Category: I-phone

How big is iOS as a gaming platform? I wondered to myself on an idle rainy afternoon. After all, we hear a lot about how the App Store has passed eleventy gajillion downloads, or how it makes people richer than astronauts, but I wanted some context around these numbers — something to make the abstract mean something. I chose a subject close to my heart: games. And then I compiled the data that lead to the graph you see above.

iOS has nearly three times more games than the previous twenty-five years of gaming combined.

Now, I have to admit that there are some caveats to this data. The iOS count is just a scrape of the App Store’s active titles in the “games” category; there is a lot of double counting in there from demo versions of games. The same thing applies on the other side of the balance for multi-platform games — there must be at least half a dozen versions of Street Fighter 2 and Doom. I’ve ignored some smaller console platforms that were hard to obtain numbers for. I couldn’t consider games played on computers as there is little reliable data for platforms that don’t have the strong publisher control that characterizes game consoles; for example, World of Spectrum lists 9,544 games for the popular 8-bit home computer series. Clearly, including those would change the graph around completely.

That aside, I still think there is a message here, which is that the App Store is a huge force in gaming. Apple has tapped into a massive market that was previously going largely unfulfilled, and plenty of developers are making piles of cash out of it.

Of course, more software doesn’t equal better software, and if it did, we’d all be using Windows instead of OS X. I don’t think there are any iOS games in my personal top 50 games of all time list. That isn’t to say that I don’t play a lot of iOS games, or that I don’t enjoy them; for me, they just tend to be pleasant diversions rather than the sort of experience that compels me to stay up until 3AM playing just one more turn. (There’s an honorable exception for Civilization Revolution on the iPad, though.)

Continue reading The staggering size of iOS’s game collection

The staggering size of iOS’s game collection originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Patently Apple’s got a whole slew of new patent applications from Cupertino today. First up are the actual product designs of the original iPhone and the second-gen iPod shuffle. Apple’s moved on from both of these designs to newer and better things, but they’re putting the patents in anyway, just in case anyone wants to rip off the rounded iPhone edges or the little shuffle’s clip design.

There are also two MacBook patents: one for the latch holding the battery in, and another one for an extremely wide trackpad that creates a touchable surface all the way across the bottom of the notebook. I like that idea — I guess Apple hasn’t yet figured out a way to put a touchpad in there without getting in the way of the hard drive, the battery, or whatever else is already in that space, but that’s an innovation we could see in a future revision.

Finally, Final Cut Pro’s scripting engine has gotten a patent application, and there are also two Apple Mail-related patents, for filtering and processing certain email messages. Nothing super groundbreaking, but Apple continues to leave its mark on as many types of computer innovation as it can.

New Apple patents for iPhone, wide trackpad, Final Cut Pro, and Apple Mail originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There are a lot of good strategy games from World War I, and there are some good combat games out there as well. But SteamBirds is an interesting combination of both. It’s an air combat game that plays out in a 2D field turn-by-turn, so while you’re simulating high-flying air combat, you’re actually controlling your planes in a turn-based fashion.

If that sounds hard to figure out, there’s an easy solution: just go play the Flash version online, and see for yourself what it’s like. It actually works quite well. The UI is great, and it’s usually very easy to see what kinds of options you’re presented with when coming up with a strategy. Each plane also has some power-up moves that you can use, so if you see that you need to speed up or shield your plane for a turn, you can plan that out ahead of time.

The music is worth a mention by itself — it’s awesome. SteamBirds is a terrific game, and even if you’ve played through it on Flash, it’s worth picking up for 99 cents so that you can play it on your iPhone as well. The HD version for iPad is a little more at US$1.99, but it also boasts smoothed-out animations and more special effects.

TUAW’s Daily App: SteamBirds originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Not only can you buy a jar full of more pickles than a human could ever eat, you can also now pick up an iPad at your local Sam’s Club. Apple’s magical and revolutionary device has been spotted on shelves at Sam Walton’s big box supply store, and pretty cheap, too — you can get a 16GB Wi-Fi model for just $488, $11 cheaper than it is on Apple’s online store. The only problem is that you have to buy a big box of 30 at a time to get that price.

No, of course we’re kidding. Considering that Walmart is selling the iPad, it was only a matter of time before these showed up at Sam’s Club, and the $11 off is just the discount that Sam’s Club makes back whenever you pay for their membership fees. Still, if you’re in the market for an iPad and have a Sam’s Club card from your business or organization, eleven bucks is eleven bucks.

[via Engadget]

iPad now on sale at Sam’s Club originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While it wasn’t Apple’s big announcement, even though people seem to be more excited about it, iTunes 10.1 is now available. You will need to download this update in preparation for iOS 4.2. This update is around 90MB and includes support for AirPlay and several small bug fixes.

What a day, first the news about the Beatles on iTunes and now this. The hype is definitely unforgettable.

There is a lot of various firefox extension for developers and users. But sometime we need to create a new extension for our special needs. In this article you will find a roundup of interesting tutorials about creating Firefox extensions.

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AirPrint may not be officially implemented in Mac OS X yet, but the feature remains present in the latest iOS 4.2 GM available to developers. For those who do have iOS 4.2 GM installed on their iDevices and are hoping to enable AirPrint, we’ve got a handy guide for you. Or you can also can use the AirPrint Hacktivator to get the job done.

That all covers printing to paper from iOS, but I’ve decided to take it a step further for those who want to “print” but remain paperless: Print to a PDF. And not only print to a PDF, but then immediately have that PDF accessible to the same device.

Here are some rather simple steps to get your PDF on.

Continue reading How-To: Create PDFs from your iOS device

How-To: Create PDFs from your iOS device originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A sort of 3D may be coming to an iPhone or iPod touch near you through a new gadget using technology that was developed in 1842 called Pepper’s Ghost. Jistsuro Mase, a Japanese artist has created i3DG which converts a 2D images into three layered images that are displayed on three planes using a snap on contraption containing three 45-degree mirrors. The images must be specially designed to be split into three parts, and i3DG then reconnects them for a near 3D effect that can be viewed without glasses. You’ve probably seen Pepper’s Ghost if you’ve been to a Disney Park, since it’s heavily used in The Haunted Mansion and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror to make characters look like they are appearing out of nowhere.

In the picture above, for instance, the woman is on one screen, while the rest of the room’s objects are situated on various other screens. Using see-through glass, all of the images combine into one image, which (if you were looking at it in real life) would then translate into 3D. The effect can be very impressive, as long as you understand that nothing can move from the front to the back since all there is to work with is three layers. The video after the break will show you just how good it can be under the right circumstances.

[via iPhone Download Blog]

Continue reading Found Footage: Palm Top 3D Theater creates Pepper’s Ghost on the iPhone

Found Footage: Palm Top 3D Theater creates Pepper’s Ghost on the iPhone originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ZDNet’s Microsoft reporter Ed Bott is switching to a Mac. It’s not forever and not in the way that you may be thinking, but for the time being he has decided to get serious about a side-by-side Mac and PC comparison he started over a year ago. Using a Mac mini and an HP Pavilion Elite desktop connected to dueling 24-inch monitors and sharing a single keyboard and mouse, he’s not so much switching (wonder if he has watched the Apple “Find Out How” videos yet) but rather working towards his goal of being “comfortable enough to move between machines and use the best tools on each one with as little friction as possible.” Using Synergy, open-source software that allows the use of one keyboard and mouse with both machines at once, Bott can move between them at will throughout the day.

While this first installment in his “switch” is mostly about getting everything set up correctly, future discussion will include any hassles of platform switching and a comparison of the latest Office versions on each. Sure sounds like a much more complicated way of switching than the method I used with my Mom, which was to ask her to please just listen to me and buy a Mac.

She’s been thankful ever since.

Ed Bott’s side-by-side Mac and PC experiment originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s an update to the official Twitter app for iOS. The new version 3.2 adds push notifications, so you can be pinged whenever someone mentions your Twitter handle, and also adds full support for iOS 4.2.

On the iPad, there are UI improvements that include panel animation and a dismiss feature. You can manage saved searches, and media can now be viewed inline.

The iPhone client provides additional Retina Display graphics, geotagging with just one tap, and improved display of shortened URLs.

Twitter for iOS remains free — you can download it right now on the App Store.

Twitter for iOS gets push notifications, bug fixes, UI enhancements originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since the dawn of time, traveling professionals have sought easier ways to present on the go. Pico projectors! Netbooks! Converting presentations to video to show them on iPhones! Then there was Keynote on the iPad, and it was good. Not great, however: presenters with libraries of PPT content have had to convert them over, and keeping your decks up to date with the latest and greatest from the sales department is a drag. Wouldn’t it be better and easier if there was a nice cloud-based solution that played well with Mobile Safari?

Enter SlideRocket’s new HTML5 player; the freemium web service now supports playing back (not editing) presentations on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch with full-screen video, a handful of good-looking builds and transitions, and all the analytics and version control you want. While the normal SlideRocket player requires Flash or AIR to show content, this one works fine without them.

Click on to learn more about SlideRocket’s capabilities, and see a video demo of the HTML5 playback in action.

Continue reading SlideRocket brings web presentations to iPhone and iPad with HTML5

SlideRocket brings web presentations to iPhone and iPad with HTML5 originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today Engadget sat down with Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen and asked him what the MacBook Air’s increased battery life — sans Flash installed — meant for the future of Flash in the wake of HTML5.

Narayen kinda dodged the question with this stay-on-message answer: “When we have access to hardware acceleration, we’ve proven that Flash has equal or better performance on every platform,” but then went on to say that Adobe is currently testing a beta version of Flash specifically designed for the MacBook Air.

When Apple introduced the new MacBook Air, news quickly spread when it was discovered the company had left Adobe’s Flash Player off the system. You could still run Flash content on the Air just fine — you just had to download the plugin and install it yourself. Apple said they left Flash Player off the Air so users would be sure to download the latest version.

After the new MacBook Airs dropped, however, Ars Technica ran some tests and discovered that having Flash on the MacBook Air could reduce its battery run time by as much as a third. This led me to speculate that the real reason Apple left Flash off the Air is so it could advertise higher real-world wireless usage battery numbers. Shortly after that, Adobe’s CTO said the reduced battery time would be the same if the Air was running web pages with HTML5 video.

With today’s acknowledgment from Narayen, it’s nice to see that Adobe is still trying to make Flash Player a contender. It still seems like Flash has its work cut out for it, given that virtually every major tech company has decided to throw their support behind HTML5.

Adobe is testing optimized Flash Player beta for the MacBook Air originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We here at TUAW, and those of you who read us and a dozen other Apple or tech blogs each day were certainly amped about a full-page takeover on Apple.com yesterday. We were subsequently a bit let down when the veil lifted to reveal… The Beatles on iTunes.

Keep in mind Twitter + Ping happened via press release — a Facebook + Ping update could also have happened inside iTunes without an update to iTunes itself, and likewise just merit a press release without so much hoopla. So why did we expect more?

It’s a classic case of what we do when we see a tease from Apple. We expect a unicorn to emerge, bathed in the light of the Apple logo, being led by Steve Jobs carrying a bucket of golden oats. Further, we expect this unicorn to fulfill our every whim, our every desire, be easy to use and be hated by a faction who just likes to hate anything Apple does.

Oh, and we know they’ll just trot out a new unicorn next year, one you can get in seven colors, but we don’t care — we want this new, shiny unicorn NOW and if we don’t get what we expect, we are terribly let down.

But guess what? If you do read TUAW and a dozen other tech sites every day, and you’ve been reading about Apple for at least the past 10 years, you should have known better. Here are the reasons why.

Continue reading Why you really shouldn’t have expected more than Beatles on iTunes today

Why you really shouldn’t have expected more than Beatles on iTunes today originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cable giant Comcast has released its free Xfinity TV app for both the iPhone and the iPad (we first saw a prototype demo back in May). The app allows you to browse TV listings, including the massive Comcast On Demand library. You can filter shows by genre, network, resolution (SD vs. HD) and more.

It also turns your iPhone or iPad into a remote. The main advantage here is having an on-screen keyboard, because as all cable and satellite users know, typing with a cursor is about as painful as it gets. You can change channels, and even notify friends with Comcast to watch a program at the same time.

There are DVR controls and the ability to program your DVR when you are away from home, which is great. The glaring omission is the inability to stream content directly to the device. Comcast says that will happen in later updates.

Comments on the app store are pretty negative. Some people are having setup problems while others didn’t realize that the app requires digital cable and only works with some of the Comcast set top boxes. Also, for some functions, you still need your Comcast remote. It all seems a bit half-baked but it will probably improve.

The app works on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and requires iOS 3.2 or later. If you’re using it share your experiences in our comments section.

Comcast turns your iPad and iPhone into a sophisticated remote originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When Apple teased “Tomorrow is just another day. That you’ll never forget” on their home page yesterday I hoped it was going to be something really cool — like cloud-based iTunes or a subscription iTunes service. When the news began to leak out that the event was the Beatles coming to iTunes finally it was cool, but a day I’ll never forget? Nope.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to finally have the Beatles on iTunes, but Apple, lets keep this in check. For $149 and the click of a button it’s nice to get all of the Beatles tracks from iTunes if I want them, but most Beatles fans had the band’s entire discography ripped when MP3s started going mainstream back in 2001. Heck, hardcore fans probably had their tracks encoded at such high levels in Ogg Vorbis or FLAC that they needed a separate hard drive just to contain their Beatles tunes (and if they don’t yet, Amazon will help them out — today they lowered their Beatles Stereo Box Set to only $129).

Seven years ago a Beatles/iTunes announcement might have earned the “never forget” slogan, but not today in 2010. And while it’s only been three hours since the release, the iTunes Store music charts confirms that this isn’t the earth-shattering news it was made out to be. Not one Beatles song has cracked the Top 10 list yet, while a new song from Katy Perry or the Black Eyed Peas usually shoots up the charts within minutes of being released — and without taking up 40% of the real estate on the iTunes Music Store homepage or the front page of Apple.com like the Fab Four has.

I also want to point out that for all the hoopla over today’s “event” one thing that could have made it somewhat memorable is a Beatles-branded iPod touch. If a band-branded iPod is good enough for some guys from Dublin, surely a group of four lads from Liverpool deserve one too.

Beatles: glad to have you on iTunes. Apple: I’ve already forgotten something you said I wouldn’t. Wish I could remember what it was…

Today is just another day I will forget originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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