You don’t necessarily have to choose one above the others, but here’s a comparison of their function and features in case you were curious about how they stack up (click to enlarge).

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I tested the new Skype client with my new 2011 27-inch iMac, which is equipped with an HD camera. The person I called reported that video quality definitely looked much better post-update, even though my home DSL internet connection probably doesn’t quite meet the 1.5 Mbps upload/download specification recommended by Skype for HD calls. We talked for approximately five minutes, and he noticed no real change in the quality of the picture.

Skype also says on its blog that the update brings “a number of fixes and improvements to the user interface.” I didn’t notice any major ones, besides changes to the way the contact list appears, including quick access to adding individuals to favorites. For me, the Skype interface still isn’t nearly as clean or well-designed as in versions preceding the 5.0 update.

Skype remains probably the strongest video chat client on the Mac, something backed up by our readers. One of its biggest strengths when compared to Apple’s own FaceTime solution is how consistently it has released small updates that pack new features, whereas FaceTime has remained relatively static since launch in terms of what you can do with it. The HD calling seems to work well, at least based on my limited trial. If you do install the update, please let us know how HD calling and the interface tweaks are working for you.

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Facebook Messenger ($2.99), created by Crisp App, works between iPhone and iPod touch devices, and between your iOS device and the web. Aside from providing a mighty tempting target for accusations of trademark infringement, the app lets users VoIP call online Facebook users on both mobile and web-based clients. On an iPhone or iPod touch, they receive an incoming call screen with the option to accept or deny, or a push notification if the app isn’t open. On the web, your chat target will receive a link asking them to accept your call, which will transfer them to a web page for handling the call. The recipient can take part in the call so long as they have a computer with a microphone and speakers.

I tried out the app calling between iPhones and to the desktop. Both had roughly the same voice quality, which was quite good. The only issue was that both the other caller and I experienced significant delay between when we spoke, and when the other caller heard what we said. There was also an echo effect, so you could hear what you’d just said repeated faintly after you said it. Also, in both cases, the time between initiating a call and the call showing up on the other user’s device or machine was considerable. If you aren’t patient, you might think someone isn’t answering, when in fact they haven’t yet been notified of your call.

Why then, should Skype be concerned about Facebook Messenger? Because despite early hiccups, the concept behind the app is killer. Facebook is already probably the de facto way a lot of people communicate, with a much broader reach than Twitter, and it’s becoming even more of a communication hub thanks to its recent messaging system upgrade. If Facebook Messenger can beef up its architecture to provide a smoother, quicker VoIP experience, it could leverage Facebook’s network to leapfrog to the front of the competition, especially if it can somehow integrate video in future iterations. Unless, that is, Facebook decides this is too good an idea and decides to bake the feature into its site and app itself.

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The first week of September has seen a deluge of new arrivals at the App Store. It’s time for me to search through the latest releases for iPhone and hand-pick my recommendations for the past seven days.

This week I’ve been looking at Button, Facebook, BlogPress and Quicksilver.

Button (Free)
One of my favorite sci-fi novels, “Better Than Life,” oscillates between a deep space distopia and an almost perfect Earth as it follows the surviving crew members of the Red Dwarf mining ship. It’s soon revealed that the crew’s collective vision of Earth is actually a highly addictive massively multiplayer online game beamed directly into their brains, leaving their real bodies in a seemingly catatonic state. Rather than take a giant leap towards this sinister style of multiplayer gaming, Button instead takes baby steps. There’s a big button, everyone around the world sees the button, when the button lights up you must push the button, sometimes you win a prize, usually you don’t. Button is effectively a nonsensical distraction that seems to tickle just the right bit of your brain. Plus, you can ramp up the futility by playing as a team. I’ve created a special team called tab just for readers of TheAppleBlog, come join my group and let’s push buttons together.

Facebook (Free)
The official Facebook app has finally received its first major update for some time, bringing the service’s iPhone implementation almost (but not quite) up to speed with the 3GS and 3.0 firmware. For starters, the app’s user interface has been streamlined and tidied up — gone are the tiny buttons, pointless scrollable horizontal groups bar and crash-happy inbox. The main feed benefits from having a clutter free interface and now incorporates likes and comments. The menu screen features several big chunky buttons, designed for ease of navigation. Notably, the app now allows video recording and uploads, a real boon for iPhone 3GS users. However, it’s seems that when Facebook update their app, there’s always something missing. In this case, there are no Push Notifications, an OS 3.0 feature which could have been designed solely for apps just like Facebook.

BlogPress ($2.99)
The official WordPress app just isn’t working out for me. While I appreciate the WordPress app being free, I’m still not impressed by the app’s sluggish navigation and overly technical user interface. In essence, the WordPress app doesn’t feel pretty and it doesn’t work as it should. With this in mind, I’ve been on the hunt for a replacement and BlogPress seems to be just the app to knock WordPress off my iPhone. The app features a WYSIWYG editor, incredibly important as you certainly don’t want to be tweaking your latest post’s code on your iPhone’s keyboard. There’s also video uploading, something which the WordPress app doesn’t currently support, handled by uploading your video to YouTube and then embedding within your latest post. BlogPress also supports posting simultaneously to multiple blog services, including Blogger, MSN Live Spaces, WordPress, Movable Type, TypePad, LiveJournal, Drupal and Joomla.

Quicksilver ($1.99)
And finally, while on the subject of replacing apps, I’ve been on the hunt for an alternative to Nimbuzz — while it’s an excellent feature-rich iPhone IM app, and free too, I’ve been feeling like I need a more streamlined solution. With it’s minimal iChat-esque interface, Quicksilver is the perfect app for a quick bit of iPhone IMing, with one caveat: it’s made for XMPP-compliant servers only, which, in non-geek-speak, means it’ll work with Google Talk but not MSN. The really great thing about Quicksilver is that it incorporates Push Notifications, making it more than worth the two buck asking price. When you close Quicksilver, you’re not logged out of chat, instead you’re status is changed to away. If one of your contacts should get in touch, the message will arrive on your iPhone as a push notification.

That’s all the picks for this week. I’ll be back in seven days with more news from the week and picks from the App Store.

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

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If you are new to chatting, the three major players in the market are AIM, Yahoo and Microsoft (what market are they not part of?). While AIM remains at the top of the mountain (offering great integration for MobileMe customers), rival Yahoo is making it harder for users to stay attached to AIM’s service. For those who aren’t completely satisfied with what AIM has to offer, Yahoo! Messenger is a great alternative or supplement and is a bit more robust, with support for adding users of Microsoft’s MSN Messenger service.

Yahoo has been vocal about its dedication to the iPhone platform, and its support is appreciated and apparent. Unlike AIM, Yahoo! Messenger for the iPhone also supports sending/receiving photos via your built-in camera. It also exists as a free application, and isn’t cluttered with ads like AIM’s free counterpart. Several unique features of Yahoo! Messenger are also supported, including its popular “Buzz!” feature. In true iPhone style, you activate it by simply shaking your phone.

If you are someone who enjoys chatting with users who do not use either service, Yahoo! Messenger also features the ability to send messages to mobile users over SMS, saving iPhone users from SMS charges (similar to AIM).

Having used both AIM and Yahoo! Messenger on my iPhone, I’m a bit biased towards Yahoo’s offering. With better support for seamlessly moving between mobile and desktop use (actually forcing me to sign off my desktop), this keeps me from “losing” messages in one location, unlike AIM. During testing, I kept inadvertently leaving AIM “signed on” on my iPhone and messages were being routed there, instead of showing up in iChat, on which I was logged in as well.

Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone is a free download on the App Store. Check it out and let us know what you think!

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No wonder this went unnoticed by most people. In the grand history of non-newsworthy news, this is right up there.

Two days ago, Apple updated their MobileMe News page with the announcement of 24/7 Live Chat support. If you have a problem with MobileMe, and the topics on the main support pages don’t help, you can hit the “Chat now” button to start a real-time chat session with a MobileMe expert.

I can’t say for certain, but I reckon this is how most of those discussions will play out:

Customer: My Contacts have stopped syncing with my iPhone.

Support Agent: OK, I’ll try to help you with that. There’s no reported problem with the MobileMe service. I need to check your iPhone settings…

[Time passes as settings are checked and rechecked.]

Support Agent: That should correct the issue.

Customer: (Pause) Yeah, my contacts are still not syncing.

Support Agent: You just need to give it a little more time to catch up.

Customer: How much more time?

Support Agent: (Cheerful) Not long!

[24 hours later]

Customer: My Contacts have stopped syncing with my iPhone.

Support Agent: OK, I’ll try to help you with that. There’s no reported problem with the MobileMe service. I need to check your iPhone settings…

OK, all joking aside, I’ve used MobileMe since its first difficult days, and it’s far better now. Apple has continued to improve the service to the point where outages are few and far between and syncing is (usually) a smooth and hassle-free experience. You know…it just works…

…except when it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t work, in my experience at least, it’s for absolutely no good reason whatsoever. In fact, as I write this, I’m about four weeks into a period of “slow” email synchronicity; by that, I mean that my Calendar and Contacts tend to sync between my devices almost instantaneously. Email once did that, too — but not now. Now, I have to tell my iPhone’s Mail app to refresh. But, nothing has changed. This is just one of those MobileMe oddities that tends to come and go over time.

Still, adding this kind of real-live-person-at-the-end-of-a-phone support to MobileMe speaks volumes about Apple’s confidence in the service, and how seriously they’re taking it. And that’s great news for crazies like me who long ago stumped-up the green and paid for MobileMe. Of course, I can’t live without it now.

Maybe I should try calling to test the accuracy of my little imagined exchange?

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It’s the weekend and this is TheAppleBlog…so that means only one thing: the latest picks fresh from the App Store.

This week, Apple news seems to have been predominantly iPhone-centric so, before jumping in to the latest apps, it’s time for a quick refresher of Apple news from the past seven days.

Sony started the week by detailing their lineup for forthcoming iPhone games. The list includes a remake of retro classic Q*Bert, among others, but most notable are plans to release games based on Ghostbusters and James Bond. I hate to disappoint any hopeful readers, but there’s just no way it’s going to be N64 Goldeneye for the iPhone.

Alongside all those other iPhone-occurrences, I managed to squeeze in reviews of two brand new apps: AudioBoo and RelationTips. Earning a Silver App Review Award, AudioBoo (essentially an audio-version of Twitter) is seriously good fun, especially for those with a voice for radio.

Word on the grape vine is that 3D video could arrive on the iPhone as soon as next year. Now that’s soon indeed, but does anyone actually care? I am totally confounded by the notion of using 3D glasses on portable devices. Ever since trying out portable 3D Quake at CES a few years back, I consider 3D to be over-priced, over-hyped and almost useless techno-junk.

And with that said, I’m pleased to tell you that this week I’ve been looking at Super Kaiju Hero Force #2, Eliza, Skype and Match.com.

Super Kaiju Hero Force #2 (free)
After the serious bashing that I gave to Daniel X — an incredibly poor graphic novel released on iPhone — I was overjoyed to discover a comic series on iPhone that gets everything right. Starting with the painfully (and amusingly) verbose title, Super Kaiju Hero Force is a manga-inspired joyride through otaku fanboy culture, mashing super-heros and Adult Swim style humor together in to a colorful mess. This second episode is totally free and absolutely brilliant.

Eliza (99 cents)
Back in the day, before I had discovered the joys of Macs or the woes of Windows, I had an Amiga 500. When I wasn’t playing classics like Rick Dangerous, Lemmings or Cannon Fodder, I’d boot up Workbench and chat to ELIZA. For me this was pre-Internet and so ELIZA, a basic chatbot-cum-therapist, felt like magic. If you’re in need of a pocket therapist, download ELIZA for your iPhone and you can spend hours telling her about your mother.

Skype (free)
With Fring, Truphone and Nimbuzz, I just couldn’t see what Skype for the iPhone could bring to the game. As GigaOm’s Om Malik said earlier this week, there are a few areas for improvement, but setting those aside for a moment, this is a commendable first version (and so it should be, seeing as Skype have taken so long to deliver): call quality is great, browsing contacts is clear, and the interface feels incredibly similar to the desktop version. The app has made front page on my iPhone and, if you’re already a Skype user, it’s well worth downloading the official app immediately.

Match.com (free)
Earlier this week I wrote about RelationTips, an iPhone app that proffers relationship advice. Setting aside our emerging theme of iPhone as therapist, it’s time to let your iPhone play matchmaker. Match.com has finally arrived on the iPhone with an app that services all of your online dating needs as you hunt for love. The app is ideal for Match.com users on the dating scene, integrating profile editing, messaging and photo uploads.

I’ll return in just seven days time with more picks from the App Store. Drop by TheAppleBlog during the week to find the latest Apple news alongside app reviews too.

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

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It’s the weekend, traditionally a time for quiet contemplation of the freshest iPhone releases, welcome to the App Store Pick.

Hang on there one moment though because before we run headlong in to a stack of apps, we’ve got but a few moments to look at the latest happenings on TheAppleBlog this week.

First up, Neil Gaiman’s creepy Coraline just hit the App Store in eBook form. It’s available to download now for $5.99 but we’ve got four Coraline promo codes to giveaway. If you’d like to bag yourself a copy of Coraline, just drop a comment at the end of this post (and make sure to leave an address for us to email the code to), we’ll dish out the promo goodness on a first come first served basis.

Over in iTunes, HD movies are now available for sales and rental too. It’s great that we can reap all the benefits of HD via download, however the price point, $19.99, seems super expensive and thus utterly ill-considered to me. In other film-related news, in a rare publicity move, Apple has opened an official Twitter account, specifically for new trailers, check it out at twitter.com/itunestrailers. Those who doubt the account’s authenticity should check out the Apple Trailers site which now sports a Trailers on Twitter link.

None of this matters though when we consider the real Apple news this week: the long-awaited über-happening that was Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 event; and though they may be Jobless, that didn’t stop a flurry of rumor-mongering activity and excitement focused on the unveiling of the latest iPhone software update, arriving this Summer.

For me, it didn’t disappoint, while there’s still no mention of Flash coming to the iPhone, cut/copy/paste will finally arrive, as will MMS and push. There’s also an array of awesome new features beyond those must-haves. For instance, there’s the iPhone’s new Spotlight page — it brings search to the iPhone — meaning you can simultaneously hunt through contacts, messages, mail and music.

For developers, there’s some serious potential for advanced apps that the iPhone update’s APIs will bring. In particular, access to the iPod library for apps — potentially bringing an added dimension and layer of interactivity to our music collections: think Tap Tap Revenge creating new levels with your iTunes music library.

Moving on to the app picks, this week I’ve been looking at Nimbuzz, Yamanote Soundrop Lite, iGamesDev and Cardsnap.

Nimbuzz (free)
Over at GigaOm, Om Malik mentioned that he’s looking forward to checking out Nimbuzz, a super communication app that touts just about every major IM service, alongside VOIP too. On first look this app is undeniably impressive — setting up is quick and easy, even providing a degree of control over the buddy list — essential for users with tons of contacts over several services. The app looks and sound great too, even — quite unexpectedly — flipping in to landscape mode when needed. For me, and I suspect many others, this is an essential download and has already taken pride of place on my Home screen.

Yamanote Soundrop Lite (free)
I’ve got a soft spot for absurd apps that seem to slip in to the App Store, created by developers who seem to have no notion about who their target demographic might be. I think this is a good thing — it shows that there’s still a spirit of fun floating amidst the dirge of quick-buck, sound-fx apps and useless business tools. This app plays the music from various stations on what I think is a Japanese train-line. With its absurdly long twinkly melodies, this app is useless and cute and, as such, made me smile.

iGamesDev (free)
The concept behind this convoluted game of cards is fantastic. The app is intended as a witty critique of the iPhone game development. The game itself, though, is crazy complicated — resembling something more akin to The League of Gentlemen’s Go Johnny Go Go Go Go, with its nonsensical myriad rules. Unfortunately, the game ends up being amusing only because it’s ironic that this iPhone game about iPhone game development is so poorly coded.

Cardsnap ($9.99)
I’m always interested to know if the expensive apps are actually worth it or if the price is simply the developer’s wishful thinking. Cardsnap — an app for snapping images of business cards which are then processed server-side and synced to your address book — isn’t really worth the price but I imagine business-folk will buy it anyway. The big issue is that the iPhone camera immediately fails when it comes to taking pictures of business cards. The idea is great but the iPhone just ain’t up to it yet.

That’s all from the App Store for another seven days. I’ll return during the week with TheAppleBlog App Review and, as always, on Saturday with my Weekly App Store Picks.

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

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Apple Nets Multi-Touch, iPhone Patents, Better Position From Which to Threaten Palm – A lot has been made of the threatening words spoken by Tim Cook during the Q1 2009 Apple conference call, in which he hinted that Palm’s Pre could be grounds for a suit(s?). Today Apple can further back that up, since they acquired the patent for multi-touch and the iPhone.

Apple Adds New Ad – A new iPhone 3G ad was posted today by Apple on their website, this one again featuring third party apps available in the App Store. The apps featured are Yelp, Osirix, and Classics, and the theme is reading. Because all of those apps require you to read something, see.

Zune Revenue Plummets 50% in 2Q – Microsoft should really just put the thing out of its misery at this point. It’s no good, and it’s doing terrible. For a frame of reference, consider that Apple’s iPod sales rose 3 percent in their own first fiscal quarter. Just kill the thing, for all our sakes.

One Analyst Thinks New iMac Soon, Also It Will Rain Someday In Future – At this point I think the odds are in your favor if you claim a new iMac is on the horizon. Especially when you suggest a whole bunch of logical reasons why they may be waiting, as this particular analyst does.

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This week I pick my 12 favorite apps of the year as we lead 2008 around the back and shoot it’s face off, while gently beckoning a fresh-faced 2009 through the front door.

Just because it’s the holiday season, doesn’t mean Apple news stops happening. Quite the contrary in fact because this week we got all existential with Psystar’s ever-more-fantastical litigation, waxed lyrical with the creators of 12seconds.tv, and even chucked in a special Mac-themed gift — from us to you – for good measure.

Seeing as it’s not just the end of a week but the end of an entire year, I thought a special year-end Roundup was in order. Below I’m bringing together some of the best apps I’ve featured over the year and a few that I didn’t have space to mention. (Note, those looking for my Twitter app recommendation should check out my 12 Twitter Apps article.)

This year, I’ve been looking at Evernote, Harvest, Urbanspoon, Locly, Klick, iPolaroid, Backgammon Online, Cookie Bonus Solitaire, BeatMaker, FourTrack, Stanza and Palringo.

Organization & Productivity

Evernote (free)
It’s the app that tends to be a constant in everyone’s list of essential iPhone apps, enabling you to create quick lists, voice memos and even geo-tagged photos when on the move. Plus, paired with the fantastic (and also free) desktop app, it’s a tool that’ll keep your life in order and your mind clear. Combine this with Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders, providing organizational tips and tricks for creative folk, and your life should be a little less stress free and lots more productive.

Harvest (free)
The folks over at Harvest have created the ultimate tool for freelancers and small businesses wanting to stay on top of time-keeping, invoices, estimates and project management. Alongside the app itself, there’s also a desktop web app and even an OS X dashboard widget. Note that this is an old-school web app — installed by visiting the site and bookmarking it to the home screen. 

Out & About

Urbanspoon (free)
Having just made the move to London, I frequently partake in the many gastronomical delights on offer in the city. When I’m at a loss as to a suitable dining location on one of my frequent food-themed expeditions, Urbanspoon makes the decision for me using a natty little shake-activated slot-machine-style interface (complete with clunky sound effects).

Locly (free)
And for those times when I need other local services, or just a point in the right direction to the nearest ATM, bar, restaurant or hotel, Locly is my multi-faceted GPS-enabled weapon of choice. It can even search for nearby points of interest using Flickr and grab Wikipedia information on the local area.

Photos & Images

Klick (free)
It’s the Swiss Army Knife of Flickr apps, albeit without the toothpick, tweezers or tiny protective shiv. Klick allows you to upload direct to Flickr (with tags), browse photos from your contacts or based on your GPS location, plus even mark favorites and comments. A wonderful app, bewildering both in its feature-set and for the fact it’s still, inexplicably, free.

iPolaroid (free)
Frequently perturbed by grainy photos from my iPhone, I set out to find an aesthetically effective solution to this problem. Rather than employ an iPhone photo editing app — many of which on the store tend to promise much more than they deliver — I settled on iPolaroid. This app applies various retrotastic digital processes to your photo before setting it in a Polaroid frame. It’s silly, brilliant and draws attention away from the dire iPhone camera.

Games & Play

Backgammon Online ($4.99)
Steeped in history and consistently exciting, Backgammon is a wonderful game: skill, luck and competitive yet inane banter makes it an essential multiplayer experience. The thing is, the few Backgammon apps that are on the store are designed more as singleplayer time wasters. This game steps up to the mark by incorporating the FIBS.com game server, meaning there’s an almost constant stream of potential contenders to take on.

Cookie Bonus Solitaire (free)
It’s sometimes the simple games that really endure. Downloading Cookie Bonus Solitaire back when it was originally released, I expected a basic (and perhaps boring) solitaire experience. My expectations were duly slapped to the floor and stamped on, like a young Gary Coleman fighting an angry polar bear, when I discovered that this game incorporates online play, a weird yet compelling scoring system and even several sly cheats.

Sound & Music

BeatMaker ($19.99)
It may seem somewhat pricey, but it’s astoundingly good value considering how feature-packed this iPhone-based sequencer is. Anyone familiar with desktop music-making (from Garage Band to Logic) will know how a sequencer works and be familiar with sampling, effects units and maybe even recording sound too. BeatMaker does all that, and then a little more, on your iPhone or iPod touch. For both amateurs and pros, this is a fantastic creative tool to carry in your pocket.

FourTrack ($9.99)
And where some may feel that BeatMaker is geared towards electronic music producers, FourTrack will appeal to  acoustic musicians (especially guitarists and singers). This is a four track recorder, iPhone and touch compatible, with panning, punch in and out, levels, multiple song storage and even easy sync to desktop. As a composer and producer, this is my ultimate essential tool whenever I stray from my Macbook Pro.

Words & Sentences

Stanza (free)
Having dipped in and out of e-books for several years now, I’d never really enjoyed reading in digital form until Stanza. The app is connected to several online libraries containing tons of free reading material. Most importantly, this means I have access to several (free) Doctor Who books and this is an unexpected yet entirely welcome benefit to having an iPhone with Stanza installed.

Palringo (free)
There are several iPhone IM apps out there that cost a few bucks — including IM+, MobileLinked IM, BeeJive IM and MobileChat — but, while I have standards, I’m also cheap. Not wanting to shell out for an IM app means I chose Palringo: it’s got all the features I need for those moments when I (very rarely) simply must chat with someone on my iPhone.

Back in ’09

That’s it for the 2008. I’ll be back next year with the first weekly roundup of 2009. Here’s hoping we see more polished, useful and entertaining apps and fewer shoddy, flatulence-based cash-ins.

Before you run off to celebrate the future’s impending arrival at the present, drop by the comments and let me know what apps are your must-haves from 2008.

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