News and notes from Mobile Applications Showcase

It wasn't find one of the busiest places on the show floor at last week's Macworld Expo. That would be the Mobile Applications Showcase where around six dozen or so iPhone app developers held court, displaying their efforts before a steady parade of Expo attendees.

We've already covered much of the iPhone-related news to come out of Expo, and we'll have plenty of reviews of the apps we saw at the show gracing the pages of iPhone Central in the coming weeks. (You can already read Macworld's reviews of Grocery Pal and AutoPark, which were both on display at the show.)

See the iPhone apps that caught our eye at Macworld Expo

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It wasn't find one of the busiest places on the show floor at last week's Macworld Expo. That would be the Mobile Applications Showcase where around six dozen or so iPhone app developers held court, displaying their efforts before a steady parade of Expo attendees.

We've already covered much of the iPhone-related news to come out of Expo, and we'll have plenty of reviews of the apps we saw at the show gracing the pages of iPhone Central in the coming weeks. (You can already read Macworld's reviews of Grocery Pal and AutoPark, which were both on display at the show.)

See the iPhone apps that caught our eye at Macworld Expo

But before this year's Expo fades even further into the rear-view mirror, I wanted to empty out my reporter's notebook with news and notes I collected while walking up and down the crowded aisles of the Mobile Applications Showcase.

Snoring U

People who snore at night--or, more to the point, anyone who shares a bed with someone who snores at night--will want to look into Snoring U, a $5 app from Pointer Software Systems that listens for your snoring and then plays a sound to get you to turn over.

The app, which arrived on the App Store in December, monitors the volume and frequency of your breathing to figure out whether you're snoring. "The noise has to be strong enough and continue for a second and then repeat" for Snoring U to leap into action, Pointer CEO Ilan Aisic explained to me on the Expo show floor.

When Snoring U determines that you're sawing logs, it can vibrate or play a sound clip of your choosing; the idea is this will nudge you into rolling onto your side. You can set how many times the app will sound off each night as well adjust its sensitivity to snoring.

The app works after the screen auto-locks and the iPhone goes into sleep mode. Aisic estimates that over the course of an eight-hour night, the app will consume about 20 percent of your battery power--assuming that you don't keep your phone plugged in on your nightstand.

Currently at version 1.1, an update to Snoring U is in the works that will add a history feature to the app which will log how often and how loud you snored as well as how many times Snoring U had to vibrate or play a noise.

Peekeez Webcam Viewer

Peekeez wants to help you keep an eye on things, even when your eyes are elsewhere.

The company's iPhone app, Peekeez Webcam Viewer, lets you use your iPhone or iPod to watch video streaming live from a Webcam that's connected to a Mac or PC. You fire up the $2 app to get a live look-in at your home, business, or anything else you need to view.

Peekeez app becomes even more valuable when you sign up for the company's monthly service. For $8 a month, Peekeez securely records all your video, keeping it for 14 days so that you can review video from anywhere. Certainly, there's security benefits to that capability, but Peekeez's Ben Holz tells me that business also use the video to review operations--make sure that a store opens on time, see how long lines are at different times of the day, and measure customer flow, to cite a few examples.