Kicking off this week’s must-have games roundup is a massive update to Tiny Wings — one of my favorite iOS games — which adds a brand new game mode with 15 levels, Retina visuals, and more. You’ll also find Amazing Alex, the latest game from Angry Birds creator Rovio; a wonderful multiplayer RPG; a retro Neo-Geo shooter, and more.
No surprises as the latest Nielsen numbers show Android and iOS leading U.S. smartphone market share. Both operating systems continue to gain at the expense of RIM — who has all but fallen into the “Other” category. Speaking of the “Other” category: Windows mobile, Windows 7, Symbian, and Palm/WebOS were all grouped together, combining for a measly 5.9% market share.
After landing on Android and iOS yesterday, Rovio has confirmed that Amazing Alex will be making its way to Mac and PC. The new physics-based puzzler is Rovio’s first break away from the hugely successful Angry Birds series, and it’s already gotten off to a great start, rocketing up to the number one spot in the App Store’s paid charts in several countries.
Sparrow, my favorite mail client on both Mac and iOS, just received a new update that will be particularly exciting to those of you with the new MacBook Pro. In addition to support for OS X Mountain Lion and Notification Center, Sparrow 1.6.2 brings high-resolution graphics for the new MacBook Pro’s Retina display. It’s also on sale for just $4.99 until Monday, July 16.
Our iPhones and iPads, which enable us to work and be on call virtually anywhere at any time, will lead to more than half of us working while on vacation. That’s the result of a new study that looked at how technology impacts the work/life balance. iOS devices are common players in the bring your own device (BYOD) era. As BYOD programs lead many of us to use our personal iOS devices and other mobile technology for work-related tasks, they also encourage an “always on” attitude from employers and employees alike.
The study, commissioned by enterprise remote access vendor TeamViewer, shows that just over half (52%) of professionals expect to work while on vacation in one capacity or another.
It also comes on the heels of a similar study that we reported last week. That study showed that always-connected devices like the iPhone and iPad lead most of us to work well past the end of the business day. A practice so common, in fact, that many of us will work an extra seven hours outside of normal business hours and outside of the office each week.
Get in your doomsday bunker because Rovio has released a new game. That’s right, Casey’s Contraptions Amazing Alex is now available on both the Google Play Store and App Store. You’ve seen the trailers and now it’s time to see how much weight Rovio’s name carries.
If you’ve though of an awesome idea for an iOS app, but you haven’t got a clue how to write code and you haven’t got the time to learn, then App Idol may be able to help. The competition is giving you the chance to win $1,000 and see your app idea turned into a reality. But you’ll have to be quick; the deadline for applications is July 24.
If you’ve ever gamed on your Mac or iPad, you’re probably a big fan of the Tomorrow Corporation and their indescribably weird physics puzzler, World of Goo. They’re now teasing a new game, called Little Inferno, and while there’s no gameplay to go by, it looks even weirder, taking place in a world suffering from a mysterious ice age in which children must burn their old toys and mementos and breathe in the fumes in order to stay warm and fight off encroaching death.
Yup. Absolutely bonkers. There’s no release date yet, but you can pre-order the alpha for $14.99, which will get you access to the game early on the PC or Mac. The iOS version will probably come out a few months after release if World of Goo is anything to go by.
Source: Little Inferno
One of the unique traits around iOS devices used in business and enterprise environments is that users have much higher expectations for mobile tools and processes than they do for traditional PC applications, processes, and user experiences. That’s true whether the device is employee-owned or provided by an employer.
It’s easy to see why most iPhone and iPad users have these higher standards. With iOS, Apple has created a platform that is app-driven and offers an incredible selection of apps to users. Apple, and many iOS developers, have done an amazing job of getting rid of anything that stands between the iOS user and the experience of content that they are watching, reading, or creating. That delivers an immersive experience that is unlike the vast majority business or productivity tools loaded on workplace PCs.
When you’re getting a little bored of looking at the same old home screen, the DreamBoard app for iOS can completely revamp your device with a whole new look. Couple that with a new tweak called Metroon and you have yourself an iPhone that runs Windows 8 (well… almost) — complete with a Metro user interface, live tiles, and even the “Charms” bar.
Enterprise customers form the backbone of RIM. Many of them are now preparing contingency plans in case the BlackBerry maker goes out of business or is bought by another technology company. Many enterprises first began thinking about contingency plans in the wake of RIM’s large-scale outages last year.
What those contingency plans look like varies. Some companies are soliciting advice from leaders in the mobile management like MobileIron. Some are revisiting their agreements with RIM. Others have already begun migrations away from the BlackBerry.
Google has released a major update to its Google+ iOS app that brings full support to the iPad’s Retina display. Borrowing from the Android version, Google+ on the iPad relies heavily on images and sports a very clean, minimal interface. The iPhone version of Google+ was updated weeks ago with a similarly clean UI, probably due to the fact that Google acquired Kevin Rose’s talent at the app development firm Milk.
In today’s update, the location-based Google+ Events feature has been integrated into the universal app. You can attach photos directly from your device’s Camera Roll and add them to your posts. You can also start and join hangouts in-app and stream them to your TV using AirPlay.
Back in February it was discovered that Google was bypassing Apple’s privacy settings in Mobile Safari on iOS. The search giant was making ad revenue from Safari users’ web activity by ‘tricking’ the default iOS browser to allow multiple tracking cookies.
6 months later, and Google is about to pay the “largest penalty ever levied on a single company” by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Google will pay $22.5 million to settle the charges issued by the FTC, and the code in question has already been disabled by Google in Safari on iOS.
Who would have thought we’d see the day when Rovio released anything but an Angry Birds game? Well, that day is almost upon us, as Rovio has released the official Amazing Alex trailer announcing a July 12th release for both the Google Play Store and App Store.
When Apple opened the App Store in 2008, it began a revolution that would lead to the largest and most vibrant mobile apps ecosystem in existence. It should then come as no surprise that Objective-C, the object-oriented coding language used by developers to build apps for iOS and OS X, has become the third most popular coding language, right behind Java and C itself.
Apple has been pretty strict on BitTorrent clients — or anything related to torrent downloading — for iOS, and it does its best to keep them out of the App Store, meaning you must jailbreak your device if you want to install one. However, the Cupertino company appears to have let one slip through its net. Transmission RPC, although not a full-fledged BitTorrent client, is a $1.99 app that allows you to control Transmission for Mac OS X from your iOS device.
We’ve seen the iPad used in a range of workplaces. Although some are surprising, like industrial farming and the Vatican, most are a bit more pedestrian. The U.S. Navy is planning to use iPads in a way that is both pedestrian and very high-end.
According to a recent government contract that is up for bid, the Navy plans to include iPads in a revamp of its Executive Dining Facility in the Pentagon. The dining room is often used by the Secretary of the Navy and regularly plays host to high-level Pentagon guests.
The Audio Xciter music player’s press release is full of the usual superlatives, and I quickly glossed over them in my usual cynical manner looking for something to make fun of (which I found – more on that in a bit). But one listen of the audio-processing iOS app is enough to make you sit up and, uh, listen.
It really is amazing.
Struggling to find beautiful wallpapers for your new MacBook Pro’s high-resolution Retina display? With Wallpaper Wizard for Mac OS X, you can browse over 100,000 high-definition wallpapers with resolutions up to 2880 x 1800 all in one place, saving only the images ones you want to keep. And best of all, Wallpaper Wizard is today’s Two Dollar Tuesday pick, meaning it has 80% off its normal $9.99 price tag.
The official Readability app for iOS has received a major update today that not only promises to deliver “huge performance improvements,” but also adds a number of new features, including new “Top Reads” and “Longform Picks” reading lists, YouTube and Vimeo integration, and more.
Sometimes a jailbreak tweak comes along that is so subtle and yet so brilliant. Banner notifications in iOS are great, but Apple made a poor design choice: incoming banners push in on the top of whatever app you’re using at the moment. If you’re using Safari, the address/search bar is momentarily obscured by a banner notification. That’s no good.
A new Cydia tweak called CoverMeNot keeps banner notifications out of the way by automatically doubling the height of your iOS status bar. No more obtrusive banners covering the top of your favorite apps.
Last March, Twitter told the developer community to stop making third-party apps and clients that “mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.” Twitter said, “We need to move to a less fragmented world, where every user can experience Twitter in a consistent way.”
Fast forward more than a year later, and Twitter is slowly moving away from an open platform for developers to build upon. Twitter plans to implement stricter API guidelines for developers, and while there’s no concrete evidence that Twitter will shut down third-party apps altogether, the current landscape of great apps like Tweetbot and Twitterrific could look very different in coming months.
The Opus hotel in Vancouver made a somewhat shocking announcement last week. The hotel was ripping the landline phones out of its rooms and replacing them with iPhones. While that seems extravagant, it’s actually a rather brilliant plan.
The hotel, which already offers guests an iPad that can act as a concierge service, points out that offering guests, particularly international guests, an iPhone adds a lot of value. In addition to the value for customers, Apple’s free iOS management tools could make implementing such a program simple and relatively inexpensive – beyond the cost of the iPhones themselves anyway.
Apple purchasing several mapping companies over the last fews years, Apple is finally replacing Google Maps with its own solution in iOS 6. But it seems the Cupertino company may be planning to expand it beyond iOS. One developer has discovered some code within the iOS 6 beta that indicates Maps will also be coming to OS X later on.
The bring your own device (BYOD) movement and the broader trend of increased mobile solutions are driving a very ambivalent dialog in most business, schools, and government agencies. On one hand, iPhones, iPads, and other mobile technologies are increasing user productivity and satisfaction (often while improving customer engagement). On the other hand, many devices contain sensitive data and are far from being truly secure.
A handful of studies released over the past few days highlight the often-schizophrenic nature of the discussions taking place in many workplaces – including on experiment that showed 83% of individuals finding a lost corporate smartphone would attempt to access corporate data on it.