As another week passes, the seams of Apple’s App Store have been stretched even further with a deluge of new releases. Digging through the latest apps, I’ve selected four fresh picks for you to check out.

It’s Halloween and so my top pick for this week is Alive 4-ever, a top-down zombie shooter with plenty of guts and gore to go around. I’ve also been checking out TowerMadness Zero, NASA and WordPress 2.

Alive 4-ever ($1.79)

As it’s Halloween, I thought that at least one of my top picks this week should be themed for the occasion. Despite the clumsy sounding name, Alive 4-Ever is a surprisingly polished top-down shooter. The plot is simple and disgustingly clich: for whatever reason, a zombie apocalypse happens, you take to the streets to rescue other survivors.

The game takes its inspiration from some of the best zombie titles out there, including Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead. There’s a battalion’s worth of weaponry on offer, including zombie-slaying classics like the AK-47. Plus, if you’re after more firepower you’re able to purchase bigger, stronger, faster guns in the shop after each level.

There’s also a Bluetooth multiplayer mode, allowing you to jump into the action with three other friends. Alongside guns, zombies and survivors, the game throws in experience points too. Completing a stage earns experience points, these precious points go towards upgrading your character. In effect, you’re able to become the ultimate undead-destroying warrior.

TowerMadness Zero (Free)

Earlier this month, our own Alfredo Padilla took a look at 49 different tower defense games for the iPhone. Owing to the epic nature of his list, days later Alfredo distilled the document down into five tower defense games worth owning. All of Alfredo’s picks costs a few bucks though and, in this cash-strapped climate, some of us don’t have much money to burn on iPhone games.

That’s where TowerMadness steps in. The game is available in two monetary flavors. You can purchase it for a couple of bucks, or you can download the Zero edition: a totally unrestricted ad-supported version of the game for free. The ads are unintrusive and targeted in such a way that, for the most part, they feel relevant.

Of course the iPhone doesn’t need another tower defense game. Aside from being free, TowerMadness is a pretty good representation of the best qualities of the genre. All the usual TD staples are there — waves of enemies, upgradable towers, strategic play — but it’s all wrapped up in excellent graphics too.

NASA (Free)

National organizations seem to be slowly switching on to the iPhone. Last year, the BBC decided to create an iPhone-specific version of its excellent iPlayer site. Canada’s National Film Board just released a wonderful app for viewing its content on the go. And now NASA has released its very own app, allowing us earthlings to keep up-to-date with space mission news.

The app is essentially like having a tiny mission-control in the palm of your hand. There’s a listing of all NASA Missions, all of which have awesome names like Mars Express and Mars Odyssey. Tapping through to a mission section provides a mission briefing, photos, videos and an ever-so-slightly ominous countdown timer.

For me, the best part of the app is the video section. Rather than attempt to visualize the various space happenings described in the app, the videos bring these extraordinary happens closer to home. You can observe spacecraft launches, see astronauts float around in zero gravity, listen to people in space describe their experiences, and watch history in the making.

WordPress 2 (Free)

The original WordPress app just wasn’t so hot. With a clunky and convoluted interface that was all function and no form, it immediately felt dated. And, for writers and bloggers alike, it certainly wasn’t the most inspiring environment in which to attempt to pen a post.

The user interface has been updated but still, on first look, the app looks worryingly basic. In fact, it’s disconcertingly similar to its clunky counterpart, WordPress 1. I appreciate that the WordPress app is here to serve a function, but, discounting features, surely it could have been executed with a little more pizazz?

Anyway, looks are not the most important thing with WordPress 2. This version introduces several new features to the mix. There’s automatic saving and restoring of posts. A new comments interface which includes author URL and Gravatars. The app even stores password in the keychain. If you’ve got your own WordPress blog, this is certainly an app worth checking out.

Thats all the picks for this week. Ill be back in seven days with a fresh selection of App Store recommendations.

In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?

Recently I read about the First & 20 project, an effort to share the home screens of various technorati. When I heard about it I immediately shot off to the page to look through the home screens. I was most excited about the possibility of finding new applications. As we all know, one of the hardest things about the app store is app discovery. I thought a collection of applications selected by tech-savvy people like me would be a gold mine of good, new apps I could try out.

Imagine my surprise when I found not a single new app I wanted to try. Even more surprising was how the same third-party applications appeared over and over again on people’s home screens. And the vast majority of those were applications that I either used myself or had tried in the past. Just because I have all the time in the world I decided to have fun with some math.Of the total applications found on the home screens of the First & 20 site, 77 different third-party applications were listed. 46 of those were found only once, or just under 60 percent of the total, while 31 were found multiple times. That might seem innocuous, but when you look at the total number of application slots taken up by the two groups, the numbers flip dramatically.

In total, 162 slots were taken up by third-party applications. The 40 percent of applications that were found more than once took up over 71 percent of those slots on home screens. The reason, of course, is that the distribution of applications found more than once. As you can see below,Tweetie was mentioned 11 times, while Birdfeed was mentioned eight times, etc.

To expand the sample a bit more, I took a survey of home screens of TAB writers and added that to the First & 20 data. The result was almost identical in terms of percentages, as you can see below.

Yay numbers, but what does all this actually mean? What it indicates to me is just how meaningless Apple’s constant prattering about the total number of apps in the app store is. The reality is that only a small percentage of those applications are good enough to make it onto the home screens of the most discerning users. I mentioned above the problem that led me to eagerly check out the First & 20 site: the fact that finding good applications is so hard. The more useless apps continue to enter the app store, the greater this problem becomes.

It also seems to me that the barrier to compete successfully with the app store is significantly lower than some would imagine. The reality is you don’t have to have 90,000 applications to compete with the iPhone and iPod touch. You probably actually only need 1,000 very good applications on your platform. This was driven home for me when I recently saw that Android now has applications for Facebook, Remember the Milk, Pandora, Amazon and Open Table, all apps that I use on my iPhone and apps that make it easier for me to switch to Android.

Apple seems to be trying to address the problem of too many apps through in-app purchases, which holds the promise of finally killing those extraneous “lite” applications, as well as, hopefully, killing off the plethora of single book applications available on the store. But problems remain, like the fact that you don’t see app ratings while searching through the app store. In the meantime, my aimless search for quality iPhone apps continues.

We’ve all seen the Steve Jobs, the iPhone, the iPod, and the Mac costumes, but what do you do if you want to stand out from the crowd? The motto of our beloved company has long been “Think Different,” and it’s about time we bring that to the Halloween arena, too.

The day itself is tomorrow, so I’m providing some suggestions that haven’t been done to death, and that will go over especially well if you go to your local Mac club’s Halloween bash this weekend.

Costume #1: John Sculley

The Jobs costume, and even the Woz costume, are common enough, and Flickr is replete with examples of both. What isn’t so common is people opting to dress up like former Apple CEO John Sculley, who was Apple’s CEO when Steve Jobs was ousted from the company.

To dress up as Sculley, think conventional business person. A dark suitand sensible, solid-colored tie is best. Use some flour or temporary coloring in your hair to achieve a salt-and-pepper type look. Carry a bottle of Pepsi, or, as Steve Jobs likes to call it, “sugared water.” Carry a Newton in the other hand if you can find one. Also bring with you many copies of your autobiography “Odyssey” and distribute to everyone you meet.

Costume #2: The Apple Lisa

It’s easy to dress like the original Mac, since the shape is basically the same as a large cardboard box which you can then detail as needed. What’s more challenging, and therefore more impressive if you do pull it off, is the Apple Lisa.

The Lisa, released in 1983, was a beast compared to the Mac, a wide squat gal with two 5.25-inch floppy drives stacked next to the built-in monitor. You could manage this on your own, but for more accuracy, partner up and make this a two person costume. For added fun, create an Apple ProFile external hard disk replica and wear it atop your Lisa costume. When people accuse you of being unsuccessful, retort with “At least NASA loved me!”

Costume #3: Hexley the Platypus

Who doesn’t love the adorable mascot of Apple’s open source operating system, Darwin? His name is Hexley, and he’s a platypus, and he’s unsanctioned by Apple. Whether or not he’s officially approved of by Apple, which bases OS X on the Darwin POSIX-compliant operating system, as a costume idea, he’s rife with potential.

At the very least, you’ll need a full-body platypus costume, which can’t be that hard to find. Just look in the “marsupial” section at your local dress-up shop. If all the platypus costumes are already rented, a black duck-bill and a flat, broad tail will suffice.

If you really want to go all out, you’ll also need a soft red cap with devil horns attached to it, and a big red pitchfork. Other optional props include a perfect floating sphere of water, a giant-size old-fashioned key, and a giant worm. If you feel like being even more obscure, try other Apple-related mascots like Clarus the Dogcow.

Costume #4: The Moscone Center

It’s the building where virtually every major Apple event goes down, including the Macworld Expo, and the Worldwide Developers Conference. It’s also probably the most challenging costume on this list, but if you go for the very recognizable corner view seen in the photo shown here, it might not be that difficult.

Wear two large pieces of cardboard joined to form a corner. Round the top, and coat with yellow tissue paper to mimic the inside lighting. Cover with a top layer of cellophane or transparency material to emulate the windows, and make sure to paint in window separators and apply giant Apple decals. Make a “street” attached to the bottom of the costume, and glue toy cars to it for added realism.

There you have it, four ways to stand out from the crowd this Halloween, and show your love of Apple. Also a great way to alienate non-techies and possibly get beat up, if you’re still in high school.

60 years ago this month, Mao Zedong declared the birth of the People’s Republic of China, but it was Apple VP Greg Joswiak who said this was “an extraordinary day” for China. The iPhone has (officially) arrived.

The most sought after smartphone in the world has entered the most sought after market. More than 700 million cell phone users now have access to the iPhone without a trip to the grey market, if they can afford it.

According to the Wall Street Journal, China Unicom is selling the iPhone 3GS for 6,999 yuan, or $1,024 without a contract. AT&T charges $699 for the same model without a contract in the U.S. Add in the cost of a service contract, and over two years a Chinese subscriber will pay around $3,000, approximately the yearly average salary. Not surprisingly, the Wall Street Journal trots out that tired bromide about Apple products: price.

“It’s too expensive,” says Marco Bai, a teacher in Beijing. He currently uses a smart phonea handset with souped-up functions like email and videomade by a Chinese domestic brand that cost him about $205. “There are many smart phones with similar functions” to the iPhone in China, he says. “And they are all cheaper.”

How many earnings reports and ever-increasing market share graphs will it take to convince skeptics that people are willing to pay more for a better product? More than 100 million Chinese use their mobile phones to access the Internet. Considering the iPhone’s superior web browsing experience, it’s easy to imagine millions of iPhones sold in China. In fact, it’s already happened.

The grey-market of around two million iPhones is possibly the biggest competitor to the official model. All of those imported units have Wi-Fi too, unlike the iPhones currently being sold by China Unicom due to government restrictions. However, the ban on Wi-Fi has been lifted, so future iPhones in China will have Wi-Fi.

Setting aside doom and gloom from the Wall Street Journal, the Chinese market arguably will become second in importance only to the U.S. market. Remember when Steve Jobs predicted that Apple would get one percent of the cell phone market in 2008? In China for 2010, one percent would be seven million iPhones, a third of what the company sold last year worldwide.

Clearly, the revolution is at hand.

Following a presumably unintentional disclosure in the terms of service for the iTunes Store, Apple has released Apple TV 3.0, as well as a corresponding update for iTunes.

As previously reported, Apple TV 3.0 supports iTunes LP and iTunes Extras, and does so with a new look. According to Eddy Cue, Apple VP of Internet Services, the new interface “gives you instant access to your favorite content.” The new interface continues an evolution away from Apple’s other media software, Front Row.

In addition to the “widescreen” interface, Apple TV 3.0 also includes Genius Mixes, Internet radio, and photo enhancements. For the latter, users can now flip through photos grouped by event, while face recognition software similar to iPhoto puts “snapshots” of each person named on a corkboard background. It’s sort of like wanted ads at the Post Office.

As for iTunes, besides supporting Apple TV 3.0, the 90 MB update adds “an option for a dark background for Grid View, and improves support for accessibility.” What’s not mentioned in the support note is that iTunes has once again been fixed to keep Palm from leeching off Apple via the Pre syncing with iTunes. Get a life, Palm.

That would probably be good advice for the Apple TV, too. While additional features are always good, features people really want are even better. Is the Apple TV really going to be the last one in the living room to support Netflix without hacks like XBMC?