Yes, this shameful excuse of an iPhone shot of the hotel pool (SOMEone forgot to bring a camera cord, but we're getting one later) is all we've got so far to prove to you that we're live in Anaheim, but it's true -- WoW Insider has returned to the OC (don't call it that) for another BlizzCon's worth of memories, Blizzard news and announcements, and just a generally great time.

Stay tuned all weekend for updates -- we've got our reader meetup tonight and a live recording of our podcast tomorrow for people here, and if you're at home, we're going to bring you everything you need to feel like you're here anyway: galleries, liveblogs, interviews, impressions, and everything else we can squeeze into two-and-a-half days of Blizzard nirvana.

It's going to be fun. Now if you'll excuse us, badge pickup doesn't start until 4. Where exactly can we grab some food around here?

Recently, rumors have been spreading about a mobile application for WoW. Blizzard has been trying to get some information through a series of mobile service polls on the forums. Bornakk began a poll regarding the number of times forum users have downloaded games or applications for cellular devices. In the cellular era, Blizzard appears to be making our favorite MMORPG more mobile friendly.

Many of the posters indicated that they have the latest in smartphones and thus are constantly adding new aps. This will likely encourage Blizzard to provide better mobile support. This will be handy considering that they have been resistant to third party mobile applications.

Blizzplanet continues to track down hints at what Blizzard might be planning in the mobile space, i.e. on the iPhone or another mobile computing platform (that Android Dream demo looked pretty sweet, too). Recently, Blizzard posted a job opening for a web software engineer, and while of course that could be for improvements to the Armory, or for the upcoming changes to Battle.net, but considering that many mobile apps are web apps nowadays, that position could definitely be put to work developing a web interface specifically for mobile platforms.

And the second hint is a little more concrete: our sister site Massively has mentioned Vollee before -- they're a company that claims to be able to stream a PC game experience to a mobile platform like the iPhone. They've already created a Second Life client, and Blizzplanet notes that in one of their recent press releases, they mention that they've been working with Activision Blizzard on a partnership. There are a lot of games under the Activision Blizzard banner nowadays, of course, but WoW is the biggest one of them, and it's definitely the MMO Vollee would want to be working on.

Blizzard hasn't officially announced any version or WoW application for any mobile platforms, of course, and even if one was in the planning stages, there's no guarantee we'd ever see it in an releaseable form. But there's definitely a call to bring facets of World of Warcraft to mobile computing, and if they can work it out in a form they find acceptable, it would undoubtedly be popular.

Blizzard has been hiring mobile developers for a little while now, and we might finally be getting a hint as to why. Theoria, the developer of Armory Browser, recently received a cease and desist letter from Blizzard legal, and will therefore be suspending development on the program, and pulling its distribution on Monday the 25th. Armory Browser is a $0.99 app for viewing Armory profiles on the iPhone/iPod Touch. The interesting part is that it contains all original artwork – nothing taken from Blizz – and, as the author puts it, is "basically a fancy web browser." So why should Blizzard bother putting a stop to it, when it doesn't really infringe?

Well, maybe they're writing their own. Legions of WoW fans would certainly love to have a little bit of the game to carry around in their pockets, whether it's mobile auctions or just an Armory viewer. I've certainly installed an Armory viewing app already, and I just got my iPhone three days ago. Anyway, the only way I can make sense out of Blizzard bothering to put a stop to this little development project is if they want their own software to be the only iPhone Armory browser out there. Or it could also be because they don't like someone else making money off their game – $0.99 isn't much, but it's something, and as far as I know the free Warcraft Characters app is still in the clear. I prefer to believe it's a sign of a Blizzard iPhone project in the works, though.

There have been a few tweaks and updates the past few days around here at WoW Insider. First of all, you've probably noticed that our comments system has been upgraded a bit, and now in addition to signing in with your standard Weblogs, Inc. name and password (more information about how to do that here), you can choose to sign in with with your AOL or AIM screenname. Unfortunately, there is no way to link your Weblogs, Inc. profile (which you can see by clicking on your name in any of your comments) with your AIM screenname, so you'll have to recreate your profile (or just keep using your old signin). But if you're new to the comments section, you can now use your AOL SN to leave a comment. This is a fairly new system, so there are still a few glitches floating around -- if you have a problem with anything, let us know, and we'll try to fix it and/or get back to you.

Since we're talking about profiles, now might also be a good time to point out that you can change that default picture that goes with your profile. We've got lots of icons to choose from (and even more here), so if you're still using that boring gray question mark face (what are you, a low level questgiver?) spice it up a little bit by clicking on your profile page and putting a picture in there. The more colorful our comments section can get, the better.

And finally, some good news for iPhone and iPod touch users -- while you can always see the full version of our site on those devices by using MobileSafari to go to wowinsider.com, you can now see an iPhone-formatted page at i.wowinsider.com. And if we may say so, our designers did a really great job on it. They continue to work hard to make our site better all the time, so stay tuned for more updates to WoW Insider and the other sites in the Joystiq network.

The Warcraft Characters app for iPhone that we reported on a while ago has been updated to version 2.0, and with it come a host of terrific improvements. As we were told last time, gear has been added in, so your iPhone can not only show you information about your (or anyone else's) characters, but it can now also show you all of their gear, and even reputation status. And there's good news for non-US users, too: the app now supports characters from any and all realms, not just US and EU, but Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese realms as well. The only thing that's still missing is seeing individual talents -- otherwise, it's as featured an app as you can get. Sure, guild search and stats might be nice, and there's always extra features like be.imba integration, or character comparisons, but as a portable Armory, it works great as is. We're not sure if this is all Rudi's work or a result of a teamup with Omen of Clarity (who's been working on an iPhone web app for a while), but either way, great job.

And there's a shiny new icon, too (and I like it a lot better). Characters is now available on the iPhone's App Store for the low, low price of free.

Not to be outdone by yesterday's Characters app for the iPhone, Michael Gaines has posted his own WoW app to the iTunes App Store, this one tracking server status easily and quickly in iPhone format. WarcraftStat is as simple as they come -- you get a list of all the servers, their PvP/PvE designation, their population label, and the little arrows found on the usual realm status page showing whether you're good to go for ganking noobs in Westfall, or the realm is still down.

Unfortunately, all of the realms are a little much -- I'd kind of rather choose a couple of pertinent realms to me and only see those on the page. And notification of when a realm goes up or down might be nice, too, not to mention that the app is currently US realms only. But as an app that tells you whether realms are up or down, WarcraftStat does its job. It's on the App Store right now, and available for a free download.

[ Thanks, Brad! ]

Finally, we've got a WoW app for the iPhone, but it's not quite what we'd expected. Apparently tired of waiting for Blizzard to release an official app, Rudi has taken things into his own hands and released Characters for the iPhone, a slim little app that lets you pull up your characters (or anyone elses), and browse through their Armory stats.

I installed the app (it's free), and took a look at it -- unfortunately it's not very robust, as there's no way to see gear (unlike Omen of Clarity's iArmory web app), but it does run great and look shiny. Upon running the app, you can just punch in your character's info (or anyone else's -- all you need is a name and realm), and it'll get added to your list. Choosing one sends you to screens where you can see information about professions and talents, ability stats, or combat stats.

And that's pretty much it -- more is planned, including reputation, talents, and items panes. EU and China support should be up in a few days (right now, it only works on US characters, and of course it depends on the Armory being up to update). Very nice for a first try, but we still can't wait until we see something a little more in-depth, or, dare we ask whoever's working in Blizzard's mobile division, even official.

Note: This writeup is current as of version 1.0. Later versions of the app will likely include added functionality.



Update: Good news from OOC: he and Rudi are planning to work together on the Characters app, which means it should soon have all the functionality of the iArmory web application, and then some. Saved characters? Character compare? Guild progression and be.imba integration? Yes please!

Previously we reported that a mobile version of WoW was being seriously considered at Blizzard. However, with the finalization of the Activision Blizzard merger, the odds of being able to play WoW on your iPhone just got a lot lower. The newly-merged company is laying off 53 employees in the Issaquah, Washington area by September 27, 2008. Additionally, they are evaluating whether they will keep Vivendi Games Mobile, an arm of the company which develops games for the various mobile markets, like phones. If Activision Blizzard does decide to divest themselves of VGM, you can probalby kiss your hopes for WoW mobile goodbye since the synergy and cost-effectiveness of having the mobile developers under the same roof will disappear. I'm not saying that the WoW developers aren't beyond creating their own mobile infrastructure, or even paying higher prices for it to an external company, but it will be much less likely if they don't have the luxury of teaming with folks who all report up the through same corporate food chain.

Among the other companies which Activision Blizzard says are eligible for the chopping block are Sierra Online, Massive Entertainment and Swordfish Studios, with staffing "realignments" likely at Radical Entertainment and High Moon Studios -- the loss of any of which will likely have no effect on WoW development, but may affect other games. Activision has announced that a few highly-anticipated titles are on the bubble, including Ghostusters and Double Fine's Brutal Legend among others. I sure hope they don't mess with Double Fine, since I am a huge Tim Schafer fan, but the upside is that it looks like the new company will have an even stronger focus on keeping their cash cow, WoW, healthy and grazing in the pasture for a long while to come.

The idea of mobile MMORPGs has come up before. Blizzard is on board with the idea of a mobile WoW interface of some sort, and have even hired mobile engineers and designers. Second Life has started down the path too. Still, for all the promise of being able to run Deadmines while you're stuck in the back of a car on a cross country drive, or churning out Netherweave Bags while you're waiting at the clinic for your semi-annual medical checkup, it seems like there's hurdles yet to overcome. The biggest one, of course, is getting a mobile device to pack enough power to render WoW's graphics and keep track of all the information that WoW needs to run.

Luckily, it looks like Intel and Comverse are on the case for us. The two companies have worked together to create a 3D streaming system that compiles and renders all the graphics and data of an MMORPG on a central server, then sends it to the mobile device. You can read their researcher's post about it on the Intel blog site. You can also see the process demonstrated with Second Life in the video above, although there's not really a good shot of the mobile device screen to show us how well it actually works, unfortunately.

Still, if they can get the technology working feasibly, it should definitely put us one giant step closer to a relatively full fledged mobile WoW client. When the day comes that we can grind dailies on our iPhones, it may be that we'll have Intel to thank.

[Thanks to Bitterzoet for the tip!]

A few places are reporting, including our sister site Massively, that a company named Vollee has brought their mobile phone version of Second Life live and online. As you can see in the video on the website, it works, though it's not exactly an ideal way to play the game. They don't go into details on how it works, obviously, but my guess would be some kind of java browser emulation of a real client.

Why are we talking about Second Life on WoW Insider? Because odds are that some kind of mobile WoW app is not far behind. Vollee would certainly love to be the ones to do it (they even say that you can enter "World of Second Life" on their website), but unlike Blizzplanet, I really don't think they will be -- odds are that any mobile app won't be a full client, but rather will be a chat or AH app of some kind ("BattleChat" has already been mentioned by Blizzard), and it'll likely be designed by Blizzard themselves.

But there's no question that there's a huge frontier for this sort of thing. Within the next month, Apple is set to release the iPhone's "App Store" (a distribution platform for mobile applications and games), and we have to imagine that a mobile announcement or even a release from Blizzard will come soon after that.

If you're like me, you probably geek out at every bit of news that leaks out from the Wrath of the Lich King Alpha. Granted, there really aren't supposed to be any, but we fanboys take whatever we can. The curious thing is, what's the big deal? It's a game that was announced almost a year ago and doesn't look like it will come out anytime soon. Furthermore, the biggest things about the expansion such as the Death Knight hero class and Inscription profession has already been revealed.

But every little thing stokes the fires of anticipation -- at least for me -- and even silly things like icons of items make my stupidly grin. Never mind that Blizzard has put a tight lid on everything, or at least tried, but it's kind of like Apple trying to put a lid on the iPhone before it came out. Everyone knew it was coming even though Apple wanted to keep it a secret, but in the end, people snapped it up anyway. Wrath of the Lich King is kind of like that. We scrape and claw for every little bit of information, from spells to screenshots to images of possible armor sets.

It's a huge deal for me because as much as I still enjoy playing the game now, I'm really hungry for something more. The only thing I'll ever see in Sunwell Plateau is Kil'jaeden's 'welcome' doormat. Maybe. So while the Alpha might be scraps as far as information goes, I'm devouring every bit of information like a famished man. How about you? Are you excited about information leaking from the Alpha? Does it whet your appetite for Wrath of the Lich King? What information are you most concerned about?

Elad Shahar, a student at University of Massachusetts Lowell, has developed a web interface that will allow you to search the Armory on your iPhone or iPod touch's MobileSafari. He's released a new version today, polished to the point where he's looking for people to help him test the application and to offer ideas and suggestions.

iArmory lets you do the searches you'd expect -- by player or guild -- and serves up results in a clean, Apple-like format that's designed especially for the iPhone's screen. The one catch is that the Armory has been stripped of its images, including items, tooltips, and fancy borders. What you get is a simple text display of the information you searched for. You can see images of the interface on Elad's website, Omen of Clarity.

So, if you are, you know, hip enough to own an iPhone or an iPod touch (which I'm, uh, not), and you are reading this post (which means you probably play WoW), then get your Armory-lovin' self over to Omen of Clarity's contact page and volunteer your services as a tester. Git, I said!

Here's another user-made iPhone theme featuring the icons from World of Warcraft, made and sent to us by Nasum of Garithos, Hordeside. We covered one of these almost a year ago when the iPhone first came out, but this one is apparently made from scratch, and features the new iTunes store as well as an icon for the Installer.app (man, today is just a Mac gear day on WoW Insider, isn't it? I feel like I'm blogging for TUAW).

Hopefully, when the official iPhone app store drops in June, we'll see some non-jailbreak uses of this stuff -- right now, to use either one of these themes on the phone, you have to hack into the firmware and go places Apple doesn't officially want you to go. But those WoW icons definitely work great for all kinds of things: even Blizzard officially put them to OS use in a downloadable theme for XP. There are so many WoW icons floating around that they're a natural (if not exactly legal) fit for almost any use -- here's hoping that in June, Apple's SDK will turn out at least one theming program, and we'll be able to do this stuff without hacking away at the iPhone.

Update: Nasum (whose name we spelled wrong originally, sorry about that) says the theme is now in Installer.app, if you'd like to install it yourself.

Two new improvements to announce on this, your favorite site about World of Warcraft. First of all, iPhone and iPod touch users will likely be happy to see that this site, along with all the others in the Joystiq network, are now equipped with Webclip icons (these are epic icons with a +15 to stamina, which any iPhone user will appreciate). Just make a Webclip with the browser on your iPhone or iPod touch, and our shiny icon will automatically appear on your home screen.

Also, we are extremely proud to announce that we have some shiny new galleries here on the site -- our design team has implemented an awesome (and slick black) interface for browsing all of the pics we've ever posted so far, so if you've never browsed our patch 2.4, BlizzCon costumes, Around Azeroth or Tales from the Lion's Pride Inn galleries, now's the time to do so.

More design updates are still on the way here at WoW Insider -- stay tuned!