A super… a monkey… a ball. A Super… a Monkey… a Ball. These are not three different games!
Does the above phrasing sound familiar? Steve Jobs used this same kind of phrasing when first introducing the iPhone waaaaaaaay back in January 2007. Much has happened since then! We finally have the iPhone 3G and, even more importantly (in my opinion), we have iPhone 2.0 and the Apps Store!
You may have heard of a little game called Super Monkey Ball from SEGA? It’s only just the top app at the iTunes App Store. It’s only $9.99. We got a taste of it several months ago at the last WWDC during the keynote and there has been salivation, hand-wringing and garment-rending ever since. Finally, with the release of iPhone 2.0 and the App Store last week, the venerable Super Monkey Ball is available for download from the iTunes App Store via your desktop or right to your iPhone.
Does it measure up to the hype? The answer is — (suspense killing ya?) Full review is a click away!
Ah, this isn’t any ordinary map application. Sure it’ll give you all the fun stuff that maps usually offer, but it also brings the iPhone’s already unique controls to a whole ‘nother level. Schmap for the iPhone is noteworthy because of its ability to take advantage of the accelerometer: portrait mode lists the attractions while rotating it to landscape mode displays the attractions on a googlemap-ified map.
Because it isn’t June yet, we’re still dealing with web apps, so basically punch in www.schmap.com in Safari and you’ll be able to use this slick and innovative way of finding hotels, restaurants, bars etc. on your iPhone. Granted, it’s only limited to select cities (mostly the big ones) and Schmap itself is in beta, it will obviously grow and mature over time.
Under brief testing, I found the layout to be clean and straightforward, giving you short descriptions, reviews, and pictures on popular attractions. Also, the ability to quickly see it all on a map is a wonderful bonus.
Erling Ellingsen figured out how to get the iPhone to report data from its accelerometers at a faster rate, which opens the doors to all sorts of fun apps that use the accelerometer. You can see the apps that Ellingsen is thinking about developing on his survey, for example. He gives some proofs of concept on his iPhone in the very brief video above. And he’s posted the source code to it all too. Brilliant! [via]
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.
