Clicker.com is now available on the App Store for free. It brings with it all of the features you expect from the main website and will allow you to stream some shows while acting as a go between to iTunes for the rest.

With the most complete database of Internet TV, movies and Web series available, Clicker.com has been called “TVGuide for Internet television” by GQ and was named one of the Top 100 Sites of 2010 by PCMagazine. This app is the Clicker iPhone companion, allowing you to find show and movie information on-the-go, see what your friends are watching right now, check-in to shows yourself to let friends know what you’re watching, earn cool awards for your loyalty to programs on networks like HBO, PBS and Showtime, manage your Clicker Playlist remotely, and much more.

I had 20 minutes with the Nokia C5 today and was quite impressed with the build quality and overall design. While it looks and feels like many other Nokia phones, there has definitely been a ramp up in terms of the care given to materials and the form factor. It felt very quick and the screen was ‘just’ large enough to cope with what is a fairly busy OS and the overall experience was much more positive that I have felt over the past year with any Nokia phone. I still can’t see where it will fit in such a crowded market, but it is part of Nokia’s focus on making standard mobile phones smarter rather than trying to push smartphones onto people who just need a phone. My overriding feeling was that it is a bargain for under £150 without contract.

And then I had a full 30 minutes with the BlackBerry Torch. When I first picked it up I must admit to feeling less than impressed by the size and especially the weight. The design does not scream 2010 and is very much in the practical camp, but the levels of practicality available are immense.It was only when I started to really play with the keyboard and touch screen that I got into the experience and OS 6 felt very natural within a few minutes. I won’t go into too many details because I am expecting one for review soon, but I was left feeling that this phone is actually quite special.

You probably know by now that Apple is holding a special event on 1st September. Rumoured announcements include the new Apple TV (still people are calling it iTV), 99 cent TV episode rentals from the likes of Fox and Disney, a new iPod Touch with Retina Display and FaceTime, CDMA iPhone 4 and lots of other silly ideas such as hardware keyboarded iPhones (won’t happen) and that the Beatles back catalogue will make it to iTunes (also won’t happen). The use of a guitar to put an image to the event is a curious one though…

MusicWithMe is a new BlackBerry app which performs a very important task- it allows you to download tracks from iTunes straight to a BlackBerry device. It is currently priced at a one time charge of $14.99 and a 30 day trial is also available. It is also coming soon for Android, Symbian and Maemo. I have looked and cannot see how it handles the DRM tracks, or if it can, but it is ironic that an iPhone needs to connect to iTunes via a wire and a BlackBerry doesn’t.

A blogger from gumballtech has claimed the world texting record which had only recently been beaten on a Samsung Galaxy S using Swype. He managed to type a set paragraph on an iPhone 4 in under 22 seconds- the previous record was 25.94 seconds. Check out the video below which is almost unreal. Thanks to Trevor.

I am going to write some quick ’10 games everyone should own’ for every mobile platform over the next few days and am starting with the iPhone because there are just so many out there that it can be hard to find the really good ones. These are not in any order of preference, but I will try to cover each genre in the articles.

Let’s Create Pottery 8/10

This is a highly original title that offers the chance to relax with just a hint of a challenge to keep you coming back. The developer has done remarkably well to make the experience feel genuine and it is well worth a look.

GT Racing: Motor Academy 9/10

With so many driving games available on the App Store it is difficult to choose just one, but GT Racing takes the crown for me due to the sheer length of gameplay involved. Throw in some of the most realistic driving and cornering available on a mobile and you have a winner.

Flick Kick Football 9/10

PikPok has released a few flicky kicky style games and they all work well, but Flick Kick Football is by far the best. It offers the ‘one more go’ feeling more than any other game I know of. Looks great and plays even better.

WordPop! 9/10

Have played it for years and will continue to play it for many more. It receives updates often, but these never take away from the core playability which is unrivalled in any other word game. Simply superb!

Angry Birds 9/10

What can I say that you don’t already know? The levels keep on coming in and for the price it has proved to be a continual feast of fun. It is one of a few games that truly deserves all of its success.

Dark Nebula 8/10

The graphics and sound are breathtaking for a mobile game and the cleverness of the levels is even better. The levels are limited so you may find yourself playing for a few days and then deleting it, but the experience is as good as any other.

Warfare Inc. 8/10

An oldie, but a goodie. The graphics need updating, but all of the goodness that includes strategy, quick thought and time are still there. Probably the best strategy game in the App Store.

F-SIM Space Shuttle 8/10

X-Plane takes all of the plaudits for mobile flight simulation, but F-Sim offers a more realistic flying experience. It feels immersive thanks to the control centre voices and is great for 5 minutes of flying fun.

HomeRun 8/10

HomeRun is by far my favourite card game of all time and it has transferred well to the iPhone. The lack of sound is strange, but everything else is there. Highly addictive!

Chocolate Shop Frenzy 8/10

If you want a game that will fill hours and hours of your life, this is the one. It offers a similar feeling to Airport Mania and other titles that require slightly more skill as each level progresses and have lots of personality included for good measure.

Click the images to access the apps.

Gameloft has posted a trailer of Real Golf 2011 on YouTube. The game will be available in September. The graphics look good, but take a close look at the first shot that lands on the green- the ball appears to be bouncing in mid air?

If you want to play golf with the best, you need the best golf game. Join Anthony Kim, Natalie Gulbis, Sergio Garcia and many more of golf’s elite on prestigious courses around the world for the most vibrant golf experience on the App Store. Available in September on the App Store.

Version 2.2 of Read It Later has been rejected by Apple for a rather worrying reason- “Applications cannot require user registration prior to allowing access to app features and content.”

As the blog post quite rightly points out, if this is a valid rejection then Facebook, InstaPaper, EverNote, Google Reader and countless other apps would need to be rejected as well. Must be a mistake, at least I hope it is!

The One Day Project was dreamed up by 3 game developers who built 3 games in just 24 hours. The release date is now near (expected to be around 1st September) and the games will be free. A great idea to get some attention and it looks as though everyone will be a winner.

Galcon Labs is free on the App Store at the moment so you need to be quick if you don’t want to pay for it. I picked it up out of curiosity and it is brilliant! You don’t want to miss this one.

Conquering the Galaxy like never before! The sequel to Galcon brings FOUR innovative new games to you, in both Single AND Multi-Player form!

BILLIARDS :: “Moving Planets” – need I say more? With a constantly changing battlefield this game never has a dull moment.

STEALTH :: Enemy ships become invisible, changing Galcon into a game of inter-galactic hide and seek!

CRASH :: Ships battle in mid-flight, bringing a whole different twist to the classic gameplay. You can now defeat the enemy in the air!

ASSASSIN :: Each player is assigned a target. The first player to annihilate their target wins the round!

Galcon Labs includes real-time on-line multi-player action! Each mission has its own on-line leaderboard! Compete against thousands of other players to become the GRAND ADMIRAL!

EpicWin for the iPhone is such a brilliant idea, and one which could start many copycats over the next few months. It is hard to explain what it is all about, but is essentially a to-do list app mixed with an RPG game- make sense? No, thought not.

EpicWin is an iPhone app that puts the adventure back into your life. It’s a streamlined to-do list, to quickly note down all your everyday tasks, but with a role-playing spin. So rather than just ticking off your chores and reminders, completing each one earns you XP to improve and develop your character in an onging quest to improve stats, gain riches, and level-up.

The app is supplied with 3 animated avatars (with a further 2 to buy as In-App-Purchases) which grow in characteristics that represent your own life. Will you be a Maiden of Juggled Priorities, or a King of Win? The lifestyle you lead will decide.

Once in a while I check out the Genius feature on my iPhone 4 and on every occasion I wonder why it is there? It offers me some new apps to look at that I may have missed in the past, but the whole ‘based on’ facility appears to be broken.

The fact I use a web browser on my iPhone obviously means that I would be interested in a ToDo app…

Oh yes, everyone I know who likes pottery also wants to pretend to be Captain Kirk at every opportunity.

If you use notes on your phone that means you will obviously want to control your computer remotely.

Every potter I know wants their photos to speak to them…

OK, so I like kicking balls into a goal. Does that mean I want to build houses on a 3″ screen?

The Genius feature does no harm of course and is nice to have if you want to randomly browse apps, but the technology behind it appears to be seriously flawed and most of the time completely pointless.

WordPop! has been updated and now includes a Brag feature which allows you to boast about your best words to friends and enemies. A nice addition to a superb game!

Loopy Laboratory is free for today only and is well worth checking out. It is one of the older iPhone games, but will keep your mind ticking for hours and hours.

Also just made free is LilRacerz Micro Rally which is a highly rated top-down racer that will keep you happy until Reckless Racing ‘finally’ arrives.

Gameloft continues to annoy customers who purchase its newest games straight away by reducing the price of NFL 2011 to just £0.59 / $0.99. It is a good game by all accounts, but true fans of the game seem to prefer Madden NFL 11.

The Telegraph has run an article which asks if iPhone repairs from Apple are too expensive. It uses the comparison that some companies offer repairs from as little as £39 whereas Apple will charge £139. I see the point, but would suggest that this is another example of journalism that does not consider the big picture. If mine broke it is going back to Apple.

“The firm charges £139 for even the simplest work on a handset, such as replacing a cracked screen, but dozens of companies offer similar repairs for as little as £39.

Customers pay £139 in store or £146.29 for Apple’s mail-order service. Those rejected for repair by the company must spend from £450 on a new handset. The Sunday Telegraph found a host of firms willing to carry out repairs for much less. While simple jobs can be done for as little as £39, more complex work that such as software reinstallations, can be done from£49.”

The iPhone 4 is a device that warrants the use of a case more than any other smartphone. Despite the excellent build quality, the front and back feel fragile and cry out for protection. It is a beautiful looking phone and the last thing you want to do to your £500+ investment is scratch it and ruin the looks that add to the overall experience. The other problem is that protecting it with a case can disguise the looks completely so what to do?

PDair has two solutions which caught my eye and so I decided to give each one a try to see which I preferred.  First up is the Soft Gel Plastic Case which I got in the clear variety (grey, red, orange, green and yellow also available). At only $9 it is one of the cheaper iPhone 4 cases on the market, but the material is far from cheap. It feels like a silicone case, but it much harder and thus offers more protection than most. I am not sure how it is made, but it manages to offer a flexible form which clings to the iPhone like no other case. It is made to measure to the nearest millimetre and actually takes a bit of persuasion to get in place. Once attached, however, it is on for as long as you want it to be. The material offers a grippy feel which also feels as though it is attached to the iPhone on every corner.

If you want a case that shows off the fact you own an iPhone 4 and which will offer superior protection this is the one to get. At only $9 it also represents excellent value for money and, in my opinion, is better than the hard plastic crystal cases which can tend to scratch too easily.

Next up is the Luxury Silicone Case which comes in at $18. There are many, many silicone cases on the market at this time and the vast majority have a smooth finish which does not set them apart from the competition. The Luxury model has a completely different patterned finish which is subtle, yet enough to show that it is not merely another silicone case. All of the buttons are easily accessible and the Apple logo is allowed to shine through at the back courtesy of a circular opening. It does cover up the back of the phone, but like the soft gel case it offers a grip that should ensure you don’t drop your phone.

Most silicone cases also attract dust quite easily, but so far I have not seen one spec on my case and this is an advantage in itself. The less dust you get on a case, the less you will get on your phone. At $18 I would consider it value for money due to the quality materials used, but some extras are included. First up is a stand which attaches to the back of the case and lets you stand up your iPhone when it is not in use. Obviously it is difficult to charge the phone in this position, but if you want to leave it on your desk or read an eBook without holding the phone it is a nice extra to have. There is also a lanyard attachment which looks slightly strange at first. I wouldn’t carry a lanyard on a phone personally, but there is a screen cleaner built into it which works brilliantly. This attachment is now carried with me to work each day and helps to reduce dust and dirt which can lead to scratches on the screen, no matter how well built Apple says it is.

I actually prefer this case of the two which surprised me because I tend to like clear cases more. Both are very good value, but for me the Luxury Silicone solution offers good protection with some extra style which is what an iPhone 4 case should do.

My iPhone 4 cost me £570 which is equivalent to $888. The Soft Gel Case is equivalent to paying an extra 1% to add protection and the Luxury Silicone Case equates to an extra 2% on the overall cost. The iPhone 4 requires a case more than most mobile phones and so you may as well get one that is value for money and which adds some style to the experience. Either of these will do that.

Links-

Luxury Silicone Case $18

Soft Gel Plastic Case $9

Disclaimer: PDair advertises on PDA-247, but be assured that we only rate products as we find them. Being overly positive would just damage our reputation and lessen trust in what we write in the future.

The original iShoot was a huge success for the one-man developer and now iShoot 2 has finally been released. The first reviews on the App Store are somewhat mixed so far and it seems as though some extra tweaks are needed to bring it up to the level of the original.

“The sequel to the bestselling tank combat game is finally here! iShoot 2 improves on every aspect of the original, with greatly improved graphics and sound, a completely redesigned weapon system, vast scrolling and zooming landscapes, upgradable tanks, Bluetooth play, a campaign mode, and much more!

iShoot 2 is a universal iPhone / iPad app with Retina Display support.”

I have used and reviewed many smartphone over the past year and some stand out more than others. In an industry which is racing to the bottom in terms of average price there are still some smartphones produced that aim to be the very best in their field. For this battle I considered many phones such as the Nokia N97, BlackBerry Bold 9700 and Palm Pre, but decided that the iPhone 4, Desire and Galaxy S represented the best of what the touch screen smartphone industry has to offer. They were certainly the ones that stood out to me the most over the year and so I decided to let them battle it out to see which is the very best at this time. These are purely from my experiences so are not a technical look, but hopefully this article will help if you are stuck on deciding which one to buy.

I will take each feature in turn and then look at the overall usability of each phone and eventually decide which one is the best of the bunch.

Camera

Smartphone cameras have become a battleground all of their own in the past year and it is not uncommon to see phones marketed with the camera spec at the very top of the list. Manufacturers have realised this and are putting huge amounts of research and effort into cramming in the best cameras they can. Megapixels, as you probably know, are far from the whole story these days and this is even more apparent on smartphones. You have a phone with you and being able to catch a moment is crucial to the whole reason it is there. If it requires fiddling to capture an image in good quality its use is suddenly diminished. If it struggles to get meaningful snaps in poor lighting its use is halved. And if the video recording is blighted by poor sound capture or ghosting it starts to feel like an add-on rather than a feature worth having.

iPhone 4 Camera: 9/10

There is little doubt that Apple has put lots of effort into the iPhone 4 camera and once again proved that you do not need lots of Megapixals to take good quality pictures and video. Pictures are almost always of excellent quality and the more time you take, the better the result will be. It feels natural to use and crucially like you have some control over the process which is unusual in smartphone cameras. The flash works well and so far I have caught a few good snaps at night which other phones struggle to do.

Video capture is also very, very good and the sound and video quality are as good as I have seen on any other phone. The added bonus for iPhone photography is that there are many apps available which will help you to enhance the pictures you have taken in a variety of ways.

Galaxy S Camera: 7/10

For photos the Galaxy S is very good in decent lighting conditions and will serve as a worthy snapper in day to day use. However, the lack of a flash is the main reason it only gets 7/10 because this limits its use somewhat. A bizarre omission from Samsung.

Video capture is very good and only the sound quality lets it down a little. It is up there with the iPhone 4 for capture quality though.

HTC Desire Camera: 7/10

Image quality is excellent and worthy of inclusion in one of the highest specified Android smartphones. The flash works fairly well, but is not iPhone standard and the way the camera software works is not as easy as it could be.

Video recording is OK, but again suffers from poor sound capture which seems to be a problem in most smartphones no matter how much they cost. It is a worthy addition though, but it would be nice to see better in a smartphone of this specification.

Winner: The iPhone 4 takes the prize for the best smartphone camera out of the three. They are all good, but Apple has created something truly different which makes taking photos on a smartphone a pleasure rather than a chore.

Screen

From a practical point of view the screen is one of the most important parts of any smartphone and it needs to succeed in two areas. Firstly, it should be high resolution to display photos, video and lots of information in as good a clarity as possible and secondly it needs to be viewable in all conditions. Sadly not all manufacturers have figured this out yet.

iPhone 4 screen: 9/10

The Retina Display has created lots of discussion, but in the real world the fact that you cannot see the pixels does not make a huge difference. It is useful for games and photos, but I still believe that it is a feature that has been over marketed. However, the crispness of the screen cannot be ignored and so it does very well here.

It is also viewable in all conditions and only bright sunlight causes some glare and wash out, but not to the level you see on most other phones.

Galaxy S screen: 9/10

At 4” it offers more space than the others here and the Super AMOLED rivals the Retina Display in my opinion. Colours are perfectly reproduced and video and photos also benefit from the technology.

In bright conditions it is perfectly viewable and on a par, if not a little better, than the iPhone 4.

Finally, the technology is very easy on the battery and this can offer more flexibility with larger displays than other technologies.

HTC Desire screen: 6/10

The resolution is good and so is the size at 3.7” which come together to offer a pleasing experience, in preferable lighting conditions.

The fact is that the Desires screen performs better in bright sunlight than a lot of phones, but is streets behind the other two here and can almost wash out completely when the Sun is beating down. It is the one dark spot on an otherwise very well built phone.

Winner: I have to give it to the Galaxy S for a couple of reasons; it is bigger and it makes viewing photos and videos better than on the iPhone 4 which some of you may struggle to understand. When you use a Galaxy S in anger you soon start to realise that the screen is simply awesome.

Media

Video, games and music are fast becoming the staple diet of the latest and greatest smartphones and phones that are unable to compete in any one area soon fall foul of the media and ultimately the consumer.

iPhone 4 media: 10/10

Any iPhone has an immediate advantage because of the media that is immediately available to it with a couple of clicks. iTunes is tied to the iPhone like an umbilical cord and offers music, films, TV episodes, eBooks, Podcasts, apps, games and audiobooks which are all incredibly easy to buy and move over to the phone. The fact that you can rent films adds another dimension and all iPhones are capable of TV-out with the right cable so it can become your all in one entertainment centre.

Video playback on the iPhone 4 in HD is excellent and the music quality is simply awesome! There is little point in highlighting games and apps because they are plentiful and there are more than enough that offer a quality not previously seen on a mobile phone.

With a variety of eBook apps and publishers available over the air and through iTunes this media format is covered as well. There is nothing missing from the iPhone setup.

Galaxy S media: 8/10

Video is better on the Galaxy S than the iPhone 4 for obvious reasons, but you have to jump through some hoops to get the films and TV episodes over to the phone. Music quality is very good through the supplied headphones, but you have to be careful which ones you use with it. For example, my iPhone headphones sound terrible on the Galaxy.

There is a good selection of games, apps and eBooks available for Android and no Galaxy user will be left wanting, but it is not at the level of the iPhone system yet. It is also a bit hit and miss when you are trying to find good quality software because there is a lot of dreadful apps in the Android Market. I am not saying that there isn’t lots of dross in iTunes, but my perception is that there are more very good quality titles currently available and that the major services (shops, cinemas, banks etc.) think about the iPhone before considering other mobile platforms.

HTC Desire media: 7/10

I have covered the availability of apps etc. in the Galaxy sections and of course the Desire is running the same platform. Video playback is excellent again and so is music quality. The only negative sides are the screen in daylight and the hassle involved in moving media to the phone.

Winner: The iPhone 4 had to take the prize in this section because of the eco-system that is built around it. The astonishing sound quality is also on a whole new level compared to the competition and for effort alone it is hard to beat.

Ultimately, all three phones offer a media experience we could not have dreamed off two years ago and so they are all worthy purchases if this is most important to you.

Battery

Battery life is measured in hours these days and a smartphone that can last a day on one charge is often acclaimed as having a good battery. I disagree and probably always will because I still use voice a lot and prefer to use a phone for voice that I know for certain will get me through the heaviest of days. If I have three hours of conference calls, emails and whatever else I want to see at least 30% available by the time I get home in case the next day is even crazier.

iPhone 4 battery: 7/10

The iPhone 4 is better on battery than the 3GS, but the battery has been tweaked to offer superb efficiency for video and music playback. I still find that long calls will drop the meter too quickly and so my trusty BlackBerry is still my mainstay for voice calling.

Don’t get me wrong the iPhone 4 battery is adequate, but I still have a charger next to my bed, in my car, on my desks at work and home and in my briefcase.

Galaxy S battery: 8/10

The Galaxy S battery performs surprisingly well for almost all activities and I have found that more than a heavy day is possible, just. A very heavy day will kill it, but I don’t feel so concerned about the Galaxy battery as I do the iPhone.

HTC Desire battery: 6/10

It’s OK when compared to certain other smartphone, but HTC still hasn’t put battery life at the forefront of what it wants to do with smartphones. There will come a time, again, when things like the battery are seen as important features, but HTC is an example of a company that concentrates on this area less than some others.

Winner: Galaxy S.

Performance

I am please to say that for general performance we have reached a stage where the high-end smartphones move along at a consistently blistering pace and all of these are powered to the point that slow downs are a rarity. However, the iPhone 4 can stumble occasionally for me when too many big apps have been run in the recent past and seems to handle multi-tasking less well than the other two. The Desire also stumbles on occasion whereas the Galaxy seems to carry on no matter what I throw at it.

Winner: If I had to offer scores I would go for 9/10 to the Galaxy and 8/10 to the other two.

Call and Signal Quality

Let’s pretend that people still want to use smartphones to make voice calls and then we can look seriously at how well each of these phones perform in the real world.

They all offer a rich call quality experience, but the Galaxy S is special in this area. Here’s a quote from my review of the Galaxy- “The Samsung Wave surprised me with the sound quality during calls and the Galaxy S is arguably even better. Voice quality when next to your ear is rich and clear, but it gets even better when the speakerphone is used. It does not distort and even beats the BlackBerry Bold 9700 which makes it the first smartphone to do so. The loudness is just enough for the most testing of conditions so if you are one of the ever reducing number of smartphone users who actually makes calls this is an ideal choice.”

The iPhone signal is not half as bad as some would have you believe, but the speakerphone could sound more refined to me. As for the Desire, it marks a step up from HTC in this area with a rich sound marred slightly by the tinny speakerphone.

Signal is a contentious area at the moment, but I would again put the Galaxy (9/10) at the top with the Desire (8/10) next and the iPhone 4 (7/10) last. If I use my iPhone next to a Galaxy or Desire on the same network, it is still the only one that can suffer no signal at all. It is rare, but should never happen in 2010.

Software

We have two choices here- iOS and Android and I would still rate iOS as the better of the two, for me. Android has huge potential going forward and I fully expect to see more from it than iOS over the next 2 years, but at this time it feels more complete and polished. I want reliability and ease of use and iOS offers that in spades. 9/10 for the iPhone and 8/10 for the other two.

Conclusion

If I tot up the scores I end up with-

iPhone 4: 59
Galaxy S: 58
HTC Desire: 50

This kind of scoring is ultimately pointless because I could view one area as five times more important than another and so would concentrate on that more. What the scores do show is that there is very little to choose between the Galaxy S and the iPhone 4 and that each person will need to decide which is best for them. These two phones are way up my personal list and I find it hard to choose between them due to highs and lows in different areas, but the iPhone 4 just pinches it for me.

The HTC Desire has very quickly been overtaken by the other two and HTC needs to keep up the pace of development to keep up. More importantly, it needs to come up with something to get ahead of the pack because it is starting to fall into the Nokia trap of clinging on rather than leading.

The real positive here is that all three of these phones are light years ahead of what was available a mere twelve months earlier. I wonder what we can expect in August 2011?