Category: I-phone

Neil Young and his company Ngmoco are running out of time to get all twenty new freemium products out that were promised earlier this year, but it looks like they’re going to make a run at it anyway. Over the past weekend, Ngmoco released two brand new freemium titles on the US App Store. First up is Star Wars: Imperial Academy, a first-person shooter Star Wars game developed with THQ that basically plays like a Star Wars-themed skin of Eliminate. Unfortunately, iTunes reviews on this one aren’t very good (framerates are apparently not great), but it is free, so if you’re good with a blaster, it’s probably worth a download anyway.

Ngmoco has also released Adventure Bay recently. I’m surprised this one isn’t just called We Island, because it’s basically an island and pirate-themed version of the “We” series of games, from We Rule to We Farm and We City. You can build your own island (through waiting and spending in-game purchased Spice, this game’s version of Mojo), do a little exploring to find treasure and collect items or do quests to earn money and fame. I can’t say that it’s bad, necessarily, but whatever you thought of We City will probably have you thinking the same thing about this one.

So unfortunately, two less-than-impressive titles from one of the biggest iPhone gaming companies around. We’ll have to see what Ngmoco plans next year. With the emphasis on “daily active users” and the freemium business model, it’s possible that Ngmoco is just fine with how its business is going. But it would be nice to see a little more innovation on the gameplay side as well.

Two new titles released by Ngmoco, Adventure Bay and Star Wars: Imperial Academy originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple is the number one mobile PC manufacturer in North America and third overall in the world, according to published results from research company DisplaySearch. While these rankings account for all of Apple’s mobile computers combined, the iPad accounted for 8 percent of mobile computer shipments in the third quarter alone, a decent percentage of the 55 million mobile PC units shipped for the three month period. With the majority of these iPad sales going just to North America, Apple should increase that percentage once it pushes further into up-and-coming markets in Asia and the Middle East.

As for the worldwide rankings, Hewlett-Packard remained number one with 17.3 percent of the market share while Acer came in second with 16.5 percent. Apple finished third with 12.4 percent of the worldwide mobile PC market. However, as we noted earlier today, iPads may also be hurting netbook sales. HP and Acer are getting smaller than expected deliveries on hardware, meaning that their vendors may be clearing inventory. Could that be to make room for the more popular tablet PCs?

[via GigaOm]

iPad accounts for 8 percent of global mobile PC shipments originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This thing you see in the video on the next page (and in the picture above) is called the “Swarm Light.” It’s a series of little LEDs hung in sequence along three clusters of grids, lit up in order by a computer to display simulated collective movement, like a swarm of bees. It’s very interesting, both as a display for a programmed algorithm, and just as an art project. All together, the display costs $180,000 — no small chunk of change.

If you do watch the video, you can see that the whole thing is run by an iPhone. rAndom International created their own internal app for Apple’s device to run their various installations, and the iPhone app can dim the lights, adjust them to ambient light conditions and switch through the various modes. Just another awesome use of the iPhone.

Continue reading Swarm Light is an $180k LED chandelier controlled by an iPhone

Swarm Light is an $180k LED chandelier controlled by an iPhone originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has begun selling their signature silver gift cards inside “iPad Gift Card” packaging just in time for the holiday rush. iLounge says that although the cards themselves aren’t anything different than the ones I normally get from family as Christmas gifts, they can now be used to purchase an iPad. When I bought my current iPhone I tried to use gift cards and wasn’t allowed to do so — Apple mandated that customers had to use a debit or a credit card — but I guess this is a change in company policy.

I would much rather unwrap an actual iPad on Christmas morning rather than just a gift card, but beggars can’t be choosers, can they? If you are traveling to see me for the holidays, I completely understand it would be a lot easier to pack a gift card than an iPad. So you’re more than welcome to bring me one if you absolutely have to. I won’t mind!

[via MacStories]

Apple Stores now selling iPad gift cards originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember when Consumer Reports couldn’t recommend the iPhone 4? Well, now Consumer Reports has released the results of a satisfaction survey which shows that according to over 50,000 of their readers, AT&T is the lowest-scoring cell phone carrier in the United States. In fact, AT&T scored a “Worse” rating (a full-black dot for those in the know) in every single category of the survey save for texting. In that category they received a half-black dot ranking, or one lowly step above “Worse.” AT&T was the only telecom provider on the survey to see a significant drop in overall customer satisfaction, while both Verizon and Sprint saw “Average” to “Better” rankings.

While Apple itself has topped Consumer Reports’ tech support survey in the past, AT&T has a long way to go, as half of those who responded to the survey as being unhappy with AT&T owned some version of the iPhone. Electronics Editor for Consumer Reports Paul Reynolds said that “Our survey suggests that an iPhone from Verizon Wireless, which is rumored, could indeed be good news for iPhone fans.”

Got that right.

[via MacRumors]

AT&T rated worst cell phone provider by Consumer Reports originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last week, we wrote about the release of Richard Branson’s iPad-only magazine Project, and this week brings us a contest to design the publication’s cover. Interested designers were to participate in a scavenger hunt held in both New York and San Francisco, where they had to locate one of four paper mannequins containing coordinates of USB drives holding the information on how to enter the contest. If it sounds to you like a rather convoluted way to run a contest, I would agree — but since it’s coming from a company trying to launch its own space program, it shouldn’t be too surprising.

For those of you who weren’t able to scour NY or SF to look for the drives, Mashable’s Lauren Indvik has gotten hold of a .zip file containing the information for those looking to enter the contest. She has made it available for download via her personal Dropbox account, and once you have come up with your own design for the cover, you can enter it over at facebook.com/project. There is no prize money for winning the contest and entries are due by December 15th, but just being able to design a cover for Branson’s new iPad-based magazine seems like it would be worth it for the bragging rights.

Click Read More to watch a video about the challenge.

[via DigitalTrends]

Continue reading Cover design contest announced for Branson’s iPad magazine ‘Project’

Cover design contest announced for Branson’s iPad magazine ‘Project’ originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s starting to look like it. DigiTimes, which covers IT news in and around Taiwan and China, notes that both Hewlett-Packard and Acer are getting deliveries on hardware that are smaller than expected. Component makers say that “vendors are clearing inventories, which were high partly due to competition from tablet PCs.”

HP was originally expected to take 4 million netbook deliveries, and instead the company is getting 3.7 million. Acer was expecting to take 3.6 million units, but now is expected to take about 3 million.

There has been continued speculation about whether the iPad would be impacting the sale of netbooks, and it’s beginning to look that way. Even Microsoft has admitted that the iPad is taking sales away from Windows-powered netbooks. I think both netbooks and the iPad can be considered “accessory” computers, and while there are, of course, differences in functionality between an iPad and a netbook, they seem to be attractive to similar segments of the market.

Add to that the fact that laptop prices are coming down, as are the weights of these portable computers. The new MacBook Air computers are proving to be very popular, and they give consumers something between an iPad and a full size laptop.

[via Business Insider]

Is the iPad hurting netbook sales? originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I remember Loopt being one of the first apps out on the App Store, back when the iPhone’s platform was first released. A couple of years ago, location-based social networking was still pretty new (most cell phones didn’t yet know exactly where they were, after all), and Loopt was one of the most advanced ways to do it at the time. Now, while services like Twitter and Facebook work on their own location sharing features, Loopt is updating to version 4.0 and aiming to, once again, try and take the vanguard.

The app has been redesigned, and it seems to be set up around persistent social location sharing — you can not only share your location constantly, but you can also instantly see where friends and family are. You can also use the “Ping” feature (unrelated, of course) to send texts, and you’ll get a message back from your friend about where they are when those are opened. And Loopt continues to offer local “rewards,” which are free offers and deals based on where you happen to be.

It’s all very interesting — while, of course, there are the usual privacy concerns as with any location-based app (one of the reasons I don’t really use any services like this regularly), the new Loopt seems to really take advantage of mobile platforms like iOS to keep an almost constant connection with your social circle. The app’s been around and updated since the App Store first opened, so we’ll have to see how this new direction works out. Look for version 4.0 sometime later on today.

Continue reading Loopt app updated for persistent networking, includes texting service and rewards

Loopt app updated for persistent networking, includes texting service and rewards originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While some hospitals are eying the iPad as a way of going paperless with patient records, Georgetown University is already putting them directly in the operating room and into the hands of its surgeons. Offering real-time access to records and images of patients while inside the operating room, iPads have become “as essential as a scalpel” for surgeons while eliminating guesswork for those taking care of multiple patients each day.

“The iPad clearly has the potential to be very useful in the hospital and in the operating theater,” says Dr. Felasfa Wodajo in the January 2011 issue of the Journal of Surgical Radiology. “The same features which make the iPad great for surfing the web, such as looking at images and viewing video, nicely translate into the operating room.”

We have written about iPads showing up in Chicago-area hospitals and being offered to hospitals as a campaign promise in Australia, so I think we can safely assume that this trend will only increase as they become more popular outside of medical facilities. I have read a lot about how their use should bring down medical costs for patients. More and more hospitals are realizing just how powerful a tool like the iPad can be.

[via American Consumer News]

iPads headed into operating rooms along with surgeons originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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During a team practice session last week, 17-year-old Xavier Jones, a basketball star playing for La Verne Lutheran in California, collapsed on the court as his heart stopped beating. It was a lucky thing that his coach, Eric Cooper, had downloaded Phone Aid, a US$1.99 iPhone app about CPR, just the day before. Using information found in the app, Cooper and assistant coach John Osorno were able to resuscitate Jones until paramedics arrived.

Jones had previously been diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a condition that thickens the heart wall. Jones has been advised to have a defibrillator implanted to restart his heart in the event of another attack.

The six-foot-eight Jones is a star pupil holding a 4.0 average and has aspirations of playing for West Point in order to pay for his tuition until he earns a doctorate. His intention is to eventually become a military doctor, so hopefully he’ll pull through all right. You can see a video of the Phone Aid app by clicking on the link below.

[Via Business Insider]

Continue reading Quick thinking and an iPhone app saves a student’s life

Quick thinking and an iPhone app saves a student’s life originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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My daughter is about four weeks away from having a baby, so I am really interested in the WiFi Baby 3G ($US 279.00). This Wi-Fi enabled baby monitor can let you see and hear your baby on any Mac or PC. Just plug it in, and any browser will let you check in from anywhere whenever you’d like. The device, manufactured by Y-Cam and created by a small husband and wife startup to watch their own baby, can display HD quality color video and audio during the day, and thanks to its array of (infrared, we assume) lights that turn on when it’s dark, it shows you black and white video at night using night-vision technology.

The WiFi Baby 3G is part computer and part webcam since it stands alone and doesn’t, as most other solutions, require you to plug a webcam into a computer. Although expensive, it’s quite ingenious. Some of its features include:

• the ability to record video or still pictures
• the ability to send email alerts or send alarms to a mobile device
• if the built-in motion detector is triggered, an automatic light sensor that will adjust the light array to the light conditions of the baby’s room
• and of course, the ability to work both on Wi-Fi and 3G networks

There are two options to monitor your baby from a mobile device. The cheapest (free) is also made by Y-Cam, and it’s called the Y-Cam MultiLive iP Camera Viewer. The limitations here are that this app doesn’t supply audio, and it’s a non-universal app without native iPad capability. The better option, according to the manufacturers of the WiFi Baby 3G, is the Baby Monitor HD ($9.99), a universal app that does transmit audio. To save battery life on your mobile device, this app gives you the option of turning off the video stream. There are also mobile solutions available for the Android. The WiFi Baby 3G is available in either black or white. Take a look at it in action by clicking below.

[via GEARlog]

Continue reading Monitor your baby from anywhere with the WiFi Baby 3G

Monitor your baby from anywhere with the WiFi Baby 3G originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Books finally went live in App Store and we here at TUAW couldn’t wait to give it a try. Unfortunately, we should have. Google should have spent more time refining and polishing this app before releasing it. Google Books is a bit of a half-baked disappointment.

Let’s start with the big issues. The application doesn’t do landscape. Personally, I’m not completely adverse to portrait book reading — after all, it gives you the most room to read each page on the screen — but why doesn’t Google give me the choice?

I often like flipping back and forth between my books and ongoing solitaire games (I know, I know, but that’s what I do, and 4.2.1 makes it easy). Having to re-orient my iPad to the lap-unfriendly portrait orientation is just annoying. A two-page side-by-side layout seems to be a given in the e-reader world. I’m stunned it’s not already in there.

Continue reading Google Books app feels rushed, disappoints

Google Books app feels rushed, disappoints originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Two big mobile market share reports have just released, both of them offering up some interesting news for Apple in the world of mobile phone OS users. First up, IDC’s report sends Google’s Android OS to a whopping 59 percent share, up from 48.6 percent last year. Apple, IDC says, will likely finish with less than 10 percent of the total market. That’s not necessarily bad news — Apple is one company, and Google’s Android phone comes in a variety of flavors from different manufacturers. IDC also says the mobile ad market has reached US$368 million, double what it was last year, and may double again next year to almost $2 billion. That’s a big pizza pie, of which Apple currently has around 8 percent thanks to iAd.

comScore has also released a mobile trends report, sitting Apple behind RIM in the top smartphone subscribers. The difference here is that comScore’s looking at subscribers, not users, and RIM’s large enterprise base allows it some leeway here. RIM has 36 percent of the market compared to Apple’s 25 percent, though in just the past few months, RIM has fallen over three points.

There’s also some information about how people are using their smartphones, and the number one usage, according to comScore, is text messaging, with 68 percent of mobile subscribers texting. Browsing on the phone, and downloading and using apps also both score high, but strangely, nowhere on the list is there information that anyone, you know, actually uses their phones to call people. Maybe that’s just assumed?

Mobile share reports put Android in first for ads, RIM with most subscribers originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 14:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak enchanted members of a press tour late last week with the nine gadgets that proved most influential on his development as a computer guru.

His picks range from an IBM programmable punch-card machine to the Honeywell Kitchen Computer (above) to an original version of Pong. Of course, the last item on that list is the iconic Apple 1, the computer Woz and Steve Jobs built and sold out of a garage. It’s neat to browse through the eclectic list of older technology. It makes you wonder what today’s Macbook Airs and Apple TVs will eventually inspire.

These are a few of Woz’s favorite things originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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British architect Norman Fisher Foster is working on transforming Apple’s latest purchase — a real estate bargain from HP — into a new campus designed to give the company some breathing room.

El Economista reports that the 100-acre campus is to be modeled after Masdar, Abu Dhabi, the first city in the world without cars or carbon emissions. The new campus is being referred to as ‘Apple City,’ and both campuses are to be linked by tunnels.

It’s not surprising when you think about it. Apple has set out to revolutionize the personal computing experience, the mobile phone industry, tablet — sorry, slate computers — and your living room. Why not use these campus to test the ultimate Mac city, then eventually offer that technology to struggling municipalities? If this is Apple’s next step to world domination, I can buy it.

[Via MacStories and 9to5Mac]

Report shows vision of futuristic Apple campus originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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