The Download Blog

(Credit: CNET)

Of all the great enhancements, fixes, and goodies in iPhone OS 3.0 (video overview here), I quickly realized there was one glaring omission. With the useful addition of a Voice Memos app, an old problem reared its ugly head. The update put the Voice Memos app icon on the home page, pushing whatever lone app icon that sat in the lower right of the homepage onto its own screen on the next page. This meant that in order to maximize my use of page space (I have a lot of apps!), I now had to rearrange my apps on the last page to fill the mostly blank second page. If you've ever tried to move lots of apps, you know how frustrating it can be to slowly drag each jiggly icon across several screens to its new home.

After a little research I found a slightly less time-consuming solution, but I'm hoping a later iPhone OS will provide an easier way to move several icons. The method I found is to go to your last page of apps, then drag your Dock icons (Phone, Mail, Safari, and iPod) onto their own screen to the right of the last page. With these safely tucked away, you can grab groups of four icons, drop them in the dock, then unload them on your mostly empty second page. When you're all finished, slide your original icons back on to the Dock and hit the Home button. It's not a perfect solution, but until Apple offers some sort of cleanup option, moving four apps at a time is better than just one.

This week's apps include a fun program for making digital postcards (utilizing some nifty iPhone 3.0 features) and a 3D dogfight flying game you can play over Wi-Fi.

Use your location (top center) to use the iPhone map complete with pinch zooming capabilities.

(Credit: CNET)

Postman (99 cents) lets you send digital post cards to your friends and family, with some nifty features to make it fun for everyone. We've seen post card apps before, but Postman takes advantage of some of the new features in iPhone OS 3.0 to make it even better. To create a postcard, take a photo from within the program, choose an image from your library, or pick from several generic templates. You can also add basic effects like sepia and black and white to give the image the feel you want. For something a little different, Postcard also lets you take advantage of the new iPhone OS by letting you use an image of your location with the integrated maps features.

To personalize your postcard, add some text to your image using one of several available fonts and colors. When your satisfied with the front of the postcard, hit the Back button to flip it over and write your personalized message. When you're ready, use the Share button to show off your work on Facebook, Tumblr, or Twitter, or you can simply e-mail it to the intended party.

Postman is a unique app for sending messages to friends, but we would have liked to be able to resize and move the text on the front for more interesting design possibilities. Either way, as a 99-cent app, Postman is difficult to pass up.

Read the instructions first to find how to use all the onscreen controls.

(Credit: CNET)

F.A.S.T.: Fleet Air Superiority Training ($5.99) lets you take to the air and experience the thrill of flying in full 3D as you blow planes out of the sky. It helps to read the instructions first so you know what each control does before starting. Play one-player missions to get the feel for the controls and to unlock new advanced fighter aircraft (there are 10 in all). Maneuver your plane by tilting your iPhone, and use onscreen controls for missiles, afterburners, and flares. F.A.S.T. also lets you play online with Wi-Fi against one opponent, head-to-head, or 2-on-2 matches.

One thing I would like to note about F.A.S.T. is that I wasn't very impressed when I first started playing--the graphics aren't as amazing as other titles, and the maneuverability of the plane seems kind of muddy without practice. But once I understood the controls, went on a few missions, and started joining up with people online, the game became a lot more fun. I guess my point is, if you don't like it at first, give it some time. Overall, I think F.A.S.T. is an excellent dogfight sim for those who like flying games and--with online action--offers plenty of replay value.

What's your favorite iPhone app? What do you think of the iPhone OS update so far? Got a better way to move app icons? Let me know in the comments!

Update: As some savvy readers have pointed out, simply grabbing the lone app icon and moving it to the next page solves the problem in my example. But I still wish there was some sort of clean up button for when you have spaces on several pages (after deleting a few apps, for example) to make your apps fill in the open spaces automatically.

(Credit: Vayyoo)

vPost, which launched this week for BlackBerrys running version 4.5 and 4.6*, is a free-to-try application that aggregates your multimedia into one interface and makes it easier to share and post online. (*A version for the Storm is due later this month.) You'll be able to attach up to five separate media files--up to 1.5 MB--including audio and video clips, photos, text notes, and files stored on your internal memory or SD card.

At a lifetime purchase of about $10, the application seems a bit steep for something that can be accomplished, albeit slower, using the regular BlackBerry functions. Still, for serious sharing and social networking junkies, the app offers more than a modicum of convenience. For instance, you can set up one "Favorite" e-mail address to turn into a one-click routing destination (including the CC and BCC lines, you can squeeze out three.) You'll also be able to e-mail your media and notes to any number of recipients, including the pals in your address book and the upload e-mail addresses for social networks such as Facebook, Picasa, Blogger, Utterli, Wordpress, and so on.

vPost shows promise, but we'd like easier ways to post to social networks than adding them into the address book.

(Credit: Vayyoo)

If it seems a little ridiculous to pay for the privilege of e-mailing your own multimedia to your own social networks instead of uploading them through a convenient widget, you're not alone, but vPost's publisher Vayyoo tells us that customizable widgets are on the agenda for a future release. However, even without them, vPost isn't devoid of helpful tools. Its integration with the BlackBerry's calendar and e-mail make it possible to open a vPost to respond to a meeting or reply to an e-mail in your in-box using a voice note or images. In addition, if your BlackBerry has GPS capabilities, you'll be able to let others chart and map your location--potentially useful if you're posting from a party.

While the integration, hot keys, and convenience of being able to create and share multimedia clips in one place speak well of the new app, vPost's drawbacks make me hesitant to recommend it for all but the most hardcore media-sharers and bloggers. Still, this is one app we'll keep an eye on as it develops.

Download vPost's two-week trial over-the-air.

Taking a cue from real-world Post-It notes, Stick provides an equivalent product for your computer desktop. A few differences from other sticky note programs make this a valuable asset for any PC.

The most noticeable is that notes, when closed, turn into tabs you can then append to the sides of your screen. This makes keeping your desktop tidy a snap. In addition to basic text notes, you also can create Explorer notes, which are actual Windows Explorer windows. You can navigate the file system from within these or even use them for Web browsing.

Each note features a variety of customization options such as window color, transparency, autohiding, and font choices. Though it does lack a few features of the more advanced sticky note apps, you should give Stick a try for its ease of use and excellent implementation of tabs.

If you've accumulated hundreds or thousands of RSS feeds in your favorite reader you might be looking for a way to sort through them all. Of many solutions out there, Google Reader offers just a few ways to weed out lame feeds either by tracking inactivity or integrating tags for the sake or sorting. These tools are helpful, but far from a solution to save you from having to go through all your content to get to the good stuff.

Enter AidRSS, a ridiculously simple story sorter that uses PostRank, a rating system that measures how good a post is by factors like the number of user comments, traffic, and promotion on social news tools. All of this statistical analysis is applied to each story, giving it a score from 1 to 10.

The tool will let you sort which stories and feeds you want to view. You can rank from good to best, which will simply hide any posts that fall outside the threshold. You can also group together these stories based on the source, which will clump them together for easy perusal.

Adding AideRSS to Google Reader requires installing a plug-in. There are two flavors, on basic Firefox extension, and an add-on for the hacktacular Greasemonkey. Both have identical functionality.

One of the only downsides of relying on PostRank is that it simply doesn't work for every blog post. Some items found on friends' blogs or random RSS feeds that received low PostRank were very good, so simply ignoring them does not work. Mainstream content, on the other hand, gets at least a baseline rank.

Another thing to note is that it will noticeably slow down Google Reader performance if you've got PostRank turned on (note: there's a toggle switch). You can still read and open any feed quickly, but it will have to pull in the ratings each time you open a feed from the source list, which can take a while.

To see it in action check out the video below.

(Spotted on Delicious)

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Like their real-world counterpart, a quickly jotted digital sticky note placed prominently on the desktop can be just the reminder or inspirational message you need. And it won't bulk up the landfill when you trash it.

Software sticky notes are simply movable widgets that contain text, and even the simplest possess some font, color, and formatting customization. Most of the apps I looked at let you add alarms, sounds, and hot key shortcuts. The more advanced programs are surprisingly powerful, adding sophisticated synchronizing features and management platforms to track notes and reduce desktop clutter.

Not all the sticky notes products are free (NoteZilla) , and not all the paid products are good (StickyNote). Here are six popular studs and duds you should take note of.... Read more