Two apps I have reviewed recently received some interesting updates. First, Boxcar (read my review here) has gone completely free. The application itself isn’t the only thing that costs nothing, individual notification services has made the transformation as well. Boxcar now uses an ad based revenue model, which I unfortunately cannot report on. Those that have paid for the application do not see these ads. In my review, I was apprehensive about recommending it, basing it on how many services someone would use. Being free, there’s no excuse not to. Oh right, it’s iPad compatible now.

Read about Icebird for iPhone after the break.

Icebird for iPhone (read review here), a lovely twitter app that just didn’t compare to the free Twitter for iPhone also got a bump to v1.1. Here are the new features:

*** Icebird 1.1 makes the application even more useful and faster. There are many new things to discover like Flickr support, inline image previews or mobilizer support. ***

+ Landscape orientation

+ Reply all users

+ Inline image previews

+ Forward link of website via mail

+ Mobilizer support when not on WiFi

+ Tap and hold on links to save them for later reading

+ Flickr, Twitpic, img.ly and TwitVid support

+ Choose between Instapaper and ReadItLater

• Fixed bug when saving drafts

• Fixed crashing issues

• Improved loading speed

• Minor bugfixes

All sounds pretty attractive, right? I have to say, it does work pretty nicely. It doesn’t however, compare to free, which remains my critical complaint.. Those that have some kind of thing about using the official application should look this one up. It’s now more on par with Twitter for iPhone in terms of features so the only thing you’d have to lose, is $3.99.