Verizon Wireless, which recently announced a partnership with Google to carry Android-powered devices, appears intent to go hard after Apple and AT&T. First we saw their “There’s a map for that” commercial and now we have their “iDon’t” commercial, which is a blatant attack at Apple’s iPhone.

The commercial hints at various things that Verizon says the iPhone doesn’t do but ‘Droid’ does (this is apparently how they will refer to their upcoming Android device). Now, while I don’t entirely agree with all their “iDon’t” points, I believe that Android is a mobile platform that is maturing day by day and getting better and more exciting in recent weeks.

Whether “Droid” can be a hit for Verizon Wireless and be a pain in Apple’s rear remains to be seen.

Yes, that’s a HUGE number of downloads. Apple just announced that they have reached the 2 billion download mark from the AppStore. That is in less than 2 years!

No doubt a huge testament of the big success that the AppStore has been for Apple and it continues strong with no signs of slowing down.

Congrats Apple!

Umbrella is a nice little app written for the iPhone that tells you simply whether you should bring your umbrella or not when leaving the house. It takes advantage of the iPhone’s push notifications service to display a message at a time specified by you.

You set your location and tell the app at what time you want to get the push message. You can also tell it when you want to be notified in terms of rain probability. For example, I have mine set to only notify me if the probability of rain is 35% or above.

It’s definitely a nifty little app and I have certainly found good use in it. I recommend it.

Taptu is a very cool app designed specifically for mobile search. It is very well designed and very easy to use, I may add. I had the priviledge of being selected for the beta testing and have been playing with it for some time. It is now out of beta and can be downloaded from the iTunes store. It does a very good of returning iPhone-friendly search results. You can also add sites or searches to your “Favorites” (bookmarking), share links via email or email the same link to yourself.

One great feature I like is that clicking on the Taptu icon next to the search box brings out this sort of springboard with specific search locations, i.e, Wikipedia, Games & Apps, Blogs, Twitter, etc. Very cool and clever! See some screenshots below. Oh and best of all, it’s FREE

Shortcovers, a new site where you can find books, magazine articles, short stories and even blog posts, has been finally launched. I signed up for an account immediately upon getting the notification email that the site was live. Best of all, they have mobile clients for BlackBerry and iPhone.

I downloaded the iPhone app and look forward to testing it out within the next few days. I have currently been using eReader to read books on my iPhone. I will post an update with my impressions once I have had some time to play with it.