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Plants vs. Zombies goes free on iOS this week
For the first time in the game's history on iOS, Plants vs. Zombies has dropped to the low price of completely free. On either the iPhone or in HD on the iPad, you can grab the full-featured app for free through the rest of this week.Statistically, given how many copies of the game have sold already, you probably already own it on at least one of your gaming devices, but just in case that list doesn't include iOS just yet, there you go. And now that PvZ has finally and truly achieved total platform domination, PopCap can start it on the sequel; It's due out sometime this spring.
Moving from Cupertino to Mountain View? Samsung's here to help (update: UK only)
Moving? We all have our reasons, but if you're transferring your stuff from iOS to a Galaxy device, Samsung and Media Mushroom are there to help with the Easy Phone Sync app. The free software installs on your Galaxy product and a PC or Mac, then shleps your stuff wholesale -- media, contacts and all -- from iTunes over to your chosen Samsung Android slate or phone. It even lets you continue to use iTunes to manage music, photos and videos, while keeping everything sync'd up with the non-Cupertino devices. We're sure that Samsung is just trying to lend a hand, and doesn't have any (ahem) other purposes in mind. Check the PR after the break to see for yourself. Update: To be clear, Easy Phone Sync's only for Galaxy-toting folks living in the UK.
Apple introduces 'free app of the week,' kicks things off with Cut the Rope: Experiments
Amazon has been offering a free app of the day for a while now, but that offer is good for Android users only. Well, Apple seems to have caught on to the fact that iOS users like to save money too, as it's debuting a "free app of the week" offer. Cupertino kicked off the new promotion yesterday via Twitter, where it announced that the game Cut the Rope: Experiments will be the first free download. Click on through to the source link, and you'll see that the Appstore indeed lists the title as "free for a limited time."
Daily iPhone App: Sky Defenders
There's two big things I really don't like about Sky Defenders. First, the game is basically a reskinned clone of the much better Tilt to Live, so if for some strange reason you still haven't played that one yet, go ahead and download the original and see how this "reactive shooter" genre is done. The second issue I have with Sky Defenders is that the game depends heavily on Facebook integration, so much so that when it first starts up, you're asked to log into Facebook right away, though you can still get into the game by hitting a small, gray "Play Offline" button. I really dislike being so pressured to be social -- maybe that's a reality for the developers, but if I was just coming along to this game without knowing what it was, I probably wouldn't have gotten any farther than the Facebook login before I gave up. All of that said, there is fun to be had here, especially today, as the game is currently available for free. You play as a superhero, and just like the aforementioned Tilt to Live, you use the tilt controls to slide around the screen, grabbing and using powerups against waves and waves of invading robots and trying to score points inside a time limit. The graphics are definitely colorful and polished, and there are quite a few different powers to try and a nice bit of depth to gameplay. There are freemium powerups to explore as well, but they come across as very spammy. Fortunately, the app just had an update that upped the amount of credits you earn just by playing, which makes the powerups a little more useful. Of course, most of that is sadly "borrowed" from Tilt to Live. But if you really love Tilt to Live and could use a little different spin on things, Sky Defenders is a free download right now.
Apple announces free iBooks Author OS X app for publishing books to the App Store
We're here at Apple's education-themed event at the Guggenheim museum in New York City, and the company's just followed up its long-awaited textbook announcement with something unexpected: iBooks Author, a free OS X program for creating books. The intent is really for teachers and other educators to produce educational materials, but Apple says the format can apply to any genre. Aside from the free part, the real story here is ease of use, with the ability to drag and drop photos, videos and even Microsoft Word files into various templates. If you use Apple's own suite of office apps, in particular, you can drag and drop a Keynote presentation into the doc, and it'll live on as an interactive widget. (You can whip up other widgets, too, though you'll need to know Javascript or HTML.) Moving beyond the main text, authors can also arrange glossaries by highlighting and clicking words, and clicking again to add a definition. In a surprise move, Apple also said authors can publish straight to the store, though we're waiting for clarification that textbook writers and other scribes are actually exempt from Cupertino's notorious approval process. In any case, the app is available now in the App Store (for OS X Lion only, sadly) so you can cracking on that definitive Kurt Vonnegut glossary you never knew you had in you. Update: We've got our hands-on up! Update 2: Apple has confirmed some key approval and revenue-sharing details. First, authors will be subject to the same App Store approval process as developers. Writers can offer their books for free, or for as much as $14.99 -- the same price cap for textbooks sold in the store. And, like developers, authors must agree to a 70/30 revenue split, with writers pocketing 70 percent after Apple takes its share.
Photo Factory for iOS devices is powerful (and, for today, free)
I love passing on tips about free stuff. Today I'll give you a quick alert on Photo Factory. The app is free today only, and it has a lot of good features for the photo hobbyist. There's a large collection of preset filters that you can modify to taste and see the results instantly. You also get the ability to create a variety of frames. Effects are additive, so you could create a frame, vary the color and add a soft matte with color control of the frame and the matte effect. I was most impressed with some of the black and white filters. For example, Photo Factory can find the sky in the photo and turn it into black and white, even if some parts of the image extend into the sky. Normally this would take some time consuming masking, but Photo Factory figures it out. It will also leave the sky in color and make the rest of the image black and white. %Gallery-114692%
Navigon offers free Nevada nav app for CES attendees
If you're headed to the big CES show (and we know a lot of our readers attend), Navigon can at least keep you from getting lost in Las Vegas. For just a few days, you can download a special Audi-branded version of Navigon's GPS app that covers the whole state of Nevada. The special version includes Google local search, weather and location sharing. A pedestrian mode gives you walking directions, which is a big deal during CES. The app supports several languages, so visitors from outside the US will be well served. I consider Navigon's app one of the top choices for iPhone based GPS navigation, and the company is hoping that people will try the app and want the same level of service when they get home. You can pick the app up for a limited time on the App Store. The Audi Las Vegas Navigator requires an iPhone 4, 3GS or 3G. It's a 338 MB download.
GDC 2010: From concept to Top Paid with Unity iPhone
Unity Technologies hosted the sponsored lunch panel during GDC 2010 today, and their "product evangelist" Tom Higgins gave a quick rundown of the software platform that enables developers to assemble and release games extremely quickly on multiple platforms. The company was actually founded in Denmark, but has since expanded around the world with just two products: Unity Pro and Unity iPhone Pro. The second product, as you might imagine, allows developers to put together an application that can then be exported out into an Xcode project and released on the App Store. Higgins said that they've had over 90,000 people download the software since it was released for free last fall, and that more than 500 games in the App Store were authored by Unity. He also ran a short demo of the software at the panel. While some of the coding got a little technical (the system allows you to create and change variables on in-game objects even while the game is running in the engine), the coolest feature was the way they simulated iPhone controls: by using a real iPhone as a remote. They've released a free app on the App Store that will connect via Wi-Fi with a copy of the development tool running on your Mac, and as you touch and turn the iPhone, the editor reacts, and sends the (slightly lower resolution) output to the iPhone's screen. You can also make changes to your code as the game runs in that mode, so you can be playing and coding at the same time.
Shazam picking up investors, boasts 50 million users
Shazam is one of the first apps I actually used in context on the iPhone, and while we haven't heard much about the app since it debuted way back in the early days of the App Store, apparently the company itself has been blowing up, thanks to the free app. They've picked up a nice round of investment from venture capitalists, and the service itself now boasts over 50 million users (by comparison, Last.fm claims only 30 million, but they've gotten way more press than Shazam's service, including recent integration on Xbox Live). That's a heck of an achievement, and Apple is a huge part of it -- not only did Shazam make a big splash on their iPhone app, but they say that Apple actually helped connect the VCs and the company together. That's an interesting peek behind the scenes at what Apple is doing for one of the App Store's oldest and most popular free apps. As for why Shazam is so popular, the VCs say they can see the platform as a "springboard" for selling music, advertising, and a few other commodities. Currently Shazam's free app only lets you tag five songs a month (a limit I never hit and thus didn't know about, even though I would say that I do use the app regularly), but they're planning a paid version that will allow unlimited identification of songs through the iPhone's microphone. I don't know how well that will sell (it's hard to believe that people will pay $5 for a service they are already using for free, though perhaps I'm underestimating the amount of music that people want to "tag"), but it's clear that Shazam is a company that is making the absolute best of having an extremely popular free app on the App Store.
