Adam Lisagor

At Macworld last week, Square Inc gave a public demo of their iPhone payment system to expo-goers and announced that it would be available to the public by the summer. For those who aren't familiar with the system, Square is an iPhone application which allows anyone to accept payment by credit or debit card using the signature Square Swiper.

The big announcement is that, when Square goes live, the iPhone app will only cost $1 and the card swiper will be included for free. There will be a transaction fee of 2.9%, but users of the system will not need a special bank account to accept payments. The system is still being tested, but Square believes that we could see it launch as soon as April, although it may come as late as June or July.

Also coinciding with the announcement, Square released their official "Welcome to Square" video, which they showed to members of the Square Pilot Program. Some of the information in the video is only relevant to users in the program, but it shows off how well the system works. Check it out below!

Our friends at Sandwich Dynamics have released Birdhouse, a unique Twitter application for the iPhone and iPod touch. Available for $3.99 [App Store], Birdhouse's purpose is to capture ideas for Twitter posts with the intention of perfecting them over time. You can save and rate as many drafts as you like and sort them by time edited or by rating. It also has support for multiple twitter accounts. Once you've perfected a tweet, you can publish it from Birdhouse and view an archive of published Birdhouse tweets.

Check out the video below for a much more succinct (and entertaining) explanation from the creators!