That was before Google acquired the property in 2003, bringing co-founder Evan Williams, who would go on to co-found Twitter, into the fold for a brief spell. Blogger has a storied history, but in recent years, competition from Tumblr, Posterous and WordPress has taken the shine off of this particular apple. Google’s decision to bring iOS editing tools out for the service is a smart move, but mostly one that looks a little like playing catch-up, since the above-mentioned services all have similar apps out already.

The Blogger apps work very well, though. You sign in with your Google credentials, and then it puts you right into a composition window for your most recently active Blogger blog, if you already have one. I’d forgotten that I actually have quite a long list of Blogger sites, none of which are active any longer. Still, it’s kind of nice to see that Google is ready and willing in case I want to go back to publishing artsy poetry critiques like I did back in college.

The interface is very spare, providing you with all the tools you need on the top and bottom bars, and leaving a large open space in the middle for uncluttered composition. Transitions happen quickly, and as soon as you edit any of the content fields, the back button turns into a save button. That actually might not be ideal if you want to revert changes you’ve made, but for a quick, light mobile blogging experience it fits the bill. Adding photos from your library or the camera, as well as location info, is handled through three easy access buttons at the bottom of the composition window.

Additional options allow you to quickly switch between your active blogs or choose the default size for posted images, and you can quickly check out what your blog currently looks like on the web, too.

For a barebones editor, Blogger has all your bases covered, in terms of being able to post, change and automatically update your blog’s content. But Google once again seems oblivious of Apple’s larger-screened devices; Blogger works on the iPad, but only in compatibility mode. It’s especially annoying because for an app like this that features a very minimal user interface, a simple port for the iPad’s resolution wouldn’t be asking much.

I left behind my Blogger blogs a long time ago, and though Google got a lot of things right with this app, there isn’t anything there to turn my head away from more recent services like Tumblr or Posterous. And the spartan nature of Google’s app suggests that’s what it wants to accomplish. Anyone excited by this app’s arrival, or is it a case of too little, too late?

Disclosure: Automattic, maker of WordPress.com, is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Flash analysis: Steve Jobs
• Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continues
• Mobile Q1: All Eyes on Tablets, T-Mobile and AT&T

1. Reeder

Most of us likely do a lot of reading on our Macs. Reeder for Mac is a great way to make that reading even more of a pleasure. The RSS app ties into your Google Reader account, and syncs read and unread status Google and with Reeder for iOS devices. The Mac version was already a lot like the iPad version when it first came out, and with full-screen support in the latest version, it’s even more so. Grab a coffee, but leave the newspaper on the table; Reeder with full-screen active provides a distraction-free environment for catching up with all the latest.

2. Screens

When you need to remotely access your computer, there isn’t always an easy solution, especially when you’re trying to connect from the road. Screens (combined with Screens Connect for hassle-free remote access) is a great way to quickly and easily setup and manage VNC access between Macs. With full-screen support, working on your home computer away from home (or your work computer from home) feels even more like you’re actually working on the target machine, since everything you see is on the remote Mac.

3. Fluid

I noted this update when it arrived, just ahead of Lion’s release, but it’s worth noting again. Fluid provides the ability to turn any website into its own, dedicated Mac app by creating a site-specific browser (SSB). Facebook, Google Docs, and Google Plus are all favorite Fluid apps of mine, and full-screen support means I can keep them even more safely contained away from more productive, work-related apps and content.

4. MarsEdit

If you’re a regular blogger with multiple sites on the go, you’ve probably heard of the Mac standby MarsEdit. It’s a blogging client that’s compatible with most major blogging services, including Blogger and Tumblr, and it’s a native Mac app. MarsEdit’s latest update allows you to compose and edit posts in full-screen mode, which means you can get down to writing in a much more distraction-free environment.

5. Sparrow

Apple’s new Mail app in Lion remedies a lot of the problems many users had with it, and brings some nice new features as well, but that doesn’t mean it’ll feel right for everyone. Alternatives are always appreciated, and none maybe more so than Sparrow, a nice light native email client originally designed for Gmail. Sparrow now works with most other email services as well, and it has a refreshing simplicity that Apple’s own offering can’t match. Plus, now that it has full-screen support, it provides a great environment for catching up on your correspondence in a really focused way.

Those aren’t the only apps with full-screen support, but they are my favorite. What are yours, and which would you like to see get the update that don’t have it yet?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q1: All Eyes on Tablets, T-Mobile and AT&T
• Here Come the Social TV Apps
• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide

First, I want to point out that I don’t actually need all that much in a Posterous iPhone app. The point of the service is to provide a dead simple blogging tool that just about anyone can pick up and use. Any iPhone app that interacts with the service should reflect that.

The official app accomplishes this, and does so without feeling limited: a thin line to walk. PicPosterous, by contrast, doesn’t manage to stay on the fair side of that divide. It allows you to post pictures, and only pictures, to your Posterous account.

Posterous for iPhone allows you the same access you’ll find on the web-based post editor, including text-only and combined text/photo/video posts. The post creator also allows you to add tags and optionally geotag your post with your current location.

You can set the preferred size of images and video that you upload, too, in case you’re experiencing long load times or you’re working from your 3G connection and want to avoid data charges. Three size options for both are included.

It also allows you to view and share your site within the app, and delete any posts you aren’t happy with. You can’t edit posts, but I don’t think that’s a major flaw. For me, Posterous is about posting quick thoughts and photos relatively unfiltered. If I don’t like something, I’m not going to spend significant time reworking it, so deleting is probably a better option.

You can access any Posterous blog associated with your email from the app, and navigation is simple, so switching between sites takes no time at all. Maybe best of all, you can even add brand new blogs right from your phone. Of course, if you’re like me, this might prove more of a distraction than anything else, since starting a new personal blog seems so much more tempting than building an existing one.

The Posterous app is free, and it’s available now in the App Store. If you’re a Posterous user, or if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to share thoughts, photos and videos while on the go, this is definitely a must-download.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• Strategies for the Future of Digital Content Storage
• Author to Audience: Disintermediation in Publishing
• Who Owns Your Data in the Cloud?

Blogging on the iPad is a sorry state of affairs — I’m also coming at this from the angle of a prose blog, not a photo blog. Both WordPress and BlogPress allow you to do the same basic features: type in your thoughts and press publish. Neither of the apps let you define links or format your text — you’re limited to plain style. Some of this, I am led to believe from researching other apps with the same problem (Evernote), is how restrictive Apple is on its rich text features. On the other hand, all of the Office-style apps out there let you format text, so I don’t know what’s up. What I do know is, neither of these two apps even come close to the feature set most bloggers need.

WordPress (Free)

As the official app for WordPress, it’s a sad commentary when the best I can say is, “Some of the time, it doesn’t crash. And it’s free.” A quick five minute double-check of some features yielded four crashes. It crashed inserting a picture. It crashed while canceling edits. I wouldn’t be surprised if it crashed while crashing. When I was able to successfully insert a picture, it didn’t show up in the local draft; I had to go out to the local view to see it, and even then it was just code, not a visual. You can, however, manage comments, pages, and assign categories within the WordPress App.

I was also impressed with its offline features. It cached previous posts which made it handy to reference what I’d  said about a topic.

BlogPress ($2.99)

In addition to the hearty, “It crashes less” feature, BlogPress also connects to Blogger, MSN Live Spaces, Movable Type, TypePad, Live Journal, Drupal and Joomla in addition to WordPress. If you’re not using WordPress, BlogPress is the only game in town for you. Unfortunately, it doesn’t connect to Tumblr. I had a lot more success with this app, even within my WordPress-hosted sites. For starters, the only time it crashed on me was when I connected it to Live Journal, and when I relaunched it everything was OK. Inserted pictures showed up inline where I wanted them to, and I could adjust their alignment, but not their size. I was also unable to manage comments or edit static Pages in BlogPress. Still, I found BlogPress to be worth the $2.99.

My recommendation for BlogPress is somewhat grudging. It’s not a bad app, but I’m hard pressed to find many blog posts I’ve ever written that I could do entirely in either of these apps. Almost every post has bolded or italic text, an image, and a link or two. Of those three things, both apps only let me embed the image. Unless I’m writing a rare text-only post, I’ll need the web front-end of each site to wrap up the post. Sure, the apps are good for throwing a post together on the iPad and tossing it in the online Drafts folder for later editing, but it’s pretty sad I can’t rely on either of them to start-to-finish an average blog post.

Hopefully, at some point we’ll see a better selection, as well as the ability to format text and insert links. Until then, BlogPress earns my enthusiastic “At least it sucks less than the WordPress app” seal of approval.

Disclosure: Automattic, maker of WordPress.com, is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

It’s Halloween and so my top pick for this week is Alive 4-ever, a top-down zombie shooter with plenty of guts and gore to go around. I’ve also been checking out TowerMadness Zero, NASA and WordPress 2.

Alive 4-ever ($1.79)

As it’s Halloween, I thought that at least one of my top picks this week should be themed for the occasion. Despite the clumsy sounding name, Alive 4-Ever is a surprisingly polished top-down shooter. The plot is simple and disgustingly cliché: for whatever reason, a zombie apocalypse happens, you take to the streets to rescue other survivors.

The game takes its inspiration from some of the best zombie titles out there, including Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead. There’s a battalion’s worth of weaponry on offer, including zombie-slaying classics like the AK-47. Plus, if you’re after more firepower you’re able to purchase bigger, stronger, faster guns in the shop after each level.

There’s also a Bluetooth multiplayer mode, allowing you to jump into the action with three other friends. Alongside guns, zombies and survivors, the game throws in experience points too. Completing a stage earns experience points, these precious points go towards upgrading your character. In effect, you’re able to become the ultimate undead-destroying warrior.

TowerMadness Zero (Free)

Earlier this month, our own Alfredo Padilla took a look at 49 different tower defense games for the iPhone. Owing to the epic nature of his list, days later Alfredo distilled the document down into five tower defense games worth owning. All of Alfredo’s picks costs a few bucks though and, in this cash-strapped climate, some of us don’t have much money to burn on iPhone games.

That’s where TowerMadness steps in. The game is available in two monetary flavors. You can purchase it for a couple of bucks, or you can download the Zero edition: a totally unrestricted ad-supported version of the game for free. The ads are unintrusive and targeted in such a way that, for the most part, they feel relevant.

Of course the iPhone doesn’t need another tower defense game. Aside from being free, TowerMadness is a pretty good representation of the best qualities of the genre. All the usual TD staples are there — waves of enemies, upgradable towers, strategic play — but it’s all wrapped up in excellent graphics too.

NASA (Free)

National organizations seem to be slowly switching on to the iPhone. Last year, the BBC decided to create an iPhone-specific version of its excellent iPlayer site. Canada’s National Film Board just released a wonderful app for viewing its content on the go. And now NASA has released its very own app, allowing us earthlings to keep up-to-date with space mission news.

The app is essentially like having a tiny mission-control in the palm of your hand. There’s a listing of all NASA Missions, all of which have awesome names like Mars Express and Mars Odyssey. Tapping through to a mission section provides a mission briefing, photos, videos and an ever-so-slightly ominous countdown timer.

For me, the best part of the app is the video section. Rather than attempt to visualize the various space happenings described in the app, the videos bring these extraordinary happens closer to home. You can observe spacecraft launches, see astronauts float around in zero gravity, listen to people in space describe their experiences, and watch history in the making.

WordPress 2 (Free)

The original WordPress app just wasn’t so hot. With a clunky and convoluted interface that was all function and no form, it immediately felt dated. And, for writers and bloggers alike, it certainly wasn’t the most inspiring environment in which to attempt to pen a post.

The user interface has been updated but still, on first look, the app looks worryingly basic. In fact, it’s disconcertingly similar to its clunky counterpart, WordPress 1. I appreciate that the WordPress app is here to serve a function, but, discounting features, surely it could have been executed with a little more pizazz?

Anyway, looks are not the most important thing with WordPress 2. This version introduces several new features to the mix. There’s automatic saving and restoring of posts. A new comments interface which includes author URL and Gravatars. The app even stores password in the keychain. If you’ve got your own WordPress blog, this is certainly an app worth checking out.

That’s all the picks for this week. I’ll be back in seven days with a fresh selection of App Store recommendations.

In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q4: All Eyes Were on Android, 4G and the Rising Tablet Tide
• Report: A Mobile Video Market Overview
• In Q3, the Tablet and 4G Were the Big Stories

I’ve said before that my iPhone is the command center for my life, and at the same time noted that there’s no real end-to-end solution that will let me blog across all services on the iPhone. The full-featured WordPress site is unbearable, and the iPhone app for the same just doesn’t cut it. I can use the drafts method to get an article off my iPhone and into a better front end, I can use Tweetie for Twitter, and I can easily email photos to my Flickr account. But I was struggling to find a one-button solution, but now I have: Posterous.

Now, I’m not going to lie to you folks: While we at TheAppleBlog pride ourselves on bringing you All Things Apple, All Day Long, this post doesn’t necessarily require a piece of Apple-made technology to work. However, if you’re like me and just like reading fun tales of how people use their iPhones in their daily lives you’ll forgive me this one transgression.

Posterous is the latest entry to the micro/social blogging scene; its closest competitor is Tumblr. I’ve got a Tumblr account and have found it lacking, though I can’t quite put my finger on why. I think when I started using it I was trying to force it into being the one-stop solution it wasn’t. I could get my tweets to work with it, and I could get my WordPress account to suck up the feed and Tumblr to do the same, but it always felt like a duct-taped solution. Part of the problem is Tumblr has a counter called Tumblarity which goes up and down as you use — or don’t use — the tool. I’m OCD and that number’s lack of movement bugged the heck out of me because only posts that originated in Tumblr affected that counter; using the feeds didn’t.

Posterous is shining where Tumblr let me down, thanks to a very ingenious tool: email. I tell Posterous what email addresses to accept missives from and it will then happily feed all of my blogging services the contents of that message. It’ll dump them right into my personal blog, create a self-promotional tweet with a link, upload the photo to my Flickr account, create a LiveJournal post, and (something that keeps my OCD happy) create a Tumblr post in a manner that will make my Tumblarity go up.

If you click on this link to my Posterous account, and the links to all the sites I linked to above, you’ll likely see a post with a picture of a very nice motorcycle. That entire post was created on the iPhone and Posterous did the dirty work of cross-posting. So far, the only negative I’ve seen is just when the photo is uploaded to Flickr — I was hoping the message would get added as commentary.

Since my iPhone is always with me, Posterous is letting me carry through on ‘That’s neat, I should blog about that’ inspirations with a tool that requires no set-up or even an Internet connection until I want to upload. I love that I can see a picture of a neat bike on a street corner, snap the pic and in seconds have all of my blogs updated. With so many friends using different blogging platforms, Posterous feels like the Adium of blogging tools.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q4: All Eyes Were on Android, 4G and the Rising Tablet Tide
• Report: A Mobile Video Market Overview
• In Q3, the Tablet and 4G Were the Big Stories

If not, I would recommend checking out the full interview at Comedy Central’s web site, and check out the background context, via a simple “Jim Cramer” keyword search on YouTube, if you’re not familiar with what’s been going on. Here’s the short version: Jon Stewart called out all of CNBC for shoddy financial reporting in a lengthy montage, Jim Cramer took personal offense, John fired back at him, specifically, then Jim went on John’s show and basically got eaten alive. Believe me, I’m not doing it justice.

You might be thinking “I thought this was an Apple blog, because of the name,” but bear with me, there is an Apple angle to last night’s events. During the interview, Jon is continually backing Cramer into a corner and then playing a clip of something he said earlier that completely contradicts or points out the absurdity of what he just said to Jon. During one of these clips, taken from a 2006 interview on TheStreet.com, Cramer mentions Apple by name. And not just briefly, as a throwaway example. He mentions Apple as an example of a company where manipulating buzz around a product is simple, and will definitely affect stock pricing.

Why is this so? Cramer infers that it is because of people like us, who devour any shred of Apple news or information with such zest and zeal that letting slip a simple hint that AT&T and Verizon aren’t interested in Apple’s then-upcoming iPhone would catch like wildfire, and share prices would tumble as a result. Aside from Cramer’s very concrete example, I can think of at least a dozen other times when this sort of thing has happened, and suddenly rumors that later prove to be false take on a more sinister character, since they might be misdirection instead of just accidental misinformation.

It would be easy to accept the role of the patsy in these circumstances, the unwilling conduit of information. But really, I can’t help but feel that I deserve at least part of the blame Stewart is laying on Cramer’s shoulders, since we bloggers often put entertainment before more serious concerns of what cumulative effect our pieces might have, taken together. Also, I really just don’t like the feeling that I’m being used as a plaything by financial gamers.

So what’s the answer? Not to refrain from producing content, obviously. The Apple user community is a rich and vibrant one, and participating in that discussion is too valuable to give up. Instead, we should do what Stewart suggests Cramer do, and be more critical about the information we receive. It’s less about what we report, than how we report it. Too often dubious rumors get reported as the gospel truth, without disclaimer. That’s just as bad as Cramer passively taking for granted every word out of a CEO’s mouth.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• What Google’s Honeycomb Means for Apple and Microsoft

I recently received my brand new Mac mini in the mail, and, as it always is when I get a package from Apple, it was a joyous occasion. For once, I didn’t have to find someplace to cram a huge box, since the packaging is size-appropriate for such a small desktop.

My afternoon the day it arrived was spent going through the extremely satisfying computer-lover’s ritual of setting up a new machine. I didn’t do an automatic set-up using one of my existing machines, because the mini was going to be used primarily as an HTPC, and as such I wanted it specially tailored for such a narrow focus. I wanted to devote as much of the 4 GB of RAM, 2.26GHz processor, and 120 GB HD to media playback as was possible, so I skipped a lot of my usual software installs and went with the basics.

Essential Software

The basics included the latest version of Perian, the all-in-one codec solution for Quicktime, and VLC for when that wasn’t enough; Firefox for browsing and YouTube viewing; LineIn, for audio pass-through from my TV to my speakers; and Rowmote Helper, for use with Rowmote for the iPhone, a great supplementary remote application for the Mac. I also installed Logitech Harmony remote software to go with the brand new Logitech Harmony 550 universal remote bought specifically to compliment the new mini. I’m still debating whether or not to also put Hotspot Shield on the machine so that I can watch Hulu outside of the U.S.

Media Storage

I decided to make my iTunes library resident on the Mac mini’s own internal HD, since I don’t like waiting for the drive to spin for music to start up. I also don’t like the extra time it takes to add music from another source, owing to the extra copy time to the USB-attached drive. My extensive video library, however (all backups of DVDs I own, honest) would be impossible to fit on the measly 120 GB HD, so that would have to stay on the external drive. I may yet invest in a drive with Firewire 800 connectivity to make this an even more practical solution and cut down on playback hiccups.

Connectivity and Calibration

For connection, I was forced to use the included Mini-DVI to DVI adapter, in combination with a DVI-D to HDMI cable. My audio goes out to speakers, so luckily no audio connection to the TV was required. I still think it’s pretty ridiculous that no HDMI out is included in a machine otherwise so perfectly suited to the HTPC role. As mentioned in my earlier post on why I was buying a Mac mini in the first place, I also run TOSLiNK to mini-TOSLiNK cable from my TV to the mini’s mic/input port. I still have four empty USB slots since I use Bluetooth-connected control devices.

It took some fiddling with the display settings, but now I’m more than satisfied with the playback of both standard and high definition video files via the Mac mini. Blacks are still not as crisp or clear as I would like them to be, but that’s probably more of a problem with my somewhat older Samsung 32-inch LCD flatscreen than with the computer.

Playback

Video playback, both streaming and downloaded, offered no problems, and the GeForce 9400M has no problems with full 1080p video, although my TV technically only supports a max resolution of 1360×768, so 1080p is downscaled. Even gaming performance (I briefly installed Lego Star Wars: The Original Trilogy for testing purposes) seems to compare favorably with my iMac (20-inch, mid-2008 with 4GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon 2600 HD).

Verdict

I wouldn’t use it as my primary DVD player, because the mini’s drive produces a lot of noise when it spins, but my Xbox 360 or PS3 can easily fulfill that role. Other than that one minor complaint, and the lack of a true HDMI-out solution, I’m already very much attached to my new piece of Apple hardware. In fact, I’m not sure how I got by without it in the first place. I just hope my iMac doesn’t languish in neglect while I lavish attention on its new younger brother.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks
• Privacy: How to Avoid the Third Rail of Online Services
• Social Media Works, Just Not for BP

Now, I won’t lie, I haven’t been partial to MarsEdit or other software-based blogging solutions in the past. This is actually a point of contention between me and my girlfriend, who is a die-hard MarsEdit devotee. I recognize the many benefits of it, and I do think that it’s a nice piece of software, but I just prefer working directly in the WordPress editor with Google Gears enabled.

The big change in this update is Tumblr support. Before, MarsEdit supported WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, and many others, but this is the first time Tumblr support has been included. If you’re unfamiliar with Tumblr, it’s a relatively recent player in the weblog game, but it offers a degree of customizability not available for Blogger or WordPress users without additional paid features or self-hosted installs. There’s a couple of outstanding issues, like MarsEdit won’t recognize your Tumblr blog if you have your own custom domain name, but you can still edit it, as long as you point your software at the Tumblr-based URL they provide you.

Tumblr support may not seem like that big of a deal in and of itself, but combined with MarsEdit’s already long list of supported software, it definitely adds to its appeal as a one-stop source for all your blogging needs. Especially since Tumblr has become such a hit with the Twitter crowd, owing to its quick and easy posting of a variety of media in a addition to written blog content.

As a recent Tumblr user myself, I’m willing to give MarsEdit another try. I value software that centralizes or congregates otherwise scattered tasks, and that’s exactly what MarsEdit 2.3 does for blogging.

Other than the addition of Tumblr support, the only other improvements seem to be favicon detection, Technorati Tags editing, and some media manager updates. MarsEdit has a free 30-day trial. After that, it will set you back about $30.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• A 2011 Connected Consumer Forecast
• Big Data, ARM and Legal Troubles Transformed Infrastructure in Q4
• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era

The game belongs to the Brothers in Arms franchise, which began with Gearbox Software’s 2005 title Road to Hill 30. The Brothers in Arms series is set in WWII, and console and PC versions feature first-person shooter gameplay mechanics. Hour of Heroes, developed, by gameloft, who also brought the series to the Nintendo DS, is a third-person over-the-shoulder shooter and finally escapes the single-track, limited character control found in similar games like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

You can move about freely in the world of Hour of Heroes, though thankfully tilt control is not used for this purpose. Instead, a control disc appears on the lower left side of the game screen (the game is played in landscape mode, as you can see in the screenshots). Sliding your left thumb around this control disc allows you to move your character through the environment. Touching the screen anywhere where there is no interface button provides aiming and look control. Buttons along the side and at the top allow you to fire, interact with objects and vehicles, and change weapons. You can also reload and control grenade tosses using tilt, and zoom with your scope using multi-touch gestures. It’s one of the most complete, intuitive, and well thought out control schemes available on any iPhone/iPod touch game.

The intro movie is a tad misleading, when it comes to in-game graphics. It looks more like a trailer for one of the Brothers in Arms console titles than an introduction to Hour of Heroes. Still, in-game graphics compare favorably to most iPhone titles. Sound is well done too, and although there is no audio track for story dialogue, a few stock phrases sprinkled throughout the action go a long way towards enhancing the game’s atmosphere.

I was surprised at how easy the game was to pick up and play. The tutorial level gives you a really good introduction to the controls, and to your character’s abilities. And I got to blow stuff up right away! By the time the second level began, I felt like a seasoned pro, and possibly for the first time with an iPhone game, I was focused more on the game itself than on the medium.

If you’re looking for an example of what the iPhone and iPod touch are really capable of as gaming devices, especially insofar as they can appeal to core as well as casual gamers, look no further than Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes. You can get it now in the App Store for $9.99.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q4: All Eyes Were on Android, 4G and the Rising Tablet Tide
• Report: A Mobile Video Market Overview
• In Q3, the Tablet and 4G Were the Big Stories

WordPress launched an iPhone app for posting blog entries right from your device. With my Mac out of commission yet-again, I thought a good test would be a TAB post using only the client.

I used my 1st gen iPhone and the EDGE network to grab the app from the mobile version of the app store. It downloaded and installed very quickly and I was set to go in less than 3 minutes. The app enabled you to setup multiple WP blogs and only needs your site URL and credentials. It then sucks down all your customized settings for posts (quickly, even over EDGE) and lets you start blogging right away. The “Write” screen makes quick work of title, keyword and category entries (very well done interface) and you have the option of saving to local drafts or posting to your site.

Typing a full blog post on the iPhone is no small feat (esp. if you have large fingers) and I was disappointed that there was no option to rotate the display to take advantage of the larger width keyboard.

It does let you embed photos/pictures from your iPhone library (and lets you take one right from the app) – we’ll see how the Seattle library photo looks that I just took and attached.

The app also lets you preview posts in your site template and gives you the option to password protect it.

The WordPress folks obviously spent a great deal of time and energy working on the interface and functionality. While the iPhone autocorrect can make some typing annoying, my overall first impressions are very good. It did crash once on me, but most developers are quick to blame OS 2.0 for bugs.

If you give the app a try, let TAB readers know how it worked for your configuration by dropping a note in the comments.

This whole post was created solely on the iPhone except for the WordPress logo and interface screenshot.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide
• Virtual Worlds: Trends and Opportunities

A neat Blogo feature it the ability to import the post template from your blog (to the best of its ability). This version also adds support for the “Post to weblog: command from newsreaders (and specifically mentions Safari and NetNewsWire). Bainjuice includes a bookmarklet that you can use as well.

A weird-yet-interesting feature is the inclusion of Twitter support. It’s a full Twitter client and even has a “friends of friends” view mode. Another Twitter integration feature is the ability to send new status updates to Twitter (with shortened URLs) when a new article is posted.

Growl support is also now included, but not very configurable (which means you have to get granular in Growl – potentially – to make it non-annoying). Blogo also now claims to support Drupal – one of the reasons I wanted to try it – but, I’ve not been able to get it to work with my Drupal sites, so until that happens, no nods to that claim.

The application crashed on me several times, making it feel more “beta” than “release 1.1″. The features are good and Twitter support rocks, but the interface is still – at least in my opinion – clunky. If they made it more straightforward and less “glitzy,” it would go a long way towards usability. It has quite a bit going for it, though, and version 1.5 or 2.0 should make for a top-of-the-line blogging & micro-blogging posting engine.

Blogo can be downloaded as a 21-day unlimited trial or purchased for $25 USD from the Brainjuice site. If you’ve tried the new version or used the previous version and have some thoughts to share, drop a note in the comments.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• A 2011 Connected Consumer Forecast
• A 2011 NewNet Forecast

I’m not one to get excited about dot-update releases from a software vendor, but a tool that was mentioned in my “must have” post – MarsEdit – has just updated from version 2.0 to 2.1, with that “0.1″ adding far more than a tenth of new features.

One of my major complaints about the previous version has been the horrendous preview feature. While you could connect MarsEdit up to your site CSS style sheets fairly easily, rendering of your entries was always slow and buggy. The new preview feature is fast, responsive and (so far) bug/crash-free. This makes creating entries more fluid and enables you to trust what you see locally rather than having to preview posts on your site before publishing.

One other great, new feature is the ability to search your posts locally. If you contribute to a number of blogs (public or private) or just post quite a bit, this can be a great way to go back and see if you’ve already hit upon a topic before. It can also be a great way to gather support materials for a new post. Since you can use MarsEdit as a note-taking system (you don’t have to post drafts to a server), this can also be a fantastic way to organize small bits of info you keep promising to find a place for.

Finally – for Movable Type and WordPress users – authors have the ability to do free-tagging instead of picking from a list of defined keywords. I’m a huge Drupal fan, and Drupal does have free-tagging support, so perhaps Dan will read this humble post and work on interfacing with the Drupal API’s.

MarsEdit is not free, but it’s a bargain at $30. Dan is very responsive in the ME forums and both he and the app have a presence on Twitter (when Twitter is actually up, that is).

If you have any good/bad experiences with MarsEdit please drop a note in the comments and if you have alternative blogging client/post organization suggestions let us know as well (always good to hear from those three ecto users out there).

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

People showing up for deals on other stuff – and checking out Macs! – rather than lined up to buy Vista. Even a comparison (with photo) of the Tiger launch a couple years back.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks