This story first appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine.
Games make up more than 65 percent of downloads in the App Store and Google Play, and a whopping 90 percent of mobile gaming revenue is generated by a freemium business model, according to Bertrand Schmitt, CEO of App Annie.
These are just two of the insights that came from a trends panel at the Game Developers Conference last month in San Francisco. The panel also included folks from gaming engine Unity and publisher/developer Pocket Gems.
Some photos have leaked showing Apple’s first Turkish physical retail store days before it opens.
The images were posted to Instagram by user orbaygumus, and depict a large cuboid glass structure, similar to the glass installations at Apple Stores in New York and Shanghai. All that is currently missing is a giant Apple logo.
Pebble Notes, a new iPhone app written by a student for students, puts important information on your wrist by sending your notes to your Pebble.
So many of us rely on the notes we’ve created and stored on our smartphones to get us through the day. We use them to make shopping lists for the supermarket, jot down passwords and codes we’ll need later on, and to help us remember other important information — such as answers for exams.
But if we leave our iPhone at home, they’re no good to us — unless you have Pebble Notes.
Evolution, just released on the App Store, is looking like a badass free-to-play science fiction role-playing game with real style.
Build your base to collect resources, battle with your character in real time, solve environmental puzzles, and upgrade everything–weapons, armor, special abilities–as you go.
All of this and free to boot, Evolution promises to meet your sci-fi combat gaming needs on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.
I may not be able to say that Fantastical is the best calendar app for everyone, but I think it’s safe to say that it’s the best option for most people. What started on the Mac and made its way to the iPhone is now on the iPad. Fantastical 2 for iPad is here, and it’s great.
Today marks the launch of an intriguing new Kickstarter project.
Created by former Apple employee Michael Grothaus, SITU is a simple, attractive Bluetooth food scale which talks to your iPad. By showing you the exact nutrition content of any food you place on it, SITU lets people see the exact calories, sugar, salt, protein, vitamins and minerals of any food they’re about to eat, based on that food’s weight.
BlackBerry has announced that it will not renew the T-Mobile (U.S.) license to sell its products when it expires on April 25 — ending a decade-plus relationship between the two companies.
“BlackBerry has had a positive relationship with T-Mobile for many years. Regretfully, at this time, our strategies are not complementary and we must act in the best interest of our BlackBerry customers,” said BlackBerry CEO John Chen in a statement.
The Google-owned Nest thermostat arrives in the U.K. today.
Created by “Podfather” Tony Fadell and former Apple colleague Matt Rogers, the Nest thermostat is an iOS-connected device which allows users to control and automate their indoor heating.
It can be purchased from Nest’s online store, alongside Amazon, Apple, and B&Q — priced at £179, or £249 with the recommended professional installation included.
Apple has released its latest weekly list of the most downloaded games in the App Store.
Unlike a near-realtime list like the iTunes chart, this list reflects cumulative total downloads over a 7-day period — in this case March 24 to March 30.
Perhaps the most notable inclusions are the success of Papa’s Freezeria To Go and Backflip Madness in the paid charts, and the Threes!-inspired 2048 and Boom Beach in the free charts. Here’s the whole list:
Phil Schiller took to the stand yesterday for the second day of Apple’s latest patent trial with Samsung.
Schiller mostly rehashed the same defense he used when the two companies met in court last November, also over a patent dispute — namely that Apple was the company which took the risk developing the iPhone, and that Samsung’s copying has hurt the company.
“I believe it has caused damage for Apple in the marketplace,” Schiller said. “It has caused people to question some of the innovations we’ve created and Apple’s role as the innovator. That challenge is made harder in the copying.”
iWork’s web apps have lagged behind Apple’s iOS and Mac apps in terms of design and functionality, but no more! Apple has redesigned the iWork for iCloud suite to make it look more like its iOS 7 counterpart.
Available to use now on iCloud.com, today’s updates to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote brings a unified look and feel to the iWork suite across all platforms.
Apple has rolled out what is perhaps the most important update ever to its mobile advertising platform, giving anybody with an Apple ID the ability to create iAds for free.
Using the updated iAd Workbench tool, anyone can make their own iAd campaign in a simple, Apple-style interface. It just got a whole lot easier to make iAds for iOS devices.
And that’s not all Apple has added.
Apple is considering a buyout of a division of Renesas Electronics that specializes in display chips for smartphones. The buyout would give Apple engineering expertise to help improve the iPhone’s display “sharpness and battery life,” according to Japanese business site Nikkei.
Apple already orders all of its liquid crystal display chips from Renesas, and the Japanese company is responsible for powering about a third of the world’s small to midsize LCDs. Instead of using the chip division of Renesas like an outside contractor, Apple wants to bring it in-house.
While the app store is updated every week, many new addicting games come with it. With so many developers creating their own versions of popular apps, only some succeed at adding their own original twists. The new app Tiny Frog is an arcade game that takes a familiar popular style of gameplay and adapts it into a new form. Help the frog reach as many lily pads as possible in 15 seconds. Do you think you can tap quick enough to get the highest score of all your friends?
Take a look at the video and find out what you think.
This is a Cult of Mac video review of the iOS application Tiny Frog – redBit games, brought to you by Joshua Smith of TechBytes W/ Jsmith.
Note: This article previously appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine, available in the App Store.
Godus is the upcoming game from god-game specialist designer Peter Molyneux. The game will play on Mac and iOS seamlessly, letting you create and nurture your own little island paradise on one platform and then watch it develop on the other.
“We want to reinvent the genre of god-games,” Molyneux told Cult of Mac from his vantage point in a suite at the swanky Intercontinental Hotel.
Remember that slick-looking Diablo-style hack and slash game we raved about, KingsRoad? We were astonished that such a full-on console-level action RPG game was available on Facebook when we saw it demoed at the Game Developers Conference a couple of weeks back.
Well, now we can finally come clean and share the news: KingsRoad is coming to iPad. You’ll be able to play with all your Facebook buddies, too, as the game will use the very same servers across all platforms.
Loot and raid on my Mac, and then take it on the go? Yes, please.
Head on over to the Hyper Light Drifter Kickstarter page and you’ll immediately get a sense of just how hot this new bame from Heart Machine is going to be. With a modest goal of $25,000, the project garnered over $645,000 before it finished, and it looks to be well worth every pledge.
Just check out the moody, atmospheric video below, and you’ll see why we’re hyper-excited for this new indie adventure game.
Future iPhones may feature Olloclip-style interchangeable lenses — according to a patent published Tuesday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The newly-published patent describes a mechanism by which an iOS devices could be fitted with a bayonet mount, onto which various different types of lens could be attached.
The bayonet mount would allow lenses to be securely fastened to the body of an iPhone, while also keeping a relatively inconspicuous profile when not being used.
Apple is leading the way when it comes to U.S. companies stockpiling cash, according to a note from Moody’s Investors Service.
Holding $158.8 billion, Apple’s cash pile is close to 30x what it was in 2004, when Apple has cash reserves of “just” $5.46 billion. This means that Apple holds 9.7% of total corporate cash outside the financial sector.
Think sport should be less about good sportsmanship and complex rules, and more about violence?
Clearly developer HooAh agrees on some level, because its upcoming iOS game Bench Clearing re-imagines baseball (a.k.a. “America’s favorite pastime”) as a massive free-for-all battle.
While most of the iBeacon applications so far have involved making retail and entertainment more pleasant to consume, a new exhibition at a New York museum aims to use Apple’s beacon technology to demonstrate the horror of landmines.
Taking place between 11am and 3pm on April 4 at the New Museum, the event lets members of the public experience a “digital minefield” by downloading a smartphone app called Sweeper and putting on a set of headphones.
Visitors then move through the exhibit space, potentially triggering iBeacons if they get too close. If this happens, visitors hear the sound of an explosion through their headphones, followed by a short audio excerpt telling the story of a person affected by landmines.
Apple may be moving ahead with its larger 5.5 inch iPhone, but according to a new report it’s running into a few problems along the way.
Reuters reports that while Apple is set to begin mass producing displays for its 4.7-inch iPhone as early as May, the eagerly anticipated 5.5-inch version is suffering supply chain issues relating to the production of in-cell technology for the larger screens.
Apple watchers and employees might be excited about the forthcoming Apple 2 campus, but its development may not prove so popular with drivers.
For the next phase of construction on Apple’s massive 176-acre campus, work will require lane closures on surrounding streets of the campus site — meaning that traffic will be redirected through Cupertino.
Ultrakam is a video-shooting app that uses more of the iPhone’s pixels than the stock camera app to capture something like 2K video from the iPhone 5, 5S and compatible iPads. Yup, 2K video on your iPhone, and a lot more besides.
