Once you have updated your device, you can go into the App Store application and then the Featured option on the lower menu bar. Once in the Featured option, there will be a new tab at the top of the page titled Genius (it is located next to New and What’s Hot).

The first time you open the Genius feature you will have to set it up. First you must choose the “Turn On Genius” option. You are then greeted with some Terms and Conditions lingo that you must agree to (twice). Once you have successfully turned on Genius for Apps, it will begin to load recommended applications.

I tested this feature on my son’s iPhone and it actually did pretty well. It recommended 15 applications (with the option to see more recommendations) that were very similar to the ones he plays most often. I also like that on each recommendation, it displays which installed application the recommendation is based off. You can also swipe and remove a recommendation from the list.

I couldn’t really determine any sort of order for the recommendations, they seemed pretty random. This feature is available for both the iPhone and the iPod touch on 3.1

Overall, a very handy new feature that could make the black hole of applications in the App Store a little less overwhelming and a little more manageable.

ScreenShots

You can install UNLIMITED APPS! Only 180 show up as icons—but Spotlight can find and open all of them! (And yes, we tried. Stopped at 250!)

The only problem I see to this is that if you install your 181th app, you won’t be able to move it to a page to organize your apps since you can’t see it on any of your home screens. You’d also have to uninstall the app via iTunes on your computer because you can’t see it to tap and hold on it if you wanted to uninstall.

Since my iPhone is jailbroken, I am using categories to organize my apps that aren’t on my first couple of pages. Unfortunately none of this works on Web Apps. You can’t Spotlight search for them, you can’t put them in categories, and you can’t even put then in a Stack.

Backgrounder, a mod that allows applications to run in the background, has been updated to version svn.r247. This version of Backgrounder is for firmware 3.0 and above. If you are on 2.2.1 or below make sure you DO NOT upgrade. The update also only enables the basic backgrounder feature…there are no extra features at this time. The developer says it will take some time to get the features working on the 3.0 firmware.

To enable Backgrounder, just open an application and then hold the Home Button. You will get a nice pop-up saying that Backgrounder in enabled. You can then close the app by giving your Home Button a quick tap. To disable Backgrounder, open the application back up and hold the Home Button. You will get a pop-up saying that Backgrounder has been disabled.

Because there are no features, you will just have to remember which apps you have running in the background….we are going old school. Remember, leaving apps running in the background will affect your battery life!

ScreenShots

First off, most all regular apps should work on 3.0. The changes were not that severe for most apps to stop working. So if the app is not in the list, it probably works. What probably does not work are apps that rely on mobile substrate or any sort of springboard patching. These all use undocumented APIs.

Next is to understand why some things are not working *for you* that are listed on the “working” list. Many apps require root access and use a trick that involves the dirname command. This command was not present in some older packages in Saurik’s older repository. Saurik set up a newer version of his repository for 3.0 (which will merge back in to the trunk soon). The point is, many of you may have his older repository instead due to one of these reasons:

1) You used an early Icy without its essential updates that do not fix saurik’s repo.
2) You used apt backup to restore your packages and it restored the old repository.
3) You did not accept some essential updates.
4) Some other thing that I am not aware of. But the cause is most likely failing dirname command.

You can check if you have this issue in Cydia: Load Cydia, wait for it to do its thing then go to manage, sources, then look for Telesphoreo in the list. If you see this line of text *exactly*, you have the new repository “Distribution of Unix Software for iPhoneOS 3″ (this is good!) If you see this line: “Distribution of Unix Software for iPhoneOS” (this is bad) you have the *old* repository.

One more thing. If you install something and get an immediate spinning wheel of death, reboot. Some times mobilesubstrate’s install causes this and after a reboot it will be fine.

You can see the full post and view the compatibility list HERE.

Pinch Media has been keeping some nice records of App Store app statistics. What I found to be interesting were the results of the stats. It seems that people quickly lose interest in the apps they download from the App Store. In fact, according to Pinch Media, “For free applications, only about 20 percent of users return to use the app the first day after they download it, and then it quickly drops off from there. By 30 days out, less than 5 percent are using the app. The chart for paid apps shows a slightly steeper fall-off rate.”

Not only did I find this to be interesting but, based on my own experience, highly accurate. There are very few applications that I use on a daily basis and to be honest, there are many I completely forget about after using them the first time (or demoing them).

When I do find that I have a few minutes to spare (usually when waiting at the doctor’s office or when meeting someone) there are a select few games/apps that I choose to occupy my time with. I have pages (and pages) of applications on my iPhone but honestly, I could probably only name about one page worth of those applications. I do realize that I might be a slightly abnormal case since I am constantly testing apps but, I have a feeling this is a universal experience.

What I cannot figure out is if I get bored with applications, if I am partial to certain types of apps or if I just plain forget about apps that I have on my iPhone. Just the other night, Doug and I were watching a movie and I liked one of the background songs so, what does Doug do, he whips out his iPhone and opens Shazam! I had totally forgotten about Shazam and the fact that it is a super cool application! So, I’m still pondering this one and trying to decide if App Store apps are just not developed well enough to hold my attention or if my iPhone is just as saturated with apps as the App Store that I cannot even remember that some exist (even at times when they would be very useful)! You will have to let me know what you think in the comments!

Pinch Media’s results go on to talk about the effectiveness of putting ads in a free application (which turns out to be completely ineffective). You will want to check out TechCrunch’s full article…it has a lot of interesting information. Also take a look at the the Pinch Media presentation at the end of the article (it is an embedded presentation)…there is a ton of great information and stats in there!…especially if you are are app developer or looking into getting started in the app developing world.

Christmas Elf – “Help to decorate a Christmas tree or pack Santa’s sleigh. You can even make the stars twinkle in the skies to set the mood. Just catch the items floating in space and stick them to the corresponding places on the screen.”

DiaMath – “DiaMath (Diamond Math) is a fun and challenging way to improve your problem solving skills. The principle of DiaMath is to solve for the two empty spaces in the diamond. The rule for a diamond patterns is: Add the left and right numbers together to get the bottom number (sum); multiply the left and right numbers together to get the top number (product).”

Memory Builder -”Build your brain! Expand your mind! Memory Builder is a game that will help strengthen your memory. You are shown a grid of 16 tiles. The computer will randomly turn on and off some of the tiles, briefly changing their color to green. You then must repeat the sequence in exactly the same order.”




PhotoBuddy – “PhotoBuddy is your personal assistant in photographic matters. It provides convenient ways to help professionals and amateurs calculate some of the most needed camera settings.”

Photo Sync – “Photo Sync allows you to download photos from your iphone photo album on to any computer with just a web browser and wifi connection. No cables are required.”

Ride Safe – “Are you a first time motorcycle rider? Familiar yourself with riding tips and safety rules with Ride Safe.”

TKO Marbles - “TKO Marbles is an addictive puzzle game where the object of the game is to clear all the pieces from the game board by selecting a marble that is surrounded by one or more marbles of the same color (diagonals do not count).”

TKO Numbers – “Are you up for a REAL challenge? Word searches are great, but have you ever tried a number search? Check out TKO Numbers and really challenge yourself.”

Happy Monday!! It seems there have been a few apps added to Cydia over the week-end but, lets start with Stack. We have know for a little while now that the developer of Stack was getting close to a release and it seems it has finally arrived!

Stack is an application that will stack applications on the lower right of your iPhone screen. When you tap the stack, it will display the apps (think Leopard). You can then select the Settings icon (when the stack is out) and it will give you a few options. The Settings option includes the ability to turn on a curved stack or grid stack (see screenshots below). I actually really like the grid option but, I had an issue with getting into the Settings while using the grid option. I don’t know if you experienced they same thing or not, but it was basically impossible to get back into the Settings!! I was able to get into the Settings by removing a few of the icons from my Dock.

Stack comes stock with the Contacts, Weather and Settings apps. You can add more applications to the stack my just dragging them onto the stack. If you have more than five apps in the stack, it will automatically use grid mode. To remove an app from the stack, just drag it off. The only thing that I found to be an issue is that in order to have Stack work absolutely perfectly, you will want only two icons in your Dock. You can have three or four but three will make it overlap slightly and four will put an icon behind Stack which makes it difficult to launch that application. Also, when you add an application to Stack it does not remove that app from your SpringBoard so, you will want to use Poof to hide that app on your SpringBoard. Overall, the app is super easy to use and works great! I had no issues with glitching, adding, removing and launching an app using Stack.

Note: Doug discovered that if you would like three icons in your Dock and have Stack line-up correctly, you can add a blank icon as your forth icon in your Dock. It looks a lot nicer and allows for three icons in the Dock instead of just two. You can download blank icons via Cydia. The title of the package is Blank 1 (there are more if you would like more than once blank icon). You can get them through the Steffwiz source.

The article also points out a few other cool facts stating that, “Mr. Jobs said developers’ share of iPhone application sales in the first month was about $21 million, of which the top 10 developers earned roughly $9 million.” The app Store is definitly a money making industry if you have the right tools and the ability to create an application that people want! Think the top 10 developers earned “roughly” $9 million…that is a lot of money making in only one month’s time.

You will definitely want to check out the entire article by The Wall Street Journal.