Zaarly, Craigslist's bizarro twin, yesterday released it's native app for Android. If you're unfamiliar with the strangely-named service, it's a bit like a digital bulletin board where you can post requests for goods or services (that you're willing to pay for) in hopes of finding a nearby user to oblige. It launched to the public this past May, and it's backed by some big name tech investors including Twitter-darling Ashton Kutcher.

Here's how the app works. Log into Zaarly, post something you want, how much you're willing to pay for it, and when you need it by. Nearby users will see your posting, and if they've got the goods, or they're willing to provide the services, they can ask the app to connect the two of you straight away. The app conceals your phone number with an anonymous one, so you don't have to worry about getting any creepy calls in the future.

We think Zaarly is a rather brilliantly-conceived idea for meeting what can only be described as "very specific" needs. Just to give you an idea, Zaarly users are looking for everything from used furniture to yard work to burgers hand-delivered to a downtown office building by 7 PM. Once you start to consider what people are actually willing to pay for, the possibilities seem endless. Imagine camping out for some new gadget being released and thinking to yourself, "I'd pay money to get in the front of the line." Well, with Zaarly, you can actually post a request and see if anyone in your immediate vicinity will take you up on your offer.

The new Zaarly app is now available for free download in the Android Market. It's also available for iPhone and on the web at Zaarly.com.

Ever notice how the iPhone's Camera app can take forever to load? And if you switch to movie mode, that can tack on several more seconds--not ideal when you're trying to capture a moment.

Just yesterday, for example, my son broke into a crazy and hilarious dance in front of the TV. I wanted to grab some video, but by the time my iPhone was ready to record, the dance was over. And it wasn't like I could ask him to do it again, because it was one of those totally spontaneous things--now lost forever.

That's why Sky Balloon's 99-cent Capture app has earned a permanent home on my Home screen. One tap and it starts recording video almost instantly.

When you're done, you press the Home button to end the recording (and exit the app, natch). It's that simple. Recorded videos land in your Camera Roll, just like with the Camera app.

Also like that app, Capture lets you tap the screen to focus on a particular area, and there's a toggle button for the rear LED. Other than that, Capture has no interface to speak of.

In fact, the only settings--orientation lock and record-on-launch enable/disable--must be accessed through the iOS Settings app. That's a minor inconvenience, but necessary given the nature of the program.

Capture is downright ingenious, and absolutely essential for anyone who's bemoaned the loss of a special moment because the Camera app took too long to load. Never again.

While we're on the subject, be sure to check out CollabraCam for iPhone and QuickShot with Dropbox, two other great camera-related apps.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Research In Motion's BlackBerry App World has reached a significant milestone.

According to the mobile company, 1 billion applications have been downloaded from the mobile marketplace since it launched a little over two years ago. According to RIM, the store, which is running in some BlackBerry smartphones and the company's BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, is available in over 100 countries around the world.

RIM's announcement yesterday may have been badly timed, though. Less than a week ago, Apple announced that 15 billion applications have been downloaded from its App Store since that marketplace launched in 2008. Apple hit 1 billion downloads in just nine months, easily outpacing RIM. Apple's App Store then reached 5 billion downloads last June and 10 billion in January.

RIM is also trailing far behind Google's Android Market. In May, the search giant announced that 4.5 billion applications had been downloaded from its marketplace. Google also said that it tallies another billion downloads every 60 days.

For its part, RIM says that its store sees 3 million downloads a day.

Originally posted at The Digital Home

Google Voice users who have been marking calls as spam now have something to show for their troubles.

"Thanks to the help of the thousands of Google Voice users who mark calls as spam everyday--and our own spam identification tools--it is now possible to automatically redirect calls, texts, and voicemails from any of the numbers in our database directly into your spam folder," the search company said on its Google Voice blog yesterday.

Spam filtering has long been a desire of Google Voice users. Previously, when telemarketers would call a Google Voice user, they could still block the number, but it didn't help any other user who might have been receiving calls from the same number, essentially making the feature a half-solution. With Google's new feature, the calls shouldn't get through to any user who is employing the filtering option.

As e-mail users know, spam filters can sometimes be wrong. To address that, Google said that people can check their Voice spam folders to see if numbers were incorrectly classified. If so, they can be unblocked by clicking the app's "Not Spam" button.

Google Voice's new spam-filtering feature is available now. People need to turn it on in the Calls tab by checking the box next to "Global Spam filtering."

Further reading: Why my friends hate Google Voice

Originally posted at The Digital Home

Facebook is embracing the reality that not everyone is on a smartphone.

Consumers using standard mobile phones can now download the social network's Facebook for Every Phone app. According to the company, users will be able to see their News Feed, check for messages in their Inbox, and view photos. Users can also upload images and find friends from their contacts list.

Much of Facebook's growth can be attributed to mobile devices. The social network's co-founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said last week that the site now has 750 million active users. A whopping 250 million active users access the social network from their mobile platforms, according to Facebook's site, and those folks have proven to be "twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users."

Related stories:
• Facebook tweaks mobile-optimized sites
• Facebook unveils video chatting, thanks to Skype
• BNET: Help! My employees spend too much time on Facebook

Although Facebook already offers smartphone applications for iOS and Android, among other platforms, its decision to embrace feature phones is a smart one, considering the sheer number of people who still aren't using a smartphone. According to a study released earlier this week by Pew Research Center, 83 percent of U.S. adults have a mobile phone, but only 42 percent of them have a smartphone. Just 35 percent of all American adults have a smartphone.

For Facebook, a key limitation of feature phones is that most consumers don't typically pay for data on those platforms. And the social network's app requires data to function. Facebook acknowledged that reality in its blog post announcing the new app, and said that it has partnered with a host of carriers around the world to offer users free data for 90 days to address that problem.

Surprisingly, Facebook did not include any U.S.-based carriers in its list of companies providing free data. The social network did not immediately respond to request for comment on whether or not the free-data offer is being extended to folks in the U.S.

According to Facebook, its app is available on more than 2,500 mobile phones. People interested in using the app can surf to the company's mobile page, scroll to the bottom, and click the download link. It's also available in app stores GetJar, Appia, and Mobile Weaver.

Originally posted at The Digital Home