App News

Today TomTom released another impressive update for its iPhone app, including optional traffic updates (via in-app purchase) plus a slew of new features, such as Google local search, pinch to zoom, automatic day/night mode, and music fading for voice directions. The update is free to existing users, and the app is now $30 cheaper for U.S. and Canada.

The list of new features follows the break.

Everyone's got an iPhone app, even the Federal Communications Commission. Per Switched, the FCC has created its own FCC Broadband Test app [App Store, Free], which is designed to probe network latencies and download speeds on your home connection or mobile device.

The app, when finished, will furnish the FCC will useful data to show the discrepancy between advertised and real world broadband speeds, and will also serve as a way for users to directly compare network performance in particular areas.

Following in the wake of Apple's rejection of the Google Voice app about six months ago, the cool cats at Voice Central went a different route and created Black Swan, an app with similar functions to Google Voice, though instead of functioning as a web app, Black Swan is stored locally on the iPhone.

According to The Unofficial Apple Weblog, jailbroken iPhone users can simply go here and download the software, which supports features such as easy access to voicemails and quick access to the call or SMS buttons. Other features include a link to a list of recent calls, just like the iPhone OS app while other nice bells and whistles include landscape mode functionality.

It's here and if you played way too much of it in the arcade or on your console, you're going to like this.

On Wednesday, Capcom released fighting classic Street Fighter IV [App Store, $9.99] for the iPhone and iPod touch handsets. Per touchArcade, the new version includes the eight classic fighters (Guile, Chun-Li, Ken, Ryu, Blanka, etc), each with a variety of fighting styles, attempting to win the Street Fighter tournament.

Although I'm not typically a huge fan of racing games, there are moments where your jaw drops and you think "they did something right". This may come in the form of Deliverace by Pixelbite Games. A top-down racing game, Deliverace puts you in control of what appears to be a classic General Lee-esque vehicle as you tear through the back road country racing circuit.

A picture's worth a thousand words so take a gander at the teaser trailer which was found on the mighty 148Apps...

If you're hankering for the 2010 baseball season to start (go Red Sox!), Major League Baseball has just released the 2010 season edition of its MLB.com At Bat app for the iPhone and iPod touch.

The app allows users to watch or listen live to Major League Baseball games on the handset, view up to the minute scores and player stats and watch in-game highlights and condensed games. The 2010 edition also introduces several new features including Spring Training statistics, breaking news, schedules, rosters, player stats and a searchable video library.

TomTom announced this week that version 1.3 of the TomTom iPhone app has been submitted for consideration to the App Store. The new version will include real-time traffic speed and incident reports, local search powered by Google, as well as some other tweaks and improvements. The update will be free for all previous owners, although we're not sure if TomTom plans to charge for the traffic data.

A Netflix app for streaming video on the iPhone may be in the cards if a survey they're sending to customers is any indication. The company has begun asking their users about their level of interest in an iPhone application that would allow them to stream TV episodes and movies right on their iPhone over a Wi-Fi network. Depending on how people respond, there may be a Netflix app in our future. Assuming, that is, that Apple would allow them to directly compete with the iTunes Store.

When we heard that Apple was banning sexual content from the App Store, we knew that we'd see a significant dip in applications, but we didn't think it'd be this significant. According to App Shopper, Apple removed nearly 4,000 apps the day after the policy change.

Prior to the policy change, Apple has generally removed around 100 per day. After the new policy went into effect, Apple removed 932 apps. The next day (Friday, Febuary 18th) they removed roughly 4,000. According to ChiliFresh, Apple says that around 5,000 apps were affected when the policy went into effect. The higher removal rates have continued over the weekend as Apple continues to purge apps.

In a major revision of App Store policy, Apple has effectively banned sexually explicit content from the App Store. According to a letter received by Jon Atherton, developer of an application called Wobble iBoobs (I bet you can't guess what it does...), Apple has removed his app from the App Store because they "have decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store, which includes [his] application."