Download Squad

Travel management site TripIt have launched their mobile companion application for Android, available for download free of charge from the Android Market.

The new application, which is usable with both Standard and Pro TripIt accounts, allows you to access your travel itinerary direct from your Android phone, get maps and directions, make calls to airlines, hotels etc. as well as enabling flight alerts and alternate flight details for Pro users.

As well as launching on Android, TripIt have released an update to their iPhone application, available for download now from the App Store. The iPhone version adds support for Pro account features, as well as a number of useful travel tools including terminal maps, seating advice and live flight status.

If you have a Blackberry and you're feeling left out, fear not! The TripIt Blackberry application is currently in Beta, with release expected before the end of the year. Now how about good old Windows Mobile and that young upstart WebOS...?

There are some great little tweaks available in Google Labs for GMail, one of which is pictured above - 'Green Robot!'!

Like many of the labs additions (accessed by clicking the little green conical flask at the top of the GMail page), the beauty of Green Robot is in it's simplicity. It changes the appearance of your Google Talk contact list to illustrate which of your contacts are using Google Talk from their Android mobile device - handy!

If you haven't checked out the contents of the laboratory yet it's well worth a visit - I have a total of 12 labs features enabled on my account at this time which really smooth my GMail experience.

My labs features at the time of writing are Offline Mail, Message Translation, Sender Time Zone, Mark as Read Button, Inbox Preview - to let you view your inbox contents as the main site loads, Multiple Inboxes - to allow me to view a specific subset of my messages in a seperate 'pane', Undo Send, Green Robot (of course), Search Autocomplete, Inserting Images, Google Docs Gadget and the ability to Add Any Gadget by URL.

Which labs features are you using?

Seesmic have released their 'Seesmic Mobile' Twitter client for Android and Blackberry on their respective application stores. Available for download free of charge, the clients are slick, feature packed and refreshingly free of advertisements.

The Android client (pictured above) has a great design that utilises a standard tab-based user interface with a red accent, providing virtually every feature (bar multiple account support) that a Twitterer could desire. Included are the ability to scroll without limits back through your timeline, photo and video upload (either from your device camera or from the gallery) via a variety of online services, the ability to add your location to your tweet, URL shortening, saving tweets-in-progress as drafts, switchable full name / username display and very granular notifications.

The Blackberry application also features a native-feeling UI and adds lists and saved search support, albeit at the expense of video and location features.

If you give Seesmic Mobile a try, let us know how you get on and - of course - don't forget to follow @downloadsquad!

The SEVEN Beta setup is an interesting one.

As a company, Seven (enough capitalising already!) sell their excellent push e-mail products only via mobile operator channels, however their Beta program is an excellent way for users on unsupported carriers (that's likely you and I) to enjoy their software.

Available in a variety of editions on a variety of platforms, Seven's software allows you to receive push mail on your device from a variety of services - Exchange, Yahoo, GMail, AOL Mail, HoTMaiL and standard POP and IMAP services are all supported. A Beta release it might be (with the usual associated disclaimers), but the application is a supremely useful piece of software that i've been using for many years to push synchronise GMail with my Windows Mobile devices.

I happened to visit the Seven Beta site earlier today to download the latest Windows Mobile client and I was intrigued to notice that an Android download option had appeared. Obviously I had to download the application and take a look!

As expected, it's a Seven client for the Android OS that includes all of the goodness that i'm used to - push mail across a host of platforms, 'quiet times' when push can be automatically disabled, multiple accounts, server contact search, customisable notifications and more! Although the currently version of the software is missing a few features i'd like to see (primarily HTML mail), for Android users it can often be a trying task getting mail set up and working as desired if you are using something other than GMail, and Seven is making that story easier. I've been pushing an additional e-mail account and a HoTMaiL account all day without any issues!

If you'd like to try out Seven on Android (or indeed any of their other support platforms, which include WinMo Standard / Professional, Symbian S60, Palm OS and even J2ME!) then head on over to the Seven Community Forum to sign up for an account.

Socialite (Née Eventbox) for OSX is now available in Beta 3 form prior to an expected full release later this month.

Originally developed by TheCosmicMachine before being acquired by respected Mac house Realmac Software (creators of RapidWeaver and LittleSnapper), Socialite provides single client access to your favourite social networks. Currently supporting Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Google Reader, RSS feeds and Twitter (with the historical support for OneRiot, Identi.ca and Reddit now removed), Socialite takes your presence off the web and into a smooth UI in the finest native style.

The latest Beta adds support for Twitter lists as well as implementing a host of under-the-hood improvements. As a long time Eventbox owner the promise of a one stop social networks centre continues to appeal and Socialite looks like a worthy upgrade!

The Socialite Beta 3 release is currently available free from the Realmac forums and will cost $20 when it is released. Existing Eventbox owners will receive a free serial number for the new product.