Here’s the disgraceful episode as seen through the eyes of Next Media Animation, a Taiwanese tabloid that animates the news.
Jobs kicks WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange out of the App Store. He returns to hug other companies that have tried to privately censor WikiLeaks (Amazon, PayPal, Visa and Bank of America etc.). Outside, Assange pulls out an Android phone and fires up the banned WikiLeaks App.
As Next Media shows, you can’t suppress the truth. My Christmas wish is that Steve Jobs would get on the right side of this immensely important story. Unfortunately, he’s not.
In defiance of Apple’s will, you can already stream AirPlay media to your Mac and Ubuntu… and now, if you’re on a Windows machine, the trifecta is complete.
We start the day with more application for your iPhone and iPod touch. First up is “Gangstar,” the third-person sandbox game from Gameloft. Usually, the application is $5, but fans can now get the game for free. Also, we have a new crop of free iPhone apps, including “0.03 Seconds Pro,” the reaction time-based game. We close out our deal spotlight with “Dora’s Christmas Carol.” This educational children’s game is usually $1.99, but the application is now available for just $0.99.
Along the way, we’ll take a look at hardware deals (like Mac Pro Xeon workstations), cases for your iPad and iPhone, along with other hardware and software bargains. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
Here’s our 2010 Year in Review of the best 10 hardware peripherals for your iPhone or iPad that we’ve come across in the last twelve months.
If you missed any of these or didn’t get a chance to check them out for some reason or another, don’t fret — all of them are still available and worth a look.
10. AR Drone Parrot
It’s going to be one lucky kid who gets this iDevice-controllable wonder
The AR Drone Parrot is a quadricopter that’s controlled by the iPhone, iPod touch or the iPad. It can be flown indoors or outside and features many sensors, including a front camera ,vertical camera and an ultrasound altimeter. High-tech sensors make it simple for kids to pilot. The AR Drone can also be used in video games, such as AR FlyingAce, a dogfight between two AR Drones.
There’s already a few hacks out there to allow you to extend the admittedly rather limited AirPlay functionality of iOS 4.2 to run on non-iOS devices: last week, for example, TUAW’s Erica Sadun released AirPlayer, an app that tricks AirPlayer into think your Mac’s an AppleTV.
Now, though, plucky and ingenious hackers are figuring out how to do the same thing on non-Apple hardware, and the first fruit of those labors has now been released for Linux.
It wasn’t surprising that the first iAd to appear on the iPad is a movie trailer for the nerd nirvana ‘Tron Legacy’ and produced by Disney, where Apple CEO Steve Jobs is the largest shareholder. The iAd won’t be officially released until 2011, but the trailer gives iPad owners a glimpse of things to come.
Available within the TV Guide iPad app, the iAd is “chock-full of the rich graphics, touch navigation and video native to apps,” according to an Ad Age report. The iPad version includes “close to 10 minutes of video, images from the movie, a theater locator with showtimes, and a preview of the movie soundtrack with the option to purchase on iTunes without leaving the ad.”
Remember that old Mac you had? That beautiful iMac. It was lovely. Still works, but these days it doesn’t get used much.
It was a G5. One of the 17 inch models. You think. Wait. Or was it 20 inch? Damn, have to get it out and measure it now. It had a 1.83GHz Intel. Or was it a 2.33GHz? Dammit. You really can’t be bothered to boot the thing up just to check. But now you want to know.
One of our must-have iOS apps this week is the free OnLive Viewer that gives you a window in to on-demand, instant-play video games through the OnLive game service. Become a spectator and watch hundreds on games being played live throughout the world.
Facebook Browser for iPhonealso makes our must-have list this week and provides a refreshing new way to experience Facebook on your iPhone, with a simplistic, elegant user interface.
Also among our favorites this week is Blueprint – a powerful application for iOS developers that enables you to easily plan and create stunning user interfaces for your applications.
Check out the rest of this week’s must-have iOS apps after the break!
Angry Birds characters, crochet version... Via couturecrochetbykt on Etsy.
Angry Birds Lite is the top downloaded free game on iTunes in 2010.
The pigs-vs-infuriated-fowls diversion beat out Tap Tap Revenge 3, PacMan Lite and Rockband in iTunes Rewind, which highlights the most popular games, music, apps and TV programs in the iTunes Store for 2010.
Angry Birds was also the second most popular free iPhone download overall, trailing Facebook but coming in ahead of Skype and The Weather Channel.
And it’s not just an addictive freebie, either: Rovio’s Angry Birds, the $0.99 version, is also one of the top grossing apps overall.
Its feathered fury is more popular than Call of Duty: Zombies, Tom Tom, Plants vs. Zombies, Tetris and Doodle Jump.
On the wings of this success, Rovio has just announced that they intend to launching Bad Piggy Bank, a new in-game payment system which will allow Angry Birds players to make in-app purchases without going through Apple.
Rovio’s goal is to divorce the game’s in-app purchase system from a reliance upon a credit card. Bad Piggy Bank, then, will launch in Finland (where Rovio is based) on Elisa, the country’s biggest telecom provider, and any in-app purchases will be added to their monthly bill, or even purchase other games, with other countries and telecoms to follow.
It will be interesting to see if this gets Rovio into trouble with kids making in-app purchases. Apple’s policy has been to allow kids’ games to have them, but generally refunds the money to parents if they complain about kids unwittingly buying stuff in apps.
We start off with another deal on a 16GB Wi-Fi iPad, this time from the Apple Store for just $449. Next is a new crop of price cuts from the iPhone App Store, including “Mini Squadron,” an aerial combat game for the iPhone or iPod touch. We wrap up our highlighted deals with an 8Gb iPhone 3Gs for just $19.
Along the way, we also take a look at another iPad stand, 85 percent off some HandHeld.com items and software for your iPhone and Mac. As always, details on all are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
