In the ongoing saga of Apple’s “walled garden” approach to the app store the latest entry reads like a manual of comedic hypocrisy.

First off, they approved two apps titled “Tis and Boobies” and “Pussy Lovers”. Steve Jobs black turtle neck too tight? No, the apps have pictures of actual birds and cats respectively and are meant humorously.

Read Gizmodo article here

Then, not 24 hours later, the app was rejected. The reasons why are shaky, but it’s my opinion that they wanted to avoid the ensuing publicity storm.

Read Gizmodo follow up here

Stay tuned here for more hi jinx and shenanigans from the boys is Cupertino.

December 10, 2009 — 12:09pm ET | By Jason Ankeny | Courtesy of http://fiercemobilecontent.com

The number of mobile web users worldwide will more than double from 450 million in 2009 to over a billion by the end of 2013, according to a new forecast issued by market intelligence firm IDC. While mobile Internet use currently mirrors conventional web surfing–search, messaging, multimedia downloads and news/sports information dominate–IDC anticipates that over the next four years, mobile users will increasingly embrace applications like online purchases, social networking and creating blogs. In addition, the forecast contends online business applications and corporate email systems will also surge as businesses empower their mobile workers.

CYBERSPACE – When app developer Nucato first sat down to create Seego.com, its directory of mobile websites and web based applications for the iPhone, iPod, Android and other web-kit enabled devices, the company wasn’t sure it could find enough good mobile websites to populate it’s listings. Fast forward a scant few weeks, and Nucato no longer has any concerns about growing the directory.

With 2500 websites and mobile apps listed, and more being added every day, the challenge for Seego is keeping pace with new mobile internet development, rather than finding enough sites to list.

“Even we are surprised at the staggering growth rate of the mobile internet,” said Liam Maddock, Director of New Business Development for Nucato. “We knew there would be rapid expansion in this sector, but we didn’t anticipate hitting 2500 websites so quickly.”

Maddock said that Seego is seeing new websites and mobile web-apps launching for the new generation of iPhone inspired smart phones at a rate of around 30-40 per day, with the fastest growth coming in the social networking, image sharing and adult entertainment sectors. “It’s a challenge to keep up with because we verify that every site or web app in the Seego directory will function on an actual mobile device. We test each site on an iPod, iPhone, Android, Palm Pre or Blackberry device and the number of sites we’ve rejected is about as surprising as the number we’ve added.”

While many of the new sites being added to the Seego mobile directory are similar to existing “fixed” websites, Maddock said that the specificity of some of the new mobile sites submitted to Seego for consideration is “showing how diverse and specialized the mobile internet is becoming.”

“For example, there is now a mobile web forum called ‘CrabDance’ specifically for hermit crab appreciators,” Maddock said. “That’s niche social networking taken to the extreme, obviously, but that’s all part of the emerging mobile web. Just like the fixed web environment, the mobile web has given people the ability to express their interests in immediate ways. Seego’s job is simply to make it easier for them to find each other through their handheld device.”

Now that they’ve beaten AT&T, Verizon is going to go get the guys at Sprint.

Verizon has challenged Sprint’s marketing claim that its “America’s most dependable 3G network.” The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus has asked Sprint to drop the slogan in response to the Verizon complaint, expanding the ongoing marketing battle between the leading mobile service providers.

READ MORE

Our friends at IphoneSpies and IphoneLife recently reviewed Seego and gave us some pretty nice reviews. Please check out the articles.

IphoneSpies Review:

Many companies have created iPhone apps to view or buy their products and services online, but a full-fledged iPhone app is not always needed to make your website accessible for iPhone users. One way to make it easier for iPhone users to view your site is to create an iPhone-optimized version of it. Most websites take too long to load, which can be a pain for mobile phone users, and some common website features (like Flash) just don’t work with the iPhone’s Safari. READ MORE

IphoneLife.com Review:

Apps are all the rage, and I almost never use Safari when going online. But with the arrival of Seego.com, I will likely be using Safari more. Seego is a directory of 2,200 websites that have been optimized for the iPhone. Unlike regular sites, which take a long time to load, which don’t always work in the iPhone’s Safari, and which typically entail a lot of pinching, zooming, and scrolling, websites that have been optimized are typically fast and perfectly tailored to the smaller screen of the iPhone. Simply point Safari at seego.com. You can also view the site via your desktop computer at http://m.seego.com. The directory has 16 categories, including News, Sports, Videos, Images, Music, Movies, Television, and more. Click on a category, and Seego gives you the top 12-15 sites in the initial screen. Clicking on a link at the bottom brings up a list of subcategories for that particular category. It’s well organized. Plus, you can search the directory. A search function searches the descriptions of all the sites in the directory.

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So the leader of “me too” companies is now releasing their “me too” mobile operating system. When there are so many good OS out there, we have to wonder why Samsung would throw their shoe into a field already clogged with decent competitors.

I have a hard time imagining the Apple and Android developers changing teams or flocking to this new system.

However, don’t take our word for it.

READ MORE

LOS ANGELES, CA — (Marketwire) — 11/10/09 — The iPhone has changed the way we think about phones and in doing so, is changing the way we browse the Internet. The ubiquitous Apple device has created new industries, with web app developers and mobile site designers releasing products and seeking success on the mobile internet.

One emerging success story is a company called Nucato. The small mobile web developer released a new iPhone site search tool, Seego.com, which has already topped the charts as the #1 Most Popular Web App Search tool.

The makers of Seego saw an opportunity, noticing that while there’s a host of websites out there in cyberspace crafted for the iPhone, finding precisely what you are looking for within the sea of non-iPhone optimized sites and web apps can be a daunting and confounding task.

“As a loyal iPhone user, I found it frustrating to run a web search and end up at a site that was difficult to navigate, that’s where the idea for Seego came from,” said Liam Maddock, New Business Director for Nucato. “Seego is really explained by the name. Instead of typing, you see the category and go to the site. It makes the browsing and searching experience much more efficient.”

The iPhone sites in the application cover every imaginable type, from news, sports and music to social-networking, movies, business tools and even celebrity gossip.

READ MORE

We are proud to announce that Seego.com is the Apple Web App Store’s number one web app search tool.

After only a few days on the store, we grabbed the most preferred spot. Thank you to all the SeeGo.com users who got us there.

http://www.apple.com/webapps/searchtools/index_top.html

In a disappointing turn of events, the masters of the iphone frenzy in Cupertino, bowed to the Chinese government and removed WiFi from the ubiquitous super phone.

That coupled with the surprising price and gray market versions of the phone have led to a deservedly lukewarm response to the Jesus-phone.
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The latest phone to bear the media frenzied moniker of “Iphone Killer” is out.

Check out CNETs review here