Catamount Software has announced Today! 1.0, an app that supplements Calendar to add missing features sought out by busy professionals and others who need more ease, efficiency, and power than Apple’s Calendar supplies. Mail, Messages, and Phone all show a badge when you have things to do in them, but Calendar is missing this crucial piece of information so that allows you to quickly view what you have left to do today without needing to open Calendar.

Today! also shows all the information you need about appointment time, location, and notes for the appointment without needing extra taps, and integrates with Maps so you can tap on location to open the route to your next appointment.

“Finally an app that can actually help me manage my schedule. As great as the iPhone is, the calendar function requires several mechanical processes to manage your meetings, but with Today! all you need to do is turn on the phone and “presto” all your calendars are merged and managed right on the main screen. I’ve stopped missing meetings … now that’s great for Today!” – Andy Sanborn, busy small business owner.

Photo Shootout simulates the experience of looking through a pro-photographer’s camera. There are 11 built in assignments to shoot, of gorgeous models in close-up for potential magazine covers, product packaging and models sporting bikinis for advertisements or magazine editorials. Paul Michaels, the app’s designer, based the game on his decades of experience as a fashion and beauty photographer, shooting his first national fashion magazine cover at the age of 19.

With an estimated 110 million digital cameras being sold in 2010, and Apple’s iPhone/iOS device install base over 100 million, there are plenty of consumers who use and enjoy digital photography on a daily basis. “Now anyone can enjoy the fantasy of taking their photography skills to a professional level,” explains Mr. Michaels. “With the iPhone sim game, Photo Shootout, anybody can be a pro photographer – even if it’s only for a few minutes.”

The German organization doesn’t specify which two rival handsets were tested but recalls that, while a decrease in signal was observed when their antenna was held, the most it could record was a 25-percent loss. As with Consumer Reports, the company suggests a length of tape placed over the iPhone 4?s antenna bridge as a temporary solution until a free iPhone 4 case arrives.

Stiftung Warentest’s results highlight another issue with smartphone signal strength, one that in fact Apple itself has identified: with no standardized way of displaying strength in bars, it’s hard for users to know whether what’s indicated on their screen means they’ll be able to place a call successfully or not. Apple recently pushed out iOS 4.0.1 for the iPhone 4 which reworked their signal strength banding; however this latest round of testing suggests that the iPhone 4 antennagate arguments aren’t going to go away any time soon.

via SlashGear

MASAKA Soft today is pleased to announce the release of Disguised Cam version 1.5 for iPhone and iPod touch. Disguised Cam was developed specifically for users to take photos and video while “disguising” itself as a web browser app, an email app, an ebook reader app, a SMS app, or any other app that users prefer.

Ever saw a great photo opportunity but can’t take the picture because the normal camera interface would draw too much attention? If yes, Disguised Cam is the app that perfectly solves that situation. Disguised Cam allows users to take photos or capture video without any view finder shown. Instead, users can pretend that they were browsing web, reading email, text SMS, reading ebook or, with Custom Disguise mode on, pretending that they were using one of their favorite apps.

Disguised Cam works with a simple and intuitive control. Tap anywhere on screen once to take photo or start video recording, slide one finger down to reveal the viewfinder (to get a better aim at subject) and double-tap to open Settings. In Settings, users can choose the preferred Disguise mode or choose between still photo and video mode.

The application is called the GE Mood Cam app. Basically you take a picture of your room and then you slide the “Moodometer” to apply different filters to the image you took to simulate lighting effects in the room. Once you find the light effect you want, you can put together a shopping list of the GE bulbs you need to achieve the effect.

There are six different moods to choose from and you can even tell the app what sockets your light fixtures use so you get the exact bulb part numbers you need. The app is free and on the App Store right now.

via SlashGear

The chassis is a 1.1lb solid piece of anodized billet aluminum with dual handle-grips and a tripod mount; up front is a Canon EF lens adapter, which Jeremy hopes to extend to support SLR lenses from other manufacturers. It’ll actually work with the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G, though of course the latter two don’t pack as many megapixels or the iMovie app for on-the-fly video editing.

There are still questions – when they’re not berating him for his choice of name, commenters are asking about the difference in image circle between what size sensor an SLR lens is designed to work with and the sensor in the iPhone 4 – and Jeremy is yet to show any sample shots from the rig, but as we saw with similar systems for earlier iPhones, people just seem to love to make complicated mounts for relatively mainstream cameraphones.

via SlashGear

TicBits Ltd has announced that ABC’s Good Morning America featured iAssociate in their reportage on how to keep your kids’ brains sharp during the summer. “This is a totally addictive word association game.” said parenting expert Ann Pleshette Murphy. According to Ann Pleshette Murphy games like iAssociate can help kids avoid the so called “Brain drain” that can occur during summer when they go two months without studying.

“We’re super pleased with iAssociate being featured on ABC’s Good Morning America and by someone as highly respected as Ann Pleshette Murphy. This really shows how much appreciated iAssociate is.” said Niklas Wahrman, co-founder and CTO of TicBits Ltd. “Being able to help kids keeping their minds sharp during the summer is awesome. I love how games have become a real tool to help us grow and aren’t just viewed as an unhealthy waste of time.”

A new update to iAssociate 2 is also on the way, it was submitted to Apple for review earlier this week and should be available shortly. “We’ve worked hard to ramp up our production of new levels for iAssociate 2. The next update contains four new levels, that are both the biggest and best so far!” said Niklas. “We really feel we hit the ground running with TicBits Ltd. iAssociate 2 became a hit almost instantly and we will keep making it better and add more levels, both free and premium.”

The best selling VLC remote lets users control VLC Media Player on their Mac, PC or Linux machine – using their iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. VLC is a fabulous, free media player that can handle almost any file format effortlessly and VLC remote gives it the remote control it deserves. VLC remote allows users to browse their full media collection on their computer or network drives and to select, and play movies, shows or music with VLC without leaving the comfort of the sofa, bed or beanbag.

No more getting up to reach for the mouse. VLC remote allows users to pause, skip tracks, pick a new file or use the multitouch sliders to control their position in a movie. Advanced controls even allow the user to select aspect ratio, audio tracks, subtitles or to control DVDs. Powerful and easy to use, VLC remote 5.0 has multitasking support for iOS4 which allows users to switch between VLC Remote and other applications seamlessly. VLC Remote 5.0 has beautifully updated graphics and icon which show the Retina display at its best.

Penpower Inc. today announces the rerelease of its popular WorldCard Mobile application to the iTunes store. WorldCard Mobile is a business card scanning application that allows users to take a picture of a business card with their iPhone and have the information automatically entered into their contact list using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. The 2010 CTIA Emerging Technology award winner is the first business card scanning app available in the iTunes store that is compatible with the new iOS4 operating system. Coupled with the update in compatibility are several new features cementing WorldCard’s status as a top business app for iPhone users.

WorldCard Mobile has already been praised for its superior recognition abilities and functionality from CTIA, who awarded the app the first place Emerging Technology Award in the Mobile Applications: Business Productivity category. In the new release WorldCard Mobile has added Email Signature Capture to its functions, allowing users to add contacts from email signatures. This feature was previously only available through separate applications and WorldCard is the first to integrate the function into a business card scanning application. In addition, the app now features automatic camera shake reduction and improved recognition ability, building on its already impressively accurate scanning capabilities.

Announcing NY Convergence, the developer of NY Convergence, has released their latest update for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users. While NYConvergence.com has been around since 2008, it remains the only site in existence that offers latest developments for the digital media and technology industry for the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut region. The NY Convergence app now puts all that same information at a user’s fingertips. All reporting is professional, independent and relevant, incorporating not only news coverage but also a free daily newsletter, media/tech event announcements and an industry job board, to help users keep up with the New York Tri-State area’s digital revolution.

The NY Convergence website was launched in 2008 by CEO and publisher, Lloyd Trufelman. As the president of a media relations firm, he understood the importance and scope of the expanding digital transition taking place in the New York Tri-State region.

“This area has the largest high-tech workforce in the U.S.A., leading national employment in telecom, research and development, testing and internet services. There are more than 316,500 jobs in these sectors,” says Trufelman.