The Best

Layar: Mark my words: in the next year or so, augmented reality apps will graduate from halfassed party tricks to something with actual utility. This is a daddy-step in the right direction:

Layar has grown up since we last saw it: now you can overlay all kinds of data, from geotagged Wikipedia entries to Flickr photos to local Tweets.

3GS only, but at least it's free.

SuperGlued: Lots of apps help you find good shows, but SuperGlued doesn't stop there. You can Tweet with other members of the crowd (Are tickets sold out at the door? Does the venue still smell like urine? Where are you? etc.), post live pictures of the show, and keep track of which events your friends are planning on going to. Free. —Full disclosure: The developer, Tom Plunkett, is Gawker Media's grand tech vizier

Proactive Sleep: Is there a such thing as a sleep coach? Let's assume there is! In a nutshell, that's what this app, designed with SCIENCE, aims to be. It's an alarm clock at its core, which wakes you up with music of your choice then challenges you to a game, or offers you a dream diary. It'll also track your sleep patterns and warn you when you've dipped below average. A little steep at five dollars, but it's fairly polished and written by a bon-a-fide sleep researcher.

Canon: Got a Canon PIXMA printer? Then there's no good reason to pass up Canon's iPhone app, which lets you print over Wi-Fi:

The polished interface lets you select paper sizes, find wireless printers, print borderless photos, and select photos from multiple albums stored on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Blastination: The game looks like an instant headache, and it takes a few minutes to get used to the chaos. The idea, though, is a winner: Your goal is to collect shapes with your bouncing avatar, which you pilot by bouncing off of barriers you've drawn in real time. A dollar.

Heart Rate Monitor: More of a conceptual win than a practical one (it's not even out yet), Heart Rate Monitor broadcasts you heart rate over your social network of choice. Its intended purpose is medical, but the tech could easily be used for fun, too. I mean hell, Nintendo thinks we want a heart rate monitor for gaming, so there must be something to the idea.

Bailout War$: Tower defense + populist rage + genuinely OK gameplay = a good timesuck. The graphics could be better, and the satire more subtle, but this is a one-dollar casual game we're talking about here.

CBS News: CBS's new app is an example of a dedicated news app done right. Video content is plentiful and streams over Wi-Fi and 3G, news content is organized well, and Twitter integration is more than just token. And it's free.

Viper: It needs to be mated to an expensive remote ignition system, and it doesn't save you a ton of time, but this one ranks purely for coolness. I mean, you can start your car with your iPhone. This is totally the dream, for people with modest, iPhone-centric dreams.

USA Today Autopilot: Better than most travel apps, because it's not solely meant to sell you stuff—it's a travel planner and itinerary at its core. It's been tied to the TripIt planner service, which keeps track of your flights, hotels, and travel miscellanea online. Free.

Honorable Mentions

Itsy Bitsy Spider: Duck Duck Moose makes spectacularly helpful apps for keeping children entertained, turning your iPhone into something between a spinning mobile, a picture book and a toy. Itsy Bitsy spider is a musical picturebook, basically, and parent reviewers swear by it.

Pang: You know that legendary Japanese arcade classic, Pang? Me neither! But if you do, this thing looks pretty good. 3bux.

Assassin FPS: At the very surface of the augmented reality app strata, you find apps that let you put crosshairs over your friends, and pretend to murder them. There are plenty of these, but Assassin is one of the better ones.

NPR News: Another update to an already priceless app, this brings live NPR streams—they do that sometimes, who knew?—to the app, as well as a few minor functional changes. Still free.

PhotoNotes: Assigns titles and notes to you photos. It's three dollars and doesn't do anything particularly amazing, but I can see this being invaluable to people with very specific picture-notating needs.

This Week's App News on Giz:

• The App Store Effect: Are iPhone Apps Headed for Oblivion?

• Twitter Lists Are Live, Meaning Soon You'll Be Able to Create Groups in Twitter Apps

• Lite iPhone Apps Are Dead: In-App Purchases Come to Free Apps

• Trillian iPhone App's Been Stuck in App Store Limbo for 60 Days

• Pepsi Issues "Apology" For Offensive iPhone Dating App

• Studio Raises Price of iPhone App to $40 to Shut Whiners Up

• Now This is How the iPhone Should Handle Multitasking

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 weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory. Have a great weekend, everybody!

As usual, this matrix is just the tip of the molehill—if you want to really get in deep with these colorful characters, here's where to look:

• NYT - David Pogue

• WSJ - Walt Mossberg

• USA Today - Ed Baig

• Wired - Steven Levy

• Cnet - Kent German

• Engadget - Josh Topolsky

• Ars Technica

• Laptop

• Crunchgear

• Gear Live

• Gizmodo - Jason Chen

And if we've missed your review, send it in: we'll add it to the list.

In the Palm Pre reviews, nobody used the word "iPhone" as much as WSJ's Walt Mossberg—he was a third more likely to use it than his colleagues David Pogue (NYT) and Ed Baig (USA Today) were, and he even lead with a discussion of it, before mentioning the Pre. Nobody wrote nearly as long as Josh at Engadget: His review is over 10,000 words; ours, the next longest, was just over 3,000. There was a lot of consensus here, though notable disharmony when it came to Sprint service and the Pre's tight keyboard.

And nobody, but nobody, mastered the metaphor like Jason Chen. Except maybe David Pogue. Read on...

Of course, there's no way to fit even all the main points into the review matrix, so if you want to go and check out the other reviews for yourself, damnit, you should!

*Apologies for not including Steven Levy's piece from Wired. We saw it too late to include it in the mix.

• NYT - David Pogue
• USA Today - Ed Baig
• WSJ - Walt Mossberg
• Engadget - Josh Topolsky
• Gizmodo - Jason Chen

UPDATE: Check Out All These Other Palm Pre Reviews
• Time - Josh Quittner
• Newsweek - Dan Lyons
• PC Magazine - Sascha Segan
• Laptop - Mark Spoonauer
• SlashGear and MyPre - Vincent Nguyen
• PC World - Ginny Mies

If you need more gritty and less nitty, check out Chen's rundown of the reviews. Or, if you have some spare time, read the Three Amigos' own unexpurgated scribblings. [USA Today, WSJ/AllThingsD, NYT]

While most of the additional material covered in the reviews is basically factual stuff that you've already been agonizing over for a week or more, they're all decent reads if you have the time.

• Pogue's preview-review from 1/17 New York Times

• Ed Baig's story in USA Today

• Steven Levy's piece from Newsweek's website

• Walt Mossberg's review from Wall Street Journal and allthingd.com

Of course, if you don't have the time for those, pop over to Chen's superfast big-shot review summary and then, well, get about your business. [All About MacBook Air]

USA Today: USA Today's Ed Baig summarizes with this verdict: "Given the compromises, I don't expect anyone to use Air as their only computer. But it is a yummy machine for people who spend a lot of time traveling." Going more in depth, he lauds the Air's thinness, and revels at the little things like the magnetic latch and the backlit LED display. The worst part? He got more than an hour less than Apple's rated battery life.

Baig also notes that this is the weakest Core 2 Duo in the entire Mac lineup, which means you won't be using this for video editing. He knocks points off for the sacrifices, such as the internal optical drive, the scant 80GB hard disk space, the one USB port, lack of FireWire, and the average battery life. Apple rated it at 5 hours, but he only got three hours and 40 minutes just surfing the web, using Remote Disc and writing. It only lasted two hours and 40 minutes when watching a movie. Verdict: Not for everyone (mostly travelers), and definitely not a main computer. [USA Today]

Newsweek: Steven Levy at Newsweek compares the Macbook Air's thinness to ritualistic circumcision, noting that they sliced off just enough to make it meaty, yet super thin. Thin enough for him to spend a good third of his review saying how thin it is, and how it's so great on a lap, on a Starbucks' table, on a conference table, and on an airplane seatback tray. He then decries the obvious lack of features we've been talking about since we heard about the Air: lack of user-replaceable battery, the one USB port, no optical drive, blah blah blah.

It essentially reads like Levy reviewed off the spec sheet, and doesn't have many tales of his first-hand experience with such topics as how snappy the sluggish processor is or how convenient (or inconvenient) using the Remote Disc is (he does note that you have to lower your Firewall to its lowest setting to allow easier configuration). Verdict: Not much of one, but what he does have agrees with Baig: it's thin and even though Apple's removed much of its innards, "the things that Apple left on were the ingredients for a quality computer." Also, he spends much of the review talking in a roundabout way about penises, so it's worth a read just for that. [Newsweek]

Wall Street Journal: Mossberg from the big J also loves the svelteness, owning up to his own Contact moment by saying that "it's impossible to convey in words just how pleasing and surprising this computer feels in the hand." Of course, he hates the non-removable battery, the 1 USB port, the fact that you can't put a bigger hard drive in there and the lack of an optical drive.

In his own tests, he says the machine was "speedy" and the keyboard and screen were a "pleasure to use". His own battery tests gave him three hours and 24 minutes with Wi-Fi on and playing music nonstop. He theorizes that you could possibly get 4 hours and 30 minutes without playing music and just working normally, bug Baig's own test disproves that. Verdict: Great if you love thinness or a full-sized screen and keyboard on a "subnotebook", but he "can't recommend it for all." [AllThingsD]

• Pogue's NYT review
• Ed Baig's USA Today review
• Mossy's WSJ review

USA Today Review: Ed Baig says it "hits all the right spots"—a obvious pun, but it gets right to the heart of his review. He continues to say that OS X is superior to Windows (especially with the latest iteration), but points out the Boot Camp feature for people who need both. Upgrading for him was super easy, as was using Time Machine for backing up or migrating files, the iChat video chat/theater, the upgraded Mail.app, and the improved desktop, Finder (file browser), and .Mac features. It reads like a shortened Leopard feature checklist with the praise preceding or following each item, which shows how much of a thumbs up Baig is giving the new OS. [USAToday]

Mossberg WSJ Review: After his headline ("Leopard: Faster, Easier Than Vista") and on a short history tour of Apple as a company, Mossberg moves on to say that while Leopard is good, it's evolutionary, and not revolutionary—but still manages to keep Apple's "advantage over Windows". He does have some gripes. He says the menubar is translucent (it's actually not, in the final version), the icons are "dull and flat and less atractive than Vista's" (we disagree), Time Machine, although described as "sexy", has limited backup locations. And that none of Apple's 300 new features are a major breakthrough. However, Leopard doesn't have any of the upgrade problems (when upgrading from Tiger) that Vista had from XP. Mossberg then goes into feature list mode, but ends by saying that Leopard isn't a must-have, it just adds a lot of value on an existing machine. [WSJ]

Pogue's NYT Review: After spending half the first page (and 1/4 of the whole piece) talking about how Time Machine works, Pogue moves on to Spaces, parental controls, Boot Camp, screen sharing, and iChat upgrades. Although backup features and virtual desktops have been around for a while, Pogue says the point of Leopard is that Apple takes all those apps, improves on them, and integrates them well into the OS. But he too has complaints.

Stacks are a bit awkward and inconsistent, see through menus are hard to see (he may be using an old version because the final version looks fine), as well as occasional glitches in Spaces and program switching. Final thoughts: it's polished and offers few disappointments. Looks like a buy from Pogue. [NYTimes]

iPhone Review - USA TODAY's Ed Baig & Jefferson Graham [You Tube]

In addition, he loved the visual voicemail, didn't miss the scroll wheel found on actual iPods, and enjoyed picture and video viewing on its screen.

Complaints: not being able to fit his Shure headphones into the iPhone headphone slot, not being able to wirelessly download songs over the air, not being able to view any streaming video other than YouTube, and the inability to hook up his USA Today email with the phone.

Apple's iPhone isn't perfect, but it's worthy of the hype [USA Today]

While the $1499 kit isn't portable in the sense that a laptop is, the guys say it's as "luggable" as any mobile computer built before 1990. Says Ed:

The trickiest part of setting it up is finding a suitable (and hopefully flat) spot to place the antenna. As with any DirecTV installation, the antenna requires an unobstructed view of the southern sky [hence the compass built into the side of the carrying case]...The quick-start guide shows you dish-pointing coordinates for 15 major markets, with a lengthier list inside the manual. Pressing a button on the TV shows you a signal-strength meter; you'll need 50% or better to pull in a picture.

It's hard to imagine in this day and age, but tree leaves are the great technical barrier. They prevented me from ever getting a signal in my backyard. After a bit of trial and error, I was able to get reception in my front lawn.

If you're truly in the middle of nowhere, forget about catching much of the game if you have to rely on the replaceable lithium-ion battery; it lasts just an hour, and a full recharge takes eight hours.

Under ideal circumstances, you'll connect Sat-Go to a wall jack, or cigarette lighter adapter for powering it up through your car or boat.

Since the satellite receiver is built into the LCD, you can use Sat-Go as an additional TV tuner in your house. Under that scenario, you connect the LCD by cable to the more typical dish installation on the roof.

DirecTV Sat-Go [Gizmodo]