Birdfeed 1.2
The biggest change in Birdfeed 1.2 is geolocation using the official Twitter API, which embeds the location of a tweet as metadata, unlike previous Twitter app geolocation powers, which were workarounds. It's probably my favorite implementation since it's the dead simplest, with a tap adding location to any tweet. Also new and excellent is support for Flickr, designed in a fairly elegant way. Of course, there's a bunch of smaller tweaks too, and now it's only $3, down from $5. It's still my favorite looking/feeling Twitter app.

Tweetie 2.1
Tweetie 2.1 has a bunch of gut changes that add up to a better experience. The big things are that there's now native support for Twitter's new official retweets (love 'em or hate 'em) and Twitter lists. Also, in-app spam reporting (yay) and better geolocation using Twitter's official API. Free update, of course.

Twidroid 3.0
Android's most powerful Twitter app is a lot more usable now. The main thing for me is that it finally supports threaded conversations, so you can see what the hell people were replying to. In-app link and photo previews, new keyboard shortcuts, and lots of other smaller UI tweaks. For the future, plug-ins could be huge. The first one is Google Maps, which is nice to have. Oh, and it doesn't look like ass on the Droid anymore.

[Twidroid, Tweetie, Birdfeed]

At first glance the browser is a bit of a mess: its Android Market listing is subliterate, and its interface—the tabs, specifically—look kind of assy on the Droid's higher-resolution screen. Beyond the glitches, though, it's a capable browser, with gesture support, RSS integration and yes, multitouch.

Dolphin's multitouch implementation works on a number of handsets aside from the Droid, from the Hero, which supports multitouch out of the box, to Cyanogen-modded G1s and MyTouch 3Gs, which don't. It works much better on faster hardware though: where it's a bit laggy on a stock Hero, it's surprisingly smooth on Motorola's speedier terminator phone. At any rate, it's free, and available now in the Market, so, go. [Dolphin via Engadget Mobile]

To see the gallery on a single page, click here.

Other Android App News

•Android 2.0 Full Review
• Google Maps Navigation
• Mikandi: The World's First Porn App Store for Android
• Higher Res Qik Video Streaming With Droid
• Gameloft Scales Back on Android Development (Then It Doesn't)
• How to Make That iPhone-to-Android Switch
• A New Layer That'll Make You Sick (By Tracking Government Bailout Dollars)
• Android's Conquering the Mobile Internets (With iPhone)
• Google Navigation for 1.6 Devices
• Chrome OS and Android Are Coming Together, One Day
• Sergey Carries a Droid, Wears Footies
• Sony Ericsson's Custom Nexus Interface Hands On
• Vimeo Works Better on Android Now

This list is in no way definitive. If you've spotted a great app that hit the store this month, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here. See ya next month.

MiKandi is a white label app store for free and paid-for apps, allowing developers to upload more content around their filthy apps—including YouTube tutorials if you're so inclined. Asking developers "Maybe you're feeling like your innovative juices are being squeezed by not having the screenshots or video you need to properly showcase and sell your product?" they promise not to restrict any app unless it's illegal, further widening the cavity between Apple and Android. [MiKandi via PocketGamer]

The cherries (and various other icons) are part of Waze's new "Road Goodies" program, which essentially turns the navigation service—which has, by most counts, gotten a lot better over the past few months—into a simple point-gathering game. The point of these points? Well, the treasures are placed wherever there are gaps in Waze's map data:

For instance, if there's an area where we detect a disconnect in two streets on the map, we'll place a goodie over there in what we believe is the point of intersection. Then, when someone heads over to munch the 'goodie', it will solve the disconnect, telling the waze system that these two streets do indeed intersect.

The points don't get you anything outside of Waze, ahem, street cred, so this is basically just a big ploy by the company to extract free labor from their user base. Which is fine! Though I feel Waze should probably scatter a few di, for when people start driving into deadly ravines in the name of fake treasure.

The new version of Waze is live in the App Store and Android App Market right now. [iTunes]

We're not sure when the sale ends—maybe ALK hasn't decided—but if you have at least a marginal interest in GPS apps for your iPhone or Android, it might be time to plunk down some cash for it. $20 ain't free, and CoPilot's looks sometimes verge on gaudy, but it's a competent, frequently updated app, and now a steal compared to even the cheapest subscription GPS app. [Android Version; iPhone Version; iTunes Link]

Update: This offer is extended until 9am Eastern Time on Tuesday, December 1st.

Finance director for the company, Alexandre de Rochefort, says that even a company that's done extremely well on the iPhone can have trouble breaking even on Google phones:

We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like ... many others ... [The Android Market] is not as neatly done as on the iPhone. Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue.

That's the essence of the App Effect: High volume, customer pressure and nudging from Apple drive iPhone app prices down break-even levels, which gives app developers two options. They can either charge higher prices for equivalent apps on Android, for which they will be crucified by customers, or they can match their prices, and hope that enough of Android's comparatively small, fragmented user base just happens to stumble across said app in the barely navigable App Market. An attractive business proposition, I say!

So what needs to happen? Either Android adoption grows (which it's doing), the App Market gets much easier to navigate (a desktop app, maybe?), or you know, both. Reuters]

It's All in the Google Cloud

Android phones don't sync with your computer. That's because they don't have to: Your contacts, calendar and mail are all kept up in the great Googleyplex. Unfortunately, Google's Contacts manager, while it's gotten better, is kinda crappy, and all of your Contacts are beamed down to your phone from there.

So even after you get the actual contacts you wanna talk to exported to Google Contacts, one problem is that all of your Google contacts, like everybody you email, show up on your phone. What you have to do is either sort your contacts into different groups and tell the phone's Contacts app to show only the groups you only wanna see, or to only show you people with phone numbers. If you wanna sync your contacts, so you have a master copy on your computer and can manage them from there, that problem takes a bit of legwork—at least on Windows.

If you're on a Mac, it's easy to keep your Contacts synced—just tell Address Book to sync with Google. On Windows, you'll need a third-party app, like GO contact. That way, you can manage your contacts on your desktop, and have a local copy that's always synced up with what Google's got.

Calendars are easier: Google's got an app for that.

Exchange support varies from version to version: Android 2.0 has it, previous vanilla versions of Android don't, but carriers like Sprint and hardware makers like HTC have been rolling their own Exchange solution into Android. Check the box, in other words.

The Gmail App Is Amazing

If your primary email account is Gmail, that's almost reason enough to go Android. Not only is Gmail pushed to your phone, the Gmail app is an absolutely perfect rendition of the Gmail experience for the small screen. Threaded conversations (hurray), full label support, starring, archiving and a true Gmail look-and-feel. It's even better in Android 2.0, which finally includes support for using multiple Google accounts with the Gmail app, and a few interface tweaks to make it easier to use.

For your non-Google accounts, there's a separate email app that's a pretty standard IMAP/POP mobile email app. Not amazing, not bad.

For That Matter, All of the Google Apps Are Amazing

You might be switching to Android for political reasons, or just to get away from AT&T, but what's gonna make switching actually work is that all of the Google services are fantastic, and often, more powerful than their iPhone counterparts.

Google Talk is the non-Gmail killer app for me, and highlights just how badly the iPhone needs a native messaging app—it's like BlackBerry Messenger, but for Google. (Or mobile AIM, but less shitty.) Keep in mind, anyone signed in to Gmail on a desktop browser can be reached through Google Talk if they've authorized it, so you've probably got more "buddies" than you might realize.

Latitude is actually built into the Maps app; Google Voice integrates seamlessly; and Google actually frequently releases updates them the Android Marketplace. Oh, and did I mention Google Navigation? Yeah.

What Google hasn't gotten around to yet is integrating Google Docs, but the web version with Android's HTML5-superpowered browser is pretty good.

Not Being on AT&T Is Just as Liberating As You'd Hoped

I've never had full bars on any Android phone—on T-Mobile, Sprint or Verizon—and not been able to do something online. End of story.

Multitasking Is All It's Cracked Up to Be, Mostly

"Hey look, someone @replied me on Twitter!" Pull down the window shade, check it out, go back to browsing this month's custard calendar. "Oh hey, an email." Down comes the window shade, I reply, and then instantly return to drooling more over pumpkin-pie custard, before flipping to Google Talk to tell my friend when we're going to slaughter zombies in Left 4 Dead 2 demo. All in 10 seconds, while listening to Pandora radio.

The drop down window shade is pure genius, and what makes the cacophony of background notifications from all the apps you've got running work. See, you don't actually close apps in Android like on the iPhone. You just switch between them, and the OS takes care of closing apps you haven't used in a while in the background. (Unless inside of an app, you explicitly tell it to shutdown, like Twidroid.) Anything a background app wants to tell you goes into the notification windowshade. Sure, there's a bit of lag switching back to the browser and then scrolling is choppy for a second on some phones, but it's a small price to pay. And bigger batteries in more recent hardware, like the Droid, are enough to make it through the day.

Android Takes More Work

Every version of Android gets a little smoother, a little more user-friendly, but stock versions are pretty barebones. Want to read a PDF attached to an email? You need an app. Visual voicemail? Gotta download it unless your carrier preinstalls one. Want a notepad? Find it on the Market. HTC takes care a lot of these little humps with their custom builds—which includes a PDF viewer out of the box, for example—and generally speaking, there's an app for the basic holes that need to be filled in, but get ready to do a little bit of legwork.

It's Not Quite as Secure

The lock screen is a series of swipes—not an actual passcode—and there's no remote wipe out of the box. Granted, with the iPhone you need a MobileMe plan to get remote wipe, but you don't have to look for an app to install, like SMobile Security Shield.

It's also less secure in the app department, at least on paper: Under Android, you can opt to install unverified programs through the settings menu. This may be a good thing to you—even your reason for switching—but it carries obvious extra risks.

The Android Marketplace Isn't as Nice as the App Store (Yet)

The only place to look for apps and install them is directly on your phone, through the Android Marketplace. With Android 1.6, the Marketplace did get a lot nicer to browse, with a new interface and actual app screenshots, but categories are still too broad, and you still can't do any of this on your desktop, where you have a much bigger screen. Updating apps? You've gotta do them one at a time, which is annoying.

The App Situation Is Getting Better, But Isn't There Yet

So here's the thing. The app ecosystem on Android has absolutely exploded, so it's much, much better place to be than it was six months ago, much less a year ago. In fact, for a lot of your everyday iPhone apps, there's now an Android counterpart or equivalent: Facebook, Pandora, Slacker, Remember the Milk, Foursquare, Shazam, Flixster, etc. The problem is, they're universally not as polished or full-featured. Facebook's missing messaging and events entirely; Twidroid, the best Twitter app, is hideous compared to any of the top 5 iPhone Twitter apps; Photoshop's lacks some of the effects it has on the iPhone.

Gaming is probably the single biggest thing you'll miss. There are games, yes. Some of them good. There aren't as many and they're not as fantastic. There's nothing Star Defense caliber. Or Sim City. (Oops.) Partly, this is simply a numbers issue: Android's not as big as the iPhone yet. But the other aspect is that there's a serious storage limitation for apps—just 256MB in some phones—which seriously cramps what some games can do, as well as how many apps you can install on you phone. Apps will get better, the app economy will get better, this is true. But for now, be ready for some limitations and possibly, disappointments.

Music and Video? Just Buy a Zune HD

Kidding. Sort of. Getting music and video onto your Android phone is a purely drag and drop operation—there's no official Google sync application to organize and get your 10 gigs of music onto your phone. There is an Amazon MP3 store, and it's okay. There are third-party solutions, like DoubleTwist or Windows Media Player. But once you get the music on there, the music player itself kinda blows. It's ugly and just not very nice to use. On the upside, it plays Ogg Vorbis, open source fans.

Movie watchers are in even worse shape with Android. Your best bet is to avoid the native player that's sort of hidden and to actually use a third party app, Meridian. Or just get a Zune HD for your music and video, and you'll be much happier.

I think that covers the basics guys. Yeah, Android's not as polished or smooth, but you know what? It's actually quite livable over here. If there's something else you wanna know—or want to share—about switching, drop it into the comments.

Basics are fine—and we like what it does there—so our real gripe is that there's no adjustment for white balance, which is notoriously shitty on the G1. But hey, it's free in the Android Market right now. [Adobe]

• What's getting it: It's Android OS 2.0 only for now. And will be available when devices like that ship. (Google demo'd the app to us on a Droid, FWIW.) Other platform support will be announced "by carriers and phone makers" when they're ready, but Google implied they are working closely with Apple now on it.
• How you tell it where to go: Addresses are input by either text or voice (using the same tech as in the iPhone's Google mobile app). But the app can take things like business names and restaurant types as well as soft queries like "that museum that has the King Tut exhibit" and return a list of suggested locations
• Traffic handling: The traffic data, as on Google Maps, is driven by multiple sources. Typically, this means data could be from local road authority services like the Bay Area's Caltrans department's highway cameras and services like Inrix, but also from cellphones using Google Maps.
• Price: It's free, and there are no ads. There's nothing like it in Apple's App Store that's less than $25 bucks a year.
• Turn-by-turn voice: There's only one English-speaking voice at the moment, but it does to text-to-speech, reading street names out loud.
• Does it work offline? Sort of. Maps cache along your intended route, so even if your connection dies along the way the route will still show you what you need to see, and text-to-speech voice synthesis of street names still works, too.
• Maps that never age: Like most cloud map services, you'll never need to update your map data, but you have to download route maps every time you head out (so you need cell service at the starting point).
• Unique views: It has satellite view, which is super cool for context on the street, but also, it has Street View. When you're supposed to turn, Street View images come up, overlaid with arrows. Same thing happens at your final destination. Since Street View images have metadata on direction faced and position, Google Maps Navigation intelligently draws the arrows where you're supposed to go. Sort of.
• Traffic UI: The traffic icon is simple—green, yellow and red according to flow of traffic, with your time of arrival next to the symbol. If you click on the traffic icon, the map zooms out to show congestion points along your route.
• Multi-destination routing? There's no way to setup multiple stops to help you plan a day's drive to many locations. But you can search for locations (gas, eateries) along your route, and those results will show up on the map as long as they're within a radius that moves long your path. You can also pre-determine your stops, and quickly queue up the next when you reach each destination.
• Navigate to point on map: You can tell it to navigate to a location by spotting it on a map and holding your finger down on that point.
• OS integration: You can bookmark locations as icons on your Android phone's home page.
• Layers? The data on the map, like traffic, satellite view and points of interest, are called layers. Google said it would be easy for them to add more layers, so its ostensibly possible to add things like Google Latitude support, and other neat tricks. Maybe they'll open up an API for it.
• Different UIs for different usage cases: There's a landscape and portrait mode, as well as a big-icon UI for dashboard usage.
• My fears on zero pricing, for the long term: If Google sells this in the App Store for zero dollars, those millions of bucks Apple makes off of GPS app sales will likely disappear. It's not for us to worry about until there's no more GPS competition except Google, and we're dependent on their pace of progress, but no competition is a bad thing. And it's a little strange that Google's search money is going to pay for a free map app that is competitive with stuff that costs $100 a year from full-time GPS makers like TomTom. Unfair is the word that comes to mind. But I can't say I don't want this app.

A visual tour of Google Maps Navigation:

In the words of the creators:

Layar is an application that overlays your view of the real world with waypoints representing your favorite coffee place, the movie theatre you're trying to find, or in this case, where some of that $787 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is going. If you have an iPhone 3GS or Android device you can install the Layar app for free and then search for "recovery" or "sunlight" within Layar to find this layer. The layer works best near large cities where you are most likely to find recovery contracts.

I can tell you where the recovery didn't go. It didn't go to the bike path near my house because that shit is all torn up. Bigger bailouts, I say! [Sunlight Labs via Boing Boing Gadgets]

The Best

Pandora: Pandora the music streaming service comes to Android, finally. There's really no reason not to know what Pandora is at this point, but for the uninitiated, when you enter a song or artist, it'll create a playlist of similar stuff that you'll (probably) like too.

Foursquare: Foursquare's a location-based social networking service (yawn, 'cause there's a million of 'em, right?), BUT you get points for going places and checking in, and there are Xbox Live-style achievements, so it gives you an excuse to go out a lot, and to pull out your phone instead of actually talking to the people you're there with. "Hold on, I just need to check in." "Didn't you check in 20 minutes ago?" "Uh..."

Facebook: Another "at last" app, an official Facebook app is one of those little symbols that Android's legit. While it's not nearly as visually impressive or feature-packed as the latest iPhone version, you can actually get a constant stream of updates, so you always feel connected, anyway.

OpenTable: OpenTable is favorite way to grab a restaurant resys without actually resorting to picking up the phone and talking to a real human being. In New York anyway, a ton of restaurants participate, so the service is pretty excellent, especially since you can see real-time availability for tables at particular times.

Amazon: It came out back in early August, but we haven't highlighted it yet, so I'm talking about it anyway. Why? Because it's the easiest way to impulse buy crap you don't need from a phone, or to talk yourself out of paying a full brick-and-mortar store's price for something, since you can see right there it's cheaper on Amazon. Plus, it's got barcode scanning for finding stuff on Amazon. If Newegg releases an app like this, I'm pretty much screwed. Image via Lifehacker

Ustream: Not the first live streaming video app for Android (that'd be Qik), but this one obviously uses Ustream's service, with its integrated Twitter and chat powers, and it has a few features Qik doesn't, like the ability to seamlessly switch your stream's source to the phone and back.

Twidroid Pro: Our favorite Android Twitter app goes pro. What's that entail? Well, besides costing real money now ($5), it's got a better UI, themes, multiple account support, native bit.ly support and video posting. The free version's got a better user interface too, but it's missing some crucial powers from the paid app, like the ability to see a list of followers and who you're following (which really, should be in the free version). Still, Twidroid's about as good as it gets on Android.

Remember the Milk: Everybody's favorite iPhone to-do list and task manager app, Remember the Milk's Android debut doesn't disappoint, and should be pretty much everything you need in a task manager app. It's got online syncing, location awareness for tasks and it integrates with Gmail and Gcal. Plus, it's not a bad looking little app.

Speed Forge 3D: The best-looking Android game yet is 3D space racer that makes me want to play F-Zero 64. But it's got mines and homing rockets, two things you don't have in F-Zero. Only 6 tracks and 3 vehicles, and it's accelerometer controlled (not my favorite way to play) but still well worth $3 to see what your phone can really do.

Other Android App News

• Moto Blur on the G1
• Google Voice Will Go Untouched on Verizon Android Phones
• Full Flash Coming to Android, Not iPhone
• T-Mobile Pushed Out Donut 1.6
• Cyanogen's Awesome Mods Will Live On, Sans Google Apps

This list is in no way definitive. If you've spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps, see our previous roundups here. Have a great rest of the weekend, everybody!

Instead of just porting over the interface—or at least the interface concept—from the recently-released Facebook 3.0 for the iPhone, they've given us an Android-specific UI. Not that it's particularly Android-y; it's just different. The front page panels on the iPhone app have been replaced with a simple view of your feed, while the rest of the functions come by way of menu-accessible shortcuts, which require pressing a hard button.

Those other features include direct photo uploads, big fat "Like" buttons and, though I couldn't get this one working, a phonebook function that gives you instant access to 125 of you chosen friends' phone numbers. It's a slightly less intuitive approach than the iPhone app or even to a certain extent the web interface, but it's a far sight better than any of the third-party apps already in the market, many of which tried to pass themselves off as official, and some of which even had a nonzero (!) price. Facebook's official app, luckily, is free, and in the market now.

UPDATE: So, Phandroid's noticed a few odd things about this app: Despite the developer being listed in the Market as "Facebook," the developer's email address is a suspicious Facebook.Android@gmail.com, and the associated Facebook app—as in, for the website—says it was not developed by Google. Could we have an impostor here? That would explain the new design philosophy, and the lack of a few major features (messages, anyone?), but that the fact that it is a fairly polished app. [AndroidGuys]

As you can see in the video, Mobilzy's take on the turn-by-turn video overlay isn't the most refined—a nod to Blaupunkt on that one—and it seems a little distracting to use, as is. But that's not to say that the concept isn't fantastic, for one simple reason: Your eyes never really leave the road. Normal nav apps just show you a static, mapped representation of what's coming, which does fine on the directions-giving front, but utterly fails on the helping-you-not-run-over-children-on-bikes front.

Aside from the AR feature, the app is a little bare, it requiring a data connection at all times, supporting voice commands only via a separate voice engine, lacking most of Wikitude's other over features, though informational overlays probably aren't too wise on a turn-by-turn HUD. Mobilzy says it's coming "soon," hopefully alongside a partnership with one of the big map data suppliers, so we can actually use this thing. [Mobilzy]

Why put Android in a desktop phone? For one, plenty of apps, including visual voicemail, calendars, SMS, and email. Cloud Telecomputers also expects lots of third party Android apps to be built especially for the business phone platform. And as it supports landlines and various VoIP and SIP clients you will be able to set up a Google Voice app with a Gizmo5 SIP account to make it the ultimate phone booth. The start-up company also throws in HD audio and Bluetooth.

Cloud Telecomputers expects the Glass to be available in the first quarter of 2010 with a price tag somewhere in between $600 and $700. [Cloud Telecomputers via Electricpig]

The latest build was missing Flash and Gears, but Opera Turbo—speedier page loading with some help from Opera's servers was there. Hopefully it'll have the other two in place by the time it hits Android, which is in the works, confirms Opera's CEO, where it should provide some decent competition to the default WebKit browser, which is already pretty damn good. [App Scout]

People have a tendency to balk at charges like that, but that's not entirely fair—the software, seen here on T-Mobile's signature "Raw Venison Red" MyTouch, accepts voice commands, renders maps in 3D, and displays traffic, weather, POI and gas prices. It's really a full device conversion, and it's priced as such. It earned accolades on the G1, but you may as well just try it yourself; 30 free days should be long enough to gauge whether or not you want to shell out for it later.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – August 4, 2009 – TeleNav announced today that TeleNav GPS Navigator will be one of the first turn-by-turn GPS navigation services available to run on the T-Mobile® myTouch™ 3G with Google. TeleNav GPS Navigator will be available for a free 30-day trial beginning tomorrow, August 5, when the device goes on sale in retail stores and online. To sign up for the free trial, T-Mobile MyTouch 3G customers should visit TeleNav's website.

"TeleNav GPS Navigator on the myTouch 3G turns the phone into a powerful GPS device," said Sal Dhanani, TeleNav's co-founder and executive director of marketing. "We invite all myTouch 3G customers to take advantage of the free trial and let us know what they think."

TeleNav GPS Navigator on the T-Mobile myTouch 3G includes full-color 3D moving maps along with voice and on-screen turn-by-turn driving directions. Navigation is available in both landscape and portrait mode. If drivers miss a turn, they will automatically be rerouted. TeleNav GPS Navigator also includes speech recognition for both address entry and business search. On the T-Mobile myTouch 3G, customers simply press one button and say the name of a business or the address and TeleNav GPS Navigator will provide directions. Subscribers can also preplan trips online by accessing their account through My TeleNav. TeleNav GPS Navigator includes listings of more than 10 million businesses and services, including restaurants, hotels, shopping malls and movie theaters - providing users access to restaurant ratings and reviews as well as phone numbers for business listings.

Once on the road, TeleNav GPS Navigator monitors each specific route and will proactively search for known traffic congestion or incidents. Customers will be alerted to traffic problems, both audibly and on-screen, and can choose to find another route to their location by just pressing one button. TeleNav customers also have the ability to set daily traffic commute alerts. At the requested times, TeleNav GPS Navigator will send an email alert with a summary of current known traffic conditions and delays for their routes, helping users decide when to get on the road in order to avoid traffic congestion.

The service also includes frequently updated gas price listings so drivers can look for the cheapest gas in their area or along their route. Additionally, TeleNav GPS Navigator includes location-based weather information. Customers can see current weather conditions as well as a five-day forecast for their present location or for a destination of their choice in the U.S.

Finally, with advanced preference enhancements, TeleNav customers have the flexibility to choose whether to avoid high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes and toll roads. In addition, subscribers can pause and resume the navigation at any time they choose, as well as set the map display colors to a ‘nighttime' mode for easier viewing at night.

To sign up for a 30-day free trial of TeleNav GPS Navigator, T-Mobile myTouch 3G customers can visit TeleNav's website or contact TeleNav at 1.88.TeleNav.4 (1.888.353.6284) or at care@telenav.com.

It's going to be more limited, for one, according to TechCrunch's source. But it's apparently going to revolve more tightly around the stream and status updates, using Facebook's newest Stream API that shows how many new stream updates are waiting for you as they come in. Better Stream integration doesn't really make up for not having an inbox though, personally. And all the crazy stuff the next iPhone app will have makes it look even more sadly barebones. But hey, it's happening at least, right??

Facebook apparently reversed course for the same reason Pandora did after calling it saying it "doesn't matter" last October: Android's just about ready for primetime. (Though it helped Google deemed the project important enough to let Facebook borrow an Android engineer.) It also adds credence to the idea we're in a third wave of Android apps—past the initial run, and the arrival of quality apps that really fit the OS—the big name apps.

I'd like still like an iPhone-quality Twitter app, though. [TechCrunch]

Just pick the line, your stop, and whether you're going uptown or downtown. (Yes, it works offline, since there's no AT&T in the subway, or anywhere in NYC it seems at times.) It shows which subway car is closest to which exit. Like say if you're going to Union Square and want to get off at the 16th St. end, not 14th by the carcass of the Virgin Megastore. Used every time you're on the subway for a year, the hour of time you save not wandering from one end of the subway station to another to get out where you need to easily adds up to $2.

Maybe best of all, it's available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, and even Kindle. [Exit Strategy NYC via superfem!]

Also, for T-Mobile customers, there's going to be a direct-to-bill payment option for apps (so it shows up on your phone bill, in other words), so buying apps will be a little simpler.