MobileWeb

A company called Peek today unveiled a mobile device built specifically to allow Twitter users to tweet.

Called TwitterPeek (nice branding!), the handheld device sells for $99.99 (which includes six months of service, and then $7.95 per month after) or $199.99 (with a lifetime service plan). It's being sold exclusively on Amazon.com.

TwitterPeek can be used only for tweeting. CNET News.com's Don Reisinger has some details:

The gadget lets (users) tweet, reply, retweet, send direct messages, and download followers. It supports one (Twitter) account at a time. Users can also view TwitPics by clicking the "view content" option from the TwitterPeek menu.

As the Peek blog suggests, TwitterPeek is targeting Twitter users who don't have smartphones and data plans.

Technically you can use SMS on a regular phone, but it's really not the same. So most Twitter users are stuck using the web -- and they're missing out.

The company points to this recent Rapleaf study of Twitter clients to make its case that most users are "stuck" tweeting from the web, but that could be a flaw in reasoning. I suspect the reason that 65% of tweets are sent from the web (instead of a Twitter-specific client or mobile device) is because people tweet a lot at work or from home at night. But that's just a theory; we'll see how this all plays out.

In addition to the black model shown, TwitterPeek also comes in blue. You can see a demo below of TwitterPeek by Engadget's Joshua Topolsky on Jimmy Fallon's late-night show. (I'm not sure how well it bodes that some members of the audience laughed when Topolsky explained that "all it does is send tweets and gets tweets back.")

Your iPhone can protect you from swine flu. Well, maybe not physically, but Harvard Medical School created a Swine Flu iPhone app that helps to educate users about H1N1, TechCrunch reported.

The app features videos, animations and text describing the basics of the virus, how to reduce risk and how to prepare for it, as well as real-time updates and news from Harvard Med School, according to TechCrunch.

The Swine Flu app also boasts a "HealthMap" feature that tracks the state of the epidemic in users' current locations and other locations, as well as an interactive symptom checker, TechCrunch reported.

The video below from Harvard Medical School describes the Swine Flu app:

Perhaps instead of unsuccessfully trying to trademark the word tweet, someone at Twitter ought to pick up an iPhone.

TechCrunch reported that two apps available in the App Store, Twitter and Twitter Pro, are not official Twitter applications, despite ranking fifth and ninth, respectively, on the App Store top-sellers list.

TechCrunch described the Twitter app, which is actually called TwitBird but listed as Twitter, as "kind of like a Google Reader for tweets," and it said Twitter Pro is a bad app.

Pepsi's Amp Up Before You Score? There's no longer an app for that.

The beverage maker discontinued its controversial iPhone application, which offered pickup lines for 24 different types of women, AdAge.com reported.

Pepsi said in a statement:

We have decided to discontinue the Amp iPhone application. We've listened to a variety of audiences and determined this was the most appropriate course of action.

One mobile social network gobbled up another, as Loopt acquired recent entrant GraffitiGEO, TechCrunch reported.

According to TechCrunch, GraffitiGEO adds reviews and games to mobile social networking, and it is preparing to launch an augmented reality application, which Loopt lacked.

The CNBC Real-Time App is now available free-of-charge from the Apple iTunes App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The app features live streaming real-time stock quotes and charts before, during and after market hours from the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, as well as real-time interactive and historical charts and company-specific news, profiles, returns and metrics.

The CNBC Real-Time App also offers breaking business news and alerts, stock market news and the ability to create a My Stocks watch list of users' stocks or to use the Stocks on CNBC list of the top stocks of the day.

And the app includes pre-market indicators, live futures pricing, Dow Impact (which analyzes the stocks that drive the movement of the Dow Jones Industrial Average), global stock indices, commodities, bonds and more than 150 video news clips daily.

CNBC Digital vice president Scott Drake said:

To be successful in today's complex market, every investor needs to have financial-market data in real-time. Having access to this information when you want it is no longer a luxury but a necessity. We believe the unparalleled combination of real-time data, news and analysis, along with the comprehensive and easy to use interfaces, will make the CNBC Real-Time App the best business app available, and it will quickly become a must-have for every investor with an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Push Notifications will become a reality for iPhone users who are Facebook members, as developer Joe Hewitt confirmed that the upcoming Facebook 3.03 for the iPhone will contain that technology, TechCrunch reported.

Facebook 3.03 for the iPhone will be released first, representing a minor update with some bug fixes, according to TechCrunch.

Xconomy chief correspondent Wade Roush covers the launch of Appswell, a start-up that essentially is trying to foster the creation of user-generated iPhone apps.

The premise is to reverse the flow of the apps-creation process, so instead of apps being originated by developers for consumers, the consumers determine what kind of apps they want developers to build.

Roush quotes Appswell founder Dan Sullivan:

"Rather than a bunch of developers putting 20 things on a whiteboard, we think we have a method of engaging thousands of people. For the consumer who has a great idea in his head but isn't a developer and will never build it, we are narrowing the gap for getting that idea tested and vetted and turning it into reality."

But wait, it gets even better -- there's money involved. iPhone users can both submit their ideas to Appswell or vote on other submissions. The most popular app idea each month wins $1,000 in cash and a piece of any sales.

If you do have an idea, now may be the time to strike. Roush writes that the "Appswell app is so new that users have submitted only a couple dozen ideas so far."

Here's a link to the ideas already submitted. My favorite: Morphing App, which (get this) allows someone to morph their face with another person's. Oh, wait, it just morphs photos. Well, that's cool too.

Atebits said in a blog post that it will add new-style retweets, per-tweet geotagging and lists to its Tweetie 2 iPhone Twitter client, TechCrunch reported.

Developer Loren Brichter said on the company's blog:

First, despite the fact that it says 2.0 on the box, Tweetie 2 is a 1.0 at heart (it really is a complete rewrite). From what I've gathered, it seems to be mostly solid, but like any 1.0 app, there are always those niggles that crop up at the last minute and make you want to kick yourself. They'll be fixed soon.

Second, there are a ton of cool new features getting turned on soon on Twitter's end. I built Tweetie 2 to take advantage of them, so I'm hoping to "flip the switch" for the next update. New style Retweets, per-tweet geotagging and, of course, Lists.

Finally, once things settle down a bit, I'd like to share some of the stuff I wrote that helped get Tweetie 2 off the ground. Code, ideas, and a few new projects.

Facebook released an update to its Connect for iPhone, which it said "will fix some of the more common bugs we've been hearing from you, and will supplement FBFeedDialog with FBStreamDialog, a new class for feed form dialogs similar to the FB.Connect.streamPublish feed forms from our JavaScript client library," Inside Facebook reported.

The social-networking service also introduced a refactored version of all Facebook Connect feed forms. Facebook Connect for iPhone was released about six months ago, according to Inside Facebook.