Google has revamped Google Image search results on the iPad (and other tablets) and implemented a new carousel style user interface making it much easier to navigate. Gone are the days of viewing the full resolution image and having to go back to the results to see the next one; here are the days of simply swiping to the next full resolution image! Need more information on a particular image? Not a problem as all you have to do is tap the link in the lower left corner and the site begins to load. From the outside it looks exactly the same, but the new functionality is another page in Google’s redesign book.

Source: Google Mobile Blog

Switching from Droid or another Android device like the Samsung Facinate to the iPhone — maybe the new Verizon iPhone? — and curious which are the best, most must-have apps you need to make yourself feel at home? Well read on for TiPb’s top 5 most recommended, most must-have apps to get your Android experience maximized on iPhone.

Google Mobile (Voice search + Google Goggles)

Unlike Android, iPhone doesn’t (yet) have broad and deeply integrated voice features in iOS. While there’s some Voice Control commands for making calls and playing music, that’s about it. Enter Google Mobile which not only adds voice search but also bundles in Google Goggles functionality. From location and maps to contacts and the web to most anything you can say or point your iPhone 4 camera at, Google Mobile gets you answers and fast. [Free - iTunes link]

Also check out:

• Siri was bought by Apple for a reason. If you’re in the US, Siri is your voice-activated artificially intelligent assistant. [Free - iTunes link]
• Vlingo not only lets you use your voice to call or search but tweet on Twitter and update your status on Facebook. [Free with in-app purchases - iTunes link]

Google Voice

Yes Google Voice is finally available for the iPhone. MInd you, it’s still US only but if you want the app you probably have an account already. It’s not as deeply integrated as Android but it has all the features you know and love, including push notifications for new SMS text and voicemail messages, listen and/or read voicemail, Google Voice number displayed as Caller ID, access to your iPhone contacts, and it will run in the background under iOS 4 or later. [Free - iTunes link]

Also check out:

• Line2 isn’t free but it is business-centric with full on VoIP functionality, cheap rates, and international availability. [Subscription - iTunes Link]
• Skype lets you make free VoIP calls between devices/computers — including video calls! — and cheap calls to landline. Free/credits – iTunes link]

Mailroom (Gmail)

You can access your Gmail account via IMAP or with full push via ActiveSync right from Apple’s built-in Mail app and while you’ll get unified inbox and threaded messages you won’t get Stars and you won’t get labels. Likewise Gmail.com won’t give you the ability to access contacts or view attachments. Enter Mailroom, essential the Gmail.com webapp inside a native iPhone app wrapper that gives you most of the best of both worlds. (See our tip on using Mailroom for a better iPhone Gmail experience.) [$2.99 - iTunes link]

Also check out:

• Google Mobile, mentioned above, gives you push notification for your Gmail. [Free - iTunes link]
• Boxcar not only gives you push notification for Gmail but will open it for you in Mailroom. [Free - iTunes link]

Waze (Google Navigation)

Google hasn’t yet made a version of their free Google Navigation app for iPhone but Waze provides a free crowd-sourced alternative. It’s full on voice, turn-by-turn directions that learns as you drive and will even let you munch tokens and reward you for your contributions. Yes, it’s navigation gone social. [Free - iTunes link]

Also check out:

• NAVIGON MobileNavigator if you want to go up to a premium navigation experience with all the onboard maps and bells and whistles that come with it. [$39.99 - iTunes link]
• AT&T Navigator, powered by TeleNav, keeps your maps online, your downloads small, and is subscription based so your upfront costs are much less. [Subscription - iTunes link]

Safari (Porn and everything else)

Apple’s iTunes App Store is curated and Steve Jobs says that’s to protect you from porn. He also says the Android Market is a porn store. He neglects to mention iPhone has pretty much the best browser in the mobile space (Flash aside) and the web, it be filled with porn. It also be filled with pretty much everything else, including many awesome Google web apps like Google Docs that work just great in Safari. If you can’t find something on the App Store, launch Safari, hit the Google search box (irony!) and chances are you’ll find it on the web. [Built in]

Also check out:

• Skyfire is a browser that does server-side translation of Flash to iPhone-friendly H.264 so if you ever think you’re missing your favorite Flash video, this could fix you up. [$2.99 - iTunes link]
• Apple’s iPhone web app directory has a great list of web apps should you want to find a bunch more. [Web link]

More Google

Google has a bunch of apps in the App Store, including Google Places, Google Latitude, Google Authenticator, Panoramio, and Google Earth. If you really miss your Google fix, check them out. [Free - iTunes link]

More iPhone apps and games

Once you’ve gotten that Google fix and you’re ready for the best of the rest, check out TiPb’s Top 10 iPhone apps where we list off some of the best, most must-have social networking, communications/IM, productivity, music/internet radio, photography, utility, and location apps, along with casual, time management, and hard core games. We’ve also got an ongoing series of top app lists in different categories and we’re adding more all the time, so keep your eyes peeled!

Bonus: Jailbreak

If you’ve been rooting your Droid or Android and don’t want Apple telling you which apps and hacks you can install on your device, allow us to introduce you to the wonderful world of Jailbreak. We’re talking the Cydia Store, themes and customizations, notifications and easy settings access, and pretty much everything else you can think of and Apple would never approve. Check out our Jailbreak Starters Guide to get you going, our Top 5 Jailbreak apps and Top 5 Jailbreak themes for some of our favorites, and head on over to the Jailbreak Forum for expert help and discussion.

Your top apps?

So there you have them, our top 5 best iPhone apps for Droid/Android switchers. Be sure to check out our Picks of the Week and iPhone App and Games Forum for more recommendations, and if we missed any of your favorites leave them in the comments below!

Every week a few of us from team TiPb will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they’re fair game.

To see what we picked this week, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

Alli’s Pick: Bejeweled Blitz

The very first app I purchased the day I bought my iPhone, is still the one I use every day. Bejeweled has long been a favorite of mine. The Palm and Windows Mobile versions weren’t cheap, but in iTunes, it’s only 99 cents.

While most of you are probably familiar with the basic concept – match coloured jewels in rows to clear jewels and score points. Bejeweled has improved greatly even since I first purchased it for iPhone. It now includes the Blitz, which you play against your Facebook friends. Nothing better than a little friendly competition, and no better way to compete with your friends than in Bejewled Blitz.

Earn bonus coins either on Facebook or your iPhone, and use them to buy “boosts” to help give you that competitive edge. Bejeweled is simple, yet highly entertaining, and incredibly addictive. If you are one of the few people left who doesn’t already own Bejeweled Blitz, now is the time to hit the iTunes link and spend the 99 cents.

[$0.99 - iTunes link]

Ally’s Pick – Droplr for iPhone

Droplr for iPhone is a utility that allows you to quickly upload a video or image and create shortened links. You can then view stats and share content you have uploaded in numerous ways. Not only do they have an iPhone version, but a desktop version. I can simply drag an image or video to the icon on my Mac desktop and it’ll copy a link to the clipboard automatically. This is much easier opposed to using Twitpic or another service that makes you manually upload pictures.

Droplr for iPhone also shows you how many times one of your links has been viewed. You also have the option to email, tweet, or copy the link to your clipboard. I’ve been using this service for about 3 months now and I love it. It’s by far the easiest way I’ve found to sync content I’ve shared between devices and computers. Setup is easy and syncing is seamless. Give it a try!

[$3.99 - iTunes Link]

Brian’s pick: PhoneCloser [Jailbreak]

If you are like me and get bothered by the little things the iPhone seems to do wrong then PhoneCloser is the perfect tweak for your jailbroken iPhones. If your phone is locked and you receive a phone call, once the call ends and you unlock your phone it automatically opens to the phone app. I found this to be incredibly annoying. Granted it’s not hard to hit the home button and get out of it but I feel like I shouldn’t have to do that. PhoneCloser simply will close the phone app at the conclusion of the call. When you unlock your phone you will be greeted by your springboard/home screen rather than the phone app. This tweak installs no icons and has settings you can configure through the settings app. Best of all is this is a free tweak currently available in the Cydia Store.

Chris O’s pick: Google Mobile

I have chosen this app for one main reason. The search function using pictures is absolutely brilliant. I was given lots of company branded calendars to give out to my customers this week; each month had a photograph of a beautiful building, some I knew most I didn’t recognize. I fired up the Google Mobile app and took a picture of each building and the app identified every one of them perfectly.

I was extremely impressed and that is the reason for this pick of the week. Oh and it does a lot more – like easy access to your usual Google apps and voice search.

[Free – iTunes Link]

Chris V’s pick: Jenga

My pick of the week is Jenga. Ever since I saw the iPhone 4 demo this past summer (when Steve showed off the gyroscope with a Jenga-like game) I have been waiting for the game to come out in the app store. In the app, you can play Jenga with multiple people taking turns. In my opinion, this is the best way to play, although there is also an “arcade mode” where you can match colored tiles for extra points. The app doesn’t take advantage of the gyroscope function like we saw with Steve’s demo, but I hope this might be an “super difficult mode” that might appear in future edition (imagine having to keep the iPhone vertical to prevent the tower from falling). I can easily see how this version could be a fun, party-game type of activity.

[$0.99 - iTunes link]

Farbod’s pick: Eternal Legacy HD

As more and more console quality games pop up on both the iPhone and the iPad, Gameloft adds a stunning JRPG to the mix with Eternal Legacy HD. Being a turn-based RPG junkie, I am thrilled that finally a quality, classic style, JRPG has been made for iOS even if its not by Square-Enix. With a mixture of fantasy and sci-fi, Eternal Legacy brings great story elements, side quests, and some dungeon crawling to the table. You can level grind, customize weapons and items, and interact with tons of characters and environments. Eternal Legacy even has a tremendous amount of voice acting and story based cut scenes. If you are an RPG fan I definitely think you should give this a try. It is a bit expensive at $9.99, but for me it was well worth it. There is also a separate iPhone App for $6.99.

Leanna’s pick: Ten One Design Pogo Sketch

The Ten One Design Pogo Sketch is the perfect pair to last week’s pick of Penultimate. If you desire to use your iPad to take handwritten notes or to create paintings and drawings, the Pogo Sketch is a must-have. The stylus works perfectly with the capacitive touch screens of both the iPhone and iPad.

We’re getting into the cold months these days, and the Pogo Sketch is also a great tool for using your iPhone with gloves on. Say goodbye to answering your iPhone with the tip of your nose and pick one of these up!

[$14.95 - TiPb Accessory Store]

Rene’s pick: Word Lens

I’m a sucker for Star Trek apps, the ones that make me think the future I’ve dreamed about, that childhood sci-fi so informed, is closer and closer to being reality. That’s why I loved the original Google Mobile app where you could just speak search terms (always prefaced by a Scotty-like “Computer!”). That why I liked the early Augmented Reality apps like that layered information over live camera views. And that’s why I’m picking Word Lens this week. The idea is as simple as it is awesome. You just hold up your iPhone’s camera to a sign, menu, or any printed block text and it automagically translates and replaces the text for you. Yeah. Wow.

It’s limited to English/Spanish and Spanish/English at the moment, and while it’s local and not server-side it only does word-by-word translation so there’s no idiom and lots of hilarity, but again — the future. Or at least the bleeding edge of it and I admit, that’s the fun part.

[Free with in-app purchases - iTunes link]

Your pick?

You’re part of the team as well, so jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

Those rapscallions at Google sure do seem to be having fun with the iPhone. Not only did they pull a fast one on Apple by using private API‘s to work their lift-the-phone-to-activate-voice-search magic, they snuck a little super-swipe activated easter egg in for the rest of us! Says the Google Mobile blog:

One evening in Zurich, after a late night cake run, we decided that our iPhone app, Google Mobile App with Voice Search, could do with a little bling. The result of this is a few extra options hidden below the preferences on the Settings tab. Trust us, they’re down there… it just might take some perseverance to get to the bottom of things. Just keep trying!

Spoiler alert! Tap the cog icon to go to the settings screen, then swipe up over and over again to make the Bells and Whistles menu appear. From there, you can pick a new theme color, choose Chicken or Monkey as a sound, turn on a Live Waveform, and choose to Open Links in App.

Pimping out your Google Mobile App? Tell us your new fav combination!

(Thanks to sting7k in the forums for the spot!)

UPDATE: iPhone dev extraordinaire Erica Sadun investigated over at Ars and found the following: Google is both linking to Private Frameworks and using unpublished APIs. While the latter is likened to jaywalking, the former is apparently a ban-worthy offense. Yikes. Check out her complete investigation for more. And now that it’s public, the question shifts to what if anything Apple will do about it? Cave to Google over a killer feature and betray the confidence of other developers, or yank Google’s app, alienating a huge (if guilty) partner and likely creating another furor among users?

Original post:

Is Google using private (i.e., not publicly available via the official iPhone SDK) APIs to create the silky-smooth “raise the phone and talk” activation for their new Advanced Voice Search feature in the update Google Mobile App? That’s the latest question Daring Fireball‘s been looking into, and here’s what they’ve found so far:

If you use something like the command-line strings utility to examine the UIKit framework, you can see that there’s an undocumented (and therefore private to Apple) method named proximityStateChanged. And if one were to strip the FairPlay DRM from the current Google Mobile application binary — which, of course, you wouldn’t do, because you’re not supposed to strip FairPlay DRM, but I’m just saying if one were to do this — a class dump of the application binary would show that Google Mobile does in fact implement proximityStateChanged.

DF posits three possible explinations: 1) No one at Apple noticed the private API usage, 2) Apple noticed but turned a blind-eye, or 3) Apple approved the use of a private API. Citing sources, DF claims #3 to not be the case, and perhaps that’s why Google promoted the feature so heavily, and stirred up interest so high Apple would feel pressure to approve it (though we wonder if Steve Jobs’ Apple ever feels that type of pressure?)

By contrast, DF states #1 is not without precedence, while #2 would be grossly unfair to other developers, and either way, users may suffer if Apple makes changes to their private APIs (which is one of the reasons to keep them private after all).

So what do you think? Which scenario is most likely? And what would you rather, that developers (Google or not) use officially unsupported features if it means better apps but also apps that might just break when the next firmware drops?

Update: The App Store is now pushing out the update. Enjoy!

NOTE: If you don’t see the microphone icon immediately in the top right corner, tap the Settings button at the bottom right, and switch the slider to “Enabled”.

Original post:

Well, it’s definitely later than last Friday, but it doesn’t look like anyone, including Apple, delayed this long: Google’s Mobile App (iTunes link) now includes the much talked about Advanced Voice Search feature… sorta.

According to Jeremy, iTunes isn’t pushing the update yet, and you actually have to delete the app first if you’ve already installed it in order to get the latest, greatest, chattiest version on your iPhone. (Yup, you read correctly, this isn’t a new App, but an update to Google’s existing iPhone search App.)

Of course, I don’t have an iPhone right now, but if you do, try it out, ask it just how tall Everest really is, and let us know what kind of response you get!

And for you privacy advocates out there, is the coolness factor of this enough to give Skynet, er… The Matrix, um… Google access to your voice ID?

(Thanks to Trevor, Josh, Craig, Bob, for sending this in!)