Hoping to revive interest to its Yahoo Messenger App for iPhone, Yahoo has just updated it to bring a 3G video calling feature. Yahoo Messenger for iPhone now joins the ranks of Facetime and Skype in letting you call your loved ones, friends and business contacts beyond the compounds of the traditional phone call and chat. That is, you can now see their faces and hear their voices. As a prerequisite to this feature, your iPhone must be running on iOS 4.1 and have the video camera features of the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4th Gen.

One of the additions of iOS 4.1 is the ability to take HDR photos from within Apple’s Camera.app. For those of you who aren’t shutterbugs, HDR (high dynamic range) photos involve taking multiple photos of the same shot. One of these shots is underexposed, one may be just about right, and the other may be overexposed. After stitching all of these togethers, photographers can bring out all the highlights and shadows in their photos in a very artistic way.

With the release of Game Center in iOS 4.1 and Ping in iTunes 10, there’s no doubt that Apple is starting its foray into social networking. Sure, Apple has included Facebook and Twitter integration in a limited way in iTunes before, but now the company is actually creating social networks of their own. However, they won’t be able to ride on the backs of the millions of iTunes users for long; they’re going to need to give us a reason to stay.

For one, if you haven’t already done so, launch iTunes 10 to get iOS 4.1 for your iPhone or iPod Touch. This update brings some neat little additions to the iOS platform such as the ability to take HDR photos from within Apple’s camera application. Many people have already been noticing better images when using this feature. However, 4.1 also allows users to rent TV shows through iTunes, upload HD videos to YouTube, and gain access to Game Center.

If you were to take a look at Apple’s UK website, you’d notice—as shown above—that iOS 4.1 is due to ship to an iOS device (except the iPad) near you on September 8th. Yet, if you take a glance at the same page on the U.S. website, you’d read that the same update is “coming soon”. There’s obviously a discrepancy between the two here, but they’re both most likely to be right.

When Apple first previewed iOS 4 back in April, one of the many features touted was Game Center, a social gaming network akin to Xbox Live. The release of iOS 4 came and went, and there was no sign of Game Center. But in their press event yesterday, Apple announced that Game Center will be available when iOS 4.1 is available sometime next week. Users will be able to keep track of high scores and challenge their friends in games that have multiplayer functionality.

At their press event yesterday, Apple announced version 4.1 of their iOS which included a bevy of impressive features. One particularly interesting addition is the ability for users of the iPhone and iPod touch to take HDR pictures. HDR, for those not familiar, stands for High Dynamic Range. Essentially, it involves taking several exposures of the same picture and combining them into one hyper-real image that is, ideally, exposed properly in every part of the image.

Apple’s latest beta version of iOS 4.1 has an extra added feature concerning FaceTime. Soon, you’ll be able to initiate FaceTime calls to phone numbers or email addresses. What does that mean to you? Apple’s about to update the iPod touch and possibly the iPad with front facing cameras, that’s what. Why else would you need to be able to link a FaceTime account to an email address?

Are those taller signal bars in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? As we reported yesterday, Apple’s iOS 4.1 beta has been seeded to developers. Among other updates, the reception formula has been corrected and the lowest three signal bars are taller; the lowest by 100%. That’s, like, twice as much reception, right?