Cydia Store Now Open

by Sebastien on Mar 7, 2009

[digg-me]It was just yesterday that I wrote about the App Store for jailbroken iPhones, and it is now live and running under the name of Cydia Store.

The Cydia Store is nothing more than an option that lets you purchase applications in Cydia. Not as straightforward as the official App Store, purchasing an application in the Cydia Store is however pretty simple. Either sign in using your Facebook or Google account as well as your Amazon account for payment processing and that’s about it. Cydia Store doesn’t support PayPal yet but this option should be available in the next few days.

The first application available for sale in the Cydia Store is called Cyntact and is a pretty new feature for contacts that lets you see the profile picture of your contacts in the contacts list. Cyntact is sold for $1, which is a very decent price considering what this app does.

Needless to say that your iPhone has to be jailbroken in order for you to access the Cydia Store. If your iPhone is already jailbroken, launch Cydia and a message will pop up asking you to update Cydia. Once updated, you will see the paid for applications showing in blue in your list of available apps. So far, only Cyntact is available.

As I already said before, I am extremely happy that the App Store will now have some real competition and that developers let down by Apple’s fascist regime can finally have a place where to sell their applications. For those of you shocked by my use of the word “fascist”, I invite you to read the wiktionary definition: a political regime ideologically based on centralized government, violently repressing any criticism or opposition of the regime, leader cult and exalting nation-state and/or religion above individual rights. Sound familiar?

Please feel free to leave us a note in the comments section below.

 

App Store for Jailbroken iPhones Coming Soon

by Sebastien on Mar 6, 2009

Saurik, the developer behind Cydia is working on an alternative to the dictatorship of the Apple App Store that will break Apple’s grip on the iPhone. There is not much information about it yet, but I assume this will be a new feature added to Cydia that will let you pay for apps.

Like many of you, I am tired of seeing the best apps rejected from the App Store. Apps like Cycorder or xGPS will never make it to the App Store, unless Apple decides to loosen up on the SDK. This new Cydia Store coming up will finally give a chance to non qualifying apps to be distributed in a semi-controlled environment, while generating revenues for the developers. Of course, you will still need to be on a jailbroken iPhone to take advantage of the Cydia store.

According to the WSJ:

Another small company plans a store called Rock Your Phone for iPhone users who have not yet modified their devices to make it easier to download and buy unauthorized applications. A third start-up is building an online store that specializes in selling adult games for the iPhone.

Yeah, now we’re talking! Bring on the porn!! hehe.

More seriously, I think this initiative is a big step towards freeing your iPhone from Apple’s claws and finally empowering the users to do or install whatever they want on their iPhones.

 

The iPhone Will Die on June 29, 2009

by Sebastien on Mar 6, 2009

Roger McNamee, founding partner of the  investment firm Elevation Partners, the same firm that decided to pay $100 million to lift its stake in Palm from 25% to 39% made some serious prediction in an interview with Bloomberg.

McNamee calls no less than the death of the iPhone on June 29, 2009. Wow, this guy has huge balls to say something like that on television…

June 29, 2009, is the two-year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later. Think about it — if you bought the first iPhone, you bought it because you wanted the coolest product on the market. Your two-year contract has just expired. Look around. Tell me what they’re going to buy.

Question is, will you switch to Sprint for the Palm Pre when it comes out?

 

iCelebrate

by Sebastien on Mar 5, 2009

Category: Entertainment
iCelebrate went from $0.99 to $0.00
Click here to download it on iTunes

 

WordFamilies

by Sebastien on Mar 5, 2009

Category: Education
WordFamilies went from $1.99 to $0.99
Click here to download it on iTunes

 

X-Plane Racing Review

by Guest Author on Mar 3, 2009

Laminar Research has released yet another flight simulator app for the iDevices. This time around it’s one we’ve been waiting for: X-Plane Racing. That’s right, racing! The app consists of  ‘highway-in-the-sky’, ‘hoops’ that you can go though. There are 4 regions for now and 4 planes (as developer states: “for now”). There’s a course per region per plane, for a total of 16 courses to race though. You can play against the AI plane, which will give you quite a challenge. Courses vary, based on location. Sometimes you will be going almost straight up, sometimes down canyons and valleys, and sometimes close to a river.

As for locations, you can choose from :

  • Canyons (the default location and quite fun and challenging).
  • Juneau, Alaska (mountains and rivers combine to make it challenging and fun to race in)
  • Anchorage, Alaska (ups and downs and mountains, can you avoid crashing and win at the same time?)
  • Provost, Canada (both easy and hard, combines a little of all the other regions)

And as to the planes:

  • F-15 Eagle (my favorite. Has afterburner, is the default one, and goes fast)
  • F-4 Phatom (it’s ok, but I don’t like it, a bit difficult to control)
  • F4-U Consair (feels a bit weird at first, but you get the hang of it. Slower than the others but is more controllable)
  • P-51 Mustang: (same goes as for the F4-U Consair, but this one is VERY tricky to land).

My experience with it has been very good, same as with all the other X-Plane apps. Laminar Research puts a lot of work and quality into their apps. No bugs found so far, everything is going smoothly. Beating the AL plane is tricky and any mistake can cost you. Awkwardly, even if you are in the lead, the AL plane shows up in front of you. But that does not bother me, I still beat it :) . Also, at the end of each course it tells you your time and how many hoops you missed, and the AL plane’s time and how many hoops he missed. But there is more.

The AL plane is a lot of fun, all 16 courses…………….yeah yeah. But there’s another thing about the app, something that gives it a kick. Multiplayer. That’s right, Laminar Research has added multiplayer to the game. So as long as you and the other player are connected on the same Wi-Fi network, you can race against each other. Booyahh!! This feature is a blast. Playing with your friends is a blast. Especially since they are smarter, and trickier than the AL plane. For those owners of the other X-Plane apps, nothing to worry about. An update was released with other stuff this morning and it includes multiplayer. BUT, you don’t get hoops in the sky or a marked course.

The app also features a sound system when landing (also added to the other apps in the update) so either a squeak from a nice landing or a thump from a hard landing. Also in “Racing” and added to the other apps are visible afterburners, and a basic autopilot. I must say, Laminar Research is outdoing themselves. And they are trying to put everything they can into the app, pushing the limits (I’m on a 2G Touch, supposed to be better for gaming, and it got hot!). A little note, the apps are always being updated with a bunch of things. There is an option to set the tilt (in ALL apps) so you can even play from bed. The desktop version of X-Plane is FAA approved, the iPhone version has 90 something percent accuracy. Now that’s good!

The app is currently priced at the same price as all the other X-Plane apps, $9.99. There is a “series” of X-Plane apps:

  • X-Plane – $9.99 – The original, and best for general use. Still my favorite one.
  • X-Plane Helicopter – $9.99 – Came later on, strictly helicopters. A little harder (I don’t own it though) but I say this because helis are hard to fly.
  • X-Plane Airliner – $9.99 – Came along with Heli, strictly airliners. Although fun it is a bit more challenging. But it’s great fun to fly a 747 on your iDevice.
  • X-Plane Extreme – $9.99 – All about speed and the extreme. Very fun, and my personal second favorite.
  • X-Plane Racing – $9.99 – As mentioned above.

All of the apps now have multiplayer. I am loving every app and highly recommend them. You will get lots of fun no matter which app you get. Plus who has not wanted to fly a 747 on an iPhone?! The X-Plane apps are the only flight simulators on the App Store and they are just great. In case you cannot decide which one to get I will post later on which I recommend depending on what you like.

 

Zentomino – Find Your Zen Again

by Guest Author on Mar 2, 2009

Little White Bear Studios, developers of the award winning puzzle game TanZen, have released a new game somewhat similar to TanZen: Zentomino. Zentomino is sort of like TanZen, but harder. The game, like TanZen, involves moving, rotating, and flipping puzzle pieces to fill in a shape. So what’s the difference? Well, TanZen used smaller pieces and different stuff. Zentomino uses more pieces, larger, and feels different, as well as being harder. You can see the difference by comparing the screenshots below (TanZen on left, Zentomino on right):

TanZen

Zentomino

The game is quite fun, especially if you like puzzle games. There are three things that set apart this app from the others (as well as make you fall in love with it). The game is very well polished, everything fits well. The game is huge fun, unlike any other app, and is cheap. But the most important is the replay ability level of the game. This game does not get old at all. The game currently has 144 puzzles, but just like TanZen more puzzles will be added as free updates (in case your are wondering, TanZen currently has 4x the number of puzzles it started with).

Everything is very smooth, relaxing, and a bit hard! Just like in TanZen there are hints. This game however is a bit more advanced than TanZen. Puzzles have various difficulty levels, with 4-12 piece puzzles. You can also do puzzles in any order you want. And if your screen is all messed up with pieces, shake your device to clear all pieces from the screen. Don’t be scared! You will get the hang of it after playing with it a bit. And if you need help the game, like TanZen, has a hint system. Just double-tap on any open area for a hint. The amount of hints you get on each level depends on how hard / big the level is.

My experience with it so far has been really good. At first I was really bad but after playing with it for a while I have gotten the hang of it. Although I don’t know this as a fact, knowing Little White, an update with more levels with probably be out before you finish the first 144 puzzles included. The game, like I said before is very smooth and relaxing, something I like a lot. Plus it’s pretty cheap. Zentomino is priced at $1.99 . Considering how smooth the game is, the amount of levels it currently has and the amount of levels that will be added, it’s a steal at $1.99 . Here’s a YouTube video showing the gameplay:

UPDATE: A lite version has been released.
 

xGPS Gets An Update. Now Works Great

by Sebastien on Mar 2, 2009

I wrote about xGPS a few days ago basically saying that the app needed some work. It seems that I was heard as xGPS got its 1.2 update earlier today.

What’s new in xGPS 1.2?

  • Wireless transfer of your map files
  • Google Terrain Maps
  • GPS information
  • English voice instructions
  • Night mode
  • Access to GPS traces on your computer

The most exciting feature here is of course the voice instructions. Some unreported bugs were fixed too. Before, using the “current location” as starting point simply didn’t work. You had to type in the full address, which could be cumbersome. Now, you can use the “current location” feature without any problem. It seems that you can also type partial addresses, instead of the full address (ie. 1657 Neptune Avenue Encinitas; instead of 1657 Neptune Avenue, Encinitas CA 92024). That’s great improvement.

I was so excited about this update that I had to try it. First things first, I downloaded the map of my area (San Diego) to avoid having to rely on data tranfer too much. Then I hopped in the Audi and entered the address of where I wanted to go. I turned off the radio to hear the voice instructions and started my trip.

After driving a few hundred feet, the voice “talked” to me to tell me I had to turn right on Del Mar Street in 290 meters. Even though I had specifically set the app to give me the information in feet, it kept giving me meters (which is fine too since I mostly use the metric system). That’s a little bug that will probably be taken care of in the next update.

xGPS also gives you the ability to display your current speed on the screen. I found this feature very accurate, and although useless while driving, I am sure some people could make good use of it.

The volume on my iPhone was at its max and I could clearly hear the instructions but I decided to plug my iPhone in my tape deck. I usually use my tape deck to listen to my iPhone’s music in the car (the sound quality is far better than a FM transmitter). Once the iPhone connected to my car stereo, it felt like I had a co-driver sitting next to me to give me directions.

That was the pros… Now let’s have a look at the cons…

First, the voice navigation is very good but still needs some work. The voice sounds like a robot speaking to you, and there is no flaw between each word. It works well as is but there is lots of room for improvement.

Another issue I have is when my iPhone is plugged to my car stereo using the tape deck. When I am not playing music, it’s fine. But if I play music on the iPhone while requesting voice instructions, the music covers up the sound of the instructions. A great feature would be to pause the music everytime the voice speaks. This feature is already available when your iPhone is playing music, connected to your car stereo and when you receive a text message. The music will pause, you get your new text message notification, then the music starts again.

If you don’t have a car charger, xGPS will kill your battery in no time. Remember it is constantly checking your GPS coordinates, which I believe is the most data intensive feature on the iPhone 3G. For my little experiment, I didn’t charge my iPhone in the car but when I got home after trying xGPS, my iPhone was really hot! I would not recommend using xGPS on long distances as it might just overheat your iPhone.

All in all, this is probably the most exciting application I’ve seen this year. xGPS clearly needs some work but the current version will do the trick for now. Besides, you can’t ask too much from a FREE application. Yes, xGPS is free, so try it while it lasts!

 
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