(Card Ninja Forum Review. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!)

Card Ninja – just the name conjures up interesting ideas as to what the iPhone (and iPod touch) game might be. As it turns out, the ideas may not be that far from the truth.

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TechCrunch is reporting that sales of the iPhone app iFog [$0.99 - iTunes link] have shot up following a T-Mobile commercial for the myTouch (their rebranded Google Android Magic, which in no way is meant to glom any mind share from i(Pod) touch), where Saturday Night Live alum, Dana Carvey demonstrates a similar Android app.

Given Apple’s much vaunted 85,000+ apps, it’s interesting to see that iPhone owners will look to the App Store, rather than competing platforms, even when competitors show off apps. Congrats to the developers for the boom-by-proxy.

Maybe Carvey should have shown off Google Voice?

Lee Williams, executive director at Symbian, sits down with GigaOM’s Om Malik, and gets candid — really candid — about Apple and Google:

“Android is building a perfect storm of fragmentation. I don’t view Apple as evil, just greedy. Google … Come on.”

He claims his opinion is informed by his conversations with large carriers who complain that they have to provide Apple App Store apps to iPhone users yet derive no income from them (we’d point out they made money off the data plans — dumb pipes!), and that Google is taking away their customer interface, “cookie-ing” them (tracking their online activities) via proprietary apps obscured in lip service to “openness” and using that to feed their advertising business.

When asked why companies like HTC, if they know Google is “evil”, aren’t investing in Symbian instead, Williams advises Om to “wait and see”, and thinks those manufacturers might be interested in “very open systems.”

While offering no advice to Apple, he does invite Google to join the Symbian foundation so they can have a voice in that open system. Somehow we doubt he’ll see them take up that offer any time soon.

Harsh words for competitors, but also strangely refreshing to see on camera. As to the iPhone, is the carrier beef legitimate? Should they be getting a cut of App Store profits, or should they be happy with the huge increase in data revenue the iPhone is already bringing them?

One of TiPb’s favorite iPhone games, indeed the game that cost some of us fingerprints on our index fingers, StoneLoops! of Jurassica has been pulled from the iTunes App Store following a copyright infringement complaint from Luxor-maker MumboJumbo. According to the developers’ blog Casual Games Harmony:

About 3 weeks ago we have learned that MumboJumbo supplied Apple with a formal complaint and a request to remove StoneLoops! from the AppStore. The reason? Infringing Luxor copyright, confusing customers, stealing Luxor’s look & feel and even stealing their source code! This might sound absurd to anyone who knows both games but apparently Apple decided otherwise as we’ve been requested to prepare a formal response, which we did. We described how ungrounded each claim is and supplied various materials to back our claims.

The developers responded, denying all but one complaint (the word Luxor appeared in the text of a quoted review, which they offered to remove). Apple, it seems, removed StoneLoops of Jurassica anyway. This led to the developer further pondering that:

if Apple stands by its decision this will create a dangerous precedence. If you are a developer and have an application in the AppStore you should quickly request Apple to remove the apps of your competition, before someone else requests to remove you! I don’t believe this can get any more absurd, but this is exactly where this reasoning is getting us.

Copyright and infringement is a messy, litigious business, one which Apple puts itself squarely in the middle of by virtue of acting as sole App Store custodian. How can they determine merit all on their own, and avoid action by either affected party regardless of what they decide?

We love StoneLoops! We want it back immediately, but more than that — we need a better way for these disputes to be handled. Is there one?

[via AppAdvice, thanks Tyler!]

With Star Wars: Trench Wars THQ 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]

Update: Boy Genius has an advanced preview up for the Droid rocking Android 2.0. His take away:

The Droid isn’t an iPhone competitor because nothing at this point in time is an iPhone competitor besides the new iPhone. And things don’t have to be right now. Everyone can eat. So will the Motorola Droid be successful? Absolutely, we think. It will eat in to BlackBerry sales, Windows Mobile sales, and positively murder any lingering Palm Pre sales. It’s that good. Did you notice how Verizon still hasn’t announced the BlackBerry Storm2?

Original: This time it wasn’t the blogshinobi who leaked more details on Verizon’s upcoming Motorola Droid “iPhone Killer”, but good old Moto itself, according to Android Central:

Motorola just went live with the official Droid webpage and it went into beautifully excruciating detail about this most anticipated device. The early publishing of the website is no longer available but Motorola’s mistake is our gain, now we don’t have to wait til October 28th to get the nitty gritty specs.

And those specs are a fairly impressive:

• Android 2.0 ‘Eclair’
• 3.7-inch WVGA (480×854), 16:9 touchscreen
• 550 MHz processor
• 6 oz (169g)
• 2.4 x 4.6 x.5 inches (60×115.80×13.70mm)
• 3.5mm headphone jack (yes, HTC has now made this a feature for Android)
• Broswer will support Flash 10 in 2010
• Wi-Fi, 3G, GPS, Bluetooth, microUSB (comes with 16gb microSDHC card)
• 1400 mAh battery (rated at nearly 6 and a half hours of usage time)
• 5 megapixel camera with image stabilization, 4x zoom, dual-led Flash, and auto-focus
• the color is listed as: ‘Licorice w/ brown sugar accents’

So Android is now taking a page from Windows Mobile and really pushing the hardware. Is this finally enough to force Apple into raising its own spec game? (TiPb did ask for an iPhone HD last year already). And if so, will next June be soon enough to keep the new generation of competitors at bay?

Or were Tim Cook and Fake Steve (twice) right, that usability and unified platform are the killer iPhone advantages, and on those terms, Apple is still way ahead of the competition?

If the latter, should Windows Mobile (which uses the same split software model and hardware partners), and BlackBerry (which used to have Verizon’s spotlight) be worried?

One of the many, many “great unknowns” of Apple’s iPhone App Store is how the top-grossing list is calculated, specifically whether or not it factors in revenue from in-app purchases. While we could theoretically wait and see if, now that they too can use in-app purchase, a free app makes its way up the list, the folks at Freeverse wanted an answer now. And they think they’ve found it:

Top Grossing Freeverse Apps are Skee-Ball (#17), Flick Fishing (#97), and Top Gun. Now, interestingly, the Top Paid Apps Chart lists Top Gun as #60 and Flick Fishing as #72. How does this happen? The games are priced the same…but Flick Fishing features DLC. This leads us to conclude that the Top Grossing Apps list seems to include In-App Purchases in its calculations.

What if anything does this mean for developers? Will they be able to land on the Top Free and Top Grossing lists at the same time now? And so what if they do?

Interesting times…

[via Daring Fireball]

my6sense [Free - iTunes link] tries to solve one of the biggest problems of the information age — with so much data coming at us so fast, how do we sift through it and find what we need, when we need it? Using what they dub “digital intuition”, my6sense pays attention to the news you read, and then tries to figure out, and present to you, what’s more important.

Transparent on the user end, and displayed in the built-in, full featured RSS reader, my6sense “just works” (we’re guessing using a combination of artificial intelligence algorithms and mythical news pixies). If you give it a try, let us know how well it predicts what you want.

• Our podcast feed
• Download Directly
• Subscribe via iTunes

Join Chad, Chris, and Rene for in-app purchases in free apps, Apple’s new Magic Mouse and other gear, 7.2 million more iPhones sold, devs high on iPhone, Verizon goes Droid, BlackBerry Storm2, Windows 7, and all the news. Listen in!

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Tap Tap Revenge 3 [$0.99 - iTunes link] is scorching up the charts, and so to thank their fans the fine folks at Tapulous are tripling up on the give-aways.

First, if you’ve already got the app, they want to give you the TTR3 version of #1 hit on iTunes, “Fireflies” by Owl City for FREE for the next 7 days! That’s right, just fire the game up and download away!

Second, for those who haven’t yet upgraded from Tap Tap Revenge 2, buy the game in the next 2 days (through midnight Friday, PST), gets a FREE credit for a premium two-pack bundle (by top artists like Foo Fighters, Fall Out Boy, Blink 182, Smashing Pumpkins, and more being added every day). To get your free tracks,just email your iTunes receipt or screenshot to freemusic[at]tapulous[dot]com with your Tap Tap Revenge 3 username (and nothing else) in the subject line. Clear?

Third, they’re giving away a chance to win the entire premium catalog of Tap Tap Revenge 3 for FREE (over 100+ sensational songs). Want that chance? Drop a comment below (through midnight Sunday, PST), telling us who you’d most like to challenge on TTR3. Anyone in history, any where, any when. Who do you most want to play off the TTR3 stage and leave begging for music mercy? (Me, I’m claiming Shatner! He tasks me and I will have at him!)

Note: You’ll need a copy of your TTR3 iTunes receipt to claim your winnings, so keep it handy. Also, be sure to leave a valid email address so we can contact you. Now get going!