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To anyone who’s ever written a line of code, pre-canned/auto-generated apps are the scourge of the App Store world. For anyone who just wants to be able to say “Me? There’s an app for that! LOL!” without having to dedicate their lives to waging war against semi-colons and pouring through documentation, however, they’re a god send.

Love’em or hate’em, Nokia has just embraced’em. They’ve just launched a new tool, Ovi App Wizard, purposed with turning any feed (be it RSS, Twitter, Facebook, or what have you) into an Ovi Store App in around 10 minutes.

The process seems pretty simple: Name it, pick a few RSS feeds, choose the colors, and then set up the distribution options. If you’re looking to cash in, you’ve got two choices: toss in a pre-fabbed ad system and take a cut of the revenue, or — if you’re feeling ambitious about your work — you can pick a price. Hit the publish button, and about 24 hours later, blammo – you’re famous. Well, not famous. But you have an Ovi Store App. That’s almost the same thing, right?

It’s always a good thing when an App Store operator makes their outlet more accessible — but this really just seems like a ploy to boost their number of apps through quantity-over-quality. If 10,000 people make an application out of their Twitter feed, that’s 10,000 new apps Nokia can boast about – but how many of those will actually see more than a handful of downloads? Is an app really an app if the only person who downloads it is your Mom?

There’s a reason Apple is banning these sorts of apps.

Check out Ovi App Wizard here.

It is almost the end of another week here at Geeky Gadgets, it certainly has been an interesting week, with the all the stuff surrounding the leaked iPhone prototype, plus a load of new gadgets being announced.

As usual in our search for the coolest new gadgets, gizmo’s and geeky gear we have found lots of interesting gadgets, unfortunately we haven’t had the time to write about each and every one, so here is our weekly round up of the coolest gadgets we missed this week.

Helicam Combines Toy Helicopter and Camera for HD Videos

Flash 10.1 for Android to arrive in June

Newsroom replaces paper scripts with iPads. Annual savings: $24,000

The Stylish Nekura Twilight Watch From Tokyoflash Japan

Quadski: The Cool Amphibious Vehicle

Allerta inPulse BlackBerry Watch

Leaving a Note on Their Pillow has a Whole New Meaning

Google Maps Navigation Review (UK) A Free Mobile Phone Sat Nav!

CoPilot Live HD GPS app for iPad 3G

News: Samsung Galaxy A Android smartphone launches in Korea

stained glass tv test pattern: calibrate your windows

Stuffed Iron Man Doll USB Flash Drive with Flashing Chest Light

Superhero Sculptures

3D Motorola Ming clamshell

Gsou USB webcam features anti-peep capability

Engineers plan giant underwater dome to combat Gulf oil spill

Soulra Solar Powered iPod Speaker

The Buzzinator Will Tear Woody Apart

Shed those extra pounds with Autom the talking coach robot

M55 EVO-001 electric bike is hand built and too expensive for you

An LG tie-in with the upcoming Iron Man 2 leaked today, and it gives us our first official look at the phone that will undoubtedly be coming very, very soon: what was once known as the LG Aloha, and since has been dubbed the LG Ally. Aside from just the name change, it is looking like the new Android phone from Verizon — and first from LG — will not be what we expected. Rather than the silver-colored QWERTY device with an offset trackpad under the screen we have become accustomed with, we are getting an all black handset with a more familiar Verizon Android feel.

Yes, it is still a QWERTY slide-out, but indications are that this phone will not be the high-powered 1GHz monster people were hoping for. Instead you can expect the phone to have a lower powered 600MHz ARM11 chip, according to sources over at Android and Me.

Many may wonder why a new Android would come so close to the HTC Droid Incredible, but I will remind you it isn’t unprecedented for Verizon. The LG Ally will most likely be to the Droid Incredible what the Droid Eris was to the original Droid (whew, that was a lot of Droid-age).

Expect more info to be coming very shortly, as the commercial directs viewers to LG.com/ally, which further directs you to LGIM2.com, which promises updates coming on April 30th (today).

[via Android and Me]

Breaking news, fresh off of the wire: HP just finalized agreements to buy Palm for $1.2 billion dollars.

HP’s $1.2 billion dollar purchase breaks down to roughly $5.70 per share of common stock. While this is spot on with the $1.2-$1.3 billion pricetag Palm was rumored to be shopping around as of late, it’s still a mammoth difference from what Palm was trading at just months ago. In October 2009, Palm was worth about $17.46 per share; by January of this year, that was down to $13.41. It has, unfortunately, been a downward spiral ever since.

And for all you webOS fans out there: Don’t worry — it doesn’t look like the platform is going anywhere just yet. It appears that the companies plan to continue the development of webOS, leveraging HP to “rapidly accelerate the growth” of the platform.

HP has seemingly been lightening their efforts in the pocketable mobile space lately — but with the iPAQ line and countless Pocket PC handsets behind them, they’re by no means strangers to it.

However, the smartphone space might not be HP’s only interest here – given HP’s recent desire to take on Apple in the tablet space (with the HP Slate) and that Windows-powered tablets just don’t seem to sell, might we see a webOS-powered tablet sometime in the future? Paired with the proper hardware, webOS could easily make for an absolutely incredible tablet experience.

Even if HP abandoned webOS altogether (which, again, doesn’t appear to be the plan right now), they just bought them selves a monstrous card to play: Palm’s patent catalog. It’s a porcupine tactic: It’s hard to make a big dent in the smartphone biz when every company around can throw patent infringement suits at you — but when you’ve got hundreds upon hundreds of patents (or quills) in your armory, people are going to be a whole lot more careful about stepping on you.

Contrary to previous whispers, it appears that CEO Jon Rubinstein will be staying with the company. To quote the release, “Palms current chairman and CEO, Jon Rubinstein, is expected to remain with the company.”

On their Facebook page today, US Cellular today teased an “around July” release for the HTC Desire (previously known as the Bravo).

The device, in case you didn’t know, is basically a Nexus One in Sheep’s (or HTC’s) Clothing (which includes Sense UI), but with a few differences.

There is a little more RAM on the Desire (presumably to fit in the extra bits of Sense UI), and no docking ports, or second-mic-noise-cancelling-tech.

The buttons on the desire are also “physical” (as opposed to capacitive), and there is an optical trackpad, rather than a trackball (which is good, because, like old mice balls of yore, the trackball on my Hero is already wearing out. Or getting gunked up. I don’t really know. But it’s not working so great anymore… aaaanywhooooo).

The original announcement is included below:

Hungry for more Android info? How about a peek at some specs for the gorgeous HTC Desire including a 3.7″ AMOLED touchscreen display, 5 MP camera with LED flash, Wi-Fi, GPS, Android Market and an 8 GB microSD card. How about news of a launch date around July? We’ll need to make sure our rigorous testing is complete before you can get your hands on this sweet phone. Stay tuned here for more exclusive Android updates!

[via Phone News]