iOS App Picks 28 Sep 2011

In this episode of the iOS App Picks we demonstrate five applications in 30 seconds each. These apps will keep you entertained, help you from leaving anything behind on your next trip, and watch free movies and TV shows. To download these apps directly to your iPhone, just click on the title of the application and the iTunes software will automatically launch to the app in the AppStore. If you have the free Google Search app installed on your iPhone just snap a picture of the QR-Code using Google Goggles or any other QR-Code scanner that will launch the App Store on your iPhone.

Crackle – A free application



Crackle is a free service, sponsored by commercials, which stream popular movies and television shows. Watch your favorite shows on the go over a cellular or Wi-Fi connection. The videos are quick to load and playback may be resumed at any time. Add movies and shows to your queue to watch later.



Where’s My Water? – No Lite and $0.99 full version



Where’s My Water? Is a very addictive puzzle game that is both simple to play and challenging at the same time. The object of the game is to drill through barricades made of dirt to get the water to Swampy, the gator that lives in the sewers. Avoid toxic waste and growing vines. Collect all three rubber ducks to earn extra points and in some levels there are hidden items in the dirt.



WebMD – A free application



Search through conditions, symptoms, and medications with WebMD. This free medical reference will give you up to date information about almost anything relating to health and wellbeing. The first aid button will help in an emergency by giving detailed instructions on how to treat the injury or condition before seeking medical assistance.



My Secret Folder – No lite and $0.99 full version



Keep you photos private with My Secret Folder. This camouflaged app looks like any other folder on youriOS device. Open up the My Secret Folder and you will need to input a password to gain access to the photos inside. This app will even alert you when there was an attempted break-in.



Packing Pro – No Lite and $2.99 full version



Leaving something behind on a business trip or vacation can sometimes be devastating. With Packing Pro you will not have to worry anymore. This app has more items to check off than most would ever need to bring with them, but it is nice to have the option. Add your own items and create your own customized lists.

Sprint Puts The Kibosh On Buggy LG Optimus S Gingerbread Update

Two weeks ago we told you how Sprint users were finally about to get some Gingerbread for their LG Optimus S handsets, just a few weeks after the update became available for the international Optimus One. Things were looking good, and we noted "assuming nothing goes wrong and forces it to halt distribution, it should hit nearly every subscriber with an Optimus S within about ten days." Oh, how we should have knocked on wood! It turns out that the update has been wreaking havoc on the Optimus S, breaking so much functionality that Sprint's withdrawn the update.

Sprint acknowledges the problem on its forums, promising that it and LG were working on diagnosing the issues and assuring users that the halt on the update's distribution is only temporary; once things are worked out, the Optimus S will finish getting Gingerbread.

So, what's going wrong? Oh, just a few small problems like an inability to get online, your PC not recognizing the phone when plugged-in over USB, refusal to recognize the presence of microSD cards, and finding itself in a state where it will no longer recharge while powered-on, eventually running the battery down to nothing. Predictive text is also turning-up broken, but compared to the rest of these issues, it seems positively minor. There are some suggested fixes for these individual issues, but no word on when an update addressing all of them may become available. 

Samsung Stratosphere Hardware Specs Leaked

We've been expecting the Samsung Stratosphere to make its way to Verizon with a little LTE action, but besides that 4G connectivity, the phone's capabilities have been largely unknown to us. We had been expecting something upper-mid-tier-ish, and it looks like we weren't too far off; a leaked Verizon spec sheet details the Stratosphere's components while identifying it as mid-tier piece of hardware.

According to the leak, the Stratosphere will have a 1GHz processor (we're assuming single-core), 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of internal flash storage (a 4GB microSD brings total storage up to 8GB). The QWERTY slider will feature a four-inch WVGA Super AMOLED screen, a five-megapixel main camera, and a 1.3-megapixel front-facer. It will arrive with Gingerbread and TouchWiz installed, and support mobile hotspot mode with up to eight devices when connected over LTE.

Considering all that, Verizon's mid-tier assessment sounds pretty spot-on to us. Look for it to arrive in early next month, possibly on October 6. 

Sprint Posts Overview Video For LG Marquee

We only first heard of the LG Marquee earlier this month, after a Radio Shack video gave away its existence with a brief cameo. It sure looked like an Optimus Black, and it didn't take long before we were able to match the Black's model number to the Marquee. Just days later – all of this spanning a mere week – Sprint formally announced the smartphone with a planned October 2 launch. With under a week to go, Sprint has uploaded an overview of the phone to YouTube, giving you one last preview before it hits retail.

After going over the Marquee's hardware layout, detailing the placement of all buttons and ports, Sprint touches on what you can accomplish with the handset's software. Ultimately, there's nothing to that end that's unique to the Marquee, but Sprint nevertheless brings up some interesting points worth considering, like how the higher-than-average 2-megapixel front-facing camera makes the phone well-suited for video chat using an app such as Qik.

Because this is a render, we don't get to appreciate how great the four-inch IPS NOVA display is supposed to look; you'll just have to wait until Sunday in order to check it out for yourself.

Ice Cream Sandwich First Look? (Video)

If a lucky eBayer is to be believed, he bought a Nexus S, and ended up with an Ice Cream Sandwich.

Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS for short) is Google's next version of Android that is rumored to be combining smartphone and tablet features back into one "trunk" operating system. It's also the alleged reason Android Honeycomb hasn't been released to the AOSP -- for fear that custom ROM builders would release the tablet version of theAndroid OS to the smartphone platform.

This lucky shopper received his Nexus S and apparently got ICS as the operating system, notGingerbread (2.3) like all the other Nexus S owners have. He took a two minute video walking through various aspects of the "new" operating system. Here are some of the things we caught in the video:

- Running a 3.x Kernel (others are around 2.6)
- Honeycomb-like lockscreen
- Honeycomb-like dialog boxes and color scheme
- Honeycomb-like Google search bar and voice-input button on the homescreen
- Honeycomb-like icons (specifically the "settings" icon)
- Honeycomb-like Recent Apps list with titles and thumbnails
- Honeycomb-like Settings screens
- Honeycomb-like horizontally paginated app drawer

Is it really Ice Cream Sandwich, or just a very elaborate, and very elegant theme? Watch the video and you be the judge. Let us know what you think in the comments!