iPhone App Blog

There haven’t been many iPhone game portals announced lately. Fortunately, online game company Knibble has launched their very own iPhone game portal. This Java based site launched last week to little fanfare, but the games available are fun little distractions for those who need a gaming fix on their iPhone.

At first iPhone Knibble only offered 8 games, but the number has since grown to over 10 and includes favorites like Tic-Tac-Toe, Bejeweled, and Sudoku. New games are being added all the time so there’s bound to be something to entertain any iPhone user. The best part of Knibble’s iPhone game portal? It’s free!

There aren’t too terribly many iPhone game portals that offer fun games without signing up for something or paying for it. The design of the portal itself could use some work, though. For example, the game icons don’t stay in the same place between visits or even between page flipping. Still, Knibble has some fun games and it’s good for

Last week the popular mobile widget site Plusmo announced that it will be extending its widget service to the iPhone. Plusmo is home to more than 20,000 mobile widgets that run the gamut from traffic reports to games to live sport updates. Most of these widgets have been user created and it’s easy to customize your own widgets.

This free service offers a customizable app portal for iPhone users. You can also create your own widgets out of useful websites,  XML/RSS based sources including news feeds as well as professional media, and user generated content such as blogs, photos and videos, and other Web 2.0 content.

You can add widgets and customize the portal from your iPhone or from your desktop. Everything uploads in real time so you don’t have to wait for your phone to update your new widgets. The service even recommends widgets based on your location (which it automatically knows…it kinda freaked me out).

Plusmo has gotten lots of accolades for being awesome. And it really is if you need instant access to RSS feeds and apps. There are so many widgets available and more coming all the time that it’s possible that Plusmo could provide all your widget needs. It provides feeds in an easy to read iPhone interface and even the icons look like they were designed by Apple.

Any way you slice it, Plusmo’s mobile widget service (which works with most Java phones including Symbian devices) is pretty neat-o.

Probably the most annoying thing about third-party apps for the iPhone is that you can’t download them onto your home screen. To get to the app you want to use you have to open Safari, type in the web page, and find the app on the site. It’s not that big a deal, but for someone used to the downloading and organizing freedom of a desktop it can get really irritating.

Enter AppLists.

AppLists is a new and unique app portal from the Elias Corporation. First designed during the iPhoneDevCamp in early July, AppLists gained popularity very quickly. Less than two weeks later AppLists has been officially launched.

The first, and only, iPhone application “playlist” site, AppLists lets iPhone users create and organize apps into lists that are saved in their profile. The AppLists can be organized and altered further on the iPhone user’s desktop with Safari and the updates are immediately available on their iPhone.

AppLists is so different because it lets iPhone users organize as many application lists as they need for home, work, school, or just for fun. Best of all? It’s free. There are no ads or trial periods or hidden charges. That’s right. This service is absolutely, positively free. It’s free and it offers an unique service that is unavailable through any other app portal out there.

With nearly 10,000 unique visits in the first two weeks of its creation, AppLists is showing no signs of slowing down. There are new apps and features available all the time at AppLists so make sure you check it out. Especially if you love to organize things.

With all the iPhone app websites out there it’s hard to stand out in the crowd. Nearly all of these app sites around just host or link to apps written by others. Hardly any of them offer apps that are specifically and uniformly designed for the iPhone. That’s where GetLeafllets comes in.

GetLeaflets is Blue Flavor’s newest project; an iPhone apps page that has been built and is provided by one single company. The site was launched only a few days ago and it’s already getting some great press. TechCrunch’s Michael Arringtoncalled Leaflets a “must-have iPhone app” while Tuaw (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) called it “one of the most impressive portals…to date.”

With apps like an all purpose search engine, Flickr, del.icio.us, and many others Leaflets is sure to be a very popular apps portal. The apps here are specially designed to be usable even when wi-fi is unavailable. For example, their stripped-down New York Times app loads on AT&T’s EDGE network in about 6 seconds while the New York Times site takes nearly a minute to load on EDGE.

Unlike some iPhone app sites, the apps on Leaflets all have a uniform design because they are all from the same company. There are also many useful apps available like a Newsvine portal and several IM clients. Like all app pages, Leaflets promises more on the way.

Right now the Leaflets service is free, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a fee involved in the future. Depending on how much this hypothetical membership fee would be, it could be totally worth it to access this great app portal.