Twitter has flipped the switch on some new features, including geotagging of tweets and automatic retweeting. As a happy user of Stone Design's Twittelator Pro 3.3.1 [iTunes link], I was even more giddy when I found out that my favorite Twitter app already supports both of these features.

The geotagging feature lets you optionally attach a latitude and longitude to your tweets. If you receive the tweet in Twittelator, you can tap on the sender's avatar icon to see the geotag and pull up a Google map of the location near where the tweet was sent. The app lets you turn off geotagging when you send a tweet, which is useful if you're trying to shake off a stalker. It's also cool to use "nearby search" to find people who are near you and sending out tweets, and view their location on a map.

The official retweet feature has been going live for the past two weeks or so, although as of yet I haven't seen or been able to send a retweet that appears with the new retweet icon. In the web-based Twitter, I do see the new icons and messages that say "Retweeted by you," but I'm not sure why I'm not seeing this in Twittelator Pro.

Is anyone else using Twittelator Pro 3.3.1 who can vouch that the new retweet capability is working for them? Leave a comment.

TUAW told you it was coming, and it has arrived. TomTom has updated its U.S. GPS navigation app [US$99.99, iTunes link] and added text-to-speech, advanced lane guidance, and a 'help me' feature for use in emergencies.

TomTom has been a little late to the text-to-speech party, with most competitors already offering this important function. Magellan has now jumped into the game with a very nice nav app as well, and at an introductory price that undercuts the TomTom app by twenty bucks.

All of the major navigation apps for the iPhone are quickly approaching feature parity. At this point, your main decision is whether you want the data streamed to your phone (as the AT&T app does), or have maps and data built into the app (like TomTom, Navigon, Magellan and some others).

Looming over whatever decision you make is trying to figure out if Apple will ever allow the Google turn-by-turn navigation app into the app store. It's going to be free, and Google says it wants the app to be on the iPhone. Of course things haven't been going swimmingly between Google and Apple of late (Google Voice, Android competition), so it's just a guess as to how that will all turn out.

If you need a navigation app in order to get to Grandma's house for the holidays, it's probably a good time to buy one. However, If you're willing to wait for the possibility of Google's free turn-by-turn nav app making it to the iPhone, you might be rewarded for your patience.

Novelty and social applications are a big hit on the iPhone. A new one from the folks of Taptivate is sure to be a big hit when it is released in the near future. Voices for iPhone is touted as an "audio recorder with a twist" and even a "social voicemail" utility.

With Voices [iTunes Link], you're given tools to manipulate your own voice in many fun and odd ways. Whether you'd like to transform into Darth Vader or a chipmunk, you're good to go with Voices. Sporting a unique and very pretty user interface, the application boasts a lot of cool extras sure to show you how hard the developers have worked on it.

The app has a home screen-like selection window where you can choose the way in which you want your voice manipulated. A stack of your recordings can also be accessed with just a tap.

After initially seeing this app when it was in early beta, it has come a long way since then. The app is being published by Tap Tap Tap and is available for only 99 cents. Also, to celebrate the release, MacHeist is offering a special "Tweetblast" deal, giving away a free copy of Voice Candy for Mac to people who help spread the word on Twitter.

Here's some shots of Voices in action:

This sounds an awful lot like sour grapes to me: Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software engineer, told a Professional Developers' Conference earlier this week that it wasn't the apps that would make or break the smartphone platforms. Of course, that's what most press and blog outlets seem to be focusing on (maybe because we all already know what the hardware is like -- apps change every day if not every minute, and the hardware only changes occasionally), but Ozzie says customers won't buy a phone for the apps. The biggest apps, he says, will eventually be available on every platform. To put it in as few words as possible, you'll be able to tweet from everything in the future.

And he's got part of a good point there: it's true, the major functionality of "killer apps" will be available across platforms. But Ozzie forgets (or is just ignoring) that that's already the case on desktops. While yes, you could claim that porting to the various smartphones is easier than porting to the various PC platforms, that doesn't avoid the fact that I can tweet, IM, email, browse, edit photos and movies, and do whatever else I want on both platforms as well. And for some reason (ahem, the hardware and the way both software and hardware are designed), I'd rather do them on the Mac. People love their iPhones not just for the apps but for the way it fits in their hand, and how just plain slick it is.

That's not to say that the smartphone platform war is over -- no way, it's only beginning, and we consumers will take innovative ideas wherever we can get them. But Ozzie saying the apps don't count (and echoing his fellow Microsofters in trying to separate Apple from their software strategy) seems to mean that even he thinks he's already lost that race -- they certainly do play a large part in which platform consumers eventually choose.

There are two arrivals in the App Store of note. First, after a three month wait, the multiservice IM client Trillian is now available in the App Store [iTunes link] for iPhone and iPod touch.

We previously discussed the fact that Trillian was sitting in approval limbo with no word from Apple as to why the app was being delayed. As of today it is available for US$4.99. Cerulean Studios website has more information on features, and we will be reviewing the app soon, but we wanted to let you know that it was available (for iPhone/iPod touch devices running OS 3.0 or later).

Second, the 2.0 update to Google Earth for iPhone [iTunes link] is rolled out now. The major new feature in the app is the ability to overlay your own custom Google maps onto the geographic display in GE; the app also improves POI selection and adds a slew of new languages. Google Earth requires iPhone/iPod touch OS 2.0 or later, and it's free.

[Google Earth hat tip to Ars Technica]

Last August, China Unicom Ltd (CHU) announced a 3-year partnership to officially bring the iPhone to China. As predicted in July, the CHU's iPhone is sold with Wi-Fi disabled, in accordance with the Golden Shield Project. Additionally, 3GS hardware is still unavailable in China.

Despite these hindrances, handset and App Store sales have been doing well, AppleInsider reports. It's estimated that $1 million in legitimate app sales have been made this year, with a little over a month-and-a-half left in the quarter.

Black market phones are a huge problem in China, and it's been estimated nearly 2 million are in circulation, most of them jailbroken and running pirated apps. Apple hopes to sell 500,000 iPhones in China by the year's end.

Next year looks brighter: Wi-Fi regulations were relaxed back in May, and CHU hopes to have a Wi-Fi enabled model available soon.

[Via AppleInsider]

Last year, I was introduced to Funny Farm while working on a team project with my inlaws. I absolutely loved the idea of a puzzle that grew as you solved parts of it. The game works by associating words with their natural connections, e.g. "On the Farm" could inspire you to think of cow, chicken, and farmer (among other words). You then spin out those ideas to further connections. The chicken might be associated with rooster, hen, and egg, and so forth. So I was really excited to encounter iAssociate (iTunes link).

Developed by Fredrik Wahrman, iAssociate brings Funny Farm-style interaction to the iPhone. It's a really fun (and quite challenging) implementation with over a half dozen separate puzzles to work on, promising hours and hours of game play.

Each puzzle starts you out with a core idea. It's up to you to brainstorm ideas that fit around that idea, expanding each node into a wider set of associations. The word map is easy to scroll, and even though the iPhone display is quiter small, you can interact with a virtually large puzzle.

The game play is slightly different from Funny Farm in that instead of entering text into a central guessing area, you type text directly into nodes. If there are five nodes with six letters each, enter your guess into the central node, matching against all connected nodes. (You do get partial credit for guessing the right starting letters but the wrong word.)

I have only one real beef with iAssociate, which Wahrman promises me is being addressed in the next release. And that is the text size, particularly for the instructions. As you can see in the following image, helper overlay text is tiny. Speaking as a member of the graying community with weak eyes and a growing obsession with high fiber foods, iAssociate proved to me that I really need to look into bifocals or reading glasses. The text was headache-inducing small.

Beyond that, iAssociate was a blast to play. I enjoyed stretching my neurons a little and it makes a very good game for collaborating with friends. I do wish that Wahrman had built in some kind of multi-player feature, so groups could work on the puzzle together rather than be limited to pass-and-play. Hopefully that will be added in the future.

iAssociate costs $1.99 on the App Store. You can download a few versions (under the name "Associate This" (iTunes Link) as well, allowing you to try the game play before committing to buying the full product.

TUAW received a review promo code for this write-up.

We have a lot of apps coming through our tipline, but this one caught my eye, not only because it is called Zombies (the stumbling undead always catch my eye), but because it offers up a bit of good old-fashioned fun in the form of a Daleks!-style remake.

Gameplay is simple and straighforward -- you run, turn-by-turn in eight directions, from zombies, who pursue you at the same speed, and though the game runs at any pace you want (perfect for gameplay on the iPhone, in my opinion, since most of the time I'm just looking for a few seconds to a couple minutes of easy-to-pick-up action), the dread is real. Just like actual zombies, these guys shamble their way toward you with a hunger that only brains can satisfy.

The game is on the App Store now [iTunes link]. I will say that it is a touch pricey at $2.99 (a simple arcade game like this seems made for the 99-cent price point, and it will probably end up there eventually), but who am I to begrudge the developers a couple of bucks? I don't need to drink that cup of Starbucks anyway. If you're in the mood for a simple, zombified twist on an old classic, this is it.

While you're at it, check out the Zombies preview video we shot at WWDC last July.

Simply put: Star Wars: Trench Run [iTunes link] is awesome.

The idea is fairly simple: you are re-enacting the final battle scene from the first Star Wars movie, and if you think that refers to The Phantom Menace, may God have mercy on your soul. There's a dogfight, with you in your X-wing versus several TIE Fighters. That's followed by your descent into the trench on the Death Star where you face off against TIE Fighters, cannons, and obstacles that you have to fly over or under, all while avoiding being lined up Darth Vader's crosshairs.

When you get to the end of the trench, you have to try to hit the exhaust port and blow up the Death Star.

My method of evaluating games is simple:

1. Is it fun to play?

2. Is it something that I'll still want to play after I've played it for awhile?

The Genius Bar is a popular feature of Apple's retail stores. Shoppers can schedule appointments with the resident Geniuses to request repairs, ask for help and so on. The tough part can be getting an appointment, as they fill up fast. AppleInsider is reporting that Apple will release a concierge app meant to make that process easier.

They say that the app will let users schedule appointments with both the Genius Bar and One-To-One and monitor their place in line. No other information was available. Recently, Apple added a service that lets people pick up Macs and iPods ordered online from retail stores, complete with gift wrapping.

We'll keep an eye on the App Store and let you know when this app lands.

It doesn't happen so much anymore, but not too long ago you'd hear about a new offering arriving in the App Store that would stir up a little controversy (the NetShare tethering app springs to mind). They'd enjoy some fanfare and a ton of purchases for a few days before being summarily removed, never to return and often without a thorough explanation from Apple. A relatively small number of users would retain possession of the app and would take a bit of pride in knowing that they were in the right place at just the right time to snag a copy of the app before it was yanked.

When I got the email from our very own Mike Rose regarding the release of GV Mobile, I was pretty excited. I'd been wanting to more fully adopt the Google Voice service, but had wanted a more iPhone-ish experience in doing so and GV Mobile seemed to have just what I was jonesing for. I paid the three bucks right then and, like The Giving Tree, was happy.

My adoption plan for Google Voice didn't pan out quite like I'd hoped for a while after that. I'd use it occasionally, but I had trouble moving it from the number I gave to sales people to the number I gave to my mother-in-law. But, despite the absence of the app in the App Store, I still had a perfectly working copy of it on my iPhone, ready when I was - or so I thought.

A couple of weeks ago, I had decided that it was time to make Google Voice a more central part of my communication workflow. Having not launched GV Mobile in a while, I fired it up to reacquaint myself with the interface, capabilities, etc. Trouble is, I couldn't authenticate with Google. I triple-checked my credentials but the app would just throw an error on launch and that was that. A couple of people on Twitter had mentioned having the same issue and a quick Google search informed me that, sure enough, the app no longer worked. Apparently, Google had modified the Voice API such that authentication now worked differently than it did when GV Mobile was written. Because the app no longer had Apple's seal of approval, I had little recourse because there obviously weren't going to be any updates to the app anytime soon.

Which raised the broader question - how heavily should we rely on "orphaned" apps? If they're self-contained (which is to say, they don't rely on any web sites or services to function properly), it probably isn't a big deal, but if you're a heavy Google Voice user and GV Mobile is how you got your work done, is it really a good idea to hang your hopes on an app that will likely never see any type of upgrade or bugfix release?

I can confidently say that this little hiccup has seriously cramped my plans for more completely adopting Google Voice. Is the same true for you? Have you experienced this type of dilemma with any other now-missing App Store purchases? Tell us about it in the comments!

Touch Arcade has the news that the long-awaited Ravensword and a number of other games built on the Unity game engine have been rejected by Apple from the App Store. The problem appears to be a number of API calls in the engine (though not specifically the game themselves, as I understand it) that allow the games to access the iPhone's number and send it back to the developer's servers.

Apple considers these to be private APIs, and they also got games developer Storm8 in trouble earlier this week; their games were pulled from the store in response to a lawsuit alleging that they were collecting data from users without their knowledge.

Chillingo, publishers of Ravensword, contacted us about this story, and they said that while the Unity engine does allow developers to use these calls, they did not use them or collect any user information. We're also told that the problem APIs "have been removed," and Chillingo has resubmitted the game for App Store approval.

As I understand it, this is the same type of issue that came up with Google a while back. It's not the same APIs (Google was using the proximity sensor back then), but now as then, it's Apple's call whether they will allow developers to use these private and undocumented calls. Obviously some apps on the iPhone have to access the address book from time to time, but it's Apple's call whether they can use APIs like that or not. This time, it appears, they said no.

Update: Unity has also contacted us, and they say that the engine was updated to Apple's wishes as soon as they learned of the issue. They also would like to point out that while Storm8 did use the same private API calls, they don't use Unity to run their games. Storm8's update on the issue is here.

App Store developers can be a rebellious kind -- we've already covered the story of a company shooting their price up to $40 just to show their customers how much they could be charging, and now, in response to an overly defensive trademark owner, developers on the store are putting the word "Edge" in their titles. Even high profile releases like the sequel to Eliss and the popular Canabalt are becoming Edgeliss and Canabedge. Critter Crunch becomes Critter Edge on their main page, and so on.

The story starts with a guy named Tim Langdell, who started a company a while back named Edge Games. Since he founded that company, he has mercilessly gone after any other game company who dares to use the word "edge" in their title, claiming that he has the trademark to any and all "edge"-related gaming. He's gone after EA's Mirror's Edge and a few other titles, but the App Store has been a prime target, where he simply contacts Apple, claims the app is in violation of his trademarks, and gets apps pulled without a problem. The latest target is a title called Killer Edge Racing by a company named PuzzleKings, and reportedly Langdell has gone so far as to trademark that name, despite the fact that the game using it has been around for years.

Hence the indie game developers' "edge-volution." They aren't actually renaming their games in the store, just showing off solidarity with other developers against what they see as Langdell's wrongdoing, and getting the word out about his actions against "edge" on the App Store.

It would have been nice for the App Store's public relations team if the biggest news in the past few days was the introduction of a more transparent progress report for applications under review, giving developers some of the feedback they need to see where their apps are in the pathway towards approval and release. Unfortunately, that minor but tangible step toward a more open approval process is overshadowed by a story of frustration and disaffection from one of the platform's rising stars: Joe Hewitt, the man behind Facebook's popular iPhone app, is mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore.

Hewitt's frustration with the app review process isn't new, but in the same August blog post where he called for the elimination of review, he promised "I will not stop developing for Apple's platforms or using Apple's products as long as they continue to produce the best stuff on the market." A few months later, he's announced that he's handing off the Facebook app to another developer, and he's reached the point where his frustration has overcome his willingness to continue working on the iPhone. [Commenter 'Gak' points out that Hewitt's open-sourced Three20 library for iPhone devs has been flagged for use of private frameworks, which may have been one of the final straws.]

Hewitt spoke to TechCrunch earlier today, and his attitude is clear:

"My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple's policies. I respect their right to manage their platform however they want, however I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process. I am very concerned that they are setting a horrible precedent for other software platforms, and soon gatekeepers will start infesting the lives of every software developer."

Losing the talent behind the top social networking app in the store is bad for users and bad for the platform, but I don't imagine that Apple is going to give up the lockdown of review anytime soon. Is there a way around this logjam that will let developers innovate at Internet speed while still giving Apple some semblance of control? Here's one idea...

The press release I received tonight said it all: "TweetDeck for iPhone -- now with added awesome." I use TweetDeck on my Macs, but had used another competing app for tweeting from my iPhone. After this update, which is the first major upgrade to this free Twitter client, I may have to reconsider!

The features in TweetDeck 1.1.1 [iTunes Link] have been given a squirt of goodness, with these new features added to the mix:

• Video tweeting via integration with 12seconds (record video and send to Twitter or Facebook using 12seconds platform)
• Facebook integration (updates, FB columns, wall posts, etc.)
• Landscape composing (for those with stumbly thumbs)
• Trending Topics to see what's happening RIGHT NOW
• Save Draft for later
• Bit.ly support
• And some additional goodies...

As with the Mac and Windows versions, the TweetDeck for iPhone user interface makes great use of columns, each of which can show a different feed, direct messages, or mentions for multiple accounts. Be sure to watch the video above, and if you're still looking for an iPhone Twitter client, give this fun freebie a try.