Mobile 'muting' is on.

(Credit: CNET/Jessica Dolcourt)

Earlier this month, Google ingratiated itself with mobile users by refurbishing Gmail.com for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android devices. On Wednesday, Google followed up its initial redo with a small new feature that helps trim fat–or rather, keep it from accumulating in the in-box in the first place.

The capability to “mute” a conversation has now been added to the drop-down options under ‘More,’ the same place you find it when reading a Gmail message in the browser. Muting a message excuses you from seeing further messages in the thread, for instance, an entire guest list’s worth of comments for a party you can’t attend.

It’s a great incidental feature online, but it could become more valuable in the mobile sphere where preserving space and maintenance time is everything. However, using it is a little less convenient. Mute for mobile Gmail is only available at this time from Gmail.com, not from a native Gmail-reader, which, for now, defeats the purpose of Android’s Gmail in-box, and of the iPhone’s, if you have your mail streaming into it by default. Those who intend to use the feature regularly should affix a browser bookmark to their home screen.

Gmail mute is just one of the many features Google plans to toss over one at a time during the process that Shyam Sheth, a Google Mobile product manager, calls “The Iterative Webapp.” In some ways, an iPhone Applications by a thousand updates is an exciting way to witness the development process. In others, I fear readers may bludgeon me with their iPhones and G1s if new releases trickle out every day.

Since launching its Dictionary.com app for iPhone and iPod Touch in early April, the folks over at Dictionary.com have been plotting other iPhone iPhone App Reviews that use the tools they’ve got: grammatical, orthographic, synonymic authority. And while they’re at it, maybe duplicate the numerical success of their reference app, which has floated among the iTunes Top 10 since its launch, and which hit more than a million downloads within the first three weeks.

The conduit of such lofty ambitions is Miss Spell’s Class, a 99-cent app that despite its name, letter-grade scoring, and nostalgic background of college-ruled paper, Dictionary.com insists is aimed at their core demographic of high school and university students, and business professionals.

(Credit: Dictionary.com)

The app is straightforward. You quickly decide which of the 20 words in the round are spelled correctly or incorrectly. Points are knocked off for inaccuracy, and added to your total time. If it takes you 40 seconds to go through the list, but you get two wrong, your score spikes up to 60 seconds, a B. So save the pokiness for reviewing your score and for kicking yourself for casual errors.

The game is cute all right, and a test to the ego in the way that SATs and other standardized tests are–taunting in their simplicity, and debasing when you miss a word you ought to know. At least you’re not alone–the misspellings that are your object to spot are siphoned straight from the top 5,000 botched words entered into Dictionary.com at a rate of 2 million typos and flubs per month.

Still, there are a few light raps of the ruler we’d make. In a test game, ‘consiencious’ was paired with ‘consensus’, rather than with ‘conscientious’. Apart from that, we’re not quite convinced the game will make us more intelligent, until Dictionary.com slips in definitions, and perhaps the pronunciation guide from the free Dictionary.com iPhone app. Miss Spell’s Class is also a bit one-dimensional. Although this game title is just the beginning, we’d like to see it instilled with different skill levels and playing modes, where you might actively spell a word, not just passively review it, or quickly choose the right configuration from a handful of choices. There should be different skins to pull in the grade-school youngsters, old fogeys, and tweens who are too cool for school, and competitions over Wi-Fi.

Some of these additional features are admittedly coming. A future version is planned that will shade in the tricky words with vocabulary content, and on Thursday, Dictionary.com is releasing its anagram game, Anagram Cracker, for the Web, which leverages the site’s Thesaurus content.

The bottom line is, while Miss Spell’s Class is original and challenging, we know Dictionary.com can do better.

P.S. In case you’re curious, here are the top-10 words most often misspelled when searched on in Dictionary.com: definitely, separate, sense, savvy, liaison, accommodate, embarrassed, occasionally, inconvenience, and dilemma.

Like many people, I have a music library that’s way too large to fit on my iPhone. (Yo, Apple! Can we please get a 64GB model already?) Fortunately, I can still listen to every track I own thanks to Simplify Music 2.0 (formerly Simplify Media).

The app streams tunes from your PC by way of a music-server program that’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. Download it, install it, then choose the folders you want it to scan, monitor, and queue. (Alas, the program can’t stream DRM-protected iTunes purchases, so it’s time to move everything to iTunes Plus.)

The desktop software costs nothing. The Simplify Music iPhone app has an introductory price of $2.99, but the developer plans to bump it to $5.99 in a few weeks.

Once everything’s installed and configured, just leave your system running and hit the road. When you run the app, you’ll be able to browse your entire desktop music library by album, artist, genre, or song. Tap what you want and presto: the music plays, complete with album art and even song lyrics (which is so cool, it single-handedly justifies the cost of the app).

Want even more variety? Get some buddies on board: you can stream music from friends’ music libraries in addition to your own.

Version 2.0 adds some nifty amenities, including a search function (something the iPhone itself doesn’t have–yet), an add-to-favorites option for building an on-the-fly playlist, and a “scrub bar” for easy backward/forward scanning.

As you might expect, a Wi-Fi connection produces the best sound quality, though 3G runs it a close second when you have four or five bars. Even over EDGE, Simplify Music delivered surprisingly good sound, about on par with FM radio.

Though the app was sometimes annoyingly slow to connect to my PC, for the most part it worked like a charm. And much as I’m loathe to leave my system running 24-7, I’m now hopelessly addicted to having access to all my music.

Simplify Music makes that a reality, meaning I’ll probably think twice about springing for a new iPhone just to get more memory. With the money I save, I’ll be able to buy a lot more tunes.

Romu 1.0

Category:
<a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g gamess
Price: $3.99 (<a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”>More <a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g App iPhone Reviewss found here)

Description:

A puzzle <a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g games that requires quick thinking and quick reflexes. Romu is based on the classic Shisen-Sho (a.k.a. Four Rivers) rules, but with a fast-paced <a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g gamesplay completely different from its predecessors.

Includes 32 levels in four different worlds, each with unique characteristics and tactics. There are four strategic tools to help you beat the clock and increase your score. Get it now and compete for top spots in the global leader board!
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MineField 1.0

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<a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g gamess
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Description:

The classic <a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g games updated for the <a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g/iPod Touch!

* Five different board sizes
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* Unique flagging method makes <a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g gamesplay fast
* Undo feature in case you hit a mine scrambles part of the board
* High Scores – try to beat your best times!
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IGN <a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g games iPhone Reviewss 1.2

Category:
Entertainment
Price: Free (<a href=”http://appshopper.com/link/ign-<a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g games-iPhone Reviewss”><a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”>More <a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g App iPhone Reviewss found here)
Version: 1.1.1 -> 1.2

Description:

Get your entrusted IGN video <a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g games iPhone Reviewss and scores right on your <a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g and iPod Touch! Deciding if you want to buy a <a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g games? Deciding which <a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g games to buy? Use the IGN <a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g games iPhone Reviews Application to sort by platform, search by title, browse by genre, watch video <a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g games iPhone Reviewss, and more…wherever you are.

What’s New

Bookmark section for <a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g games iPhone Reviewss.
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<a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g games guides tab bar section.
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Animal Accents 1.0

Category:
<a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g gamess
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Description:

These black and white animals have all lost their fur and feathers. They need your help to get back to normal. Move the little magnetic shavings around the screen and have fun trying to make these animals look normal again. Included are 10 different animals: penguin, panda, zebra, dalmatian, skunk, snowy owl, colobus monkey, magpie, a marbled salamander who wishes he had fur, and a cormorant.

You can also select your own photo and try it out on yourself. In addition you can play on a blank background for real free-form ideas you might have. Once you are done you can save your image to your photo album. Want to share your masterpiece with the world? You can upload it to Facebook and to show all your friends your creation.

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百問計算 Lite 1.2

Category:
Education
Price: Free (<a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”>More <a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g App iPhone Reviewss found here)
Version: 1.1 -> 1.2

Description:

足し算100問を、タイムを計って行うことができます。
ーーー
有料版との違い
・広告が表示される
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What’s New

Google Adsenseの廃止
ゲーム終了時のアラートの廃止
AdMobの採用
電話着信時自動的にPause
百問計算 Lite

Nodes Lite 1.0.3

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Description:

Nodes is a clever puzzle <a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g games that requires some different thinking. Laser light must be redirected to pass through all of the diamonds on the screen. Tap and drag the nodes around to bend the light until all the diamonds are activated. Some nodes cannot be moved. You will have to find the perfect alignment to clear the level.
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D-Star Lite 1.0.2

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<a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g gamess
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Description:

D-Star is a puzzle <a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g games not for the faint-hearted. It will test your mental acuity as you make your way through progressively complicated levels. Use the green ball to collect all the blue pentagons and clear the stage but be careful. You can only move one ball at a time. You’ll have to plan ahead to master this one.

D-Star is a clone of the well known HP48 <a href=”http://<a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3gAppiPhone Reviews.com”><a href=”http://iPhoneAppiPhone Reviews.com”>iPhone 3g games called Dstar.
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