It’s always exciting to make news. Today is one of those days.

This morning Palo Alto Online announces, with help from partner SachManya and YAPPER (short for Your APP MakER), our first Apple iPhone and Android-based device apps, with iPad and Blackberry apps to follow soon. (UPDATE 2:30 p.m.) We’ve seen press already from places like SiliconANGEL, Editors Weblog and a short story on Editor and Publisher.

Here’s how we got to this place…

At Embarcadero Media, we’ve tossed the idea of an iPhone app around for some time. My thought has always been to go the WAP route (which we still haven’t done) rather than native apps. To develop a native app in-house would take expertise we’d have to learn and time we don’t currently have. Plus, the thought of having to develop for multiple platforms was daunting. Therefore, it’s been on the back burner for a while.

Right around the first of the year, I got a call from Chintu Parikh (now known as chiefYAPPER). He was pitching an app (360News), which allowed users to not only get news on their mobile devices but also send news, photos and video back to news sources. Being in the position I am and where we are located, I get about five or six calls a week from people like Chintu, but his pitch made a lot of sense and was similar to what I had envisioned our entry into “mobile” being like, so we met. The thought was for Palo Alto Online and the seven news Websites to be the “local partner” on 360News. If you were in Palo Alto, when you launched the app, you would see our content from Palo Alto Online.

This seemed like a reasonable thing and a great way for us to test out the mobile space.

A couple of week later, I saw caught up with Chintu at MacWorld, where YAPPER had just won the distinguished 2010 Macworld DEMO Best of Show award and he had showcased the revolutionary technology on the main stage.

At that point, he was talking about two apps… one for the 360News content and one for our content. I suggested, if there was a way to combine them into one, then there is really something I’d be interested in.

Not long after, he said it was “totally possible” and I set up a meeting between the CEO of Embarcadero Media and Chintu. The rest, as they say, is history.

This is a great example of a company who wants to help media companies, such as the one I work for, to better their content, make it more accessible and add new features we don’t have the time to produce.

So, what is YAPPER? With YAPPER, in minutes and without a single line of code, anyone can build their own native iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry mobile application starting at just $299 (our solution was more, but not that much more, because of some custom items). YAPPER is an end-to-end solution for publishers and includes many options, including in-app purchases, advertising support, analytics, app store submissions, and publish under your own company account.

You can check out the Palo Alto Online app here.

Yesterday Palo Alto-based startup Hawthorne Labs announced Apollo, which they are saying will “finally finish off newspapers”. Their iPad-only App will aggregate news from the Web and create a Pandora Radio-type experience for the user, learning what the user likes and delivering new content based on the previous preferences.

I don’t have an iPad so all of this is based on what I’ve read from Hawthorn and from sources online. (I would love to try it to see what’s up with it, if someone wants to dump an iPad my way!)

There is something, however, Hawthorn just doesn’t get. Where do they think a lot of the content comes from?

A lot of the content it looks like they are going to be presenting in their App is actually generated by… wait for it… newspapers, at it’s heart. Granted, the screen shots they show on their sites have things like Yahoo!News and Yahoo!Sports, but a lot of the Yahoo!News content comes from newspaper companies. New York Times, for instance, is a huge source for Yahoo!News.

Blogs, of course, is another one of their primary sources, but what I think they are missing is a lot of bloggers work for newspapers. If newspapers were to go away, these news sources will dry up.

While I agree there are some larger sources of independent bloggers, which are really good, the elimination of the “newspaper voice” will only shrink the choices of news content, thus making news less expressive and less diverse.

Bottom line, however, is something I’ve wondered for a while. How long before all these “newspaper-killer” apps are going to learn they don’t really want to kill off newspapers, but instead should be finding a way to support them, build them up, and help them move to provide good, accessible digital content?

This is something I’ve been thinking about for some time now.

I was at a conference in January where author Ken Doctor gave a presentation about the future of journalism. He was giving out copies of his newly released book, Newsonomics: Twelve New Trends That Will Shape the News You Get and offering to sign them for us. Of course, being the news junky I am, I got in line and had my copy signed.

As I approached the front of the line, the person in front of me didn’t necessarily want a printed copy, but said “how about signing my Kindle (copy)”. Of course he was joking because it was not yet available in digital format, or at least he didn’t have it on his digital reader, but that got me thinking about the phenomenon of the digital book reader. Further, what it means for book stores and author signings in general.

So, I searched online about “signing my Kindle” and have found some information where people are actually having people sign the back of the reader.

With more and more of these devices coming onto the scene (iPad, Kindle, Nook, etc.) what will happen to the “first edition signed copy” of a book? These hard-printed, signed items, if they are out there 50 years from now, will be worth even more as the digital revolution continues.

I wonder if these digital devices will eventually come with the ability to sign a digital copy somehow. I’m not sure if that’s even possible, but to preserve this ability, you would think there would be.

Book stories have historically held book signings, not only to have the public be able to meet the author, but also to get people in their stores. More people in the store usually leads to more sales. With retailers shifting a lot of their sales to online (at least the larger ones), I wonder if they have lost some of the value of physically getting people in the store. I know we’ve been at the book store several times where they didn’t have a copy of a book and told us to go online to get it. It’s usually cheaper online as well. Seems counter productive to business, but with higher margins online, it makes sense.

I’m not saying there’s not a place for the digital books. If I had more time to read, I’d probably be one of those who would go the digital route. My sons, however, are not. Both of them have a large library of printed books. Everything from Harry Potter to A Series of Unfortunate Events to Geronimo Stilton. Both of them love sitting down and re-reading these books again and again. My oldest even had an opportunity to get a digital reader and passed.

I guess that’s good. Even with me being as technical as I am and passing a lot of this onto them, they still realize the feel of a good book.

A while back I wrote about some iPhone apps (Music, Sports and Navigation: Five (or nine) iPhone Apps I can’t live without). One of those Apps was Waze, a free driver-generated map and real-time road information App for iPhone, Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices.

I use this App daily. Not so much for getting where I need to go because overall I’m really good with direction (except when driving in San Francisco), but for seeing what’s out there in the way of traffic and if there is a better route to take. They make it fun to use as well, giving points for driving on roads not yet mapped or over special “road goodies”.

Each holiday season so far, there has been a different contest with prizes (yea, I’ve not won anything yet, but still hopeful). Yesterday Waze introduced a “Valentine’s Treasure Hunt”, featuring “road goodies” (worth 10-15 additional points) as well as virtual treasure chests that, when driven over, have the potential to reward users with a real-world prizes – “movie night for two” gift cards or heart-shaped boxes of chocolate. From February 8 to February 14, 2010, users in the US and Canada, can look for treasure chests along their daily drives for their chance to win.

Additionally, you can now “ping” other users, maybe someone who is ahead of you in traffic to see if they know anything further about what’s going on.

So if you see me on the road, please “Waze”!

To say I can’t live without these iPhone Apps is an overstatement, obviously. When I got my iPhone 3G in January, I knew there would be Apps I’d find useful for lots of different things. I didn’t know how much I’d come to use them, though.

With Apple’s “no return” policy, I have mostly stayed away from paid Apps. Some  I have purchased have been ok while others I’ve deleted almost immediately.

The list below started with five Apps. As I thought about it more, two Apps are on here for the same reason and I grouped them together. Then I thought of three more Apps I wanted to mention because of their potential.

All told, below is a list of nine Apps that I have come to rely on for different things, in no particular order.

Pandora Radio (free) If you like music and don’t know what Pandora is, you should go to Pandora.com and sign up for an account. Pandora has a single mission, according to their site: To play only music you’ll love. To do this, they rely on the Music Genome Project® to stream music directly to your device. You can use it through a browser (free) or downloadable program (paid) on your home or work computer and via a free App on your smart mobile phone (they support five types right now with Apps). I love my music I have on my phone via iPod, but Pandora allows me the freedom to create personalized radio stations (with limited interruption, although you can pay $36 a year for no ads or limitations) with music I know I’d love, too.

Waze (free) There has been a lot of talk about turn-by-turn directions via the iPhone. There are several very expensive products out there and then there is Waze. Waze is an App which has the ability to be a simple turn-by-turn program, but it is so much more. Using a network of “Wasers”, Waze is a realtime look at what traffic is like where YOU are driving.

FreeMemory (was $0.99, but not currently available) This App allows you to do what the name says — Free memory up on your phone. Prior to downloading this application, I was resetting my phone at least once every few days. Now, when I think my phone is running low on system memory, I launch this App, it clears out programs from it’s internal memory and I can move onto whatever was next. Apple, for some reason, has asked the publisher to remove the feature to free memory from their Apps, so it is not currently available.

AT&T’s myWireless (free) Sort of a no-brainier app for your iPhone. Ever wonder where you are on your minutes or the number of text messages you’ve sent? Behind a password login, you can get answers to each of these questions, add features to your account and even pay your bill.

MLB At Bat Lite (free) and ESPN ScoreCenter (free) I put these two together as “sports” Apps. The MLB App gave live updates to games. I thought a few times I’d upgrade to the free version, but never pulled the trigger. There just wasn’t enough of a reason to do it. The ESPN App is a great all-around sports information tool. If I want to know the score of any game at any time, it’s here in my hand.

Here are a couple of cool apps with a lot of potential.
Starbucks Card Mobile (free) For all the Starbucks fans! In several Silicon Valley and Seattle locations, Starbucks is testing iPhone payments. Register your card number with the App and  your device will display a barcode used same way as a Starbucks Card to make purchases at their stores and coffee houses. For me, it will be one less card to have to carry in my wallet. Hopefully the testing will go well and they’ll outfit my local Starbucks soon!

Google (Voice) (free) and Skype (free) I grouped these two because they basically do the same thing. Each allow for calling over the Internet. The Skype App is actually available now, but is limited to when you are connected to a WiFi location. There have been reports AT&T will open up their 3G network to allow this sort of activity across it, but it has yet to be done. The Google Voice App has been built, but was rejected by Apple. Apple says it wasn’t rejected, but it hasn’t been approved yet. In both cases, if you subscribe to these products, you will be able to make calls across the Internet rather than using AT&T’s cellular system.

There you go

There are obviously other Apps I have on my phone. Today, I have 120 Apps, including those that came with my phone. About 30 are games, some I loaded because I was curious about and haven’t removed yet, and some are Apps I use from time to time, but not a lot (like WiFi finders, eBay and Craigslist, for instance).