The New York Times crossword puzzle is a veritable gold mine. Online an annual subscription costs $39.95, which is why a $9.99 iPhone application seemed like such a steal — unlimited mobile use for a one-time payment of ten bucks! But insider blog NYT Picker is now reporting that the deal was too good to be true: anyone who has purchased the program so far will see their copy stop working in the next month or two — and the Times keeps the $9.99.

We live in interesting times. Today, you can take the entire world with you in your pocket, but few can be bothered to get off the couch. Increasingly, applications on the web are making it more difficult to ignore the call of the wild. Some of the coolest apps on your phone right now encourage you to get off the web and get a life.

It’s not like we aren’t already okay with replacing body parts. I don’t know too may Hollywood actresses with their real boobs anymore, and as if your iPhone isn’t almost already part of your body.

There’s a nonstop murmur about the death of magazines and to quiet some of the rumblings, many are counting on additions like iPhone applications to increase brand awareness and eventually subsidize cash flow. Recently, Men’s Health has made a concerted effort in the iPhone game, moving forward with three apps, including “Jimmy the Bartender.” Brand editor Matt Bean recently spoke with Ad Ageabout the company’s strategy and successes.

If you’ve ever get the feeling that you should be helping society out more, but were waiting for a mobile device to come along and help you, then here’s good news. The Extraordinaries is an interesting new concept in the growing field of iPhone applications — it allows people to use the every part of their spare time cow (waiting for a movie to start, riding a bus, waiting in line) to do small bits of volunteering using the Extraordinaries iPhone app

Last night, something unexpected happened: MMS started working on my iPhone — two weeks ahead of AT&T’s announced release date for the feature. The long-awaited feature — available for years on lower-end phones — was made possible by Apple with the release of iPhone OS 3.0. And now it’s finally here.

As we’ve reported before, magazines have been running to build iPhone applications to maintain both revenue and relevance in the digital age. Men’s Health has been a leader in this trend, and appears to have taken the next logical step by porting their very popular “Jimmy the Bartender” column to the iPhone, promising to help users “find Jimmy’s best bars” but also “Meet Women.”

If you haven’t had your media overdose on augmented reality yet, or, even better, tried it, you soon will – and with good reason. Augmented reality, AR to its close friends and acquaintances, is here.  On my phone.  In my hand.  Now. Long a staple of sci-fi and speculation, real, effective and useful AR for [...]

A friend waits in a doctor’s office and notices that everyone around him is tap-tap-tapping away at their iPhone and completely ignoring the table full of magazines. This scene is a nightmare for magazine editors who are ever-worried about remaining relevant and somehow carving out a digital presence for themselves online and increasingly in our pockets. But unfortunately for them iPhone apps do not relevance (nor money!) make. At least not yet.