ReadWriteWeb

A new school year is about to start and students nationwide will be clamoring for ways to keep up with their school work. With many schools starting to offer free iPod Touches, iPhones, and laptops, the iTunes App Store will be one of the first places to go for back-to-school apps.

The new school year also means that research via Wikipedia is going to be on the rise. Fortunately for those with iPhones and iPod Touches, they can now access Wikipedia anywhere while on the go with Wikipanion from the iTunes App Store.

The iTunes App Store is a bit of a big deal these days. Several new applications pop up in the iTunes store every day. With hundreds of apps to download from it can be time consuming to sort through them all. Unfortunately, there is no try before you buy option for any of the iTunes apps. So, if you happen to see one that looks interesting, but requires you to shell out your hard earned cash, app reviews really come in handy. While the iTunes App Store features reviews from others, sometimes you just want a second opinion. Today, ReadWriteWeb brings you 4 iPhone/iPod app review sites.

It's the weekend, so time to review the week's web tech news, reviews and analysis on ReadWriteWeb. On the product side we looked at rising music social network Imeem, reported on Yahoo's Fire Eagle project, checked in on the latest Web Office developments, and covered some new iPhone apps. On the trends side we looked into the latest online Olympics stats, explored the relationship between tech and PR, analyzed the iPhone App Store, and advised you how to set up a company.

There's an interesting discussion going around about the possibility of T-Mobile taking some cues from Apple with an app store of their own. Instead of offering it to a specific phone, T-Mobile wants to take things one step further and open up a platform for all of their mobile devices. Who can blame them? Their current mobile store is equivalent to a mess when compared with Apple's App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch. However what is it that makes the App Store so appealing and will more carriers follow suit?

It's time to review the week that was on ReadWriteWeb. On the product side we continued our ongoing analysis of the iPhone 3G and its accompanying App Store, we looked closely at a Gmail update to its contact management system, covered the US launch of Microsoft Live Mesh, and reported on a developer revolt with Google's Android. On the trends side we revisited the Facebook platform, asked whether startups need Community Managers, looked into mainstream usage of the browser address bar, and told you a story about how Twitter's "Fail Whale" was created.

The arrival of the App Store has brought a number of rivaling news applications to the iPhone and iPod touch as well. The most prominent entrants into the market are the New York Times, the Associated Press, and Bloomberg. While all of the applications are worthwhile for a certain subset of users, we can't help but feel that often the mobile websites of these organizations are actually more useful and fully featured than the native applications.

Apple's App Store for the iPhone and iPod touch has been growing quickly over the weekend. Close to 250 applications have been added since Friday. As Medialets reports, at the same time, the average price of those applications has dropped. Interestingly, free applications are getting higher average ratings from their users than paid apps.