Posterous.com is a service gaining popularity.  It specifically notes that it is not a micro-blogging service, but a site which lets you post pictures, blogs, videos, etc. by sending it through e-mail or other means such as the app we are discussing today.  I use Posterous to post images from my iPhone, camera, and images from the web.  Take a look at my page to get an idea of how it looks.

While there are several ways to upload your images to your Posterous page, if you have an iPhone then the PicPosterous app is a must-have.  The app itself is simple, it is designed to do one thing, and that is to post images to your Posterous page.  You don’t even need a Posterous account to post, but by registering you can do additional things like have multiple sites, auto-posting to Twitter, Facebook, etc., and more.

As I said, the app is simple and straightforward.  Either take a new picture with your iPhone, or upload an image from your library.  It will then upload to your Posterous page.  The app also lets you maintain and manage albums in which you can tag, auto-post, and do more with your images.

If you have a Posterous site, or are thinking about one, grabbing this app is worthwhile.

PicPosterous - iTunes link (free)

The iPhone may be capable of doing some pretty powerful and impressive things, but sometimes you only need it for simple tasks. One of these instances is seeing in the dark, which is where Flashlight comes in.

While there are no shortage of flashlight emulators available in the app store, I’m using the free one from John Haney Software aptly titled ‘Flashlight.”

By default, it opens to a blank white screen. However, you can also switch to a variety of colors, and even create a custom shade. The brightness of each color can also be adjusted by swiping up or down. There’s even a series of ‘Special Effects’, that include many pages of blinking colors and boxes.

Flashlight is, as it needs to be, incredibly simple. At free, the price can’t be beat. So, if you’re looking for a flashlight replacement in your iPhone, download “Flashlight” from the iTunes app store.

Growl is one of the most popular, and widely used, Mac OS X utilities for displaying system-wide notifications. Prowl will now transmit your computer’s Growl notifications to your iPhone or iPod touch.

The app takes advantage of the 3.0 software to send Push Notifications to you. Setting up the computer-to-iPhone connection is simple, you simply sign up for an online Prowl account. Then, you download ‘Prowl’ as a theme for Growl, and all notifications will be ‘pushed’ to the iPhone.

The entire system is flawless, and having Growl notifications sent to the iPhone is a genius way of getting updates. The app works fine, and the only issue I’ve found is the inability to have notifications simultaneously displayed on the computer and on the iPhone.

While Prowl isn’t free, it’s worth it for any avid Growl user and isn’t terribly expensive at $2.99. See more by visiting Prowl in the app store.

The Sims, a popular video-game franchise from EA, has been ported to the iPhone as a life simulation game.

As many fans know, The Sims allows users to create people, design their homes, and control their lives. The iPhone version allows for many of the same features, but is heavily centered around the ‘life control’ aspect of the game.

For users that are interested in building and designing homes on-the-go, The Sims 3 for iPhone won’t fill your desires. There are minor moving, rotating, and purchasing methods for furniture, but these tools can’t compare to the features of the desktop version.

While controlling your Sims’ life, you’ll need to keep them satisfied and fill their wishes. Satisfaction levels include ‘Hunger’, ‘Energy’, ‘Bladder’, ‘Hygiene’, ‘Social’, and ‘Fun’. There are up to 73 goals and wishes that your Sim could come across for you to complete.

Within the game there are mini-challenges that improve a Sims’ skill set, which include ‘Cooking’, ‘Fishing’, ‘Repairing’, and ‘Gardening’. Of course, relationships are also a huge part of the game, in which you can befriend, anger, date, or marry the other Sims.

The Sims 3 is an extremely addicting game, that has engrossed me for many hours. There are numerous features and aspects to the game, some of which were mentioned here, that make it worth the expensive price tag.

See more about the Sims 3 for iPhone.

If you’re like me, you’ll often find yourself with numerous tabs open in your web browser and an array of news articles and blog posts that you want to read. Unfortunately, it seems as though there has been no simple-solution storing place for all of these “to-read” items. On the fortunate side, there is an online service by the name of Instapaper that aims to serve as this “storing place”.

As an online service, it allows you to bookmark and import online posts from the website, or by using the handy bookmarklet. For the iPhone, there are two viewing applications for reading these saved items – a free and paid app.

The free version comes with basic functionality, allowing you to read and delete the articles saved in your account. After refreshing the iPhone app, all of your articles are then saved to the iPhone for offline viewing. The app will even strip out photos and other formatting to give you a simple reading interface.

At $5, Instapaper Pro offers a few more features, including Folders, a dark interface, tilt scrolling, article starring, adjustable font & text sizes, and background updating. The Pro version is almost a must-have with support for folders. With the free version, you do not have access to saved articles placed in folders from the website.

Instapaper is a great online service that saves time and makes reading convenient for you. Articles can be taken on-the-go, and are available wherever you have an internet connection, or anywhere, if you’ve downloaded the saved items to Instapaper on the iPhone. See more about both apps by visiting the app store.

If you don’t feel like paying close to $400 for a Kindle, you’re probably not alone. Lucky for you, Amazon created the Kindle for iPhone app, which is free (if you factor out the cost of the iPhone).

Dubbed as a ‘wireless reading device’, the Kindle is an e-book reader with free, built-in 3G connection to Sprint for downloading books at the Amazon store. Kindle also comes with Whispernet, which is Amazon’s network for synchronizing your content across the web, your kindle, and other devices.

The Kindle iPhone app also uses the Whispernet technology to download your book library and track your reading status so that you can immediately pick up where you left off on your Kindle.

Many of the features of the hardware Kindle are retained in the iPhone app, such as the ability to view bookmarks, change text size, and the location bar at the bottom. However, the iPhone app can not add annotations, read aloud, or sync up with periodicals and other documents. It can change the coloring of text, which might come in handy for making the reading experience more comfortable. The killer feature of the Kindle is also available in the iPhone app – access to Amazon’s book catalog.

While the Kindle app is great as far as iPhone ebook readers go, it’s not a full fledged Kindle, but an accessory. It is available for free in the app store.

Brushes, by Steve Sprang, made headlines a few weeks ago when the cover of The New Yorker was illustrated using the iPhone app.

Unlike most other drawing and “painting” apps available for the iPhone, Brushes introduces more high-end and quality features. It doesn’t come with built-in clipart or gimmicky, fun features, but with more artist-centric capabilities.

This functionality includes a brush editor, undo and redo, eyedropper, color picker, and paint bucket. Similar to most desktop apps, the paint bucket tool fills the entire canvas, and the eyedropper tool helps select a color from the canvas. Brushes also comes with pinch and spread support for zooming in on your canvas.

The mistake that I made was assuming that better tools would produce better artistic creations. When it comes down to it, artistic talent will dictate how well a creation turns out on Brushes. This app does help the artist by introducing typical and easy-to-use tools that mimic physical art, but it doesn’t improve the user’s artistic ability.

It is my favorite illustration apps for the iPhone, and you can give it a try by downloading it for $5 from the iTunes store.

[This post originally appeared on iBAM]

In a move that many consider belated, AT&T released an iPhone application entitled AT&T myWireless mobile. The application aims at dealing with different functions of managing your AT&T account.

Previously, you had to use the full-web interface and Mobile Safari to access your account information by way of www.wireless.att.com, which was a huge pain in the neck. Now, you can view/pay your bill, view voice minutes and data usage, and add/remove/edit features on their plan.

One annoying downside to myWireless mobile is the fact that you have to re-enter your password each time you launch the application. If you’re using a secure password stored inside of 1Password, this task is not simple. Hopefully, once copy and paste becomes available, a workaround will become much simpler. Once you do get into the app, the interface is simple and intuitive and does everything you ask it to do.

myWireless mobile is not a revolutionary app, but it’s one that needs to be available on the iPhone. Plus, it’s free and a great way for any AT&T customer to see their bill, look at usage information, and edit the features of their plan.

AT&T myWireless mobile is available for free in the app store.

The Associated Press is an international news agency famous for their wire stories. Now, they are one of the forerunners in bringing native news applications to the iPhone with their app, AP Mobile.

One of the coolest aspects to AP Mobile is that it allows you to customize the news that you see on the front page. You can choose which sections are visible and the order that they are displayed. Of course, other sections are visible by going to the ‘Categories’ tab and drilling down to the specified content.

The Associated Press also pulls in local news stories and weather. You can either input your zip code or have it use the iPhone’s location services. In fact, you can even add multiple zip codes for even more information.

AP Mobile also comes feature-rich for sharing stories and information. For instance, you can share a story by text message, e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, or Evernote. If you want, AP Mobile also allows you to save and rate stories on a 5-star scale. Introduced with the new 3.0 software update, Push Notifications can now be activated to send you breaking news when not accessing AP Mobile directly.

As a news application, AP Mobile is great. It’s a fully customizable experience that will suit the needs of most. Plus, it’s free and worth the download. See it now in the app store.

Do you wish that you could fall asleep to the sounds of ocean waves, or relax to the soothing tunes of trickling water? Well, with the iPhone and Ambiance Classic, this wish can easily be granted.

There are numerous sounds that can be played, some of which include ‘Coast’, ;City’, ‘Birds – Forest’, ‘Rain – Wind’, and ‘Waterfall’. These noises can be selected and played, or combined for a custom experience.

Timers and Alarms are an additional aspect to Ambiance Classic that allow one to select how long to play the sounds for and when to stop, and even what to do once the effects have stopped. Custom volume controls can also be added for after and during timers.

Ambiance Classic is one of a series of three applications. Ambiance is the second revision that replaced Ambiance Classic, that comes with a new interface, hundreds of new sounds, and many other features. The third version is known as ‘Ambiance Lite’ that is restricted to five sounds.

All three versions of Ambiance are available in the AppStore, for $2.99, $0.99, and free, respectively.