Our friends at ArsTechnica hae discovered a neat little trick with the Apple iPhone 3G’s TV out functions. In a short demo video there is a demonstration of the iPhone interacting live with an image on the TV. This is not an official feature of the 2.2 SDK, but it has made itself known nonetheless

At the moment the features are limited and video only demos the accelerometer acting with an arrow on the television screen. And the video appears to only be around 15 frames per second. There are no functions available with the touch screen yet, but people are working on possibly integrating those features into this function.

What does this mean for the future? With these video out capabilities this could introduce new types of gaming experiences with touch sensitive gaming on your TV screen, or advanced guiding through powerpoint presentations. The implications are massive.

What will be interesting to see is how Apple will react to this development. As it is not an official feature of this 2.2 SDK it is unlcear if Apple will embrace these new developments or try to put the kibosh on it as they are not always fond of people tinkering with their products.

Where do you think this feature will take us? Check out the video and let us know what you think:

The holiday season is coming around and that means some extra pounds are going to be coming with it. The helpful people at Apple are already on the case though and are helping us be food and health conscious with some useful health and fitness apps for your iPhone 3G.

Take a look at some of the apps that caught our eye:

RunKeeper

This is one of the earlier fitness applications from the iPhone Apps store and it remains to be one of the most reliable. This app runs with the built-in GPS system to track your running stands and can even store your results on runkeeper.com to view your progress. The app can be applied to all sort of exercising stats such as biking or hiking. This app is great for serious and hobby runners alike.

Restaurant Nutrition

Do you ever wonder what you’re really eating when you chomp into that quarter pounder? If you’re not too afraid to find out then the Restaurant Nutrition App may be the one for you. Browse through nutritional stats and info for 37 different American restaurant chains. Also keep logs of what you’ve been eating and add up your nutritional totals as you record them. Frightening, but maybe what you need to keep a few pounds off. This is especially useful for those of us who’ve been indulging a bit too much in the limited edition holiday happy meals.

iFitness

iFitness is a great app designed to help you through work out routines and design fitness programs for yourself. Make selections of what parts of your body you want to work out and then iFitness will guide you through exercises that will help you get toned. There are also preset routines for people new to the work out world, but you can design your own to suit your needs.

Weightbot

This is an extremely simple and beautiful looking app. The main feature of the Weightbot is to track your weight gains and losses. Once you start up for the first time you enter your height, your current weight and your goal weight. Then enter your information each day and it will show you your progress. It also calculates your body mass index automatically.

Fitview

This app is a great all in one data tracker which lets you keep tabs on a multitude of your fitness info. Track your work out times, weight, calories, cholesterol and much more. The app also provides charts that monitor your recorded activities. The amount of information that Fitview can handle is quite remarkable and any seasoned gym junky will find this app very useful.

The torrent is nothing new to the Apple iPhone 3G,  but starting those torrents has not been the most convenient thing to do. That is until now. Up until now when you wanted to start a torrent on your iPhone you had to take the torrent url and manually type it into your iPhone UI. This could all be solved with a simple cut and paste feature but because the iPhone OS does not support something so ridiculous *Ahem Apple* some clever people had to come up with a clever solution.

That solution is uTorrent webAPP. This handy app allows you to browse through torrents on isoHunt’s JSON interface and add them to your download queues at the tap of a touch screen. The app bypasses the pesky typing of the torrent url by pushing the address directly to your iPhone uTorrent app.

The process works by entering your IP address and port into the fields at louish.com/iphone and once you have the uTorrent WebUI install on your local PC coupled with the iPhone GUI addon you can browse torrents with ease. Just click on the torrent you want and push it up for downloads. Initial testings appear to be secure and the ease of adding torrents, viewing download progress, stopping and starting downloads has never been easeir.

Try picking up this handy application and let us know what you think.

The Apple iPhone 3G has made its name showing the people are looking media phones that are great for music and movies. But don’t get the impression that it can’t handle the business side of things. Here are some apps that have impressed us on the business side of things which may even give you pause in considering giving up your Blackberry.

OmniFocus

A fantastic stand alone application or an app that can sync up with OmniFocus on your Mac. Organize your daily appointments, lists and contacts with one single program. Create databases, flag tasks, projects and set due dates and times for all your pressing needs. This one application will allow you to handle your business like a pro.

Mobile Translator

When you’re overseas with your iPhone and you need to know a pleasantry quickly to make a good impression the Mobile Translator app makes the right thing to say just a few touches away. Translate from a number of different languages to English and back to communicate with the world.

QuickVoice

A useful utility to take quick notes or record longer meetings. The voice recorder also offers a very useful pause button which allows you to stop and pick up recordings wherever you want. One drawback is that you are not able to e-mail these clips from your phone, however at $1.99 this app is definitely worth the price.

Airport Flight Delays

Keep on top of your flights and appointments with Airport Flight Delays. This app sends live and up to date information to your iPhone. Now you know exactly how much to panic when you need to catch that flight or pick up that important client. Real-time information for Airports all around the United States.

Map Mailer

A fantastic application that allows you to e-mail destinations and meeting points with ease. This can help organize appointments and map out routes to a rendez-vous. This is especially useful when doing business in a new city and you need to find your away around quickly.

Engadget Mobile has released a detailed review of the Blackberry Storm today giving some interesting comparisons to the iPhone and other devices. The new RIM device is being touted as the new challenger to the iPhone 3G’s hold over the user friendly smartphone market. From first glance this could be true.

Here’s how we weigh in on the subject:

Blackberry Storm Advantages in comparison with the iPhone 3G

• Known quality of RIM devices
• Blackberry’s excellent e-mail system with cut and paste
• Fantastic sound and speaker quality
• Stronger camera at 3.2 MP (but really not that strong)
• Browser speed seems faster at first glance

Blackberry Storm Disadvantages in comparison with the iPhone 3G

• Blackberry is lacking in 3rd party apps
• Lacks iTunes type of music access
• Not the greatest rendering for graphics
• New clickable touchscreen not as simple to use as the iPhone’s capacitive screen
• Advanced interface may be intimidating for newer users

Where they match up

• Very sleek and sexy designs
• 3.5 mm headphone jack
• Fast operating systems

Straight out of the box the Blackberry Storm is definitely impressive. It has the upper hand over the iPhone in a few different ways, but despite all of our gripes with the iPhone it has still proven to be a quality, easy to use smartphone. We will have to wait for time to judge how the Storm will fare in the long run.

Over the last few years the internet has been making its way into most mobile phones. Our mobile online experience has been evolving rapidly and what we can do now what we couldn’t do 4 years ago is beyond what many people thought possible. Phones such as the HTC Max 4G are hoping to increase the speed available to mobile users as well.

Despite all of these advances there has been one feature which has been lacking and keeping us from the full internet experience and that is a Flash Player. Hopefully this will soon be rectified as it was announced by Adobe at the Adobe MAX developer conference that a working demo of Flash Player 10 will be up on a Windows Mobile device very soon. Unfortunately this won’t be commercially available until late next year. Windows Mobile’s adopting of the first mobile Flash Player is a natural extension of their Flash Lite player which has been available for some time now.

Adobe has indicated that they are also interested in working with Apple for the iPhone 3G, but not much progress has been made. Apple maintains that Flash takes up a bit too much room in the memory department and that it runs too much strain on the iPhone’s ARM11 processors.

While Apple seems to be dillydallying the new kid on the block, the Android OS, is starting to make headway. With people from all over the world developing software for this OS, it is no surprise that a demo of the Flash Player running on the HTC G1 was already running at the developer conference. If this Flash Player makes it to an Android device this may be the push it needs to make it into the dominating mobile OS as it will be able to give more rich browsing experience.

Who do you think is going to make it first? Will this have any affect on the type of phone you buy? Let us know.

Yet another iPhone 3G challenger is making waves with its recent release. The Blackberry Storm 9500 is the next new smartphone from the good folks at RIM that is taking their shot at the iPhone 3G. Offering many of the same features the Storm hopes to get a piece of the smartphone/casual user market that the iPhone seems to have whipped up into a frenzy.

Both the iPhone and Storm offer up to 16Gb of internal storage, 3.5 mm headphone jacks, iTunes support and large screens. One major difference between the two is the touchscreen interface. Where the iPhone uses a non-responsive capacitive touchscreen the Storm is using a clickable touchscreen that acts as one giant button. This has been a jaw-dropper for some and frustrater for others. Some worry that the moving part on the screen may lead to easy damage, while other enjoy the more responsive interface which gives you a feel of more control. Use of the keyboard on the Storm is still up for judgement.

Despite Blackberry’s shifting of focus from the business savvy user to the more casual media geared consumer it is still maintaining its hugely popular and proven e-mail system which many other phones still haven’t attempted to catch up with. The main feature being the simple, but extremely useful cut and paste feature which makes managing your e-mails much more easy than on other devices.

The other claim of the Storm is its ability to compete with the iPhone’s fantastic browsing capability. As everyone seems to be rushing to get the mobile-internet as close to desktop browsing the Storm is hoping to be the new leader of the pack.

Does this make a difference in your Christmas phone shopping? Does the slightly bulkier design and new clickable screen match up to the sleek and sexy iPhone package? Let us know.

New break downs have arisen regarding the manufacturer’s costs of the HTC G1, the first handset to come out sporting the new Google Android OS. Of course who are we going to compare it to? Our (now) old friend the Apple iPhone 3G.

The iPhone 3G 8GB made quite a splash with the announcement of the retail price and also the manufacturer’s costs which were estimated to be around the $173 USD mark. Some were a bit confused because after all calculations it appears that Apple was possibly losing money on each unit sold. However, the recent news that the iPhone is now outselling a former mobile power house, the Motorola RAZR series, has quieted some of the critics in regards to the Apple marketing strategy.

However, there is a new smartphone in town and it is lowering it’s cost too. In comparisons to the approximate iPhone price tag of $173, the G1 is ringing up around $143.89 according to the iSuppli market research firm. The main difference between the two being the on board memory which Apple reportedly pays $23 for per unit. The HTC G1 is of course forgoing that internal memory and is investing more money in the device’s baseband chip. The combination of the ARM11 microprocessor and the ARM& core gives the G1 a strong base for multimedia and modem functions which should come in handy for running the slick new Android.

From the parts evaluation the Apple iPhone takes the cake. The multi-touch capability and also amazing capacitive touchscreen are two major features that the G1 is lacking. In terms of raw power the iPhone appears to come out on top. The extra $30 seems to make the difference giving the iPhone that edge.

However this may not be a major roadblock for the G1 as most of its appeal is banking on the flexibility and promise of the Google Android OS. This is the reason why we here got so excited and why internet buzz was at an all time maximum. Although the new OS has yet to prove itself we believe that the possibility of the Android OS will attract more smartphone developers and open up the system to limitless possibilities.

The HTC G1 is making its way around the world and it is starting to show off what it’s really made of or what people are really making out of it rather. Developers are going nuts with the new Android OS and new programs are coming out daily allowing you to customize your phone just the way you like it.

You can make your phone into life organizing machine or just use it as a mobile arcade. We like to keep it somewhere in between. Here’s a couple of apps here at TimTechs which have us dropping our jaws.

• Ringdroid

Ringdroid makes turning MP3s into your personal ringtones a snap. This app lets you edit and select the portion of the song you want to play when one of your contacts is calling. So now you can jump straight into the chorus of a Doors song when your boss is calling.

• Translate

This one is especially useful to those of us who don’t want a bunch of bulky gadgets crowding our pockets. Translate is a quick and simple translator which will give you easy access to phrases when you need them on the go. There are already 150 language pairings available. Fantastic for travelers.

• Compare Everywhere

Compare Everywhere is an especially popular one with the thrifty handset users among us. Have you ever been in a mall and don’t feel like visiting every single store to get the best price on the new Britney Spears CD? Just scan the barcode with your camera and then see the product details come up on the screen including other prices at other vendors near you. You can also use this app to create a shopping list.

• Any Cut

This one is one we recommend that every G1 user have on their system. The Any Cut app customizes your home screen with common activities and allows you to automate them with ease. Make repetitive actions a one click task. If you have a regular texting contact, add a short cut with Any Cut and you can bring up a text screen instantly. This is what we’re talking about when we say customizable.

• WikiMobile Encyclopedia

Here’s a useful tool to settle bar arguments. The WikiMobile Encyclopedia only requires an internet connection and then you can access actual Wikipedia articles formatted to the G1 screen. The format is especially nice for navigating through the pages and it’s much more comfortable to read than on the regular browser.

What is above is just another small example of what the Android Market is offering us and it is growing as I type. We can’t wait to see how far developers will be pushing the OS tomorrow. Stay tuned!