Just a week and a half ago WordPress for the iPhone was announced with a pretty killer screencast detailing what you could do with it. Tuesday morning it finally showed up on the app store (download it here), and I've had ample time to play with it. The good news is that it's very enjoyable to use and quite capable for creating posts on the go. The bad news? You've got to have an iPhone or iPod Touch to take advantage of it.

The key benefit to using this app is writing and publishing quick posts on … Read more

Updated on 7/23/08 at 12:00pm PST.

Even if you won't get reception where you're headed, think twice about leaving your iPhone behind. The iPhone's all-new iTunes App Store makes it an even indispensable travel tool for international excursions, even if it's rendered essentially useless as a phone (unless you're not adverse to being charged oodles in roaming fees.)

Media console As romantic as travel sounds, a large hunk of it is wasted on waiting. There's airport check-in, long train and bus rides, and time to kill while a fastidious companion prepares … Read more

Teaching yourself a few niceties in a foreign language requires more than an hour in front of a phrasebook. Piecing together sentences out of unfamiliar accents and sounds is neither easy nor accurate, and could earn you looks of bemusement or horror if your neophyte's pronunciation produces a garbled or unintended communication.

That's what makes Lonely Planet's collection of audio phrasebooks for English-speakers (about $10) so eminently usable. With phrases organized into categories for transportation, money, dining, and so on, travelers can easily browse for pertinent communications. Like print phrasebooks, the foreign spelling and transliteration are present. … Read more

One of the things I've noticed in the emerging wave of iPhone applications is that many of the highest rated applications could be found on the App Store's illegitimate precursor--Nullriver's application installer. Several of these applications have been under almost constant development for the greater part of a year, long before Apple made the SDK available. In the case of newcomer Twinkle, that extra time really shows.

You might remember our hands-on with Twinkle back in April. Its claim to fame is that it mixes in location-based services with Twitter, not only letting you tweet with your … Read more

Yelp and Where are two free location-finding iPhone applications that take vastly different approaches to direct you to what you're looking for.

While my personal preferences anoint Yelp for iPhone (review) the better service for its broader and more objective listings, Where for iPhone's (coverage) plotting of only partnered services will also have its cluster of followers. The bottom line is this: though serviceable, they both need work. Yelp's developers should hone the accuracy and breadth of this application's listings and stabilize performance against crashes. Where would benefit from letting users customize their choices by selecting … Read more

Life is so much easier when you have your most pertinent personal information on hand. SplashID for iPhone and iPod Touch is a premium application ($9.99) that encrypts and password-protects the credit card, frequent flyer, and bank account numbers you've entered into the neatly arranged application. See how it works in this First Look video.

>>Discover other iPhone apps

Updated 7/17/08 at 11:16 am PST with additional pricing information.

It's time that Opera Mobile got its due. Long overshadowed by Opera Mini--the light, server-fed browser for Java phones--Opera Mobile is a robust browser built on Web standards (and written with C and C++) that's known for delivering a full Web experience to Windows Mobile and Symbian phones.

Yet even though Opera Mobile has made good as a much closer approximation of the desktop Internet experience, it traditionally hasn't received the same developmental attention as Opera Mini. With Opera Mobile 9.5 beta, … Read more

On Thursday, Seattle-based mobile widgets maker Zumobi announced its graphics-rich application for BlackBerry. Originally developed for Windows Mobile phones, Zumobi's BlackBerry release marks the application's second platform appearance and hearkens a handful of other improvements.

As a widget organizer, Zumobi lets users add 16 "tiles" to the application's home screen. The number keys and pearl are used to navigate among the four quadrants, and then again among each remaining quadrant to arrive at the elected tile.

Each tile, created by partners, independent developers, or users online, serves an ad, ratings scale, forwarding link, and search … Read more

Can't get a song out of your head and don't know what it's called? There are two good applications for iPhone that will fetch song titles and artists when curiosity begins to gnaw.

Shazam for iPhone (see video) grabs song, title, and album information after 30 seconds of listening to a recording. If YouTube videos are available, you'll be able to download them in a click from the results page. When or if you're ready to buy, the application also integrates with the iTunes music store, which will gladly bill your account for the song.… Read more