Outbreak: An app that aggregates disease outbreak information into either a list or a map overlay, giving you just enough information to be nervous, but not quite enough to really do anything about it. Most useful for hypochondriacs and/or residents of Sub-Saharan Africa. Free.

Watchmen 2.0: Back around when Watchmen came out in theaters, there was a little iPhone game called Watchmen: Justice is Coming . It was one of the first 3D MMOs for the iPhone, but felt a little underdeveloped. Version 2.0, coinciding with the DVD release, is free if you've already got the first one, and comes with eight new episodes, a pile of new characters, a 360-degree battle mode, and new rooftop settings.

Robocop, Fargo, and Rocky Soundboards: This doesn't even feel like part of an app roundup—it feels more like three beautiful gifts, from me to you. These are official soundboards, from eminently quotable movies, for free.

i.TV: A fantastic TV listings app now works as a TiVo remote, with support for more DVRs to come, and push notifications. Free.

NFL Mobile: Once this one fully activates (Sept 13th) you'll be able to watch Live NFL games on your iPhone. Awesome! Minor catch: you need to be a DirecTV subscriber with an expensive sports package to use it, even just for news updates and scores. App's free though!

This Week's App News on Giz:

• Loopt First iPhone App With Always-On Location, Even When It's Not Running

• Gizmodo's Essential iPhone Apps: Fall 2009

• I am T-Pain iPhone App Is Auto-Tuning Genius

• Top 10 Back to School iPhone Apps

• Apple Approves Line2, a Google Voice-esque Program For Toktumi

• Push Google Voice SMS and Twitter Messages to iPhone With Prowl, No Growl Required

• µTorrent iPhone App Rejected, Heads Over to Cydia

• Bustedhot iPhone Application Makes Me Lose Faith In America

• Why We Can't Have a Napster iPhone App (Or Android App, Or BlackBerry App...)

• Grand Theft Auto On the iPhone Will Be Wonderfully Old School

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 swell Labor Day, everybody.

The setup, which is Snyder standing in front of a couple of screens, allows him to freeze the movie as it plays, show the scene being shot next to the final version and compare scenes to panels from the comic book. It's the closest we've seen to actually having the director with you in your living room walking you through the movie. Great stuff.

The Watchmen BD hits on July 21st, and you can preorder it on Amazon for $23. [Slashfilm]

In the interest of making Community Screenings a bit more practical (that BD Live function allowing users to watch a film in sync with friends over the network), Warner has teamed with Facebook in a cash-less deal to allow Community Screenings to sync with your Facebook friend lists.

It's actually a great idea that's far more progressive than using Warner's current solution, a proprietary account system. Read more about the DVD and Blu-ray at these links: [Hollywood Reporter and Rope of Silicon via BluRayFreak]

An additional note to Watchmen fans: The Director's Cut detailed here does not look to include interspersed moments from The Tales of the Black Freighter.

It looked more like a dead cat I once found, the fat, glistening grubs writhing blindly, squirming over each other, frantically tunneling away from the light. But even that is avoiding the real horror. The horror is this: In the end, it is simply a picture of empty meaningless blackness. We are alone. There is nothing else. [Fresno Beehive via Kotaku]

The Fresno Beehive is giving away this geek-gorgeous Xbox to anyone (actually, just one person) who can write a 50-word review of the movie. (Sadly, that means our review is ineligible.)

What's On Watchmen's Cutting Room Floor?
Translating Watchmen into a single movie is next to impossible, without giving some plot lines and characters the axe. But what can you live without? Find out what was cut from Watchmen.

The Version Of Watchmen The Studio Wanted.
So we know what's been cut and how it was made, but what would have become of Watchmen had Zack Snyder not put his foot down with the studio? (And thank god he did.)

Review: Watchmen Proves The Cold War Is An Alien World
Watchmen, opening Friday, is a masterpiece of alienation. For a beautiful two hours and forty minutes, people freak out about nuclear holocaust - and you're hard-pressed to care. I suspect that's the point.

How 9/11 Changed Watchmen
The horrific visions that open the final chapter of Alan Moore's Watchmen haunt you long afterwards. But Zack Snyder's movie tones down that imagery, and screenwriter David Hayter says it's because of 9/11.

A Gorgeous Look At The Making Of Watchmen
Your friends don't have time to read Watchmen before seeing the movie? Give them a crash course. The Watchmen Film Companion explains everything, and here are some of the best concept art and making-of photos.

9 Questions You May Have About Watchmen
You've seen the posters, the many trailers and featurettes and followed the lawsuit. But with Watchmen hitting screens on Friday, you may still be wondering what it's all about. Let us try to help.

Watchmen's Comedian Almost Perished In Flames
Where the Comedian goes, murder and mayhem follow close behind. So it's only right that the actor portraying this masked sadist, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, almost set himself and the entire Watchmen set ablaze.

Watchmen's Steamy Sex Scenes Are High-Five Worthy
We know how Zack Snyder put together the shiny blue god Dr. Manhattan, but what about the more personal scenes? We asked the cast how Snyder went about recreating the sexier panels.

io9 Talks To Zack Snyder, Dave Gibbons And The Stars Of Watchmen
We were lucky enough to be part of press interviews with director Zack Snyder, original artist Dave Gibbons and the movie's cast. Zack talked about why comic-book movies are finally ready for a dark deconstruction, Dave talked about the "grim 'n' gritty" craze in comics, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan talked about one of the graphic novels' most shocking scenes.

The Tragic Death of Dr. Manhattan's Real-Life Counterpart
It turns out there was actually a real-life version of Dr. Manhattan, a physical chemist named Louis Alexander Slotin who was exposed to the same radioactive particles as Dr. Manhattan and many other superheroes.

Also, some Watchmen clips are here and here. And tons and tons of high-res stills are here.

In the movie, the computer runs the classic Macintosh System in inverted video mode, white over black. Don't forget to check io9's Watchmen review and coverage, as well as our Steve Jobs conspiracy theory and multiple babblings on the movie.

Update: VERY sorry for the spoilers. Took those out. – JC

Dr Manhattan was projected using the largest water projector in the world. I'm disappointed he didn't move, but it sure looked like an spectacular show.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
You can check io9's review here

I loved it. Guilty as charged.

I just sat there in good company, devouring candy with both my eyes and mouth, and spent three hours entertained; marveling at the perfect photography, the decay of the future-retro-New York, Rorschach, every little detail from Gibbons' art in every frame, Rorschach, the awesome music making some of the scenes flow like Eddie Blake's whiskey-thinned blood over the sidewalk, the raw violence, the cheesy love scene in Archie, Rorschach, and even Dr. Manhattan's schlong.

And while the movie leaves a lot out from the comic book—stop with the graphic novel nonsense, they are called comic books—it also added things that the comic book didn't have. Things that will please the geek in you, like the continuous references to pop culture. At least, I was in awe when I saw things like Nixon and Kissinger with all the generals, planning Nuclear Holocaust in Dr. Strangelove's War Room.

But there's a lot more hidden in there, lurking in the shadows. Specially, in what is referred to the villian/savior of the Earth: Ozymandias.

Adrian Veidt.

The supersmart CEO of a large corporation.

Who is a vegan.

And whose computer in his minimalist office is a Mac SE.

A Mac SE running the original Macintosh Operating System in inverted video mode.

Who is a fierce negotiator and businessman.

Who wears a black turtleneck (although with an 80s suit on top.)

Someone who is described as having a unique vision of the world.

Someone obsessed with design and details.

Someone who says he wants to change that world, who is determined to make things better.

Someone who, while watching the world coming to its end, just before saving it, is watching the Apple 1984 ad in one of the multiple TV screens in Karnak, his Antarctic secret base.

I mean... hello?

I know. Maybe I'm seeing a crazy conspiracy here, like Rorschach. Rorschach, by the way, was right.

So yes, I loved Watchmen the movie. And yes, as you can see, maybe I was too entertained seeing things and remembering details. After all, I know it by heart. I know every panel and some of the dialog by heart—I bought the original issues when I was in school back in the mid-80s, and have read them every year since then, like a ritual. I read them first when I was a kid who couldn't get into the whole mental wanking that everyone talks about, going on for pages and pages of intellectual drivel: Watchmen's deeeeeep meaning, Watchmen's multiple layers of vanilla frosted complications, Watchmen's political manifestos on a stick, Watchmen this, Watchmen that. I read them a few times then and read them a few years later, when I had enough experience to actually mentally wank about the deep meaning of it all—talking with friends about the futility of life on Earth, the manipulation of the masses, evil, good, and means justifying yadda yadda yadda and blah blah blah. Who cares.

In the end, I was just entertained by a nice story like I have been with the movie. That's what the movie is: A great story.

So while I wish they actually made it into a five hour movie instead of three, and even though the ending is changed, and all that, the basics are all there. And when you pack the essence of such huge body of work with masterful craftmanship and cinematography, some great performances—Rorschach, I love you—and pepper it with a kick ass soundtrack that spawns from Bob Dylan to Leonard Cohen to Jimi Hendrix to Nina Simone to Janis Joplin to Billie Holiday and even a kickass version of Dylan's Desolation Row by My Chemical Romance, I'm sold.

So yeah, Watchmen is not perfect. It's not going to change your life, as some people expect. Yes, it doesn't have the scope of the comic books, but who cares: Watchmen is a great ride that captures the essence of Moore and Gibbons work. And for that, I enjoyed like when I was a kid, back in 1986.

March 21st, 6pm
Lincoln Center, NYC

Tickets aren't on sale at Fandango yet, so it hasn't sold out. Keep your eyes peeled for when they do go on sale and then snap them up. Fun times!

Questions? Email Ponies at embee@omg-ponies.com.

Price: $35 Blu-ray, $30 DVD

Verdict: So how are we watching Watchmen on Blu-ray before it's even hit theaters? It's actually the motion comic version that's been available on iTunes for some time but has just been released to DVD and Blu-ray this week.

It's an interesting idea that's being adopted by Marvel and others—add a bit of motion to the original art and a comic book becomes a movie. Does it work for Watchmen?

Actually, yes, yes it works pretty well I'd say.
Even though I'm more of a comic book guy, seeing Dave Gibbons' original art blown up on a 1080p big screen is a fantastic experience. Of course images are cropped, zoomed and panned for the widescreen format, but you can literally freeze any single frame of the six hours and capture a beautiful, poster-worthy still. That, in itself, is absurdly cool.

Animation is for the most part tasteful and smooth—if you didn't know Watchmen was a comic, you might just believe that it was always meant for television. But there's one major design flaw - the art is ALWAYS in motion. Either a camera is zooming or panning, or characters are moving this way or that. It sounds like a small point, but I found myself getting a bit motion sick watching the disc...and I don't often become motion sick with games or television.

Some scenes do work very, very well with slight animation, though. When Dr. Manhattan becomes Dr. Manhattan, the famous panel is done incredible justice on screen. Or when Rorschach first interrogates a bar's worth of patrons by breaking fingers for intel, I'd argue that the well-planned layering of movements crowd enhances the original art. But when Night Owl takes out his ship for a midnight cruise, the epic nature of his craft, bursting through a cloud of steam, is undermined by simplistic animation.
And then there's the small matter of voice acting. In short, there isn't any. The motion comic is merely narrated by actor/audiobook reader Tom Stechschulte. Predictably, his voices for each character were often so similar that, especially as lips do not move on screen, I couldn't tell who was supposed to be talking. Oh, and have you ever listened to a rape scene between a man and a man acting like a woman? The lines lose some punch.

Buyers of the $30 DVD set will be disappointed by no real extras, while the $35 Blu-ray version lacks a menu system of merit and only includes a brief 3-minute behind-the-scenes of the Watchmen film by Dave Gibbons alongside an appreciated digital copy (PC only). You also score $7.50 off seeing the movie in theaters.

I'd still recommend people start with the actual Watchmen graphic novel. But if you never learned to read or just appreciate big, pretty pictures, the Watchmen Complete Motion Comic may be worth a viewing. At minimum, it's a good use for your HDTV during your next hipster party.

Because the entries were so amazing this week, I couldn't pick just 3 winners. So, for this week only, you have six winners. Huzzah!

First Place — Frank Chezem
Second Place — Kaiser-Machead
Third Place — Jeff Fang
Fourth Place — Frank Chezem
Fifth Place — Joe Corsi
Sixth Place —Brook Boley
Thanks to everyone who entered! If your entry didn't make it to the Gallery of Champions, don't despair! We got a crazy amount of entries this week, so try again next week!

You can roam around NYC as a customized "hero", punching your friends or (random people) in the face. The actual fighting gameplay looks kinda iffy—turn-based brawling?—but the concept is nice. We'll have to try it for ourselves to see how satisfying the 1975 violence is. [G4]

OMG! Ponies, Kaiser-Machead, Get 'Em SteveDave and '92 BuickLeSabre are organizing a commenter meetup based around the 6pm showing of Watchmen at Lincoln Square on March 7th. This isn't an official Gizmodo event, and I don't think any editors are able to make it, but that shouldn't stop you from going.

Interested? Shoot Ponies (nee Matthew Baron) a private message using our little system here or email him at embee@omg-ponies.com. And may the force be with you all (that's what this movie is about, right?).

Update: OK, so the boneheads scheduled this without checking to see if the movie was sold out, which it is. So just read the comments below and they'll get everything sorted out, or harass Ponies at the email above and he'll let you know what's what.

For this week's Photoshop Contest, I want you to ruin the upcoming Watchmen movie with completely inappropriate additions not found in the source material. There's a great resource for high-res stills here that I suggest you use as a source.

Send me your best entries at contests@gizmodo.com with "Ruined Watchmen" in the subject line by next Tuesday morning. Name your files with a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention and use JPG, GIF or PNG as your file types. And have fun with it! Now get to it.