Anyone who owns an iPhone or iPod touch is all too familiar with AdMob. Their tiny "don't mind me, I'm not really all that intrusive" ads power truckloads of freebies in the App Store.

While you might not love AdMob, someone does. That someone is Google.

Drawn together like half-cut, lonely singles in a dimly-lit bar at happy hour, the two are about to enter a long-term relationship. As in permanent. Today, Google announced that they have purchase AdMob for the tidy sum of $750 million dollars.

That's a whole lotta dough, but keep in mind that Google is ultimately an advertising company. AdMob's strong position in mobile ads is a juicy acquisition, especially with 1) the number of Android-powered handsets rapidly rising and 2) AdMob's recent launch of its Android advertising platform.

The move also gives Google easy access to gobs and gobs of delicious usage data from zillions of mobile users that they may have been missing out on. That data gets fed into AdSense, making it an even more attractive option for advertisers.

Here's a thought, though... At $750 million, Google could have simply bough 3.9 million people an iPod Touch and said "here you go, but we're going to track everything you do!" Hell, I would've signed up for that.

If the possibility of having your jailbroken iPod Touch or iPhone held ransom for 5 Euros wasn't enough of a scare to make you change your root password, maybe this will. Users on an Australian forum site are reporting a new attack - one that's no stranger to love.

You guessed it, the newest attack on jailbroken devices is a wallpaper Rickroll. Along with Rick Astley's devilishly handsome headshot, the image also includes the message "ikee is never gonna give you up."

It's actually a pretty tame attack. There are no reports in the forum of sounds being replaced with that all-to-familiar opening verse or repeated, mind-numbing video assaults.

At least one variation has also popped up. In addition to Astley, one user commented that his image had been changed to a New England Patriots logo.

The moral of the story?

If you jailbreak your iPhone or iPod Touch, make sure you change the root password to something other than alpine so you can avoid the shenanigans.

It might not have been worthy of a mention at Apple's iPod extravaganza, but owners of existing iPod Touch models running 2.x software will be pleased to hear that the update to OS version 3.1 has been slashed in price by 50%!

The update previously retailed at $9.95 and can now be purchased for $4.95 - UK users now pay £2.99 instead of £6.99.

Version 3.1 includes genius mixes, genius recommendations for apps, peer-to-peer gaming, spotlight search, A2DP Bluetooth stereo and a whole bunch of fixes. Of course, if you haven't made the jump to a 3.x release at all yet there has never been a better time to do so - the major 3.0 update added copy and paste, a landscape keyboard and much more.

You can read more about the update at the Apple site and purchase the update itself from within iTunes.

Now, while the price drop is undoubtedly a good thing, many Apple critics argue (quite rightly in my opinion) that the update should not be chargeable in the first place. A number of the features in the new release actually have the potential to increase Apple's revenue from the device (such as genius recommendations for apps), so arguably it would be in Apple's interest to make the update completely free.

If you've not made the jump yet, does the new price point of the update tempt you?

Sure, you can just use Safari and µTorrent's built-in WebUI to monitor your torrents - and you'll have to if you're not the swashbuckling, jailbreaking type. Those of you who don't mind getting a little colored snow on your iPhone or iPod Touch, however, can use µMonitor.

Rejected from the App Store, the developer has decided to do an end run around Apple and release µMonitor via Cydia.
The app actually taps into the µTorrent WebUI API to work its magic. The end result is a solid mobile interface which makes controlling your torrent downloads from your iPhone a breeze.

You'll need to add repo.theiphonebay.org to your Cydia sources if it's not there already -- they're taking care of µMonitor's distribution. You may also want to sign up for a dynamic DNS service like DynDNS.org to give your machine a fixed address to access even if your ISP frequently cycles your IP address (like mine does).

There's no shortage of eBooks available for the iPhone and iPod touch [App Store link] however one of the latest releases Classics looks set to take the crown as the best around.

The application comes with a dozen public-domain books ready for you to read: with more promised in future (free) updates. As you might expect, there's plenty of attention paid to the application's handling of your reading too: pressing home places a neat ribbon bookmark on the page you were reading, for example.

To see how Classics fared in day-to-day use, I read The Jungle Book on a 2-hour train journey home. I'm a stickler for actually reading a physical copy of a book - and no big fan of eReaders to date - however I was pleasantly surprised at how readable the books were: for someone who loathes reading books on a screen, I was absolutely happy to keep on reading.

My only gripe about the application is that swiping to the next page [which cues a stylish animation] takes too long: however as I'm something of a fast reader, and devour each page rather quickly, I'd imagine this isn't something most users will experience.

Classics is currently just $2.99 on the App Store: there's no word currently on when this introductory price ends.

If 'Portable' blogging apps aren't your cup of tea, and you're looking for something that's a little more mobile, the Tumblrette application for iPhone and iPod touch might be right up your street. Tumblrette [App Store link] is a mobile client for the very excellent Tumblr tumblog service - if you're not familiar with Tumblr be sure to check out our previous coverage here.

Tumblrette not only allows you create entries in any of the post types allowed by Tumblr, but also allows you to save draft posts to come back to later as well as write posts using Markdown formatting. The latest release sees the addition of a nifty record-and-upload feature that allows you to use the iPhone or 2nd-Generation iPod touch's built-in microphone to record a message and upload it to your Tumblog.

The application is both well thought out and beautifully designed. Best of all, it's something of a steal if you need to be blogging on the go: costing just $1.99 in an App Store near you now.

Sure, the iPhone is a flashy, iconic gadget. It's the crown jewel of the iPod family. It features a slick touch-screen, a slim form-factor, a whole library of new applications, and the MobileSafari browser. Do you know what I say to that? Forget about it. There's a device that has all of those same features, without the burden of a monthly fee to your favorite monopolistic phone-service provider.

It may not be as glamorous as the iPhone, but the iPod Touch is an underrated force to be reckoned with. With the ubiquity of wifi hotspots, particularly in major cities, it's not difficult to get an internet connection when you need one. In fact, it's the same internet connection the iPhone has. Although the phone has 3G, iPhone users often opt for the faster wifi connection when they're within range. I never have a problem finding a place to check my email or fire off a sassy Twitter post on the Touch. I also never receive bills for $70+ a month from AT&T.

In terms of applications, the iPod Touch is neck-and-neck with the iPhone. Unless an app uses the "phone" portion of the iPhone's capabilities, it's likely just as effective on the Touch. Sure, the new iPhone has GPS, but the iPod can triangulate your location using a wireless access point. I've navigated to many a restaurant by grabbing directions and leaving them open on the Maps app for reference. You don't need an iPhone for that.

That's what it comes down to, really. Do you need an iPhone? The answer may be yes, but if you're only looking to get one because it's the hottest thing out right now, think about whether an iPod Touch might serve you just as well, for what's ultimately less money. Personally, I just need something that can play music, check email, and use IM services on the go: the Touch fits the bill, and it looks just as cool as an iPhone, too.

VNC allows you to remotely manage one computer from another. But the thing is, you usually have to be at another computer to do this.

MochaSoft has just released a Mocha VNC Lite a VNC client for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch allowing you to control another computer all from your finger tips. We tested VNC Lite with a Mac Mini and an iPhone and after enabling remote management on the Mac connecting with the iPhone was a breeze.

The app supports both portrait and wide screen modes as well as the zoom in and out gestures. Along the bottom edge you have buttons for the on screen keyboard, options and to enable/disable mouse clicks.

Screen refresh on the iPhone was a bit slow but adequate but because the iPhone/iPod Touch sole input device is your finger it was hard to do any meaningful task.

Generally, when you're using remote management software like VNC you're using a keyboard an a mouse. Without these devices, trying to administer a computer with one finger proved to be slow and awkward.

VNC Lite is a great application, but we couldn't recommend it for any type of serious administrative task.

With the announcement of the new iPhone, we figure there will be some new interest in this bit of software that's been around for a while: Do you have a computer without one of those newfangled infrared spots and a remote control? Do you still want to be able to change tracks on iTunes or pause a movie from across the room? As long as you have an iPod or an iPod Touch laying around, Signal is the app for you. Its interface is almost indistinguishable from the regular iTunes player on those devices, which makes it a breeze to use.

Here's how it works: download Signal and open it up, then input the IP address it gives you into your iPhone or iPod. Boom! You can access all your iTunes media from your device. Signal lets you change speakers, adjust volume, turn on shuffle or repeat, and pretty much anything else you could do from within iTunes.

There's a full demo, so you might want to try it out before you shell out 25 bones, but here are a couple of things to consider:. If you're going to buy a standard remote anyway (like the Apple Remote, for example), remember that Signal will work with your iPhone or iTouch from anywhere your network reaches, so you can use it to shoot around walls. Also consider that Signal has both Mac and Windows versions, where some other remotes only work with one platform.

The whole point of Twitter is that it's fast and mobile: if you see something interesting, you can post about it right away and see the responses right away. That's why it's been so frustrating that no Twitter client for iPhone and iPod Touch has distinguished itself with a good-looking user interface and all the features the advanced Twitterer demands. Well, problem solved: meet Hahlo 3.0.

We've been playing with the beta version of Hahlo 3 for a few weeks now, and it has everything iPhone Twitter apps have been missing. The navigation is quicker and more intuitive than in previous versions, user profiles look better, you can view your direct message outbox, and following and DMing people from Hahlo now works flawlessly. This stuff should be the bare minimum for a good Twitter client, but there's more.

Hahlo now has built-in support for Summize Twitter Search, and displays search results within the Hahlo interface. This is invaluable if you're as popular as we at Download Squad are (you're following us, right?), because you'll inevitably miss a few messages and find it handy to catch up by searching your username. Before Hahlo 3.0, lots of messages went unread, from friends who buried our @names in the middle of a tweet -- now we're not skipping a beat.

Web-based task scheduling and organizing tool Remember the Milk, has just released a full-featured mobile version that's specially optimized for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Just to set your mind at ease: when they say full-featured, they mean full-featured. With the iPhone/iPod Touch optimized version of Remember the Milk, you can:

• View upcoming tasks (due today, tomorrow, and this week)
• View tasks by list (including Smart Lists), tag or location
• Add new tasks and notes
• Complete tasks with the touch of a button
• Edit existing tasks and notes
• Search tasks (supports advanced search operators)
• View handy settings (such as your Inbox email address)

For you home page perfectionists, the webclip for Remember the Milk is also customized for the iPhone/iPod Touch.

One small caveat: the optimized version of Remember the Milk is available exclusively for Pro users. Non-pro users can test the optimized version free for 15 days; after that, you'll need to upgrade to the Pro account ($25 for one year) for uninterrupted access. We suggest paying the fee to avoid those nasty Remember the Milk withdrawals.

Point your iPhone or iPod Touch to http://i.rememberthemilk.com/ to check it out.

[via gHacks]