Apple’s made a point to highlight gaming on the iPhone and iPod touch (the so-called funnest iPod ever), and six-months in, games still routinely dominate the App Store Top Ten lists. But what about outside the Apple ecosystem? How are iPhone/iPod touch games doing in the greater gaming ‘verse? TUAW lets us know:
the iPhone more or less owns the finalist list for the 2009 Independent Games Festival Mobile category. 11 of the 14 contestants aren’t on the Nintendo DS or PSP — they’re built and played on the iPhone and the iPod touch.
While Apple’s taken (justifiable) hits for policing their store, we’ve heard before that it’s nothing compared to hoops developers need to jump through to get in on the PlayStation or Nintendo action. Add to that a phenomenal SDK, great hardware, and that little App Store icon on every single iPhone and iPod touch (no UMDs or cartridges need be found here), and it makes for not only a killer offering, but pretty much brings the next, next generation in gaming home now.
No, it’s not running our favorite frenemy OS, the pushy little BlackBerry JavaME, it’s a new app pending approval in the App Store — Cracked LCD, specifically — and TiPb member the_idol was kind enough to share this advance peek at it in our forums:
read the above-linked thread for all the details, and enjoy the video — and the prank’ish fun it might just give you later.
First Jeremy tells us about Jailbreak getting (yet another dose of) cut/copy and paste love, now it’s Bluetooth File Transfer. What’s next, A2DP Stereo Bluetooth? iSigh. Spazziocellulare (via BGR) says:
iBluetooth application is not yet finished. As soon as will be complete, it will be hosted in Cydia throught the iSpazio Repository.
Just goes to show whatever vacuum Apple leaves, the hackers will fill! Check out the video and let us know what you think. Anyone itching to try this functionality out?
Today we are trying something a little different; usually we like to bring you some worthy apps that have recently dropped in price or are currently on sale. Well for today’s edition we are bringing you some apps to check out that are completely free.
Illuminations is developed by Killer Robots and is an interesting shoot-em-up type game. It is based around the idea of a firework show. You have to shoot rockets that come up from the bottom of the screen in order to make them explode, if you miss too many, then the show is over for you. You also might find enemies that might spawn at random to keep you from “giving a good show,” these also must be eliminated (and added to the show).
The inimitable iJustine has tastily blog snacked about an App Store goodie named frostyplace (iTunes / $0.99), a Japanese RSS reader that by-the-way works around the iPhone’s limitation of only allowing Emoji (the massive emoticon collection used in Japan that adds to smiley face things like panda bear, train station, and mountain) on it’s official Japanese carrier.
Basically, you download and install the app, use it to browse some Japanese RSS feeds (i had to do it for a couple minutes, exiting and re-doing it 3 times), and then the Emoji option will miraculously appear in your settings and you’re golden.
Check out her site for the details and instructions, but I tried it and it worked for me. Let us know how you do!
It seems the iPhone, with its OpenGL and CoreGraphics/CoreAnimation is just begging for some body distortion. We’ve seen it before (and seen it get rejected before), and it just keeps getting more fully featured. Says the developer, Smells Like Donkey:
everyone assumes that iJiggles is strictly a boob app. It is of course the first thing everyone does with it and it does it well, but it’s designed so you can have fun with it on any picture.
Indeed, version 1.1 will include: Smoother and Faster Animations, new “Inflate” feature to further enhance parts of your photos, multitouch interactivity, saving and loading.
Gallery after the break.
(And BTW- TiPb is still waiting for the ladies to get a little pay back with these apps. Maybe in our Forums?)
RepairPal, from the website of the same name, leverages the power and convenience of the iPhone to provide highly targeted — and at times vitally important — information when and where you need it. Say the developers:
We made this application because it addresses the real world disconnect with auto repair. Many times when your car needs repair, you aren’t at the computer. People may end up at an unfamiliar shop in an unfamiliar town so they need something to reassure them that they are not getting ripped off.
We built this for the iPhone because we need to convey a lot of information to the user. Development tools for iPhone allowed us to build an application that is easy to navigate and provide the best user experience. Being able to take advantage of features like GPS makes a lot of sense for our application since people may not always be sure of their location when they are broken down on the side of the highway.
Looking for some repair work? Give this FREE app a try and let us know how it works for you!
Chad reviewed Air Mouse a while back, and now they’ve let us know they’re back with a 1.5 update that adds some nifty new features, including:
the computer notifies Air Mouse as to which app it’s currently running so that Air Mouse can show the correct keys for that app. We plan to make more use of this system in future versions and think that this is the directions that all remotes will be heading in the future.
Check out the above video for more on the navigation and media player support, and if you try it out, let us know what you think!
I must admit, I’ve stopped using NetNewsWire on my iPhone because I’ve just found it unmanageable. What was an awesome fire hose on my Mac just threatened to drown me on the much smaller machine. Enter Daring Fireball’s John Gruber with some awesome tips on making NetNewsWire on the iPhone far more functional:
What I want in an iPhone feed reader isn’t just a little bit different than what I want in a Mac feed reader, it’s a lot different. So what I did last week was start over from scratch on the iPhone. Rather than going through my full list of feeds and turning some off, I turned them all off, then went through and re-enabled about 20 feeds — the ones I like best, with the highest signal-to-noise ratios, and which would be most enjoyable in those I’m bored, give me something to read moments.
Now NetNewsWire is both snappier for him and more relevant to a mobile experience.
I tried it and I’m loving it. If you give it a try, let me know how it works for you!
The iPhone Blog merged with the Phone different site in May of 2008. Both sites were founded on a premise that comes one from one of Apple's old slogans: Think different. The iPhone Blog: for people who dare to phone different.
