iObama App
Posted by Jesse | Filed under News
An official Barack Obama iPhone App has just been released. What kind of features could an app like this have?
FEATURES:
Call Friends: A great volunteering tool that lets you make a difference any time you want by talking to people you already know. Your contacts are prioritized by key battleground states, and you can make calls and organize results all in one place.
Call Stats: See nationwide Obama ‘08 Call Friends totals and find out how your call totals compare to leading callers.
Get Involved: Do more. Find and contact your local Obama for America HQ.
Receive Updates: Receive the latest news and announcements via text messages or email.
News: Browse complete coverage of national and local campaign news.
Local Events: Find local events, share by email and get maps and directions.
Media: Browse videos and photos from the campaign.
Issues: Get clear facts about Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s plan for essential issues facing Americans.
Barack Obama’s compaign continues to reach out to the young tech-savy crowd with this iPhone app being just another great example. Whether you like him or not (or whether you like politics or not) you have to admit his campaign is reaching out to this crowd much more than John McCain’s campaign.
Apple Drops iPhone NDA
Posted by Jesse | Filed under News
Apple officially drops the iPhone Developer’s NDA.
Straight from the horse’s mouth:
We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.
We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.
However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.
More coverage here:
CNet - Apple drops NDA for iPhone Developers
The Register - Apple scraps iPhone NDA
Review: Five Dice
Posted by Jesse | Filed under Games, Reviews
One of my absolute favorite games for iPhone, Five Dice has been available on jail-broken iPhones way before the 2.0 software / app store had even been announced. Five Dice us a mobile version of Yahtzee that has gotten a nice little interface upgrade since the old jailbroken version (not to mention the words Yahtzee and Chance gave been replaced with Fuve Duxe and Wild).
The new interface is absolutely gorgeous and you now receive small colored hints when your number points are higher or lower than needed for the bonus. Overall highly recommended for someone who wants a fun, quick casual game and got the hardcore Yahtzee fan.
Review: Texas Hold’em
Posted by Jesse | Filed under Games, Reviews
Texas Hold’em has been riding the top of the Top 50 Paid Apps pretty much since the launch of the App Store in iPhone 2.0. After a week or so of playing it I am convinced it fully earns it’s place at the top.
Texas Hold’em is an iPhone game developed by Apple which takes the poker craze and makes it mobile. The beauty of this app, is that it really is two wholly separate versions of the same game.
Video Poker aka portrait style
This is the game you will hear the most about. With the iPhone held normally (portrait style) you get a pretty slick video poker game with simple controls and very nice, very smooth video playback. Each opponent has several videos for folding, raising, checking, etc which not only looks great, but is actually useful as each player has their individual tells.
The control is dead simple as you can double-tap to check, drag your hand to the center to fold, or adjust the slider to bet. If you are in a hurry simple tap the screen to bring your next action to the front.
Table Poker aka landscape style
While the video poker is much flashier, I prefer to play with the slick landscape view, which replaces the videos with a view of the Poker table. This allows you to much more easily see who has folded and who you are up against. With some quick tapping you end up a it much quicker gameplay as well.
All together Apple’s Texas Hold’em app offers two highly polished and fun experiences which I highly recommend.
iTunes 7.7.1 Released
Posted by Jesse | Filed under News
Apple has released update the 7.7.1 update to iTunes, promising stability and performance improvements. Hopefully this will fix some of the iTunes crashing with iPhone syncs.
Now available via Software Update.
Use iTunes 7.7 to sync music, video, and more with iPhone 3G, and download applications from the iTunes Store exclusively designed for iPhone and iPod touch with software version 2.0 or later. Also use the new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home — a free download from the App Store.
iTunes 7.7.1 includes fixes to improve stability and performance.
Review: Tiny Violin
Posted by Jesse | Filed under Games, Reviews
Tiny Violin is a simple little app that is nothing more than the world’s tiniest violin.
This app is hilarious. Simply hold your iPhone up so that you can place your chin on the violin (for full effect), grab the bow with your finger, and slide it across the violin to show your best friend some sympathy as he shares a sad, pathetic tale.
There really is nothing more to the app than this, and some may say it’s not worth the $.99 pricetag. I personally find it to be the app that keeps on giving, I’ve used it enough in just the first day of owning it to produce more than enough laughs worth the price of a value cheeseburger.
The only problem I have - there is not enough customizability in this app. A random 5-10 second clip of a song (from a selection of 9) plays every time you use it - I would prefer to be able to select a specific tone to play every time. Though most of the 9 songs are perfect, a few of them just do not fit the sad mood needed when playing this to someone’s tragic sob story.
Though for the laugh, it usually doesn’t matter.
Quick Tip: Conserve Battery Life
Posted by Jesse | Filed under Quick Tips
The new iPhone 3G brought many improvements over the first generation iPhone, but one area which did not improve was battery life.
Many people have suggested disabling both Location Services and 3G as a way to conserve battery life. Being that these 2 features were the reason I upgraded to the iPhone 3G, I was not satisfied with disabling them so quickly. Luckily there is another way.
By disabling Push under the Fetch Data settings, I was able to get what I estimated to be DOUBLE the battery life of before. Yes, with 3G and Location Services enabled, yes even with wifi enabled I lasted a full day of medium to heavy usage with not a single need for recharge.
Your mileage may, of course, vary.
Tags: battery life, push
Review: Othello
Posted by Jesse | Filed under Games, Reviews
I’ve been a huge Othello fan since I first discovered it years and years ago on my old Windows machine as Reversi. I’m a very competitive gamer (I hate to lose) so I spent many games on the hard difficulty losing horribly but picking up on the regular strategies until I got to be pretty decent. Now I consider myself a pretty well skilled Othello player.
I first downloaded Morocco, the first iPhone othello app, and have enjoyed it a lot, despite its lack of polish. I was excited to try out Othello for a more polished and visually pleasing experience. Unfortunately, Othello does not deliver.
The graphics are definitely pretty, but the gameplay is anything but. The AI in this little app is a mess. Once you get past the first 10 moves or slow things start to get extremely sluggish. You can make your move just fine, but it will take the game a solid 5-10 secs at least before every move it makes. To make matters even worse… when with this extra processing time - this game is dumb. Even on the “expert” difficulty, it was routinely making moves that anyone who plays more than a game or two knows to avoid.
Though the interface in Othello is much cleaner than that of Morocco, I much prefer a graphically rough interface over extremely slow response times and dumb AI.
Preview: PanfobiA
Posted by Jesse | Filed under Previews
Touted as The First RPG For iPhone, PanfobiA was recently announced by the Italian company - Kiki Technology. They have promised a full-length (100+ hours of single player gameplay) old-school console style RPG, in the vain of the older Final Fantasy titles when your characters were sprites and had a 0 polygon count. Though technically the first RPG available for iPhone (as it is currently available) is the title Vay (a port of an old Sega CD game), PanfobiA is on track to be the first RPG designed specifically for the iPhone.
Solid Art Direction
The art direction as seen in the screenshots is really promising and builds up some excitement and anticipation for the games release. As long as they can deliver a solid, engaging story; a comfortable control system, and a good battle engine we could have a solid gam that initiates the seriousness of the iPhone (and iPod Touch) as a true gaming platform.
Kiki Technology promises us “a full rpg story, featuring an old style graphic and new controller experience” with 100_ of single player gameplay. They are also working on some sort of multi-player mode which becomes available after finishing the single player.
Online Gameing Modality, unlocked after finished the solo story, you will be able to use your own character with your own item collected turing the solo adventure in a mmorp endless world
Their translating abilities (as you can see from that quote) are not stellar, so hopefully they get some professional translation done for this game - I would hate to see an RPG with this kind of promise get spoiled with an “All Your Base Are Belong To Us.”
Preview: Wordpress for iPhone
Posted by Jesse | Filed under Previews
If you are a blogger there is an approximately 99.8% chance that you use Wordpress as your CMS (Content Management System) of choice. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but most bloggers have worked with Wordpress at one tie or another, whether or not it is their blogging platform of choice.
If you were like me you were jealous of the Typepad app that was revealed on June 9. It looked great but, who uses Typepad anymore? Luckily, Wordpress has decided to answer with their own native application, which will soon be available for free for iPhone in the iTunes App Store.
Wordpress for iPhone
Introducing the first Open Source app that lets you write posts, upload photos, and edit your WordPress blog directly from your iPhone or iPod Touch. With support for both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (2.5.1 or higher), users of all experience levels can get going in just seconds.
Wordpress for iPhone will allow you to easily post to your blog on the go, for true mobile blogging. There are 2 really nice features that I am most looking forward to in this app. The first is the ability to edit older posts. Currently you can hack your way into mobile blogging with enabling the email-to-blog option, the problem with this is you cannot easily customize your post (most code is ignored) and there is no way to edit old posts, or fix any mistakes in the email you sent if you later notice a typo or need to make a correction. This will be a cinch in the new App as you can easily open old posts and edit to your hearts content.
The second feature, and one I’m most excited about, is the ability to add photos straight from your iPhone. This seems like a “well, duh” feature, but is going to be super nice to add that extra visual flair to your posts from the road. This also opens up the possibility for some clever iPhone Photo blogs. Also, with the updates from 2.0 allowing you to download images in Safari (tap and hold on an image to get a download button) and take screenshots (press the Home and Standby key at the same time), this app will open a whole new can of worms.
Check out the official site — Wordpress for iPhone