While the smash-hit app Flappy Bird has been removed from the App Store, developer Dong Nguyen has still found success with a few of his other games. Consistently ranking at the top of the app charts how will Nguyen’s new game Shuriken Block rank in your interests?
Take a look at Shuriken Block and see how it compares to the hype and popularity of the late Flappy Bird.
This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application “Shuriken Block” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”
Hypersleep — Health & Fitness — Free ($0.99 for additional sounds)
Developer Fixdit sees no reason why your nerd love should have to stop just because you’re unconscious. So now we have Hypersleep, a space-themed sleep aid that includes white-noise-ified versions of the engine noises of various science-fiction vehicles. You can nod off to the engine idle of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D or the background hum of the 10th Doctor’s TARDIS. Or some other equally dweeby drones.
And that’s where the Nerd Tax comes in: The default noise is free, but additional (read: recognizable) sounds cost $0.99 each. But I’m pretty sure that if the sound of Serenity’s engine will help you nod off, you’re willing to pay that dollar.
Heroes went and got themselves in a big damn hurry.
Dungeon Highway by Substantial Category: iOS Games Works With: iPhone, iPad Price: Free
It’s not enough anymore that they just get through the dungeon and fight the terrifying monster at the end. These days, they feel some strange need to do it all without stopping. It’s escalation, I guess; the new guys want to show off, so they run. Endlessly.
Dungeon Highway is the story of one such valiant champion who runs and shoots and dies a lot. And then you start over, and he runs and shoots and dies some more.
See that? That’s the excellent looking retro action platform from Levels or Lives, Super Fun Games, and Crescent Moon Games. It’s called Crystal Catacombs, and was successfully funded on Kickstarter in July of 2012.
To continue the process, the developers want to get Crystal Catacombs on Steam, which is perhaps the most well-known gaming distribution platform for Mac, Windows, and Linux games. The process there is known as Project Greenlight, and Steam members all vote on the games they’d like to see on Steam.
The first thing you notice about OUYA is that, unlike everything else stacked under your TV, it’s not a massive box that just sits there collecting dust. Rather, the Yves Behar-designed OUYA is a small and elegant piece of hardware that deserves to be on display.
Don’t let OUYA’s small size fool you, though – it was built using technology similar to what powers our smartphones and tablets, (with a bit of tweaking to the quad-core 1.7ghz processor) and is driven by Google’s open-source Android 4.1 Jellybean operating system. And Cult of Mac Deals has the OUYA for 32% off the regular price – only $85.
BlackBerry today announced the arrival of BBM 2.0 for Android and iOS, which brings BBM Channels, BBM Voice, and other new features to the popular cross-platform messaging app. The Canadian company first teased this update back in December, and now it is finally rolling out through the App Store and Google Play.
A patent application published Thursday reveals how Apple could incorporate flexible OLED displays into future devices to improve their function without sacrificing strength. The technology could get Apple closer to producing bezel-less devices in existing product lines such as the iPhone, iPad and MacBook as well as speculative product categories like the iWatch.
The patent refers to a technique for reducing a display border by bending the sides of a display surface in such a way that electrode materials used in the device could be made to stretch rather than break when bent or folded. The application, titled “Flexible Displays” and filed in July 2013, means that future Apple devices need not be limited in size by the requirement that they include metal or plastic housings.
Rovio began teasing its latest Angry Birds spinoff on Wednesday — without actually revealing the name of the new game. But based on the promotional poster above, which was posted on the studio’s new blog this morning, we now know the title will be based around the lovable Stella and her feathered friends.
There are quite a few web sites these days that will send you notifications when you visit them via Safari. Sites like NBA.com and the New York Times will drop you a dialog box when you visit them for the first time to ask you if you would like to receive the push notifications.
If you allow them, all hope is not lost should you reconsider your decision. You can drop right into System Preferences and disable them on a site by site basis.
The next version of Apple TV may allow you to take your viewing with you wherever you go. Photo: Apple
Comcast, the number one cable provider in the U.S., has announced that it plans to acquire Time Warner Cable, the second largest cable firm in the U.S., for a reported $45 billion.
The deal — set to be officially announced later today — will see Comcast offer $158.82 per share in an all-stock deal.
Around half of U.S. consumers are hoarding their old iPhones in cupboards and sock drawers — representing an inventory worth around $13.4 billion in total.
According to the annual “Mobile Mountain Study” conducted by research group OnePoll for resale site SellCell.com, this figure is down from the 55% of people who admitted to holding onto their old smartphones last year — although the total amount of money being left on the table is up from last year’s sum of $9 billion, thanks to the growing smartphone market.
“Americans are still unaware of the money they can make by trading in their old mobile,” says SellCell founder Keir McConomy.
Tivoli has long made great-looking, full-toned radios and speakers with a distinctly classic style, and the new Model Three doesn’t change any of that. But there’s one addition which is distinctly modern. The nine-year old design now comes with Bluetooth.
Ahead of the 86th Academy Awards show, the Heads Up! app dreamed up by this year’s host Ellen DeGeneres has received a timely update — offering questions related to the Oscars.
Joining existing game categories including Celebrities, Animals, Accents, and Characters, the new time-limited Oscars game deck offers users a chance to brush up on their movie trivia knowledge in the most time-pressured setting imaginable. “It’s perfect perfect for your viewing party, or preparing for the big night starring Ellen,” the app’s developers state.
Apple has released its eighth annual Supplier Responsibility Progress Report.
The forty-page document focuses on Apple’s progress in providing the 1 million+ people working in its supply chain with “safe and ethical working conditions,” as well as the company’s efforts to ethically source minerals.
The Togo Dock is a new pocket-sized iPhone dock from the makers of the Une Bobine, the super-successful “handy bendy iPhone-holding snake.” The new gadget is as simple as can be: it’s a little plastic reel with a magnet on the back, which turns a lightning cable into an iPhone dock that can be stuck to anything – as long as it’s made of ferrous metal.
Musx is like Instagram for music. Post tracks you like, add a few words and your followers can check out the same tunes. Why the hell didn’t anyone think of this before?
Pixite’s fantastic Tangent app gets a big update with v1.5, adding in a new “Urban Decay” pack that lets you point your iPhone camera at a building and have it crumble into rubble and dust, and then snap pictures as zombies and wild animals reclaim what us evil humans were only ever borrowing.
Wait, no. Urban Decay is a new set of fancy filters for grungifying your pictures. Just make sure you get the right Tangent app, as the developer has been plagued by a copycat who keeps putting fake versions of the app up on the store.
Here’s a neat take on the small pocket strobe or flash. Instead of forcing you to buy and manage the charging of a ton of AA batteries to use it, the Neewer TT850 is a hot-shoe strobe that uses a 12-volt li-ion battery. This not only makes charging easier, but also means you get a lot more pops per second thanks to the fact that the battery can dump 12V instead the flash instead of the paltry 6V that 4xAAs can manage.
Punch Quest by Rocketcat Games Category: iOS Games Works With: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch Price: Free
Released at the end of 2012, Rocketcat Games’ Punch Quest isn’t the newest game to hit the App Store. However, as a former Flappy Bird player (yes, I admit it!) I was interested to see what else Apple’s recommender algorithms would suggests to me in terms of a substitute constant runner requiring precision-tapping.
Following those recommendations brought me to Punch Quest.
Punch Quest is pretty much a quest where you punch things. Like so many successful iOS game it basically takes a video game premise/paradigm — in this case a platformer — and strips it down to its most essential elements — in this case running and punching. Your left hand controls jumping, your right does the bulk of the punching, and the running is automatic — as if the action takes place on a giant treadmill, although you can choose to speed up or slow down within this setup.
Command-tab, a keyboard shortcut so ingrained in the Mac user’s finger-memory that it’s easy to find yourself hitting it when using a keyboard with your iPad, or when you’re on a PC (NB: don’t use a PC unless you have been professionally trained and are wearing a tie).
The switcher already lets you flip between apps, quit apps, view recent documents in a cool Exposé view (use the up/down arrows), and to drag and drop documents onto apps to open them. But now there’s SuperTab, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink-style app which adds even more.
Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?
Well, if you stop interrogating us for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, we can tell you about this thing we do here.
Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include a fancy number trivia app, an bed-bug checker, a photo editing and filter app for the obsessive in all of us, a new update to iDraw that brings some Photoshop-style features to the already-fantastic iPad app, and a fashion blogger app for heaps of style.
Check them all out:
Numerus is one of those weird apps that shouldn’t be as interesting as it is. But once you spend a little time clicking around, you will feel the random knowledge dropping into your head.
Did you know that in 1950, the Canadian postal system processed 1,362,310,155 items? I don’t know why you would, but you do now. Also, the human body has 248 organs, there were 129 episodes of the CBS sitcom Becker, and China contains 56 officially recognized ethnic groups. I can’t stop.
Alright, maybe one more.
Is that a Bill and Ted reference in there? This app is amazing.
America is seeing a resurgence in bed-bug infestations, and here’s an app to help you screen a room and identify the little biters before they introduce themselves.
To be perfectly clear, Bed Bug Proof is an app created in part to sell an anti-bed-bug spray. But the practical information and tools it provides like the inspection guide, comparison photographs, and a magnifier/light to let you use your phone to search for eggs and poop, are useful enough to let it stand on its own.
Although it will make you itchy just looking at it. Seriously.
Photo editing for the obsessive compulsive in all of us.
Sure, the Camera app that came with your iPhone has a few filters, but we all know they’re pretty lame.
Instagram (and before that, Hipstamatic) made the quick filter process a no-brainer and popular to boot.
Jelly Bus’ Rookie, though, has all of them beat, with a veritable boat load of filters, effects, and all the settings you can possibly handle. If that’s not enough, there’s a bunch of stickers and text effects you can add to your photos to make even the most ordinary snapshot into a work of art.
Once you tweak and tap your way to photo-nirvana with Rookie, you can save your photo to pretty much every other photo sharing service out there, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr.
Get a whole photo shop on your iPad for a tiny amount of cash.
Image editing app iDraw has been around for quite some time, but the new 2.0 version (released this past week) really kicked things into high gear.
If you’re looking for a solid Photoshop-style image editing program for only a little bit of scratch, iDraw 2.0 has it in spades. The app now imports and exports PSD photoshop files with full vector path and effect support, as well as shape layers and layer effects. You can also export your designs as layered PSD files.
The app has been redesigned for iOS 7 as well, and it now takes advantage of the new 64-bit A7 processors on the new iPad Air.
Seriously, there is so much jam-packed into this release as to consider it an entirely new app, which is why we wanted to share it with you now.
Whether you’re a fashionista looking for new sources of inspiration or a tone-deaf jeans and t-shirt kind of dresser, new app Flink will help you connect to the world of fashion blogging.
Flink allows you to see hot new “looks” from the top fashion bloggers around the web, including Garance Doré, La revue de Kenza, Adenorah, Absolutely Glamourous, Mercredie, le blog de Lilou, Modasic, and Blondie Baby. You can also save these looks for later, visit the original blog posts, and “heart” the looks you love.
When you first launch the app, you’ll tap to follow as many of the included bloggers, and then tap your way through each of the photos included in each screen. You can tap through to see what clothes and accessories make up each look, or you can just swipe through and see various images of the different parts.
All in all, if you’re looking to kick up your fashion knowledge, or just find some new looks to recreate in your own life, Flink just might be the free app you’re looking for.
The iPhone rumor mill has been in overdrive lately, but with the iPhone 6 launch not expect until later this Fall we weren’t expecting to see any pictures which makes this afternoon’s set of alleged iPhone 6 rear casings almost too delicious to believe.
A set of images of an alleged iPhone 6 hit Twitter this afternoon, originating from obscure account but have since been picked up by Sonny Dickson, the infamous leaker who revealed the iPhone 5 as well as a number of other Apple products.
The images feature a space gray and gold iPhone, both with an edge-to-edge display and a thinner profile. The rear casing also suggest Apple will ditch the two glass sections in the back – maybe finally utilizing their LiquidMetal tech for an antenna?
We can’t confirm if the images are genuine yet, but they still give you a pretty good idea just how beautiful a bigger screen iPhone will be.
Update: Looks like these photos are fake. At least there are more surprises to come.
The new iOS 7 Weather app, taking a cue from the gorgeously designed Yahoo! Weather app that came out just before iOS 7 did, has all sorts of neat details and gestures to help you keep track of the meteorological realities around you.
If a list of all the cities you add to the Weather app and the extended 7-day forecast basics aren’t enough, there’s even more to find once you dig into the app a bit.
The next version of Apple TV may allow you to take your viewing with you wherever you go. Photo: Apple
It’s been nearly two years since Apple has updated the Apple TV, but according to a report from Bloomberg fans will only have to wait until April to see a redesigned Apple TV with new interface and plenty of new channels to boot.
