I was never a big fan of the Dreamcast, but it did have a couple of titles I really liked. One of those was Jet Set Radio, a hugely enjoyable game in which you would skate around a city and mark your turf by “tagging” walls, billboards, and rival gang members with spray paint. I’m sure you’ve already heard of it.
Now you can enjoy this awesome game on your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad — because it’s just hit the App Store.
Skeuomorphism, or the tendency to deliberately make something new look like something old and familiar. Some people love it, some people hate it and think it’s tacky.
No matter how you feel, his love for skeuomorphism is one of many reasons that former iOS chief Scott Forstall was fired yesterday. Replacing him is Apple’s Senior VP of Design, Jonathan Ive, who will lead a new Human Interface Group in Apple… and whom reportedly loathes skeuomorphism with every fiber of his being.
All that fake leather stitching, those hideous textures, those bizarre font choices in iOS’s stock apps? If Ive gets his way — and we think he will — they’re all about to change.
Here are the eight skeuomorphic apps in iOS 6 we hope Jony Ive is going to change in iOS 7, along with some third-party apps we hope he takes inspiration from.
Stainless Games brought the 1997 classic that is Carmageddon to the App Store last week, but its launch was marred by a nasty save game bug that was capable of wiping all the progress you had made in the game.
Thankfully, the company has now issued an update that fixes the problem.
Earlier this week, Stainless Games brought the 1997 reckless driving sensation that is Carmageddon to iOS, and I haven’t been able to put it down since — it’s as good today as it was 15 years ago on the Dreamcast. However, it does have one issue holding it back: a save game bug that could wipe all your progress.
Sega has turned its hand to vertical jumping games with a brand new title called Sonic Jump that’s coming to the App Store tomorrow. The title looks a lot like Doodle Jump, only it features Sega’s beloved blue hedgehog instead, and rather than being just an endless jumper, you’ll have to beat new and familiar stages in pursuit of the infamous Dr. Eggman.
There are like 50 billion games on the App Store and a lot of them have Game Center integration so you can battle your friends at Angry Birds, or Temple Run or Tic-Tac-Toe or whatever. But if you want to see how much your friends really love you, try playing them in a emoji game of Connect Four. It’s painful and kind of tedious and you have to remember to play with virtual-gravity, but it’s also totally awesome, in a dumb way.
Hate skeuomorphism? Hate the way Apple’s slathering all of its apps with faux dead cow skin? Tough luck, because you know whose idea it was? Steve Jobs himself.
Apple has seeded a new OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 build (12C35) to participants in its AppleSeed program, continuing its testing of Facebook integration. Though it states that there are no known issues with this update, the Cupertino company is also asking users to focus on Messages, Game Center, Safari, and Reminders.
Subatomic Studios has released its first update to Fieldrunners 2, the popular sequel to the original tower defense game for the iPhone. Version 1.1 of Fieldrunners 2 is now available in the App Store, and the update brings an easier Causal mode, new map updates, Game Center integration, Endless mode, and more.
Apple’s iOS devices have had a huge impact on gaming, and more and more people are choosing to get their kicks on the iPhone and iPad rather than dedicated handheld consoles from the likes of Sony and Nintendo. By the end of this year, analysts expect Game Center accounts on iOS to surpass the 200 million milestone, making it the world’s biggest gaming platform.
SpellTower, the award-winning word game for iOS, is part of the first wave Mountain Lion-ready games in the Mac App Store today, with Retina graphics and support for Game Center leaderboards and achievements shared with iOS, a Mountain Lion only feature.
SpellTower is a word finding game – click your way through letters set up in a grid, creating words from adjacent letters. The visuals, the sound, and the simple pleasure of finding longer and better words all shine through, making it a joy to play. But how does a game designed for the touchscreen of your iPhone or iPad work on the Mac?
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.
Apple could be preparing to kill off OS X Lion early in favor of its predecessor, Mountain Lion, according to the company’s AppleCare training schedule. One source claims that the Cupertino company is already recruiting and training staff for the new release, which could get its debut in June, weeks earlier than expected.
Ubisoft has confirmed that its future iOS games will store your save data in the cloud, allowing you to sync your progress across multiple devices. That means you can beat missions and levels on your iPhone in your lunch break, then continue your game right where you left off on your iPad when you get home.
It’s a feature that almost every game — especially those build for both the iPhone and the iPad — should not be without.
In case you hadn’t already noticed, Apple announced OS X Mountain Lion earlier today, its latest operating system for the Mac which will make its public debut this summer. Mountain Lion will further increase the iOS influence on Apple’s desktop operating system, with the arrival of features like Notification Center, Messages, and Notes.
But for gamers, undoubtedly the most exiting new feature will be Game Center’s arrival on the Mac. With promises of cross-platform multiplayer and the ability to rack up achievements on both your Mac and iOS devices, this is set to create a new bridge between mobile and desktop gaming that will revolutionize cross-platform play.
Many of you will have a number of Apple IDs, especially if you’re a MobileMe subscriber. So when you login to iCloud, or Game Center, or the iTunes Store, or FaceTime, or iMessage… how do you know which one to use? Well, thankfully, Apple is working on Apple ID account merging that will turn all of your 30 Apple IDs into just one.
Apple’s App Store is a wonderful thing. When it launched in 2008, it opened up a world now home to 450,000 apps and games available to our iOS devices. There was nothing else like it. Never before had it been so easy for customers to discover and download mobile software, and for developers to distribute and sell it.
Developing for the App Store and the iOS platform isn’t without its flaws, however. As one iOS developer has recently learned, one of the biggest downsides to iOS development is piracy.
Whenever the Mac App Store launches, it’s not going to be as full-featured as the iOS equivalent. We already knew that the Mac App Store would launch without promo code support, but according to new information Apple has just sent to developers, it also won’t support Game Center or in-app payments at launch.
Back when Apple first announced iOS game matchmaking service, Game Center, everyone thought it was going to be the death of the existing services like OpenFeint.
It wasn’t. With its founder openly laughing “bring it on” in the face of GameCenter, OpenFeint reassessed its strengths: the ability to offer cross platform multiplayer between iOS and Android devices, and a thriving virtual goods market.
It looks like OpenFeint’s strategy has paid off. According to a report released by OpenFeint, their community has actually doubled to an incredible fifty million users since Game Center first launched. Games on the network have also more than doubled since Game Center was first announced, and now the OpenFeint compatible games library has 119% more titles than it did mere months ago.
Pretty incredible. Apple entering a software niche with its own official product is often times seen as a death sentence, but if OpenFeint’s success proves anything, it’s that smart, on-your-feet thinking and a willingness to evolve can make a direct competition with Apple into a positive thing.
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There’s plenty of Twitter clients on the App Store, from Twitter’s official software to power apps like TweetDeck, but watch this peaceful and somnolent video for the somewhat regrettably named Super Twario and you’ll have discovered one of the most pleasant Twitter clients around.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAWqUtR9QIM
Are you the owner of an iPhone 3G who is disappointed that you can’t run deathmatch with friends through Apple’s new match making service, Game Center? A jailbreak and some hacking could get you up and running, if you’re feeling bold.
Over at Redmond Pie, Taimur Asad goes through the process of getting jailbreak running on an iPhone 3G… which is (coincidentally for this experiment) the only iPhone that can currently be jailbroken under iOS 4.1 right now.
Once Apple announced its own baked-in Game Center for iOS, OpenFeint — the previous go-to mobile social gaming network — seemed to lose a bit of its luster, but the guys Aurora Feint seem to have a plan and they’re falling through with it: starting today, OpenFeint is now available on the Android operating system.
But Aurora Feint’s strategy in dealing with Game Center isn’t to abandon iOS. Oh no: this news is very relevant to iOS gamers because now that OpenFeint is on Android, you can now take part in cross-platform multiplayer games, achievements, leaderboards and friending in Fruit Ninja, MiniSquadron, Super Slyder, The Moron Test and Tic-Tac Toe… with fifteen other titles to follow this month.
At the very least, the relevance here to iOS gamers is they now have twice as many people to play Tic Tac Toe against… I just can’t wait for iOS vs. Android OpenFeint deathmatch tournaments.
iOS 4.1 is now live, and along with the much anticipated software update comes Game Center, Apple’s new Xbox-Live-like gaming service that brings officially sanctioned achievements and multiplayer matchmaking to supported iPhones and iPod Touches.
Game Center seems promising, but unfortunately, it’s been hard to figure out exactly what games have Game Center support and which ones don’t… making early testing of the service frustrating. To make things easier, Apple has just updated the App Store with a dedicated Game Center section, highlighting all of the apps that have baked in Game Center support so far.
Unfortunately, most of the games currently on display are a little lackluster, with Flight Control, Fieldrunners and Zen Bound 2 being the real standouts… but hopefully that will change sooner rather than later.
Along with the arrival of sexy new iPod Touches replete with pixel-packed Retina Displays, touch-capable iPod Nanos and rollback Shuffles, today should see the debut of iOS 4.1 as well as Apple’s new iOS gaming social network, Game Center.
As such, TUAW is reporting that Game Center has just gone live for iPhone developers, meaning that instead of being limited to a sandbox-only development environment, Game Center is now allowing global registry and asking for new login details… older accounts having been purged from the system yesterday.
Game Center’s reportedly having a few birthing paints, including some crashing issues and connectivity problems, but it seems to mostly be due to server problems, and everything’s working once you manage to get connected.
Since Game Center is the showcase new functionality in iOS 4.1, the server switch being flipped on is a good indication that we’re all about to see an update get slurped down through iTunes sometime soon.
To their credit, Aurora Feint has always been remarkably blase about iOS 4.1’s built-in Game Center, even though they currently run the business of the App Store’s biggest gaming social network and match-making service, OpenFeint. In fact, they went as far as to say they were “thrilled” about Game Center, boasting about big future plans for the service… despite Game Center’s seemingly direct competition.
OpenFeint’s plans in an iOS ecosystem with Game Center preinstalled on every device are now becoming clearer, and it seems like Aurora Feint have figured out a killer feature that only their service can provide to gamers: the ability to play cross-form multiplayer matches in games that are available on both iOS and Google Android.
The OpenFeint PlayTime network will not only let you play your buddy even if he is shackled to his Android phone, but the software supports real-time video chat, as well as bot support. That latter addition is particularly interesting, as it means that if a player drops in a multiplayer match, an AI-controlled opponent will seamlessly take his place.
This is a smooth move on the part of Aurora Feint giving developers who have titles on more than one mobile platform a strong incentive to bake both Game Center and OpenFeint support into their titles. I just wish, as a player, I could keep my achievement points in both networks synced.
