Today the newest creation from internet celebrity Kevin Rose hit the App Store. OINK is an application designed to rate the world and everything thing in it. Avoiding comparisons to check-in services like Facebook and Foursquare, OINK specifically asks you not to rate places, but rather the things inside those places.

Right now it’s fun and very new and exciting, but that hype will wear off, so the question remains.. why would someone go to the trouble of rating everything?

The app features all the standard things you’d expect, a slick UI, ability to take photos or upload from your camera roll and even basic filters to apply before uploading. Judging from the photos that have gone up so far, OINK looks fantastic. People are tending to select high quality, interesting photos to attach with their ratings. Naturally you can share out to existing social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare as well as build your friend list on OINK. This provides a personalised stream of ratings from your friends, but the public one tends to be much more interesting. 

Watching this public Live Stream of ratings flow by is particularly mesmerising, something I wish I could leave running on the big screen.. Air share maybe? So it’s a visual treat.. but why are we doing this again?

My personal favourite so far is ‘Darya loves the Ceiling’… A-ma-zing.

You can check out OINK for yourself at http://oink.com or download the iPhone app now, it’s free.

Telstra have announced today that a new iPhone app is on the way. The My Telstra app will allow Telstra customers to access important information about their accounts. Everything from checking data usage, to paying your bills and even recharging right from the app will be on offer.

While many Telstra customers have found their ways to 3rd party apps to monitor usage, there’s no other app that has offered this many features for your Telstra services. From the list of service icons in the screen shot provided, it seems any of your Telstra services will be supported, Mobile, home broadband, home phone etc.

Don’t bother searching the App Store for My Telstra app, you won’t find it. Right now they are after people to help them test and flush out the bugs. This likely means less than 100 people as per Apple developer agreements.

Today, we‘re looking for a group of digital thought leaders and power users (and Telstra customers…) who are interested in getting the new app before anyone else and sharing their feedback with us and we are calling this group the ‘Digital Customer Circle’.

For more information about the My Telstra app and to sign up for early access, check out Telstra Exchange.

What’s New in Version 3.0

Big change 1: Personalized recommendations

- We always look at our friends check-ins and Tips to get ideas of good restaurants in the area. Starting today, in the app, there’s an easier way to do that. Tap on the ‘Explore’ tab and you’ll be able to see recommendations based on where you go, what your friends do, and what the entire foursquare community likes. It’s the easiest way to plan your nights out.

Big change 2: A whole new leaderboard

- A lot of you use foursquare to help motivate you to do things (get that Gym Rat badge!) or to compete with friends (who can get to the most new places in a week). We’ve updated our point system to reflect more of the things you’re proud of, like going out with old friends or trying out an new restaurant in the neighborhood.

Big change 3: More and more types of Specials

- We created the first version of Specials because Mayors asked to be rewarded for their loyalty. But with over 7 million users, earning a mayorship is pretty hard now. So, we’ve created six new ways for businesses to reward your loyalty, and, starting today, you’ll see them all in the app. More ways to save at more places: check in with friends, swarm specials, and more!
There are also a ton of small fixes and updates.

More info @ iTunes Web

Mobile game developers Gameloft and Audi are teaming up to in a new promotion for the Audi RS 3. In a free app, now available in the App Store, you get a pretty decent driving demo and chance to win an actual real car – the Audi A3 Sportback. A little strange that an Audi RS 3 isn’t the prize, but lets move on.

The demo is actually a snapshot from the game Asphalt 6: Adrenaline and features 3 levels. Turns out the game is actually pretty fun to play.

To get into the comp, you’ll have to play between March 3^rd-16^{th and} join in competition to race three laps on the Bahamas track. The highest score can then be posted on Gameloft Live with a chance to win an Audi A3 Sportback 2.0 TFSI quattro. You’ll actually be competing with racers from all over the world, including United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Russian Federation, Spain, Austria, Mexico, Belgium, Netherlands, China and South Korea.

Download the game now from the App Store

If your not familiar how Promoted tweets work, its quite simple. Searching for a term displays a list of results that can be scrolled through, but the promoted tweet is always shown first in the stream. There is a difference in the updated twitter app.. Promoted tweet or trends are displayed at the top of your friends’ stream, so its always front and centre every time you fire up the app.

Other changes include Autocomplete for @usernames – very handy, saved searched are now collapsed by default (probably so you can see the Promoted trend. Trends are now available for your location, not just the global trends. The compose a tweet screen has been overhauled with a cleaner interface and large ‘insert image’ icons.

Unfortunately one main annoyance of using the Twitter iPhone app is the unread count on Direct Messages, it appears that’s still not resolved.

Twitter 3.3 is available now from the App Store.

Many of us iPhone owners know too well how our images are being ruined by a flaw in the iPhone’s camera. When taking photos under fluorescent lights a blue tine appears on photos, radiating out from the centre as a circle. Unlike a photo with under or over-exposure, these photos can’t simply be adjusted using an image editing program. Because the tint affects only a region of the photo not a blue tint over the whole image, we can’t just use hue-adjustment techniques.

Introducing the Cam Spot Fix iPhone application. This application easily fixes the blue tint on photos.

Checkout some sample before and after photos below. While the application is A$2.49, to make a completely unusable photo into something usable can be invaluable.

Download the app via iTunes

Pocket Casts iPhone app VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

As a heavy podcast listener I’m constantly frustrated by Apple’s handling of podcasts. Each day new episodes of our favourite podcasts are released, so naturally you want to download all the latest. Well more than 3 years on from the release of the iPhone, there’s still no way to do it directly from the device. That was until today.

Of course you can set or force iTunes on the desktop to download all the latest eps at once, connect your iOS device via USB and sync the new content across. The problem is, I found myself turning on a computer just for this process – crazy considering the WiFi-connected world we live in today.

Pocket Casts is a brand new podcast app that arrived in the App Store today. For A$2.49 the price is absolutely good value for the functionality you get. To get started you can jump into settings and very easily import your existing podcasts from the iPod app. You can also Search for podcasts or manually enter a feed URL if your really keen.

Browsing the list of available podcasts is done by the first tab. Complete with album art, each podcast shows a badge to indicate how many new episodes are available. You can choose to download episode individually or stream them straight to the device. Best of all is that awesome ‘Download all’ button, with a single press you can get up to date in an instant.

The app gets even better when you realise background downloading and playback is also supported, allowing you go check Facebook while your waiting. There’s currently 3 different themes to choose from which just change the application highlight colour for a bit of personalisation.

For a 1.0 application, its extremely polished and something that’s been lacking from Apple’s own iPod app for more than 3 years.

For more information on Pocket Casts check out Shifty Jelly

Download the Pocket Casts from iTunes.

Its that time of the year again when Australians celebrate everything that makes us uniquely awesome ! But before you grab those steaks for the BBQ and beers for the pool, take a second to check out some of Australia’s best mobile applications.

Cab Meter Aus [link]
If you’ve ever thought of taking a taxi, but thought the trip may be too expensive to be worth it, then this is the app for you. The app uses the GPS to locate you, then enter your destination, choose between normal or late night tarriffs and you’ll receive an estimated fare cost. The lite version of the app is free and ad supported, or go A$2.49 to go ad-free.

Pocket Weather AU [link]
Lets face it, the built-in Weather app on the iPhone is horribly inaccurate. The data source – Yahoo can take the blame for that. So if you actually want to know what the temperature is, then best to go for a third party app. One of the best is Pocket Weather AU with pretty much every Australian location under the sun. Providing forecasts, radars and a whole bunch more, it’s definitely worth the price of admission A$2.49.

OzTV – TV Guide [link]
We Australians love our TVs, so we need to know when our favourite shows are on. Yes there’s free TV Guides for Aussie TV, but the slick UI of OzTV just draws me in. For A$2.49 its pretty good value, especially when you consider this is something you’ll use daily.

Cricket LIVE [link]
Sport is a massive part of Australian culture, with cricket being one of the biggest. Cricket fanatics should take a look the Cricket Live iPhone app. It gives you live scoring updates on the go, so you don’t miss a thing when your dragged off to that super-important event by your better half. Just don’t let her catch you sneaking a peak at your phone. This will be particularly useful at around 2pm this afternoon when the Australian day match gets under way. The app is free.

Australia Post [link]
Ever bought something online and waited anxiously by the door for the delivery ? Why not track the progress of your delivery by using the Australia Post app. This obviously only works with Aus Post tracking codes, but lets face it, they are the biggest delivery service in Australia. The app is free.

AusInNews [link]
Want to keep up to date with the latest Australian newspaper stories right in your pocket, then grab the AusInNews app. It’s free, which is one up over many other Australian news apps.

Triple J Unearthed [link]
If you don’t listen to Triple J’s hottest 100 today, you my friend, are un-Australian. If you hear some songs this afternoon by little unknown bands, then you should look them up on the JJJ Unearthed app. There’s actually an amazing catalogue of songs available. The app is free.

Buy Australian [link]
If you want ensure your supporting Australian businesses with your purchases, then be sure to cross reference products with the Buy Australian app. The app is free.

Oz Mall Maps
As our cities grow, so do our shopping malls, some to gigantic proportions. If you need help getting around, you could spend a few minutes tracking down one of those fancy touch-screen, You-Are-Here signs, or just use this app. The Oz Mall Maps give you multi-level floor plans for all the major shopping malls in Australia. While detailing the location of every store in a mall would be crazy hard to maintain, the app does cover off all the big guys. The app is free.

Oz Planner [link]
Created by Tourism Australia, you can now show your international visitors just how gorgeous our country is. Even plan a trip using the app, including information on Hotels, Car hire, Tours, Transportation. The App is free.

So that’s it, now go enjoy your Australia Day, remember it only happens once a year and Public Holidays never come around often enough!

Everyone’s favourite note-taking application (sans Evernote), Microsoft’s One Note has arrived in the Apple App Store. Available for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, its refreshing to see even more Microsoft divisions servicing consumers. Obviously Microsoft sells their own mobile phone platform – Windows Phone 7, but the market penetration pales in comparison to Apples.

Similarly Amazon operates their software and hardware divisions separately, this means the amazon kindle software is available on multiple platforms, despite them selling their own dedicated hardware device. In reality, not everyone who wants One Note mobile will buy a WP7 device, so this just makes good business sense for Microsoft.

With OneNote Mobile, you can:
▪ Create flexible notes that can include text, pictures, bullets, and checkboxes
▪ Check To Do items off on the go
▪ Save time with quick access to your most recent notes
▪ Work with confidence—OneNote Mobile automatically syncs your notes with Windows Live in the background
▪ Organize your notes into sections or create new notebooks using OneNote 2010 or OneNote Web App and access them from your iPhone

Requirements:
▪ iPhone or iPod touch must have iOS 4.2 or higher
▪ A free Windows Live ID is required to use OneNote Mobile —use an existing one or let OneNote Mobile help you sign up
▪ Web functionality uses the free OneNote Web App available on Windows Live, which requires a supported web browser
▪ OneNote Mobile opens notebooks created in Microsoft OneNote 2010 or the OneNote Web App
▪ Customizing section colours requires Microsoft OneNote 2010
Access your notes online at http://office.live.com.

Right now it seems to be only available in the US store, hopefully it arrives in Australia soon.. come on MSAU.

More info about One Note on iOS at technet.

That’s right people, you can finally use front facing camera on your iPhone 4. Sure there’s FaceTime, but lets face it, nobody’s using it. Skype’s iPhone app has just been updated to version 3.0 allowing millions of users to video call on the go. Video calls can be made to Skype users on the desktop (either Mac OSX or Windows).

Both Portrait and Landscape orientations are supported, as is calls over both WiFi and 3G. Just make sure your data cap has plenty of breathing room as Skype video calls on 3G will count.

The way it works is you launch the app, sign in, then when exiting Skype continues to run in the background and will notify you via push notifications when someone calls you via Skype. Simply hit the Answer button and your call begins. Its all pretty simple, something I’m sure carriers aren’t that happy about. Assuming you have decent data included in your plan and most of your contacts on Skype, then your need to use the traditional phone calling will significantly decrease.

Skype have created a fairly comical video to showcase the Skype video calling experience on iOS.

Download the app now [itunes]

More @ Skype via TechCrunch