Apple is now giving refunds to customers that purchased the bizarre GameStore app that surfaced over the past weekend in the App Store. GameStore offered in-app purchases for non-existent racing games.
In an email to customers that purchased GameStore during the brief time it was on the App Store, Apple has noted that the app was made available for sale “prematurely.”
Owners of Apple’s iPad quickly adopted the App Store as their home, downloading three billion apps in 2010 and virtually obliterating Android alternatives. The iPad accounted for nearly one out over every five Apple apps downloaded, according to new research.
It’s been rumored that Microsoft is planning an iPad version of its popular Office productivity suite, but until then, we’ve got a free alternative. CloudOn is an iPad app that brings Word, Powerpoint, and Excel to your favorite Apple tablet.
CloudOn integrates with Dropbox to let you edit and create documents on the go. Your work is then synced back to your desktop.
Apple has begun an attack on App Store piracy. The popular resource for cracked iOS apps known as Apptrackr recently said that Apple has begun sending large amounts of takedown notices, thereby forcing Apptrackr to relocate many of its servers and implement more steps for its users to avoid legal ramifications.
In a note to users of Installous, a Cydia app for downloading and installing pirated apps from the App Store, Apptrackr frontman “dissident” explains Apple’s attempts at crippling the piracy service and how Apptrackr supporters can help keep the resource running.
Following a report that claims Nintendo is set to open up its own app store for its upcoming Wii U console, there are now suggestions that the Japanese gaming giant is “actively courting” iOS developers in a bit to lure them over to Wii U game development. One developer reports that the company even offered “assistance” with porting their title from iOS to be played on the console’s new controller, which features a 6.2-inch touchscreen.
A bizarre official app from Apple called GameStore popped up in the App Store on New Year’s Eve, apparently by accident. The 99 cent app, which functionally does nothing, appears to be some sort of test app or prototype for a Newsstand-like games service that has yet to get off the ground.
Known developer Steven Troughton-Smith has been able to run iOS App Store apps on the Apple TV fullscreen at the device’s full, 720p resolution. Troughton-Smith also worked on the Siri port that was demoed months ago and made available for jailbroken iOS devices last week.
With the help of another developer by the name of TheMudKip and Grant Paul’s MobileLaunchpad launcher, Troughton-Smith has been able to run iOS apps natively on the Apple TV without using AirPlay.
Despite slowly declining from June until September, the number of free apps downloaded from Apple’s App Store hit a record high during November, with 5.65 million downloads per day. And Apple has the iPhone 4S and iOS 5 to thank.
For the second month in a row since the fifth-generation device was launched, the App Store has seen record downloads among the top 200 free apps.
Wow! 2011 has been one of the most interesting years in recent memory for Apple Inc. Of course the death of Apple’s co-founder, Steve Jobs, stands out as one of the most important events of the year for Apple, but there have been a load of other stories too that have made 2011 a very memorable year for the fruit company. From one controversy to the next, to record-breaking earnings, and new products, Apple has plowed through 2011 with a steady determination to be the best technology company on the planet. Only one device underwent a redesign (the iPad), while other form factors stayed the same. Instead of focusing on making pivotal leaps forward with hardware, Apple’s main focus of 2011 was to fortify their strong foundation in the software game.
Here’s Cult of Mac’s look back on the Apple in the year 2011.
This video of Steve Jobs from 1990 is an interesting artifact for a couple of reasons.
For one thing, it’s the clip in which Steve pioneered his famous “bicycle for the mind” analogy, which I’ve always felt is one of the most beautiful things ever said about computers.
What is also interesting, though, is how gung ho Steve Jobs is about video games in this clip, even going as far as to suggest that video games are the future of learning, and even the future of the Library of Congress.
We’ve long loved Skitch, the screenshot and image editor that we’ve been using on our Macs in one way or another since 2007. A few months back, the guys behind Evernote bought out Skitch, which raised some questions about its future as a stand-alone app, but we needn’t have worried: not only is Skitch its own Mac app, but it’s now become a shiny iPad one as well.
Apple has never shown favor to emulators in its App Store (with the exception of examples like the Commodore 64 app), so it’s surprising to see iMAME available in the App Store for free right now. iMAME allows you to run thousands of classic arcade titles if you’re lucky enough to have the original ROMs.
The emulator app includes 9 less-than-popular arcade games to run, but the possibilities are pretty endless if you know what you’re doing.
It’s been a long time coming, but the award-winning, multi-platform platformer Limbo just hit the Mac App Store for $9.99. The story of a boy searching the afterworld to find his sister, Limbo’s an atmospheric puzzler from Playdead studios, most well known for its challenging gameplay and atmospheric aesthetic, Limbo’s one of the best indie games to have been released on the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 in recent memory, so it’s delifghtful to finally see it available for Macs. I know what I’m playing this afternoon.
Remember the recent story about the App Store being worth more than all of RIM? Here’s another astounding factoid: Just the top 200 most-grossing App Store entries generate four times the revenue than everything offered by the Android Marketplace. A new report also pegs China as a major App Store user, accounting for 30 percent of overall downloads and nearly half of iPad apps.
If you buy books through Amazon and use their Kindle app, a nice update was just pushed to the App Store bringing the option to subscribe on your iPad to any of the magazines offered on the Kindle Fire
Back in the 80s, slacking off at the office was no more rare than it is today, but while these days most of our time that we should be working is spent on Twitter, Facebook and blogs (thanks for that, by the way), in the 80s, it was more often than not spent gaming on your company PC.
Enter the Boss Key, a wonderful relic of covert 80s slacking. Let’s say you were playing a game on your company PC, and your boss walked by. By simply hitting a key on your button, you could instantly replace what was on the screen with a quasi-official looking spreadsheet, full of boring figures and dry analysis. When your boss left the environs of your cubicle, pushing the Boss Key again would allow you to plunge back into the game.
Neat, huh? Well, think of CovertChirp kind of like a Boss Key for iOS, except it doesn’t help your gaming stay undetected… it helps you covertly tweet.
Google has issued an update to its Google Voice app for the iPhone today to introduce support for devices connected to Sprint, and multi-recipient texting — a feature that has been available in Google Voice for Android more than a month — a multi-line text entry field, and one-touch copy and paste within the Dialer.
Warner Bros. has updated the critically acclaimed Batman Arkham City Lockdown for iOS to add two new Batman skins, iCloud support, and to fix a number of minor bugs. While the new skins are certainly a treat, iCloud support is undoubtedly the most welcome feature for iOS gamers, who can now sync there game between their devices.
Gameloft loves nothing more than throwing a huge $0.99 iOS game sale, so after EA began slashing the price of its own games yesterday, you could almost guarantee that Gameloft wouldn’t be far behind. And it has some treats in store for you this Christmas, including best-sellers like N.O.V.A. 2, Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles, and Spider-Man: Total Mayhem; in addition to some of its latest releases such as BackStab, 9mm, and Gangstar Rio: City of Saints.
Here’s the complete list of Gameloft titles on sale for just $0.99 right now!
Following a report published yesterday that detailed the problems users were having when attempting to download apps from the App Store under iOS 3.1.3, Apple has quietly issued another App Store update today to rectify the issue. Those who are still running this firmware on their iPhone or iPod touch should now be able to download new apps directly to their devices again.
Pulse is one of our favorite personalized news aggregating apps, but the latest app made it even better than ever, adding a redesigned catalogue with sexy coverflow action, an improved UI and even a new Zite-like Smart Dock to supercharge an already great app.
EA has kicked off a huge iOS sale that has seen dozens of popular games reduced to just $0.99 in a bid to top the App Store’s charts this Christmas. Some of the company’s hottest games are included, a number of which haven’t only just been released, such as Dead Space, FIFA 12, Tetris, and Trenches II.
Here’s the complete list of titles on sale for just $0.99!
Users who are still running the iOS 3.1.3 software on their iPhones and iPod touches are reporting that a recent App Store update has blocked them from downloading new apps directly to their devices. The update was issued on December 16, and users have been unable to download new apps since, though they can still download updates to existing apps.
Halfbrick Studios’ Jetpack Ride is already just a stupidly good bargain at $0.99. It was my personal vote for best game of 2011, and it’s essentially reduced my girlfriend to a shaking, caffeine-fused creature who can’t stop babbling about flying robot chickens and fruit-blasting jetpacks.
If you haven’t bought Jetpack Joyride yet, you’re absolutely mad. But if you don’t snag it now that it’s free, you’re not just crazy, you’re stupid. Do it! Do it now!
With countless iOS devices being handed out this Christmas, Apple’s App Store is going to see a heck of a lot of business. It’s in your best interests, then, if you’re an iOS developer, to have your apps in the App Store and ready for sale before Apple shuts down for the holidays. You now have less than 24 hours to submit your app before it’s put on hold until January.