The Download Blog

I recently heard about a trick for iPhone 3GS owners who have the latest version of the Yelp app. Yelp, as you probably know, lets you search for restaurants or other services and read user-written ratings and reviews. I've noticed that the Yelp app particularly comes in handy when I'm on vacation: it lets me find out right away what the locals think about a particular restaurant without having to find out for myself. But a hidden feature in Yelp for iPhone 3GS owners has been revealed recently that adds a whole new dimension to Yelp ratings.

Make sure you download the latest version of Yelp (free) to try it out. Start up Yelp, then shake your iPhone a few times until a blue dialog box appears. This will unlock a button in the top right of the Yelp interface called The Monocle. Touch the button and you should be looking through your iPhone camera lens, but now you will be able to see restaurants, theaters, stores, and more with their ratings displayed on the actual location. This means that if you were in a busy area with restaurants and shops, you could look through The Monocle to get ratings for each place you're looking at in what they call augmented reality.

I had seen a demonstration of augmented reality on a jailbroken iPhone some time ago, but this is the first iPhone app in the iTunes Store to use augmented reality. Like I mentioned before, this will only work for those with the iPhone 3GS because The Monocle is using the compass (not available for iPhone 3G) along with GPS data to figure out which direction your pointing so it can display the correct reviews. If you get a chance, check it out and let me know what you think in the comments.

This week's apps include a useful tool to browse Craigslist and a fun new first-person shooter game.

CraigsPro (99 cents) lets you browse Craigslist with numerous features for searching and viewing listings and even posting your own listings. If you need to do a quick search, use the search bar at the top of the interface to search all listings. But for more-refined searches, you can adjust several post-type specific attributes by going into the Options screen. CraigsPro has buttons across the bottom to store favorites, sort listings by category, and search listings by city (you can add or remove cities to widen or narrow your searches). There also is a post tab where you can choose the category, write your post, and immediately attach pictures from your iPhone camera or select images from your iPhone photo library.

In some ways, CraigsPro is better than browsing listings on the actual Web site. Search result lists show up with photos and the first few lines of each posting so it makes finding what you want much easier without having to open up each listing. The Favorites tab is especially useful when you're apartment hunting, for example, because you have all of your chosen locations handy on one page when you're out visiting apartments--no need to write anything down. Overall, if you want a better way to search or post to Craigslist on your iPhone, CraigsPro has plenty to offer, with several added features to make finding what you want easier.

Modern Combat: Sandstorm ($6.99) is a brand-new first-person shooter for iPhone and it might be the best one yet. The game is set somewhere in the Middle East, and you will find and use several different kinds of weapons as you complete mission objectives in dry sandy locales. You have three different types of control schemes to pick from, with variations of onscreen joysticks and touch-screen actions. I found the default control method to work best for me with a movement joy stick on the left and using the touch screen to aim and fire with my right thumb. Some added controls appear in certain situations where you need to pick up an item or jump down from a wall, for example. You can reload your weapon with a single tap on the gun in the upper right or you can double tap to switch weapons.

Though the iPhone touch screen will never be as easy to use as a keyboard or console controller, Modern Combat: Sandstorm manages to make the controls fairly easy to use. Autoaim (found in the options) helped a lot to offset the less-than-optimal controls in the beginning, but after spending some time with the game I was able to turn it off for a more realistic experience. Along with the great gameplay, Modern Combat: Sandstorm has great audio, with explosive-sounding guns, and good voice acting in-game and during cut scenes. Overall, if you've been waiting for a good first-person shooter to come to the iPhone, Modern Combat: Sandstorm is an excellent choice with exciting gameplay, challenging missions, and a control scheme that's fairly easy to get used to.

What's your favorite iPhone app? Have you tried the augmented reality Easter egg in Yelp for iPhone 3GS? Have you used a better Craigslist app? Are you excited to see more complicated games like Modern Combat: Sandstorm on the iPhone? Let me know in the comments!

If you checked into Oscar night this year, you may have caught host Hugh Jackman's brief but hilarious quip about finding the backup dancers for his opening number on Craigslist--dubbed 'Craigslist Dancers' in his ditty. Though Jackman's dance troupe was likely anything but discount, the utility of Craigslist listings is, for many, no ruse. And the more important a service is, the more developers will create companion services to enhance the basics (take Twitter, to wit).

CL Desktop is a new Adobe AIR application (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) that pulls Craigslist.com listings into to a skinnable desktop wrapper. CL Desktop has some nice perks overall, with a couple more baubles than you'd find online. However, a few other features are absent or could be improved.

CL Desktop mostly mirrors Craigslist's searching filters, down to posting records with photos only. However, local-level neighborhood search hasn't been implemented in the U.S., which put a hamper on my house-hunting. Likewise, the text in some of the returned results cut off instead of wrapping to the next line, which made the interface look a little sloppy.

Being able to name and save searches was CL Desktop's single biggest benefit. Choosing the number of records to show on a page is another win, as is being able to quickly save a posting as a favorite, read the full post from the app or online, and answer a classified post from the app. The listings displayed in CL Desktop, however, were never perfectly in sync with Craigslist.com. Although the results matched up after a few refreshes, we'd like to see them in lock step.

CL Desktop told us in an e-mail that the application, which houses a browser, gets its goods straight from Craigslist. Since the application only stores search queries and links to your favorite posts instead of actual Craigslist data, it appears to avoid violating Craigslist's terms of use, which govern the ways in which a Web site or other service can reproduce Craigslist listings.

While some will prefer to stick with Craigslist's slightly faster, sparer-looking original, the visually minded will appreciate the enhanced CL Desktop, especially the features that save search queries and bookmark favorite posts.

If you've ever hunted for a job, housing, furniture, or love on Craigslist.com, you'll appreciate the focus that Craigslist Reader Pro brings to your search. The desktop reader isn't pretty to look at, but it quickly lets you hone your search in Craigslist's key cities and categories, even displaying negative search terms and appropriate variables, such as images, price ranges, and--for housing--the allowance of pets.

For each search, Craigslist Reader Pro took a few seconds to load results into the top of four panels. The panel below displays the contents of each entry in an in-app browser. You'll be able to scroll to read contents and can reply to posters by clicking the address shown in the reader. The filter menu was also useful in narrowing an expansive field of results.

The interface is strictly utilitarian, and lacks a Help menu. There's also a panel of ads--an eyesore that doesn't interfere with the program's use. What blunts the efficacy is the lack of e-mail-like management for deleting discarded entries and flagging favorites one-by-one. You can click a button to save all old results, but it won't weed any out. Of course, Craigslist Reader Pro delivers on its promise to display Craigslist content, but better management tops our wish list.

If you've ever hunted for a job, housing, or furniture on Craigslist.org, you'll appreciate the help of a devoted desktop reader to sift and sort through multiple listings. I've taken a look at two free Craigslist-helpers on CNET Download.com--Craigslist Reader Pro and CraigsList Reader. While neither one is perfect, we found Craigslist Reader Pro to be the stronger choice, though it would do well to learn from what CraigsList Reader has done right.

Craigslist Reader Pro, published by CraigsPal, isn't pretty to look at, but it does quickly hone your search to Craigslist's key cities and categories, and displays results in one of the reader's four program panels.

There are certainly some nice touches here--a search bar to help in choosing the location of the query, a chance to define positive and negative keywords, and choices to only read posts with images or search titles only. A list of extra variables appropriate to each category you're searching is especially useful for whittling down results. For instance, you can tick a box to find pet-friendly apartments or nonprofit jobs.

While I liked the filter menu to further attack ungainly results after you've launched a search, what's sorely missing are management tools to slash entries you no longer want and to flag favorites one by one--it's currently all or nothing. Without these, Craigslist Reader Pro remains a strong search engine that's limited by the most basic of readers.

CraigsList Reader, on the other hand, achieves much more with design, but contains some worrisome performance omissions. The interface, a Microsoft Office 2007 clone (and not the first we've seen), is much more legible and attractive than its rival. CraigsList Reader also tops the CraigsPal "Pro" reader in organization and customization, and for some that's the lure. You can delete single listings or clear them all, and save individual data files on your PC. You'll also be able to set notifications for incoming listings that match your criteria, and customize the reader's display.

However, the tool is neither as advanced when it comes to picking out locations nor as adept at defining or narrowing searches. Most importantly, CraigsList Reader routinely failed to return as many listings, even when the criteria were equal for both readers.

The ideal Craigslist reader would splice CraigsList Reader's organizational tools and more advanced design with Craigslist Reader Pro's superior engine. Until that happens, or until CraigsList Reader improves its precision and accuracy, we recommend CraigPals' Craigslist Reader Pro, warts and all.