Category: I-phone

Seems like March has snuck up on us this year, and with the announcement of the iPad 2 and the “year of the iPad 2″, it will be interesting to see what that means for portable games.

While we wait though, here are some excellent new titles that are worth playing!

Volcano Escape

Volcano Escape

Bravo Games starts off the list with a fantastic little vertical platform shooter called Volcano Escape. It’s an endless climb out of a hot volcano, and there’s nothing like the promise of hot lava burns to keep the tension high.

Playing as Colonel Charlie Bravo, you end up sacrificed to the volcano god (i.e. thrown in) and must jump, climb, and shoot your way back out. The pace is quick, but after you get the hang of the controls, it becomes a lot of fun to try and make it out. Various powerups will help you on your way, and you’ll find yourself defending against all manner of evil volcano monsters along the way (do yourself a favour and shoot them, then you can use them as platforms!)

The game is, of course, fully Game Center enabled, and if you’re not quite ready to tackle the global leaderboards then you can still brag about your highscores on Facebook and Twitter. It’s a lot of fun, so grab it while it’s hot!

Price: $1.99 (Currently on sale for $0.99)
Developer: Bravo
Download: App Store

Tiny Wings

Tiny Wings

An unexpected charmer, Tiny Wings is an exercise in sleek and concise game design.

The one-touch controls put you in charge of a tiny bird with tiny wings who just wants to fly all day and keep away from the encroaching night-time. You simply need to time your taps so that the bird stops flapping and slides down the downward slopes of the landscape and starts flapping again to use the momentum of sliding to launch itself off the upward slopes. It will only take you a second to figure it out, and after that you’ll be happily flying about the procedurally generated landscapes.

Accomplishing certain in-game “tasks” as you go will earn you upgrades to your nest, and there are even achievements to unlock. The game “ends” when night-time catches up with you, but you’ll find that otherwise Tiny Wings is an endless and extremely charismatic game that’s perfect for spending a few idle minutes. Highly recommended.

Price: $0.99
Developer: Andreas Illiger
Download: App Store

Jungool

Jungool

Jungool is an odd little title from Headsoft that offers some great platforming action wrapped in a tribal guise.

Playing as Wagga, a heroic little ball, you must navigate through 30 well-designed environments as you retrieve the stolen masks and young ones for your tribe. There are two control modes to choose from to help you jump, swim, bounce, and roll around, and there are a number of puzzles to solve as you progress.

It’s a neat little package with a lot of character and great art design. Game Center and OpenFeint support give you some extra replay value, and there are also achievements to strive for while you play, so if you like platformers then you should give Jungool a go.

Price: $4.99
Developer: Headsoft
Download: App Store

Undead Island

Undead Island

There’s certainly no shortage of zombie games out there at the moment, but Undead Island makes a good contribution to the genre. A side-scrolling platformer, you play as a female ninja looking to fight her way off an island infested with the undead.

What makes Undead Island appealing is the combination of its hand-drawn art (Retina-ready!), frequent cinematics and voice-overs, and unpretentious spirit. It’s fun and easy-going, with lots of great details. The controls are a well-implemented combination of tilt and touch systems, with the former handling sideways motion and the latter being used for jump and attack functions.

Each of the game’s 15+ levels are filled with secrets that you can hunt for, and you’ll be able to display your highscores via Twitter, Facebook, and Game Center leaderboards. Team Phobic has created a solid game here, and if you can’t get enough zombie slashing action then you’ll find your fix here.

Price: $1.99
Developer: Team Phobic
Download: App Store

Trapped 3D

Trapped 3D

Last up this week is an obscure puzzler that is surprisingly fun. Trapped 3D is a fully 3D title taking advantage of the mighty Unity engine. In it, you control a robot stranded on Planet W who needs to reach the portal at the end of each stage in order to return to his ship.

The levels are structured like maze-based box shifting puzzles. If you’ve ever played a DragonQuest or Zelda game then you’ll know exactly what’s going on here. The more advanced levels introduce additional obstacles like locked doors, which add an extra layer of challenge. Since you can only push blocks (you can’t pull them) you’ll have to think ahead and make sure that you don’t accidentally block your path to the exit.

The game is nicely designed, with a simple on-screen control set (including a handy reset button if you screw up) and a clean visual style. An impending update is bringing more levels, an undo feature, and some more performance optimizations to ensure that the game has even more lasting appeal. If you’re into more patient puzzle games then take a look at Trapped 3D.

Price: $0.99
Developer: Javier Lerones
Download: App Store

What Have You Been Playing?

With those excellent titles to tide you over, have fun and drop us some comments if you’ve got any other great games we missed or thoughts about these ones — we always appreciate your recommendations.

In this Quick Look, we’re highlighting Real Piano HD Pro. The developer describes Real Piano HD Pro as a full 88-key keyboard app that brings you not only real piano sound, but also other instruments like guitar, marimba, and music box. It also brings you smoothly moving and zooming, customizable key labels, and professional tuning & transposition functionalities.

Read on for more information and screenshots!

Screenshots

Real Piano HD Pro

Real Piano HD Pro

About the App

Here are the top five features you can expect to see in the latest version:

• Multiple instruments: Grand Piano, Guitar, Bass, Harp, Marimba, and Music Box.
• Smoothly move and zoom the keyboard by just sliding and pinching.
• Supports customizable key labels in different types: C-D-E, c1-d1-e1, 1-2-3, or do-re-mi.
• Tune your piano by adjust the standard A frequency: 440Hz, 438Hz, or 442Hz? No problem.
• Transpose to higher or lower key, or play a song in E major easier? Just set it.

Requirements: Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 3.2 or later

Price: $1.99

Developer: Richard Bao

Vote for a Review

Would you like to see us write a full review of Real Piano HD Pro? Have your say in our poll:

Would you like to see Real Piano HD Pro reviewed in-depth on AppStorm?Market Research

Quick Look posts are paid submissions offering only a brief overview of an app. Vote in the poll if you think this app is worth an in-depth AppStorm review! If you’re a developer and would like to have your app profiled, you can submit it here.

There are plenty of ways to find out how to get to the destinations you want to visit. Your iPhone includes Google Maps, which works great for finding precise directions, and there are a number of other GPS apps that give you turn-by-turn directions and more. But how are you going to find new restaurants, libraries, doctor offices, and more?

Today, there’s tons of new data being saved daily about places all around you. The problem is just that it’s hard to put all of the info together. You could search on Google or Bing, or check Foursquare and Twitter to see where people are going. The Problem is, this can be time consuming. Localscope is an exciting new app that does the legwork for you and makes it surprisingly easy to find destinations all around you.  Keep reading to find out more.

Finding Your Location

LocalScope is like a window into the area right around you, helping you find the most popular restaurants, tourist attractions, and more. It works best if you have an iPhone with GPS, but even if you are using an iPod Touch or are indoors and don’t have GPS signal, you can still use LocalScope if you can identify your current location. Even on WiFi, it may sometimes be able to locate your current position if the Wifi network has location information. The most important thing is a data connection; if you’re offline, the app doesn’t run at all.

Localscope can locate your current location if your device has GPS

Once you’re online and have the app running, you can go ahead and search for destinations around you. You’ll see your current location on the bottom of the app; if it says Unknown or seems to have an incorrect location, tap the bar to find your location manually.

You could also do this if you want to explore destinations around somewhere you’re going, such as the hotel you’ll be staying at during your vacation. Just search the standard Google Maps interface or tap the blue address book button to go directly to the address on a contact. Once you’ve found the location you want, tap the arrow on the bottom to share your location, or just drag the top bar down to minimize the location settings pane.

Find your current location manually, or switch to a new area to discover other destinations

Where Do You Want To Go?

Now that your location is set, you’re ready to start exploring everything around you. Enter the place you want to find in the search box, or select from one of the included categories. There’s a variety of available categories, including common stores, travel destinations, and emergency services you may want to contact. Along the bottom, you’ll notice icons for Google, Bing, Foursquare, Twitter, and Wikimapia. Swipe the icon bar to switch to the search engine or network you want to use to find locations.

Restaurant? Barber? Airport? Library? They're all here

Seconds after you select a category, you’ll see results listed in order of how close they are for you. Depending on your category and the network you’re using to discover locations, you’ll see the place’s name, address, phone number, what they offer, and more. You’ll even be able to see exactly how far and what direction the location is from you on the compass icon on the right. If you don’t find the results you want from your first search, just swipe the bottom icons to switch to another network or search engine to discover more destinations.

I personally have never started using location services like Foursquare, so figured I wouldn’t find the Foursquare integration that useful. That’s definitely not the case, though. Localscope simply searches Foursquare for places people have checked into near you recently, which lets you tap the power of a location-based network without having to start using it yourself. I’ve finally found something good about Foursquare!

Switch between the available search tools by swiping the icons on the bottom

You don’t have to stick with the traditional list view, either. Tap the display icon on the top right to select between list and map view. The map view shows all of the destinations it discovered through your search engine as red pins around your current location on a standard Google Maps interface. Whether you’re browsing in list view or map view, more info is only ever a tap away. Select a pin or tap a list item to see more info about it.

Switch to map view to find locations visually

Just Go There

So you’ve finally found a new place to explore and you want to get more info or just go there. Localscope is ready to help. Tap the destination name to see more information about the location. Again, the information included may change depending on the network used to find places, but you’ll usually see the location’s website, address, and phone number.

On the bottom of the info pane, Localscope will show the compass icon with direction and distance, as well as a Google Maps thumbnail of the map around that place. You can now quickly get directions or share your destination so your friends can meet you there. Tap Open Map to open your destination in Google Maps or Navigon MobileNavigator if you have it installed.

Find the destination on your Maps app or share it with your friends

Getting Help

For the most part, Localscope lets you quickly find places and get back to enjoying your trip. It does include a few settings, however. You can access these by tapping the i icon on Localscope’s main screen. Here you can turn on or off sounds in the app and choose whether you want to use Metric or US measures for distance.

You can also find out more about the app from the Help menu in the settings pane. Localscope’s so quick and easy to use, though, you’ll likely never want to change anything anyhow. It’s amazingly streamlined, and simply makes it very fast to find places around you.

Switch to Metric units or get help directly in the app

Conclusion

Localscope was definately an app that suprised me at how much I enjoyed it. I figured it’d just be a new skin on Google Maps, but it turned out to offer one of the nicest experiences for discovering locations that I’ve ever used. Google Maps on its own is, of course, likely one of the most used apps on iOS, but combined with Localscope’s discovery power, you’ll find yourself discovering new restaurants and more near your home or work that you never knew about.

Better yet, you’ll come across that popular new attraction on your vacation that everyone is checking in at on Foursquare, even if you don’t want to let the world know your current location.

Go download Localscope and leave a comment below letting us know what you think.

Guest Bloggers

Hey iCoders! We are looking for some guest bloggers to write iOS tutorials, code snippets, tips, tricks, you name it for iCodeBlog.

How to apply:

1. Shoot an email to [email protected] with a link to your current blog (or iOS articles you have written)
2. We will check your stuff out and most likely give you contributor status to iCodeBlog
3. ???
4. Profit (OK, no profit (yet), but you get exposure(link your blog) AND the good feeling that you are contributing to the incredible iOS developers )

iOS Developers Wanted

ELC Technologies is hiring iPhone AND/OR Android Developers.  Here is the official posting.

Mobile Developer

We’re a bunch of solo programmers turned collective working on interesting projects, from internal initiatives, to some of the largest Mobile applications in the world. We are founders of iCodeblog.com, one of the most popular iPhone development tutorial websites.

We’re currently hiring experienced Mobile developers for both iOS and Android.

Qualified applicants:

• Have been working with Mobile apps for at least 1 year.
• Have at least one app in the store or marketplace.
• Are able to work productively in distributed teams.
• Enjoy working with new and emerging technologies.
• Enjoy programming in your own time.

Skills Required:

• Demonstrable knowledge in Objective-C and/or Java.
• The ability and desire to write clean, commented, reusable code.
• Solid understanding of MVC design principles.
• The ability to communicate effectively with clients.

Skills/Knowledge Preferred:

Email your resume and code samples to [email protected].Send links to any mobile applications that you have created and published.

I recently spent some  time with ELCImagePickerController.  For those of you who’ve worked with UIImagePickerController, you might have noticed one of its major drawbacks: you can only select one photo at a time.  ELCImagePickerController solves this issue by cloning the UI of UIImagePickerController, but with the added bonus of allowing you to select multiple assets.  Collin Ruffenach (@cruffenach), who authored the the first version of the picker, has done an awesome job of making ELCImagePickerController look, feel, and behave like a native image picker.  For this post I’m going to go through some recent improvements I made to ELCImagePickerController and pass along some lessons learned from working with the AssetsLibrary Framework.

This is my first foray into the AssetsLibrary Framework which was introduced with iOS 4.0.  If you’re not already familiar with the framework, I highly suggest checking out both of these posts:

Asset Libraries and Blocks in iOS 4

Cloning UIImagePickerController using the Assets Library Framework

These should give you a solid picture of how to work with ALAssetLibrary, ALAssetGroup, and ALAsset.

One of the obvious changes I’ve made to the project is a reorganization of the code.  Classes are broken out for clarity as you can see here:

Old Tree:

New Tree:

On major change to the project is how you present the new ELCImagePickerController.  This is mainly due to an issue we uncovered with a redundant call to [super init] which was causing a substantial memory leak.  Here’s the new way of showing the image picker:

ELCAlbumPickerController *albumController = [[ELCAlbumPickerController alloc] initWithNibName:@"ELCAlbumPickerController" bundle:[NSBundle mainBundle]];ELCImagePickerController *elcPicker = [[ELCImagePickerController alloc] initWithRootViewController:albumController];
 
[albumController setParent:elcPicker];
 
[elcPicker setDelegate:self];
 
ELCImagePickerDemoAppDelegate *app = (ELCImagePickerDemoAppDelegate *)[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate];
 
[app.viewController presentModalViewController:elcPicker animated:YES];
 
[elcPicker release];
 
[albumController release];

One interesting optimization I was able to make was on the loading of large albums which was previously taking several seconds.  Since ALAssetGroup uses a block to enumerate assets, I just fire off a reloadTable call after a short delay:

// Show partial list while full list loads
 
[self.tableView performSelector:@selector(reloadData) withObject:nil afterDelay:.5];

Then when the block is finished enumerating, it’ll call reloadTable as well.  On an album with roughly 1500 photos, it was pretty tough to reach the bottom of the tableview before the block finished enumerating.  So this is a pretty decent solution to the issue.  Originally, I experimented with lazy loading the assets as the user scrolled through the table, but ultimately wasn’t able to get the performance I wanted out of it.

This release of ELCImagePickerController should perform faster, and with a smaller memory footprint than before.  I hope you enjoy it.

You can follow me on twitter @matt_tuzzolo or get in touch with us at http://www.elctech.com

ps. for an extra bonus, check out [ELCAsset toggleSelection];

In this article you will find a collection of interesting jQuery plugins for February 2010.

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In this article we presents collection of the best Illustrator tutorials for February 2011.

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I’m sure like me many of you have needed to create icons for your desktop of iOS based apps. While it’s not hard to create the necessary icons it can be time consuming when you need to generate all the different sizes to support both retina and non-retina displays. This is where the Icons app […]

Tony Bradley at Macworld points out something interesting that I’ve also been thinking about: Apple is being awfully sneaky with its timing when it comes to product announcements.

The upcoming March 2 event happens to land not only right around the time that Motorola’s much-anticipated Xoom tablet will hit consumers’ hands, but also right in the middle of next week’s Game Developers Conference, when quite a few developers will be announcing new games for both the iPad and Android tablet platforms. The timing seems more than coincidental, especially with all of the announcements we’ve seen today.

And this isn’t the only recent Apple announcement apparently targeted at shaking things up: The Mac App Store’s launch date was set for January 6, right as this year’s CES was underway in Las Vegas, and much of that show’s sidetalk was taken up by rumors of the Verizon iPhone, which was announced a few days later on the 11th.

You could argue that this is just good business, and you’d be right — with its keynote events, Apple is the uncontested leader in product messaging for tech, and timing is a big part of that. If Apple is going to announce an iPad 2, why wouldn’t it be right when everyone’s focused on tablet software? (Not to mention that the event is being held at Yerba Buena, right next door to the convention center). But at the same time, it’s quite a coup, hijacking the attention of press and developers without any official involvement in the event they’re there to attend.

Apple’s announcement timing is uncanny originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s a growing number of devices that allow Mac users to combine their keyboards and Magic TrackPads into a single unit. Steve Sande took a look at TwelveSouth’s MagicWand not long ago.

But if you have the money to spare and want something really sleek — and expensive — thodio will sell you the MacDec, a thick slab made out of wood or acrylic that will hold your devices securely in place with the aid of eight powerful magnets. The wood MacDecs run roughly $138 and the acrylic around $165 — the original prices are in Euros.

Unlike the MagicWand, which places the Magic Trackpad to the side of the keyboard, the MacDec orders them in a laptop-like configuration, actually in the shape of a 15-inch MacBook Pro.

[Via Wired]

MacDec provides another way to combine keyboard and Magic Trackpad originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The magnitude 6.3 earthquake that hit Christchurch, New Zealand on Tuesday has caused incredible damage and hit close to home for many of us at TUAW. Developer David Frampton (@majicdave on Twitter) from Majic Jungle Software had a particularly scary few days. Although Dave lives in Wellington on the North Island, his mother Ann Bodkin was trapped in rubble for several days before being rescued. We were thrilled to read Dave’s tweet when she was close to being rescued: “Mum is alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Still trapped, but talking to rescuers. So so unbelievably happy and relieved.”

Another developer and regular on the TUAW Talkcast is Layton Duncan (@polarbearfarm) from iOS development house Polar Bear Farm. Layton was at work when the earthquake hit, and he quickly started sending photos and videos via Twitter. You can see his office in the photo above, and read about his experience on his blog. We were very glad to see that he made it through the devastating quake unharmed, and can’t wait to talk with him on the next Talkcast.

Relief efforts will continue for some time, and New Zealand expat developer David Sinclair’s Dejal Software (@dejal) is helping out with an incredible deal — he’s donating 100% of all profits from the sales of his Mac Apps (Simon, TimeOut, Caboodle, and BlogAssist) between now and Sunday to rescue and relief efforts in New Zealand.

Here’s your chance to do good and get some great software at the same time. Many thanks from those of us at TUAW to David Sinclair and Dejal for this wonderful outreach to the people of New Zealand.

Photo by Layton Duncan

NZ earthquake hits Mac/iOS devs; Dejal Software creates relief effort originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Two of TUAW’s favorite App Store apps (and probably yours as well) have been updated with new content. Halfbrick’s Fruit Ninja has a few new swords to play with, including one that plays piano music as you swipe. There are new leaderboards to fight your friends (and everyone else on) for the Classic and Zen modes. Great free update for a terrific app — no wonder it’s sold six million copies (inspiring Halfbrick to build up an orchard to pay back karma for all that destroyed virtual fruit).

Imangi’s great Max Adventure dual-stick shooter has also been updated with a new survival level and a few performance improvements and bugfixes. More importantly, it’s on sale right now for just 99 cents, so if you haven’t grabbed this one yet, now’s your chance. I just picked it up again recently, and despite the kid-friendly graphics and storyline, the action and progression are a lot of fun.

We’ve got appointments with both Halfbrick and Imangi at GDC next week, so stay tuned to hear what’s coming next from these two great iOS developers.

Fruit Ninja and Max Adventure for iOS updated with new content originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here at TUAW, we often keep you up-to-date on Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the famed Apple cofounders. But Electricpig.co.uk today pointed out that there’s an Apple employee who has more years of service with the company than even Steve Jobs — Chris Espinosa.

Espinosa actually joined Apple at the ripe old age of 14 before the company was formally incorporated, and after the official launch in 1977, he became Employee #8. Espinosa was involved in writing the Apple II Reference Manual while attending college classes at the University of California, Berkeley and also had the fun of helping to write the preliminary business plan for the computer known as the Macintosh.

Electricpig notes that Espinosa still works with the company 35 years later and has never, unlike Jobs, had a tenure with another company. Jobs, you’ll remember, went off to found NeXT and was with that company for 11 years before returning to Apple, bringing his total years of service to a measly 24. Steve Wozniak still receives a paycheck from Apple, but hasn’t done any work for the company since 1987.

Espinosa is still actively involved with the development community and maintains a friendly face on Twitter as @cdespinosa.

Chris Espinosa: Apple’s longest-serving employee originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DropPhox (US$1.99) from DaVinciWare Inc. is a little gem that everyone using an iOS device with a camera (and Dropbox) should go out and buy. This app allows you to snap pictures or videos, and have them wirelessly transfer to your Dropbox account via either 3G or Wi-Fi. We love Dropbox around here and use it for just about everything.

The first thing you’ll do is link DropPhox to your Dropbox account. By default a folder will be created in Dropbox — named, not surprisingly DropPhox, but you can change it if you’d like. Once you take a picture, if there is a connection, the pictures or videos will transfer. If no connection exists, transfer will be put on hold and resume as soon as DropPhox detects one. That’s it. It works seamlessly, perfectly and every time.

There are a number of things you can set either in DropPhox, or in the Settings app to tailor things to your liking. The first one is the size of the image. I don’t have an iPhone 4, but on my 3GS, I can choose between, original, 1200×600, 960×1280, or 600×800. This is important, since an original resolution shot can be over 3 MB large, and sometimes you don’t need the higher resolution image in Dropbox. In the Settings app, there are also options to enable or disable saving to your camera roll, choose a date format (all the shots are named starting with the date, so this may come in handy) and a few other settings. In the DropPhox app, you can provide the needed Dropbox settings, select a saving directory and turn Geotagging on or off.

Continue reading DropPhox wirelessly connects your iOS camera with Dropbox

DropPhox wirelessly connects your iOS camera with Dropbox originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Over the day we’ve been hearing about bugs in the developer preview of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, mostly with 3rd-party services like Dropbox (no sync, no menu bar icon), Evernote, the 1Password Safari plugin, Textual crashes, etc. But here’s a little video demonstrating an acute case of “sticky mouse” — not what you want in your shiny new OS, I should think.

Video on the next page, but what it shows is that clicking on an item in the new operating system can cause it to become stuck to your mouse. Luckily, Apple has a few more months of grooming before this cat is actually out of the cage.

Continue reading Bad kitty: Sticky mouse issue demonstrated in Lion

Bad kitty: Sticky mouse issue demonstrated in Lion originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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