Saw these last night while watching the show that used to be House MD, new Apple iPhone “App for That” commercials focusing on Gift and Song. Of course, the tag line has been bumped from 75,000 to 100,000, and they continue with “apps for just about anything”, which is likely legal cover in case “app for that” confused someone into suing over that still-missing Apple Glass Trackpad app…
Again, Apple is sticking to apps to sell iPhones, and showing off some great variety, and killer good looks while doing so. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, or time for Apple advertising to switch it up?
For those of us looking for that pinnacle action RPG for the iPhone, Ravensword: The Fallen King [$6.99 - iTunes]has been released. This game looks absolutely fantastic! I have only played this game for a few minutes (enough to leave the inn and wander the town. I will have a more thorough update later) but the controls are great and there are lots of options to tweak the performance based on your hardware.
The character and environment detail is some of the best I have seen on the iPhone. The game is similar to other games such as Oblivion in this genre. There are NPCs to interact with and several weapons and items to use. There has not been a game quite like this so far on the iPhone, so it will be exciting to see its reception in the App Store. I for one, know what I will be playing this weekend!
Call of Duty is a huge franchise, and what better way to expand that franchise then to unleash it, World of War style, on the iPhone and iPod touch — and add Zombies. Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies [$9.99 - iTunes link] contains only one map right now, “Nacht der Untoten” (Night of the undead) but allows 4 player multiplay via WiFi and over the internet, or 2 over Bluetooth. There are three control schemes, achievements, leader-boards, and the promise of in-app purchases (map expansions?) later.
So, Call of Duty fans and Zombie fanatics, how’re you liking your first iPhone experience?
MacRumors has heard from multiple sources that Apple is planning to release a (presumably free) Concierge app for the iPhone and iPod touch that would:
…provide many of the same functions available through the company’s retail store online reservations system, allowing customers to schedule Genius Bar and One to One appointments from their mobile devices. Sources have also indicated that the application will allow users to keep tabs on their premium membership subscriptions offered by the company.
Since the current option is via the web (screen shot above), it sounds good to us. If wanted to schedule service or training for your iPhone, Mac, or other Apple gear, would you use it?
Speaking of Storm8, Unity-engine code, private API, and Gruber, A recent Twitter exchange between him shows just how seriously all of this is now being taken by the App Store:
Hockenberry: Hearing lots of reports about apps getting rejected due to private API usage. Maybe now you’ll believe me when I say it’s a bad idea…
Gruber: Yup: Apple recently started running apps through a static analysis tool to look for private API calls.
Google set off some of the private API discussion when they implemented them as part of the Google Mobile app (though it’s our understanding those API were later made public). Generally, private or unpublished API are kept that way because Apple (or whichever platform maker is supplying the APIs) hasn’t finished working on them, are planning changes, or is otherwise reserving their use — if 3rd parties implement them anyway, any future OS update can break them and cause problems for end users. Public API, on the other hand, are supported and intended to let developers do their thing without worrying about platform-level changes wrecking their apps.
Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.
So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!
iXpenseit [$4.99 - iTunes link] for iPhone and iPod touch is a budget tracking app that has recently appeared on the iPhone commercials. It allows a user to track monthly and daily spending, breaking items down into categories, as well as allowing the user to see overall spending.
It looks like Apple is using its rejection power for good this time — removing games built on the Unity engine which included private-API calls that could be used to steal private user information like your iPhone’s phone number.
Not all of the rejected/removed games were engaged in privacy violations (or even had the network capability to exploit it), but Apple isn’t taking any chances following the Storm8 lawsuit. Touch Arcade has the details:
The Unity engine currently uses the two private API calls that Storm8 allegedly exploited to steal user data, NSGetEnviron and excserver. Mantas Puida of Unity Technologies explains these two API’s utilized by the Unity engine serve the following functions:
_NSGetEnviron is used by Mono runtime to provide implementation of .NET core API method: Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable().
exc_server is also used by Mono runtime to provide graceful NULL reference exception handling.
The Unity engine, however, has been updated to remove the offending API calls, and the games are being recompiled and resubmitted to the App Store. Hopefully this will keep users’ data safe from unscrupulous developers, while the scrupulous ones continue to turn out great games.
Facebook for iPhone and iPod touch [Free - iTunes link], by updating to version 3.03 for “minor bug fixes and Japanese localization”, but underneath that listing all the major changes from the original 3.0 release, has resulted in flood of tips to TiPb actual. Shows us a few things:
Wow but do people love that Facebook for iPhone app
Devs need to be careful how they list their changeroll
Users need to be careful how they read the changeroll
Still, if you’ve been experiencing bugs, or really wanted to get your Japanese on, this updated is for you!
