The single best feature in Apple’s second-generation iPhone 3G isn’t the increased speed or the GPS location-finding feature. It is something called the “App Store,” a clever distribution mechanism for third-party programs that can run on the iPhone and on its close cousin, the iPod Touch. And you don’t even need a new iPhone to get the App Store. It is also part of a free software upgrade for older iPhones and a $10 upgrade for the Touch.

Scrabble is just one of the many ‘apps’ available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

In just the first 10 days since the new iPhone and the App Store launched on July 11, more than 900 programs — applications, or “apps,” in tech jargon — have been introduced by numerous developers. Over 90% cost less than $10 or are free.

Even more noteworthy: iPhone and Touch users have downloaded 25 million copies of these programs, ranging from silly sound effects to challenging games; from news readers to restaurant locators; from social-networking programs to business applications.

We have been furiously downloading and trying out scores of these programs, using a new iPhone 3G, an original iPhone and an iPod Touch, and in general, we are very impressed. We found the process of choosing and downloading apps to be easy and quick, and most of the programs to be useful or entertaining. The vast majority are nicely designed, with great graphics and effective, simple user interfaces.

The easy availability of so many programs written by developers beyond Apple (AAPL) itself makes the iPhone a true computing platform, like a pocket-sized Windows or Macintosh PC. With so many programs already available, and many more in the pipeline, iPhone and Touch owners can have a device with fresh, different capabilities every day.

But the process isn’t perfect. For one thing, it is controlled by Apple, which can theoretically bar a program from distribution or take its time making one available.

There are also some glitches. If you download a lot of apps in a short period, it can slow the phone’s next synchronization with iTunes to a crawl, while iTunes tries to back up all the new programs, each of which can contain numerous hidden files. And there’s a bug in the new iPhone operating system that causes apps to crash, and can even force the iPhone or Touch to reboot, if you use a large number of the new apps in quick succession. Apple says it is working on fixing the latter problem.

Also, Apple’s claim of over 900 programs is somewhat misleading, because more than 100 of those are individual books you can read on the phone.

Apple’s baby isn’t the first smart phone that has attracted developers. Thousands of third-party programs already exist for Nokia (NOK) phones, BlackBerrys, and phones running the Palm (PALM) and Windows Mobile operating systems. But, compared with the graphically rich, snappy iPhone apps — many of which fetch data from the Internet at high speed — the typical program on these older platforms looks positively primitive.

AOL’s AIM program

The App Store can be accessed either from the device itself or from Apple’s iTunes software on a Windows or Mac computer, which then transfers the app to the iPhone or Touch. The programs cover a wide range.

Some fill in obvious holes in Apple’s original complement of iPhone software, things the iPhone has lacked that other phones have. These include AOL (TWX) Instant Messenger, a variety of task and to-do lists, sophisticated note takers and a voice dialer. There are numerous versions of popular board, card and word games, like solitaire, mahjong, Scrabble and Sudoku. There are also eye-popping iPhone versions of popular video games, some controlled by the phone’s motion detectors, which allow you to move cars and characters by just tilting the phone.

Numerous programs let you perform Internet functions without using the Web browser on the iPhone or iPod Touch. These include news readers, Internet radio players, sports-information apps, and programs that let you blog or use Google (GOOG) or Facebook or MySpace.

There are business programs from Oracle (ORCL), Salesforce.com and Bloomberg. And there’s a clutch of Bible programs.

Some are simply goofy, like a virtual Star Wars-like lightsaber, a rotary-phone dialer and a virtual “stapler.” And several programs turn the phone into a flashlight for emergencies.

There are way too many interesting apps to review here, but these are some we liked, in no particular order.

AOL Radio

AIM: free

This version of AOL’s popular instant-messaging program does a competent job with text chat, though it can’t yet do video or audio chats, or transfer files. Because Apple isn’t allowing third-party programs to run constantly in the background, you can’t receive new messages in AIM while doing other things. This will supposedly be fixed by new Apple technology due later this year.

AOL Radio: free

While the iPhone and Touch contain full, terrific iPod capabilities, they don’t come with Internet radio players like this one. It can stream music and talk from a wide variety of online sources, including the Internet versions of broadcast radio stations.

Evernote: free

This is an elegant note-taker that has been on computers for a while. You can jot down text notes, store photos or dictate audio memos. And it synchronizes with your Evernote account on Windows or Mac PCs or the Web.

Instapaper: free

A handy way to store Web pages on your iPhone or Touch for reading when you’re offline. While on your computer, an Instapaper button added to the Web browser can snag Web pages for your personal Instapaper database. Then, when your iPhone or iPod Touch is online, it synchronizes with the Web-based Instapaper database. Later, when you’re offline, the pages are still there on the device, ready to read.

Travelocity TravelTools: free

You can use this to check flight schedules, gate assignments and security waiting times. While you can’t book flights through this app, there’s a button that automatically calls Travelocity’s toll-free booking line.

More Cowbell!: free

This is inspired by the Christopher Walken/Will Ferrell Saturday Night Live skit, which made the lowly cowbell a cult musical instrument. Whenever you tap the on-screen cowbell, it makes the recognizable, hollow sound heard in songs like “Down on the Corner,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. You can play along with any song you choose on the iPod Touch or iPhone.

Touch Tarot: $0.99

Touch Tarot

Touch Tarot is a digital tarot-card reading that takes place on your iPod Touch or iPhone, instead of at a table inside an incense-scented tent at the county fair. Phrasing above each card tells its general category, and below each card is a brief explanation of its meaning. For example, we turned over the Wheel of Fortune card in one card reading, and it said, “Advancement for good or ill. The unexpected may occur. Good fortune.”

iWant: free

The iWant app displays 12 black-and-white icons on your device’s screen, each representing a different category of something you might be looking for — including restaurants, bars, cafés, hotels, drugstores, banks, car rentals and movies, among others. The device identifies your location, and each category can be tweaked to search by distance or highest rankings from Yelp, a user-written rating service.

Urbanspoon: free

Urbanspoon resembles a slot machine: From left to right, columns show the location, cuisine and cost of nearby restaurants. Instead of pulling a lever to start the slot machine, you simply shake your iPhone or iPod Touch whenever you want to find a restaurant. When it stops, you see the name of a restaurant near you and its classification in each category. (You can also specify what location, cuisine or cost you’re looking for.)

Air Hockey: $0.99

Air hockey works like the game you used to play in your best friend’s basement. You play against the computer, using a fingertip to push red or blue mallets that move a puck around the screen-turned-table and trying to sneak the puck past your computer opponent to score a goal.

MotionX Poker: $4.99

MotionX Poker

This is an addictive poker game, played with realistic, beautifully rendered dice instead of cards. The cool thing is that you roll the dice by simply shaking the iPhone or iPod Touch; convincing sound effects accompany each roll of the dice.

MLB.com At Bat: $4.99

There are lots of cellphone apps and services that can give you live updates on baseball games. What’s special about this one is that it adds video clips of key plays that you can view while the games are still in progress, using the full power of the gorgeous screen and video player on the iPhone and the Touch.

Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D: $9.99

This is a rollicking, fun iPhone and iPod Touch rendition of the classic video racing game, where you control your car by tilting the phone. The graphics are good, and the game-play is responsive.

Truphone: free

This is the first app for the iPhone that allows you to make cheap phone calls over the Internet instead of using the built-in cellphone capability, which can be much costlier, especially for international calls. In our tests, we had some trouble at first, but after we removed and re-installed the program, it worked fine. Calls to 40 countries are six cents a minute to landlines and 30 cents a minute to cellphones. The iPod Touch lacks a microphone, so this app works only on the iPhone.

Write to Walt and Katie at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Apple’s new iMac comes loaded with iLife ‘08 software.

But Apple’s bigger change was a major update to its iLife software suite, which comes loaded on all its Macintosh models — not just the new iMac — and can be purchased by existing Mac owners for $79. The suite includes iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb and GarageBand — programs that help average people organize, edit, share and publish photos, videos and music. These uncluttered and intuitive programs have been best of breed, so Apple’s decision to update iLife is intriguing, if for nothing other than to see what major improvements could really be made.

This week I tested iLife ‘08 on a new iMac — the midrange $1,499 20-inch model with a 2.4 gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a 320-gigabyte hard drive. I focused especially on iPhoto and iMovie, the anchors of the suite and the programs that got the biggest overhauls. One significant change in iPhoto is its new method of organizing photos by sorting images into “Events” according to their dates, rather than by the batch in which they were uploaded to your computer. The iMovie program underwent a more drastic overhaul, adding a library for storing all of your video clips and a new interface for organizing those clips into a movie that dispenses with the traditional timeline design long used in digital video software.

Both iPhoto and iMovie now use “skimming,” a rich feature that lets you scan through photos or videos just by passing your cursor over a thumbnail. And if you have an account on Apple’s online .Mac service ($100 annually), both programs offer effortless one-click photo or video uploading to a “Web Gallery,” where you can share your content. Videos can also be uploaded directly to YouTube without a .Mac account.

Before delving into the software, a quick word about the new iMac is in order. It’s an improvement on an already stellar computer, with beefed-up specs. There are four models, from $1,199 to $2,299, in two screen sizes — 20 inches and 24 inches. The base 20-inch model costs $1,199, a price cut of $300 from the prior 20-inch model. The base 24-inch model now costs $1,799, down $200 from the old model of the same size.

The biggest adjustments for users will be the screen and keyboard, which took me a few days to get used to. The new iMac comes with a glossy screen, which makes colors pop but also reflects more background light than a traditional matte display.

Radical Keyboard

The keyboard is radical-looking. It’s much flatter and sleeker than typical desktop PC keyboards. I found it easier to type with, but in an attempt to make it more like that of a laptop keyboard, Apple rearranged some built-in key functions, which was confusing at first. If you hate it, you can still use an older Mac keyboard or any USB keyboard, even those meant for Windows computers. For now, the new iMac offers only a wired keyboard. A small wireless model is due in a few weeks.

I quickly picked up on how to use the new features in iPhoto and iMovie, thanks to unintimidating, self-explanatory icons. The Events feature in iPhoto might be a pain for users who are transferring numerous already-organized albums from the previous version of iPhoto into this one, as not all albums will perfectly translate into Events. But it’s a great improvement over the old method — and over Windows photo programs I’ve tried — for organizing newly shot photos.

The new version of iPhoto will look familiar to anyone who used the older version; its layout is the same, with a list of your photo library on the far left and a large display area to the right of this list. I uploaded a couple of albums at once, and each was automatically sorted into its own event because the photos from each were associated with two different dates.

Skimming the Thumbnails

A few new features stand out at a glance. When photos are grouped into Events, these are neatly marked with one large thumbnail image that is selected to represent the entire pile of photos. By passing my cursor over this top thumbnail, I skimmed through all of the images in that Event in mere seconds. A button labeled Web Gallery instantly uploads images to a .Mac account, and a list of photos that are shared online appears in iPhoto.

The updated iPhoto automatically groups photos into Events represented by thumbnails that make for faster photo browsing.

Rather than deleting images that I didn’t want in a particular Event, I selected the new Hide icon, which takes marked images away from view but notes the number of hidden photos at the top of the Event as a reminder. Hidden photos can also appear within the Event, denoted with red X marks.

Double clicking on any image now magnifies it without opening editing functions, letting users quickly see larger versions of each shot. Editing in iPhoto was already straightforward, but new options provide more customization; for example, red eyes can be removed with a cross hairs (like the old iPhoto) or by using a circle that manually adjusts to match a subject’s pupil size.

The new version of iMovie is deliberately designed to steer away from the familiar interface most consumer video-editing programs use, which was borrowed from professional-grade software. Instead of the usual timeline of clips, iMovie employs a more free-form canvas where clips and effects can be assembled. Apple knows that this may irk people used to the traditional method, but believes it will make video editing much less intimidating for casual users.

To test iMovie, I used a high-definition Panasonic video camera to capture amusing moments around my office and brought it with me to Boston for three days so I could document my sister’s move into her new place (the moving guys were thrilled). In both places, I turned the camera on and off numerous times, capturing short clips.

Instant Recognition

My video camera was instantly recognized when I plugged it into the iMac, prompting iMovie to generate thumbnail images of each clip. Times when the camera was turned on or off were clearly marked, and I chose the clips I wanted to import. Transferred content appeared in the new iMovie library at the bottom half of a screen, and I dragged and dropped clips to the top half of the screen to add them to a project. Clips can be selected by using your cursor to draw a yellow box around the whole clip or just a part of the clip that you’d like to use. Skimming through content is helpful here — as I moved my cursor from left to right through clips, the audio and video played in the top right of the screen, letting me see and hear footage so as to select exactly where to trim a clip.

The new interface for iMovie is more approachable for everyday users, with a smart library that organizes Projects and Events into two different libraries.

After dragging various clips to the top half of the screen, I added special features like music, sound effects and title slides to my project. These were all added the same way my clips were: by dragging and dropping to put the right thing where it needed to go. Music from iTunes can be used with videos, or Apple provides over 500 different sound effects and tunes.

Still photos can be incorporated into iMovie using a “Ken Burns” effect (panning across a still image) to keep the video’s pace moving along. And any videos captured on a digital camera that were uploaded into iPhoto can be retrieved and used from within iMovie. If footage is too dark, it can be automatically or manually adjusted, like images in iPhoto.

Polished Results

In just about 15 minutes, I created a short movie that mashed together various clips from three days of moving. I added titles to introduce the movie, and transitions in between each clip that looked really polished.

I uploaded photos and videos to the .Mac Web Gallery, checking off the privacy option (passwords can be set to limit who sees the content). Other options to check include showing titles of photos; enabling a feature that lets others upload images to my gallery via a set email address; and letting other people download high-resolution versions of my content. In one step, videos can also be uploaded to YouTube.com or transferred to your iTunes library, where they can be viewed on a PC or Mac, or moved over to an iPod or iPhone.

The new programs in iLife ‘08 are a pleasure to use, and the new iMac is a great way to experience them.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email: mossbergsolution@wsj.com.

One of the most important trends in personal technology over the past few years has been the evolution of the humble cellphone into a true handheld computer, a device able to replicate many of the key functions of a laptop. But most of these “smart phones” have had lousy software, confusing user interfaces and clumsy music, video and photo playback. And their designers have struggled to balance screen size, keyboard usability and battery life.

Now, Apple Inc., whose digital products are hailed for their design and innovation, is jumping into this smart-phone market with the iPhone, which goes on sale in a few days after months of the most frenzied hype and speculation we have ever seen for a single technology product. Even though the phone’s minimum price is a hefty $499, people are already lining up outside Apple stores to be among the first to snag one when they go on sale Friday evening.

We have been testing the iPhone for two weeks, in multiple usage scenarios, in cities across the country. Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions.

The Apple phone combines intelligent voice calling, and a full-blown iPod, with a beautiful new interface for music and video playback. It offers the best Web browser we have seen on a smart phone, and robust email software. And it synchronizes easily and well with both Windows and Macintosh computers using Apple’s iTunes software.

It has the largest and highest-resolution screen of any smart phone we’ve seen, and the most internal memory by far. Yet it is one of the thinnest smart phones available and offers impressive battery life, better than its key competitors claim.

The phone is thinner than many smart phones.

It feels solid and comfortable in the hand and the way it displays photos, videos and Web pages on its gorgeous screen makes other smart phones look primitive.

The iPhone’s most controversial feature, the omission of a physical keyboard in favor of a virtual keyboard on the screen, turned out in our tests to be a nonissue, despite our deep initial skepticism. After five days of use, Walt — who did most of the testing for this review — was able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years. This was partly because of smart software that corrects typing errors on the fly.

But the iPhone has a major drawback: the cellphone network it uses. It only works with AT&T (formerly Cingular), won’t come in models that use Verizon or Sprint and can’t use the digital cards (called SIM cards) that would allow it to run on T-Mobile’s network. So, the phone can be a poor choice unless you are in areas where AT&T’s coverage is good. It does work overseas, but only via an AT&T roaming plan.

In addition, even when you have great AT&T coverage, the iPhone can’t run on AT&T’s fastest cellular data network. Instead, it uses a pokey network called EDGE, which is far slower than the fastest networks from Verizon or Sprint that power many other smart phones. And the initial iPhone model cannot be upgraded to use the faster networks.

The iPhone compensates by being one of the few smart phones that can also use Wi-Fi wireless networks. When you have access to Wi-Fi, the iPhone flies on the Web. Not only that, but the iPhone automatically switches from EDGE to known Wi-Fi networks when it finds them, and pops up a list of new Wi-Fi networks it encounters as you move. Walt was able to log onto paid Wi-Fi networks at Starbucks and airports, and even used a free Wi-Fi network at Fenway Park in Boston to email pictures taken during a Red Sox game.

But this Wi-Fi capability doesn’t fully make up for the lack of a fast cellular data capability, because it is impractical to keep joining and dropping short-range Wi-Fi networks while taking a long walk, or riding in a cab through a city.

AT&T is offering special monthly calling plans for the iPhone, all of which include unlimited Internet and email usage. They range from $60 to $220, depending on the number of voice minutes included. In an unusual twist, iPhone buyers won’t choose their plans and activate their phones in the store. Instead, they will do so when they first connect the iPhone to the iTunes software.

Despite its simple interface, with just four rows of colorful icons on a black background, the iPhone has too many features and functions to detail completely in this space. But here’s a rundown of the key features, with pros and cons based on our testing.

Hardware: The iPhone is simply beautiful. It is thinner than the skinny Samsung BlackJack, yet almost its entire surface is covered by a huge, vivid 3.5-inch display. There’s no physical keyboard, just a single button that takes you to the home screen. The phone is about as long as the Treo 700, the BlackBerry 8800 or the BlackJack, but it’s slightly wider than the BlackJack or Treo, and heavier than the BlackBerry and BlackJack.

The display is made of a sturdy glass, not plastic, and while it did pick up smudges, it didn’t acquire a single scratch, even though it was tossed into Walt’s pocket or briefcase, or Katie’s purse, without any protective case or holster. No scratches appeared on the rest of the body either.

There are only three buttons along the edges. On the top, there’s one that puts the phone to sleep and wakes it up. And, on the left edge, there’s a volume control and a mute switch.

One downside: Some accessories for iPods may not work properly on the iPhone. The headphone jack, which supports both stereo music and phone calls, is deeply recessed, so you may need an adapter for existing headphones. And, while the iPhone uses the standard iPod port on the bottom edge, it doesn’t recognize all car adapters for playing music, only for charging. Apple is considering a software update to fix this.

Touch-screen interface: To go through long lists of emails, contacts, or songs, you just “flick” with your finger. To select items, you tap. To enlarge photos, you “pinch” them by placing two fingers on their corners and dragging them in or out. To zoom in on portions of Web pages, you double-tap with your fingers. You cannot use a stylus for any of this. In the Web browser and photo program, if you turn the phone from a vertical to a horizontal position, the image on the screen turns as well and resizes itself to fit.

In general, we found this interface, called “multi-touch,” to be effective, practical and fun. But there’s no overall search on the iPhone (except Web searching), and no quick way to move to the top or bottom of pages (except in the Web browser). The only aid is an alphabetical scale on the right in tiny type.

There’s also no way to cut, copy, or paste text.

And the lack of dedicated hardware buttons for functions like phone, email and contacts means extra taps are needed to start using features. Also, if you are playing music while doing something else, the lack of hardware playback buttons forces you to return to the iPod program to stop the music or change a song.

Keyboard: The virtual keys are large and get larger as you touch them. Software tries to guess what you’re typing, and fix errors. Overall, it works. But the error-correction system didn’t seem as clever as the one on the BlackBerry, and you have to switch to a different keyboard view to insert a period or comma, which is annoying.

Web browsing: The iPhone is the first smart phone we’ve tested with a real, computer-grade Web browser, a version of Apple’s Safari. It displays entire Web pages, in their real layouts, and allows you to zoom in quickly by either tapping or pinching with your finger. Multiple pages can be open at the same time, and you can conduct Google or Yahoo searches from a built-in search box.

Email: The iPhone can connect with most popular consumer email services, including Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, EarthLink and others. It can also handle corporate email using Microsoft’s Exchange system, if your IT department cooperates by enabling a setting on the server.

BlackBerry email services can’t be used on an iPhone, but Yahoo Mail supplies free BlackBerry-style “push” email to iPhone users. In our test, this worked fine.

Unlike most phone email software, the iPhone’s shows a preview of each message, so you don’t have to open it. And, if there is a photo attached, it shows the photo automatically, without requiring you to click on a link to see it. It can also receive and open Microsoft Word and Excel documents and Adobe PDF files. But it doesn’t allow you to edit or save these files.

Memory: The $499 base model comes with four gigabytes of memory, and the $599 model has eight gigabytes. That’s far more than on any other smart phone, but much less than on full-size iPods. Also, there’s no slot for memory-expansion cards. Our test $599 model held 1,325 songs; a dozen videos (including a full-length movie); over 100 photos; and over 100 emails, including some attachments, and still had room left over.

Battery life: Like the iPod, but unlike most cellphones, the iPhone lacks a removable battery. So you can’t carry a spare. But its battery life is excellent. In our tests, it got seven hours and 18 minutes of continuous talk time, while the Wi-Fi was on and email was constantly being fetched in the background. That’s close to Apple’s claim of a maximum of eight hours, and far exceeds the talk time claims of other smart phones, which usually top out at five and a half hours.

The interface features \”cover flow\” technology for flipping through album covers.

For continuous music playback, again with Wi-Fi on and email being fetched, we got over 22 hours, shy of Apple’s claim of up to 24 hours, but still huge. For video playback, under the same conditions, we got just under Apple’s claim of seven hours, enough to watch four average-length movies. And, for Web browsing and other Internet functions, including sending and receiving emails, viewing Google maps and YouTube videos, we got over nine hours, well above Apple’s claim of up to six hours.

In real life, of course, you will do a mix of these things, so the best gauge might be that, in our two-week test, the iPhone generally lasted all day with a typical mix of tasks.

Phone calls: The phone interface is clean and simple, but takes more taps to reach than on many other smart phones, because there are no dedicated hardware phone buttons. You also cannot just start typing a name or number, but must scroll through a list of favorites, through your recent call list, or your entire contact list. You can also use a virtual keypad.

One great phone feature is called “visual voice mail.” It shows you the names or at least the phone numbers of people who have left you voicemail, so you can quickly listen to those you want. It’s also very easy to turn the speakerphone on and off, or to establish conference calls.

Voice call quality was good, but not great. In some places, especially in weak coverage areas, there was some muffling or garbling. But most calls were perfectly audible. The iPhone can use Bluetooth wireless headsets and it comes with wired iPod-style earbuds that include a microphone.

Google maps on the iPhone.

A downside — there’s no easy way to transfer phone numbers, via AT&T, directly from an existing phone. The iPhone is meant to sync with an address book (and calendar) on a PC.

Contacts and calendars: These are pretty straightforward and work well. The calendar lacks a week view, though a list view helps fill that gap. Contacts can be gathered into groups, but the groups can’t be used as email distribution lists.

Syncing: The iPhone syncs with both Macs and Windows PCs using iTunes, which handles not only the transfer of music and video, but also photos, contacts, calendar items and browser bookmarks. In our tests, this worked well, even on a Windows Vista machine using the latest version of Outlook as the source for contacts and appointments.

iPod: The built-in iPod handles music and video perfectly, and has all the features of a regular iPod. But the interface is entirely new. The famed scroll wheel is gone, and instead finger taps and flicking move you through your collection and virtual controls appear on the screen. There’s also a version of the “cover flow” interface which allows you to select music by flipping through album covers.

Other features: There are widgets, or small programs, for accessing weather, stock prices and Google Maps, which includes route directions, but no real-time navigation. Another widget allows you to stream videos from YouTube, and yet another serves as a notepad. There’s a photo program that displays individual pictures or slideshows.

The only add-on software Apple is allowing will be Web-based programs that must be accessed through the on-board Web browser. The company says these can be made to look just like built-in programs, but the few we tried weren’t impressive.

Missing features: The iPhone is missing some features common on some competitors. There’s no instant messaging, only standard text messaging. While its two-megapixel camera took excellent pictures in our tests, it can’t record video. Its otherwise excellent Web browser can’t fully utilize some Web sites, because it doesn’t yet support Adobe’s Flash technology. Although the phone contains a complete iPod, you can’t use your songs as ringtones. There aren’t any games, nor is there any way to directly access Apple’s iTunes Music Store.

Apple says it plans to add features to the phone over time, via free downloads, and hints that some of these holes may be filled.

Expectations for the iPhone have been so high that it can’t possibly meet them all. It isn’t for the average person who just wants a cheap, small phone for calling and texting. But, despite its network limitations, the iPhone is a whole new experience and a pleasure to use.

• Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find all our columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://walt.allthingsd.com

Numerous companies have tried to design computers made specifically for the kitchen, with hopes of becoming the best digital hub. The latest of these, the H-P TouchSmart PC from Hewlett-Packard Co., boasts a beautiful touch screen for quick access, but is expensive and enormous. Even worse, the TouchSmart’s calendar software program is limited and unintuitive.

This week I tested Cozi Central (www.cozi.com), a free, downloadable calendaring program from Cozi Group Inc. that works on most Windows PCs, not just expensive new computers that hog kitchen-counter space. Cozi offers a built-in family messaging system, and shopping or to-do lists that the whole family can edit. Starting today, Cozi also automatically synchronizes with Microsoft Outlook calendars, allowing work events to be considered in the family calendar and vice versa. Plus, it can be used well beyond just the family Windows PC. It has a Web-based version, so family members can use it from a browser on any computer, anywhere — even a Macintosh. And it will send schedules and shopping lists to your cellphone via text messages or through an audible text-to-speech program.

Cozi Central organizes family activities.

Cozi sounds complicated because it does so much, but it’s actually pretty simple. It was designed specifically with its audience in mind: busy moms and dads who will quickly revert to the paper calendar if a program is too complicated or time-consuming.

Cozi Central impressed me with its functionality and attractive overall look. It incorporates various ways to connect families with their calendars at home and on the go, and every screen is clean and uncluttered. It could stand to improve in three areas: adding notifications of changes made by other family members; allowing response messaging from family members to Cozi (now, messages can only be sent out from within Cozi); and improving the way an entire month’s schedule looks on-screen. But Cozi’s attributes are overwhelming enough for you to want to use it with your family.

I used Cozi in both of its formats: as a downloaded program on my Windows PC and as a Web-based program. Both coordinate and sync with one another, Web access provided. The PC-based version of Cozi Central has a few extra features, including the ability to show a month view and to automatically generate photo collages.

After downloading and registering the names of two main users and up to six additional users for the calendar, I named my calendar and created a password. This password can be shared with family members (or whomever will also use the calendar). Nothing in Cozi is private. I also installed Cozi’s new Outlook toolbar, which syncs your Outlook calendar with your Cozi calendar. The first sync took about 10 minutes, but thereafter, synching was quick, under a minute each time something changed on either calendar.

Cozi Central’s main page is appropriately called Home, and it reminded me of a bulletin board with four things tacked on a solid-color background. In the top left, a photo of your choosing is displayed. The top right shows a brief view of your family’s calendar over the next few days. The bottom right shows one of your lists (such as groceries or to-do) and another space on the Home page lets you type and send emails or text messages to family members.

In the calendar section, the names of those registered are designated with color-coded tabs across the top of the screen. To see one person’s calendar, select his or her tab. The All view shows everyone’s events on one calendar; each person is represented by a different colored dot.

All calendar entries can be typed into a designated space at the bottom of the screen in just about any format. I typed “Bridal shower tomorrow from noon-three,” and “Bridal shower” was added to the next day on my calendar from 12-3 p.m.; specifics such as reoccurrences and locations can be added by selecting the event. This lean toward the casual allows for fast, easy entries by all family members — not just the person who uses Cozi most often.

The Cozi program that was installed on my Windows PC showed a variety of calendar views. I prefer to see an overall month view of my calendar at all times, but couldn’t see all weeks of the month simultaneously in Cozi. The more events you have per day, the less you’ll see of your month. The Web-based version of Cozi only offers a vertical view of the next few days.

For users who integrate Microsoft Outlook Calendars with Cozi, special settings can be adjusted so that hundreds of business appointments don’t start cluttering up the family calendar.

The Shopping List section on the Home bulletin board opens current lists. By default, lists called Groceries, Wholesale and Other are already set up, but new lists can easily be added. Items are simply typed in, and the PC version of Cozi uses a list of popular items to automatically finish words as you type. Items can be crossed off by selecting a check mark.

The Cozi calendar coordinates schedules.

The message section of Cozi’s Home page sent text messages and emails to others almost instantly after I entered text and selected Send. I never had to open a separate email program or type an email address or phone number. But the recipient of these messages can’t respond; Cozi only sends outgoing messages and can’t receive replies. The company hopes to add this feature in the future.

The phone and email options that work with Cozi could be useful in a bind. If you’re away from home and need to know a schedule or grocery list, you can dial in from a Cozi-registered phone number to hear these things read aloud or sent to you via text message. You can also send text messages to Cozi to request information. Or whoever is at the computer can send this data out directly from within the Cozi program itself.

If a family member changes or adds something to Cozi, there’s no way of knowing. Cozi needs to implement some kind of notification system that gives you the option to be told of any changes.

Photo collages are started from the Cozi Home page. These immediately fill your screen with about five to seven related photos at a time, without any work on your part. Each collage lasts for about 10 seconds, by default, and typing “S” will let you send the currently displayed collage to anyone.

As of now, Cozi is free of advertisements. This summer, a series of interactive advertisements will appear alongside your calendars or lists. These ads incorporate content into your Cozi, but only if you ask for it. For example, if you create a shopping list for a certain store and an item in that store is advertised on your screen, you can click the ad to put that item in your shopping list.

Cozi just works. It looks clean, organized and uncluttered, regardless of hectic schedules. It’s also easy enough for anyone to use, and Cozi Group Inc. is constantly working to improve the program, which is a good sign. But even its smaller faults can be overlooked for usability. Cozi makes kitchen computers, or family computers anywhere in the house, more useful.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

If our email from readers is any indication, baby boomers are bugged by a persistent problem: They need a simple way to convert all those vinyl records they’ve been accumulating since the 1960s into digital song files, or at least CDs.

So, this week, we sat down with two devices that are designed to bring new life to the old 45s and LPs that boomers cherish, allowing those oldies to migrate to CD players, computers and iPods.

One device, the $400 LP-to-CD Recorder Stereo System by Teac America Inc., serves as an all-in-one stereo and CD burner. It’s a standalone unit that doesn’t connect to a PC. The other device, the $200 Ion USB Turntable (iTTUSB) by Ion Audio, is a turntable that plugs directly into your computer via an attached USB cable.

Ion USB Turntable by Ion Audio, $199

The sight of a record player set up in our office stopped more than one nostalgic passerby in his tracks, as did the sound of Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” blaring out from a crackling, fuzzy record.

While the iTTUSB sounds like it might offer a more direct method, its included music-transfer software program is way too confusing and technical for average users, and would make sense only to an audiophile or techie. It also doesn’t automatically detect where tracks on records start and end, forcing users to manually separate each new track. So we simply can’t recommend it for average, mainstream users.

The Teac LP-to-CD Recorder Stereo System gets our vote, thanks to an easy set-up process and better overall usability, even though it only creates a CD, not music files on your PC. It requires an extra step to do that. But it does have an automatic track-detection feature.

We would have liked it if at least one of these devices automatically edited tracks, cleaning up record hisses and pops.

Walt headed to a local record store to buy some old favorites for testing, as his vinyl collection was finally discarded in a recent home renovation. Armed with 45s and LPs by Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, Elvis, the Beatles and Barbra Streisand, we got started with the all-in-one solution — the Teac LP-to-CD Recorder Stereo System, available from Hammacher Schlemmer. This works independent of your computer — making it more universal and less intimidating for some, compared with the Ion USB Turntable, which must plug into a computer to work.

This device is sturdy and handsome, encased in a black wood frame with a lid that opens to reveal the turntable. Its front side is more modern, with a series of circular silver buttons, a CD drawer and a digital display book-ended by built-in speakers. Aside from copying your vinyl music onto CDs, this unit also plays CDs, records (45s and LPs) and has a radio.

LP-to-CD Recorder Stereo System by Teac America, Inc., $399.95

Even better, unlike the Ion, it has a feature that will automatically detect the start and end of tracks, although it may not work well with some records, due to background noises like scratches.

This LP-to-CD Recorder burns only onto special CD-R or CD-RW discs that have “Digital Audio” labels and are less common than other recordable CDs used for burning mix CDs on computers.

We inserted one of these CD-Rs into the player and placed “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits” onto the turntable, turning on Phono mode. We pressed Record, swung the turntable’s arm over onto the outer edge of Side A and pressed Play. The digital display showed track one and counted up from zero to mark elapsed time.

To mark the start of a new track, you can adjust a setting to automatically do so, but in our tests, auto detect was unreliable. If you don’t choose this option, you must press a button called “Track Increment” on the player or its remote. But this option is easier said than done, especially while listening to old favorites. We caught ourselves harmonizing along to “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles, forgetting our CD-making duties at the end and quickly scrambling for the remote.

After one side was finished, we paused recording to flip the record and pressed Pause again to resume. When the turntable ceased rotating, recording automatically stopped. To make a CD playable on other devices and computers, we pressed Finalize; about a minute later, the CD was done. We finished converting “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits” in 45 minutes. Our test CDs sounded good, but the Teac unit has no ability to clean up any scratches, pops or hisses that may afflict your old records.

After we burned our test CDs, we were able to insert them into a Windows or Macintosh computer and import the tracks as MP3 files.

Using the Ion USB Turntable, or iTTUSB as it is called on the box, was a more frustrating and laborious process, thanks to its assembly-required turntable and its geeky file-converting software program, Audacity.

The iTTUSB itself is simple-looking, and it should be; it is being sold at places where mainstream users shop, such as J.C. Penney, Circuit City and Urban Outfitters. This plastic, gray turntable comes disassembled, and Katie followed steps for setting up the platter and balancing the tone arm’s counterpoint device. But this process wasn’t nearly as complicated as using the Audacity software program.

Audacity opened and worked — but only after we followed the manual’s exhausting instructions and got help from the company’s tech support. One step had us searching a list of confusing terms to select our computer’s sound card, a task that would rightfully baffle any mainstream user. We listened to tracks through our computer’s speakers as we copied music onto our computer.

But Audacity’s most glaring problem is its inability out of the box to convert your imported vinyl tracks into MP3s — the main purpose of the product. To do this, you must leave the software program, go to Audacity’s Web site, find the URL link for a third party’s Web site, download an MP3 conversion plug-in and run it within Audacity. The software never explicitly tells you how to do this.

We followed these steps, and it took us about 10 minutes to walk through the process of converting our first track into MP3 format. Most users would never get this far, with good reason. They wouldn’t even understand the instructions.

The Ion/Audacity combo requires you to manually mark the start and stop of a track, so transfers can’t be unattended. If you so choose, you can manually go through each track to edit out the extra noises heard on records, but we can only imagine how time-consuming this process might be.

Next April, Ion Audio plans to introduce its own software program that will come bundled with the iTTUSB. Ion says this will have its own built-in MP3 conversion program, as well as the ability to automatically detect the start of new tracks.

We found Teac’s LP-to-CD Recording Stereo System to be a good, if imperfect, solution to the vinyl-to-digital quandary. It will take time to work through all of these conversions, but after you’re done, your music will be unleashed.

Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

Drawing up a family tree has long been the job of the family member with the most patience and the steadiest hand. So it makes sense to look to technology as a means of helping to alleviate the work. For years, there have been software programs that helped with the job, such as Family Tree Maker for Windows and Reunion for the Macintosh. But the technology of genealogy has been moving to the Web, and now those Web-based tools have taken another step forward.

This week, we tested a recently revamped Web site, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com), which helps you build a family tree and can integrate your tree’s data with 500,000 other family trees and records containing five billion names. The site has been around for 10 years, but an overhauled version that intends to be more complete and intuitive was launched in a prerelease version six weeks ago.

Ancestry.com helps you create and enrich your family tree using records like draft-registration cards (above) and census records, as well as family trees of other users.

The new Ancestry.com offers numerous features, the most important of which is much better integration of the site’s data with your own information. These data include census records, military draft-registration cards, marriage certificates and immigration records. Some of this information has been available before, on CDs and on the Web, but digging it up has largely been a separate process from creating a family tree.

You can build a family tree right on the Web site, without the need for stand-alone software, and you can share that tree with others. As names are added to the tree, icons that look like green leaves appear beside those of your family members to whom data on Ancestry.com might be linked. You can “grow” your tree by attaching those data if they’re relevant, further enriching your finished product.

The site has some limitations, and it’s expensive. But we really liked it and were excited to discover things like handwritten census entries from the early 1900s mentioning our forebears, or draft-registration cards for our grandparents and great-grandparents.

Ancestry.com can be used free — as long as you’re just using data that you provide, such as names, dates and geographic details. But the teasing leaves of information can be opened only if you pay. A U.S. Deluxe membership costs $30 a month or $150 a year. And a more expensive $40 a month or $347 a year World Deluxe membership lets you see family-history records from outside the U.S. as well.

These prices are hefty, but the information’s value can be huge. And, the prices look smaller if you only need the research capability for a month or two. A more-limited version of the service, without the family-tree building features, is available free at some libraries.

Not everyone we typed into our trees had associated records. When we did get lucky, however, we grabbed the phone to share our findings with relatives, or emailed them images of the records. Your tree and all records attached to those in your tree can be shared via email with anyone else.

Ancestry.com is broken down into four major tabs for searching: Historical Records, Family Trees, Stories & Publications and Photos & Maps. We found it best to get started by creating a family tree, which helped us to get organized and to find other data using the green-leaf indicators. If you start out searching for data with only sketchy information, you might get frustrated.

If you’ve already created a family tree in a stand-alone program, you can upload it to Ancestry.com, as long as it’s in the industry standard “GEDCOM” format. Walt successfully did so using a tree that he made five years ago.

It didn’t take long for us to create a very basic tree with just a few generations, adding names, birth and death dates and locations (if we knew them). We named our trees and made them public, allowing others to use our data and vice versa. Even if you don’t make your tree public, other Ancestry.com users can still learn the name, birth year and birthplace of a deceased person in your tree. They can also anonymously contact you for more information using the Ancestry Connection Service, if you opt to let them do so.

Things got exciting when we saw shaking green leaves appear beside the names of certain members of our family. Mousing over these leaves showed us the number of source records found on each person, and in some cases showed the number of other users’ family trees that could match with ours. You can browse through these other trees, and if someone else lists your relative in their tree, you can automatically fill in blanks in your family timeline and merge those new facts into your tree.

In many cases, we could see digital images of a family member’s source records including, in the case of our relatives’ draft cards, an actual signature. If you like, you can share just the images of these documents with others via email. You can print a copy of any document, or save it to your computer’s hard drive. You can also order large, high-quality copies of some documents; prices for these range from $8 to $25.

Each person on a family tree has his or her own page with a life-events timeline and the records that you attach to the profile. This page also has room for an uploaded digital photo of the person.

You can also search for family information using the other tabs. If you know what type of document you’re looking for, you can start searching with that type of record, such as the data on immigration records.

As you continue to research your relatives, interesting facts show up on the side of the screen every so often. In Katie’s case, one fact about her mother’s family said, “Most Chapman immigrants to the US (1120) came from Liverpool, England, and Queenstown, Ireland.” A corresponding link showed her a pie chart of the six areas from which Chapmans immigrated.

There are some important downsides to Ancestry.com. Its display of family trees and options for laying them out on the screen is far more rudimentary and limited than in the stand-alone genealogy programs. Its printing options are crude. The company is working on better display and output options, including books that contain your trees and related document images. Also, immigration records are limited because Ancestry’s database currently omits Ellis Island in New York. The company says the Ellis Island data are coming within months. Foreign data also are severely limited.

Still, Ancestry.com is a rich site that uses a sensible layout and encourages learning.

Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com.

How many times have you wanted to email a large attachment — like a bunch of digital photos, an album of songs, or a hefty video — but didn’t do so because it exceeded your email provider’s, or the recipient’s, limits on attachment size, or because it might max out the recipient’s mailbox?

This frustration is growing increasingly common as better digital cameras produce bigger photos and large video clips, and digital music becomes more widespread. Computer hard disks have grown nicely to accommodate these files, but limits on the size of email messages haven’t. And, even if you could send such large attachments, it can take forever to send them via email, partly because broadband upload speeds lag far behind download speeds.

Instead of suffering the frustration of a bounced email, many folks have resorted to Web-based services like Shutterfly or Kodak EasyShare Gallery or YouTube.com or Google Video for sharing digital photos and videos. They upload the files to these sites, then send links to their friends and family. But this method has major drawbacks. The recipients don’t get the full-size files on their own computers, and sometimes must register with the sites to view your material.

This week, we tested a new, free, application called Pando that aims to solve this problem without requiring you to use an intermediary Web site. Pando lets you email huge attachments — up to one gigabyte each — to anyone, without breaching email size limits, or clogging anyone’s inbox. It comes in versions for both Windows and Macintosh computers, available for downloading at www.pando.com.

It sounded fishy to us, too, but Pando, from Pando Networks Inc., performed really well in our tests — even in its current “beta,” or trial, stage. It’s simple, fast, and effective, and it solves the large-attachment problem.

Pando works by merging the mechanism of email with its own small program and a modified version of BitTorrent, a back-end file-transfer system best known until now for speeding up the downloading of large, unauthorized files, like pirated movies.

Here’s how you use Pando. First, you download and install the small Pando program. Then, you select the files you want to send. These can be any type of files you want, or even whole folders of files. Then, still using the Pando software, you type in the addresses of the recipients, the subject, and a message. The software then does three things: it creates a Pando Package, a small special file that instructs the recipient’s computer on how to fetch the files; it sends an email containing that package file, plus any text you want; and it uploads the files to a Pando server.

On the recipient’s end, an email is received in his or her normal email program containing the Pando Package as a tiny attachment (one huge 94 megabyte attachment we sent required only a 22-kilobyte attachment). The recipient just opens the Pando Package attachment, and it in turn launches the Pando software, which then downloads the files or folders you sent. The first time the recipient receives a Pando email, he or she will have to download and install the Pando software. There’s a link in the email to the download site.

Once downloaded onto the receiver’s computer, all Pando files can be found in a special folder that Pando automatically creates. In Windows, it’s called My Pando Packages and is in My Documents. On the Mac, it’s called Pando Packages and is in the home folder. The files are also listed in the handy Received list in the Pando software.

As a bonus, Pando can sometimes transmit these large files faster than your email program or Web browser could. That’s because it uses a modified version of the speedy BitTorrent technology.

We downloaded and installed Pando in just a few minutes. Opening the small Pando email attachment from Microsoft Outlook on Windows or Apple Mail on the Mac prompted a little Pando window to pop up, in which all sent and received files were organized. This window is simple, showing a thumbnail image and text description of each file. A list of received files shows who sent the file and when; the sent list shows to whom you sent files and when.

We started out big, sharing a 95-megabyte, high-resolution video. You must create a username and password to send using Pando, which we did, entering our email and first and last names. A simple “Send New” icon opens the email-like form, where we dragged and dropped this big video file.

No Pando Package can total more than one gigabyte, and an automatic tally shows you how large the Package is becoming as you drag and drop more files into it.

The Pando software program allows users to send large email attachments without running afoul of normal size limitations.

Another way to send files using Pando is by right-clicking on any file or folder in your computer and selecting a “Send With Pando” option that appears after the software application is downloaded. Selecting this also opens the familiar sending window. But this works only in Windows.

The 95-megabyte video took eight minutes to upload, and nine minutes to download — impressively fast times. Another Pando Package filled with 44 high-resolution digital photos totaling 65 megabytes took six minutes to upload, and six minutes to receive.

But Pando can’t entirely overcome slow Internet connections, so your speeds may vary considerably. This is especially true on the uploading side, as even broadband cable and DSL connections typically offer upload speeds that are a fraction of their download speeds. In our tests, at our office and homes, our download and upload speeds ranged from 30 kilobits per second to 250, depending on where we were and when we were testing.

Even if you didn’t see any speed improvement with Pando, you’d still benefit from the sheer ability to send huge attachments. That’s a big deal.

On July 25, Pando Networks will introduce a special plug-in for Outlook, making it even easier for users to send huge files without worrying about inbox congestion. And the company also has plans to introduce plug-ins for Web-based email programs like Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Hotmail.

If you’re tired of bounced emails, and of using Web sites to share your personal videos or photos, Pando is a straightforward solution that anyone can understand in a matter of minutes. It’s a great solution to a vexing problem.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com.

Digital photos can be shared with friends and family from around the world in various ways. By now, even the most technically challenged computer users have figured out how to send photos using an Internet sharing service like Shutterfly or Kodak EasyShare Gallery — or at least they’ve received photos on such a service.

This week, we tested a new way of sharing digital photos, using a new service from Smilebox Inc. The real difference between Smilebox and most other sharing services is its emphasis on two things: design and ease of use. It offers templates for creating attractive virtual scrapbooks, slideshows, photobooks, postcards and greetings using your photos, which automatically load into blank image space holders. Once finished, a simple step lets you email a Web link of your Smilebox creation to anyone.

We spent this week making various themed photo collages commemorating everything from baseball-game photos to pictures of a family pet to vacations, and we sent them to friends and family. Everyone enjoyed the Smileboxes, and the creative formats — including photos, text, background music and background designs — were attractive and unique.

Smilebox comes in Basic and Premium versions. The Basic version is free, but includes ads. Premium is ad-free but costs 99 cents or $1.99 a design, depending on the format. The paid version also lets you view the design in full-screen view and lets you, or the recipient, print the entire project; neither can be done with the Basic version.

Though still in beta, or prerelease mode, Smilebox worked for us with just a couple of glitches. It is due to be launched officially on June 1, and the company continues to add about 10 new designs weekly to its current 144 different designs; the total will be up to 190 by June 1, according to the company.

Smilebox’s logo is a cute box with a giant smile on its front and a jack-in-the-box-like crank. On the Web site, this box is used to illustrate how Smilebox works — photos drop into the top of the smiley box while the crank turns, spitting out a finished product. The service was, surprisingly, almost that simple.

Smilebox ( www.smilebox.com) uses a simple interface and assembles your photos in attractive projects, such as the Best Friends Forever scrapbook.

We downloaded Smilebox software free from www.smilebox.com, and got started. (For now, the software only works on Windows PCs, but a Macintosh version is in the works.) Its clean interface was refreshing — the familiar smiling box logo sits in the top left corner and a vertical panel running down the left of the screen serves as the area where your photos are held. Three simple categories are listed across the top: Design Catalog, My Designs and My Creations.

A handful of our Windows PC’s digital photos were already loaded into the photo panel — Smilebox says your most recently added images autoload, but in our tests, we found a handful of older digital photos in our photo panel. However, we could easily select Get Photos or Remove All to add or delete the images that were automatically added to our photo tray.

Every template within the Design Catalog section of Smilebox is organized into different category types within the larger categories of Scrapbooks, Slideshows, Photobooks, Postcards and Greetings. We started with a scrapbook that was appropriately titled “Cherished Memories.”

Before loading your images into a design, you can see a screen shot of the design. By selecting Show Me, you can see a mock-up of the entire design, as it would look when you emailed it to someone. Both the screen shot and mock sample use images loaded by Smilebox, but they give you a good idea of what a finished product looks like. After we selected Personalize, the design loaded into our My Designs category, and after a few seconds, the photos in our tray automatically loaded into the image spaces.

The four-page Cherished Memories scrapbook gave off the old vibe of one that was homemade. Images of tiny clothing buttons and fabric bordered each page, along with words like “Remember” and “Legacy” written in artsy print. Eleven photos can fit into this particular scrapbook, and space labeled Add Your Text Here was available beside many of the pictures for adding personal notes.

Each image could be moved, rotated or zoomed in or out to fit the page’s layout — and all of these adjustments were made right on the page. At any time, the project can be saved and closed, or previewed in Basic or Premium modes. After tweaking to our scrapbooking heart’s content and selecting “Upbeat” music to accompany the album, we pressed Send at the top of the page, entered multiple email addresses and waited a few seconds while our design was uploaded to the Smilebox server, making it viewable for our recipients.

First-time users must enter an email address and create a password, and if you opt for the Premium version you must enter credit-card information before buying. But all of this was done within the Smilebox software, so we never felt like we left the program. Every time you email a project, a copy is sent to your email account, and a receipt for Premium purchases is also emailed.

We tried Smilebox’s postcards (one-screen shot); photobooks (a mock book designed to show two pages at a time with a crease down the middle); a slideshow titled Whizzy (20 animated photos whizzed in and out of view); and a greeting titled Spring (moving words and a beautiful cherry blossom border around a photo).

Once or twice an image or a text box didn’t show up in our final product; instead, a white box showed where the photo or description should have been. Smilebox says this will be ironed out in the June final release. We also noted that Smilebox doesn’t offer editing options, such as removing red eye in shots, like many online photo-sharing services do. But for now, the simple method of just loading photos with minimal editing seems to work.

The final release will give recipients the ability to download the photos so they can save them individually. Smilebox also plans to offer a $4.99 monthly subscription for unlimited premium designs.

We found Smilebox simply enjoyable. It jazzed up our photos with fun designs, gave us the ability to see the final product during any stage of our creating process, and didn’t take long to use. If you’re looking for a new way to share digital photos, this company’s Web site is well worth a look.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

If there’s anything Americans obsess over as much as sports, pop culture and college for their kids, it’s real estate. All over the country, people love to talk about how much their homes, and those of their neighbors, might be worth if sold today and what it would take to snag a new house.

Trouble is, it’s hard for average folks to obtain solid, neutral estimates of the market values of homes without consulting a real-estate agent. There have been a few Web sites that offer estimates of a home’s value, such as housevalues.com. But they require you to enter your contact information and to be contacted by a real-estate agent or mortgage broker in order to actually receive a detailed estimate. While these sites look like they are focused on the consumer, they are actually designed to generate sales leads for agents.

Now there’s a new, well-designed, free online service for finding the value of a home that doesn’t require you to identify yourself or to communicate with an agent or broker, and provides heaps of information directly to consumers. It’s called Zillow, and it is launching today, in beta, or test, form at zillow.com.

Zillow uses data such as tax records, sales history and the actual prices of “comparables” — homes in your area that are similar to yours — to come up with an estimate, which it calls a “Zestimate.” It backs up the estimate with lavish data — aerial photos and maps showing prices in a neighborhood; loads of charts and graphs displaying historical data and price movements, as well as details on the size and room totals of a home. It even allows you to enter information, like the types and prices of recent renovations, that might change an estimate.

A home needn’t be for sale to be searched in Zillow, which claims to cover 62 million houses and to update its estimates daily. The company, founded by people who formerly ran the Expedia travel Web site, hopes to make money through advertising.

When estimating home values, real-estate agents can draw on their industry’s massive database, called the Multiple Listing System, as well as on their own local knowledge. Zillow doesn’t have access to the MLS or to agents’ local savvy. So, it draws on roughly 10 commercial providers of real-estate data, which supply information like a home’s sale history; tax assessment and payment history; comparable-home sale prices; and numbers of rooms in a home. This information is largely collected by the commercial-data providers from government records.

Zillow also obtains some government records directly. Zillow then crunches these numbers using its own proprietary computer formula and comes up with an estimate. The company acknowledges that its raw data on comparable sales can be three to six weeks older than the data in the MLS system that agents use.

We’ve been testing Zillow for a couple of days, and we are favorably impressed. The site is fast, broad and deep. It’s easy to use and is nicely laid out. It even offers to email updates on its estimates for any property that interests you.

However, there’s one major caveat. At least for now, while Zillow is in its beta phase, its data is spotty. For some parts of the country, Zillow has lots of good data, and it works really well. For other areas, it is still collecting and compiling figures and maps, so its results are limited or it can’t provide an estimate at all. Also, different cities and counties collect different types of information, which creates big variations in the quality of data. Zillow covers condos in multiple-unit buildings, since they’re usually listed in government records as separate homes. It has trouble with co-ops in New York City and certain similar kinds of dwellings in San Francisco.

Over time, Zillow hopes to have solid estimates for all areas. For now, though, it works best in metro areas like Seattle, San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Cleveland. Results are weaker in metro areas like Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago. And they are weaker still in metro areas like New York, Houston and St. Louis.

For some cities, including Washington (but not its suburbs), Zillow has so little information — so far — that all it can offer is a tax assessment, not a true estimate. For some whole states, like Rhode Island, it has very few cities or counties covered. Because of these issues, Zillow can only generate estimates today for 42 million of its 62 million listed homes. For the others, it offers only basic facts.

A link on Zillow’s home page takes you to a separate page that reports on how much data and how much accuracy Zillow claims in counties all over the nation, as of that moment.

Still, when Zillow has enough data, it works great. Naturally, we checked out our own residences, both in the Washington-metro area. Katie’s residence showed little data, but for Walt’s house, Zillow had a ton of information and a “Zestimate” that seemed reasonable and accurate (once Zillow fixed a problem that initially skewed the estimates in his state). When he entered information for a remodeling job that took place last year, the estimate was even better.

Zillow also provided us with an address for one of its employees, in Seattle, and that house was also covered very well.

Each Zillow estimate starts with an aerial photo or regular street map showing the house (actually the legally defined real-estate parcel) in question, with its estimate, and neighboring parcels, with their values. You can tweak these maps and photos so they just show the “comparables” — houses most like yours.

Then, there are lots of tables listing the details of your home, or the home you’re checking; prices and details for nearby homes; taxes paid; and the sale history. You can learn how a home’s value compares with others in its ZIP Code, city, county, state or the whole country.

Graphs and charts show how a home’s value has risen or fallen in the past 30 days, one year, five years, 10 years or since its last sale. Throughout the site, Zillow provides explanations of various terms and what its data mean.

To refine a home’s value by adding new information, you use a section of the site called “My Zestimator,” which guides you step by step through the process. You can enter renovations, or just smaller changes, like new landscaping, that increase a home’s appeal. You can even choose your own comparables if you think Zillow missed them. You can also enter items here that you think detract from a home’s value, like a bad roof.

To avoid introducing bias into its system and to protect users’ privacy, these refined estimates aren’t saved by Zillow. They don’t change the estimate Zillow provides to other people looking up your home. Zillow works in Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows, Internet Explorer 5.5 on Macintosh and in Firefox 1.5 on both Windows and Mac.

Even now, in its test phase, Zillow is a valuable online asset for homeowners or those shopping for a home. Over time, it should get even better.

Zillow shows the estimated value of your home, and of neighboring homes, on an aerial photo, and also adds tables and graphs.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

Just a couple of months ago, in this column, we proclaimed that Apple Computer’s iMac G5, then the company’s flagship Macintosh desktop computer for consumers, was the best consumer desktop PC on the market. In fact, we called it the “gold standard” of desktop PCs and said no desktop from the major makers of Windows-based computers could match it.

Last week, in a surprise move, Apple gave the iMac a brain transplant. It chose the iMac as the first Macintosh model to be converted to work on the same Intel processors used by makers of Windows PCs, rather than the PowerPC processors from IBM that have powered Macs for many years. This was serious surgery to perform on the company’s star product and launched the planned transition to Intel much sooner than originally expected.

Apple’s new Intel-powered iMac.

Apple says it changed chips because Intel’s latest processors are faster and run cooler, and allow for more flexible and creative computer designs in the future. It says the new iMac is two to three times as fast as the old one, mainly because the Intel Core Duo chip it uses packs in the equivalent of two processors.

But there’s a downside. Nearly all existing third-party software for the Mac, including major programs like Microsoft Office, will have to be rewritten to run on the Intel processor — a process that is under way but will take months to complete. Apple had to build into the new model special, invisible, translator software that allows the older programs to run on the new chip in the meantime. This translator software, however, doesn’t work with every program and can slow down the ones it does work with.

So, how did the brain transplant go? Is the new Intel iMac as good as its predecessor? Does the machine’s raw power offset the translation slowdown?

To find out, we’ve been testing an Intel-based iMac against an iMac G5 only about a month old. The two machines look identical and sport nearly identical features. The major differences are hidden under the hood.

For days, we ran a wide variety of software on the two iMacs, and performed all of the common tasks mainstream consumers do — surfing the Web, emailing, instant messaging, word processing, using spreadsheets, editing photos, playing music, managing personal finances, playing simple games.

Our verdict: The brain transplant was a success. The two machines behaved almost identically in our tests. Compatibility is excellent. The new model easily handled all the major consumer software we threw at it. We never noticed the translator software, called Rosetta, and any slowdowns it imposed were so slight as to be indiscernible.

The new model was actually a little faster at a few of the tasks we tried, but nothing like the two to three times as fast that Apple claims. A mainstream user who didn’t know what was under the hood couldn’t tell the difference between them, even after using them for hours. It appears that the faster chip roughly balances out the translation effect.

So, if the new model works only about as well as the old one, what’s the advantage for consumers? Well, the slight, scattered, speed gains we saw should grow greater over time, as Apple and third-party software makers tweak their applications to take full advantage of the dual-core Intel chip. A year from now, an Intel iMac purchased today will likely be notably faster, if you update your software to newer versions.

But, even now, this is a terrific computer. It’s still the best consumer desktop on the market. It still runs crisply, still is free of viruses and spyware, still has the best operating system and the best built-in software of any desktop we’ve tested. Given how smoothly the new machine works, and how likely it is to get even better, we would prefer it today over the iMac G5, which Apple is still selling for the same price until inventories are gone. The G5 is still a fine machine, but the Intel model has a brighter future, and, based on our tests, it seems ready to go today.

There are a couple of caveats about our results. We tested only common consumer software and tasks, not heavy-duty or professional applications, like Adobe Photoshop, or professional music and video programs, which tend to stress the processor. Some of these nonconsumer products won’t work right until they are rewritten.

Also, there are two drawbacks to the Intel-based iMac that we judged relatively unimportant to most users, but which could be crucial to some. It can’t run old, pre-2001 Mac programs that were written for the old Mac operating system, called “Classic.” And, even though it now uses the same processors that Windows machines do, the new iMac can’t run Virtual PC, the Microsoft program that allows Macs to run Windows software. Microsoft is rewriting Virtual PC for the new Macs but won’t be done until 2007. Some other company may bring out a way to run Windows stuff on the new Mac sooner than that. But, for now, it can’t run Windows programs.

On the other hand, the new iMac has a few advantages. It has a faster video card than the old model and a digital video connector rather than an analog connector.

Doom 3, a non-Apple program, ran well on the new iMac.

From the outside, the two machines are twins. Apple was careful to keep the same physical design, a beautiful white flat-panel monitor with the entire guts of the computer stashed behind the screen in an amazingly thin space. Both have a built-in camera and microphone. The user interface and software features are also identical. Both models run the same excellent Mac OS X operating system. And both also include Front Row, the special interface that allows you to view photos and videos, and play music, from across a room using a small, included remote control.

Even the price of the new model is the same — $1,299 for a version with a 17-inch screen and $1,699 for one with a 20-inch screen.

For our tests, we copied all the third-party software and files from our iMac G5 to the Intel iMac, so the machines were configured comparably. Both had the same amount of memory, the same DVD drives and the same Internet connections.

We ran a mix of Apple and third-party software. We weren’t surprised that all the Apple programs, like iTunes and iPhoto and the Safari Web browser, ran perfectly and swiftly. Apple has already rewritten them for the Intel chip.

But we were pleasantly surprised by the performance of non-Apple programs. We tested Microsoft Office, Adobe Reader, the Firefox Web browser, Skype, Google Earth, Quicken, the Eudora email program, Doom 3, Kodak EasyShare and others — none of which had been rewritten. All launched quickly and ran smoothly and well.

We did find one program that wouldn’t run at all on the Intel iMac: AOL for Mac OSX. But AOL’s main features can all now be accessed from its Web site, so you don’t need this software in most cases.

Web pages loaded swiftly on the new iMac, though not markedly faster than on the old model. We changed the font on a thousand-word document in Microsoft Word and saw no lag at all. We created a chart in Microsoft Excel, and it appeared almost instantly. Email worked indistinguishably well.

This column was written in Word on the Intel iMac, and there were no glitches or hitches or hang-ups of any kind.

On four of our test tasks, the new model outperformed the old one significantly — all in Apple software that had been rewritten for the new chip. It was 15% faster at importing music from a CD, using iTunes. It was 42% faster at converting a video clip from one format to another, using Apple’s QuickTime program. It was 44% faster at importing nine large digital photos into iPhoto. And it was 24% faster at duplicating a huge folder filled with more than 27,000 files occupying more than 12 gigabytes of space.

Why didn’t our results support Apple’s claim of a two to three times speed gain? Like most computer companies, Apple bases such claims on special, complicated benchmark software that doesn’t necessarily match up with the kinds of mainstream consumer tasks we tested.

The bottom line: Apple’s iMac, with its new Intel processor, is still the gold standard of consumer desktop PCs. And it stands to get better over time.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com.