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In this continuing series here on ReadWriteWeb, we round up some of our favorite new applications for smartphones each month, specifically for iPhone and Android devices. This spring edition includes some major new launches on Android, like Netflix and Google Music, as well as some incredible technology leaps on iPhone, like the app which identifies trees by their leaves! As a bonus for this month, we've added a section with notable app updates and another featuring new tablet apps. New Apps for iPhone LeafSnap: Possibly the most ground-breaking app released in recent days, LeafSnap lets you identify trees by taking a picture of their leaves. Created by researchers at Columbia University, University of Maryland and the Smithsonian Institute, the app is like something you would see on TV, roll your eyes at and scoff, "as if that exists!" Well, technology moves fast - it exists! And, according to the app's description, this is only the first in a series of field guides the researchers are developing. (Free, iTunes) Seamless: This app lets you start playing a song on your Mac then "seamlessly" transition to listening to it on your iPhone/iPod Touch, or vice versa. Both devices have to be on the same Wi-Fi network. ($1.99, iTunes) FavFriends: A new way to keep up with your favorite Facebook friends, using a combination of a customized friend list and push notifications. Our coverage. ($0.99, iTunes) Hype Machine Radio: A new app from MP3 blog aggregator Hype Machine lets you find new music from undiscovered, indie artists and stream to your mobile device. Our coverage. ($2.99, iTunes) Voice Brief - Lite: Get briefed on your schedule, news, Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, stocks and more, with this virtual assistant app that reads aloud to you. (Free, iTunes) Yahoo Messenger: This new IM app for iPhone and iPad can do video and voice calls, text chat, presence, SMS and photo-sharing. Our coverage. (Free, iTunes) Trover: A great local discovery app that offers photo-sharing, social networking and more. (Free, iTunes) DOL - Timesheet: From the Dept. of Labor, this app lets employees track the hours they work and calculate the amount owed by the employer to verify they're being paid what they're due. (Free, iTunes) i3D: This concept application tracks a user's head movement using the iPhone or iPad and updates a 3D scene on the device accordingly. A cool technology demo. (Free, iTunes; image credit AppAdvice) Read More

Posted 04/04/2011 at 11:00am | by Seamus Bellamy While we've been busy cranking out Wi-Fi hotspots, sending music and video to our Apple TVs and generally living it up wirelessly with our iOS devices, developers have been busy coding their fingers down to the bone to bring AirPlay compatibility to their applications. What's that you say? You've been too busy to check in with the iTunes App Store lately? Don't worry: Like always, Mac|Life has your back. To make sure that AirPlay becomes a part of your glorious Mac lifestyle, we've put together a selection of seven of our favorite AirPlay compatible applications for you to use, peruse and enjoy. Having iMovie on your iPad is awesome. Sending iMovie content from your iPad to your Apple TV is, well, more awesome. Thanks to AirPlay, anyone can thrill their friends with their video masterpieces/monstrosities on any Apple TV-connected widescreen television. We found that the video looked great, even when it was put together using raw footage from an iPhone 3GS camera, and synced up to our TV just as fast as content we’ve downloaded from iTunes does. Nice! Your guests need some snacks to go with that homemade epic. Fortunately, Martha Stewart Makes Cookies can walk you through a wide number of delicious recipes, the tools you’ll need to make them and a healthy serving of AirPlay compatible how-to videos featuring Martha and a cadre of cookie commandos to make sure your baking turns out for the best. FitnessClass has a wide variety of work outs for all fitness levels, FitnessClass is a first-class iPad application for helping you kick start those New Years resolutions--in April. From high-impact cardio to kettle-ball basics, this one’s got it all. Sadly, while the application itself is free, you’ll have to pay for the AirPlay compatible video fitness sessions it contains. If you’d rather mellow out and tone your muscles with some yoga instead of the high-impact fare offered by FitnessClass, Authentic Yoga with Deepak Chopra for iPad has you covered. Offering the ability to build your own yoga routines from the large number of Airplay compatible videos baked into the application, as well as some interesting commentary from Deepak Chopra on the history and philosophy of yoga, this one’s a steal at $1.99.  Even if you never plan on trying out any of the poses illustrated by the app, it provides a fascinating look at Read More

Jim Spencer spent the end of the 1990's as an executive at NBC, AOL and Ask Jeeves when those were all viable media companies, before the dot-com crash. Now he's taking on the iPad-media-era from an office across the street at his alma mater, the University of Missouri-Columbia. That's home to what was the world's first school of journalism, founded more than 100 years ago. Spencer's new startup Newsy.com has combined an innovative journalistic model, a low-cost Midwest business strategy and a beautiful touchscreen design to rocket to the top 10 of news apps for the iPad in iTunes. Remember how the iPad was supposed to change journalism? Newsy could be an example of how it's actually working; the resulting app is one you should be sure to check out if you have an iPad. (Links: iPad, iPhone) Last week Newsy announced that it has raised $2 million to extend its work. The 25-person team is headquartered across the street from the university's journalism school and grabs many of the smartest graduates to come and work for it. Spencer says the low cost of living and the state of Missouri's tax breaks for tech startups make the location a perfect place to build his team. Newsy doesn't cover breaking news and it probably never will. Instead, the team waits until a topic is buzzing, then grabs video clips from multiple sources across the political perspective to combine into a short video segment. The resulting content is very clearly incorporating, with extensive attribution, the work of diverse news production teams from around the world. The breadth of editorial vision seems genuinely diverse, too. Clips from Fox News and Democracy Now! will both appear in the same stories at times. The production value applied to putting these video segments together occasionally has some rough edges, but it is generally quite good and will no doubt improve with the infusion of cash. "People talk about content farms," Spencer says, "but we're more like a Farm Team. We're an analyzer, not an aggregator." Spencer says that people are increasingly skeptical about bias in the news, but that most media outlets don't want to report on what other outlets are saying. That gives his organization a unique chance to do it smarter, faster and cheaper. The company's iPad app was built by the winners of a local student iPhone app design contest. Newsy liked the team's Read More

Not everyone wants to read through a mountain of RSS feeds to find out what’s happening in the world, but that doesn’t mean those people want to go to traditional media and watch several minutes of a CNN broadcast. Newsy exists as a comfortable medium for people who want to watch the news but get it quickly and succinctly. Newsy is like a blog aggregator that delivers news drawn from several sources. The app features several videos with clips from news broadcasts and commentary from trusted print or online sources. If a story breaks on NYTimes.com about Google TV, Newsy has an anchor quickly summarize the basics of that article, as well as some important commentary or additional context found on other sites. The visual quality and news content of Newsy makes this an appealing app. It is a great way to quickly be updated on interesting stories. The app is available for free in the Android Market. Read More

...first comes from BNO News, the tiny but incredibly efficient media organization behind the popular @BreakingNews Twitter account that gets followed by some 1,320,000 people right now. The company’s ‘breaking news’ iPhone application (iTunes link) with customized push notifications is a must-have for anyone who likes to learn about news near-instantly. PaidContent’s Rafat Ali recently gu... Read More