October 2008: Monthly Archive

There are now over 3000 apps in the App Store, many of them games, and many of the games are… racers? Yup, sure seems that way. A half dozen or so at least, and more on the way. How’s a gamer to decide? Simple, the TiPb GRAND PRIX!

Once a week for the last few weeks we reviewed 2 racing games head-to-head and app-vs-app. Based on our review scores, we picked the winner… and one of you, our readers, won the winning app! The winner of last week’s winning App, Moto Chaser, is:

SFGuy

And, after 6 reviews, 3 heats, and the month-long iPhone blog GRAND PRIX, our Grand Championship iPhone racing game is:

Asphalt 4: Elite Racing!

It was a close race, the comedic carnage of Crash with the motorcycle mayhem of Moto Crasher were neck in neck… but the full on fury of Asphalt just couldn’t be denied. With killer 3D graphics and super-tight gameplay, it burned up the back stretch and drifted clear across the finish line. Congrats to the developers!

Last and certainly most our Grand Prize winner of $10 iTunes gift certificate to buy the Grand Champ App, and a $50 TiPb Store gift certificate to stock up on their favorite iPhone accessories is:

Guille!

Congratulations, Guille!

And thanks to everyone who joined in our GRAND PRIX, and stay logged on to TiPb, because we’ll be back with our next contest very soon, with more chances to win more great prizes — starting in the forums!

Apple has just released the following statement (via Daring Fireball, who thinks it might have flowed from Steve Jobs’ pen):

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.

We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

Updated for clarity: This means that released firmware, like 1.x up to 2.1 is no longer covered by NDA, but un-released firmware, including the current iPhone 2.2 Beta 1, is still under NDA. Okay to talk about what was and what is, but not what will be, b’okay?

Hey, maybe the full on Dieter-rant from the last Phone different podcast finally got to them?

While issues of clarity in the rejection progress and app demo/refund handling remain, this will certainly go a long way towards not only easing the burden on developers, but restoring some of the lost luster (and ill will) Apple has garnered from the developer and blogging community as of late.

What do you think? First step? Giant leap? Or drop in the bucket?

I am a big music lover and I hold a special place in my heart for Trent Reznor’s music. Nine Inch Nails has been one of my favorite bands since freshman year in high school (when nobody really knew who Trent Reznor was, let alone Nine Inch Nails). This is an iPhone dedicated web site so why am I telling you this? Well you will soon be able to rock out to Nine Inch Nails right on your iPhone… Tap Tap Revenge Style!. (iTunes link)

Tapulous, the developers who brought you the highly addictive Tap Tap Revenge, are hard at work getting 12 NIN songs into their highly successful app. This will be the first developer to bring licensed content to iPhone Apps. No release date or price has been given but I’d pay a few bucks for this for sure.

I have a feeling it will do very well and we can all hope that it could bring us Closer to more musician/application deals. That would be a pretty sweet deal!

(Via Gizmodo)

How much kicking can an re-un-dead horse take before there’s just nothing left but steaming, rotting, fertilizer?

Speaking of which, Adobe is back in the news, again, touting Flash for the iPhone, again, and wondering out loud if Apple will support it, again. Just a couple days ago we went over some of the challenges and potential solutions to Flash on the iPhone, and we’ve already covered the neglectful bloat and bugs (Adobe’s never bothered to optimize Flash for OS X), security (opens additional attack vectors for hackers), and privacy (keeps secret cookies) issues that come with Flash, so why is this back on the radar? Politics.

Adobe is hoping the outcry from the ZOMG! Vidz! fan base, which probably doesn’t know about the above, but really wants to watch all that free porn video, combined with pressure from Google’s more “open” Android environment (which may or may not actually support Flash, and if it does, may or may not do so in a usable, non-evil manner), will force Apple to let Flash in the door.

We doubt it. AJAX for WebApps and Cocoa Touch for real Apps sucks the “air” out of Adobe’s Flash-pirations, and we’re pretty sure that’s a Good Thing for iPhone users (though, admittedly, not for Flash/Flex developers eager to get on Apple’s device but not willing to do so using standard or Apple-provided frameworks).

Personally, while we can see the slim chance for a stripped down, highly-optimized (and 3rd party cookie free!) Flash Player app for video and video alone, we don’t see Adobe getting what they really want: their bid for a Rich Internet Application development environment onto the most used mobile platform on the market.

Daring Fireball thinks it’s a non-starter as well. How about you? Think we’ll ever see Flash on the iPhone? Do we even want to? If so, why?

(Thanks Terry for the tip!)

Today on the forums I wanted to point out our new setup. We have cleaned up the forums a bit and have made it even more friendly for everyone. Don’t trust me? Take a look for yourself! If you feel so inclined and want to see something added or removed, start your own thread and tell us!

A lot has been said about the iPhone and tethering, heck even Dieter just jailbroke his iPhone to try out a tethering app called PdaNet. Mugunth wants to know why AT&T won’t allow tethering and VOIP on the iPhone, chime in on the conversation right here.

Are you fed up so much with your iPhone or AT&T that you are considering getting rid of it and going back to your old phone? Well NMprofessional is seriously considering doing just that and for a few interesting reasons… Say it ain’t so, NMprofessional! Head on into the forums and try to change his mind!

Rene let slip that we’re going to have a great new contest coming to the TiPB iPhone Forums soon, so along with our fresh new look, it’s time to get some fresh faces in there as well! Signing up is simple, I’ll even get you started, head on over and I’ll see you on the forums!