Remember back at the WWDC when Steve Jobs talked about Netflix coming to the iPhone this summer? It turns out they met their deadline because the recent update is up in the App Store and includes iPhone and iPod Touch support. Highlighted in the apps description is the following:
You know that virtual beer you can buy your friends on Facebook? It just became even more ridiculous. Mobile Crunch discusses an app entitled Bartab, which lets you send real booze tickets to people whether you know them or not.
The unique application is free in the App Store and lets you purchase the drink coupon for $1, and then you send it by way of Facebook or text message. When the lucky recipient gets the announcement they show it to the bartender and pay $1 to redeem their beverage. The whole having to pay the bartender makes it a bit less cool but state laws require it...
Wow! Free has come a long way in the Apple App Store. Gone are the days where free apps consisted of simple gimmick sound boards and unplayable games. I ran across quite the gem of an app the other day and figured I'd share it with our readers. I typically don't troll the App Store much so excuse me if I am late to the party with this short review of Words with Friends : Free Edition.
I actually was encouraged by a friend of mine to download the application. Without reading anything on the description page I did so and was pleasantly surprised. You see this was an old friend from back home and we used to play board games all the time, mostly Scrabble.
This was actually a near exact replica of the popular word game. Not only that, but after a quick sign up process using my email, I was able to look her up by her email, and within seconds we were playing "scrabble" together, from completely different states.
Not only do you play the game in near real time, you have the option to chat with your opponent (perfect for in game trash talking so you don't have to switch from your game to the sms app to say "VORACIOUSNESS bitch! Yeah it's a real word, 60 points!" Which brings me to my next point that this is certainly not your typical watered down trial version.
My favorite feature had to be the push notifications. They worked like a champ. If I closed the application to do something, and forgot that I was playing, it would beep and remind me that it was my turn, showing the typical push notification icon, on top of the game icon on my springboard.
Overall the game play was enjoyable, only having to wait 30 seconds to a minute between turns if the other player is paying attention, very nice. The interface was very intuitive as it felt like you were playing the board game, not hard to figure out.
The only real set back I ran into was when I tried to download Words with Friends for my iPad. It told me I needed to register the original version on my iPhone before being able to use it on another device. I'm not sure if that meant I needed to purchase the full version or just register my email.
To be honest I didn't mess with it much as I do plan on purchasing the full version in HD for my iPad if I continue to play it as much as I had been. For not costing me anything, this is a pretty sweet app that has definitely found a place on my home screen, how about you?
If you are in your 30s, you may remember the popular arcade game "Street Fighter II." I remember literally watching hours of people playing the game. (I rarely played the game; I mostly sucked but I wanted to save money). And now, you can get the latest version of the game right on your iPhone with Street Fighter IV [iTunes link] for $9.99.
Immediately, hardcore SF fans will see that there are only eight characters to choose from. In the normal SF IV game, there is a total of 19 playable characters. SF IV Producer Takeshi Tazuka says there are less characters because of the limited amount of CPU memory in the iPhone, 256MB of RAM for the 3GS and 128MB for the 3G.
Otherwise, this game really kicks (no pun intended). As far as onscreen controls go, this is one of the better ones. If you didn't like touch controls before, this will not change your mind but it is more than adequate. Here's a list of buttons: punch, kick, special attack and focus attack. The touch joystick is on the left. These are transparent on the screen and do cover up the players a little, but it hasn't affected my enjoyment of the game.
I have a 3G and the game is so memory-intensive that I do experience crashes. 3GS and newer iPod Touch owners will probably do better.
For those who are new to the game, there is a dojo that will help you to learn the moves. There is also a free-sparring mode and a training room mode to help you perfect your combos and special attacks.
Other features include Bluetooth support for iPhone head-to-head combat and the ability to save your best games.
I'd say at $9.99 this game is a steal. Some may want to wait for a price drop, but SF fans should get this one immediately.
When I first heard and tried mQuickDo, I wasn't really impressed at all. First, the description didn't highlight the real benefits of this application because the developers sell it as a "virtual home and power buttons for the iPhone". What the hell does that mean? Exactly! I tried mQuickDo and was very confused about what it did and how it worked. I quickly gave up on this app without giving it much more thoughts.
Then last week I read an article by fellow iPhone blogger Patrick Jordan at JAIB. Patrick's article described mQuickDo as what it really is: an app switcher for the iPhone. This is what really made me think twice about this app, and ultimately led me to give it another shot.
Originally, mQuickDo lets you set up gestures to perform predefined actions (ie. slide left to right to close an opened application; or slide right to left to shut off the phone, etc...) but to be honest with you, I think this is kinda useless.
The real power and most exciting feature about mQuickDo is the App Switcher. As its name suggests, the app switcher allows you to quickly switch between apps. You have to tweak the settings to customize the gestures to trigger the app switching, but once you got it to work properly, this is a real time-saver.
I have to admit that it takes time to get used to some of the gestures. To make it easier, I set up mQuickDo to launch the app switcher for all the predefined gestures, which means I am not using any of the other features of mQuickDo, but as I said above, I find them useless anyways.
The app switcher feature is pretty awesome. Add Backgrounder to this and you actually get a productivity booster that will allow you to multi-task and really get the most out of your iPhone.
mQuickDo is available from Cydia and comes with a 3-day trial period. After that, it will cost you $7.99 if you want to keep it. Although a little pricey, I still think mQuickDo is a must-have application and it undoubtedly makes it in my Top 10 list of favorite applications.
The developers of mQuickDo were kind enough to provide us with 10 promo codes for our loyal blog readers.
How to WinYou have to do 2 things to win one of the 10 promo codes:
Follow me on Twitter and Retweet this post by clicking here Leave a comment at the bottom of this page with your Twitter ID Download the mQuickDo free trial from Cydia10 winners will be randomly selected and will be notified on Twitter sometimes next week.
Good luck :)
iPromoCode is a new application available in Cydia that lets you find promo codes for iPhone applications. I really like the concept of this app but unfortunately, it is very poorly implemented... After launching the app, you basically have 2 options available: Refresh, and Redeem App.
"Refresh" simply refreshes the screen to display a promo code for a random app, and I think that's the first weakness of iPromoCode. Rather than refreshing and displaying a random app, it would be much better if you could browse all promo codes available.
The second downside of this app is that you don't know what you get. It tells you the name of the application for which you can have promo codes but you don't have any other information about this app (no description, no screenshot, nothing, nada, zip).
The second option available to you is to redeem the app directly from your iPhone. Once again, that is poorly implemented and just didn't work when I tried iPromoCode.
iPromoCode has a lot of potential to be a very cool application, but it's not there yet.
ngmoco has released a new video of their upcoming app TouchPet: Dogs. The app is said to arrive spring 2009. The app is exclusively for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
In Touch Pets: Dogs, players adopt, nurture and play with their virtual puppies through one-on-one touch screen interaction or on play dates with other players’ dogs from around the world. And here’s the best part - players can invite their friends to join their Touch Pets social network within the game. That’s right, your puppy has its own social network! The ambitious Touch Pets social network, embedded within the game, allows owners and dogs alike to build relationships with other players and their Touch Pets.
Seems pretty cool. They just posted a video showing "Basic Care" of the dog. Looks like fun.
Is the concert to your favorite musical artist sold out? Or maybe you HAVE to go to this week's NFL game but all of the tickets are gone. Well, a new app called Tiggits [iTunes link] allows to purchase those tickets right on your iPhone.
Just so that there is no misunderstanding, Tiggits is a ticket RESELLER. That means you are probably not going to get the face value of the ticket. This service is for those who are willing to pay the extra money for tickets and were either unwilling or unable to stand in line when the tickets initially went on sale.
The best way to find tickets in your area is to do a search. You can search for a city, venue or performer. I just typed in Honolulu and chose whether I wanted to see a concert, sporting event, theater event or "other." The screenshot posted is the Gloria Estefan concert at the Neal Blaisdell Center next January. The one thing I immediately noticed is that there are almost no single tickets sold. They usually come in pairs or larger. You can also browse the Top 25 events in each category and there is a "Featured" section.
The way you pay for your tickets is with a credit card. Here's a screenshot of the billing page:
Look toward the bottom of the page and you will see "Secure Page: SSL-encrypted." This is important ANY time you make a credit card purchase over the internet to make sure no one other than the merchant sees your credit card number. I, personally, cannot vouch for the security of this service as I have not used it. This review is not an endorsement of the service, but rather an overview of the app.
Tiggits also gives you a coupon code to save 5% on your ticket purchases, which is good incentive to download this app.
Before using this app, make sure you carefully read all the terms and policies. All sales are final and there is no refunds, exchanges or cancellations. However, if the event is postponed tickets will be honored for the rescheduled date.
Adam's Game [iTunes Link] is just amazing. I love simple apps, I love apps that needs no explanation, I love apps that you can make your own, but this one simply tops it all... provided you are one year old or younger.
A voice asks you to point at one of three figures; if you do so a cheering noise congratulates you; otherwise you have a nice “Hu-ho”, not so praising, but not too negative either. Anyone old enough to buy an iPhone might find it limited — but who said children have short attention span?
How do I know it is so great? I am a single, toddler-hater with no nephew-turned-tester at hand. I saw the app, didn't really paid attention at first, but like Joe Biden I do take the train often, and unlike him, I'm always seated next to the nastiest one-toothed ear-drump-blaster-of-a-child that starts yelling for no reason. Thank you 3G, I had the app up and running in no time. The best dollar spent in my life, I'd say. I'm not sure my headset was his size, though.
Adam's Game is fully customizable, so all of you overworked parents can let your better half share his or her iPhone with the little wonder, with your voice on it. I know this might sound like a detail, but many workaholic might end up being slightly better parents with that.
The only problem: you might want to use bactericide swipe on your phone after that. And a solid casing: gravity is still an fascinating experimental interest at that age.
Cube [iTunes Link] is an adaptation of Doom to the iPhone, developed by fernLigthening [iTunes Link]. The controls are amazing: accelerometer for sight, aim and direction (there are the same); tap the corners to move, shoot, pause and go to the menu). Surprisingly enough it is free (so far) but we can expect a paying version with more levels coming.
The 3D engine (a projected 2D-height map, actually) is really fluid and the motion-response is great; just check this video demo:
A few bad points: many do not like the very sensitive point-and-shoot: being able to tap on the screen to shoot on that particular direction might have been easier—but I prefer to see the screeen at all times, as fernLightening has made possible. One thing however: do not try to play it in a car or even a train: you won't be able to aim, but more importantly, you will get sick. The motion-by-toggle has just the right setting that messes with your sense of balance.
This review of the OrbLive [iTunes link] iPhone app is at least two weeks in the making. As soon as I saw OrbLive in the App Store, I knew it had to have it. OrbLive streams pictures, video, music and documents over your cellular or Wifi network. But, the REAL gem of the app is its ability to stream LIVE television! But, I had a couple of hurdles to overcome:
I did not have a cable television connection available for my computer. I did not have an MPEG-2 encoder that was compatible.So, first I had to get a cable connection into my bedroom where my computer is. I went to Radio Shack and spent $50 for a really good 4-way splitter (yes, we have a bunch of TVs in the house) and a really long cable. That was the easy part.
Next, I went shopping for a new TV tuner card/MPEG-2 encoder. I decided to play it safe and get hardware I knew for sure is compatible with Orb, the PC desktop software that streams media to your iPhone. There was none in stock at the local stores, so I bought the WinTV-PVR USB2 off of eBay for $46. It's an external MPEG-2 encoder that can run more than $100.
After installing everything, I have to say that live streaming television iPhone through OrbLive is AWESOME! The picture doesn't looks as good as a digital copy of a movie on your iPod, but it's quite good for streaming TV over 3G and Wi-Fi.
Here's pictures I captured of live TV on my iPhone on 3G and Wi-Fi. Can you guess which is 3G and Wi-Fi?:
For the record, the top is Wi-Fi and the bottom is 3G. I have heard on message boards that the Wi-Fi picture used to look better but I cannot confirm that. Using EDGE for live television is not good at all.
To use OrbLive on the go, just make sure that your desktop PC running Orb is on. If you have an external encoder/tuner you need to make sure that is on as well. As far as I know, Orb does not make software for the Mac.
So, the money I spent on a cable connection, MPEG-2 encoder and a $9.99 app came out to a little more than $100. Was it worth it? I'd have to say that it's a resounding YES! But, like the MasterCard commercials, being able to watch your favorite live program on your iPhone when you're away from home is indeed PRICELESS.