Good.iWare announces the launch of GoodReader Lite, a free version of its document viewer for iPhone and iPod Touch. GoodReader Lite is identical to the full version in the number of features, but limits the user to storing five files only at any given time.

As with the full version, GoodReader Lite excels at enabling iPhone and iPod Touch users to open and view very large PDF and TXT files. The app offers text search capabilities, plus active hyperlinks, enabling users to more easily navigate within the document or launch a linked document or website.

GoodReader Lite also simplifies reading large TXT documents with its Auto-scroll feature, which offers variable speed controls to make reading the document an easy hands-off operation. To make it easier to view large PDFs, GoodReader and GoodReader Lite both offer “PDF Reflow” – a long sought-after feature in which text is extracted from a PDF page (stripping out pictures) and displayed as a simple TXT file. While in PDF Reflow mode, both versions of GoodReader eliminate annoying page margins and offer word-wrapping and formatting features such as font size and text color.

File sharing and management are simplified with the ability to Zip / Unzip files, as well as standard file operations, such as copy, paste, rename and delete, providing a computer-like file management experience. GoodReader and GoodReader Lite both provide access to MobileMe iDisk, box.net, MyDisk.se, and many other file-storage servers for both downloading and uploading files.

GoodReader Lite is available as a free download from Apple’s App Store. The full version with unlimited document viewing is regularly priced at US$4.99, but is available for a limited time at only US$.99.

Electric Pocket has released FestiveTones — a holiday version of its MailTones app for iPhone — so now you can set certain holiday tones to play when specific people send you emails. The collection of alert tones include sleigh bells, brass bands and carols.

With FestiveTones, iPhone users can set a holiday tone for a specific user, or one for all incoming emails from a specific domain – making it easy to recognize incoming emails from work colleagues, family members, buddies, or customers.

FestiveTones can optionally pop up on the screen and display the sender and subject of an incoming email so you can know instantly whether or not they need to launch the Mail app to read the message.

The link to the iTunes App Store page is http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/festivetones-holiday-email-sounds/id343008779?mt=8. The MailTones website is www.mailtones.com. The app retails for US$1.99.

You know, as much fun as it is to beat up on Microsoft for all its buggy software while applauding Apple for its great user experience, one has to question if this is excuse enough to turn a blind eye at the trendy cool Cupertino-based company for its wrongs. Like Snow Leopard issues, specifically, printing. How does a company have an operating system in beta for over a year release a final product that completely breaks hundreds of printers from working? This makes little sense to me and blows me away that both Apple and HP were surprised by this development.

I was personally effected by the lack of responsiveness to print jobs on my HP LaserJet 3600n. There I was, printing just dandy in Leopard the Thursday night before I purchased Snow Leopard. Friday afternoon comes and the fairly fast completed upgraded puts me in front of a printer queue that states “Connected…” and not much more. After canceling my print job, deleting the printer, rebooting, and re-installing, the same issue occurred. This time I had patience and low and behold, three minutes later, the printer started printing! I printed another test. Again, it took 3 minutes. Every job took 3 minutes from the time it left my Mac (or did it really leave it?) After much investigation, I discovered I wasn’t alone as IT World well documented. Apple’s web site had nothing to offer other than others with the same issue posting pleas of help.

Then, HP and Apple admitted there was an issue and released an updated drive raising many “dead” and once unsupported printers back to print heaven. My 3600n, however, was not one of them. Several minutes still passed between my mouse click on the Print button and the actual print happening. More searching on the web for an answer was fruitless, forgive the pun, for my Apple. In desperation, I contacted Apple Care and even the Level 2 tech had no clue what was wrong.

Well, I went back to an old friend. Back in my OS X 10.3 days, I was forced to use open source drivers for my older HP DeskJet and once again, on a hunch, I went back to the world of better code. Guess what? Because of macosx/hpijs, I can once again print in a heartbeat.

So what’s it all mean? HP has crappy drivers and Apple did a poor job of beta testing. Dude, I’m not the only one with an HP 3600n out there. Maybe Apple needs to be less concerned about secrets and surprise and make a more general beta like Microsoft did for Windows 7. If you’re wondering, ya, my HP 3600n works fine with Microsoft’s just released OS update.

So you’re sitting in the comforts of your warm home and your car is parked out front all cold and uninviting? Bundle up and tackle that frigid automobile until the heater makes things nice or you can pull out your iPhone and just start it from your couch!

Viper has just announced the Vehicle Remote Start & Security application for the iPhone (with limited support for the iPod touch) that when coupled with a $500 box installed to your vehicle will let you remotely start the car, toggle the locks, pop the trunk, and beep the horn. The application works with multiple vehicles equipped with the Viper hardware and is only limited to cellular connection for the vehicle and Wi-Fi or a cellular connection on your iPhone.

Viper has a pretty sweet demo on its Facebook fan page with an option to win one of these cool remote devices.

While I love this whole set up, I have to say, $500 is a pricey for just starting your car and unlocking it. Still, really cool idea and makes OnStar that much lamer.

Hey, if you’re looking to notified via a pop-up message and a unique sound from a specific person, group, domain, or by subject line, then you’ll need to take a look at our review of the program for the iPhone called MailTones. Fully utilizing Apple’s Push Notification, MailTones will help you keep up on who’s emailing you without having to even pull your iPhone from your pocket.

If you in search for some sweet sounds coming out of your iPhone, or any other music device, then you must read the review we just put up for the AKG K 450. Impressive stuff from a well known audiophile company, the AKG K 450 may well be just the best solution for your sweet ears while jamming to the latest from the iTunes store.

Keep your eyes posted to our site for more great reviews coming your way!

Did you notice something different when adding a new contact or a phone number to an existing one lately on your iPhone or in Address Book on your Mac? Well, if you upgraded to Snow Leopard on your Macintosh you may have not caught the new entry for Phone Number Type in Address Book 5.0. Right under Work and Home and just above Mobile is “iPhone”. You’ll find the same entry type available on your iPhone running OS 3.0 or higher as well.

So what is Apple trying to do with this new entry? Marketing? Hidden feature? Nothing? Well, most likely it’s just really a marketing ploy since phone calls from iPhone to iPhone using this type does nothing more than Mobile to Mobile. Oh, if you use the iPhones Voice Control to call someone with this entry as their selection but say “Mobile” instead of iPhone, thankfully the Voice Control understand what you “really” mean and still finds the correct number. Voice Control does politely tell you, however, that it is an iPhone that you’re calling when confirming your selection.

Who knows the true reason of Apple’s inclusion of this new entry other than being a “vanity” selection. Maybe one day there will be a use for it or maybe it will effect how one sends SMS and MMS to one another. Either way, I’m going with the vanity aspect for now and loving it.

So you miss those snazzy QuickTime features of the older version snatched from the Snow Leopard X version like a baby gazelle from the back of the heard in Africa, huh? No worries, mate, just slap that install disc back in and double click the Optional Installs package in the, um, Optional Installs folder. Select QuickTime 7 in the list of Applications and back you are my friend! Other goodies can be found in this list as well, but we’ll just focus on the inability of QuickTime X to remember stretch to screen preference and such that QT7 had.

“With TomTom for iPhone, millions of iPhone users can now benefit from the same easy-to-use and intuitive interface, turn-by-turn spoken navigation and unique routing technology that our 30 million portable navigation device users rely on every day,” said Corinne Vigreux, Managing Director of TomTom. “As the world’s leading provider of navigation solutions and digital maps, TomTom is the most natural fit for an advanced navigation application on the iPhone.”

The TomTom app for iPhone 3G and 3GS users includes a map of the US and Canada from Tele Atlas, and is available to download through http://www.tomtom.com/tomtom-app for $99.99 USD.

TomTom app for iPhone key features
TomTom app for iPhone includes the exclusive IQ . Instead of using travel time assumptions, IQ Routes™ technology Routes bases its routes on the actual experience of millions of TomTom drivers to calculate the fastest route and generate the most accurate arrival times in the industry. TomTom IQ Routes empowers drivers to reach their destination faster up to 35% of the time.

Additional TomTom app for iPhone features include:

Best routing and maps
· Navigation software including fast route planning and clear voice instructions
· Automatic re-routing if a turn is missed
· Route demo or map of route when trip planning
· Alternative route options if avoiding roadblocks, toll ways or looking for high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes along route
· Latest Tele Atlas maps of the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand
· 6 million Points of Interest included

Easy to use and personalize
· User interface fully optimized with iPhone.
· Multiple display options including landscape and portrait navigation view
· Night and day color mode for optimized screen visibility in varying light conditions
· User interface available in 18 languages in
· Change view settings (2D or 3D map display)
· Easy to download from iTunes App Store

Complete phone and map integration
· Multi-touch gestures such as tap, swipe, pinch and zoom to operate the application and zoom in and out of the map
· Navigation to contacts in address book
· Points-of-interest search and call capabilities from iPhone

Pricing and Availability
The TomTom app for iPhone including full maps of the US and Canada will be available for $99.99 USD on the Apple App Store. http://www.tomtom.com/tomtom-app.

Compatibility with iPod touch and other iPhone models coming soon.

Requirements for use on the iPhone 3G or 3GS include phone installation of OS3.0 and installation of iTunes on the PC or Mac.

Electric Pocket is now introducing its PhoneFace photo speed-dial application for the iPhone – the first of its kind to connect with Twitter to retrieve profile photos of frequently-called contacts. PhoneFace has been a very popular application among users of BlackBerry and Android smartphones.

PhoneFace will launch phone calls, text messages and emails with a simple click on a contact’s photo or avatar. The app also comes with a fun set of custom-designed avatars, including a number of friendly robots and other quirky characters, to represent friends with no photos available.

PhoneFace makes it simpler and quicker to find and launch a call, text or email with friends, family and co-workers. Rather than forcing users to scroll through hundreds of contacts in the Address Book of their iPhone, PhoneFace adds a twist to “speed dialing” by enabling them to flick through photos for their most commonly called contacts to quickly select the person they wish to call.

PhoneFace users can select any photo for their contacts, take a photo with the iPhone’s camera or it can automatically locate and update the pictures of PhoneFace contacts with their most recent Twitter profile picture. This integration gives users a ready source of excellent photographs for their contacts – and uniquely, the speed-dial picture becomes a photograph chosen by the contact themselves.

“PhoneFace is a light and breezy speed-dialer aimed at helping anyone reach out to their friends and family more quickly with their iPhone,” said Iain Barclay, Electric Pocket’s co-founder and Chief Product Officer. “It’s so much easier to look for a familiar face than sort through hundreds of names in a directory.”

PhoneFace is available now from the iTunes App Store for with an introductory price of US$.99.