iPhone apps: 'South Park,' cheap music, cheating at cards

Music as app

Nineties hitmakers The Presidents of the United States of America are releasing all four of their albums to iPhone users in one application – for the bargain-basement price of $3. Also included in The Presidents' Music – PUSA [iTunes link] are rare and unreleased tracks and images. Most bands, Wired explains, couldn't do something like this because they don't own all the rights to their music. As TechDirt points out, the experiment blows the $1/song model out of the water, but it isn't optimal – if bands begin releasing their own applications, users will have to launch each app to get at their music. The streamlined song, album, and artist navigation that ships with music players will be lost.

'South Park' left out

Not coming to the iPhone App Store, apparently, is a program from the creators of "South Park," the animated Comedy Central show famous for its crude and irreverent humor. The show's creators told BoingBoing that their application, which provides streaming video, an epsisode guide, and news about the show, had been caught up in Apple's thorny approval process. Apparently the app has been deemed potentially offensive. "Earth to Apple:" The Register wrote, "South Park's rowdy rudeness is exactly why it has been a raging success since it first stuck its finger in our collective eye a dozen years ago." The site is also quick to refute the "offensive" claim by reminding that Apple's iTunes media store carries all 12 seasons of the show for download.

'We're counting cards'

An iPhone application has raised the attention of gambling authorities. The Nevada Gaming Control Board tipped off casinos to the existence of a mobile application that can accurately calculate "the count" in blackjack games. The program can run in "stealth mode" to avoid detection, the Las Vegas Review Journal wrote, adding that while it's not illegal to count cards in Nevada casinos, using a device to help is considered electronic cheating.