All articles tagged , Fun, iPhone, iPod touch, Map, Search, Social Networking, Tips, Travel, Web Apps

Outalot is a new, and free, location-based discovery site specifically designed for iPhone and iPod touch owners who want to be reminded of what’s nearby, or would like to discover new places. The founders of Outalot, Joe Cohen and Jesse Boyes, have domain expertise in location-based services having worked at Vindigo for over four years. Unlike Vindigo’s platform-specific mobile software, Outalot is purely web-based and optimized for the iPhone and iPod touch. Outalot is available to anyone using a web browser, but the city data is currently limited to San Francisco and New York. These test-bed cities will be used to improve the user experience before more cities are added the service.

There are many services, both online and mobile, that work well if you already know where you’re going - that’s more the search paradigm. We wanted a product for location-based discovery and knew others did, too. - Joe Cohen, co-founder of Outalot

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Whoa, we didn’t see this one coming. Sphere, software that connects contextually relevant content to your content, has been acquired by AOL for a rumored $25 million. Sphere was originally a search engine for finding content on blogs but then morphed into an engine to discover contextually related content with clients like the Time, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, and many others. AOL has taken this new technology and created a very nice search utility specifically tailored for the iPhone and iPod touch. The interface blends the iPhone’s mulit-touch surface with AJAX to deliver a user experience that allows the richness of the web to shine on mobile Safari. This new search tool has features you won’t find in Google or any of the major search engines. If you’re tired of Google or just want to check out a new way to find good stuff on the web using your iPhone, then check out this surprisingly great search utility from AOL. Who’da thunk? Learn more after the jump.
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Sure, we know that web portals are soooooo nineteen ninety-eight, but we also know that the iPhone age is breathing new life into these destination sites, especially when they are optimized for the iPhone and iPod touch. Take myijump.com for example. At first glance this looks like another iPhone portal site offering a convenient starting point for web surfing from mobile Safari. However, a deeper dive into myijump reveals a virtual cornucopia of web sites and web apps that are all optimized for the iPhone or iPod touch. The web apps are all categorized under tap-formatted buttons designed for the touch interface. With games, entertainment, news, sports, social networking, productivity, free iTunes music, and more, you will find something for everyone here making myijump.com worthy of a web clip on your device.
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Early stage start-up, Buzzd, is buzzing with good press after winning multiple awards for the best mobile application. Although Buzzd was not specifically created for the iPhone, it is designed to work well on any mobile device including the iPhone. Buzzd is targeted to the local social butterflies, people who like to go out at night and on the weekends to clubs, concerts, and other events. You simply tap in your location and get back a list of all the events in your area. You can rate events or shout them out to your friends via SMS. You can even connect with people at the event using Buzzd. This is great, unless you live in the boonies, in which case Buzzd will only serve as a reminder of how lame your town is. For everyone else, check out Buzzd at www.buzzd.com/m and bookmark it for your next night out.

The creators of SiteHoppin’ know that except for ice cream, beer makes just about everything better, and that includes the web. It’s tough to disagree with that, especially after using SiteHoppin’ on our iPhones and iPod touches. SiteHoppin’ lets you quickly discover new, interesting web sites with minimal typing and tapping, which we presume, allows more time for drinking beer.

SiteHoppin’ is a close cousin of StumbleUpon, letting you move from site to site based on your preferences. Like StumbleUpon, you can rate rate sites but instead of a five star scale SiteHoppin’ uses, yes you guessed it, a beer scale. The more beers the better. However, unlike it’s popular cousin, SiteHoppin’ is tailor-made for mobile Safari.
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Last year at Macworld, Steve Jobs rocked the casbah with the announcement of the iPhone. Speculation is running high this year on what Jobs will announce tomorrow during this year’s Macworld keynote. Personally, we doubt Apple can top the iPhone news, but you never know. Today is the first day of the Macworld conference and Google preempts Apple’s strike with a bomb of it’s own. The complete Goolge web suite gets another makeover today with full optimization for iPhone and iPod touch. The enhancements include customized tabs for easy access to all of Google’s web apps, faster Gmail, and the inclusion of iGoogle, the customizable home page now with gadgets for the iPhone and iPod touch.
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Apparently, Yahoo doesn’t give a hoot about the iPhone. In a move as perplexing as the Iranian navy, Yahoo announces Yahoo Go 3.0 which will allow users to add widgets to their cell phones. However, instead of adopting standards-based widgets that will work on the iPhone firmware, or even on Google’s Android operating system, Yahoo opts to support the deeply fractioned mobile markets that are destined for the tar pits in the very near future. Unlike iPhone and Android, Yahoo Go is not an operating system and therefore there is no guarantee for developers in getting distribution of widgets to consumers.
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For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, Ask.com has fired the butler and released tons of new search features to take on Google. Although we love Ask’s gorgeous new home page and their award-winning 3D search results, we wonder who writes their search algorithm (type in “is it legal” and read the suggestions to see what we mean). Even more disconcerting is the absence of our Touchtip home page when searching “iphone tips”. We’re currently ranking #1 in Google, #9 in Yahoo, and no where to be seen in the Ask results. Oh well, we’ll let them slide for getting rid of that ugly butler and adding a killer new feature that is great for getting directions on the iPhone, especially when driving. It uses voice recognition, and this is how you use it.
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