Anyone who’s ever played multiplayer online games enjoys them and this is no exception when it comes it iPhone and/or iPod Touch (and soon to be iPad) gaming. The following 5 free games are all internet-enabled multiplayer games that any serious iPhone gamer will enjoy.

Words With Friends Free is in a league of its own. As we’ve said previously, this is easily the absolute best word game available for the iPhone today and the online play earns it the top spot on this list. Don’t let the title deceive you, this should be installed even if you don’t have friends.

Chess With Friends Free comes from the same people who brought us Words With Friends, but instead of a Scrabble-esque game, you get to play chess with friends, random opponents, or I suppose even your enemies. If you’re looking to learn this classic strategy game or just practice your chess skills, this is the app to do it with.

Mancala FS5 Free is a hugely addictive version of Mancala for your iPhone. This classic game of who can get the most beads is hugely addictive and the online play is very competitive. If you liked playing this game as a kid, you’ll loving having it on your phone where you can play against AIM buddies, the computer, or just random players.

Live Poker is pretty self explanatory. Play poker, live, against other people. This ties in with the hugely popular version for Facebook, allowing you to play against your friends. It gives you 1000 free chips a day to play with, so don’t worry about going broke. The interface is clean, easy to use, and makes online free poker a fun time-waster.

Cube is one of the first and arguably the best first person shooter available today for the iPhone platform. It can be both single- or multiplayer and provides fast, fun gameplay. The controls take a bit to get accustomed to, but once you’ve got them down you’ll be fragging with the best of them.

IMDb
Category: Entertainment
Last Updated: December 8th, 2009
Current Version: 1.0.0
Size: 0.5 MB
Price: Free

IMDb likely makes just about anyone’s list of the absolute best websites on the Internet, but for an extremely long time there was a void for users of smart phones or other mobile devices. Not only were there no decent applications that could access it’s formidable database of everything related to TV and Movies, but there was no officially supported mobile website. That era, however, is now at an end.

With the release of an official IMDb app for the iPhone, you can now easily and quickly access virtually any information from your phone that you would be able to access from your computer. You can quickly and easily access movie show times at a theater near you, see what’s on TV, read about upcoming movies, see the latest box office results and there’s even a fun little page called “Born Today” which will tell you which people in their database share a birthday on whichever day it happens to be. The real gem of the app, however, is the search box at the top of the first screen that allows you to search IMDb. This is where most users will likely spend their time, looking up actors, directors, movies, shows, or any other information you could possibly want to know in regards to just about any movie or TV show ever created and everyone who worked on them. This is exactly what makes IMDb the Internet gem that it is. There is no way for me to count the number of times I have used IMDb while watching TV or a movie (not in the theater, of course) to read about the actors, see what else they’ve been in, or just learn some fun trivia about them. Having this app available makes that habit much easier to do. Anyone who has an iPhone and is a fan of movies should be installing this right now, if they haven’t already.

If you’re one of the many, many, many iPhone users throughout the States who are tied to AT&T and getting frustrated with the endless dropped calls, AT&T has a solution for you. There’s a free new app available for your phone called “AT&T Mark The Spot” [iTunes Link] which was developed any deployed by AT&T themselves to help them figure out where trouble spots are an, hopefully, improve their coverage map and reduce dropped calls. Simply put, the app allows you to send the location it happened along with any info about the problem (Dropped Call, Failed Call, No Coverage, Data Failure, or Poor Voice Quality) directly to AT&T. Chances are, the more people that download and start using this app, the quicker and more motivated AT&T will be to improve their network. Needless to say, be sure not to use this while driving and instead wait until you can use your phone safely.

A calendar is a huge selling point for any smart phone and the iPhone is no exception. The iPhone’s calendar is an integral to the phone and is used by casual and business users alike. It is not, however, anywhere near perfect. Here are five simple suggestions that Apple could incorporate to make the phone’s Calendar app truly shine.

1. Unlock Screen
   When you wake up your phone and it shows the “Slide to Unlock” screen, there is an alarming lack of information. Date, Time, Battery Life, and a background picture are nice, but there is generally just unused space that could be better put to use by displaying a upcoming calendar events.
2. Icon
   It’s nice that the icon changes daily to display the day, but that’s kinda gimmicky. What would really give the it a boost is if that little red number that appears in the upper right-hand corner of other applications (Showing the number of unread mail, messages, missed calls, etc) also showed up in the corner of the Calendar app to indicate the number of events left that day.
3. Alternate Alerts
   That soft beeping noise the phone makes is completely useless. I’ve had the phone in my pocket in a not-that-loud room and not heard it. Simply allowing custom alerts would be a huge improvement. Doubly so if you can set alerts on an event-by-event basis.
4. Sleep Timer
   It beeps, then it’s done reminding you. How about a sleep timer for those of us that can be a bit forgetful. This goes right along with the need for customizable alerts and should work just like the sleep timer in the Clock app does, requiring you to physically unlock the phone to stop it from repeating the alert.
5. Landscape Mode
   Virtually every other built-in app can be viewed in landscape with the larger, easier to type keyboard. I simply cannot comprehend why this didn’t make it’s way over to the Calendar app as well.

Do you have other suggestions for improvements you’d like to see in the iPhone’s calendar app? Please leave a comment and share it with us.

No one outside of Apple themselves likely knows exactly what is in store for the Maps app on the iPhone, but a new job posting at Apple is looking for someone to help “take Maps to the next level, rethink how users use Maps and change the way people find things.” From the sounds of this, it isn’t going to be a small undertaking and will likely not be a small release, instead coming with a future version of the iPhone OS. As part of a split from their long-time cooperation with Google, Apple has even recently acquired a company called Placebase which offered mapping services much different from those offered by Google. The former Placebase CEO is now part of Apple’s “Geo Team”, which is likely where this new job posting will be working as well.

Urbanspoon
Category: Travel
Last Updated: October 14th, 2009
Current Version: 1.12
Size: 0.7 MB
Price: Free

Urbanspoon, for those of you unaware of this iconic iPhone app, is a tool to help you find, rate, and review the best restaurants. Be sure to check their website to make sure they have restaurants in your area, but don’t worry because they have listings it pretty much every major metropolitan area of the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia.

One of the main functions of the application is their restaurant wheel. Simply shake your phone and it will randomly give you a suggestion in your area. If you need to narrow it down a bit, lock in a neighborhood, type of food, or price range to be more specific about the choices it gives you. This is fun at first, but the novelty of the slot-machine search wears off pretty fast. Where the program truly excels is the “Browse” section. This allows you to look at a wide variety of restaurants, searching through neighborhoods, types of food, popular restaurants, and much more. Each section gives you a list of top-rated restaurants as well as more options to narrow it down further and find exactly what you want. Looking for something more close to wherever you are at that moment? Tap on over to the “Scope” section and a map will pop up with the GPS zeroing in on your current location and a few seconds later pins will be placed on every listed restaurant in your immediate area. Click on the pin to see what it is, where it is, get a phone number, and read any reviews. Perhaps you already know exactly what you’re looking for and just need to find the website or get a phone number to make reservations or place your order. If that is the case, then their search feature is perfect for you. Type in what you’re looking for and it’ll tell you what you need.

As with the some of the most successful iPhone apps, social networking is as popular as ever and Urbanspoon does not disappoint. In addition to all of the other features it offers, you can create an account with them (for free of course) and start rating the restaurants you’ve been to with a thumbs up or thumbs down, write reviews, leave comments, submit changes for a restaurant if something is wrong or missing, and even submit new restaurants that haven’t been listed yet. This, in my opinion, is what really pushes Urbanspoon over the top to be the truly fantastic App that it is.

Whether you are a self-described foodie or just looking for a great new place to eat, this application is a must-have on any iPhone or iPod touch.

Apple announced via a press release today that the App Store has officially reached 100,000 Apps available for download to iPhone OS devices. According to Apple, “iPhone and iPod touch customers in 77 countries can choose from an incredible range of apps in 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel.” The App Store is no where near perfect and I’m sure there are plenty of developers and customers who have valid complaints, but for something that hasn’t even reached its second birthday yet, that is quite the impressive number and I have no doubts that it will continue to grow.