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From iPhone to iPad: Revisiting Flick Fishing
How do old favorites hold up on the iPad? In our "From iPhone to iPad" series, TUAW revisits iPhone applications that have transitioned to the iPad. We look at their latest incarnation and see how the new measures up to the old. Today, TUAW looks at Flick Fishing. I've been a big fan of this application for some time now so I was eager to give it a try on the iPad. Flick Fishing is a fishing simulator. You cast out a line, you wait for a fish, you reel in your catch, and then repeat. The trick lies in managing your line tension, choosing the right distance to cast your hook, and nursing your fish along -- as you hope the latest catch is a record breaker. It's an addictive game that worked beautifully on the iPhone. To move to the iPad, the game needed to make some compromises. For one thing, the notion of "flicking" the reel had to go. While the iPhone easily fits in your hand, the iPad does not. Instead of casting your line by moving the device, you now use a "Cast" button. The reel control, formerly placed right next to the rod, appears well across the screen. The physical iPad realities drove those design changes and the game suffers, however slightly, as a result. You can imagine the iPhone as a hand-held fishing pole; you cannot do the same with the iPad. So what's improved? Keep reading. TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page. Promo code requests are not guarantees of review.
Eleven ways to stifle boredom in the iPad line
One of most excruciatingly boring experiences of my life was waiting in line on June 29, 2007 for my first-generation iPhone. The day was clear and hot, and although I had my laptop with me, it quickly ran out of juice as we waited for the official opening of the store for iPhone sales at 5 PM. Some people appear to have infinite patience, but TUAW reader Cody is like me -- he gets bored easily. In an email, Cody said "I will be standing in the Best Buy line for well over 5 hours. Do you have any suggestions on ways to help time go by? I think it would be helpful if you compiled a list and posted it on TUAW!" Well, we're at your service, Cody! And hopefully, these ideas will keep hundreds of thousands of iPad owners-to-be from suffering from terminal boredom in the early morning hours in line. Please note that several of these suggestions require that the person standing in line own an iPhone, so if you don't own one already, get thee to an Apple Store now! Do live streaming video the entire time you're in line. TUAW bloggers will be giving you live coverage of iPad Saturday at a number of locations across the country, but there's just not going to be enough local coverage everywhere. Grab yourself a copy of Qik (US$0.99) or Ustream Broadcaster (free), maybe buy yourself a Sima LED Video Light to strap to your head to brighten things up at 2 AM, and bring a lot of fully charged Monoprice battery packs. After all, we don't want to miss one thrilling moment of your time interviewing each and every person in the line at least twice.
Kleiner Perkins iFund doubles to $200m, investing in iPad apps from Shazam, ngmoco and more
Apple said it expects the iPad to be a "second gold rush" of app development as consumers rush to add content to their new devices, and it looks like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers agrees: the venture capital firm just announced that it's expanding the iFund to $200 million to invest in iPad app development. If you'll recall, the iFund was originally announced alongside the iPhone OS 2.0 SDK, and provided $100 million in total investments to 14 iPhone app developers like Shazam, ngmoco, and Shopkick -- companies responsible for 18 apps that have hit the App Store Top 10. Keep in mind that this money was promised before the iPhone App Store was even launched -- so given how that bet paid off, it's not surprising that KPCB's decided to double down on the iPad, which looks like it'll have even higher app prices. Along with the announcement, some iFund devs announced the following iPad apps: Pinger: Doodle Buddy and Starsmash Booyah: MyTown, a popular location-based game Shazam: Shazam, optimized for the new screen size, ngmoco: Flick Fishing, a new MMO called CastleCraft, Charadium (described as "massively multiplayer Pictionary"), God Finger, We Rule, WarpGate, and one more we missed -- anyone catch it? GOGII: TextPlus Nothing too surprising here, but it looks like the heavy hitters are going to be on the iPad bandwagon from day one -- and pushing hard for this thing to be a success.
