Navfree USA for iPhone offers turn-by-turn navigation, voice guidance, integrated Google search, and map updates for life–all for free. How is that possible, especially when competing apps from the likes of CoPilot, Navigon, and TomTom sell for upward of $50? The key lies in OpenStreetMap, Navfree’s user-built, open-source mapping system. Because OSM map data is …

As someone who writes daily for iPhone Atlas, I look at a lot of apps. A lot of apps. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t install a new one, if not two or three. Needless to say, favorites emerge. Which apps made the cut this year? Though it was nearly impossible to whittle them down to …

Sprint customers with the BlackBerry Bold 9650 and Curve 3G 9330 are getting an early Christmas gift with the BlackBerry OS 6 update. The update will arrive over the air, but if you absolutely musk peek you can go to RIM’s desktop manager, connect your handset, and download it manually. BlackBerry OS 6 first appeared last August in the RIM …

If you’re thinking of picking up a simple cell phone for yourself or someone else, the relatively new AT&T F160 can be yours for free with a two-year service agreement. The ZTE-made F160 (it sounds like a Ford truck, doesn’t it?) has some nice midrange features. It’s a 3G world phone with Bluetooth 2.0. There’s a 3-megapixel camera with camcorder,  …

A handful of new PlayStation phone rumors surfaced this week, adding to a long list of unconfirmed reports surrounding the device. The latest gossip concerns the smartphone’s eventual name. According to information uncovered by Pocket-Now, Sony Ericsson has registered for trademarks on Xperia Play, Xperia Neo, Xperia Duo, and Xperia Arc. It’s possible that the Xperia Play could refer to …

Another year is in the books, but before we shut the door on 2010 and sign off for the holidays, we wrap up some of the latest cell phone news and reviews. Plus, we give you a preview of what to expect from CES 2011. From LTE handsets to dual-core Android phones, it’s shaping up to be a very busy …

Screenshot by Joe Aimonetti App maker Occipital has provided a working demo of Apple’s newly integrated gyroscope support in Mobile Safari using images created by 360 Panorama, Occipital’s great panoramic photography App for iOS 4.2. The site, when visited by an iOS device with a gyroscope and running iOS 4.2.1, allows you to view photographs taken with the 360 Panorama …

Motorola Mobility, the consumer devices subsidiary that’s being formally spun off from the rest of Motorola, announced today that it’s acquired a start-up called Zecter, which makes software for cloud storage and file-sharing. It’ll work the technology from Zecter’s products, ZumoDrive and ZumoCast, into its MotoBlur service so that subscribers can access and sync files across multiple devices more quickly, …

The ZTE-manufactured AT&T R225, is a prepaid, entry-level Go Phone. Design, price, and call quality are the handset’s biggest strengths. To that end, this isn’t a bad phone for making calls. However, its feature set tends toward the anorexic. Mobile e-mail and IM are surprise options, but ZTE has overlooked basics like Bluetooth and a volume rocker, two important fundamentals …

Dexim Back in November, I pitted iPhone 4 charging cases from Dexim and Mophie against one another. They both held one extra phone charge, but because it was lighter and much better designed, Mophie’s Juice Pack Air for iPhone 4 was the clear winner. A new entrant from each blurs the lines. In this rematch, the Dexim DCA224 Super-Juiced Power …

Comcast today said its proposed deal to acquire control of General Electric’s NBC Universal won’t get regulatory approval by the end of the year, as the company had hoped. The cable giant issued a statement saying that even though the Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice have made “substantial progress toward approval,” it simply doesn’t have enough time this …

Today Opera Software announced that it’s laying the groundwork to get its widgets platform onto its Android browsers. In lieu of extensions as employed by Mozilla Firefox, Opera uses widgets, small applications that run within the browser to perform tasks like showing the weather or a calculator. From the development perspective, Opera’s release of a widget runtime lets developers start …

Fifty-one percent of 25- to 29-year-olds live in households that have kicked the landline habit, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is the first time that wireless-only households have surpassed landline households among any age group, according to the CDC’s report released yesterday. The report, which surveyed 17,619 households over the six …

Apple has removed an unofficial WikiLeaks app from the App Store. The app cost $1.99 (£1.29), half of which went to the whistleblower site. “We removed the WikiLeaks app from the App Store because it violated our developer guidelines,” an Apple spokeswoman told Wired‘s Threat Level blog. “Apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual …

You know how the saying goes: all work and no play makes Android a dull boy. Or something to that effect. The point is that in addition to loading up your device with a selection of useful apps from our Android Starter Kit, we want you to have some good distractions for waiting rooms, commutes, and just general silliness. To …