A driver left his truck in the driveway running to warm up with his iPhone on the front seat. A thief came by and took the truck and the owner used the iPhone GPS to track the phone and led police to the vehicle and it was recovered.

Third Rail case helps keep your iPhone 4 running longer with a cool removable battery pack. The case has a removable battery packs so if you don’t need the extra juice you can just use the case itself.

A new study conducted by Bulletin Healthcare has surveyed the reading habits of 550,000 health pros. The study found that the vast majority of them use the iPhone to read the daily email briefings.

Apple has hired a new exec away from Microsoft named Kevin Timmons. Timmons was the GM of Microsoft data centers lending weight to the rumors circulating that Apple is getting a cloud video service ready.

PC World is wondering the same thing that most of us with the iPhone 3GS are wondering right now, how much we will have to pay for the next iPhone. A few iPhone early adopters have had their upgrade dates changed; I am not one of those lucky ones though. I figure the best I can hope for is a discount in August per my AT&T account of $399 for the new device.

The iPhone navigation app Skobbler has landed in the UK at a price of £1.19. The app is the most popular GPS navigation offering in Germany and normally sells for £2.39.

SFGate is predicting that the next wave of iPhone apps will be smart rather than silly apps like iFart. Sophisticated apps are what developers think iPhone owners will want next.

A man from Wisconsin has used GPS to find his stolen iPhone. The man used MobileMe to find the home of the thief and gave the info to police who arrested the man.

Tapulous has launched a new game for the iPhone called Riddim Ribbon. Tapulous is the company behind the popular TapTap Revenge games on the iPhone.

One of the most iconic characters in the Sega portfolio is Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is rumored to be coming to the iPhone this summer.

Star Wars fans can use the force with a new iPhone game called Star Wars: Trench Run. The game is sort of a special edition of the arcade classic that I spent big bucks playing as a kid.

Conde Nast has released a virtual magazine for the iPhone to go along with the Men of the Year issue. The virtual mag is a replica of the print issue, sounds like Zino to me.

It comes as no surprise that the Apple App Store is dominating the application market for mobile phones. The App Store has the most apps according to Millennial Media at 115,000 compared to 13,000 for Android and 3,100 for Blackberry. The iPhone also leads in monthly downloads at 100 million.

Magellan launched its RoadMate iPhone app and car kit this week. The app is for turn-by-turn driving directions and the accessory is to hold the phone while you drive. The app costs $79.99 and is available now.

According to some analysts, the iPhone will come to Verizon next year. Verizon has expressed interest in the iPhone despite commercials attacking the device. Most of us will be very glad to see the iPhone go to other carriers.

Three of the most popular smartphones around, including the iPhone, have been found to be vulnerable to a spear-fishing experiment. The attack starts with a phony LinkedIn invitation for Bill Gates in the in box. Luckily, the attack was a test conducted by Packetfocus and the company is working with various vendors to plug the hole.

The update adds a new text-to-speech function to allow the voice prompts to read street names and turn-by-turn directions. The app will now say “turn right on main street” rather than just saying “turn right.”

The update also adds a location sharing function to make meet ups with friends and family easy to coordinate. Users can now also get one click access from within the nav app to their music lists so they can navigate and listen to music at once.

By using Bing Local search to glean location and business review data, RobotVision gets access to some key Bing features like aggregated reviews from CitySearch, Judy’s Book and Yelp. Bing looks at the reviews of restaurants and tells you how they stack up in aggregate for a business’ food, ambience, service and more. (That’s a feature we’ve seen at BooRah, though that service doesn’t have access to Yelp reviews.)

Tim Sears, a Portland-based developer, expects to launch his AR browser next month.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWC9gax7SCA&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

[via ReadWriteWeb]

The prices of the five versions as follows:

• TomTom Australia – $74
• TomTom New Zealand – $90
• TomTom UK & Ireland – $99
• TomTom US & Canada – $99
• TomTom Western Europe – $132

[via SlashGear]

Navigon’s route planning function known from the companies PND line enables users to plan a route with different destinations ahead of time. Taking advantage of the iPhone’s own functionalities, a call POI function allows to directly call the number of a POI such as a restaurant or hotel by simply clicking on the number.  It is even possible to save the number to the user’s contacts. Furthermore, the update provides an optimized volume control when navigating and using the integrated iPod function of the iPhone at the same time. It also allows to decide which POIs should be displayed in the map view.

The software includes Navigon’s Reality View Pro, Lane Assistant Pro, Speed Assistant and Day & Night Mode. The original price of this app is $99.99, but will be available for a promotional price of $69.99 until August 31.

According to one online retailer which has broken ranks and gone public with pre-order pricing, if you want an iPhone-powered TomTom satnav in your car it will cost you a cool £113.85 ($193.75) or which works out to £99 ($168.50) plus tax. Which is not, by a long shot, the most expensive iPhone app.

TomTom hasn’t confirmed, nor denied the report.

[via Daniweb]

Holding the phone in front of you, locations are plotted on a live view of the world in relation to where you’re standing. The apps combine the phone’s key features — camera, GPS, compass and Internet connectivity — to create a sort of heads-up display reminiscent of first-person shooter video games.

The first two poised to hit the App Store — pending Apple’s approval, of course — are Nearest Tube, which plots subway stations in London, and TwittARound, which shows nearby Twitter users.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH6r2tIaRXU&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

[via LA Times Blog]

The app’s description on iTunes says:

The perfect bench to catch a sunset, the best pizz on earth, a secret spot to watch the world go by – we call them “Priceless Picks”, and they’re all here, submitted by people like you.

The app’s features include:

• User-generated content and partner generated offers.
• Offer five categories including Priceless, Dining, Shopping, Entertainment and Other.
• Pinpoints Priceless Picks in your selected location.
• Add your own Priceless Pick by simply inputting the name, description and location along with your first name and a Priceless Pick category.
• “Send to a Friend” allows you to share your Priceless Picks with others via email.