With the constant trickle of TPAs (third party applications) for the iPhone and their quick and painless installs, you tend to try everything out - because it’s just as quick and painless to uninstall them. (And believe me, there have been a lot that don’t last ten seconds on mine; the ratio of crap to good stuff is heavily one-sided.) Whatever the case, updating Installer has become a daily routine, which I expect is the same for a lot of you guys.

At the moment I have four pages of apps on my iPhone (considering that the Apple-legal stuff takes up only over half a page, that’s a lot of TPAs). The number of pages grow and shrink as the weeks go by, and staying on the iPhone is survival of the fittest; the ones that stay are either really useful or fun, or are just really good conversation pieces. The common thread among most of them is, why didn’t Apple think of these? (The only one I haven’t yet come across, but was fully expecting to appear this year, was something that let me cut and paste text.)

It being year-end, people have a compulsion to make lists, and I’ve succumbed and made a listing of apps I’ve kept on my iPhone over the many weeks. Please take note that these are personal, subjective choices. I’m sure you have others you prefer, or some you feel are moronic. But hey, it’s my list. Why don’t you post some of yours in the comment box? Who knows, there might’ve been some we missed and should know about.

Anyway, here are some that have managed to stay on my screen this year:

weTool - There have been a few other apps that individually do all the small things that weTool does, but none all together, none as well, and none in a more professional looking package. You can delete specific items in the Call and SMS logs, you can forward texts (to multiple recipients!) and contacts, you can even save texts to Notes. You can even makes calls directly from it. One of the best parts is that it has a set of visually stunning page transitions you can select that Apple is only beginning to do (as the page curl transition seen in a screenshot of the 1.1.3 preview.) Nice one.

TuneWiki - This is for the karaoke lover in you. When connected online, it will search an online wiki database for the lyrics of the song currently being played in iPod mode and will show it to you line by line as the song plays, ostensibly so you can sing along. Of course you have to manually forward each line by tapping on the TuneWiki icon on the screen, but hey, it’s free. Who’s complaining?

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One of the most tepid, dishwater-weak and featureless of the built-in Apple apps for the iPhone is the barely functional Photos app. Even the cheapest digicam or cam phone has more features than that one.

Well, someone’s finally done something about it and made a somewhat-free and more capable photo app. It’s called Camera PRO for iPhone, and offers a few shoulda-been-in-the-box features for free (and some not so free).

Considering that it’s just a matter of time before Apple beefs up their own software in a future update, these entrepreneurs from Amsterdam are striking while the iron is hot and is charging for additional “Premium” features. Some are in numbered trial mode, and others yet to come (including a send-to-Flickr feature).

Rather than take time explaining the app to you (and because they say a picture is worth a thousand words and I’m still too sleepy to type much), I just screen-capped the welcome screen on my iPhone, because everything’s there anyway:

It works, too. Here’s a shot I took using the default no-choice settings:

And using the zoom feature of Camera PRO where I didn’t move the iPhone:

Focus seems to be a problem still, but hey, anything’s better than what we got now, right?

V. 1.04 now available via Installer.

FYI: folk travelling by air to or within the United States will not be allowed to carry lithium batteries, whether loose or in battery packs for equipment like laptops or cameras, in their checked-in luggage for safety reasons beginning January 1, 2008, by order of the US Department of Transportation.

Lithium batteries will have to be inserted into the hardware they’re meant for and be handcarried to pass. If loose they’ll have to be enclosed in a ziplock plastic bag or remain sealed in their original packaging, and stowed in your carry-on luggage, with a limit of two lithium batteries to a passenger.  (Do they differentiate between single batteries and battery packs? Do coin-shaped lithium batteries count? Are computer batteries and camera batteries counted together or separately? Hmmm.)

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, if lithium batteries catch fire in the cargo hold, current built-in extinguishing and safety measures won’t be able to deal with it. This sort of situation is widely speculated as the cause of a fire at an airport in Philadelphia in 2006.

Bummer for us road warriors who like to carry extras.

(Via The New York Times)

You guys might remember a post I did a week ago about Apple updating an update a week after it was first released (if you don’t remember, it’s here), and downplaying the fact that it did?

Using the wise old tactic of not calling attention to a mistake by not mentioning it in case no one really caught it in the first place, Apple just went ahead and fixed Security Update 2007-009 and quietly re-issued the corrected update, which was V.1.1, a week later.

If you want to know, what actually happened was that a number of users reported that Safari crashed when visiting certain websites after the patch was installed. Apple said,

Security Update 2007-009 v1.1 addresses an issue introduced in Security Update 2007-009 that may cause Safari to unexpectedly quit when browsing to certain websites”

This was an across-the-board glitch, which hosed Safari on Tiger, Leopard and Windows for some users. So Apple patched the patch and sent it out again. Apple screwed up. They went and fixed it. Mystery solved.

Somehow website GearLive has gotten a look at the new firmware for the iPhone and they’ve generously shared it with everyone. Their site is taking a beating at the moment from all the hits, so we thought to summarize it for you first.

There are some additions that we’ve all been expecting to show up, but none of them are showstoppers. A lot of it is already available via jailbreaks and third-party apps, like multiple-recipient SMS sending. GearLive also says AnySIM-unlocked phones will surely be bricked by Firmware 1.1.3 when it comes out (no great surprise there).

Among the new features according to GearLive:

• The ability to send an SMS message to multiple people is now there
• Google Maps application can now pinpoint your location using cell tower triangulation
• Google Maps can now display the Hybrid map view
• You can now drag and drop application icons on your home screen
• The home screen supports pagination
• You can now add web bookmarks to your home screen

They have a picture gallery of screenshots (if you can get to it) over here.