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Fourth of July sales begin on the App Store
As you might have expected, the sales that seem to pop up around any holiday are showing up this week on Apple's App Store, too. Here's a sampler of what's out there already (all prices are USD): Edovia's Screens VNC app, for remote control of your Mac, is 50% off in both Mac and iOS's App Stores through 7/7. (Thanks Rene) Firemint's Flight Control and Real Racing are all on sale for 99 cents each. Chillingo has put both The Act and Air Mail (both really terrific games) on sale for a buck each as well. Asteroids Gunner+ will be down to $1.99 today. Crytek's Fibble has new content in a brand new update, and it's on sale this week for 99 cents. Warner Brothers has Lego: Harry Potter part 1 and part 2 on sale for a buck, as well as Batman: Arkham City Lockdown on sale, also a buck. Oscura and Sprinkle are two excellent indie titles you can grab for 99 cents each. The Mass Effect: Infiltrator tie-in game is on sale for a buck, along with quite a few other EA titles (which, honestly, you may have already grabbed in a previous sale). Shadowgun is back at 99 cents. 2D shooter Clash Force is completely free. Capcom's got Mega Man X, Street Fighter 2 Volt, and Monster Hunter: Dynamic Hunting all on sale for 99 cents this week as well. That's a lot of great, cheap games to play! Stay tuned as there will probably be even more sales available today. And we always tweet out great app sales right away on our Twitter account, so go follow @TUAW on Twitter if you want up-to-the-minute insight on what's dropping and what's good on the App Store.
MetroPCS Q4 results are in: increased revenue, slowing growth
The nation's fifth largest wireless provider -- MetroPCS -- has checked in with its Q4 2011 financials, and on the whole, the company looks to be doing quite well. Metro reported $1.2 billion in consolidated quarterly revenues and $362 million in earnings, an increase of 16% and 15% when compared to the fourth quarter of 2010. A few other positive vitals: average revenue per user (ARPU) was up $0.76, net income rose to $77 million and churn dropped 80 basis points from 4.5% in Q3 to 3.7% in Q4. Two small blemishes can be found in the net customer additions and cost per user (CPU) columns. While MetroPCS added well over 197,000 new customers in Q4, the rate at which it grew slowed dramatically -- down 34% when compared to the fourth quarter of 2010. The company's CPU also rose $1.17 during that same period -- which can be partially attributed to LTE network services, along with general expansion and operating costs. One other mildly unfortunate note was word that voice over LTE wouldn't be launching till the second half of the year, slightly later than we had been anticipating. Taking all that into consideration, it was still a strong quarterly showing from the value-centered wireless carrier.
Hanwha unleashes HDMI / USB adapter for iPad, iPhone 4, and fourth-gen iPod touch
Feel the desire to watch your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch (fourth gen) videos on the big screen, but looking for something with a little more girth than Apple's HDMI solution? Hanwha's latest dongle might do the job. As you can see above, in place of the original adapter's dock connector port is a USB 2.0 socket -- compatible with cameras supporting mass storage connection -- alongside the 720p-friendly HDMI port, but you'll have to use the switch to toggle between the two modes. And that little mini-USB port on the far right? Well, it's there to provide some juice to "reduce battery drain," but probably not enough to charge up your iDevice. If you're still interested and have a friend in Japan, Hanwha's charging ¥5,980 (around $73), which is almost double that of Apple's $39 connector. Is USB support worth such a price jump? Your call.
