the various data points, making it easier to choose. Google also added support for another 18 languages, bringing the total to 31. Here’s a full rundown of the supported ones:

English (U.S), English (UK), French (France), German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Arabic, Thai, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malaysian, Romanian, Slovak, and Croatian.

I’m also finding performance to be a little more snappy in general, but that could just be hopeful observation. It seems to me that panning and zooming is improved, but I’m not a frequent world traveller in Google Earth — just a frequent traveller to WaWa.

I am working in a Panera Bread today and I feel like one of those shady street counterfeit product hawkers. I have the original iPhone, Droid and a Palm Pre on the table in front of me, attracting a lot of attention. I have been comparing the three phones and I thought it made sense to shoot a simple “grab and shoot” picture using all three phones for comparison.

I am no professional photographer, and while I’m sure I could have tweaked the settings on each of the phone cameras, I wanted to simulate the way most people use their camera phone. You see something interesting, grab the phone and snap a pic. That’s all I did here, so each of the photos reflects the default settings for each camera. The photos were taken one after the other, and the camera was the same distance from the subject in each.  Here are the three photos taken and some that show the sizes of the three phones:

Augmented Reality (AR) is one of those cool technologies (subscription required) that fascinates me. The ability to merge what is seen through a phone camera into the real world and leverage it in useful ways is awesome. When the cool factor settles down, I’m left with the reality of AR, and that is trying to find real-world uses for it that add benefit. Car Finder by Intridea is a good example of a real benefit that AR can bring the user in everyday life.

How many of us have parked our car in a huge parking lot, and then searched for it when we return? It can be especially challenging at sporting events, when all you can see is what seems like miles of cars between you and your car. Car Finder eliminates that frustration by using the iPhone 3GS camera to show you where you left your car. You tell the program where you are when you park the car, and when you return it shows you where the car is, superimposed over those miles of other cars. It’s a useful app with a real-world benefit, and it only costs you 99 cents.

UPDATED: Livestreaming is all the rage today, be it from a handset or a home computer with a webcam. But one of the major challenges to overcome is how to view that live content on a handset without re-encoding it. Vimeo today took the same approach that YouTube did for the iPhone — it went back to certain video content and re-encoded it for mobile handset playback on iPhone and Android devices. While that works, it’s not ideal. Wouldn’t it be nice if a company could provide a method for livestreaming to mobiles without a lengthy re-encoding process?

Lo and behold, enter Livestream and its Procaster beta application for Mac and PC. I just got my hands on the software a short while ago, so I have a “quick and dirty” video — don’t worry, it’s not that kind of dirty — to show you some of the basic capabilities. I was up and running in just a few minutes with Procaster. The application uses any attached webcam and microphone and livestreams from your computer. OK, that sounds like most of the other livestream platforms, right? But here’s the kicker: your live stream from Procaster can be viewed immediately on an iPhone by using the H.264 HTTP streaming built into the handset’s Quicktime application. That’s the bulk of what I show you in my brief video demo because it’s just too cool.

With Livestream Procaster, you can set up your own channel and chatroom to go with your video. I see a multitude of uses for this as I allude to in my short video demo: I’m thinking of trying this out at the Consumer Electronics Show to give you some show floor experience in real time, for example. And this solution could come in handy for tips and tricks because you can easily switch between the webcam view and a screen sharing view. Or you can display both in real time to an iPhone. The possibilities are endless and with the H.264 HTTP streaming, it opens up the floodgates to mobile viewing as well. Livestream’s full press release follows and you can find their beta application right here. Livestream will be using the new Procaster features at our NewTeeVee Live event tomorrow, so you can follow along on your iPhone! It is, after all, NewTeeVee Live, not NewTeeVee Recorded.

Update: After my post went live, I realized that I had an early look, so check out Procaster starting tomorrow.

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Time for our Wednesday feature that highlights some of the latest iPhone news! The biggest news item hitting the radar is Apple racing past Nokia in the smartphone market — not in terms of sales or share, but in 0perating profit. Nokia earned about $1.1 billion last quarter, while Apple’s handset division raked in $1.6 billion. Clearly, Nokia sells far more phones than Apple. But Apple doesn’t sell cheap feature phones and they’ve negotiated great subsidy deals on every handset they sell. Smart business and a solid product usually makes for boatloads of money, no?

Speaking of solid products, did you see the Gigaware HD Radio tuner for iPhone? This $80 add-on brings the goodness of HD Radio to your Apple handset and as one would expect, allows for song tagging for later purchases in the iTunes store. Personally, I really like this feature that’s baked into Microsoft’s Zune, but not enough to drop $80 for it on my iPhone 3GS. It doesn’t look all that mobile as it uses a cable to dock to the iPhone. For stationary, docked iPhones it might be appealing. It has to be more appealing than static, which you can’t even listen to on today’s iPhones.

So you can’t listen to terrestrial radio over FM on an iPhone, but you can Tweet until the cows come home. (That’s around 4:30pm in my neighborhood — for realz) Last week, I bought Tweetie2, but I’m already looking at adding the free TweetDeck to my iPhone. There’s a new version out and it incorporates some useful new features like Facebook support, video uploads, landscape composition and more. Have a look and you’ll see why I’m about to “buy” this free app for my iPhone.

NewspaperDirect, a distributor of digital newspaper and magazines, has launched the PressReader app for both the iPhone and BlackBerry. PressReader presents full reproduction digital copies of major publications in a format that is easy to navigate on small portable screens, providing the ability to zoom to view any portion of the publication in a clear, easy-to-read manner. The app works with publications sold through the PressDisplay site.

PressReader has been completely optimized for both the iPhone and the BlackBerry, allowing for easy navigation and content duplication on the small screen. Every element of the original newspaper is duplicated exactly, from ads and articles, to cartoons. PressReader for iPhone and BlackBerry are available at no charge from the iTunes App Store and the BlackBerry App World respectively.

PressReader for iPhone

PressReader for BlackBerry

What is better than free Wi-Fi for the holidays? Unlocking your iPhone from the O2 network in the UK for free. That’s exactly what O2 in the UK is allowing iPhone customers to do after Nov. 10. Unlockers will still have to honor the remainder of any O2 contract, but can use any SIM in the iPhone at no charge. Pay and Go customers can unlock the iPhone 12 months after paying off the phone for a £14.69 one-time fee.

Here’s all you need to do to unlock your iPhone according to the O2 site:

“Firstly, complete the unlocking form – it will take up to 14 days for the iPhone to be unlocked and we’ll text you to confirm the unlock request. Then place a non-O2 sim into the iPhone and connect to iTunes via a USB cable. iTunes will confirm that the iPhone has been successfully unlocked.”

Thanks to Gavin Miller for sending this in!

While I’d never advocate this hack from a safety perspective, it’s one of the most amazing uses of an iPhone I’ve seen yet. The real magic is in all of the motors and gizmos to make it work, but Make shows that the Do It Yourselfers at Waterloo Labs are actually driving a car using their handset. With a custom application, the gas and brake pedals are activated with slider controls — moving the sliders causes dedicated motors to depress the pedals using crescent wrenches. Steering is handled by another motor, but that one takes advantage of the iPhone’s accelerometer. Simply “turning” the iPhone clockwise or counter-clockwise allows the vehicle to steer.

Useful in the real world? Not so much. Fun to watch? You betcha!