Companies usually release accessories to make up for any oversight or customer dissatisfaction. This is why reality shows need to cast people with histrionic personality disorders.

The iPhone, though it is perhaps more addictive than reality shows, has a discontenting attribute of its own; people either love the iPhone’s virtual keyboard or they hate it. Those who hate it usually buy a BlackBerry or, if they like a gamble, a Droid.

But Apple, like all great reality shows, is always seeking more, which is why they released the 4iThumbs, an iPhone attachment that allows the user to type with an actual keyboard.

The 4iThumbs functions as a screen overlay that adds minute bumps on your iPhone display that correspond to where the keys are on the vertical keyboard.

here's God using his 4ithumbs

Yes, it’s like the iTwinge, except it’s clear and doesn’t add extra bulk to your pockets. So you could say the 4iThumb is like an iPhone condom for safe typing.

Until now, the hearsay is that people either love it or they’re indifferent. So if it’s a failure, the 4iThumbs will be another indistinguishable nick in Apple’s reputation. And if it’s a success, it’s another nail in the coffin of the iPhone’s competitors. Either way, it has a pretty good chance of being mentioned on VH1’s I Love the Aughts in a few years.

Now where's my cat?

In October 2008, Google unveiled Google Earth for the iPhone and the iPod touch, and it quickly became the second most downloaded free application, and by far the most popular app that at least makes an attempt to be educational.

So recently, Google announced version 2.0 of Google Earth for the iPhone, in which the new features include support for 31 languages, and icons that glow when you select them so you know what you’re doing.

In addition, it now has the ability to import custom maps, which means that you’ll never get lost on your way to the geography bee.

And if you want to obsessively check your coordinates, decipher crop circles, and breech national security, you can still do that too.

no, this isn't your mother-in-law

The culinary craft is usually passed down through families like figurines, wedding dresses, and, not coincidentally, high cholesterol. But to supplement your familial memes, the new app TurkeyTimer assists with the browning of Thanksgiving’s beast.

To use TurkeyTimer, input your turkey’s weight, the desired internal temperature, and whether it’s stuffed. The app then tells you exactly how long to cook the turkey and at what temperature.

As a bonus, TurkeyTimer tells you how brown your turkey should be and when it’s time to baste.

You could just ask your mother, grandmother, Google, or someone at the grocery store, but $2.99 for an umpteenth opinion may still be worth it. After all, you don’t want the main dish of the most voracious meal on the most voracious day of the year to taste like beef jerky. Unless of course you’re taking a road trip on Thanksgiving, in which case I recommend highlighting the meal with generic energy drinks and chewing tobacco.

Though one dollar doesn’t buy much anymore, it can still buy you a heart attack, as those McDonald’s commercials claim. But I can do one better: one dollar may be able to buy you a good night’s sleep for the rest of your life, or at least until you get a new smartphone.

Someone needs the sleep cycle alarm clock

The Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock app for the iPhone uses its accelerometer to analyze your movements throughout the night in order to detect your sleep cycles as you toss and turn, hence the name. After a few nights of getting a base reading of your sleep patterns, it determines exactly what your sleep cycles are, and wakes you up when it’s appropriate—that is, when your not in deep, REM sleep.

When you set your wake up time on the alarm clock, the sleep cycle will pay careful attention to your body movements in the 30 minutes leading up to that time. It will then wake you when you are in the lightest stages of sleep, making what some think to be the most dreadful part of the day much less dreadful, or perhaps exhilarating.

Word on the street is that this app, though only 99 cents, works wonders. People who never wake up the first time their alarm goes off have been waking up as if they’re a kid on Christmas morning.

Skeptics have been chalking up the results of sleep cycle alarm clock to the placebo effect, but the thing about placebos is that they work.