updates

It's time to update your Facebook iPhone app — some new features are waiting for you. The newly released update includes the addition of a Places map view, which allows you to see all of your friends' locations on a map (similar to MeMap, which we discussed last week), the ability to check in to an event you're attending, and one that you should think very hard about before using — mobile unfriending.

There's plenty of reasons to unfriend, but let me just put it this way — you don't want to be out partying on a Saturday night and start drunk unfriending. Drunk dialing and texting is bad enough, girl.

About a month ago, Twitter gave its iPhone app a major makeover, including the addition of a QuickBar that prominently displayed trending topics. Almost immediately, the Internet was up in arms over the bar (then dubbed it the #D*ckBar), which was seen as intrusive and to many, useless.

Almost immediately, Twitter issued an update to the app, acknowledging that it was at times intrusive and repositioning the trending topics bar (which sometimes includes sponsored ads) at the top of the screen. Still, for a lot of users, that change wasn't enough, so Twitter has now removed the bar completely. According to a Twitter blog post, "The QuickBar was originally conceived to help users discover what’s happening in the broader world beyond people they already follow. The bar was also seen as a potential means of in-app notifications for new @mentions, DMs, and other important activity."

So, for now the bar has been killed. But, according to Twitter, users can expect "the best possible experience for in-app notification and discovery."

Flipboard was a hot ticket item in 2010, acting as the iPad's first social magazine. Tonight, Flipboard adds even more personal features with the addition of Instagram and a social search function.

In addition to your Facebook, Twitter, photo albums, and favorite blogs, your Instagram feed will now be added to the Flipboard lineup, while the social search function allows you to search keywords and phrases from across the app, bringing you all the results in one place.

Alongside new features, the latest update makes Flipboard even faster — twice as fast to be exact — so you can browse images, websites, and feeds in a flash. Plus, it's coming with an even more crisp, clean, and refined layout. It's a beautiful app, and this update only fuels the flames of love.

After a few rumored false starts yesterday, the iOS 4.3 update is now available to download on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch via iTunes. We got an idea of what to expect in the update during last week's iPad 2 event, but in case you missed it, here's the rundown on what it's packing:

• Safari performance — The new Nitro JavaScript engine inside Safari will make it twice as fast and responsive as it was in 4.2.
• iTunes home sharing — Play your iTunes library from anywhere in your home with a shared WiFi connection. Play a movie from your PC on your iPad (or vice versa), or stream songs from your iPhone to your Mac computer.
• AirPlay — This update provides improvements including audio and video streaming from apps, allowing you to shoot video with your iPhone and instantly share on your HDTV.
• iPad side switch — Make the choice between a mute or screen rotation lock on the iPad side switch!
• Personal hotspot — This will allow you to share your WiFi and 3G connection with up to five other devices from your iPhone 4, each being password-protected and secure.

Later tonight, Foursquare will launch its newest version, Foursquare 3.0, just two years after its initial launch in 2009. The revamped Foursquare for Android and iPhone aims to make the experience even more fun, containing functionality designed to help you discover new places, search out places of special interest to you, and get rewarded for checking into locations with friends.

Check out more details of exactly what's new after the break.

I've been mulling a switch from my iPhone to a white BlackBerry Torch, but one of my top concerns was apps. If nothing else, at least I can count on a full-featured Twitter app. The newly-updated beta Twitter for BlackBerry app is available for downloading now and comes with lots of the features you already enjoy on other devices.

New features include geotagging, mention push notifications, direct messages (threaded in the style of BBM conversations), hashtag assistance (so you know which ones are popular now), RT updates, and integration with your BlackBerry Social Feed so you can tweet without actually opening the Twitter app. Get your beta version of the Twitter for BlackBerry app now, and share your thoughts about switching from an iPhone to a BlackBerry in the comments — I need your advice!

The Google Docs Viewer used in conjunction with Gmail is a great way to view attachments without having to save them to your computer's hard drive. Now, it supports more file formats. Additions include common file types like Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and more technical types like .EPS and .PSD files.

The newest additions round out support for all major Microsoft files and also what Google says are the most requested image files. Look for the "view" link at the bottom of a Gmail message with a supported type of attachment. You can also upload these types of files and share them via Google Docs.

Google launched a social search option in 2009 and now has introduced some improvements aimed at better integrating search results and recommendations from your social circle into Google's search results.

Instead of appearing at the bottom of the page, social search results will be mixed into the regular search results, based on relevance. Additionally, notes below search results will show Facebook and Twitter contacts who have shared the link, along with their photo so you can see which stories and pages your friends are recommending.

Social search has always used contacts pulled from Google to determine your network, but now you're able to privately connect accounts you don't necessarily want made public, like your Twitter user name. If you choose to privately connect your accounts, they won't show up on your Google profile.