Articles by Jeremy Sikora
Apple has come to an agreement with the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) in which they will spend 4 million dollars to renovate the run-down Red Line subway station on North and Clybourn in the city. This particular site just so happens to be across the street from the future Apple retail store on Halsted Street.
In return for the renovations, Apple is receiving first dibs on naming rights, first crack at advertising rights within the station, and a free long-term lease on an unused bus lane that is between the subway station and the Apple store that will be turned into a landscaped public park. All of this should be taking place no later than September 30th of 2010.
That being said, those of us here in the Chicago area should have a beautiful new Apple store in the area a little less than a year from now.
[Via Chicago Business]
Metallica and iPhone apps seem to be pretty popular as of late. First they released Live Metallica and now Tap Tap Revenge Metallica has just been released into the App Store. [$4.99 - iTunes Link] For your money you get the following 10 tracks:
- Enter Sandman
- Sad But True
- King Nothing
- All Nightmare Long
- Some Kind of Monster
- Master of Puppets
- Seek and Destroy
- Fuel
- One
- For Whom the Bell Tolls
This Tap Tap game may seem to be no different than the rest but it the first of the series to include battles over Bluetooth. This Bluetooth battle mode allows players to challenge their friends to a point-by-point battle where they can deploy bombs and other special objects to distract the opposition and come out victorious. Tapulous then added another all new fast-paced Arcade Mode where players are challenged with even more bombs and other objects that make the game that much more difficult.
So if you are a Metallica fan and have $4.99 to spend, we highly recommend checking this one out as you will not be disappointed.
[Thanks to Phil for the tip!]
iPhone hacker, geohot, has released blackra1n RC2 for your enjoyment. It corrects a few small bugs from the first release and can be downloaded here.
- Fixed 3G issues
- Tethered jailbreak for 3.1 OOTB ipt 8GB and new 3GSes
- Fixed icy issues
- Both Windows and Mac
- If you used RC1 with success, no need to rerun
So nothing earth shattering but it is worth a mention and on the unlock side, geohot is not working on that but the Dev Teams MuscleNerd is. So rest be assured an unlock is being worked on, we just have to be patient.
[Via TiPb Forums]
With Star Wars: Trench WarsTHQ Wireless is finally giving all of the Star Wars fans what seems to be a quality game based off of the classic films. To us it looks like a nice remake of the classic Star Wars arcade game.
Use the Force to overthrow the evil Galactic Empire as they attempt to destroy the small Rebel base on Yavins jungle moon. As part of the Rebel Alliances Red Squadron you dogfight with TIE Fighters above the Death Stars surface before heading into a trench where you are inundated by cannon fire. Dodge obstacles, and stay out of Darth Vaders sights as he tries to gun you down before you have the chance to fire your proton torpedoes into a thermal exhaust port the size of a womp rat. If successful, a direct hit will cause a chain reaction that destroys the Death Star, thus saving the Rebel base from impending doom.
While no price or exact release date has been given, the game is showing promise. I’ve grown up a fan of the Star Wars films and yes, the last three films were unfortunate but hopefully games like this will make us all feel a little bit better. Maybe?
[Via Touch Arcade]
For today’s TiPb Top 5, we are catering to all of our iPhone and iPod touch wielding readers who enjoy sports games and sports apps. Just like our other TiPb’s top 5 must-have posts, all of these applications are available in the App Store. For the full run down, follow us after the break! Read the rest of this entry »
Gizmodo is reporting that AT&T sent out a letter to employees encouraging them, along with their families, to protest the FCC’s net neutrality rules. It was said the letter even encouraged the use of the employees private email instead of their company email. For them to stoop this low makes it pretty obvious they are not hip to the idea of net neutrality. Gizmodo later updated their post with the following:
AT&T says that the letter was sent to “U.S. managers only” and that they “were providing important information to our employees, and it was up to them to respond personally. If they use their company email that is fine, too.”
Their reply is pretty laughable as if sending this letter to “U.S. managers only” makes it any better. While I don’t have issues here in Chicago with AT&T’s service, some of their antics really are mind boggling.
Have thoughts regarding this news? Please share in the comments below!
[Via Gizmodo]
The BlueAnt Q1 voice controlled Bluetooth headset for iPhone [$109.95 - TiPb Store] is the higher end version of the BlueAnt V1 I tested last month, and came away impressed with. How impressed? It’s a piece of hardware I would recommend it to anyone in the market for a new bluetooth headset. Now that the good folks over at BlueAnt were nice enough to send me the Q1, will I make the switch? For all of the juicy details follow us after the break! Read the rest of this entry »
Sean Cooper Games and MEDL Mobile have created a highly addicting gem of a game, Boxhead: The Zombie Wars. [$0.99 for the next two days - iTunes Link] Playing this game makes me feel like I’ve died and gone to zombie heaven.
Boxhead: The Zombie Wars is a extremely fast paced action-shooter where you get to play as Jon Bambo, a mercenary with a kick butt arsenal of weaponry which includes – pistol, shotgun, C4 explosives, minigun, turret machine guns, etc…
The premise is simple, kill as many zombies as you possibly can without dying. The more zombies you kill in a row, the higher your points multiplier will go. The higher you get your multiplier, bigger and more destructive your weapons will be at your disposal. Zombie destruction on your iPhone has never been so enjoyable.
Enjoy!
Just a few days ago Verizon started their iDoesn’t campaign specifically targeting Apple’s iPhone. Well late last night images started to emerge all over the blogs, including our very own Android Central, giving us a sneak peek to what may be some legitimate iPhone competition. After a hands on, BGR came away mighty impressed. Here are just a few of the highlights spotlighted by BGR:
- It’s thin. Just slightly thicker than an iPhone 3GS and the thinnest QWERTY-slider we’ve ever seen.
- It is the fastest Android device we’ve ever used. (It’s running a TI OMAP3430 processor)
- Awesome capacitive display. Plus it’s huge. Easily the best screen we’ve ever seen on an Android handset, and an amazing screen overall.
The specs seem impressive but I’m not sold on the look of the device yet. What are your thoughts on this new Motorola Android device? Do you think Apple is shaking in their boots? Let us know in the comments!
[Via Android Central via BGR]
Early this morning developer of the iPhone Facebook application, Joe Hewitt, posted that Facebook 3.03 is on it’s way to squash a few bugs. Even bigger news is that update will then be followed by Facebook 3.1 which will include push notifications.
Facebook happens to be one of the most used iPhone applications today while push notifications is the most sought after missing feature from the application. Techcrunch brings up a few valid points regarding how these notifications are currently handled and the potential issues that can arise from an application that will pop up more than a few notifications on your screen. The major issue being if you receive more than one notification you are completely lost as to what the previous notification(s) were for.
Personally I tend to turn off the alerts in certain applications that push a lot of notifications to my iPhone. Applications such as Beejive and Twitbit are just a few that I simply leave the “badge” option on so I can just see how many messages I have. That still does not change the fact that I want a better push notification system…
What are your thoughts on the current push notification system and how would you like to see it improved? Sound off in comments below!
