Confession: Jeremy can’t believe we’re posting this, but after a bunch of forum questions, email queries, and a mini Twitter ’splosion, we figured we’d put this up as a public service message to the Jailbreak community.
First: don’t panic.
Second: those strange little black icon badges that have suddenly popped up on your Phone, Email, iPod, and perhaps other apps? Yeah, that’s because you installed Backgrounder, and that’s how Backgrounder shows you which applications, built-in or user-enabled, are currently running background tasks (multitasking).
A former pick of the week for me, and one of my most-used Mac and iPhone apps, has just seen the latter, mobile version updated. I had a chance to try out 1Password touch 2.0 [Free - iTunes link], and the new ability to sync Wallet Items, along with an entirely new, very robust way to sync over Wi-Fi, work the way such things ought.
If you loves security, and want the ability to take your super-strong, pseudo-random passwords, as well as credit cards, debit cards, and all that new goodness, with you, give it a try.
QuickOffice has updated their Mobile Office Suite [$19.99 - iTunes link] for iPhone to version 1.2.0. The full list of updates is after the jump, but what caught our eye was this little goody:
John Carmack has written an update on his Doom port for the iPhone, and he’s continuing the same candor he began with his Wolfenstein 3D post. What are we getting? A classic in almost every sense of the word:
Before I actually started coding on the project, I had visions of adding a lot of modern tuned effects to the core gameplay experience. It would certainly stay a sprite-and-sector based game, but there are many things that would be done differently with the benefit of a GPU and the wisdom of hindsight. Once I began actually working on it, it started to look like a bad idea for a number of reasons. I am trying to not be very disruptive in the main codebase, because I want it to stay a part of prBoom instead of being another codebase fork. While I can certainly add a bunch of new features fairly quickly, iterating through a lot of user testing and checking for problems across the >100 commercial Doom levels would take a lot longer. There really is value in ” classic” in this case, and there would be some degree of negative backlash to almost any “improvements” I made. There will still be a couple tiny tweaks, but nothing radical is changing in the basic play. It would be fun to take a small team, permanently fork it, and make a “Doom++” just for the iPhone, but that wouldn’t be the best first move. Maybe later.
Check out the full post for more on his experiences with iPhone game development.
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!
Daring Fireball has posted a bitingly satirical look at Apple’s iPhone App Store review process which, like the best of comedy, is firmly rooted in both tragedy and truth. That Apple hasn’t posted clear guidelines for developers is frustrating enough. That they apparently haven’t imposed them on their own internal staff raises the flabbergast bar to dizzying new heights.
With 35,000+ apps and a billion downloads Apple is well on their way towards building that next great platform. Until they fix the app approval process, however, that building is a house of cards.
Enough of the choir preaching. Here’s Gruber bringing the painful funny:
MONDAY MAY 18: The dude who wrote that game with the iPhone icon seems very upset. Says that the iPhone image is used to explain that the user must tilt the device in order to play the game, and so how can he show this visually without using an image of an iPhone. And he has a list of other apps already in the Store which use similar graphics. I reply with the exact same message as last week, word for word. Spend the rest of the day playing Flight Control.
Read the entire Excerpts From the Diary of an App Store Reviewer via Daring Fireball…
Techcrunch reports that during Google’s I/O developers conference they showed off the iPhone version of Latitude — which lets users stalk keep track of their friends via GPS and other location-based services — but not as part of some revamped Map or Google Mobile application as many suspected:
Google has been waiting for the [iPhone] 3.0 software is because it’s not actually creating a native iPhone app for Latitude — as all other location-based services on the iPhone are — instead it’s using the Safari web browser to run Latitude. Thanks to HTML 5, Safari will be able to access a user’s location information and Latitude will be able to access that as well (provided the user gives permission). This will put it on par with what Google is doing in its browser for Android.
Now, Google has made arguably the best and mostimpressivecatalog of WebApps seen on the iPhone to date, but why go that route with Latitude? And waiting for iPhone 3.0 to be released this summer, which also sounds strange given MobileSafari in 3.0 doesn’t look to answer any of the persistent-connection problems Latitude faces on the iPhone platform (i.e. lack of background multi-tasking).
“The SIRIUS XM app will deliver an expanded programming lineup that includes SIRIUS XM’s exclusive sports talk, news, comedy, and 100% commercial free music channel, as well as new talk, comedy, and music showcase channels.”
Turns out the application will be free but — and that’s a big but — there will be subscription fees. You can either have a stand alone streaming subscription which is $13.00 a month or have a normal subscription with an additional $3.00 a month fee tacked onto what you are already paying. There is still no word on when the application will be released but our guess is you will see it around the time iPhone OS 3.0 drops this summer.
So there you have it folks… Excited? Disappointed? Let us know what you are thinking in the comments!
TweetMic [$0.99 - iTunes link] puts a whole new spin on Tweeting. With TweetMic you are basically able to Twitter small podcasts via this application. What happens when you use TweetMic is you record a message via the iPhone’s built in Mic, you can play it back or post it with a short Twitter message.
Once you “Publish to Twitter” the application uploads the recording to its server and attaches a link to your post, so when your followers receive the tweet, they will see the link and the website it brings up will allow them to play the message via a computer or an iPhone.
Of course having WiFi of 3G will be better than using an EDGE connection when uploading you messages.
If you want to add audio recording to your Tweets, then this is definitely the best option out there. If you check it out, let us know what you think (or record a message for us on Twitter!)
iScape Games let us know that they have released their first iPhone game: Super Marble Roll [iTunes link]. I know… another marble game, but I think this one deserves your attention. I have spent a little time playing Super Marble Roll and find the controls and implementation of the accelerometer to be phenomenal. There is also a special easter egg “bonus mechanic” included that’ll help rack up those points!
iScape Games also shared with me that they already have updates planned for the future and are discussing more features such as unlocking levels and stage achievements.
Super Marble Roll is available in the App Store for $2.99. If you pick this one up, let us know what you think in the comments below!
