Category: Tech news

Offerpal Media has just announced that Mihir Shah has been named president and CEO, while chairman and former CEO George Garrick has been named executive chairman. This is Offerpal’s third CEO in a year; Anu Shukla left the company last November following the Scamville drama and was replaced with former Mochi Media CEO George Garrick.

Shah was the company’s chief revenue officer and joined Offerpal in December of 2009. Prior to Offerpal, Shah was VP of ad networks for RockYou. And he previously served as VP and general manager of direct selling services at QuinStreet.

The company has been through a significant amount of change over the past few months. Facebook recently transitioned games and applications from Offerpal’s currencies to Facebook Credits and partnered with rival Trialpay, and the company was forced to lay off people who worked on its Facebook monetization initiatives.

But Offerpal has moved on and recently launched SocialKast, which aims to relieve any game developer that was hurt by Facebook’s recent decision to seriously cut down on the many ways they could distribute notifications via the social networking site in order to get new users to sign up. SocialKast aims to enable game developers to connect with audiences across social networks and media platforms such as Yahoo and Google, opening the doors to massive distribution of game-related notifications to roughly 1 billion users in over 150 countries.

Clearly as the company moves in a new direction, it may need new leadership as well. But it looks like Garrick has helped move the company on this new path beyond Facebook and will continue to act as a key part of the company’s executive board.

As you type into a search box on Yahoo or Google, a list of suggested keywords pops down below to help you complete your search faster. Today, Yahoo turned on a local component to its keyword autocomplete feature. The search assist now serves up different keywords based on your location.

So if you type in “Santa” in northern California, “santa clara county” might be the first suggestion, but if you type it in southern California, “santa barbara” might be first.

Location is often a very relevant way to filter search, so this makes Yahoo’s search assist smarter. But, as with many things Yahoo, it is lagging behind Google with this feature. Google’s search assist also factors in your location. And, from what I can tell, it does it better.

I’ve been trying a few sample local searches, and in every case, it takes Google fewer characters to come up with the right answer. For example, I am in New York, and all I need to do is type the first four letters of Grand Central Station (“gran”) to get that as the top suggestion. With Yahoo, I need to type seven letters, “grand ce,” and complete the first word to get it to be the top suggestion. If I type “gran,” grand central doesn’t even appear as an option. Instead, the top options are “grand ole opry” and “grand canyon,” both thousands of miles away from me. (Not that those are horrible suggestions, they are just not good local suggestions).

I tried the same test with various other keywords. Google beat Yahoo every time. My experience, of course, is merely anecdotal. How does it work for you.

Just days ago, Palm revealed a bunch of details surrounding webOS 2.0, which, as the name implies, is an upcoming major update to their webOS platform. Shortly thereafter, they released a big chunk of webOS 2.0 to a small section of their development community as part of a Beta program.

Almost immediately, one of these developers unearthed one little bit that Palm didn’t intend anyone to find: a lingering mention of a virtual keyboard — something which webOS doesn’t have, and that Palm has yet to confirm as a feature.

So, what do you think Palm did? Did they pull the stone-face routine, and say they don’t comment on rumors and speculation? Did they send out an e-mail saying “Hey guys, we gotta be more careful!” and move on? Nope. They freaked the hell out.

Back in March, on the eve of SXSW, Plancast got an iPhone app out just in time. Now, with more time to work, they’ve perfected it with the launch of version 2. And that’s not all they’ve been working on.

Over the past couple of weeks, Plancast has rolled out a new site design, a new plan social invitation system, and Eventbrite integration. On top of that, they’re also testing out two other new features: local plans and a recent activity feed. Each of these features make a great service even better.

First off, as I alluded to, the iPhone app is now much improved. Included in this refresh (also made by Leah Culver, who made the first one) is a completely reworked design that cleans up and simplifies the user experience. Also now baked-in is Twitter and Facebook integration to make sharing (and/or signing up) easy. The app is also now iOS 4-ready with Retina display and fast app switching support.

The second new aspect of Plancast is the revamped website. Quietly rolled out at the end of last month, sharing plans from the site is now easier than ever thanks to a more Ajax approach. Co-founder Mark Hendrickson (also a TechCrunch alum) notes that the new share plan prompt was inspired by Quora in that it doubles as both a search box and an input box. The hope is that this will cut down on the amount of duplicate plan entries in the system — arguably Plancast’s biggest weak-spot.

Plancast has also added Eventbrite integration — a very nice addition for the users of that event registration service. Just as with their Facebook Event integration, Plancast will now automatically pull-in any Eventbrite plans you have and populate them on your Plancast profile. Hendrickson notes that we should probably expect Meetup integration next.

A new feature that’s sort of tucked away but may be the slickest one on the site is the cross-site invitations. Now, when you’re setting up a new plan (or inviting people to an existing one) if you simply start typing in the Invite box it will bring up a list of your contacts from not only Plancast, but Twitter and Facebook as well (assuming you’ve hooked up those accounts to your Plancast account). This way, if a friend of yours isn’t using Plancast yet, you can invite them to your event by way of one of those other networks. If you choose their Twitter account, Plancast will tweet at them for you. Or if you choose their Facebook account, Plancast will post on their Wall.

“I haven’t seen anyone do anything like this before, probably because it requires quite a bit of overhead,” Hendrickson says. What he means by this is that Plancast has to continually cache your friend lists from those service and index them so that they can show results as quickly as they do.

Finally, two new features that Plancast is only testing out for now is a new Local tab, and a recent activity feed. The activity feed should be self-explanatory — it will show activity on the site beyond friends simply adding plans. So if a friend comments on a plan or subscribes to a new person, this will show up.

The bigger new feature are the local plans. As I said, this is a new tab on the website that allows you to see the events happening around you. This is a great addition for event discovery as it puts public events out there that people in your social graph may not be attending, but still may be of interest to you. “We’ll be evolving this functionality considerably by letting users filter by popularity and other factors,” Hendrickson says.

You can find the new Plancast iPhone app here. It’s a free download.

Ping – ping ping ping ping – ping ping, ping? Ping! Ping, ping ping ping ping; ping-ping ping! Ping.

Ping ping ping, *ping* ping ping #ping ping. Ping, ping:

“Ping ping ping ping ping — ping ping ping (ping ping ping)”.

Ping ping ping ping. Ping. And yet and yet…

Ping?

Ping.

Aydin Senkut, founder of Felicis Ventures, has an enviable track record. Founded in late 2005, Felicis has made roughly 60 investments, with 16 successful exits, including Mint, Tapulous and Aardvark. As anyone in the investment community will tell you, that’s not a shabby hit rate.

Senkut, a former senior manager at Google, is getting ready to deploy even more capital, with the recent birth of Felicis’ first institutional fund. The $40 million war chest was 33% oversubscribed and includes institutional investors like Flag Capital and Weathergage Capital and other notable names, like Peter Thiel and Joshua Schachter. So what is Senkut buying? The super angel investor recently dropped by TechCrunch TV to share his playbook. Video above.

Broadly speaking, Felicis is still looking for seed and early stage consumer internet and mobile companies, but within that category there are a handful of theories driving Senkut’s investment strategy.

“Right now we are thinking in terms of three different groups, the first group is horizontally, we’re trying to make more investments in mobile, e-commerce and enterprise areas, we do think that these areas are kind of having an interesting comeback and are likely to produce great companies. We are also investing in internet and mobile companies in four verticals that are huge markets, education, health care, personalized medicine and energy conservation, again we’re not looking for capital intensive companies in these sectors but we’re looking for internet and mobile applications that target particularly these huge markets where we fell really large companies can be built. We also think of data as an important play. So there was an interesting quote this year in the Economist that said businesses are no longer about capital labor, its about capital labor and data. We’re seeing a new generation of companies that turn data into intelligence and make that actionable.”

Senkut is hungry to hunt down the next great mobile company, which, he claims, does not exist yet: “What we do think though is that the large mobile company of the future is not created yet, we think it’s more likely that they will be using a subscription revenue model. It also will be in an area that people might not expect today but we think will be really interesting tomorrow.” That area may be personal health care. During our off and on camera interviews, Senkut seemed particularly fascinated by the idea of a mobile consumer health portal that will help users track their well being, diet and exercise habits on the go— a sort of one-stop customized shop to manage personal health.

Beyond health care, Senkut says he’s also looking hard at startups at the intersection of mobile and education (hence their recent investment in Inkling, a company that creates interactive textbooks for the tablets).

In part two of our interview, we discuss the potential of one of his other investments, Groupon, and the classic founder’s conundrum: when it’s appropriate to sell. His advice is based on his theory of the “three hills.” See video below.

Six Apart is shutting down its free blogging service, Vox, and as Mike points out this announcement is really about cleaning up for an upcoming merger with VideoEgg. With 250 million uniques worldwide spread across thousands of blogs and a growing ad business, Six Apart isn’t a failure. But, like Slide and like Digg, it hasn’t lived up to its promise either. And products like Vox are a big reason why: As blogging was getting more open and commenters more mean spirited, Vox was intended as a clean, well-lit place in the blogosphere. It had a great UI and some nice features like a “Question of the Day” to get reluctant new bloggers up-and-writing. But then it just sort of withered.

My takeaway from the shuttering wasn’t so much “Six Apart is cleaning up for a sale” (which they are and Six Apart Japan is next) but “Good God, Six Apart! What took you so long?”

Back in 2007 when Six Apart sold off LiveJournal and named Chris Alden CEO, the mantra was the company was finally going to focus. There’s a fine line between healthy diversification and doing too much to do anything well. Six Apart has always had an Intuit problem—they had several valuable properties but they didn’t necessarily add up to one big consumer Internet brand in the golden age of huge consumer Internet brands. They were essentially a software-as-a-service company for media with MovableType, a Web publishing tool with TypePad and a consumer Web 2.0 play for teens with LiveJournal and for adults with Vox. Six Apart had essentially made itself a company no one could acquire outright because it was doing so many different things.

Here’s a hint: If no one wants to buy you as is, maybe you shouldn’t have so many disparate, under-developed products as a stand alone company. Every senior manager at Six Apart I’ve talked to for the last three years has said this was the company’s biggest problem. And yet, we’re only now seeing a move to shut down flailing properties. It’s hard to say from the outside who is to blame, but Six Apart has clearly suffered from a lack of leadership and decisiveness.

I like Alden. He knows media, he’s a nice guy and he came into that job with a lot of goodwill and fanfare. But perhaps that’s too much of the problem—he focused more on publishers than readers and was too nice to make hard decisions faster. From what I hear things are turning ugly inside the company, with Alden blaming some of his senior team and much of that team turning on Alden. When (and I should say “if,” but it’s likely “when”) this deal with Video Egg is announced, they’ll be all smiles, there will be a great narrative about why the two make sense together and maybe they do. But none of that is what I hear is going on at Six Apart HQ right now.

It didn’t have to be this way. Six Apart was one of the earliest blogging tools and one of the first to have the cojones to charge for simplicity and ease of use. A lot of the look and feel of blogs was shaped by Six Apart founders Ben and Mena Trott. And Six Apart had one of the more powerful and intriguing boards with the uber angel Reid Hoffman, superstar and Creative Commons founder Joi Ito and August Capital’s scrappy David Hornik. Some of the smartest people around the Web clearly saw something great in Six Apart. And it had plenty of money—it raised more than $20 million from investors and millions more when it unloaded LiveJournal.

Welcome to the sadly wistful phase of Web 2.0. The big winners – Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and LinkedIn—have already been separated from the obvious losers—Friendster, Plurk, Friendfeed and a host of names we’ve already forgotten. Only now are we starting to get judgments on the companies in the middle. Ventures that succeeded in building real companies with sizable reach and significant revenues and outlasted a raft of competitors, but that nevertheless didn’t live up to their promise. The best will go the way of Slide, a nice exit that no one loses money on, and some make money on. Then there’s the situation Six Apart is in now– poised on an uncomfortable merger with another private company that’s not an “exit” for anybody and just means another four years of slogging to build something big.

Plex, taking over the world. Only a few days after releasing Plex/Nine and Plex for iOS, the media center announced a partnership with LG to include a version of the software on its Internet-enabled TVs and Blu-ray players. But you knew that already. Wouldn’t you know it, I have here a brief video demo. Who loves ya?

With the launch of Ping this week in the latest update for iTunes, Apple is finally adding social elements to its software. Ping is essentially a social music discovery feature in iTunes. You can friend, follow, or lurk to see what music other people on iTunes—people you know, people you don’t—like, review, or buy.

Ping is very promising if only because of Apple’s reach through iTunes to 160 million music consumers. And it will no doubt get better over time. But at launch, it is riddled with problems which stem from the fact that Apple does not know how to create social software. It is completely out of its element, and it shows.

The biggest problem I have with Ping is that it lives in iTunes. Not only does it live in iTunes, it is isolated there. iTunes is not social. It is not even on the Web. And Ping doesn’t communicate with any other social networks. I can’t see people’s iTunes Pings in Twitter, Facebook, or anywhere else. While Ping does make iTunes itself more social, the problem is that I don’t live in iTunes. It is a store. I go in to buy stuff and get out as fast as I can. I am not sure Ping is going to make me want to hang out there more.

Let’s start with when you sign up. There is no easy way to find people you already know on Ping. Facebook Connect was supposed to solve that, but that feature is disabled until Apple and Facebook work out their differences. So what you are left with now is having to type in people’s names and hope they’ve signed up for Ping, or invite them one at a time through email. Hopefully nobody else has claimed their name. (The fight with name squatters and spammers is already beginning. Earlier today I found a dozen “Steve Jobs” accounts, which have since been cleaned up). There is no mechanism for importing your contacts from Gmail or any other email, or bringing in the people you already follow on Twitter or other social networks.

That leaves you with the option of finding one or two early-adopter friends and clicking through their profiles to see who they follow and add the interesting people. The only people I can find right now are bloggers and tech folks I follow elsewhere for different reasons. I have no idea whether they have any taste in music, but I guess I’ll find out soon. Getting up and running should be easier than this But that is not the deal breaker.

Once you start following a few people, you can see all the songs they “like,” rate, review, or buy. It creates a realtime activity stream which gives you social entry points into the iTunes music store. It also works on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

But don’t be confused about Apple’s social ambitions. Ping is all about driving more sales in iTunes. It is completely separate from your existing iTunes library of songs. You can’t like a song while you are listening to your existing collection. If you’ve bought a song or album, Ping assumes you like it (bad assumption), but none of your actual listening activity appears in your stream.

You can only like songs in the iTunes store. And even doing that isn’t easy. There is a big like button for each album, but if you want to like a song, you need to click the drop-down arrow next to the buy button. Be careful not to hit buy, unless you really like the song.

Once you do like a song, that shows up in your stream with a nice big buy button for all your friends to follow suit. Of course, they can’t listen to the whole song before deciding to buy, only a sample. You can’t share playlists. You can’t really do much other than peddle music to your friends.

Ping is just too commercial. It is not fun. There isn’t even a leaderboard or any visible game mechanics. There is no way to see which of the people you follow are the best music recommenders as measured by subsequent purchases from people who follow them, likes or any other measure.

Ping is a promotional vehicle for iTunes and bands. If you follow a band like U2, it seems like they get a special account which allows them to upload videos (and who knows what else). Why can’t I upload photos or videos to my stream? I can’t even add a random comment or status update without first liking, rating, or buying a song or album.

While I am sure Ping will help drive more sales, and is probably something I will check out whenever I am in iTunes to do something else, it is not as compelling as it could be. The most interesting information in iTunes is what your friends are actually listening to and what they think about the songs they know by heart—the ones in their music library. Simply allowing people to like or promote the songs in their existing collections while they are listening to them in iTunes or on their iPods would make Ping a lot better. Sharing playlists is another no-brainer.

Ping could be so much more than it is: isolated, controlling, and a bit boring.

Oh my, how I love some good ol’ fashion mudslinging.

“Flash Websites? There’s A Phone For That.”

To any ne’er-do-blog-read layman, the full page ad that Motorola just put in the New York Times might just seem oddly worded. To anyone who has even considered considering themselves a gadget geek — or has, at least, turned on their TV anytime in the past year and a half and seen Apple’s “There’s An App For That” campaign — there’s no question who this one’s aimed at.

Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>

Product: Xbox 360 Slim

Manufacturer: Microsoft

Wired Rating: 8

When the Xbox 360 hit in 2005 it promised to revolutionize gaming. Microsoft got most of the way there (conceptually), but the original 360 hardware wasn’t without its … quirks.

Enter Microsoft’s upgrade/redo, the Xbox 360 S. Not only is the chassis slimmer (hence that weird, floating “S”), but it’s packed with a lot of the extras that used to be sold separately. The most dramatic change takes place under the hood. Redmond swapped out the 360’s power-hungry setup with a much more economical (e.g. smaller) motherboard and an integrated CPU/GPU/eDRAM chip. On top of the spatial benefits, this means that the 360’s operating volume — normally a hissy, Harrier-esque din — has been greatly reduced. The difference was almost immediately noticeable. While streaming Nextflix, we no longer had to turn up the volume to drown out the sound of the fan, and the act of the disc drive cycling up no longer made the doors on our entertainment center rattle.

The benefits of this engineering go beyond operating volume. Paired with the console’s newly integrated 802.11n, bevy of USB 2.0 ports, and a (finally) built-in optical audio port, the 360 S actually feels like the living room-ready entertainment powerhouse Microsoft promised five years ago. Playing DVDs and/or downloaded video seems like a much more natural extension of the console’s capabilities (though we’d still love some Blu-ray love), and the army of USB ports proves nifty for charging gadgets. The aesthetic impact is palpable too. Now that so many features are tastefully built in, the console finally looks like a serious, streamlined home theater device rather than a whirring, blinking gadget with countless peripheral flagella.

To be fair, this revamp isn’t quite the second coming either. In vying to be taken seriously, the 360 S has gotten rid of old favorites like customizable faceplates. Also, the power brick is back (though it has gotten smaller), and the included 250-GB hard drive is still proprietary (and not backwards compatible with older 360s). And, of course, there’s the largest elephant in the room: If you already have a 360, there probably isn’t a huge incentive to upgrade.

In the end this isn’t all bad. Microsoft ultimately set out to make a better (and Kinect-ready) version of the 360, and they’ve largely succeeded. The end result isn’t necessarily worth, say, drowning last year’s model in the tub and rushing to Best Buy. But, if you’ve yet to join the Xbox fold — or at least want an inexpensive, quiet, gaming/DVD/Netflix/Hulu box — this year’s model is your best bet.

WIRED Leaner, (slightly) meaner and quieter. Inches closer to the all-in-one entertainment box we’ve been waiting for. Cosmetic touches like touch-sensitive power and eject buttons class up the joint. Thrusts overpriced accessories ($80 for a Wi-Fi dongle?!) into obsolescence. Want to splurge on the Kinect in November? There’s an (integrated) port for that.

TIRED In many ways the same console we’ve been playing since Senior Year. Inter-console data transfers still require a wonky proprietary cable.

Product: KDL- 40EX500

Manufacturer: Sony

Wired Rating: 6

For every one person looking for a crazy, pimped out big-screen, there are four others looking for a no-frills boob tube. Sony straddled that line with the KDL-40EX500. This 1080p powerhouse has all the motion-smoothing tech of its pricey brethren, but delivers it in a basic, financial-aid friendly package.

The EX500 offers few surprises in the looks department (See: black monolith), but still has quite a few highlights. An impressive four HDMI inputs make cameos on this bargain display, as well as a healthy helping of composite, component, digital and RCA A/V inputs. At 40 inches it’s the perfect size for small to medium-sized rooms, and it’s remarkably lightweight — comparable to an empty keg — which makes it a cinch to move. In fact, its agreeable heft and swiveling stand made it the perfect display for our 1337-sweet LAN parties. We even clocked the process: From start to finish, we had the set broken down and in the backseat of a car in four minutes.

In terms of picture, the EX500 delivers all the goodies. Thanks to Sony’s on-board BRAVIA Engine 2 processor, our Blu-ray collection was surprisingly crisp and vibrantly colored. Even exceptionally dark flicks like The Dark Knight — virtual kryptonite for LCDs — displayed convincingly deep blacks and grays. Fast and furious visuals like gaming and sports were handled with equal aplomb courtesy of 120-Hz video processing and blur reduction. Not only did this make midnight marathon movie sessions a visual treat, but the 10 hours we spent speeding through Split/Second‘s raceways proved remarkably easy on the eyes.

Though we’re huge fans of the EX500’s cross section of price and visuals, we did have a few gripes. For some reason Sony went twinkle toes with the audio. The display’s underpowered duo of 10-watt speakers not only produce brittle sound, but also ruin some of the awesomeness of the visuals. If we’re to believe we’re jumping across platforms trading rockets with other Xbox Live-ers, then it shouldn’t sound like we’re shooting spitwads. Also, the display’s lack of advanced features like web connectivity or even Sony’s trademark XrossMediaBar makes us suspect the EX500 won’t age gracefully.

Still, even with these setbacks we can’t deny the sweetness of the EX500’s value proposition. If you can live with a sharp-looking TV that’s better seen than heard (and possibly shelling out for a surround sound system to makeup the difference), then the EX500 is worth a look.

WIRED The meat and potatoes TV for the rest of us. Great colors and high-speed motion performance. Ambient light sensor automatically adjusts brightness and contrast. Easy setup out of the box.

TIRED Speakers lack oomph, bang, crash. Light on advanced features. Completely forgettable remote. 120-Hz video processing can give standard-def video that dreaded soap opera look.

Product: PCM-M10 Linear Recorder

Manufacturer: Sony

Wired Rating: 7

College is about procrastination. More precisely, it’s a chance to hone the important responsibility of shirking skills and techniques you’ll later use in the real world. So why shouldn’t note taking (or lack thereof) be a part of that learning experience?

Eschewing the rigors of traditional real-time (paper and pencil) transcription means you’ll need a recorder that’s up to the task. The Sony PCM-M10 should be at the top of your list.

Make no mistake, the M10 is not your traditional dainty audio archiver. While it’s the smallest in Sony’s professional line of recorders, this palm-sized linear recorder weighs in at about 6.5 ounces (with two AA batteries) and is also about as thick as two iPhones or a deck of cards.

Still, if you don’t mind hauling this brick along with the rest of your gear, you’ll be blessed with some of the cleanest, most pristine audio recordings you’ve ever heard. That’s largely thanks to two omni-directional mics with a wonderfully flat and wide frequency response. Whether you’re in a crowded lecture hall or a small round table setting, these mics do an exemplary job filtering out ambient noise while honing in on the voice(s) you want, regardless of the recorder’s positioning.

The M10 comes loaded with 4 GBs of built-in flash memory and can be expanded to another 16 GBs thanks to a microSD slot on the left hand side. There’s even a handy crossover memory function that lets you record from the internal memory directly to any additional storage you have. No worrying about preemptive cut offs. Max the M10 out at 20 GBs, and you’ll get over 9 hours of 24-bit 96 kHz audio. Ratchet down the audio quality to 64 kHz, Mp3 mode and that’s an insane 690 hours — enough for a year’s worth of lectures.

We also loved the recorder’s 5-second pre-record buffer, which captures audio to a continuously filling buffer while the recorder is in the record/pause mode. That means if you happen to miss something (“this will be on the test, class”), you can simply release the pause button and those missing 5 seconds will have been recorded.

When playing back your audio files, you can adjust between 75 percent and 100 percent (double time) in 5 percent increments. The M10 actually lets you preserve pitch over this entire range, however, which is extremely useful when transcribing a lecture or interview.

When it comes to offloading those files, it’s as easy as connecting the recorder to your computer via the included USB cord. Drag and drop files onto you Mac or PC and you’re done.

Whether you use the M10 as a companion to normal note taking or a tool for fevered last minute transcriptions, you won’t find much to quibble with. Yes, it’s probably overkill for the needs of the average college student. But you can talk to us about practicality after you’ve dropped the philosophy major.

WIRED Spectacular recording quality in both MP3 and WAV formats. Ten recording modes. Forty plus hours of battery life. Built like an Abrams tank: Toss it in a bag and forget about it. Current street price is actually about half the MSRP. Handy wired remote for controlling things from the comfort of your lap. Can double as a media player and play non-DRMd WMA and M4V files (with metadata).

TIRED Prepare to part with a month’s worth of beer money. Bulky. Menu structure can be confusing. Crappy built-in speaker (use headphones).

Product: Fitness Apps

Manufacturer: Roundup:

Wired Rating: 0

Getting in shape is way easier with a personal trainer. Can’t afford one with your financial aid package? No problem. A fitness app is a good stand-in, cataloging your calorie intake, monitoring exercise output, and setting you on the road for squeezing into some seriously skinny jeans.

1. GymGoal

WIRED Body map allows you to target and call up exercises for specific muscle groups and/or parts of the body, and see how many days where you worked those areas. Go deep (if you want): Log specific single exercises, or pre-programmed and custom workouts; track measurements for, uh, specific body parts (No, not that! Think: waist, bicep). Cloud patrol: Data can be backed-up on external server. Solid muscle-building, fat-cutting tips with easy-to-grok animated demos and text.

TIRED Exercises and workouts are timed automatically (cool, provided you want to spend your gym-time on your phone; or ignore the timed field). Pre-set whole-body and full-body workouts don’t specify rest time or expected duration. Get-to-the-point: Tips on “breathing” are actually, well, pretty long-winded. Only $4!

$4, http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gymgoal

2. FitnessBuilder</strong

WIRED Workout Builder is more intuitive than a pack of chewing gum: Drag-and-dropping labeled JPGs organized by muscle group. Equipment Category: Allows you to call up exercises by barbell, cables, dumbbells and more. Spice of life: Intense variety per muscle group with numerous grips and movement angles (more than 40 exercises for biceps alone, and more esoteric routines like hip abduction). Way more detail and options than GymGoal. Sleek interface design.

TIRED Videos can take forever to upload. $10 = 2.5 times as expensive as GymGoal, which is fine for beginner/intermediate Arnolds. Beginner’s beware: A potentially overwhelming number of possibilities (again, 40 exercises just for biceps).

$10, itunes.apple.com/app/fitnessbuilder

3. Lose It!

WIRED Deep, varied catalog of foods/exercises to choose from and log; includes everything from various nibbles like Velveeta and Weetabix to “sports” like badminton and tobogganing (with mostly spot-on calorie counts). Beyond simple to use and keep up. Stripped-down, clean interface. FREE! Automated motivational sharing (“Motivators”) allow you to share progress with Twitter/Facebook/e-mail and set reminders for specific goals per meal.

TIRED No backdating any exercise(s) or food(s). No zooming in or examining trend charts and data: i.e. complete and utterly pointless inability to see specific weight(s) on previous days. Using Motivators requires creating a login/password for loseit.com, and specifying said reminders online, not in the app itself.

FREE, loseit.com

4. Slim It

WIRED Time-coded entries! Easy to backlog what you ate for breakfast at, say, 2 p.m. or 11 p.m. “Brunch” is considered a legitimate category. Exercise video how-tos and demos boast high-production values (and attractive femal model*).

TIRED HCUA Alert!: Initial login requires inputting height/weight via the metric system (kg/cm). Curiously incomplete list of foods: No “oatmeal” or “cereal”? Food list also, quite inexplicably, includes 13 separate entries for “ham sandwich,” all with different calorie counts. Can’t backlog food consumed on previous days. Stretching/exercise demos are video-only (i.e. zero written instructions). *Attractive female model cuts down on productivity.

FREE, itunes.apple.com/us/app/fitness-slim-it