A Japanese game developer must read our coverage of the meteoric growth of App usage. The developer, DeNA paid up to $400 million for San Francisco-based Ngmoco, creator of well-known iPhone apps such as the Rolando series and Eliminate. “We’re building the largest mobile social gaming platform in the world,” declares DeNA founder and CEO Tomoko Namba.
As part of the deal, the two-year-old Ngmoco could receive an additional $100 million if the game developer meets unspecified goals by the end of 2011. The iPhone developer was founded by Electronics Arts exec Neil Young, plus Bob Stevenson, Alan Yu and Joe Keene.
Photo by Paul Williams (Iron Ammonite) - http://flic.kr/p/6ALhHX
Add India to the list of countries Apple possibly is targeting with a much-discussed, often-predicted, but as-yet under-wraps CDMA iPhone. Two Indian mobile carriers reportedly are in talks with the Cupertino, Calif. company to bring the popular handset to the fastest-growing wireless market.
The two carriers – Reliance Communications Ltd. and Tata Teleservices Ltd. – would join the two mobile providers currently selling the iPhone in India: Bharti AirTel Ltd. and Vodafone Essar Ltd. The Wall Street Journal mentioned no timetable for Apple introducing a CDMA iPhone into the market.
It was a month ago to the day that I ditched physical books, comics, and magazines for my iPad. A round-the-world trip for work precipitated the change. For 29 days, I would be outside the U.S., with stops in Australia, Singapore, India, and the UK. Not to mention that the India stop included three cities and four additional flights. It was not the time for a big stack of physical media, nor for a full laptop. It was time to travel light and to travel digital.
In the process, I’ve learned a lot. Some of it more boring, self-discovery kind of stuff, which I’ll save for my personal blog, if at all, but a lot of it about tablets, computers, and where entertainment itself might go.
1. The current iPad is good enough for most uses.
In spite of my promise to wait for the iPad 2, the thought of a total of 65 hours on planes quickly converted me to the quite-capable version 1.0. I really put it through its paces: web-browsing, Twitter, RSS reader, Facebook, blogging, video, gaming, and book-reading. Despite its early generation, it’s wholly adequate for most of these tasks. It is weakest, as many people have noted, for typing. If you can get it perfectly flat, as on a tray table in an airplane, it’s possible to hit a near touch-typing speed, but any other grip means going slow and making mistakes. Though some have complained about its anemic 256 MB of RAM, I found it plenty speedy for every task I threw at it. The absence of video cameras for video chat was a minor nuisance.
Amateur Space Photography (photo: brooklyspaceprogram.org)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXkoIBDXwd8
Taking their iPhone Where No iDevice Has Gone Before, a father and son in Newburgh, NY recently took a weekend science project to new heights. Luke and Max Geissbuhler attached an HD Video Camera, iPhone and some styrofoam packing to a weather balloon, then launched their homemade satellite on a journey that lasted 72 minutes and climbed over 100,000 feet into the atmosphere!
Who knows what Hyundai intends on using this desk for, but I have to admit, I can imagine worse desks than a 70-inch, 1080p iPhone. It was on display at the Kintex show in Korea this week, for some reason.
If you need convincing about the power of HTML5, look no further than Biolab Disaster, a fantastically retro, shoot-em-up platformer with some fantastic gameplay. Here, go play it for a bit now, I’ll wait for you.
Fun, right? Want to play it on your iPhone now? Well, the game’s developer has it up and running on the iPhone 3GS at sixty frames per second, and it looks awesome.
The only problem? The developer seems a little unsure about whether or not Apple will let Biolab Disaster onto the App Store because it uses the JavaScriptCore Framework, which is a private API on iOS. He’s hopeful he can get around that problem by bundling his own copy of the JavaScriptCore Framework with his app, which is perfectly legal to do since it’s part of WebKit, but there’s always the chance Biolab Disaster for iPhone will be shot down.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed: Biolab Disaster on the iPhone would be the perfect pick-up-and-play platformer SHMUP.
One thing that you tend to notice when you watch as much television as I do is that almost ever character on TV uses a Mac … usually with a big sticker conspicuously placed over the glowing emblem on the lid, because while writers and set designers want to show that their characters are cool enough to use a Mac or an iPhone, Apple doesn’t go in for product placement on shows it doesn’t like.
When they do sponsor, it always smacks of love: Consider critic’s darling 30 Rock and their proudly prominent “Sponsored by Apple” product placement … all despite the fact that the shows ratings have been in the toilet for seasons now. Steve Jobs grooves on some Liz Lemon.
CBS’ hit sitcom How I Met Your Mother is one of those shows in which every character has a MacBook Pro with a sticker over the Apple logo, despite the fact it’s pretty much the biggest sitcom out there. Apple clearly thinks the show’s a bit artless … which is funny, because that’s the only way to describe the product placement bukkake party for Microsoft products that was last night’s episode.
As usual when Apple releases a new device, Colorware is now letting bloggers know that those who aren’t happy with their new fourth-generation iPod Touch’s stock look can now come over to their website, pick your colors and let them hussy it up for you.
Like all of Colorware’s services, getting your iPod Touch slathered in hues will prove expensive: it will cost you $150 if you provide your own iPod Touch, or $380 for the 8GB model if you decide to buy directly from them.
Paying that much to get your iPod Touch painted seems a little bit nutty to us. There’s no doubt that Colorware’s a quality service… it’s just that a skin or color case offers almost as much customization, is infinitely cheaper and doesn’t need to be submerged in turpentine to remove.
This isn’t a 3GS tarted up by Colorware, it’s the “iPhonc,” a little no-name Chinese cell phone looking to capitalize upon a bit of brand confusion with a stolen Apple logo (albeit, one with a reversed stem) and the elimination of a single stroke from the product name’s typeface.
I would be curious one day to pick the brain of one of these iPhone knock-off designers. They really are ingenious. If only they used that same ingenuity to design capable smartphones instead of dancing around trademark infringement.
It’s been a long time since Wal-Mart first tipped that they’d be selling iPads in their brick and mortars starting later this year, but with the holiday shopping season coming up in the rear view mirror and Target now selling iPads themselves, Wal-Mart couldn’t very well hold back any longer… so starting this week, you should be able to ask any Wal-Mart greeter to direct you to the iPads and have them not look at you like you’ve got two heads.
“There’s an app for that” is the “Where’s the beef?” or “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” of our generation: an advertising slogan so ubiquitous and memorable that it is referenced constantly in popular culture. Lazy joke writers love it, while Don Draper himself would admire it’s almost crystalline beauty.
Well, mentally affix a symbol to the end of that phrase everytime you hear it, because Apple has just won their trademark on “There’s an app for that.”
Two and a half weeks ago, as New Zealand rolled back their clocks for Daylight Savings Time, Kiwis started noting an odd iOS bug: any recurring alarms they had set on their iPhones were going off an hour early. Curious, but then it gets curiouser: last week, when Australian had to adjust for Daylight Savings Time, it happened again.
We love the story: its like a mini-Y2K for iOS 4.1, hitting iPhone users around the world as their country enters Daylight Savings Time… and with Europe set to enter DST on October 30th, and America on November 6th, the bug is about to hit a lot more people.
So what does Apple intend to do about this? Apple Australia says they’re on it and have developed a fix that will be included as part of an upcoming software update. Since iOS 4.2 has a late November ship date, that means we’re likely to get an iterative iOS 4.1.1 update sometime before the 30th, when all of Europe starts hurling their iPhones dramatically against the wall when their alarms rob them of an hour of sleep.
The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both agree that a CDMA iPhone is coming to Verizon in January, and their agreement on the matter has one of Apple’s strategic leaks written all over it. But when the iPhone comes to Verizon, will it be boasting 4G mobile internet speeds?
Don’t count on it, says Steve Cheney of Techcrunch, who reports that the Verizon iPhone to debut in January will be unable to access Verizon’s LTE network.
This is the first TV advert from Microsoft for its new Windows Phone 7 — and it’s actually pretty good.
Well, it’s not embarrassingly strange and meaningless like Microsoft’s recent advertising.
Even if the ad has little to do with Windows Phone 7 per se, and more about mobile culture in general, it’s still eye-catching and engaging, which is more than can be said for the Vista ads.
What’s going on? The phones look pretty good and the advertising does too.
Here are a selection of videos from Microsoft introducing the Windows 7 phone software and some of the different handsets. Above: New Windows Phone 7 devices available from Dell, HTC, LG and Samsung.
It’s worth watching a couple of these videos to get an idea of how the competition for mobile is heating up. If the videos present a true picture of the Windows Phone 7 experience, it looks like a credible competitor to the iPhone.
The easy customization of the Windows Phone 7 home screen — “pinning,” in Microsoft’s parlance — looks like a compelling feature. Home screen customization isn’t something you about from iPhone users — but it is a feature you hear Android users talk about a lot.
We have four sweet apps this week including one for your iPad thanks to Appular. Man, that Notesy icon is attractive. Here’s what you need to do to max out your app folder limits:
Follow @CultofMac and @Appular on Twitter
Tweet this: “Sorry for tweeting this but @CultofMac and @Appular require it for me to be entered to win sick iPhone and iPad apps.”
Your tweet will be your entry into the giveaway, only ONE entry is allowed per person, and the giveaway will last until 11:59pm tonight. We’ll Direct Message (thus you must follow) the winners on Tuesday or Wednesday about how to get the codes!
Optional step – Tell us what you think about these apps if you own them already in the comments section.
Special Thanks to Appular for helping us put together these app code giveaways! If you’ve got a mobile app that you’d like marketed effectively, contact the good folks at Appular!
At a press conference today, Microsoft’s CEO Steve Balmer officially unveiled its new Windows Phone 7 operating system for mobile devices, along with nine smartphones by various manufacturers that will carry the software upon its release.
Together with Android devices, smartphones running Windows Phone 7 will be one of the biggest competitors to the iPhone 4 running iOS, so how do the new devices compare to Apple’s already massively popular iPhone?
Pogoplug has updated their free app over the weekend, and it now sports the ability to stream and play music in the background over either a wifi or 3G connection from a network-attached storage device running the Pogoplug engine — which currently means either a Pogoplug unit or one from Seagate.
The big advantage the Pogoplug app’s new function has over, say, the free Zumocast app (which debuted last month and does the same thing), is that the Pogoplug version doesn’t require a computer running from which to stream music. Downside? You’ll need to pop for a Pogoplug-equipped NAS unit, if you don’t already have one. The app also gains background photo uploading and fast app-switching.
Next, hopefully Pogoplug will improve the app’s movie-streaming capability, which sorely lacks the ability to convert videos on the fly to a streaming-freindly format, like Zumocast does.
It’s taken them over three years to respond to the revolutionary shift in the mobile operating system landscape posed by iOS, but Microsoft has finally done it and released a properly modern, properly app-laden and properly multi-touchable successor to the Windows Mobile series: Windows Phone 7. But what differentiates Windows Phone 7 from Windows Mobile 6.5, Windows Mobile 6 and a host of even crappier mobile operating systems squirted out by Microsoft?
Quite a bit, actually, and it’s quite a bit better… but it’s still two years behind the curve of iOS.
While we all wait for the final version of iOS 4.2 to arrive, the iPad’s inability to multitask is growing increasingly obnoxious — especially when our iPhones are humming along in 4.1. Worse still, an iPad running 4.2 is obviously using a multitasking scheme well-suited to an iPhone, not a tablet. In spite of increased screen real estate, there’s no way to keep a video window popped open in an unused portion of the screen in Safari, or to keep a Skype dialer overlaid on other tasks. No one wants a full desktop experience, but an iPhone-sized widget that can be moved around the screen would make the iPad truly special.
Julian Horsey of Geeky Gadgets has created a hack that shows what the future could hold, if Apple loses all sense of design and taste in the near future, with a clever clip to attach an iPhone to an iPad. With this two-headed monstrosity, you can multitask exactly as you would want to. This isn’t for the faint of heart — not because the hack is particularly difficult, but because you would actually have to be seen with it in public.
We start off another week with three deals in out daily spotlight: PopCap Games is discounting their App Store games to $1. Titles include “Peggle,” “Bookworm,” and “Chuzzle.” Also on tap is Chain Link Pro for the iPhone or iPod touch. This touch-and-drag game usually costs $2 at the App Store, but is marked down to free for just today. Finally, if you have a boatload of files that need to be organized, you may have wished for some big mean folder machine to do the job. Well, as it happens, someone created such a tool – “The Big Mean Folder Machine 2” is just $8 from MacUpdate.com – a $12 discount.
Along the way, we also look at other gadgets that caught our eye. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
No matter how much you might dislike Microsoft and all its creations, you have to admire their pluck for calling in none other than Stephen Fry for today’s Windows Phone 7 launch event.
Fry is well known as an ardent supporter of all things Apple, but that reputation is to some degrees a creation of Fry’s own fans.
The thing is, he doesn’t just support Apple and OS X; he loves all technology, and like most of us prefers to use the best stuff he can get his hands on. “I’m all for biodiversity in the smartphone market,” he says.
People who have been desperate to turn friends into badgers – your prayers have finally, finally been answered.
Because for you, Badger Face is likely to be the best dollar you’ve ever spent on an iPhone/iPod touch application with turning-people-into-badgers functionality.
For the rest of us? Well, for the rest of us, Badger Face will make us momentarily double-take as we browse the App Store for amazing stuff. It will make us choke on our badger burgers as we read the app description. Badger Face is simultaneously the weirdest thing we have seen this week, and it is this week’s Best (Badger-Related) Thing Ever.
Who knows what will come next? The user comments suggest Dinosaur Face, but why stop there? What about Panda Face? Squirrel Face? Unicorn Face? And for A-Team fans, Face Face?
Apple made a lot of changes to iTunes when it introduced version 10. A lot of those changes were cosmetic, but some of them included removing features like ringtone creation. Luckily, you can make your own ringtones out of any song in iTunes 10 using these nine easy steps.
All you need to get started is a copy of iTunes 10 installed on your Mac and your music library.
