Hasta La Gadget!

Five days after first appearing in the iTunes App Store, Apple has apparently pulled an unofficial WikiLeaks iPhone/iPad app. The biggest shocker here seems to be the fact that the thing ever actually appeared in the store at all. Apple has sought to avoid controversy (granted not always that successfully) with its fairly nebulous App Store terms of service, and these days things don’t get all that much more controversial than WikiLeaks.

A number of high profile companies have already pulled support for the whistle blowing site in a very high profile way, including Amazon, Bank of America, Mastercard, PayPal, and Visa. A number of governments–the US included–have condemned the actions of WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.

Apple didn’t give much detail regarding the removal of the app, sending developer Igor Barinov a generic form letter reading, “The status for the following app has changed to Removed From Sale.” The app itself wasn’t sanctioned by WikiLeaks. It is a paid app ($1.99) that offers access to the site’s free content.

At present, a number of WikiLeaks-related apps are still available through the Android Market.

Probably a little late for the Christmas crowd, but 9 to 5 Mac managed to snag an early peak at a new Best Buy ad offering up a free MiFi with the purchase of an iPad. Pretty sweet deal, if you’re in the market for both of those things–you’ll save $130 off of Verizon’s asking price.

Of course, nothing is ever truly free, when it comes to mobile hardware–you’ll have to sign a two-year contract with either AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon. If you’re still down, you’ve got until January 2nd, to take advantage of the deal.

I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that there’s a PlayStation app coming soon for the iPhone and Android handsets. The bad news is that it doesn’t actually do what you’re hoping it does–i.e. play games.

The app is more of a supplemental resource for PlayStation owners. You can use it to check things like trophies and friends’ statuses, discover information about new games, read the PlayStation Blog, and share info via Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail. PlayStation phone it’s not.

The app is coming “very soon” to European markets like the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. More markets will follow later.

Here’s a belated entry for those of you who are compiling year-end best of mobile app lists. People are tossing around words like “magic” and “future” upon giving Visual Quest’s new app a spin, and we’ve got to say, from demos we’ve seen, we’re pretty impressed.

Word Lens is an augmented reality language translator–hold it up in front of a sign in a different language, and the thing will translate it in real time. All in all, it’s pretty fantastic, and a lot more useful than most of the games and other apps that tend to dominate the iTunes sales lists.

The app itself is free, but there’s $4.99 fee for Word Lens’ various language packs. At present, the app only does Spanish to English and English to Spanish. More languages will be coming soon.

Octavio Good, a developer behind the app explained its process thusly, “It tries to find out what the letters are and then looks in the dictionary. Then it draws the words back on the screen in translation.” Neat.

Video of the app in action after the jump.