Hasta La Gadget!

Can you believe it? If this weekly column didn’t exist, Apple would only be at about 999,999,233. I can now die happy: I’ve made a difference in this world.

And so have you! Now, on with your regularly scheduled roundup:

Flick NBA Basketball: It hasn’t hit the store yet, but developers Freeverse gave us an exclusive look at this NBA shooter. NBA Jam it is not, but it puts the tried and true wobbly gauge to use to play in 3-point shootouts, games of HORSE and more. There’s a real NBA license and tons of real players (here, I am @THE_REAL_SHAQ of course), and it’s pretty fun. Price yet unknown, but watch for it in the store any day now.

Convertbot Mini: We loved the original $2 Convertbot, so we were overjoyed to hear that a free lite version has now hit the store. It limits you to converting area, length, mass, temperature and volume only, but it’s a good way to get a taste of the best looking (and sounding) conversion app around. Free

Terminate Me: By now, at least 25% of your Facebook friends have changed their profile photo to a Terminated robot, and that’s cool. This is an easy way to make said Facebook profile photos on your iPhone. Free

Toilet Ninja: OK, here’s a soundboard I can get behind. It simulates the noisemaking capabilities of Japanese toilets to hide the dirty deeds being done within. Waterfalls, crows, fireworks—all preferable to bathroom sounds to some. Enjoy. $1.

Heat Pad: Yeah, it’s just touchscreen tricks—turning your capacitive zaps into a simulation of a heatmap. But it’s selling (or, downloading, since it’s free) like hot cakes. See what all the fuss is about. Free.

This Week’s App News On Giz:

• Paul van Dyk Pitches You the Paul van Dyk iPhone App

• Apple Hits One Billion Apps

• Apple Apologizes for Approving Baby Shaker iPhone Game

• Ask a Ninja iPhone Game Preview

• Apple’s Shaky Standards: Baby Shaker iPhone App Approved, Quickly Yanked

• iPhone App Hides Your Snoring or Fapfapfapping With Boring Office Sounds

• iPhone 3.0 Will Have “Jibbler” Voice Controls, Talk Back to You Like iPod Shuffle

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory and our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.

Are U 2 extreme 2 Tokyo Drift in an actual roided-out spoiler Civic? Well, now you can contain your fury inside the cozy confines of the iPhone. Plus: one hot NYT crossword Dealzmodo.

Fast & Furious The Game: 36 cars, four tracks, a variety of GTA-like missions and all of the exxxtreme attitude you can handle make up this iPhone version of the franchise. It has an interesting feature that allows you to record time trial runs and then upload them to YouTube: here’s one the guys from Touch Arcade did. For more, check them out: [Touch Arcade, it’s $6]

New York Times Crossword Daily 2009: Subscribing to the daily online NYTimes crossword service is $40; with this app, you get each day’s puzzle plus an archive of the entire year for $10, which is a great deal. It’s also very nicely designed, and has a number of different ways to solve, including a mode that separates each clue out onto a separate line. Plus online scorekeeping, it’s got it all. Now you can stick it to Will Shortz on the road. $10, expires at the end of ’09.

iCombat: It’s the classic Atari game of Combat, made up all pretty like for the 21st century, and adding mines, grenades, homing missiles, cloaking devices—the works. Super addicting. $1

MIeko: The app does some funky visual things when you touch it, but had to include this, just for the choice to use as the description this now-heartbreaking passage from one of David Foster Wallace’s first short stories, “The Planet Trillaphon.”

“Swollen and throbbing, off-color, sick, with just no chance of throwing up to relieve the feeling. Every electron is sick, here, twirling off balance and all erratic in these funhouse orbitals that are just thick and swirling with mottled yellow and purple poison gases, everything off balance and woozy. Quarks and neutrinos out of their minds and bouncing sick all over the place.” – David Foster Wallace

RIP. Would be nice if the buck went to a charitable cause.

This week’s iPhone App news on Giz:

• Hudson’s Nostalgiapretty “How Fast Can You Mash Buttons” Shot Watch iPhone App

• iPhone Emoji Apps Back In App Store, Someone Probably Rejoices

• Learn How to Build iPhone Apps from Stanford University

• Despite Being an April 1 Gag, TXT’N’WALK Mobile App is Sweet

• Discount prescriptions lenses FOR FREE UNLOCK IPHONE INTERNATIONAL. 3D Photos Application. PERFORMANCE.

• Star Guitar iPhone App Promo Video Brings You All the Charm of Late Night Infomercials

• Skype For iPhone Now Available in the US, Has VoIP over 3G With 3.0 Firmware

• AirCoaster3D iPhone App Catches Your Constipated Expressions During the Economy Rollercaster

• DirecTV’s iPhone App Browses, Searches and Sets Recordings

• Baseball Season Officially Starts With MLB At Bat 2009 iPhone Apps

• Happy Birthday Cake iPhone App May Result in Spit All Over Your iPhone

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory and our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.

March Madness: when being a work-from-home blogger pays off. Here are the apps that will help you squeeze every last drop of goodness from the NCAA Tournament, along with the week’s other app highlights.

Madness ’09: There are a flood of bracket tracking apps, most of which are horribly ugly and hastily constructed. Madness ’09 is one of the few that’s actually nice to look at, and it also pipes in live scores, stats and game previews/recaps from ESPN.com. Well worth the buck.

ESPN Tournament Edition Cameraman: There is still no Photo Hunt app that’s erotic enough for my liking, but in honor of The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, the Cameraman folks have released a college-hoops-themed Photo Hunt with ESPN. Well, I guess Larry Bird’s legs were kind of erotic in his Sycamore days. $1

FanFinder Sports Bar Locator: This app ties into the database of sports bars maintained by Sports Fan Live to help you find the local alumni haunts for your favorite tournament teams. Because it’s always more fun to get wasted with the home team fans while you watch. Free.

Boxee Remote: If you use the media center software Boxee on a home theater PC, this free remote app will be handy for text input and navigating menus without having to figure out a mouse/keyboard setup. Useful for Apple TV folks too, I imagine, since text input with the Apple Remote is a bitch. Free.

Locavore: There is no larger trend in food than “eating local” right now, but since its main tenets are increased deliciousness at a lower price (and enviro impact), it’s a trend that I have a hard time being cynical about. This app will not only help you find nearby farmers’ markets, but judging from your location, will tell you which fruits and vegetables are currently in season in your area. Cool. $3

How To Text a Girl: If there’s one thing a girl will love, it’s a canned, slightly suggestive SMS sent from an iPhone app. Trust me. $1

This Week’s App News On Giz:

• How To: Fake the iPhone 3.0 OS On Your iPhone Today

• Click here to read Hands On: Metal Gear Solid Touch iPhone App

• iPhone’s First Turn-by-Turn Navigation App XROAD G-Map Yanked from App Store

• Boxee Gets iPhone App Remote Control With Funky Trackpad Interface

• Why iPhone In-App Transactions Could Be a Disaster

• First iPhone 3.0 Apps Show Off New Functionality

• iPhone App Store Revamped For Content Subscriptions, Game Add-Ons, In-App Purchases

• Sound Curtain Noise Masking iPhone App Hands On

• Pin Up Weather For iPhone Delivers Sexytime Forecasts Rated PG-13

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory and our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.

This week we’ve cast the net out a bit further to catch some gems from this month that may have escaped our attention, including a repackaged, excrement-producing pop-culture classic. And it’s no fart app.

Tamagotchi: ‘Round the World: But unfortunately, it’s just as inane. Gone is the dot-matrix Tamagotchi you may remember from 1996, and in its place, a not-particularly-cute generic cast of knockoff superflat characters. The game appears to be based around gardening and growing plants by doing a rain dance: I gave up after a few minutes. But it poops, which is always nice. $6 with free lite version.

PhotoKeys Photoshop Remote: If you keep your phone docked near your keyboard like I do and do some heavy ‘shopping, this looks pretty handy. It turns your iPhone into a customizable tool palette by talking to a mini server app on your desktop. Windows and Mac are both supported. It’s $4.

Epiphany Recorder: Innovating above the countless other voice recorders in the store, Epiphany starts recording a buffer the moment it’s launched, but it only saves the audio you tell it to pressing the “Remember that!” button, which automatically saves the previous few seconds or minutes of audio (you pick). It’s great for recording an interview by grabbing only the important parts, saving major time in transcription. Very cool, and it’s free.

FedEx: There are a handful of other package-tracking apps in the store, but FedEx’s new official app looks nice for its ability to tie into you FedEx.com account. You can monitor shipments you’ve scheduled online, as well as create new labels from your phone. Nice interface too, and it’s free.

CTU: Even though this app is a few years too late, the last remaining folks still enjoying Bauer Hour can now create the show’s trademark multi-splitscreen-with-digital-timer tableaux with their photos. As a clock app and a novelty, not bad. $2

This Week’s App News on Giz:
• Mac Plus Emulator now Available for Jailbroken iPhones

• Why Most Content Apps Suck (But Some Would Be Amazing)

• iTunes Concept Shows How iPhone App Management Should Have Worked From the Start

• Metal Gear Solid Touch For iPhone Trailer Has Me Worried

• Major Label Bands Decide App Store Is Cool, Want to Take Over Your iPhone

• 5-Row QWERTY Jailbreak App Fixes One of the iPhone Keyboard’s Most Annoying Flaws

• Dashboard Widgets For Jailbroken iPhones: Hot or Not?

• ‘That’s What She Said’ iPhone App Is the Opposite of Comedy

• Your iPhone Is now a Kitchen Thanks to Cooking Mama

• TV.com iPhone App Streams Free Full-Length CBS and Showtime Shows

• iMafia for iPhone Circumvents the App Store, Sells Other Apps In-Game…and Apple Willingly Approves

• Apple Purging App Store Of Every Last Emoticon Enabler

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory and our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.

Apple just today declared jailbreaking illegal. So, in outlaw style, it’s a good day to take a break from the App Store to peruse the naughty treasures available to jailbreakers via Cydia.

As you’re well aware by now, Apple’s official SDK limits apps from doing lots of things, like cut and paste, video capture, and dubiously legal things like NES emulation. All of the apps listed here do something Apple doesn’t approve of, and they can be found by searching Cydia, an installer that automatically appears on your iPhone once you’ve successfully complete jailbreaking your phone. We’re not going to run through that process here (Quickpwn and Pwnage Tool are your friends), but suffice it to say, Apple doesn’t condone the practice, and there are certain risks to messing up your iPhone when you jailbreak or install any unauthorized apps. Be forewarned. Here’s what we’ve safely tested:

WinterBoard – The essential change-my-appearance app for the iPhone since the days before the App Store, it’s been known by other seasons before (SummerBoard, for example), but it’s essentially the same: You download themes, and can use this app to apply them system-wide. It also gives you other appearance controls like “Dim Wallpaper” and “Solid Status Bar.”

BossPrefs – An insanely useful utility for making one-tap system adjustments like toggling 3G, EDGE, wi-fi or Bluetooth. You can turn your mail on and off fast too. I like the “Hide Icons” feature, where you can go in and take certain apps off of your home screens without taking them entirely off your iPhone.

Search – An amazing app for searching everything on your iPhone, including MAIL! It’s a lot like the Sherlock of old—type a search term, hit enter, and it starts digging through Contacts, SMS, Notes, Events, Safari Bookmarks and Safari History. Tap any search result, and you go straight to that app. (We also tried Searcher, which does all of the above but does not search mail).

Cycorder – The semi-answer to iPhone’s lack of video recording, Cycorder does motion JPEG recording (now with audio). It looks as good as you can expect with that camera. The only catch is, in order to pull video files off of the damn phone, you have to use SSH or something else that can access the file structure. Nobody said bootleg app use was a cakewalk.

Snapture – An example of a for-profit jailbreak app, Snapture gives you basic controls for free for 20 tries, but then asks for $8, and in return gives you access to albums and all sorts of stuff. It’s risky considering any jailbroken app may not work the next time you update your iPhone’s software, but in this case, it’s at least a well designed app, giving you lots of camera controls (timers, auto-rotation, color mode, an on-screen level) plus a shutter button that is the entire screen, so it’s easier to take pictures with one semi-steady hand.

xGPS – This GPS program made a name for itself the other day by saying that, by February 20, it would have turn-by-turn speech navigation. While you wait for that, you can check out the nominal version available now, which is mostly just Google Maps with some extra tools like GPS tracking.

Clippy – Copy and paste really do work on an iPhone, and it’s system-wide. However, there are limitations. Once you’ve installed this utility from Cydia, you get to it by going to the number keys on the pop-up keyboard. As you can see, it appears above the standard numbers. As you might guess from that, you can only copy or paste when you have access to the keyboard. So copying an address off of a website is not doable, even though you would be able to paste any address into maps once you had it. There are new features that just popped up which I haven’t explored yet—maybe you know about them.

NES.app – An NES emulator that keeps getting better. If you can handle the touch controls, it’ll handle most of your ROMs at near full speed. And this is certainly something you won’t find in the App Store at any time in the future.

There are a lot of multimedia apps, like TuneWiki, which gives you lyrics to your iTunes songs, Shuffle, which does Pandora-like smart shuffling of your library based on what you like and don’t like, and MxTube, which lets you save YouTube videos. While those are all nifty, they’re not as essential as the ones above. If you feel that we’ve missed something really truly essential, then by all means let us know. As usual, with so many iPhone apps out there, this is in no way a complete listing.

Oh, and as for that iPhone Modem icon in the image you may have noticed? It’s the only way you can tether your iPhone, and we’ll have even more on that in tomorrow’s Saturday How-To. Check it!

This Week’s App News On Giz:

• The 25 Best iPhone Apps For Outdoor Adventurers

• WhatTheFont For iPhone IDs Fonts From Text in Snapped Photos

• Turn-By-Turn Voice Navigation Comes to Jailbroken iPhones

• 31 Fart Apps In 90 Seconds

• ServersMan App Turns the iPhone Into an All-Out Web Server

For even more app coverage: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory and our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.