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The best indie games for iPhone and iPad

By Allyson Kazmucha, Thursday, Jun 6, 2013 a 2:18 pm

It doesn't always take a huge development firm and investors with an endless budget to develop a great game. There are lots of indie developers out there that prove every day it doesn't take a million dollars to produce great games. Sometimes it just takes a great idea.

There are thousands of great games by indie developers in the App Store. Here are the ones we think you should definitely be playing on your iPhone and iPad.

Debug 15: Simmons, Wiskus, Gruber, and Vesper

By Rene Ritchie, Thursday, Jun 6, 2013 a 12:13 pm

Brent Simmons, Dave Wiskus, and John Gruber join Guy and Rene to talk about their new app, Vesper, the value of ideas and collecting them, the art of collaboration, flat design, accessibility, testing, app pricing, and more. Also: Mad Men.

Vesper for iPhone review: Collect your thoughts with one part notes app, one part lists app, shaken, not stirred

By Rene Ritchie, Thursday, Jun 6, 2013 a 12:10 pm

Vesper -- Brent Simmons, Dave Wiskus, and John Gruber's Vesper -- is part list-maker and part note-taker, and so strongly opinionated about how it balances both that you'll fall instantly in love... or want to kill it on sight. This isn't your UIKit convention, your lowest common denominator, or any other concession to the mass-market. Everything about Vesper, every choice about every feature, liberates only through constraint. Because it allows for just a very small set of very deliberate actions, Vesper frees you from the cognitive overhead of managing the management app, and forces you to simply fulfill its purpose -- collecting your thoughts.

$4.99 - Download now
Debug 15: Simmons, Wiskus, Gruber, and Vesper - Listen now

Why isn't mobile gaming better? - Talk Mobile

By Talk Mobile, Thursday, Jun 6, 2013 a 11:00 am

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The quantity and quality of mobile games have exploded over the past few years. Game developers have been blessed with rapidly improving hardware and an ever-growing customer base that's becoming more comfortable with the idea of spending money for mobile entertainment. Mobile development studios like Rovio and Glu along with independent, one-man developers like Loren Brichter of Letterpress and Andreas Illiger of Tiny Wings are playing on the same field for the same dollars as long-time game studios like Electronic Arts and Rockstar.

But while the customers and dollars might be directed towards any one of those warriors, the battlefield itself is segmented. Is it better for a developer to target the expansive iOS or Android ecosystems and risk all of their work being lost in the fog of app storefront warfare, or should they go for less-populated venues like BlackBerry and Windows Phone, where they can be the big fish in the small digital pond? Do they try and support those features unique to specific platforms, like BBM or Game Center, or do they hit only the most common features across all platforms? And how do those answers change if they’re small indie developers, or powerhouse studios?

WWDC 2013 wish-list: iMore's top Mac hardware wants!

By Rene Ritchie, Thursday, Jun 6, 2013 a 10:25 am

While there won't be new iPhones or iPads at WWDC 2013 -- those are coming in the fall -- there will be new Macs. Peter's been covering everything from the new Haswell chipsets we can look forward to, to the new Mac Pros every geek is hoping beyond hope for. But what are we most looking forward to? Which non-mobile slab of glass and aluminium do we most want to bring home with us this June?

Well...

Leaked secret order shows Verizon being forced to hand over phone records to the NSA [updated]

By Richard Devine, Thursday, Jun 6, 2013 a 7:07 am

Under a secret Government order issued in April, the National Security Agency is collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers in the U.S. British newspaper, the Guardian, has gained access to a copy of the order:

What is your primary iOS gaming device? [Poll]

By Richard Devine, Wednesday, Jun 5, 2013 a 5:12 pm

There has been a bit of talk about mobile gaming in these parts this week, and while the Talk Mobile discussions are incredible -- really, they are so check them out if you haven't already -- we wanted to bring it back to iOS a little. Unlike our Windows or Android loving friends, our device choices for mobile gaming are pretty limited; one line of phone, two different tablets, the iPod touch and the Apple TV. But, that doesn't mean we don't target one of these specifically for getting our game on.

Kurabi for iPhone review: A refreshing twist on classic matching games, complete with ninja abilities!

By Allyson Kazmucha, Wednesday, Jun 5, 2013 a 2:13 pm

Kurabi for iPhone is a new puzzler for iPhone that pits you up against your friends to see who can make more matches and accumulate the most points in under a minute. Match pieces to clear the board and create exploding combos. Best two out of three rounds will win. The more you play, the more power ups you can unlock to use against your opponents.

How can mobile get its multiplayer game on?

By Talk Mobile, Wednesday, Jun 5, 2013 a 11:49 am

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The first mobile games in their time were great. Just like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong at the arcades, or Pitfall or Super Mario on the early consoles, BrickBreaker on BlackBerry, Bejeweled on Palm OS, or Tap Tap Revenge on iOS. But, like any early game, we played the first mobile games alone, or perhaps with a few friends.

Over time, however, the PC went online, and so did consoles. From Ultima to EverQuest to World of Warcraft, from Halo to Call of Duty to Battlefield 4, PC and console games have become increasingly social and increasingly multiplayer. Massively so.

Now, with ubiquitous Wi-Fi and persistent cellular connections, so has mobile and so has mobile gaming. And since mobile isn’t constrained to an arcade or living room, mobile players can join in the action anytime, and anywhere, and bring with them additional technology and features like GPS and social networks beyond the games.

That’s led to new innovations like push notifications for challenges, video and audio streaming to TV sets, and asynchronous play. And it’s only just the beginning. Real Racing 3 and Ingress are only the beginning when it comes to multiplayer and MMO gaming on mobile.

How far have we come, how well does it work now, and how much farther can multiplayer scale on mobile?

WWDC 2013 wish-list: iMore's top iCloud wants!

By Rene Ritchie, Wednesday, Jun 5, 2013 a 11:14 am

To the internet! That's what everyone is doing these days, and for Apple, that means iCloud. The rebirth of MobileMe, which was the rebirth of .Mac, iCloud has been praised for its effortless backup and restore, easy app and media re-downloads, and it's $0 price tag for the basic level. But it's also caught flack for outages, for iMessage, and for Core Data sync, which has bedeviled developers. So what do the staff and friends of iMore most want to see in iCloud next?

Let's see!