Dragon’s Lair Swashbuckles its Way to the iPhone!

Dragon’s Lair [$4.99- iTunes link], the original laser-disc (wikipedia it!), fully cell-animated arcade adventure from the legendary Don Bluth is officially, nostalgically available for the iPhone and iPod touch.
If you weren’t there to experience Dragon’s Lair’s emergence onto the arcade scene in the wayback days of yore, it’s hard to explain the impact it made. Suffice it to say, if the iPhone version captures that kind of magic, every 30+ year old will download it on sight, and many younger folks might just fall in love with it as well.
It’s not Pac-Man or Street Fighter; it’s a very different type of gaming experience, so if you’ve been waiting for it, let us know how it translates, and if you’re trying it for the first time, let us know what you think!

Wind Meter for iPhone - calibrated to reveal the speed of said wind

Good news, Now sailors have another tempting application to bring out the best from their favorite high-tech gadget. Your iPhone now can become a windspeed instrument as well! Some very clever engineer types realized that the intensity of wind blowing into the microphone of an iPhone (that roaring static we hear when people call us from their boats) could be calibrated to reveal the speed of said wind.

The harder the blow, the more intense the sound—and the higher the wind gauge needle moves. How cool is that! According to reviews, it really works.

Notes from Apple’s iPhone Tech Talk World Tour

TiPb had a chance to talk to some developers who attended Apple’s recent iPhone Tech Talk World Tour (San Jose, Seattle, New York, Toronto, Paris, London, Hamburg, Bejing, and Tokyo), where they promised expert advice at cities near developers. So how has it gone? The T-Shirt’s given away say it all they “came, saw, and coded”.

There were different tracks for developers to choose from, and one of the complaints we heard was that the devs wished it had been longer so they could have attended them all. Still, we have some notes they were willing to share, after the break!

(And if you think this is just for geeks… well it is, but it explains some of why the iPhone does what it does, and what developers could do to ease some of our frustrations).

WebKit

• One dev who was new to Apple technologies found WebKit and their specific CSS (-webkit-gradient, -webkit-mask, webkit-box-reflect) to be “astoundingly powerful”. (If you run WebKit or Safari-).
• Apple stressed the advantages of using WebKit and embedded WebView. The AppStore app is an example of a native app with a WebKit UI made by Apple.
• A button made in CSS is much lighter than an image file and also scales elegantly (resolution independent).
• Even a JPG that’s only 50k in size will take up 10 times more memory when it’s decompressed and rendered in a UI.
• WebKit interfaces can be updated outside of the App Store approval process, so no resubmission just to change UI elements.
• Client-side database storage API in HTML 5 saves state locally and reloads the next time you view the page.=

App Performance

• Apple believes every developer should be obsessed about performance.
• For the end user experience, every fraction of a second is important. They want to load and go, not invest time in waiting for an app to load.
• iPhone uses 12MB for graphics, 32MB for kernel, 12MB for daemons, 4MB for phone, so for iPhone 2G and 3G, half the memory is gone before any 3rd party app even loads.
• There’s no swap file, so the size of binaries matter since they’ll be loaded into memory.
• When a low-memory situation occurs, there’s a warning. On second warning, background apps are killed, on third warning (95%), front-facing app is killed. (Think Safari disappearing and getting dumped back onto the home screen).
• Apple stressed that developers need to handle these warnings elegantly and free up memory as/when appropriate.
• A user should never be warned about memory or asked what to do (hello AnDROID!).
• Where a developer stores cache is important. If a developer stores cache in a location that iTunes backs up, it creates slow iTunesbackups for users. They should cache in temporary areas instead.
• The iPhone uses a single core processor, but can handle multiple threads. In the future these devices may be multi-core so starting now and building them for that future is a good idea.
• Apple believes that great apps come from developers who pay attention to details beyond just what’s necessary to get the job done.

What About Those Rejections?

• The most common reason for a rejection, according to Apple, was when an app crashed on launch.
• Developers tended to know that if an API was private, they shouldn’t try to make an app that depended on it since it would likely get rejected.
• No specific rejections were brought up or addressed.
• One dev we spoke to liked the App Store and Apple as “gatekeeper” because it created greater end-user trust — people were more likely to trust that App Store apps would work and not mess up their phone or do anything criminal.
• Another dev, when asked about iPhone development vs. another platform, liked that Apple handled all the transactions and getting all the apps in front of all the users, which would be a huge chore and expense otherwise.
• Yet another dev just thought the size and reach of the App Store made it the best place to develop at the moment.

All in all it sounds like developers enjoyed the free event, and the free coffee, pastry, and t-shirts. Hopefully Apple will continue to provide them next year, and going forward.

Mythical iTablet Competitor CrunchPad Undead — JooJoo Coming for $500

The CrunchPad has crashed and burned amid antics and accusations worthy of the silliest TV legal dramas (Denny Crane!), but from its ashes has risen might rise the JooJoo. No, really, that’s what they’re calling it because it’s magic.

A 12″ capacitive tablet that runs only a Unix kernel and boots in 9 seconds into a WebKit browser, and… that’s it. Think Chrome OS but not Google’s in a mythical iTablet package but not Apple’s. Other specs include 4GB of storage, WiFi (no cell data), 5 hours of battery life, USB, headphone, and $500 to take home.

We’re with the many other tech’ers who think that’s a hefty price for a mobile web browser, given the price of everything from the iPod touch (or iPhone) to ultra-cheap netbooks, but there may just be a niche for those early adapters who don’t blink at half a grand.

Perhaps not ironically, Steve Jobs is rumored to have said he won’t ship an Apple tablet until the device does more than let people browser the web on the toilet. Whether that means this specific a device is a space Apple isn’t going to enter, or that $500 for anything that won’t run more than just a web browser is a non-starter in the minds of arguably the best product picker of the last 20 years… you tell us. Want?

Apple Removes 1000 Molinker iPhone Apps for Alleged Astroturfing of Fake Reviews

Apple, on orders from Senior VP of Marketing Phil Schiller, has removed all 1000 Molinker-developed iPhone apps from the App Store for allegedly astroturfing the iTunes review system with fake 5-star reviews. Says iPhone camera and video site, iPhoneography, which reprinted an email from a friend named SCW, and jointly followed up with Apple:

Please investigate for I have just looked at 44 of the reviewers who posted reviews for this Molinker Inc app “NightCam Pro” & EVERY Review except 2 of the 44+ are ALL FAKE 5 ★★★★★ reviews. (on my iPhone I could view more reviews but on my computeronly 35 were visible & of the 35 visible 34 ARE fake). If you investigate ALL have ONLY reviewed ONLY Molinker apps. A little odd that 42 of 44 US reviews are poorly written & that all users have only written reviews for either All Molinker photography apps (giving 5 star reviews to 6-7 Molinker apps ONLY no other apps by any other developer) or the same 2 apps. 10 Reviewers who only reviewed NightCam Pro & ColorMagic (5 Stars), 24+ Reviewers have ONLY written reviews for 6-7 other Molinker photography apps (5 Stars) & 1-2 are real Reviews giving a 1 Star review

Schiller’s response:

“Yes, this developer’s apps have been removed from the App Store and their ratings no longer appear either.”

So, was this one of the rare positive uses of Apple’s rejection hammer? Any negatives that could come from it?

iTunes Rewind: Apple Highlights the Best and Top-Selling Apps of 2009

Apple has once again released their iTunes Rewind listings, highlighting the best, and top-selling iPhone and iPod touch apps of 2009. In the US App Store, it breaks down as follows:

• Spider: the Secret of Bryce Manor [$2.99 - ] and Real Racing [$4.99 - iTunes link] lead best games
• Sims 3 [$6.99 - iTunes link] and the Oregon Trail [$4.99 - iTunes link] lead top selling games.
• ReelDirector [$4.99 - ] and Magellan RoadMate 2010 North America [$79.99 - iTunes link] lead best apps.
• MobileNavigator North America [$89.99 - iTunes link] and MLB.com At Bat [Currently free - iTunes link] lead top selling apps.

Apple also has lists up for best music, best movies [iTunes link], best TV shows [iTunes link], best audio books [iTunes link], and best podcasts.

Airlock : Lock Your Mac with Your iPhone or iPod touch via Bluetooth

If you own either an iPhone or iPod touch along with a Mac computer then Airlock may just be the security OS X application you’ve been looking for. For only $7.77 you can have a very effective lock for your Mac computer with just your iPhone or iPod touch.

How does Airlock work? It’s pretty simple, the program determines when you are near your computer. If you leave your computer’s Bluetooth reach with your iPhone or iPod touch, your computer locks itself. As soon as you are back within Bluetooth range it unlocks your computer. If your iPhone/iPod touch is in a place that is out of range and you need access to your computer, simply set Airlock up to allow for your user name and password to gain access.

If any of you give Airlock a try let us know how you like it!

Old World Publishers Confirm Digital Store

It looks as if the rumors of major publishers getting together to agree upon a set of open standards for a new digital storefront are indeed true. Today Apple Insider is reporting that Condé Nast, Hearst, News Corporation, Time Inc., and Meredith all have officially announced this collaboration.

“For the consumer, this digital initiative will provide access to an extraordinary selection of engaging content products, all customized for easy download on the device of their choice, including smartphones, e-readers and laptops,” said Squires, the interim managing director. “Once purchased, this content will be ‘unlocked’ for consumers to enjoy anywhere, anytime, on any platform.”

At first the store will solely be for newspapers and magazines with the possibility of books, comic books, blogs and more in the future. The publishers are now working on a reading application that will allow the reader to get that experience of the specific publications. Hopefully they come up with something that wows us.

Google Introduces Favorite Places for iPhone

Google’s “Favorite Places on Google” is a new program that really refines the term “window shopping”. Google has sent out 100,000 window decals to various stores and restaurants that the business will place on their door or window. Once the decal is in place, an iPhone user can use the app QuickMark [Free for the first 40,000 downloads - iTunes Link] to snap a picture of the decal and then you will find reviews, coupons if the business are offering them or you can even star a business so you can remember it in the future. Google also claims that in the near future you will be able to review places directly on your iPhone as well.

Currently you can find these decals in over 9,000 towns and cities all over the U.S. and if you are curious to check out what is in your city be sure to visit the site, Favorite Places on Google.

If any of you see these decals around your town, be sure to let us know how well it works for you!

Apple Makes iPhone Developer News and Announcements Available via RSS

Apple has sent out an email to developers that informs them iPhone developer news and announcements are now available via RSS feed.

You can now subscribe to a new RSS feed for iPhone Developer News and Announcements. Stay up to date and receive valuable information on a wide range of topics including:
Tips on submitting apps to the App Store
Current turnaround time for app review
Program updates
Development and testing techniques

If you’re a developer, let us know if you find this helpful. Also, if iPhone 3.2 beta news pops up the feed, let us know and we’ll cancel the “missing” posters

Harbor Master - iPhone Fun Application

Harbor Master is an Fun, addictive and competitive game where your goal is Dock your ships, unload their cargo, and then guide them back out safely so the next ship can dock.

Features:

- 3 unlockable maps, each with its own set of geographical and natural challenges
- 3 types of ships. Smaller ships are faster, but carry less cargo.
- Online high scores
- Multi-Touch support - try playing with a friend!
- Amazing polished graphics
- Original soundtrack - or relax and listen to your own music instead!
- Incredibly addictive gameplay
- Need to take a break or take a call? Don't worry - the game automatically saves for you!
- Supports multiple profiles on one device

As you unload more and more cargo, your expert services will be requested at other ports. But be careful - every port has its own set of challenges! Watch out for the cyclones!

iPhone Game-Pinball Fantasies

Languages: English
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch Requires iPhone OS 2.2 or later

Cowboy Rodeo has published the Pinball Fantasies game for the Apple iPhone/iPod Touch, a successor to the wildly popular iPhone port of the classic Pinball Dreams by Cowboy Rodeo.

Pinball Fantasies is the official iPhone version of the classic Amiga pinball arcade simulator originally released in 1992 and is the successor to the wildly popular Pinball Dreams! 

 

It features the 4 original tables with remastered graphics and yet again comes with 100% of the original addictive game play. The game can be played in both portrait and landscape orientation.

Cowboy Rodeo is an independent Finland-based game developer working on Apple iPhone and Sony PSP platforms. You can find the game in iTunes App Store

Vocalia 2.0 Speech Recognition Software

Want speech recognition but don't have an iPhone 3GS? No problem. Vocalia 2.0 is now available for the iPhone and iPod touch running OS 3.0. Much like the voice command on the iPhone 3GS, the Vocalia can find contact/company to call or email to, start music playback by artist or group and launch web site, all by voice command.

With Vocalia, you can...
• Define additional vocal shortcuts in addition to the contact name ("My best friend" for "John Doe")
• Split first and last name of your contacts (saying "John" will display all corresponding entries of your address book)
• Set the navigation mode (voice, manual taps or timer)
• Activate Proximity sensing for better recognition results in noisy environments
• Shake the iPhone to try again
• Activate vibration so that you know when to start speaking
• Import bookmarks from your Mac

iDisk app from apple

MobileMe iDisk, This app lets you login, view files, and share files by sending others a link via email to anything you like. You have plenty of storage space, even large files are no problem. Just add the files you need to your iDisk, and whatever you upload will be there for you to download using a web browser on any computer or using the iDisk App for iPhone or iPod touch.
Sharing files too big to email as attachments is a snap with iDisk.

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iTunes advertises the following features for the iDisk app:

• View files on your iDisk
  
• Access Public folders
  
• Easily share files from your iPhone
  
• Quickly access recently viewed files
  
• View iPhone supported file types, including iWork, Office, PDF, Quicktime and more (files larger than 20MB may not be viewable).

It is available in English, French, German and Japanese, and requires a MobileMe subscription along with iPhone OS 3.0

UPDATED: Record iPhone 3G Video! Ustream Live Broadcaster Now Available for iPhone

 UPDATE: Yes, Ustream Live Broadcast is iPhone 3G compatible, and you can use it to record video from the iPhone 3G (no Jailbreak for Cycorder required!). If you’re trying it out on a 3G, let us know how it works for you!
ORIGINAL: Ustream Live Broadcaster [Free - iTunes link] for iPhone has arrived, enabling users to point their iPhone cameras and instantly share whatever they’re looking at with internet viewerseverywhere (terms of service appropriate, thankfully).

It’s been a long, slow road getting live video up-streaming onto the iPhone, with Ustream in specific releasing a limited viewer-only app first, then a record-now-upload-later app. Does this mean the gates are open for yet another previously unavailable category? We’ll see. And while we’re happy with video, we’re still waiting for VoIP over 3G as well.

Meanwhile, we’re bracing ourselves for the flood of “Come see me live” posts to flood our Twitter feeds. So just do us a favor and point that iPhone camera at something interesting, will ya?

iTunes Connect Unavailable December 23 – 28, 2009

No sooner did Apple get their new iPhone developer-centric RSS feed up and running than they’re used it to announce that iTunes Connect will be unavailable December 23 – 28, 2009:

iTunes Connect, the tool you use to manage your applications and access your reports, will be unavailable from December 23 through December 28, 2009.
Access to iTunes Connect will resume December 29, 2009.

The post is called #holidays, so is this totalitarian Apple trying to force developers to relax a little and enjoy some down time? Are they hoping to give the App Store reviewers the week off? Or will the busy Cupertino elves be doing some re-working behind the scenes? We haven’t heard any rumors of a new iTunes Connect, or new functionality for the New Year, but if Apple can keep chipping away at developer sore spots, it could make for a great 2010…

Yet More Mythical iTablet Rumors: Coming March for $1000

Marketwatch is citing “checks” and saying that Apple’s unannounced, still mythical iTablet will begin production in February, “implying” a launch in March or April. The iTablet and also-unnannounced companion services delivered via iTunes are said to feature:

• 10.1 inch multi-touch LCD (no OLED)
• Traditional Apple 30/70 split for print publishers (which is better than Amazon’s traditional 50/50)
• To be sold at an average price of $1,000 at a 22% margin

Price sounds high to us. Apple has had tablet concepts in the vault since before the iPhone but they’ve never made it past Steve Jobs. He’s going to need to see a market for them and a price that delivers that market. Apple is premium, but they’ve already got the iPod touch at under $500 and the MacBook at over $1000 (both of which provide great balances of portability and functionality). If a place exists for an iTablet, it would seem to be between those two points.

Apple, Apple iPhone, Apple iPod, Google, iPhone, iPhone Camera, iPhone News, iPod, Latest News about iPhone, Microsoft, Motorola iPhone, Nokia, Samsung Armani, Smart Phones, Windows Mobile

Nuance’s Dragon Dictation for iPhone raised some privacy concerns upon launch due to the server-side nature of its transcription and the apparent transmission of users’ contact list to Nuance’s servers. Addressing at least some of these concerns, Nuance has posted the following statement:

Some people have expressed concern about what the new Dragon Dictation for the iPhone application does with your contact information. As you may have experienced already, Dragon Dictation for the iPhone goes through your contact list on your iPhone and uploads the names to our server. We do this for a pretty simple reason: we found that people are often dictating names from their address book and expect the names to be recognized.

We take this information and create an anonymous user profile for your device that understands what names are likely to dictate into a document. It’s important to note that we only upload the names, not the e-mail addresses, phone numbers or any other personally identifying information from your contacts.
Even though there is no personally identifying information, we still treat all of this information with the highest privacy standards. All of our servers are located in the United States and meet the most stringent privacy and security standards. We conform to these high standards because we use the same data centers for other areas of our business where we are required to store personal information.

All of this is spelled out in our license agreement that comes with the Dragon Dictation for the iPhone application. Since most people only see that license agreement briefly when they are installing the software (and they usually can’t wait to start using their software, so they don’t spend 30 minutes reading a complex legal document…), we provided a link to that agreement here: http://www.nuance.com/company/privacy/.

So the bottom line is that nothing scary is happening with your data and we only use a little bit of information from your phone to help make the dictation accuracy as high as possible. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, feel free to post them here.
Michael Thompson, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Nuance Mobile

Of course, Nuance is storing all your transcriptions on their servers, which while not dissimilar to Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, or Apple storing all your email, documents, location, etc. is an important factor for users to keep in mind so as to make informed decisions about services and the companies behind them.
Let us know what you think of the statement, and if it does indeed address your concerns (or not).

Announcing The 3rd Annual Smartphone Round Robin!

We are ridiculously excited to announce that today we’re launching the 3rd annual Smartphone Round Robin! If you’ve never heard of the Round Robin, buckle up: Each year the sites of the Smartphone Experts Network spend some time out of our comfort zone, examining the platforms of our sister sites and learning how other smartphone users live. This year, the event will span six weeks, eight sites, over a dozen phones, over five hours of video, hundreds of photos, several hours of podcasts, dozens of discussion threads, and of course dozens of comparison reviews. Seriously.

What’s in it for you? Plenty, we hope. To start with, each site will be giving away one smartphone (or your choice!) representing its platform. We have a Twitter contest for accessory prizes every week too. You can find contest details here.

More than that, though, every year we hear from grateful readers who have said the Round Robin helped them decide on their next smartphone, made them happier about the one they have, or even compelled some to switch outright. Researching and learning six platforms and all the phones on each is a massive undertaking – so we’re doing it for you and you can just follow along.

If you want to know more about how to play along with this crazy event, where we explain the contest, the schedule, the participants, and even have an archive of the last two events.

The event begins in earnest on Monday, but today we’re releasing the first of several podcasts, all of which are hosted by our friends at The Cell Phone Junkie.  We’ll toss direct links to download and subscribe after the break, plus let you know who’s playing along this year.

Rumors we Love: Apple iTablet to Bring Back “Think different”

If Apple does release a mythical iTablet, could the mythical advertising return them to the glorious campaign of “Think different” past? TiPb doesn’t take anything involving the iTablet as anything approaching news, but seeing as how our site was originally called “Phone different” this particular rumor warmed even our frozen, jaded little blogger hearts.

And, frankly, we’d love to see a refreshed, renewed, Think different on our TV and in our webs.