One of the biggest holes in the iPhone App Store is a lack of a menu database app. And now that New York Magazine has purchased Menupages.com, it’s time for them to fix that.

Menupages is a straightforward site: it holds thousands of menus for restaurants in various cities. In New York, it’s invaluable. I use it all the time when I’m at my computer. The problem is that the design is completely terrible on the iPhone. The search bar is placed so it often disappears from view when I’m trying to type in a restaurant, the menus open in new windows and the tables that hold the menus are just a bit too wide to fit the iPhone’s screen with the text at a readable size.

Making an app for the site would not be difficult. Essentially, all that needs to be done is to create a new interface to access the database holding the menus. Someone could pop that out in a weekend if need be. More robust features, such as location-awareness and reservations (something the OpenTable app does) could be added later. But really, I don’t care about those things. I just want to be able to find menus easily on my phone. The data is there, just make it more accessible. Is that too much to ask, Menupages?

One of the biggest holes in the iPhone App Store is a lack of a menu database app. And now that New York Magazine has purchased Menupages.com, it’s time for them to fix that.

Menupages is a straightforward site: it holds thousands of menus for restaurants in various cities. In New York, it’s invaluable. I use it all the time when I’m at my computer. The problem is that the design is completely terrible on the iPhone. The search bar is placed so it often disappears from view when I’m trying to type in a restaurant, the menus open in new windows and the tables that hold the menus are just a bit too wide to fit the iPhone’s screen with the text at a readable size.

Making an app for the site would not be difficult. Essentially, all that needs to be done is to create a new interface to access the database holding the menus. Someone could pop that out in a weekend if need be. More robust features, such as location-awareness and reservations (something the OpenTable app does) could be added later. But really, I don’t care about those things. I just want to be able to find menus easily on my phone. The data is there, just make it more accessible. Is that too much to ask, Menupages?

Roy at the NYTimes fact checks the nickname for the upcoming Android software update, Cupcake, and discovered it’s just the name of the development tool they’re using in house to build the firmware. [NYT]

Microsoft says absolutely not, but an analyst memo posted on All Things D claims we could see a Microsoft phone at Mobile World Congress later this month in Barcelona. Updated

Update: Zune Marketing Exec Brian Seitz says he’s heard nothing about a Microsoft Branded phone launching at any upcoming shows, which seems to rule out the possiblilty of it being a Zune Phone, if anything at all.

MSFT Smart-Phone Launch? Multiple industry sources are telling us that MSFT is planning to launch a smartphone. We are told it will be a 2H launch. We do not see this as landscape changing, much like their Zune launch.

According to the memo (excerpted above), written by Analyst firm Broadpoint AmTech, the phone would hit the market in the second half of 2009, and the project it would not overtake the established players, such as Apple and Blackberry, as much as it would flush out the small-time smartphone manufacturers.

They remain strictly speculatory throughout the memo, but call the idea of a Microsoft phone “puzzling,” and suggest it would create tension between Microsoft and existing WinMo handset makers.

Now the question is: Will it be a Zune Phone, or merely a Microsoft-branded WinMo handset? [All Things D]

It’s old news to a lot of BlackBerry owners, but for the AT&T faithful, the OS 4.5 update has been a loooong time coming. The download is now available for all AT&T BlackBerry devices.

Just in case you don’t know, the update adds full HTML email, better web browsing, Office doc editing, remote server search, media player upgrades and more—so it is definitely worth getting right away. On a related note, Sprint has enabled BlackBerry users running OS 4.5 to send and receive MMS (text messages with embedded media). Its a banner day to be a Crackberry addict. [AT&T and BlackBerry via BGR and BGR]

It’s old news to a lot of BlackBerry owners, but for the AT&T faithful, the OS 4.5 update has been a loooong time coming. The download is now available for all AT&T BlackBerry devices.

Just in case you don’t know, the update adds full HTML email, better web browsing, Office doc editing, remote server search, media player upgrades and more—so it is definitely worth getting right away. On a related note, Sprint has enabled BlackBerry users running OS 4.5 to send and receive MMS (text messages with embedded media). Its a banner day to be a Crackberry addict. [AT&T and BlackBerry via BGR and BGR]