Every golfer on the planet is susceptible to buying gadgets that will help them improve their game. Unfortunately, most of them end up in the closet with all of the rest of the scams that do nothing more than make us look like fools out on the course. Well the iPhone has an app that just may do more good than bad in the GolfShot: Golf GPS app.

Golf GPS devices have become pretty popular over the last few years, and this one has few shortcomings as an app. First off, it is less than $30 and that is a far cry from the hundreds of dollars stand alone devices will run from the likes of Golfsmith. It is packed with special features and while there are some flaws, it is pretty respectable for the price.

One of the toughest things for any golfer to figure

out on a new course is the range from tee to green and from their approach shot to the green. This app can not only do that, but will also be able to give target ranges as well. When you need to know how far it is down to the water hazard from where you are standing, just point and the information pops right up on the screen.

Golfshot has long been associated as the best of the best when it comes to having GPS devices for golfers, so it is no surprise that this app is considered to be one of the best available for the iPhone. There are currently well over 22,000 courses that have their information available on the app, so it will be a rare course that can be played where the information will not be in the palm of your hands.

The question of who is getting rejected and what makes one app better than another is something that is being asked quite frequently lately, and we now finally have a way to find out who is getting rejected and can see for ourselves what their apps are all about. While this will not change the fact that they are rejected, it will let the public decide if Apple is being fair or not.

The site, AppRejections.com, is the project of developer Adam Martin. He plans on making a list of apps that have been rejected for what most would consider “unusual and unfair.” Since nobody really knows how the process works, it may give a little insight to other developers in their quest to get their apps approved.

Of course, this is not the real motivation behind the site. That is more than likely for developers to have a site where they can talk about the evil empire that is Apple and how unjust and how unfairly they are being treated. Oddly enough, when digging a little deeper into the

actual rejections, many of them fall into two categories: offensive or trademark violations.

Now, let us preface this with the fact that this is not a defense of Apple, it just seems as though many developers are not following some basic guidelines that could avoid all of this. Apple has made it very clear that they will not allow apps that are offensive in any way or that use specific name brands or logos in their product. For instance, they cannot use the word Google or a Mac icon and yet developers still do and are then upset when the app gets rejected.

On the flip side, there are still plenty of apps that have been rejected that look as though they are perfectly harmless on the outside and do not show any obvious violations. It really is tough to call as to why some of these apps are not allowed in other than the fact that Apple does not want to just allow every app to be published. At times, it may just be a case of wrong place and wrong time.

The iPhone will be available in South Korea for the first time ever later this month. If the overall success is comparable to early pre-order reaction, it seems as though the iPhone will be in just about every hand that carries a cell phone in South Korea. One company has already reported that over 15,000 units have been pre-ordered within the first day of availability.

As the phones themselves will not be available in stores until Saturday (at least they hope so), many consumers are taking advantage of Internet sites that are allowing them to pre-order the phones. This has been a much anticipated release as it is been delayed several times, but this finally seems like it will be the real deal. With this new market opening up, the iPhone will only solidify its position as the number one smart phone being used by consumers today.

As AT&T has exclusivity (at least for now) on the iPhone in the United States,

KT has the exclusive contract in South Korea. Initially, they will have both the 16GB and the 32GB models available in their stores. This is a big move for Apple as the two primary companies that dominate the market in South Korea are Samsung and LG. Both of these companies rely on this market heavily and have every reason to be worried now that the iPhone will be readily available.

It will be interesting to watch and see how this develops over the next few months. If Apple manages to get a stranglehold on the Asian market as it is already done in its other markets, this company will clearly be the dominant force in smart phone development (as if they already don’t hold that title). Once again, the consumer will be the primary beneficiary as every other cell phone company will have to step up to create better phones that can compete with the iPhone or they will risk losing their market share altogether.

While it may be hard to imagine, you may actually have to suffer through commercials in the very near future when using certain apps on the iPhone. It is tough to gauge how well this one is going to go over with users, but what choice do they really have? AdMob, a mobile phone advertising company, is set to launch advertising that will appear in certain applications that are featured in the App store.
This is kind of a unique approach to advertising, but do iPhone users really want to have to watch or listen to an ad once they have opened up an application that they have already paid for? While the app will have a fast forward feature that will allow the user the ability to end the ad and move onto the application, it seems like it would be more of an annoyance than anything else. Of course, Google is in on the action as they have recently announced that they will be acquiring AdMob with an offer of about $750,000,000 in stock. The curious thing here is that this app may directly affect the sales of iPhone applications and Google is in cahoots with other developers that are selling their phones that feature Google as a primary driving force.

The first phone that comes to mind is of course the Droid. The free GPS app that is on the phone is powered by Google maps and is one of the features that is being touted over the iPhone’s features. In order to get something comparable, the iPhone user would have to purchase the TomTom feature (which has recently been upgraded to compete with the Google Maps GPS) for $99. Is anyone questioning this or are we just thinking conspiracy theory on our own here?

At the end of October, a Priceline application was released for the iPhone and the reviews are finally in, it is a slam dunk. As soon as this app hit the market it quickly became one of the most downloaded travel apps available and after using it, we can see why. Instead of having to sit by the computer, iPhone users can now hit the bidding up late and get the discount hotel rooms that they are looking for.

Imagine attending a wedding and enjoying the reception just a little bit too much and needing to stay over. Instead of having to make call after call, the iPhone user only needs to open the app and let the program do the rest. Plug in the normal information and Priceline finds the best room rate that fall within the parameters that have been set.

While the app will automatically display average

bids, it is best to lowball the bids to try and get a better deal. The average bid is average for a reason as there are lower bids that are stealing rates well below that price. Play it smart and go low and rebid if you have to. The app takes bids for the day of until 11:00pm EST, so there is plenty of time to get that last second room request in.

If this app is not on your iPhone yet, make sure it gets downloaded in the very near future. You just never know when the time is going to come that a hotel room is going to be needed on short notice. Having this little security blanket in place will come in handy sooner or later and paying $59 is a lot better than walking into the area lodging and getting smacked with a rack rate of $199.

It is not taking long for reviewers to pick apart the Droid and they only have themselves to blame. Starting a campaign by stating that this phone is everything that the iPhone is not sets a pretty high bar.

They set themselves up for failure in that everyone was expecting some super phone and what they are really getting is an iPhone copycat with not as many applications.

As has been stated before, there are features on the Droid that are very good and some of them may even be better than the iPhone, but it is simply not enough to warrant changing providers or doubling your cell phone bill. Most people that already have an iPhone are looking at a monthly service bill of at least $150 a month and some are up around the $200 level. That would be an extra $1,800-$2,400 a year to have both phones and it is simply not worth it.

This is

just one man’s opinion, but before the Droid took on a giant like the iPhone, they should have had a deeper library of apps to stand behind. While the iPhone had a similar amount when it was first launched, it was a one-of-a-kind and was only competing with the Blackberry as a smart phone. This is the one point that is hammered home time and time again by people that are trying out the Droid. Why change phones to a product that only offers 10% of the apps that the Apple iPhone does?

Droid may one day be a true threat to the success of the iPhone, but that time is not now. If anything, they are further convincing Verizon customers to switch over to AT&T to have a phone that can do anything from translate a baby’s crying picking a good spot to put in a wind turbine as an alternative energy source. Right now, the Droid is simply out of its league.

Apple’s discussion board has been jumping a bit about Windows 7, and it isn’t because they’ve all converted from Apple’s OS to Windows suddenly; it’s because many of them have been experiencing weird errors and issues with their PCs freezing out the iPhone when using Windows 7 in conjunction with the Intel P55 USB chipset. Both are brand new, so odds are you’re not affected. But if you’re a “keep up with joneses” type with all new stuff, you might be affected.

The thread is pages long now, and a fair number of users are claiming the same “0xE8000065″ error when trying to sync their data on their iPhone with the hardware setup above. The issue seems more prominent with 64-bit versions of the OS for some reason or another.

Microsoft is reportedly aware of the issue, and is working on a fix that should be released soon. Consider this a public service message for those few who might have had trouble, and wondering if they’d gone mad.

It was only a matter of time before someone else jumped into the ring to face off against the iPhone. Up until now, Blackberry and the iPhone have been getting along fairly well in the battle for phone supremacy. Both cater to different markets and seem to be quite happy with where they are in the cell phone niche. It is almost as though there is an unwritten law between these two not to cross the imaginary line.

That is now changing as Verizon has gone directly after the iPhone with its “Terminator” style advertising. The new Droid phone is set to hit the market later this month and it will be interesting to see if it lives up to the claims that it makes. Nobody ever said the iPhone was perfect, but it is pretty close. There is no other phone that has the amount of applications, nor the flexibility that the iPhone boasts. Now the Droid shows up and lays down a full-fledged challenge.

The funny thing is that both phones are basically sitting with the same engines inside. That being the case, the outside shell may look different, but what makes both of these phones tick inside is very similar. Motorola is launching a battle against a like minded tank and this will probably spell disaster for them. iPhone has already proven how flexible it can be and when they don’t have an application for it, they simply make a new one up to satisfy their customer’s needs.

For use of a better quote, “all we did here was wake up a sleeping lion.” Motorola has managed to pretty much stay out of the fire lanes when it comes to the iPhone and Blackberry battle, but this move will significantly change things. For every new application that they have come up with, you can expect that the iPhone team is already burning the midnight oil in order to get their new applications up and running.

When this happens, Blackberry will get a small break because the new target in iPhone’s sites is going to be Motorola. If you thought the presidential election was bad, you have not even started to see mudslinging. Expect iPhone to go for the throat on this one. While they are in competition with Blackberry, they are in essence two separate markets. Motorola is going after their direct market and that will simply not fly.

Even Pepsi isn’t immune to PR goofups, such as the tasteless and pointless “Amp Up before you score” app they recently released, which struck a sour note for some users.

That prompted a rather insincere apology from Pepsi, published on Twitter:

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Our app tried 2 show the humorous lengths guys go 2 pick up women. We apologize if it’s in bad taste & appreciate your feedback.
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In other words: yeah, yeah, if you don’t like it, don’t download it, more or less.

The app itself: pickup lines that are supposed

to work on various types of women. Yep, that’s the whole purpose of the app, and it ignores the rather obvious tip of “don’t glance at your iPhone constantly while trying to pick up women”.

It isn’t that we’re so sensitive, its just curious that a large company like Pepsi would green light a silly, borderline sexist and absurd app like this one with its name on it. We’ll be interested in the uproar increases if it issues an actual apology, not a half-hearted text message that sounds like a 13 year old wrote it.

A member of MacRumors forum has reported buying and unboxing the TomTom GPS Car Kit for the iPhone, and MacRumors was nice enough to post about the experience. The kit has been delayed a few weeks, but is now being shipped to stores apparently.

More about the insert details here:
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Also found within the car kit packaging was a paper insert describing a forthcoming free TomTom iPhone application that will allow users to administer some of the technical functions of the car kit without the need for the TomTom navigation iPhone application, which is sold separately. It is possible that this free application will enable the use of third-party GPS applications with the kit, allowing them to take advantage of the kit’s built-in GPS receiver and other features.
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This isn’t a shock, given we reported on this particular issue a few weeks ago.