Cheat the law with NMobile

For any of you out there that have trouble avoiding speed traps, NMobile is the application for you. This application shows you the location of speed traps, red light cameras and radar locations. All of these locations are then displayed on a map for you. Using your internal GPS in conjunction ...

Control your Rovio with your iPhone

Many of you iPhone owners will not be able to control yourself when you see the new Rovio by WowWee on store shelves. This radio controlled beast is more for adults and offers many fantastic features such as live video camera and even allows you to speak through it. With no ...

Forum Review: Aurora Feint 1: The Beginning for the iPhone

Aurora Feint Forum Review by cjvitek (For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

[Ed- Aurora Feint 1: The Beginning, is FREE in the iTunes store. Aurora Feint 2: The Arena is now available for $7.99 and if you head on over to the forum, and ask Chris and Matt, we might just get a review up for that soon too! Meanwhile, here's Chris' review of the original to whet everyone's appetite!]

This is an extremely interesting game that tries to combine elements of a puzzle game with elements of an RPG game.

You start with a map screen. From there, you can go to the mine (the puzzle game), the store (to use your tiles for skills or tools), the smith (to actually obtain the tools), and the tower (to actually learn the skills). You need to start with the puzzle game, and once you start to gain levels and tile,s you can move to the other areas.

As a puzzle game, it is a pretty standard “match multiple tiles” type of game. You move peices horizontally to try to match at least three tiles together. One twist is that by holding your iPhone at different angles, “horizontally” changes, so in reality you can also move tiles vertically. Depending on the orientation, “gravity” is always down, so the tiles may fall differently as well. The graphics are pretty nice (there are five types of tiles) and the sound during the game is nice as well. There are a few powerups (more on this later) that add to the game play, destorying additional tiles or various other effects.

As you destroy tiles (or “resources”, consisting of water, fire, earth, moon, and wind), you are actually “collecting” them, and this is used in the RPG side of the game. As you complete levels of the game, you gain experience, and can choose to “level up” in various areas. These additional levels allow you to either learn new skills, or gain new tools. This is all based on the number of tiles you have collected. To learn a skill or gain a tool requires various combinations of the five tiles - if you don’t have enough of a specific type that you have collected, you can’t learn the skill or gain the tool.

Learning skills or gaining tools requires you to complete a different puzzle. For skills, you are required to solve a specific puzzle (matching similar globes this time, making them all vanish) in a limited amount of moves. As the skill levels progress, these puzzles become harder. To learn new tools (by building blueprints), you have a time limited tile-removal puzzle, where you have to collect a specific number of tiles in various combinations (these are different from the tiles that are collected to try to gain the tool). If you fail at these puzzles, you have to try again at a later date.

All said, this is a complex game with an intriguing concept - combining a puzzle and RPG game. However, there are some problems that I have had. There are some features of the game that I can’t figure out. There seem to be scrolls you can buy, but I haven’t found out how to di that. In addition, it appears like you can have multiple members in you “party”, but I can only really get one player going.

My biggest problem is with the RPG aspect of the game, however. The first problem is that many of the skills and tools are confusing. Once you get a tool, it can appear during the puzle side of the game (the power ups I mentioned previously). It also appears that you are supposed to be able ot “merge” tools, or use them when you are building blueprints, but I can’t figure that aspect of the game out as well. This all dovetails into my biggest issue - the lack of clear instructions. There is no help screen or anything the clearly describes the gameplay, the features, or the RPG side of the game. With a game this complex, I think some sort of help screen is essential.

The last problem I had was with the RPG side of the game. Allowing a player to “level up” and learn different skills is great, but it doesn’t appear that there is any real specialization going on. That is, if you don’t learn a skill or a tool at one point, you can try to do so at the next “level up”. Rather than allow people to really choose a path for their characters, it just appears that you can only choose the order in which you gain new skills and abilities - but eventually all character would be the same.

I applaud this game and the developers for trying a new approach to a puzzle game. And I think it has a lot of potential. Heck, even with the game as it currently stand I probably play it more than almost any other game. But it seems like they took a great concept, and stopped 10 yards short of the goal line. A little more development could have made this an incredible game, instead of a merely “very good” game. It is free, so I strongly recommend trying it. As I said, even with my concerns and issues, it is one of my top three games on my iPhone.

Pros

• Great graphics and sound,
• interesting game play,
• a great new concept for a standard puzzle game

Cons

• Lack of help screen or instructions,
• lack of a “real” RPG type of mode

Forum Rating

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Forum Review: Aurora Feint 1: The Beginning for the iPhone

Apple Promotes Environmentally Friendly Notebooks in New Ad

Apple has setup a new page promoting their MacBooks as the "world's greenest family of notebooks."

When we redesigned the new Macbook, our designers and engineers set a goal of making not only the greenest notebook Apple ever produ...

Hack Enables Japanese Emoji Icons on iPhone Firmware 2.2; No longer Restricted to Japan’s SoftBank Network

How to sell an iPhone app for $9.99

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Apple, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Marco over on the Instapaper blog (which, of course, is the blog of the app Instapaper), posted a really interesting commentary recently on a subject we've been following since the beginning: App Store pricing. As we've said before, it's a strange thing -- developers want higher prices so that they can put more effort into making iPhone apps better. But customers have a perception already that anything above $5 in the App Store just isn't worth it.

So Marco offers his take: he's been selling an app in the store for $9.99, and it's going just fine. He has tips for how developers can sell their own apps for a higher price, and he settles on some good compromises for everybody: deliver a real value with your app (as economists know, an app is worth what people are wiling to pay for it, so if you produce an app that is worth $10, people will happily spend that much). Respect yourself as a developer, and don't cower to cheapskates (some people won't be happy with anything, even when it's free). And perhaps most importantly: offer a free version.

That last one may be the key -- our own Michael Rose was sold on Instapaper only when he tried it out. More and more, I'm thinking that it was a major mistake on Apple's part not to allow developers to easily offer demos and upgrades in the same app -- people are willing to spend money on an app that's worth it, but not if they aren't sure, and trying it goes a long way to making sure. I'm not in favor of app store developers banding together to raise prices, but Marco is right: if you make an app that's worth $10 and put it on the App Store for $9.99 (with an easy way to demo it out), people will come and buy it.

How to sell an iPhone app for $9.99 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

How to sell an iPhone app for $9.99 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Review: Low-cost iPhone dictionary applications

The App Store offers dozens of dictionaries, including offerings from Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, and the Oxford English Dictionary. But what about some of the upstart dictionary apps? Ben Boychuk selects five of the most popular free or inexpensive alternatives and sees how they stack up.

Apple Announces Black Friday Event on November 28th

Apple NZ has started emailing customers about their Black Friday event for one day only on November 28th.

Come back to the Apple Online Store this Friday for a special one-day-only Christmas shopping event. You’ll find dozens...

TouchArcade: Second-generation iPod touch faster than iPhone

Filed under: iPhone, iPod touch

TouchArcade interviewed Handheld Games Corp's Thomas Fessler, who noted an interesting bit of the company's research: Second-generation iPod touch devices are significantly faster than their predecessors when it comes to 3D rendering.

In fact, it's faster than both iPhone models as well. In its tests, the iPhone 3G ranked second, the original iPhone third, and the first-generation iPod touch lagged behind in fourth. Fessler is paraphrased in the interview, even suggesting he would not recommend anyone interested in gaming to buy a used first-generation iPod touch.

The primary difference is a faster processor: The second-generation iPod touch has a 532 MHz processor. The iPhone, iPhone 3G, and first-generation iPod touch all have 412 MHz processors.

Fessler also speculates in the interview that the GPU has also been improved, but has no evidence to support that claim. These performance differences may also explain why certain apps only run on second-generation iPod touch devices.

TouchArcade: Second-generation iPod touch faster than iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TouchArcade: Second-generation iPod touch faster than iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone finally gets its podcasts in order

With the 2.2 update, the iPhone and iPod touch finally let you listen to podcasts in chronological order.

How To: Jailbreak iPhone 2.2 - Mac OS X Edition

Disclaimer - Neither TiPb nor I take any responsibility for any problems/issues/bricking/etc. that may occur while using this software to modify your iPhone. Please be aware of what you are doing.

Note to New Macbook Owners - if you have a late 2008 model aluminum MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air and have not previously Pwned your iPhone (under firmware 2.1 or earlier), the issues we blogged about previously mean you will have to use a different computer to Jailbreak 2.2. Sorry folks. If you have already Pwned under 2.1 or previous, then you can simply put your iPhone into recovery mode and restore with the freshly created IPSW. (If you don’t understand what all that means, keep reading, or go to our Jailbreak Central Forum for help)

Is it really that shocking? iPhone firmware 2.2 was released just days ago and now we have a fully illustrated guide to help you along! Today we’re going to take a deeper look at the exact steps you have to take to get your iPhone jailbroken on your Mac.

Let’s get started, after the jump!

1. Get the Tools

First things first, make sure you are not only running the latest version of iTunes [8.0.2] but have successfully installed the 2.2 firmware on your iPhone 3G.

Then you will want to create a folder on your desktop to keep things clean. Name it whatever you’d like.

Next you want to download the Pwnage 2.2 tool to the folder you just created.

Now download the 2.2 iPhone 3G firmware. Make sure to place that in the above folder as well. If you are able to use Firefox for this download, please do so. In the last set of guides, many of you had issues downloading the file with Safari.

2. Install the Tools

Now double click on the PwnageTool file to mount PwnageTool. Once mounted click and drag the PwnageTool application into the Pwnage folder you created on your desktop.

Then double click the icon that was just created to launch the PwnageTool.

3. Expert Mode

This is a easy one, select “Expert Mode”.

4. Select your Device

Which in this case would be the iPhone 3G.

5. Browse for IPSW

Click the blue arrow button to continue. You will be brought to the “Browse for IPSW” page. It should automatically find the correct file, then click the blue arrow to continue. If Pwnage does not find the file, you must manually browse to the IPSW file that is in the folder you created on your desktop.

6. Menu with 7 Options

You will then be brought to a menu with 7 different options. We will only address the “General” and “Custom Package Settings”. More advanced users can make any changes they see fit. Select the “General” tab and then click the blue arrow button to move forward.

When you are in the “General” tab there are a few things you must take care of. Here you will decide your partition size, 500 MB should be good. Next, if you are using your iPhone on an official carrier (AT&T, O2, Rogers, etc.) uncheck “Activate the phone”. Lastly, check “Disable partition wipe-out”. Hit the arrow button to continue.

Next select the “Custom Package Settings” tab. Be sure that “Cydia Installer” and “Installer” are both checked, hit the arrow to move to the next step.

7. Ready to Begin Pwnage Process!

Click the “Build” button and then click the arrow to begin the Pwnage process.

Now simply select where you would like to save the custom IPSW file that will be created. The folder you created on your desktop would be a good place.

Your IPSW is being created. Please be patient during this process, it could take up to 15 minutes. During this time Pwnage will ask for your administrator password, this is normal, enter it.

8. DFU Mode

First you will be prompted to shut off your iPhone.

This next part seems to give some people trouble, pay close attention. Pwnage will ask you to hold the home button and the power button for 10 seconds. Then, you will have to release the power button and hold the home button for 10 seconds. This should put you in DFU.

If you have succeeded you will see the following graphic.

*Important Note - The new Macbooks that were recently released prevent you from entering DFU mode. It is possible to go from 2.1 Pwned to 2.2 Pwned but you will not be able to go from 2.1 stock to 2.2 Pwned. Got that? In order to proceed, you must enter recovery mode as outlined in this Apple Knowledge Base article.

9. iTunes Restore

Now we have to go into iTunes and restore the iPhone with the custom built firmware. Do so by pressing the Alt/Option button and click “Restore”.

Simply select the following file, “iPhone1,22.25G77CustomRestore.ipsw”, from the folder on your desktop.

iTunes is now restoring the firmware on your iPhone. This can take up to 10-15 minutes.

When complete you will be asked to “set up as a new iPhone” or “restore from a backup”. You can select either option but my recommendation is to start fresh and select “set up as a new iPhone”.

Congratulations! You are now the owner of a freshly jailbroken iPhone 3G with the 2.2 firmware!

Have questions? Run into problems? Check out our Jailbreak Central Forum for help!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

How To: Jailbreak iPhone 2.2 - Mac OS X Edition

Apple Breaks Hardware Method to Unlock iPhone 3G with Firmware 2.2

AnchorFree brings free VPN solution to iPhone

AnchorFree is now offering its free VPN solution, HotspotShield, to iPhone users, without the need for any additional software.

Buyer’s Guide Update: Apple iPhone, Black Friday Sales

Several readers have noticed that our Buyer's Guide has recently changed the iPhone recommendation to "Don't Buy - Updates Soon" despite no recent rumors about a new iPhone update.

The Buyer's Guide generates some of its recommendati...

Want Japanese Emoticons? Hack Enables Them On Any iPhone 2.2

Ok, I will admit I have never heard of Emoji (“Picture Characters”) until it was announced that iPhone firmware 2.2 would support them. As it turns out, however, the only iPhones that were blessed with this feature were on Japan’s SoftBank network. Until now that is…

Important Note: If you are not familiar with editing code we here at TiPb do not recommended that you try this.

No matter what carrier you are with, you can now apply a hack that was found on Gizmodo that will enable Emoji emoticons. Keep in mind any iPhone will be able to display the icons hacked or not, while “other” phones out there need to support Emoji in order to display them.

You need to edit the file /User/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Preferences.plist on the device -> whether you use a jailbreak to achieve this or merely some iTunes backup editor is up to you. Add the following boolean key as ‘true’: KeyboardEmojiEverywhere. Then merely go to the Keyboards section of the Settings app, hit Japanese, and turn on Emoji. Will work for any text field/view in the OS, including on websites, AND including the titles of items on SpringBoard (e.g. if you save a bookmark to the home screen).

The easiest way to do this would be to Jailbreak and run your iPhone as a SFTP server for editing the config file. Again TiPb does not recommend you try this if you are not familiar with editing code.

[Via Gizmodo]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Want Japanese Emoticons? Hack Enables Them On Any iPhone 2.2

Opinion: iPhone 2.2 update doesn’t fix key business flaws

The latest iPhone OS update still doesn't address the gaps in what business users need from the iPhone.

Apple Xserve Field Guide

Filed under: Enterprise, Apple Professional, Xserve, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac OS X Server

Attention Xserve administrators: Apple has created an Xserve Field Guide web app that can you can use to jog your memory when you're standing in front of a server and can't remember how to perform some manual task.

The web app is designed to be viewed on a Mac, iPhone, or iPod touch, and requires Safari as the browser. If you need to identify what model of XServe you're working on, want to know how to install spare parts, would like to decode what blinking lights on the Xserve mean, or even determine how to choose a startup drive using the system identifier button, it's all in this web app.

You can visit the web app from your favorite pocket device here:

http://help.apple.com/server/guide/desktop.html

Thanks to our anonymous TwitterMail tipster!

Apple Xserve Field Guide originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple Xserve Field Guide originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple sued for patent infringement over iPhone

EMG Technology has sued Apple for patent infringement over the way the iPhone navigates the Internet.

Why Even the BlackBerry Storm STILL Doesn’t Compare to the iPhone 3G

We’ve covered why the BlackBerry can’t compare the iPhone, why the BlackBerry compares worse than ever to the iPhone 3G, and even what the iPhone could learn from the Blackberry.

So, okay, fair enough. We’ve beaten the BlackBerry horse so far past death even it’s ghost shows bruises. But here’s the thing — the second biggest story of the week (after iPhone OS 2.2, naturally) is the release of the Blackberry Storm, a direct response to Apple’s revolutionary iPhone and its unprecedented sales, business, and reliability success.

How could we ignore that, and how could we ignore iPhone owners who are daring to think different(ly) about jumping to the Storm, or have stuck with Verizon this long hoping the Storm would give them reason not to switch to the iPhone AT&T.

The answer is, we can’t, and we won’t. So after the break, our Top 5 reasons why the BlackBerry Storm STILL doesn’t compare to the iPhone!

Flattery Will Get RIM Nowhere

We’ve joked about iClones before, about RIM’s choice of stylings for the Bold, and their note-by-note replication of Apple’s iPhone SDK Event, but the Storm is perhaps the ultimate iClone, and for would-be-Storm users, that’s a problem.

Just look at the review. Pretty much every reviewer puts the Storm head-to-head against the iPhone, and many of the comparisons don’t end up in the Storm’s favor. Heck, even CrackBerry.com is getting an incredibly wide range of feedback on the device.

Why? Because in trying to be what a BlackBerry isn’t, in trying to stem the bleeding in people (especially business people) leaving the BlackBerry for the iPhone and leaving Verizon for AT&T just to get an iPhone, RIM has created something that compromises the traditional BlackBerry’s killer productivity while failing to match the iPhone’s unparalleled usability.

In making the whole touch-screen a giant wrist-wrecking button, RIM has create something that’s less than the sum of its parts.

BlackBerry OS By Any Other Input Method…

Dieter said it best in his recent BlackBerry Bold review. RIM has reached the point Palm did when they released the 650. While this is true of the Bold, it matters even more to Storm users.

Apple leveraged a modern, advanced desktop class OS to create the iPhone, but also meticulously crafted a whole new — and unique — UI paradigm.

RIM reworked a slight variation of their aging embedded micro-Java platform and tacked some touch (and a very few multi-touch) on top of it.

While the situations are admittedly different for a variety of reasons, it’s the BlackBerry equivalent of Touch Flo 3D.

Future Un-Proofing

Following the OS train of that, even if RIM has a few more tricks up their sleeves — hey, maybe even a whole new, next generation OS sitting deep in the bunkers below Waterloo? — right now they face iPhone OS 2.x leading mobile computing world, and Google’s Android all but ready to challenge for that title.

Heck, unlike Palm Nova and Windows Mobile 7, far off vaporware though they may be, RIM hasn’t even shed any light whatsoever on their next generation plans, if any.

Apple, for its part, has shown they not only can, but will push out software updates at a near break-neck pace. While even iPhone 2G owners can update to iPhone OS 2.x, giving their last gen hardware some next gen software, BlackBerry certainly hasn’t provided as frequent, functional, or simple upgrade paths in the past.

Unfortunately, Storm owners can’t enjoy that kind of faith in the future.

Form Factor Fracture

We mentioned earlier that RIM recently iClone’d Apple’s iPhone SDK Event, complete with the promise of VC funding, push notification services, an App Store (2 of them, actually), and renewed power for developers.

Then they went ahead and launched the Storm.

So, unlike the iPhone SDK, where developers can pretty much count on similar hardware across 2 platforms (iPhone and iPod Touch) and 2 generations (2007 and 2008 models), RIM developers now can’t count on any given handset having touch or multi-touch screen input, having a trackball, or having a hard keyboard.

In order to enjoy the richest experience, would-be Storm users will have to bet on special developed Storm apps, and given the entrenched base of non-Storm BlackBerry’s, those aren’t great odds.

iTone Deaf

With it’s gorgeous full screen, the BlackBerry Storm is clearly aimed at the iPhone’s heart and soul. No, not internet communication. iPhone still wins web and BlackBerry is still untouchable at messaging. We’re talking media. The high density — though not Bold-style drool inducing — should make almost everyone enjoy their movies and TV on it…

If they could get their movies and TV on it.

By going for iTunes sync, RIM has pretty much given up on handling their own media and just gone with iTunes sync (and, hey, wouldn’t it be fair to give iPhone users some BlackBerry Connect love in exchange? Huh?) But just connection to iTunes to drag over some MP3 files pales in comparison to Apple’s complete ecosystem.

Rent or buy movies, get season passes to TV shows, move them to or from your iPhone, PC/Mac, or AppleTV, enjoy the full catalog of the #1 music retailer… And did we mention in iPhone OS 2.2 you can download not only music, but audio and video podcasts directly to your iPhone?

So not only does “clicking through” the “whole screen button” tire you out and slow you down, you can’t even enjoy the same breadth of entertainment while you’re resting up.

Conclusion

While RIM deserves some credit for stepping beyond their front-facing keyboard comfort zone with the BlackBerry Storm, they’re still playing “catch up” and “me to” with the iPhone. They’re still following, not leading.

That’s why these five reasons, among others, make us confident the BlackBerry Storm STILL Doesn’t compare to the iPhone.

What are your reasons? Or, if you disagree, what are your top 5 retorts?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Why Even the BlackBerry Storm STILL Doesn’t Compare to the iPhone 3G

Mobispine pens tell all about their iPhone MMS app, doesn’t exactly tell all

Filed under: Cellphones

Mobispine pens tell all about their iPhone MMS app, doesn't exactly tell all originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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