Iphone Apps

Where are Apple's universal iPhone/iPad apps?

By Rene Ritchie, Friday, Jun 18, 2010 a 8:36 am

Official Apple Find my iPhone app now in App Store

By Rene Ritchie, Friday, Jun 18, 2010 a 8:18 am

Apple has released an official Find my iPhone app, and it's a universal binary for both iPhone and iPad. (Yes, it's still called Find my iPhone on the iPad and iPod touch, what's in a name?)

It works pretty much as you'd expect -- enter your MobileMe login (it asks for the password each time, which might annoy you until you realize someone could use it to track you or your family members), see a list of your devices, tap one to locate it, send it an alert, lock it, or remotely wipe it.

I couldn't get locate or alert working in my quick tests, but it could still be rolling out. I'll try again later. If you installed it, let me know how it's working for you.

iPad screenshot after the break.

[iTunes link]

Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney for iPhone- app review

By Chad Garrett, Wednesday, Jun 16, 2010 a 2:15 pm

Phoenix Wright is Capcom's latest game for the iPhone. It's a port of a port (GameBoy to Nintendo DS to iOS) that still retains it's fun factor through the years and is a great addition to any iOS gamer. The concept behind Phoenix Wright is simple; you are a new a attorney and you have taken on your first criminal case as a defense attorney for your best friend from high school, Larry Butz, and he is accused of murder!

The main game play takes place in the court room. Just like any court case, you are given evidence that you can reference at any time from the court record. And you WILL need to reference it as your clients future depends on it.

Your first case deals with Larry's girlfriend's murder. The witness pins Larry as the killer... but is he? This is where the fun begins. It is up to you to prove his innocence. In the courtroom you listen to the witness testimony and try to find holes in it based on the evidence you have in your possession. Regretfully, I can't give away too much more without spoiling the story... There are additional levels though and each one gets more and more challenging, you even move out of the courtroom to gather evidence yourself.

As fun as the game is, the writing is geared towards a younger audience. Even though the subject matter is adult, it often uses "childish humor" to get points across at times. Though I shrug this off, it may bother some adult gamers, kids will love it. But I do admit, I chuckled from time to time. It is important to note that this game is not 3D but instead kind of like one of those old Choose Your Own Adventure books. The game is based primarily on reading and critical thinking skills and lends itself as a quick pick up and play game, but you will be spending some quality time with it. The good news is that you can save anytime and it usually places you right at the spot you were last at in the story.

In the end I found Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney very enjoyable and fun. Was it challenging? Yes. Was the crude humor at times? Yes. Will I play it again? Most definitely.

[$4.99- iTunes Link]

iPhone at Work: Clowning Around

By Leanna Lofte, Wednesday, Jun 16, 2010 a 9:43 am

How does a professional clown use his iPhone to get the job done and what iPhone apps help get him through his day? TiPb’s iPhone at work contest aims to bring you just such slices of the iPhone life. Here’s JimmySlo’s answer and as a small token of thanks we’re sending him a $20 iTunes gift certificate. If you want to see your name up on the TiPb home page and get a gift certificate all your own, head on over to the TiPb iPhone Forum and share your story now!

I am a clown in a travelling circus currently touring North America.

Apple Store app for iPhone now in App Store

By Allyson Kazmucha, Tuesday, Jun 15, 2010 a 10:20 am

Looks like Apple has finally released an Apple Store mobile application for the iPhone. I would have thought we'd see this a lot sooner but we all know Apple. Looks like you can not only browse the store, but search for Apple Stores close to you and even make appointments with the Genius Bar.

As of now, it's only showing up in the US app store, so those of you in other countries, feel free to let us know when you see it show up in yours. Given iPhone 4 pre-order madness is upon us, I can't access the Apple Store to test it so if it gives you problems just wait a while and try again when the the pre-order insanity dies down.

Jump to the break to see some basic screenshots, and I'll add more once the Apple Online Store is up and running again.

[iTunes link]

1Password on Safari 5 extensions, designing for iPad, and iPhone 4 - TiPb at WWDC 2010

By Rene Ritchie, Saturday, Jun 12, 2010 a 10:39 am

During WWDC 2010 I had a chance to sit down with the team from Agile Web Solutions -- Roustem, Dave, Jamie, Dan, and Chad -- to talk not only about their newly launched 1Password for iPad, but about the big news of the show including official browser extension support from Apple in Safari 5, and of course iPhone 4 and iOS 4.

Apple called Agile about their new Safari 5 extensions before they debuted in hopes of having a demo ready for the show. Dave found the preview was polished and well documented and it took them only a few days to put something together. That sounds like good news not only for developers but for Safari users as well.

Agile also said making the iPad version was a chance to start from scratch and figure out how users were going to interact with the larger, wider display, and with the ability to do things like scrolling independently with each thumb.

While I used 1Password on Mac long before the iPhone debuted, Roustem pointed out they now have a whole new user base introduced to their product via the iPhone and iPad and with no Mac-based preconceptions. While the iPhone and iPad versions [iTunes link] are great for Mac or Windows users as an extension, Agile is also working to help iPhone and iPad-only users get more out of it as well.

As for iPhone 4 -- they want it. (Even if Dan has to re-render his artwork at higher resolution to support it). Chad's also looking forward to iOS 4 multitasking and like the way it runs select API rather than full apps in the background.

(Though I suspect they were just humoring me when I asked for Game Center integration so I could see where my 63 character pseudo-random passwords place on the leaderboard compared to Leanna's!)

You can find out more about 1Password for Mac, PC, iPhone, and iPad, and the newly acquired Knox, via Agile's web site, below. Video after the break.

[Agile Web Solutions]

Apple's magic developer numbers: 100, 100 million, and 1 billion

By Rene Ritchie, Friday, Jun 11, 2010 a 9:18 pm

We've all heard huge numbers thrown around as measures of iPhone and iPad App Store success -- over 200,000 apps and 5 billion downloads being some of the most recent and most impressive. There's a couple of other numbers that are even more interesting when it comes to iPhone and iPad development: 100, 100 million, and 1 billion.

Roughly 100 million iOS devices have been sold to data and they are all broadly software compatible. There's some fragmentation to be sure -- older devices are slower, there's no cameras (yet) on the iPod touch and iPad, no GPS in iPod touch, iPad Wi-Fi, and the iPhone 2G. Apple mitigates this somewhat by offering services such as CoreLocation where, if no GPS is found, it gracefully degrades down to cell tower triangulation or Wi-Fi router mapping. Even the iPad with its odd-device-out 1024x768 display will frame iPhone apps or pixel double them, which is awkward but still workable, still compatible. When iPhone 4 ships, it will be precisely double the vertical and horizontal pixel count of previous generations, meaning older apps will simply look the same as they did before (using 4 pixels in the space they used to use 1).

Likewise, most iOS devices tend to get updated to the latest version of the OS, or at least fairly recent versions. While iOS 4 will drop compatibility for iPhone 2G and iPod touch G1, it will also be free for all other devices for the first time, ensuring iPod touch G2 and G3 owners are more likely to update.

Everything isn't perfect, but for a vast majority of apps it doesn't need to be. They just work.

The sheer size of that install base is stunning. Code an app once and deploy it to a theoretical 100 million devices -- and growing -- all with a drop-dead-easy to use icon on the home screen to help them get your apps?

Guitar Hero for iPhone - app review

By Leanna Lofte, Friday, Jun 11, 2010 a 8:23 pm

During the WWDC 2010 keynote, Activision announced and released Guitar Hero on the iPhone. This game is well made and provides a lot of enjoyment for players as they strum, tap, slide and whammy to the beat of popular rock songs.

The gameplay of Guitar Hero is fun, unique and includes much more than tapping notes. An arrow pointing left or right indicates that you need to tap the note where the arrow begins and slide your finger to where the arrow ends. This action needs to happen fairly quickly. If two or more notes are connected by lines, then you must tap the first note and slide your finger to the next notes. Your finger needs to reach each note connected in the line at the appropriate time that corresponds to the beat of the song. A vertical line means that you must hold down the note until the line ends. Sometimes these appear at the end of an arrow which mean you must slide and hold. The last thing that comes up is an orange bar that is the length of all four notes. This bar simply needs to be tapped at any location.

Some notes have stars on them. Successfully hitting all these notes in a sequence adds to your star power. There is blue bar on the right of the screen which indicates how much star power you have. Once it reaches half-way, a blue bar will appear above the note catchers. Tapping this activates your star power and doubles your score multiplier. The more star power you have, the longer it lasts.

Guitar Hero also offers character customization, leaderboards, Faecbook sharing, and in-app purchases. If you want more than the 6 songs included with Guitar Hero, then you must purchase songs in bundles of three. Each song pack costs $1.99. There are no free songs available for download.

Guitar Hero includes the following 6 tracks:

Queen – “We Are The Champions”
Rise Against – “Savior”
The Rolling Stones – “Paint It Black”
Vampire Weekend – “Cousins”
Weezer – “Say It Ain’t So”
The White Stripes – “Seven Nation Army”

The downloadable song packs via in-app purchase are grouped by the following artists:

The Faint, Minus the Bear and Silversun Pickups
Band of Skulls, Obits and The White Stripes
Darkest Hour, The Dillinger Escape Plan and Protest the Hero
A Day to Remember, AFI and Breaking Benjamin
Vampire Weekend
Queen

I have thoroughly enjoyed the short time I've spent playing Guitar Hero and don't plan to stop playing anytime soon. The game runs great, looks great, and is very well designed. It's only a matter of time before I become a famous rock star!

Videos and screenshots after the break!

Give away: Slacker Personal Radio Plus streaming music with local iPhone cache

By Rene Ritchie, Wednesday, Jun 9, 2010 a 12:16 pm

Slacker Personal Radio 2.0 is now in the iTunes app store, along with its great new local caching feature (hello new AT&T capped data plans!), and to celebrate Slacker wants to give away five (5) one-year subscriptions to their premium Slacker Radio Plus service (and they're throwing in five (5) 3-month subscriptions for runners-up as well).

It'll be the perfect thing to run on a new iPhone -- and oh, yeah: TiPb's giving away an iPhone 4 as well.

Line2 brings iPhone, iPad calls into 21st century - TiPb at WWDC 2010

By Rene Ritchie, Wednesday, Jun 9, 2010 a 1:21 am

Peter Sisson, founder and CEO of Toktumi talks Line2, their premium, business-optimized calling solution for the iPhone and iPad (with optimized iPad UI coming soon). While many forms of communications have leapt forward in the digital age, our telcos have been content to keep telephony in the relative dark ages. Line2 is one of several services hoping to pull them kicking and screaming forward, with both cell and VoIP based solutions.

Currently you can conference call over VoIP -- which is really nice on an iPad -- with full call waiting and real SMS functionality. With iOS 4 VoIP will work in the background meaning apps like Line2 could just be first-class telephone solutions (and strangely carriers don't seem to be as afraid of this as they used to be).

Line2 competes with free-as-in-Google voice by offering a more user-centric app, with lots of features and a focus on customer care. They're US/Canada only at the moment but will be expanding into the top 7 international iPhone markets soon and especially for business users, they think their offer will be compelling. (Enough that Peter suggests a MiFi rather than device data plan might just be the way to go forward...)

Check out the video interview after the break!

[Line2 on iTunes]