The weather is warming up and we know that all you rich iPhoners will be busting out your sticks and hitting the fairway. Now golf is a sport aimed at those with disposable income so there are plenty of gadgets on the market for specialized purposes. Range finders, shot tracking etc. None of them will make you a better golfer but everyone tries them because they think you can buy a swing.

Skip all the gimmick gadgetry and just grab your iPhone, there are a ton of great apps for all your golfing needs. For a list check out 10 Kick Ass Golf Apps ay mygolfspy. I was honestly surprised at all the oolness offered by the various apps so I’ll be loading up my iPhone for a few of these when I hit hit the links this spring. And, to answer the obvious question, there is no app that will drain the pool to clean up the Baby Ruth bar.

Showing that its Web application priorities extend to the mobile world, Google on Wednesday demonstrated a version of Gmail for the iPhone that could be used even when the phone had no network connection.

Vic Gundotra, Google's vice president of engineering, showed off at the 2009 GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona what he called a "technical concept" of Gmail even when the iPhone was offline. In January, Google released an offline version of Gmail for desktops and laptops, and like it, the mobile phone incarnation runs in a Web browser, not as a native application.

The software let Gundotra browse and read e-mail even after he switched the phone into airplane mode, which shuts off the wireless network. To watch a demonstration, check the demo video on iPhone Buzz.

Offline applications can't of course retrieve new data from the network, but they do synchronize when network access is restored. Meanwhile, e-mail is stored in a local database on the phone, even when online.

"You'll note that it's very, very fast because it's using that local database," Gundotra said. The application also showed a floating toolbar that was visible even as he scrolled through his in-box.

It's significant for several reasons that Google is eyeing a new version of its Web-based Gmail application for the iPhone. For one thing, the company wants to bring to the iPhone all of Gmail's features--search, labels, and conversations, for example--and Apple's built-in mail application lacks those abilities. But more broadly, the move is significant because it shows how Web-based applications can bypass the control that particular companies such as Apple or Microsoft have over a computing technology.

HTC's newest Android-powered phone, the Magic.

(Credit: Crave UK)

Apple has achieved tremendous success with its App Store, which lets people download and buy software for the iPhone and iPod Touch. But it controls that conduit, and it only can deliver software written specifically for those devices. Web applications run in a Web browser, and all smart phones have browsers--though, of course, hardware and network constraints typically mean they're anemic compared with desktop versions.

In case the point about the power of Web applications was lost on observers, Gundotra showed the same Gmail software running on the HTC Magic, a new phone using Google's Android operating system.

"You now have an ability to build an app that spans devices as long as that device implements the latest specifications of these modern HTML 5 Web browsers," Gundotra said.

The mobile phone version of the Gmail software uses a somewhat different approach to enable offline access.

Where the desktop version uses a Google-developed open-source browser plug-in called Gears to enable offline support, the iPhone version uses the offline data storage standard of HTML 5, the gradually emerging overhaul of the language used to describe Web pages. That technology can cache the state of an application as well as data such as messages.

Of course, getting a modern, full-featured browser on a PC with plenty of memory is hard enough, and mobile browsers generally lag PC versions. However, it should be noted that Safari on the iPhone, like the browser in Android, is based on the WebKit open-source project, and WebKit has been building in offline support. So at least on some higher-end phones, a Web-based version of offline Gmail could be an option sooner rather than later.

While much of what I need is on the Web in one form or another, there are times I need to access information when there is no network available. This has been, until recently, one of the few real issues I have had with the iPhone: notes taken on my computer can’t be shared easily with my iPhone and vice-versa. Recently, I’ve been using SyncBook, an iPhone app that syncs with my Mac via text files over a local network connection.

There have recently been several different apps released that come at this issue from various angles. I have tried a few, and have come to rely on SyncBook for my needs, for reasons explained below. (A word for all the Windows and Linux folks who will complain that I don’t mention their platform - this is not my decision. The developer is not interested in the Windows market, and has no plans for creating a client there. While this is a negative for many, it holds no barrier to entry to me, so will only slightly come to bear on my final grade. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.)

SyncBook is delivered as a 1 MB app downloaded to your Mac. The iPhone app is purchased from the iTunes Store’s AppStore area at http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=290800829&mt=8.

I used Palm devices for most of the last decade. While I was a Newton user first (and still would be if the right device/software existed), the Palm III won me over by being in my shirt pocket whenever I needed it. Writing notes and having them sync with my Mac was quick and clean, and gave me all the data I could want in the palm of my hand. I moved up to Documents to Go during the beta test of version 1, and stayed there until DataViz dropped the ball by not providing compatibility with the MissingSync when this became the only way to sync a Mac. I moved to Mark/Space’s excellent Notebook included with that product instead. I was a happy Palm user, having had the same Tungsten|C for over three years when, about a month before iPhone Launch Day in July of 2007, several folks in my office started discussing the looming Launch with me. After a few more such conversations, I decided to get an iPhone and converge my phone and handheld.

(apology/aside for those who have yet to drink the Apple/iPhone Kool-aide)
I have never, from the first time I held that iPhone in my hands, regretted it. I live in a 3G area, my company is very Mac-oriented and many folks use iPhones. Plus, as a member of an area Mac User group, I have a lot of other friends who are also in that camp. In the last year, however, I’ve noticed that everyone everywhere that isn’t a button-down business person or lawyer seems to be toting an iPhone: mothers, pastors, chemists, architects - everyone. I see them at church, in stores, in restaurants, and on the street. Students, musicians, baristas - it’s strange to me that these things are so prominent in my area. (I live in central North Carolina, in an area known as the Research Triangle, where we have loads of high-tech companies, in addition to three large research universities: Duke University, University of NC at Chapel Hill, and NC State University. This may account for the large geek cred of the area.) For these reasons, I assume most of these people are not “Apple fanboys” but True Believers®. So, that’s my bias, but you can see where it comes from.
(end aside)

Here’s how this pair of apps works: Download the Mac version and install it. This will create a folder for saving text files in your Documents folder. Purchase the iPhone app ($3.99) and sync. In order to sync these two, you’ll need to either be on the same wireless network, or create a wireless network on your Mac for the iPhone to connect to. (How to do this is beyond the scope of this review, but it’s trivial. If you’re reading this, you’re enough of a nerd to know how to do this or to have friends who do.)

Run the app on your Mac, and in the iPhone app, click the small gear on the bottom left. This is the “Settings” icon. In Settings, the first item is Syncing. Click to search for your Mac. Once you see it, click to select it and go back to the main window. Now, whenever you want to sync, click the circular arrow on the bottom left of the screen. New notes you create on the iPhone will show up in the list on your Mac, and new text files you place in the folder the Mac app created will show up on your iPhone. (As with any syncing program, changing both versions before syncing will cause data confusion. SyncBook realizes this and does warn you, but how you get out of it is up to you, because you know which changes are more important. It’s easy enough to select all and copy on the Mac, sync, then paste in the copy and compare, but it’s so fast to sync, you shouldn’t let yourself get into this situation.)

While you don’t have to, the latest version of SyncBook Mac has a button to “Add Note” that creates a note in the Notes folder, already added to the list and ready to update. I’ve been using this to create a notes with no problem.

Looking at the Mac window, you can see small color labels on some of the icons. There are unlimited categories you can add to and name as you feel, and a select few colors (helpfully named “Red”, “Orange”, “Green” and so forth) that you can optionally assign to your documents. This can only be done on the iPhone app, but shows up on the Mac at the next sync.

For the money, it’s one of the cheapest and best notes syncing apps I’ve seen. There are freebies that aren’t as powerful or require an odd format on the Mac, or require syncing through a web service, rather than directly. Evernote, the most notable challenger (and one I had been using for a while before finding SyncBook) is one such alternate. I’ll post another review of it later, but, briefly, it has a Mac client (and one for Windows), an iPhone app, and a web app, where you create a login. All data is always synced to the web first, then sent out to other clients. This works wonderfully, until you want to sync something really secure that you don’t want anyone, anywhere, to accidentally have access to - medical records, business info, financial records, whatever. With SyncBook, I can be riding on a train with no network access, fire up my Mac’s ad hoc access point, find that network on my iPhone, and sync everything immediately, securely, and with no worry about network connection speed. (I had only thought this was an issue, thinking no one would really want to look at things posted to a note account, when I saw a tweet from @EverNote commenting on a picture of a whiteboard written in Chinese. They actually sent a link to everyone on their list linking to a user’s data, and admitted that they had no idea what it said. It could have been his phone number, or plans for a new internet device, or the timetable for their bid to world domination. In any case, it was not Evernote’s right to post it. But that’s the choice you have to make when using a web service. SyncBook will never expose your data to anything beyond your local wireless LAN. If you have something you want to keep private, private it shall remain.

There are a few bumps on this road to happiness. For one, the Mac app has almost no control, other than creating, removing and showing notes. You can’t create or edit categories, sort, change labels, or anything else on the Mac. On the iPhone, you can move categories into any order you choose, add and edit categories and colors, and change font shape/size/color globally. There is a search feature on the iPhone app, but other than telling you a certain word or phrase appears in a note, it doesn’t help. (Granted, with no selection feature for text available in the iPhoneOS, this can be partially forgiven. But they could offer to find and move the cursor to the beginning of the target phrase.) Syncing via wireless is great if you have a MacBook of some flavor, but if your machine is the base-level MacPro (the only Macs that don’t ship with a built-in wireless card), you’ll have to figure out another option. One editing snag that continues to irritate me on the iPhone: when I’m editing, or even if I’m scrolling and happen to hold my finger still for too long, it switches to Edit mode, and I lose the scroll-by-flicking that is at the heart of the iPhone. I’d rather be in browse mode until I decide to edit, hit the button and go. Then I’d like to turn off the editing and go back to scrolling, without having to close the document and open it back up.

For me personally, this app combo is a solid 4 out of 5 stars. I don’t create huge notes that need internal searching, and I don’t need Windows. Sorting on the Mac and a slightly more robust viewing/sorting/categorizing feature would add a lot, as would options such as an “edit” button, but it’s so functional for me currently (in my minimalist way) that this cluster of missing features is only one star.

For many others, however, I’d have to rate it 3 or 3.5 out of 5 stars, since Windows compatibility is important, and some may be after more features. While you can’t have the same pricing and distribution structure on Mac or Windows apps that you do with iPhone apps, having an advanced “syncs with Windows” version that only added that capability and cost more but provided a “free” Windows app download would be a great feature for those callous Philistines who insist on staying with the Devil’s OS. (I’m kidding, just kidding. Stop writing hate mail!) Or charge for the Windows version, since he’s probably going to have to hire that out.

1. Weather.

When I want to know the weather, it is just quicker to check my iPhone than find the Mac widget or dial up weather.com.

2. GPS Maps.

If I want to do some local area mapping, it is much easier firing up the Maps app and hitting the little blue button on the lower left than firing up a browser and a maps bookmark or Google Earth then inputting the current location. More complex mapping operations may require more work by the computer. This might change if Snow Leopard has Core Location functionality.

3. SMS and Phone.

I know I am being a bit 'Captain Obvious' here but with Skype and SIP apps on the Mac, I often use the computer to make calls and send SMS messages. That being said, when I want to do any of things, my tendency is to reach for the iPhone first.

4. Facebook.

The iPhone Facebook app is great and a great way to cure 5 minutes of boredom. Sure you can do more with the regular webpage, but its all right there on the iPhone.

5. Music.

At work I have my whole music collection both on my iTunes and my iPhone. I reach for the iPhone first for some reason. Perhaps it is the ability to walk around with my music on the iPhone. It certainly isn't a chore to listen to music on the iPhone (Which Steve Jobs called "The best iPod we've ever made")

6. Checking Email.

I naturally reach for my iPhone when I want to check my email. It's pretty quick and easy and I have the first 5 lines of the email in the subject line so I don't have to open most of them. If I want to write an email, I definitely head over to my desktop.

7. Contacts/Addressbook.

The Contact and Addressbok in the iPhone works well enough that I haven't opened the Addressbook on my desktop in a few months.

8. Gaming.

I actually enjoy gaming on the iPhone more than on my Mac. It may be purely psychological or maybe I enjoy the ability to take the game on the road with me, but when I want to play a quick game (GL Golf is my current favorite) I head to the iPhone.

9. Notes.

I take most of my important notes when I am on the road so when I need to get to them, they are on my iPhone. It would be nice if Apple let me sync my stickies and my iPhone notes. Until then, they are on my iPhone.

10. Twitter.

I use Tapulous to let those around me know what's up and where I am. Again, this is more about the GPS Core Location functionality than the App being better than my desktop client. It certainly takes more time to enter the data into my iPhone than it does the computer...and I can't cut and paste URLs either.

As Apple ramps up the capabilities, processor and screen of the iPhone, more and more computing tasks will be offloaded from my main machine. Am I alone? What do you use your mobile for that you once used primarily on your traditional computer?

Are you addicted to YouTube? Definetly you need this app. TubeJunkies is an app made just for YouTube addicts. You can subscribe to video channels and never miss any new videos uploaded.

Its features include:

• Subscribe to video channels based on search texts, youtube users, or video tags.
• Watch subscribed videos from within TubeJunkies.
• Delete/Sort video channels.
• Refresh individual video channels.
• Refresh all video channels.
• Mark all video channels as viewed or not viewed.
• Mark all videos in a channel as viewed or not viewed.
• Mark individual videos in a channel as view or not viewed.
• Hide viewed videos, or simply make the row more translucent.
• Viewed videos will be remembered across channels so that duplicate videos in a different channel will also be marked viewed.
• Show a badge number in Springboard to indicate the number of new videos.

You can download it from iPhone AppStore for $5.99 (too expensive, right?)

You’re familiar with the rumors about Flash on the iPhone, every week a new date for when Flash will show up on the iPhone pops up. The second most rumored iPhone event is the iPhone showing up in China. And if Apple wants to sell the iPhone in China he company wants to partner with China Mobile the largest cell provider in China by a long shot.

Turns out that China Mobile wants more control than Apple is willing to give. According to The Washington Post the latest round of negotiations broke down over who would sell apps to customers. As you would imagine Apple wanted the direct to consumer sales model the company enjoys everywhere the iPhone is sold but China Mobile saw that move as giving Apple too much power and rejected the idea. With 72% of the market and 634 million subscribers China Mobile can swing a big stick.

You’ll know Apple finally capitulated to China Mobile’s demands when the iPhone goes officially on sale in Chine. But don’t hold your breath.

Callpod is a name that is associated with premium mobile accessories and software applications that target working professionals, and the company has recently rolled out the Keeper, its maiden outing in the world of mobile software application for smartphones. The Keeper’s debut is available on the iPhone platform only at this point in time, although we would like to have seen it make an appearance on Windows Mobile as well as Symbian platforms since there are more of such devices on the market compared to the iPhone. What does Keeper do, you ask? The answer is pretty simple actually - it enables allows users to quickly and easily store all sensitive passwords, notes, lists and other personal information in a safe and secure environment. In addition, Keeper will let users to fully search, index and protect information with multi-layer encryption. Secret passwords and sensitive information on the user’s device will also be stored and backed up on your local computer be it PC or Mac instead of online, reducing the risk of being exposed when stored in an online environment to keep valuable information safer. Should your handset go missing by accident, fret not - your data is under the protection of 128-bit military-grade AES encryption.

Interestingly enough, despite the iPhone’s popularity across both generations of the handset, there are still no safeguards in place to keep your precious data protected from prying eyes, making it one of the easier way to steal a user’s identity if you’re so inclined. Hence the existence of Keeper, touted to be the “ideal solution to protect vital information including account numbers, passwords, social security numbers and anything else that users need to protect” by Callpod. Features of Keeper include :-

• Military-Grade Encryption (128-bit AES)
• Import/Export/Backup your data
• Share data between your PC/Mac, multiple iPhones
• Real-time Search
• Self Destruct Mode
• Keeper is stable, secure, fast and extremely easy to use

You can download Keeper from iTunes for $4.99.

Skype rival Jajah has announced a new application that would potentially allow users to turn their iPod Touch into an iPhone.

The move would allow Touch users to call and text using Voice-over-IP. All users would require is a Wi-Fi connection and the application to start making the calls.

"It's great for young users especially in colleges who have an iPod Touch and Wi-Fi everywhere," says Trevor Healy, CEO of Jajah.

But here's the catch. The product isn't available yet. Jajah is looking to partner with telecom carriers to offer it to users with a monthly subscription fee attached.

The company says it is also considering releasing it on the iPhone App store. But it is not clear if Apple will allow Jajah to bypass the telecom carrier on the iPhone.

Skype, for instance, is not available as an app in the iPhone store. But Apple has allowed Fring, an application that allows users to chat across multiple messengers including Skype.

Despite Jajah's promise, it is unlikely that the application will eat into iPhone sales. An 8GB iPod Touch costs $230 compared to the iPhone's AT&T subsidized $200. It also doesn't promise full connectivity as with a cellphone. Users have to stay connected in a Wi-Fi zone at all times to send and receive calls.

Jajah says it would prefer to 'white label' the application, which means carriers can launch the application under their own brand. "They can set a $10 or $20 monthly fee for the service," says Healy.

equinux, has just released two free iPhone Apps: Live TV and TubeToGo as companions for its TV receiver TubeStick. Mac users can turn their iPhone into a TV with a mobile video library. With Live TV, users can stream live TV programs directly to their iPhone from their Mac with The Tube. With TubeToGo, they can access TV recordings on their iPhone whenever and wherever. They can even program recordings in The Tube on the go.

Have an iPhone and looking for a safe way to unlock it without having it bricked? IphoneUnlocking.com has the solution for you with its latest iPhone unlocking software that prides itself in being able to unlock all iPhones successfully without taking up more than five minutes. As long as your iPhone falls under the 4GB v1.0.0 to the latest 16GB 3G v2.2 category, you will be able have it up and running on a carrier of your choice without too much hassle. Other features made available to your unlocked iPhone will include full iPod capability, YouTube video support, compatibility with popular applications including Google Maps, RSS feed support and Wi-Fi connectivity. Not only that, the package will also include the iPhone Stumbler which allows the user to check out any wireless networks in the area. AT&T and Apple surely won’t be too happy about this, that we’re sure.

If Apple's sat back and let the iPhone hacking community do its thing in peace (well, relative peace) so far, this little gem just might be what the doctor ordered to stir up the crap. Crackulous -- available now in beta form through Cydia -- claims to be able to strip the protection off most apps downloaded from the App Store, meaning that just a single user needs to take the plunge and buy a target app once to get it busted and into free circulation. You need a jailbroken iPhone to get Crackulous loaded, naturally -- you'll see Apple make a Windows Mobile-powered device before you'll see Crackulous in the App Store -- but seeing how PwnageTool is dead simple to use, this puts most users just a couple graphical tools away from foolproof piracy and the golden opportunity to take a few hard-earned bucks out of a programmer's pocket.

As iPhoneWorld.ca reported, the newly released iPhone firmware v2.2.1 is hindering the operation of Yellowsn0w iPhone 3G unlocker. In fact, you will need a baseband from an older iPhone firmware in order to make Yellowsn0w work with iPhone firmware v2.2.1. So if you’re upgrading, downgrading, or modifying your iPhone’s firmware, you will obviously need to find the proper firmware that you’re looking for. Below is a list of all currently available firmware versions for both the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G, from v1.0 to v2.2.1.

iPhone 2G (Original iPhone) firmware downloads:
- Original iPhone firmware v1.0
- Original iPhone firmware v1.0.1
- Original iPhone firmware v1.0.2
- Original iPhone firmware v1.1.1
- Original iPhone firmware v1.1.2
- Original iPhone firmware v1.1.3
- Original iPhone firmware v1.1.4
- Original iPhone firmware v2.0
- Original iPhone firmware v2.0.1
- Original iPhone firmware v2.0.2
- Original iPhone firmware v2.1
- Original iPhone firmware v2.2
- Original iPhone firmware v2.2.1

iPhone 3G (New iPhone) firmware downloads:

- iPhone 3G firmware v2.0
- iPhone 3G firmware v2.0.1
- iPhone 3G firmware v2.0.2
- iPhone 3G firmware v2.1
- iPhone 3G firmware v2.2
- iPhone 3G firmware v2.2.1

Bloomberg's interview with Adobe's Shantanu Narayen reveals that Adobe is developing Flash for the iPhone, it's been in development since June 2008, and is a customized solution just for the iPhone

Apple has said repeatedly that regular desktop Flash is tooe heavy (on CPU, and thus battery life) for the iPhone, whereas Flash Lite is too lousy. Jobs has coerced Adobe to create a custom solution. From Narayan's words of "the ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver," the engineering effort lies more in Adobe's engineering team than in Apple's.Adobe actually said, back in September '08, that there would be a version released "in a very short time" if Apple approved it. Obviously either Apple rejected it, or Adobe themselves decided it wasn't quite resource-friendly enough to launch.

With Android getting all Flash-ey, Apple's "Goldilocks" position on Flash -- the full Flash player is too hefty, Flash Lite is too weak -- seemed pretty untenable. Now Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has revealed that Apple and Adobe are "collaborating" on making Flash a reality on the iPhone, citing the technical challenge it presents. What's clear is that with all this work to do, it doesn't seem they're going the watered-down Flash Lite route, but we're trying not to hold our breath for a full-on, Hulu-friendly version that will finally help us get that Doogie Howser fix on the go. Naturally, there's no word on when this will hit.

Don’t call it a case. That word implies durable protection, which this Gilty Couture product is not. A $125 buys you a gold-plated bezel that’s sure to invoke more unneeded iPhone safety paranoia. Now, not only do you have to anally obsess ‘bout the phone’s glossy plastic back and the delicate touchscreen, but now this damn bezel. Is that how you wanna live? Really? Not me. Hell no. A gold case? Gold is too soft for that type of task. Sure, it might earn ya pimp points in some circles but the rest of the world understands why cases aren’t made out of gold. It scuffs and dings too easy.

Truth be told, the bezel is well made. It fits the iPhone like a glove and does everything that it’s suppose to like a high-quality product. None of the phones functions are compromised and it doesn’t add that much bulk. But still, it’s a gold-plated bezel. For $125. However, chances are that if you initially have the coin to drop on this case, the trust fund can afford another after some of the crystals eventually pop out and gold rubs off. Maybe I just don’t get it.

Stop me if you've heard this one: Dell might go into the smartphone business. OOOLLLDDD? But today the WSJ reports Dell's closer than ever, with prototypes built in two different styles and two competing platforms.

The two styles may seem familiar to you, as demonstrated by my totally fake images above. One, we'll call "iPhone," is described by the Wall Street Journal as "a touchscreen but no physical keyboard." The other, which we'll call "Pre," is a "slider-style phone with a keypad and that slides from beneath the screen." Dell is reportedly exploring both Windows Mobile and Android, and has both operating systems running on its prototypes. The WSJ cites those always helpful "people familiar with the matter," and says the formal move into the phone market could happen as early as February, perhaps just in time for the 3GSM global phone biz show in Barcelona on the 15th.

As I so subtly alluded, Dell has been in the smartphone business, or at least rumored to be, for some time. We heard about an impending smartphone in April 2007, then again in December 2007, solidifying last January before being quickly smashed down again. Just two weeks ago, the rumors surfaced again, as analyst extraordinaire Shaw Wu predicted Dell would do the Android secret handshake, publicly, at 3GSM. So the Journal report confirms these rumors, with solid substantiation. (Let's just hope the "people familiar with the matter" don't all turn out to be Shaw Wu wearing wigs and fake moustaches.) As the Journal states, the most likely peg for this happening soon, and reason for the delay up till now, is that Ron Garriques, former head of the cell business at Motorola, can finally build phones for Dell.

He left the burning building in Libertyville Schaumburg, IL for the greener pastures of Round Rock, TX under a noncompete clause that won't lift until...yep...next month. Garriques and his former Moto crony, John Thode—current head of netbooks and cheap PCs at Dell—are probably planning one heck of a comeback. If the combination of Dell and Motorola DNA doesn't render that completely impossible

PhoneFramer makes easy work of framing your photos so you can send them off with a special touch. Choose from hundreds of ready-made frames and personalize your photos with anything from simple borders to blooming hearts.

The iGirl application consists of a beautiful 3-dimensional female model that can be manipulated by the user to perform various actions, including dancing and speaking.