With nearly every smartphone manufacturer and carrier creating its own application storefront for downloading mobile apps, we suppose it was only a matter of time before Google got into the game one way or another.

Starting Wednesday, searching Google.com for iPhone and Android apps--from your iPhone or Android phone--will likely yield a mobile app as its result. The trick, it seems, is to enter the magic word, "download," before the name of the app you seek.

The resulting link and surround context, like a star rating and number of user reviews, isn't a direct download URL per se. More accurately, tapping the Google result opens the app's corresponding product page in the Android Market or in the iPhone's App Store.

Google isn't promising that app searches will work for every Android or iPhone title, but its uber-engine should populate results for popular and highly rated apps. The one remaining question we have is why someone would intentionally favor Google.com as an app resource rather than the phone's built-in storefront, particularly if the Web search leads to that marketplace anyhow.

We will concede that a voice search for the app we wanted to download was a convenient way to get to the market's download page without having to lift a typing finger, but the principle of tagging onto Google's Web search engine to get to a native app still seems like a roundabout route.

For now, Google.com's mobile application search results are U.S. only for iPhones and Android phones, with plans on the horizon to expand the app indexing to more countries and devices.

I'm constantly browsing the new releases, most popular lists, and iPhone/iPad-focused Web sites for hidden gems. The other day, I took a chance on an iPad game that didn't seem like my cup of tea, but the user opinions were through the roof.

Hotel Mogul HD ($4.99, iPad only) looked to me like a casual game that would quickly become boring. Even after scrolling through the screenshots and reading the description, I still wasn't sold. The game revolves around a young entrepreneur named Lynette who owns a large and successful real estate company with her husband. When her conniving husband cheats on her with her "best friend" and forces her out of her family business, she decides to exact revenge by using her business savvy to raise enough money to buy the company out from under her husband and send him to jail.

So it's about buying and selling hotels with some drama on the side? I still wasn't sold; it just didn't sound like fun.

Once I launched the game and got started, I quickly changed my mind. A well-made tutorial brings you through the first few levels of the game showing you how to use each feature and slowly adding more buildings and money-making techniques as you complete each objective. The levels are very easy at first (build two campgrounds, for example), but become more challenging quickly. As the game moves past the initial tutorial stage, you'll learn that to get a perfect 3-star rating for a level, you'll need to complete objectives for each resort in a set period of time. You'll also be shown the full map, which winds through several environments where you'll build beach hotels, including sandy desert oases and even snowy mountain resorts, as you get further into the game.

Originally a PC game, the point and click interface in Hotel Mogul translates extremely well to the iPad. The tutorial does a great job of pointing out how to use all the buttons in the interface including how to buy materials to build and upgrade hotels; how to use Attractions (like museums, fountains, and amusement parks) to raise the value of your hotels; and how to buy more workers so you can build and upgrade more buildings simultaneously to get the money rolling in faster.

As you progress through levels, the challenges get harder, requiring you to raise money to buy occupied properties and place specific hotels in scenic locations. Adding a statue or amusement park raises the income bonus on your hotels and buying "service" buildings like the Real Estate Agency or the Construction Mill let you buy and sell at modified prices and fix hotels in need of repair, respectively. With a challenging time limit on your objectives to get a gold-star rating, you'll quickly realize that juggling the upgrades, materials, and objectives require a lot of quick decisions and efficient time management, and before you know it (if you're like me), you'll have blown a considerable amount of time playing a real estate game.

Overall, Hotel Mogul is probably one of the most challenging and engrossing games I've played on the iPad so far, with smooth graphics, an easy-to-follow tutorial, and tons of levels to play through. When you add in several different types of hotels, commercial buildings, and service buildings to experiment with, Hotel Mogul is great for anyone looking for a challenging time waster. At the very least, you can bet I will look more closely at games that aren't immediately attractive, because Hotel Mogul is a true hidden gem for the iPad.

Originally posted at iPad Atlas

BlackBerry-carrying cyclists seeking direction for their two-wheelers are now privy to the same directions database introduced three weeks ago for Android smartphones.

In addition to requesting biking directions, you can also activate the Bicycling layer in maps to check out cycler-centric trails.

As with the Android version, the cycler-friendly Google Maps for BlackBerry 4.2 update only applies to handsets in the U.S.

In addition to devising safe bike routes, the map app update also refreshes the search results list, adding images and place ratings, in addition to some welcome quick-link buttons that you can tap to get directions or place a call. You'll also be able to e-mail or text details about a place or map location to friends.

Navigate to m.google.com/maps to download Google Maps for BlackBerry 4.2. Google notes in a blog post that it's worked out the permissions kinks some users discovered with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server installation on a handful of version 5.0 smartphones.

Quickoffice and Documents To Go have long been in lock-step as the productivity apps to beat on the iPhone. As soon as the feature set of one pulls ahead, the other is sure to leapfrog its way ahead--for a while, anyway.

A few hours after Data Viz updated its Documents To Go app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, Quickoffice told us its intention to submit a version of its mobile suite for iPad to Apple in the next couple of weeks.

Documents To Go Premium 3.3 adapts to the iPad's extra-large, high-resolution screen and adds a few features unique to the iPad. There's support for iTunes file-sharing between the iPad and computer, and you can also now share documents across apps, for instance opening a Documents To Go doc in the iPad's e-mail client.

The premium version also now reads, edits, and creates Microsoft Office docs (2007-2010) and views Adobe and iWork documents stored by MobileMe iDisk and SugarSync services. The app is also now localized in Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Brazilian Portuguese languages.

Documents To Go Premium 3.3 ($14.99) is available now from the App Store. In addition, Data Viz expects Apple to approve the 3.3 update to the standard version of Documents To Go ($9.99).

Originally posted at iPad Atlas

The venerable dialog box, long a staple of software design, faces extinction or at least endangered-species status in Firefox.

Mozilla designer Stephen Horlander has published Firefox interface mock-ups that illustrate how the browser could look with some options set through a preferences tab rather than through a preferences dialog box.

The designs are experimental, but some of the work is proceeding already. For example, Firefox's new interface for managing add-ons uses this "in-content" interface, and Firefox's about:config controls have appeared in a browser tab for years.

Moving away from dialog boxes is by no means universal, but it is common. Dialog boxes can be confusing, sometimes blocking access to the rest of the software until they're closed and sometimes staying open while hidden behind other windows. Some software, such as Photoshop, is moving toward "non-modal" controls that often live alongside content in the manner of a toolbar.

The Firefox in-content approach is one of many interface changes under way as Mozilla works to release Firefox 4. Among other changes are hardware-accelerated graphics and text; "app tabs" that load Web applications in all browser windows; support for multitouch interfaces; and the new Firefox theme that among other things puts the list of tabs along the top of the browser rather than underneath the address bar.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

Adobe Systems has released the final version of an update to its new Photoshop CS5 that gives the program the ability to automatically correct lens flaws while editing raw images.

Photoshop CS5 already could correct geometric distortion, vignetting, and chromatic for ordinary image files, but the Camera Raw 6.1 plug-in lets photographers do the same with the Photoshop module geared specifically for handing raw images from higher-end cameras. The update, released Tuesday, is on the Adobe.com update site.

Raw images taken directly from camera sensors offer more flexibility and quality than JPEGs that have been processed by the camera, but they also bring headaches since some editing is required to make them useful for sharing with others. Another headache: software companies must continually add support for the proprietary raw formats that come with the unending parade of new cameras.

The update also adds support for raw file formats from several cameras already supported in Photoshop Lightroom 2.7, a sibling product geared specifically for editing and cataloging photos. Those cameras include the Canon Rebel T2i, aka the 550D, the Olympus E-600, the Panasonic G2 and G10, and the Sony Alpha A450. Those cameras, except the Olympus model, were supported in Camera Raw 5.7, but Adobe couldn't build that into Photoshop CS5 because of product release timing matters.

The forthcoming Lightroom 3.0 also will get the lens correction feature, Adobe has said.

The update ships with only a "handful" of supported lenses, but people can create and share their own using Adobe's Lens Profile Creator utility.

The update reflects the fact that software, even mammoth applications such as Adobe's CS products, are becoming more fluid with Internet updates.

Another indicator: Adobe also released a Photoshop CS5 "Knowledge" panel over the weekend, though people must log into the new CS Live service to use it.

"This tool delivers interactive step-by-step guidance, walking you through some 70 tutorials written by expert authors," said John Nack, Adobe's former Photoshop senior product manager and now the chief of its iPad software efforts. The controls in the tutorials can trigger the appropriate actions directly in Photoshop, he said. The panel automatically installs only for those with English versions of Photoshop.

Update, June 2 at 1 a.m. PDT: with details about the Knowledge panel.

Originally posted at Deep Tech