Software

Looking to get in and out of your local mall as quickly as possible this holiday season? A new iPhone app from Medl Mobile will give you the tools to buy the goods and plan your escape. No more wandering, window shopping or searching for a map.

Mall Maps is worth $2.99 if you're looking for an efficient shopping experience. The Mall Maps database contains over 1,000 shopping centers in 50 states across the US. If you can't find the mall itself, this app will let you know where the closest malls are using GPS and give you directions.

Only two weeks after releasing iTunes 9, Apple has released an update with numerous bug fixes and improvements. One notable change is that the green zoom button brings up the mini-player, just like it did before iTunes 9 took that away.

Another issue resolved by iTunes 9.0.1 is the ordering of podcasts. Some users were complaining that these files were not sorted properly in version 9.

You may have wondered why it's taking so long for the augmented reality application Nearest Tube to hit the App Store. This time the delay isn't really due to an Apple approval issue, it's just the small fact that the developers of augmented reality apps are using unpublished APIs (application programming interfaces).

That's right, Apple hasn't even released these development tools yet. The good news is that intrepid developers are soon to be vindicated by iPhone OS 3.1, which promises to include many new APIs that make augmented reality applications possible.

The last week or so has seen the arrival of the first significant third party applications for the Apple iPhone. We're not talking about AJAX web applications, we're talking true third party software running on the iPhone. The latest of these is the first NES emulator for the iPhone.

A programmer named stepwhite has delivered a native NES emulator for the iPhone based on the InfoNES core. Amongst the titles seemingly working via the emulator are: Super Mario Brothers, Zelda, Mega Man 2

You know that YouTube video that you can't stop showing to your friends over, and over, and over again? Tired of downloading it every time? Wouldn't it be great if you could just save that YouTube video permanently on your iPhone? What about when you're away a WiFi hotspot and you want to show off that video in full quality, not the degraded EDGE version? Well, now you can.

These are just a couple of scenarios when being able to convert and save YouTube videos for the iPhone comes in handy. Zamzar.com, a free online file conversion service, recently introduced an option to convert videos directly for the iPhone, including YouTube videos.

Converting a YouTube video for the iPhone using the service is painfully easy