Google has officially launched its Orkut app for iPhone, letting users of Brazil and India’s favorite social network access the service on-the-go.

The official Orkut app for iOS connects you to your friends and family. Now you can send scraps, see your friends updates, upload photos and browse your friends albums anywhere you go. Never miss a conversation again because you are not in front of your computer: get the free Orkut app and stay connected.

• Update your status
• Check your scraps and messages
• Reply to your friends birthdays
• Check your friends updates
• Browse your friends profiles, scraps and photos
• Take new photos and upload them directly to your Orkut albums
• Share your life anywhere, anytime with the people you care about

Although Orkut isn’t as popular as Facebook in most parts of the world, the Google-owned social network that’s not Google+ has gained popularity in Brazil and India, where roughly 80 percent of its active user base resides.

Orkut is available now in the App Store and is compatible with the iPhone and iPod touch.

• Free — App Store Link

Have an app you’d love to see featured on iMore? Email us at iosapps@imore.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

Jeff Verkoeyen, an ex-Facebook developer who was the lead engineer on the Facebook for iPad project, wrote on his personal blog about the internal battle that took place between him and Facebook, and goes a long way to explaining why we still haven’t seen the app.

It is now nearly 5 months since the app was feature complete and I haven’t seen it released except for when the project was leaked on Techcrunch. Needless to say this was a frustrating experience for me. The experience of working on this app was a large contribution to the reasons why I left Facebook, though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a difficult decision.

MG Siegler at TechCrunch suspects the delay may be tied to negotiation issues between Apple and Facebook, even though Apple would do well in having an official Facebook for iPad app in the App Store. As you may recall, they were in talks for upwards of 18 months on the Ping deal that ultimately fell through at the last minute because Facebook demanded too much in terms of user information.

But Apple has always wanted Facebook to release an iPad app. The Facebook iPhone app is the most downloaded app of all time. And there are countless third-party Facebook iPad apps that are amongst the top downloads all time, even though most aren’t very good. At first, Facebook wasn’t going to focus on the iPad. Then they decided to, but they also realized the app could be used as leverage in their dealings with Apple. That’s what we believe has been going on over the past several months.

It’s also possible that the delayed iPad app has something to do with Facebook’s Project Spartan, an app store that will offer games and news apps that run inside Safari, or as Web Clips on the home screen. Facebook and Apple could be working together on the HTML5 project, prompting continuous delays for the iPad app as deals are hammered out.

Robert Scoble also chimed in last week (on Google+ of all places) noting that Facebook may be holding off until Apple’s iPhone 5 announcement on October 4th.

By the way, I heard a rumor from a usually credible source that Facebook may not announce an iPad app tomorrow, but will save it for October 4th instead. Now THAT will be very interesting news, since I know Apple really hates Facebook.

Either way, our patience is wearing thin… In the meantime, check out our Top 5 Facebook Apps for iPad to hold you over until the official app is released.

Source: Jeff Verkoeyen via TechCrunch, Robert Scoble

What is NewsGator Online?

NewsGator is a service for personal and professional social networking. They have different applications on many platforms that bring information together. Google has probably coined it best, “RSS is the inbox for the Web”. Our focus in this review is with NewsGator’s free, personal services for RSS on the iPhone.

NewsGator’s web app for the iPhone is called… NewsGator, I know, original. This web app allows for users of the free NewsGator service to view their RSS feeds in an optimized format on the iPhone. Let’s take a look at how it works.

Appearance and Navigation- NewsGator web app

After logging in, you are presented with your feeds, organized by folders (if you organized into folders via newsgator.com). For example, if you follow Apple news, you might want to organize your feeds by site in an “apple” labeled folder. The feeds are then listed by unread stories in that folder. You know how many stories are unread by a number appearing to the right of the feed name. For example, you might have a feed called “The iPhone Blog” and next to it, the number “7″. That number means that there are seven stories that are unread since your last visit.

To view the unread stories in a news feed, simply tap the feed name and the stories will be displayed. Depending on your iPhone’s Internet connection (EDGE, 3G or Wi-Fi) it can take a couple of moments for the stories to appear on-screen.

For each story, you have four choices available to you; first, you can click on the title of the story. This will cause Safari to open the original post in a new page. Second, you can mark a story as “read” by tapping the word “Read”. Once done, the story will be removed from your list. Third, you can tap “Clip”. Clip allows you to save a story for viewing at a later date. Forth is “Email”. Tapping this link will cause the Mail app to launch with information about the story and a link to send to friends. Of course, you don’t have to mark every story read, you can click the “Page Read” link at the bottom and top of the webpage to mark all stories on that page as read.

The portions of information presented in the feed are usually small; just enough to whet your appetite for more information. NewsGator has given you a great option for viewing more information. At the bottom of each story there is a “More” link. This link will expand giving you more text and typically a graphic or picture, if one is associated with the feed. Of course, this will also cause the page to load more slowly as additional text and images are rendered on the iPhone’s screen. Once you have read the feeds, where do you go? Have no fear; NewsGator has a “Feeds” link located at the top left-hand corner of the page. Tapping this link will take you back to other stories you have not read yet.

What is the NetNewsWire native app?

Though the NewsGator web app is nice, why not take it to the next level? NewsGator has a native reader for the iPhone called NetNewsWire. It takes your NewsGator feeds and places them in a very Apple-esque format. Once you launch NetNewsWire, it immediately begins to synchronize your news feeds and your read/unread counts.

There are a few advantages beyond the basics for the NetNewsWire native app on the iPhone. For example, one common annoyance on the iPhone with 3rd party apps is when a native app calls on another app. The native app closes and the “called” app opens. This can be very inconvenient. NetNewsWire for the iPhone is able to work around this issue by allowing its own WebKit-based browser to open and overlay the story. What does this mean for you? If you want to read the story in “Safari”, you don’t have to close the native app! Instead of launching Safari, NetNewsWire creates a window that slides down from the top allowing you to view the post in full HTML. You don’t have any of the Safari-specific features such as bookmarks in this view, but that is OK. If you really need to open the story in Safari, there is a convenient Safari button located on the bottom right of the page. This will close the native app and open the requested webpage in Safari. This feature is also useful because not every publisher chooses to post their full story in their RSS feed. Often, the user has to go to the publisher’s site to view the full article. The slide-down window makes this process much, much easier.

It’s not all roses…

Another issues when a story is highlighted, you can’t tell how many unread articles there are for that feed. The blue reticule is the same color as the unread count; oops.

Conclusion

Ratings (out of 5)

• Look and Feel: 4
• Navigation: 4
• Features: 4
• Reliability: 5
• Overall: 4.25

Pros:

• Awesome sync capability allowing you to keep all of your feeds in check from the desktop to the iPhone a complete solution
• Free!
• “Built-in” browser

Cons:

• Can’t add your own feeds on the iPhone
• Can’t view unread count when item is selected

For those of you waiting for another blog editor other than TypePad, WordPress users rejoice! WordPress for iPhone is now available from the iTunes store for free! Word came this morning from TUAW that the native app would be available today. You can read more about the application here. 

This app allows you to manage several blogs, create and edit posts and even upload photos to your blog directly from your iPhone. This is a strong competitor to TypePad’s offering, especially since WordPress is free, though they do appear very similar. The one function WordPress for iPhone does this is unique is the ability to preview a post. Check out the gallery below!

Sadly, it’s not all wine and roses blog posts and galleries here at TiPb, something about our server isn’t sitting right with the app, it crashes on configure. Ah, full size computers: we wish we could quit you.

Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, oh how I love thee. Now I can really love thee with Twitterrific for the iPhone! If you are a fan of the very popular microblogging service Twitter, you are in for a rare treat with Twitterrific for iPhone from The Icon Factory! This application comes in two flavors: a free version with a very unobtrusive banner at the top or a paid version for $10 with no banner advertising and an extra theme.

The Basics 

You have to create a Twitter account before using Twitterrific. Once you have an account, you login with your Twitter username and password. After that, it’s off to the races!

You have a list of “tweets” from people you follow listed on the main screen. You can scroll though this list with a flick of your finger. The bottom of the screen has four simple icons:

• Refresh
• Post
• Info
• Settings

Refresh simply refreshes the screen to see any new tweets. The post icon opens up a box with the standard keyboard for you to enter a tweet with 140 characters or less. The screen has a counter to let you know how many you have left. Twitter also gives you the ability to “direct message” one of your friends on Twitter. To do this in Twitterific, simply tap the post icon in the box again and the post will change to a direct message post. Tap the icon one more time and you get a reply post (it changes to reflect the last post you have selected for a reply. Want to reply to someone else, select another post).

Pictures, Locations and Browsing, Oh-My!

When you are creating a post, Twitterific also gives you some additional options. For example, you can tell Twitterrific your location and it will update the Location field in your Twitter profile with where you are right now. The will use the GPS functionality in the iPhone 3G or My Location with the iPhone 2G.

You can also take a picture and attach it to your Twitter post. How? With TwitPic of course! TwitPic is a free service that lets you post pictures via Twitter. It works on the same premise as TinyURL. The “tiny URL” is added to your post. You can then view the picture buy clicking on the link in the Twitter post.

But wait, what if you are on your iPhone and you tap on a link? The thought in your mind right now is that the link will open in Safari, right? OH NO! Instead, Twitterific has built in a mini-browser using WebKit you so never leave the application! You can zoom and everything just like mobile Safari. Truly awesome.

Settings

The settings in Twitterrific are the basics. You can turn sounds on/off use screen names, show hints and even enable left-handed controls. What I think is another truly innovative feature is that Icon Factory have added a JavaScript bookmark for you to post links directly from Safari to Twitterrific! That is really going the extra mile for a 1.0 product. The only downside to this is that it requires some manual editing once installed, but hey, anything for Twitter…

Conclusion

I can’t say enough about this app. If you use Twitter, this is an absolute no-brainer. Icon Factory has some followers from their popular desktop version of Twitterific and I am sure they will be picking up more fans with the iPhone/iPod Touch iterations. The simplicity of the layout, options and ingenuity with pictures and locations really makes me want to shout from the rooftops use this application. What? You have not downloaded it already?

Ratings (out of 5)

• Look and Feel: 5
• Navigation: 5
• Features: 5
• Reliability: 4
• Overall: 4.75

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Every Twitter feature you could want!
• Looks good
• Intuitive
• Mini browser saves time

Cons:

• Performance can be a little sluggish. I am sure this will improve with time.
• Crashed once while using it. Again, will be addressed in a future release.

Are you one of those people who love Flickr? The ease-of-use, best-in-class community, and (for pro users) unlimited storage space? Well I actually am one of those people. I love my Flickr. And the iPhone plays really nice with Flickr in part because of Flickr’s ability to upload pictures through E-mail. Take a picture. E-mail to Flickr. And it’s posted.

But for jailbroken iPhones there is another method that is in ways much more integrated. This Week’s Native App-a-Week will take a look at this program, iFlickr. iFlickr is a native app that is dedicated for Flickr uploads. Meaning you take pictures for the pure purpose of posting it to your Flickr account. How does it work? Is it more effective than the current iPhone Camera->E-mail->Flickr set up?

Read on for the rest of the review!

How To Install

Design/Interface

The interface is simple and easy to use. Simply set-up your Flickr account, which is a cinch, and start snapping away. You have a choice of whether to save photos to your photo roll or just simply upload to Flickr. After you snap the picture, you are prompted with basic options: Send to Flickr, Add Details…, Email Photo, and Cancel—all of which are self explanatory.

Usability

iFlickr is as easy to use as the Camera application on your iPhone. Snap a picture and if you don’t want to add any details, simply click Send to Flickr and you’re done. I was somewhat disappointed that iFlickr didn’t offer the ‘whoosh’ I enjoy so much and instead chose to replace it with a ‘Processing…’ sign. The overall speed in uploading with iFlickr is noticeably faster. You can easily save 5-10 seconds (depending on your network) using iFlickr as opposed to the E-mail process.

The benefits of using iFlickr as opposed to using the iPhone’s E-mail photo process is that iFlickr allows the original sized images to be uploaded to Flickr. Whereas the iPhone’s E-mail interface limits you to 640×480 sized photos, photos uploaded using iFlickr can retain its original size (1600×1200). Adding titles, descriptions, and tags are made possible through the ‘Add Details…’ button. Sadly, there isn’t a way to add your photos to a set.

Criticism

However, iFlickr isn’t without its faults. Every picture that isn’t properly Titled, Described, and Tagged would have the iFlickr branding on it. This is so because iFlickr auto-fills these areas with their own stock titles and description (title: iFlickr, description: Taken with my iPhone – uploaded with iFlickr). This is highly annoying because pictures become a walking advertisement for iFlickr. I would prefer if iFlickr left the fields blank for me to edit later instead of automatically reverting my fields to iFlickr-oriented labels.

Also, the ‘geolocation’ feature in iFlickr is a downright lie. I live in Los Angeles. Every picture I have taken using iFlickr has been automatically mapped to Lebanon, Kansas. I’ve never even heard of Lebanon, Kansas! I also couldn’t turn off the geolocation feature in the settings, so I guess I have to deal with being from Lebanon, Kansas.

Final Thoughts

The program is limited in the sense that it only sets out to do one thing—Upload full size images to Flickr. And it does it well—the whole process is much quicker and efficient than the iPhone’s E-mail interface. With that said, iFlickr can still improve by stopping the autofill of descriptions and fixing the Lebanon, Kansas geotagging issue. If those issues were resolved, I would absolutely use it more frequently because of its ability to upload full resolution pictures. But in the mean time, the negatives have proven to be much too annoying for me. I’ll stick with the iPhone’s E-mail interface for the time being.

Pros

• Uploads orignal size of Photos
• Fast, Speedy uploading process
• Simple Interface

Cons

• iFlickr branding
• No use if you’re not a Flickr user
• Lebanon, Kansas

Final Rating: 4/5