Just when you thought you had the Google Mobile App with voice search all figured out, Google goes and reveals an Easter egg hidden in the settings menu.

To get there, just keep scrolling down below the 'about' button. If you keep at it, the previously hidden 'Bells and Whistles' button will appear, giving you these additional options:

• Different theme colors to change the look of the app
• Changes to the sounds the app uses, including monkeys and chickens
• The addition of a live waveform when you are speaking -- kind of like an oscilloscope
  
• The option to open links in the app itself rather than transferring to Safari

Google is hinting there may be even more hidden functions, but they are going to wait until Macworld to identify them. The Google Mobile App is free for the iPhone and iPod touch.

How would you like to be able to shoot photos on your iPhone, and then immediately print them on your HP printer?

HP has a new product called iPrint Photo (click opens iTunes) available in the App Store that makes it very simple to print your iPhone pictures. The free download opens to a list of photo albums that looks very similar to the list in the Photos app on the iPhone. Tapping on a photo brings up a Print Photo page with a large Print button on it (see photo at right). If you only have one networked printer available, just tapping the Print button sends a 4x6 inch (10x15 cm) print job to that printer.

If more than one HP inkjet printer is on your local Wi-Fi network, tapping on a printer search icon brings up a Chooser-like list of printers that you can select one from. This is an excellent free app -- it took no setup and I was able to print a picture immediately after downloading the software from the app store.

Between this software and HP's announcement of their Mac-compatible media server, it looks like HP is starting to play nice with Apple!

Check out the gallery below for a few more photos of this app in use.

Whenever we write about Mac OS X utilities for system maintenance, our readers always remind of us one freeware utility that does a lot of work at no cost -- OnyX from Titanium Software.

This multifunction application does verification of your Startup Disk and System file structure, performs a lot of miscellaneous tasks for system maintenance and cleanup, and lets you configure some hidden parameters for the Finder, Dock, Dashboard, Exposé, Safari, the Login window, and even some of Apple's applications.

The improvements in OnyX 2.0 include faster operation, and deleting the applications cache, Internet cache, and logs has been improved. Most of these improvements are due to the application now being complied with the latest version of Xcode. One new feature lets you rebuild Mail's envelope index in the automation panel.

While the version 2.0 download is only available for Leopard, you can also download earlier versions for Tiger, Panther, and Jaguar. Support is pretty good; it's done through Titanium's forums and there are always answers available for most of your questions.

If you don't use OnyX, what's your favorite free Mac system maintenance utility?

I've been using Mint.com (not to be confused with Shawn Inman's great Mint web stats tracker) to track my financial information for a while now. It's very nice -- completely free, and hooks right into your bank accounts, investments, or other financial accounts online (securely, of course -- they've got over 7,500 institutions in the system) to let you know what you're spending, when, and where. I'm lazy when it comes to budgets, but Mint will automatically make budgets for you based on what you spent the month before, so I can see if my groceries, bus fare, or, ahem, iPhone app budgets go over one month.

And now they're released an iPhone app, so you can have access to all of that information on the go. It's pretty much a portable Mint -- you've got all of your usual account information, alerts are pushed off onto their own screen, so you can see at a glance where you're overspending, and you can flip through and see your expenses for the month, where your cash is going, and any budgets you've programmed into Mint. The app is quick and easy to use -- like Mint.com, but in the palm of your hand. It's free and on the App Store right now (though of course you have to set yourself up on their website first).

One security issue: the app wisely recommends that if you don't have a passcode on your phone already, you put one on it, since your financial information will be available to anyone using your phone. The Mint.com folks also tell us that you can disable iPhone app access from their website, so even if you do lose your phone, you can keep unwanted users from reaching your information. But as with everything, there's a tradeoff of convenience and security -- while it's helpful to have this information anywhere you are, the flip side is that it's that much more likely to fall into the wrong hands.

On Monday, Perian 1.1.3 was released. Perian is a Preference Pane that provides QuickTime with a ton of extra codec support, including: AVI, DivX, and FLV. Version 1.1.3 updates the following aspects of Perian:

• Enabled Indeo 2/3 decodecs
• Added external idx/sub (VobSub) support
• Added support for H.264 and H.263 in FLV containers
• Apple's decoder now handles Baseline/Main Profile H.264
• Fix inconsistent importing for multi-channel audio
• Reduced memory usage for packed streams
• Added sanity checks on all preferences
• Enabled hack to show subtitles in Front Row
• Fixed negative values in SSA \frz tag
• Fixed VSFilter bug-compatibility for \an

You can learn more about Perian, and download the new update, by visiting the Perian.org website.

To accompany the recent Xbox 360 dashboard update, 1337pwn.com released a new version of their Xbox Live friends-management iPhone application. iNXES lets you view your friends list in the NXE form complete with avatars, gamer scores, and online status.

In my testing (on 3G and WiFi), performance was pretty poor. Scrolling through categories or through my friends list was sluggish, and some of my friends' avatars have been updated on Xbox Live but are not showing on iNXES. I was, however, able to see profile data, achievements, and game history.

When the iPhone came out, things looked pretty bleak in the ringtone department. You were supposed to use the sounds that came with the iPhone, and like it. Things loosened up a bit, as Apple thought it was just fine to buy them from the iTunes store. If you already had the music you wanted to make into a ringtone, too bad, you had to buy the track again, and only if it was designated an 'official' ring tone capable song.

Then things got easier, and people started using GarageBand to do the deed, and Apple seemed to be looking the other way. Then iToner came out, and now we have PocketMac Ring tone Studio, which are utilities you can buy and create the ringtones you want from your own music. We've also reported on how to create ringtones using just iTunes.

Somewhat under the radar is Aukido. It's a website you can visit, upload one of your music tracks, cut it to a proper length, and even do a nice fade at the end so it isn't abrupt. I've tried it on a few tracks I own and it worked great. You can then download the track as an MP3, or better yet, the iPhones native M4R format. Then you drag it into your iTunes ringtone folder and you are ready to go.

The site is also crammed full of other ringtones people have created and left on the site. That could be legally murky, and I've only used my own tracks. Your mileage may vary, but Aukido is worth a look, and an upload/download.

MacFUSE is awesome. It allows you to mount a remote server's filesystem, view your iTunes library in Finder, read from and write to NTFS hard drives, and much more! With all of this functionality crammed into a free product one would think it could not get any better. Amazingly, it has.

The latest version of MacFUSE was released yesterday and with it comes several new features, including 64-bit support for Leopard systems with 64-bit processors, experimental support for the impending release of Mac OS X 10.6 (AKA Snow Leopard), and even a new preference pane that eases the installation and upgrade procedure of MacFUSE. The preference pane is a GUI for the Install/Update Engine introduced in version 1.7 for the purpose of providing developers a simpler mechanism for distributing MacFUSE with their FUSE filesystem packages. More information about what is included can be found in the project's changelog.

MacFUSE is a free download and, unlike the previous release, includes support for 10.4 and 10.5 in the same package.

[via Lifehacker]

Thanks, Alex!

On last Sunday's talkcast, we all speculated on the situation behind Google's voice app using undocumented API calls on the iPhone. Either Google just went and did it themselves, or they got special permission from Apple to dive into places that most developers aren't really supposed to go. And it turns out that the former is true: Google says to CNET that, yeah, they used undocumented APIs. What are you going to do about it?

They're not using private frameworks at all, and apparently Apple isn't even part of the situation -- Google's engineers just jumped on some extra, undocumented features in the API. The danger here for most devs, apparently, is that if Apple changes something in the undocumented stuff, it'll break the app. But Google seems unconcerned -- they have the resources, apparently, to change things if needed.

As for Apple themselves, my guess is they'll do what they've been doing: stay hands-off until a smaller developer breaks something really important. If anyone is going to get special permission to bend the rules, it'll be Google, and given that Apple's API agreements are something they can choose to enforce (or not) as they see fit, Google likely has nothing to worry about.

Our good friends at Massively got an opportunity that turned us green with envy -- they got to sit down with the devs of Aurora Feint, one of our favorite iPhone games, and see how its fulfilling the "MMO" promise they've been offering up since it first debuted on the App Store. The new game is called Aurora Feint II: The Arena, and while it doesn't exactly offer real-time MMO gameplay, it does let players compete with ghosts -- the game will record what you or your friend plays, and then offer up that re-play as an opponent. There's also a new "Tavern" feature which will let players leave messages to each other from right in the game.

And the goals don't stop there -- they're working on a third version of the game, which will eventually feature an offline MMO mode, as well as a very, very deep experience for a fairly casual iPhone game. "Warcraft on the iPhone" -- it's not a phrase I'd use to describe Aurora Feint yet, but it's one the creators will happily use for the future.

The early MMO features are in the App Store right now -- the app will normally be priced at $9.99, but it's currently in there for $7.99 during the holidays (the free, non-MMO version is still there as well). Pretty amazing -- this was one of the games that jumped to the forefront in terms of presentation and quality right when the App Store opened, and it doesn't look like the creators have any plans to slow it down.

Oh man -- finally, we're getting an app that fulfills the promise of the iPhone. Ever since we knew the iPhone would have a camera and an internet connection, we've been waiting for SnapTell Explorer, and now it's here and free. Download and install it on the iPhone, and then snap a picture of any book, CD, movie, or videogame, and bingo, you've got links to listings for it (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Wikipedia, Google, etc.) around the Internet. I have no idea how it works (some type of picture comparison script hooked up to a database, surely, though it's amazing that it works that well with just the iPhone's camera), but that's fine, because it makes it all the more indistinguishable from magic.

The main drawback is that it takes a bit to search their database -- while wifi or 3G are much faster (obviously), Edge will have you waiting a few minutes for a find. And at this point, all they have are links to pages -- it would be nice to see a price comparison right away and/or a quick rating (to see instantly what people think of a movie if you happen to be standing in a video store making your choice). Finally, it would be nice to see this extended to all sorts of items -- I tried scanning a few groceries that I might be price shopping, but for now it's just books, movies, and music.

But otherwise, it's awesome -- even in low light/bad light situations, as long as you can get a recognizable picture of the case, it works. This is exactly the kind of thing the iPhone is made for, very cool to finally see it in action.

[via Waxy]

Freeverse's Flick Fishing, which we took a look at last week, has shot to the top of the charts in the App Store, and OSX Reality sent us a note about an interview with the game's designer, Aaron Fothergill. His brother Adam put together the graphics and sound, and Aaron did the actual coding and design. Aaron says it's a tough racket putting iPhone games together -- you've got to balance quality (especially production values, something that we could probably use way more of on the App Store) with time and cost. Since iPhone games sell cheap, it's not an easy job making sure you don't go overboard investing way more than you'll get back on return. But of course, if you put in too little time and charge too much, users will call you out for selling high-priced junk.

He also talks about Mac gaming in general, and immersion on the iPhone specifically -- casual games are doing well on the App Store, and some developers are saying that you just can't make an extremely immersive game on a platform where people are constantly being called, texting, and on the move. I have to agree with Aaron -- it's not that you can't be immersive, it's that you have to do it the right way. There's nothing wrong with short bursts of gameplay, but you have to realize from the beginning that that's what your users will be doing.

And finally, he gives out some information about a Flick Fishing update that's incoming: the recently released 1.1 patch consisted of bug fixes, but the upcoming 1.2 update will add some new features, maybe even 8 player networked play.

A new President, free software, and a look at an IRC client you probably haven't used yet -- what more could you ask for? Snak is giving out their IRC client today (and there's only a little bit of time left in the day, sorry about that) for free to celebrate the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States. Whether you support that choice or not, no one would vote against free software, right? Go check it out, enjoy the free download (to get a license, you've got to drop an email note to Obama2008 AT snak.com), and leave the Obama drama for your mama.

Personally Colloquy does pretty much everything I'll ever need in an IRC client, and it's already free (although they do appreciate donations if you enjoy the 'ware). But Snak looks like it's got some cool features too, including an "Mp3 list" for... erm... backup downloading, and an "address book" for all your IRC friends. Seems worth trying out, and today at least, you can't beat the price.

Thanks, Alex D!