Google has made it fairly clear that adoption of Google Apps at schools and colleges is vital to the growth of the productivity suite as a whole. The strategy makes sense; not only do educational institutions represent a huge market for Google Apps, but schools and colleges are where many people get trained, start relying on, and form brand allegiances to productivity apps. Today, Google is announcing that it has signed on two more states, Colorado and Iowa, to extend Google Apps for Education to the 3,000 schools across the two states.

While this isn’t quite on the level of Amazon’s 1984 nonsense, Google did just demonstrate their willingness to remotely detonate apps they deem malicious. In this case, it was a couple dummy apps put up by a researcher — probably trying to figure out why people download what they download. At any rate, he took them off the market after a while, and the Android security team decided to nuke the remaining installs.

Gmail for the iPad is getting a new interface, we’ve just learned via the official Google Mobile blog. The improvements center around the compose interface, used for writing e-mails on Gmail. Now, when an iPad user composes a new message in Gmail, she will be able to do so in a large, full-screen window instead of the split view that also displays inbox messages.

We had a chance to go hands-on with a pre-release version of IK Multimedia’s AmpliTube iRig, a small interface for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch that allows you to plug a guitar or other instrument directly in to your mobile device. Combined with the AmpliTube app, the iRig turns your iPhone or iPad into a portable stompbox and jam studio with the ability to select from a number of different amp types and audio effects.

Last month at TechCrunch Disrupt, we saw the launch of Appbistro, a marketplace for Facebook tab applications that help companies and brands flesh out their Facebook Pages. Developers like it because it gives them an easy way to charge for their applications using Appbistro’s payments system (previously there wasn’t an easy way to charge for Facebook apps).

With all the news about Facebook never-ending privacy problems and the exodus of angry users, has the real story been overlooked? Specifically, is Facebook limiting people’s ability to actually, well, connect? Along with my brother Rom, who is a psychologist, I’ve been researching what makes people form instant connections. From meeting someone at a work party to that special spark on a first date, instant connections aren’t just intense; they can have a substantial effect on the overall tenor of the ensuing relationship.

BlackBerry fans aren’t quite as spoiled for choice as iPhone or Android owners when it comes to apps or the World Cup, but there some football-themed widgets worth a look. Here we offer four great World Cup apps (and one bonus), available direct from the BlackBerry App World store. Check them out and stay up to date with the proceedings in South Africa. The very best part? — they are all free!

Microsoft helped park itself in this position by shipping a series of underwhelming releases: Office 2003 had few useful changes outside its Outlook e-mail program, while Office 2007's overdue interface rewrite often went no deeper than the first layer of dialogue boxes in its constituent applications.

You don’t have to like bicycling to love Lance Armstrong, but you do have to like drama. And with one month until this year’s Tour de France, you can follow Mr. Armstrong’s story on your iPhone with a new, free Team RadioShack app.

Multitasking is coming to the iPhone in just a smattering of days as part of the new iOS4 operating system. But it requires some re-programming on behalf of any app that needs to use it. Need we worry that app writers won't be ready in time?