Category: I-phone

The original Star Wars film may have been released over 30 years ago, but the Star Wars universe is still going strong. A good example of this is the wide variety of Star Wars-themed games available in the App Store today.

One of the latest releases is Star Wars Arcade: Falcon Gunner, and it takes all of the fun of the movies and puts you right in the middle of it all. But is it worth the money? Hit the jump to find out.

The Concept

In the first Star Wars movie, there’s a scene where Han, Luke, and the gang are running away from the bad guys, and they have to take to the turrets to mount an attack. Both Han and Luke jump in, and we get to watch as the turrets pulsate back and forth, firing lasers at the enemy ships. If only there was a way to do that for real.

Well, there isn’t. But if you want the next best thing, Star Wars Arcade: Falcon Gunner is the closest you’re going to get. It’s based on the original arcade title from the ’80s, and has over 20 levels to play through. Controls are done in a few different ways. First, tilt and angle your iPhone to move the ship around, then use your left thumb to angle the turret and right thumb to pull the trigger. When you’ve located a target, it’s highlighted in a square box and you fire away. It’s just that simple.

It’s Not That Simple

This game is tough. To get the TIE Fighters in your view, you have to lean, push, and pull the iPhone in all sorts of directions, working your best to shoot from all angles possible. You don’t have to go in a full circle or anything (not in the regular mode, anyways), but that’s just one part of the process. Adding your left thumb to the mix can make you feel like a contortionist at times, but after a few minutes you can get used to it. The targets aren’t that easy to hit either, and at times can look like a little blip on the screen. Thankfully, the green and blue boxes that form around them make finding them a bit easier.

As the game progresses, there are upgrades. If you’re impatient and just want to buy them, you can do that via the in-game option system. These upgrades make life substantially easier, which is a good thing, because the enemies get tougher as well.

AR Mode

Now the really cool part about this game – and the part everybody is talking about – is AR mode. That’s Augmented Reality for the uninitiated, and it means that the game uses the iPhone’s camera as part of the game. Now every part of the room you’re in is a part of the game, and I mean every part. Now you have to spin around the room 360 degrees to fight the bad guys, making this a game that’s more fun to play in a spinning chair than anything else.

Limitations

This is a great game, but only if you have the right hardware. This game will only work on the iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, and the iPhone 3GS with iOS 4.1 installed. Otherwise, the game isn’t going to play that well. As an added bonus, the game does have graphics optimized for the iPhone 4′s Retina Display, so that’s really the best device to use in the fight. As usual, it’s best to have the latest hardware possible for the best experience.

So Is It Worth It?

Well, it is a challenge. As we said before, the gameplay is a little rough at first, and there’s a pretty steep learning curve. It took me about 10 minutes of play to really get the hang of it, but then I had a blast. I did for a few levels anyways, but eventually I hit a wall. Now I’m a pretty experienced gamer, with lots of time behind a joystick to prove it. But I hit a difficulty wall that was pretty frustrating to me – enough that I put down the game for a few days.

That said, I do love playing this game. It’s fun to just pick up and play whenever you have the time. It does take a good 15-30 seconds to load up, but after that you can take down the Empire to you’re heart’s content. You do look like an idiot playing it though, so don’t think this is something you’re going to play in your doctor’s office, unless your doctor is playing The Lion King on loop and you’re under 12.

For me, I think it’s worth the $5. I got my money’s worth for sure, and I know I’ll play it again and again. It’s a must buy for Star Wars fans, and if you’re not one, then it’s a good shooter to have handy. Just remember, “don’t get cocky, kid.”

Happy 2011! With CES right around the corner, there are sure to be plenty of new product introductions, glossy gadgets and fun new tech toys — but the biggest intro in Apple-land is the launch of the Mac App Store, coming in just a few days. We’ll dive into the MAS and all the rest of the Mac news and notes on tonight’s show, live at 10 pm Eastern.

Here’s the master page to listen or join in on the show. To participate live on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client (just click the “TalkShoe Web” button on our profile page at 10 PM ET on Sunday), the embedded Facebook app or the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in.

To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (take advantage of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 — during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8. (That’s a toll call, just so you know.)

If you’ve got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac or your PC, you can connect via the free SJphone or X-Lite SIP clients or by using the TalkShoe client’s ShoePhone tool; basic instructions are here.

We’ll kick things off at 10 PM ET/ 7 PM PT this evening. See you there!

Talkcast tonight: Looking ahead to the Mac App Store originally appeared on TUAW on Sun, 02 Jan 2011 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s a fun one for the first Sunday of 2011. Ellen Hinton (Ellen Once Again) found herself talking with family and friends about how the iPad and iPhone were more than just “toys” and decided to prove it.

With a MIDI interface, an array of music apps, and a little time in iMovie … well, read on to see for yourself as she performs a mashup of Train’s “Hey Soul Sister” and Yael Naim’s “New Soul” with full iPhone and iPad accompaniment.

Continue reading Found Footage: mashup fun with the iPad, iPhone and iMovie

Found Footage: mashup fun with the iPad, iPhone and iMovie originally appeared on TUAW on Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dev-Team has just released RedSn0w 0.9.6rc7 with One-click boot option for tethered iOS 4.2.1 jailbreak devices. With RedSn0w 0.9.6rc7, there’s no need to select firmware files each time you need to boot your tethered jailbreak device.


Dev-Team explains: We’ve updated redsn0w to include “one-click” support for those of you running the tethered 4.2.1 jailbreak. Using command-line arguments, you can now bypass the screens you’d normally see as you use redsn0w to “Just boot tethered for now”.

The available command line arguments are:

-j to ask redsn0w to “Just boot now tethered for now”
-i <filename> to specify your reference IPSW
-o for old-bootrom iPod touch 2G and iPhone 3GS
-b <filename> to specify your own boot logo png

For example, redsn0w for Mac to do a tethered boot of an iPod touch 4G jailbroken at 4.2.1:

open ~/Desktop/redsn0w.app —args -j \ ~/Desktop/iPod4,1_4.2.1_8C148_Restore.ipsw

This assumes both redsn0w and the IPSW are on your OS X desktop, so modify as necessary! Included in the zip is an example script file that you can double click on to launch redsn0w like this (the Windows example assumes everything is in C:\). (Mac users: please remember to change the permissions of your custom *.command files to allow execution.)

This should help ease the pain of the tethered jailbreak until @comex comes up with a 4.2.1 untether (or for those of you with legit access to the 4.2b3 IPSW, until the “Jailbreak Monte” untether is out of beta)!

• PLEASE UPGRADE TO iTunes 10.1 FOR BEST RESULTS
• WINDOWS 7 USERS SHOULD RUN redsn0w IN “XP COMPATIBILITY” MODE
• Make sure you’re using a USB 2.0 port

Download RedSn0w 0.9.6rc7

You can download RedSn0w 0.9.6rc7 from here:

• Mac
• Windows

Greenpois0n RC5, the iOS 4.2.1 jailbreak for iPhone 4, 3GS, 3G, iPod Touch 4G, 3G and iPad will be out soon! p0sixninja, the dev behind Greenpois0n has confirmed in a tweet that Greenpois0n RC5 is right around the corner.


This is what p0sixninja tweeted while responded to a query asked via Twitter:

iPhoneHelprg: I think the available latest build from the GP site is rc3_3

p0sixninja: yea, at this point in time rc5 is right around the corner so we’re just pressing ahead to get it out asap

Unfortunately, for now, Greenpois0n RC5 will provide tethered jailbreak for latest devices like all other jailbreaks available to general public to date.

rockybsr08: I should clarify. Is it untethered on all devices?

p0sixninja: no, i’ve been too busy working on updating it I haven’t had much time to work on exploits. I’m only human!

So, expect a tethered jailbreak for iOS 4.2.1 withing few days from now. However an untethered iOS 4.2.1 jailbreak tool will take some time because Chronic Dev-team has not yet worked on the exploit.

We will keep you posted as soon as a the Greenpois0n RC5 is out! Stay Tuned!

You can follow us on Twitter, Join us at Facebook, and also Subscribed to RSS Feed to receive latest updates.

Retailers in Japan have a new year shopping tradition of selling ‘lucky bags,’ which contain an assortment of items whose value typically exceed the price you pay for the bag. To the delight of many Apple fanboys here in Tokyo, ‘lucky bags’ are also sold at the Apple store. But at 30,000 yen (about $370) they don’t come cheap.

Even at that price demand is sky-high, and only the most dedicated of Apple fans can get them. Shoppers typically start lining up the day before the Lucky Bags go on sale, because every year at least a couple of people hit the jackpot and get a Macbook in their bag. From those who braved the cold overnight, here’s a summary of what most are saying that they found in their respective bags. I haven’t seen any reports of MacBooks yet:

• Sennheiser earphones, smart remote with mic (iPod, iPhone, iPad)
• Mophie Juice Pack reserve
• iWires 3.5mm to 3.5mm stereo plug retractable cable
• iPod Nano OR iPod Touch
• Griffin Slap case for iPod Nano
• Nike+ sensor
• iHome speaker system for iPhone/iPod
• red limited edition Apple T-shirt (view at end of video)

This is all according to early reports from an assortment of shoppers. Check out Guttyo Blog‘s picture of the bag plus contents all spread out on a table (above).

Continue reading Apple lovers in Japan camp out for ‘Lucky Bag’ sale

Apple lovers in Japan camp out for ‘Lucky Bag’ sale originally appeared on TUAW on Sat, 01 Jan 2011 22:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I recently decided to buy a MacBook Air as a travel machine to use during speaking engagments. After much deliberation, I decided to go for the maximum-specification 11-inch model, since portability is the most important factor for me (and I have plenty of desktop Macs around the house as primary machines). I’m thrilled with it, and thought I’d share a few observations and screenshots of various apps running on the Air.

If you’re considering buying an Air, my advice would be this: unless you plan to use it as your main/primary work machine, buy the 11-inch model (indeed, unless you’re doing anything particularly intensive – such as enormous local compilations, audio or video editing, and such – you could certainly use the 11-inch as a primary machine too). If you’re interested, you can see some unboxing photos of the 11-inch Air here.

Performance

I went with the 1.6GHz / 4GB RAM/ 128GB SSD spec. Its performance is excellent (and will likely feel noticeably faster than any hard-drive based Mac you own), and the benefits of its size, weight and overall portability can’t be overstated. You can comfortably go with the 11-inch model and not feel you’ve compromised on performance; that’s the reality. Due to the SSD, the other specifications take on somewhat reduced significance in most situations – the machine just feels fast.

I don’t tend to post benchmarks since I don’t believe they’re useful for much beyond raw comparison between hardware in specialised situations; they contribute little to the “feel” of the machine in use. I’d much rather have marginally slower build times and lower framerates as long as app-launching and switching are immediate, type-to-select in the Finder doesn’t lag, and Spotlight is always responsive. Those factors have much more practical use and meaning for me than the numbers. In all of those regards, the Air feels like the fastest machine I own.

Below are a few casual indicative figures for app launch times, achieved consistently.

• Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2011 each launch in 1 second.
• Pages, Numbers and Keynote 09 each launch in 1 second.
• Xcode 3.2.5 (a noticeably slow starter in general) launches in just under 2 seconds.
• Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended launches in just under 3 seconds.

Safari etc launch so quickly as to make it almost impossible to notice whether they were already running. The machine boots in under 16 seconds, and shuts down completely within 2 seconds.

World of Warcraft starts noticeably faster than on my (3.06GHz Core 2 Duo / 4GB) iMac, though of course the framerate is lower. In Stormwind’s Trade District outside, it runs at a reliable 25-35 fps (or up to 70 fps in less populous areas), and is eminently playable.

Storage

As mentioned previously, I opted for the 128GB SSD (the maximum size available with the 11-inch model at time of writing). If you’re worried whether that’s going to be enough room for you, here are some useful figures.

• With the default as-shipped Mac OS X installation (including iLife preinstalled), there’s 106.82 GB free on disk.

• If you then add iWork 09 and the Developer Tools with the iOS SDK, you’ll have 93.67 GB free.

• If you then add Microsoft Office 2011 Mac, and Photoshop CS5 Extended, plus a few small assorted apps like Adium, Hibari and BBEdit, you’ll have about 89.25 GB free.

• If you then cheekily add a 30 GB World of Warcraft folder, you’ll have about 60 GB free.

I don’t keep photo or music libraries on the Air at time of writing; those will potentially have a large impact on available space. Since the 11-inch Air is presumably intended as a travel machine, I’d advise keeping your essential listening on your iPhone and/or iPad as I do, or on an external USB drive if you really must keep it all with you during a trip for some reason.

Screen size

The built-in screen runs at 1366 x 768 pixels (the Air will also drive a 27-inch Cinema Display at millions of colours as an external display if you want a second screen, and you can also use Air Display and an iPad for a very attractive and portable dual-screen setup).

The main concern I’ve heard (and had myself before buying) was that the screen wouldn’t be large enough for “real work”, whatever that means. Putting aside the fact that we’ve all used smaller screens on PowerBooks and MacBook Pros in the past and managed just fine, I thought it would be useful to put together a gallery of screenshots taken on the Air, with various productivity and development-focused apps running.

You can view the app gallery on my Flickr account.

Useful utilities

I can recommend a few utilities which are especially useful on the 11-inch Air’s screen.

1. Spaces. This is built into Mac OS X, and allows creating multiple virtual desktops you can switch between. I have one Space for web browsing and email, one for social media (Twitter, IM, IRC), one for development and debugging, and one for reading, writing and productivity apps. Spaces is a natural fit for the MacBook Air.

2. Notify. Puts your email accounts in your menubar, and works with Gmail and several other providers (including any generic IMAP account you have). You can read, manage and even reply to mail from its floating window. Very useful if you don’t want to have a full email client running at all times.

3. Divvy. Allows you to move and resize windows according to an on-screen grid, for easy side-by-side comparisons, neat arrangements of windows and so forth. You can even assign keyboard shortcuts to quickly move/resize windows to your preferred arrangements.

You’ll probably also want to set your Dock to automatically hide itself, for extra vertical space.

Conclusion

I haven’t felt so thrilled by a new piece of hardware since I bought our first iPad, and the same feeling of experiencing a new class of device is present here too. If you’re tempted by the 11-inch model’s portability but are worried about whether you could get your work done, put your concerns aside – it’s an excellent machine and more than up to the job.

Having owned one for more than a week now, using it every day (including for development work in Xcode) and travelling for most of that time, I can recommend it without hesitation.

Footnote: I can also recommend a very fetching satchel to carry it in, with an iPad too – here’s a photo of how well it fits.

If you enjoyed this article, you may want to follow me (@mattgemmell) on Twitter, where I always announce new articles and projects. You may also want to read my biography, or hire me for your iPad, iPhone or Mac OS X app projects.

If you’re using your iPhone or iPod touch as your primary alarm clock, it might be time to reconsider. In 2010, Apple had well-publicized difficulties with the switchover to Daylight Saving Time. Alarms failed to go off at their proper times, causing thousands of people in the Southern Hemisphere to wake up an hour early and many more thousands in the Northern Hemisphere to wake up an hour late. Now yet another bug has struck Apple’s Clock app in iOS: single-use, non-repeating alarms fail to go off at all after New Year’s Day.

Just like the Daylight Saving Time bug, living in New Zealand has given me the opportunity to test this bug ahead of time. Strangely, a single-use alarm scheduled to go off at 7:00 A.M. today went off on time, but now single-use alarms don’t work at all. Only alarms set to repeat at least once during the week will work properly. 9to5Mac suggests that the problem will clear up after January 3rd, and our testing confirms that — in a couple of days, the alarms are back to normal.

This bug in the Clock app is somewhat less insidious than the Daylight Saving Time bug, which affected repeating alarms. With this New Year’s Day bug, you’ll still be safe if you’ve got a repeating alarm set during the work week. Only single-use alarms will fail to go off. I’ve tested this with alarms created in 2010 and alarms created in 2011, and it makes no difference; all single-use alarms now fail to activate until after 1/3. I’ve tested this on an iPhone 4 running iOS 4.2.1 — your experience may differ if you have a different iOS device or software version.

Considering how many things Apple’s managed to get right in iOS, it seems really odd that of all things it’s the Clock app that keeps getting mucked up. Let us know in the comments if any third-party alarm clock apps are experiencing the same issue (though I doubt it). In the meantime, if you’ve been using your iPhone or iPod touch to wake you up in the morning, it might be a good idea to invest in a cheap standalone alarm clock — or take off work until Monday.

iPhone alarms may fail to activate on New Year’s Day originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here, in no particular order, are some of the top stories we saw in 2010. The year was packed with Apple announcements, some planned and one unplanned. The real standout this year was iOS coming into its own. This year’s WWDC was all about iOS, for example. The Apple TV now runs iOS. iOS 4.2 breathed new life into the already-new iPad, another major story of the year (a wildly successful one at that).

Even OS X 10.7 “Lion” has some iOS-inspired elements from what little we’ve seen. But it’s looking like 2011 will be a return to the Mac side. In 2010 we saw the new MacBook Air, which Steve Jobs called the “future of notebooks.” What surprises does Apple have for us on the Macintosh side of the house? 2011 will be an interesting year (again) to watch!

iPad

In 2010 the iPad was revealed and the netbook industry felt the impact. The tablet industry has awakened. We expect 2011’s CES to have an enormous range of tablet computers. iOS 4.2 was released months later, giving the iPad features like multitasking which should have been there to begin with. Still, with paltry RAM, no front-facing camera and still not enough storage, the iPad has plenty of room to grow in 2011.

Apps on the iPad made news in themselves, with some apps being available for both iPads and iPhones, some costing more for “HD” versions (a term Apple doesn’t endorse, by the way) and some only available for iPad. The new realm of a tablet format opened up possibilities for developers and we continue to see innovation from them on Apple’s latest product.

Still, the publishing world was a little dismayed to see the iPad not take off as an e-reader on its own. Digital magazines are falling flat (in part due to Apple’s lack of a proper subscription model) and the iBookstore has had its own problems.

iPhone 4

We all knew the iPhone 4 was coming thanks to a forgetful Apple employee and some poorly executed shenanigans from Gizmodo. If only they had tested the antenna!

The iPhone 4 introduced the high-resolution Retina Display, plus a sleek new form factor that brought about “antennagate” and a subsequent press conference to address the issue. iPhone 4 cases were given away and the problem was mitigated by a clever Apple marketing/communications team.

The iPhone 4 also heralded FaceTime as a video calling service (and potential open standard, although we hear inside Apple there is little impetus to release the open portions needed to bring the service to other platforms). The iPhone 4 introduced a front-facing camera to facilitate video calling.

The iPhone 4’s addition of an LED flash introduced another wrinkle into the app approval process in that developers quickly started writing flashlight apps which took advantage of the powerful (but battery-killing) light source. Guess what? Apple finally woke up and wrote some clear but open-ended app approval guidelines that addressed many of the previously-unknown guidelines surrounding app approvals.

Continue reading 2010 in review: Rise of iOS

2010 in review: Rise of iOS originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With just a few hours to go in 2010, I’m thinking about 2011 already. This year, I’m not really making any resolutions, since they are made to be broken. Instead, I’ve written a list of things that I can do using my Apple products to make my life even more enjoyable than it already is. When you get to be my age (over a half-century old), you want to “grab for all the gusto you can get.” Since I’m never away from an Apple product (well, almost never — I don’t use my iPhone in the shower), I know that my Macs, iPad, and iPhone can help me make 2011 a very happy New Year.

1) Read more books. I do a lot of writing, which has strangely enough left me with less time to read for enjoyment. With iBooks and the Amazon Kindle reader both installed on my iPad and iPhone, I plan to download a lot more books in 2011. Re-reading some old favorites and exploring new authors will be a nice way to start reading again.

2) Take at least one photo a day. Having my iPhone 4 in my pocket all the time makes it dead simple to take pictures, and even when my day consists of hanging around my home office writing, I can usually find something to snap a photo of with Instagram, Camera+, or the regular iPhone camera app. I started doing this last year just before New Year’s Day, but the app that I was using changed mid-year and wouldn’t let me post additional photos. This year? I’m just going to post my daily pictures to a new Flickr set so my Project 365 isn’t dependent on the whims of a developer.

Continue reading Ten ways I’ll use Apple products to have more fun in 2011

Ten ways I’ll use Apple products to have more fun in 2011 originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The clock is ticking toward midnight in the US, and in fact our colleague Chris Rawson has already begun 2011 (he’s in New Zealand, on the other side of the International Date Line).

To count all the ways we’re thankful to have spent the past 12 months with all of you would take more time than we have left in the year, but as a small token of our appreciation — here’s the last app giveaway of 2010, five promo codes for the essential iPhone and iPad calculator Digits.

In the recent 2.0 release, developer Joshua Distler added multi-tape management to the capable computation app, allowing you to share, sync, email and print your calculator tapes. It’s currently on sale for US $0.99, but if you’d like to win a license, just share a comment below with your New Year’s resolution (keep it clean!). We’ll pick five winners next week.

Best wishes from all of us for a happy, healthy and safe 2011!

• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older.
• To enter leave a comment on this post telling us your New Year’s resolution.
• The comment must be left before January 3, 2011 at 11:59PM Eastern Time.
• You may enter only once.
• 5 winners will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prize: One copy of Digits for iPhone/iPad. (ARV $0.99)
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

Final app giveaway of 2010: Digits for iOS originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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UltraEdit for Mac was officially released this month. A favorite of Windows developers, UltraEdit was first released in 1994 as one of the earliest “Notepad” replacement text editors for programmers on Windows.

When you use your computer for programming, you live in your text editor. Mac developers love TextMate’s project management and plug-ins, BBEdit’s built-in code validation, or its freeware sibling TextWrangler’s fantastic find and replace. For web development, I use Coda with built in syntax highlighting, source code versioning and a CSS editing mode.

But for Windows users, switching from Windows to Mac has meant giving up a favorite Windows editor, which can feel disorienting. TUAW readers who switched from Windows have been wanting UltraEdit for years, some even running Windows in a VM (virtual machine) just for their text editor. Back in 2007, reader Jon Niola commented, “As a switcher, the app I miss most on Windows is UltraEdit… I wrote to IDM (makers of UltraEdit) to ask them if they were ever going to port to OS X and … it sounds like it is something they are headed towards eventually.”

After fifteen years, it’s here.

Continue reading UltraEdit makes the leap to Mac OS X

UltraEdit makes the leap to Mac OS X originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Apple Store in the SoHo section of New York City has reportedly been sued for discrimination by a former employee, who claims that she was unlawfully fired after taking a medical leave. Nicole Sullivan started working for Apple in 2008, and then took a leave in 2009 because of a nervous disorder. Despite being told that Apple wouldn’t learn of her diagnosis, she claims that when she returned to the store, her coworkers clearly knew what had happened. What happened next sounds even more bizarre — she was given a desk in the store’s basement, and when she tried to apply for positions on the store floor, was told that “there were questions about her mental stability.” She’s now suing the company for back pay, benefits, and $300,000 in damages for the alleged discrimination.

Interesting story if true. I haven’t worked at an Apple Store, but I have worked in retail, and I saw enough bizarre interactions between employees and managers that I can believe something like this may have happened. Then again, I am of course not a lawyer, and so I won’t make any predictions on how this will all turn out in court.

Of course, this is likely all the result of some specific manager’s decision, not actual Apple policy. Hopefully the matter will be settled justly and as quickly as possible.

Former Apple Store employee sues for discrimination, claims bizarre ordeal originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s some more evidence that the App Store had a really amazing holiday weekend last week. OpenFeint has announced that it saw a 184% spike in new users on Christmas Day last week, the largest single day in the service’s history for new users. Over the four days around the holiday, OpenFeint reportedly added more than 1.4 million new users to the service.

Downloads were also really high, with five million OpenFeint-enabled games downloaded over the holiday weekend. That includes Android games, which saw 73% growth, and iOS games, which spiked by 187% over the weekend. That’s a lot of new games and new players.

We’ve heard other evidence already that last weekend was really busy for the App Store. Apple hasn’t released any stats so far (and we’ve got a line in to EA to try and find out if it can share any of its download figures from the weekend), but we can tell you with some certainty that last weekend saw plenty of new traffic for the App Store and its apps.

OpenFeint sees giant spike in Christmas users and downloads originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Our friend Macenstein has a nice tip running over on his blog about how to get more comics on your iPad. The iPad is a device that seems made for comic book reading — that display is colorful and bright, and the touchscreen lets you examine comic art from any size or angle. The problem, however, is price — while there are some good official apps out there, and some great free comics in them, purchased comics still aren’t too cheap, even compared to the real thing.

Enter Amazon, which is selling things like this DVD of Archie Comics for super cheap. For four bucks, you can get 120 digital comics. That’s an amazing deal, and while there aren’t a lot of those to go around, there are definitely other digital collections you can purchase for much cheaper than actually buying them piecemeal.

Turning those comics into PDFs (or just finding them on the disc) is usually not a problem, and then just dragging the PDFs into iTunes and cracking them open in iBooks is even simpler. And voila, you’ve got tons and tons of comics to read on your iPad. Excellent tip, and a great way to pick up a lot more comic books to read on your next plane trip.

Digital collections make comics on your iPad easy and cheap originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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