iOS 4
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TUAW's Daily App: You Don't Know Jack
Stop whatever you're doing right now and go download You Don't Know Jack for iPhone or iPad, or in the free lite version if you want. I don't know of any game that, throughout the years that it's been available on various platforms, is more consistently enjoyable by anyone, from the most hardcore of gamers to non-techie trivia buffs. You Don't Know Jack is one of the most solid gaming experiences around, and the brand new iOS version doesn't skimp at all. It's got hilarious iOS-specific audio (Host Cookie jokes early on that he's "glad to be hosting an app that's not a ripoff of Scrabble") and questions, all of the old mini-games (like Dis or Dat and the Jack Attack), and it even has the backstage talk and fake commercials that the main console versions have. Great game -- I can't recommend this one more. OK, if I'm going to nitpick, I'll say that the graphics are just slightly pixelated on the SD version. And even the iPad version is one-player only -- the game recommends if you want to play with more people, you should buy one of the other versions. But there is Game Center integration, and with 20 full episodes available in the app (and even more promised to be coming soon), this is a terrific experience that won't disappoint anyone with a taste for trivia and/or a sense of humor. Great game, and well worth the US$2.99 on the iPhone or $4.99 on the iPad.
Chimani National Park Guides free for iPhone until April 24
The Chimani Guides are really first rate apps at US$4.99 - $9.99, but in celebration of National Park Week, they are free from now until April 24. A good deal at the regular price, they are certainly worth a download for free. There is one app for each of these parks: Acadia, Cape Cod National Seashore, Yosemite, Cuyahoga Valley and the Grand Canyon. The apps contain lots of photos, descriptions of hiking trails, restroom and parking guides, and details on lodging, camping and restaurants. There are detailed maps, and the apps use GPS to locate you. The apps also contain an audio driving tour and a look at scheduled events in the park you are visiting. For photographers, there are sunrise and sunset times and some optional push notifications alerting you to important park events. Frankly, travel apps don't get much better than these, and I'm thrilled these apps are free for now. Some features require GPS and a 3G or Wi-Fi connection, and the downloads are sizable. The Grand Canyon app is 132 MB and Yosemite is 334 MB, so be sure you have room for them. I love finding great quality, free stuff for our readers, and this series of apps is a perfect example. If you're headed to any of these parks, grab one or more. %Gallery-121297%
Navigon adds augmented reality and enhanced traffic to iOS apps
You can add augmented reality to the feature list for the Navigon app. The company calls it Reality Scanner, and it shows destinations and nearby points of interest by superimposing that information over a live camera view. This is a feature best used by pedestrians; I'd hate to see someone driving and waving his iPhone around to use this. Navigon is also adding what it calls Safety Camera alerts, which is a way to warn drivers of speed and red light cameras along the route. The information comes from the RoadTraps data base. The app works with US speed and red light cameras and is available as an in-app purchase of US$4.99 for a lifetime subscription. Navigon is also adding Traffic Check, which provides a quick graphic that appears after you plan a route, detailing traffic jams ahead of you. There is no charge for this service, and it does not require the paid Traffic Live feature to work. MobileNavigator North America apps are on sale for $15 off until April 28. That would bring the USA version to $34.99. Traffic Live is on sale for $14.99 for a lifetime subscription. The Navigon app works on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Check the gallery for some screen shots of the new features. %Gallery-121187%
iOS 4.3.2 rumored to arrive within two weeks
On the heels of the March 25 iOS 4.3.1 release, BGR suggests that another update is on the way. iOS 4.3.2 is rumored to be released within the next two weeks for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. There's not much information yet, but it's expected to fix some security issues, add a few enhancements and squash some bugs that have bitten users. Do I smell a battery life fix coming?
Hitpad brings popular news to the iPad
News apps on the iPad are getting more and more interesting. With a lot of news going behind paywalls, we're seeing a trend toward more and more free news apps that are increasingly creative and functional. Pulse is already a popular news reader, and Zite has entered the game with an excellent app that checks half a million sites for news that will be of interest to you. Now you can add Hitpad to the list. This free app has an interesting take on getting you the news. Using some proprietary algorithms, it determines what people are interested in on the Web across various media, like Twitter and video. It then displays them according to topic, so if you tap on a listed subject (like Charlie Sheen for example), you get a screen full of headlines about Sheen, videos and tweets. When you click on the headers, you get transported to the source web page in Hitpad's built-in browser, so publishers should like it as well. The GUI is nice, and there should be virtually no learning curve in getting up to speed. Stories can be shared to Facebook, Twitter and by email. Google provides the news stories, videos and photos. Relevant websites are also included. Once you bring up a story, Hitpad also displays related stories, which is a very nice feature. %Gallery-120541%
Pandora says grand jury looking into Apple and Android apps
One of the most popular music services, Pandora, has revealed that a federal grand jury is examining information sharing by mobile apps. According to the Wall Street Journal, Pandora was served with a subpoena to produce documents relating to "information sharing processes of certain applications that run on the Apple and Android mobile platforms." A Pandora spokesperson says it does not "believe the company is a target of the investigation," and added "we believe that similar subpoenas were issued on an industry-wide basis to the publishers of numerous other smartphone applications." That would make sense -- if a grand jury were seeking information on what's shared in iOS, it would look at information from multiple developers, including Pandora. This latest action follows reports of a December class action suit against Apple and a number of App Store developers over the sharing of personal information with advertisers. Since grand jury proceedings are secret, it can't be determined if the two actions are related. [Via LoopInsight]
MLB offers free MLB.tv trial during April for buying app
Baseball season started this week, and things are already off to a rip-roaring start, with the Yankees in first place. My Cubs are, well, losing as I write this (Dempster's grand slam on Friday didn't help my fantasy baseball team, either). We've already reported that the terrific MLB apps for iPhone and iPad have been updated this year, but now Major League Baseball is offering an even better deal: buying either of the apps for iPhone or iPad (or Android, if you happen to have that kind of phone) gets you a free MLB.tv trial through the month of April courtesy of automotive sponsor Volvo. I like the MLB.tv service. I didn't go for it this year (at least, not yet), but I subscribed last year and really enjoyed watching my Cubs games out of market here in Los Angeles, as well as pulling up all of the HD game videos on my iPhone (and even the PS3). The only drawback of the service for most people is the price (it's at least US$99.99 for the entire year), so this trial is great. You basically get to watch a month of baseball games from all over the league for free. If you haven't been sold on the apps yet, maybe this free trial of the TV service will change your mind. Speaking of the apps, you can definitely use them without the video service; you still get updated scores, standings and radio broadcasts without any extra subscription charge. You can find the MLB.com At Bat 11 apps on the App Store right now.
Rolando and Rolando 2 updated with Retina Display, on sale now
Ngmoco has surprised us with some updates. Rolando and its sequel Rolando 2 have both been updated for the iPhone 4's Retina Display and have had a few bug issues fixed. To celebrate the update, they're both on sale for just US$0.99. Either one of these is a bargain at that price. They're both very solid, original platformers, designed specifically for the iOS system. What's most interesting about this, though, is that Ngmoco has updated these at all. Rolando was one of the first big titles for the now gigantic iOS developer, but when Ngmoco moved into the We Rule freemium model, the Rolando series was more or less abandoned in favor of games that could use more microtransactions and attract more "DAUs" (daily active users). A lot of Rolando fans were disappointed with that direction, though Ngmoco's We Rule and other freemium games have seen plenty of success anyway. Rolando creator Simon Oliver's HandCircus has been working on a PSN game instead, but maybe with these updates, there's a possibility we could finally see Ngmoco return to the little rolling hero and his series.
Twitter for iPhone updated, QuickBar is dead
The Twitter for iPhone app has been updated (again), and this time the company has included the change everyone's been waiting for: the QuickBar, which featured trending terms along with some paid placement phrases, has been removed from the app. Twitter deftly sidesteps the actual reason why the bar was removed, but their reasoning basically lands on the idea that the bar didn't "improve the user experience" or serve the mission of connecting people to trends on the service. Whatever the reasons, the QuickBar is gone, despite what Twitter says are "incredibly high usage metrics," so the voice of the crowd wins this round. Twitter says it will continue to experiment boldly, however, so it's unlikely that the trending topics are going to be gone for good. Still, after all of the fervor around this particular feature, it is nice to see that the company is taking public outcry into consideration. Those against the QuickBar (who gave it all of its silly monikers) will be happy to hear about the update.
Zite draws the ire of publishers
I liked Zite when I reported on it earlier this month. In fact, I use it every day as a great news and information discovery app on my iPad. The app is free, and for now, still in the App Store with very strong user ratings. There's no love, however, from publishers that claim Zite infringes copyright. A group including Time Inc, Dow Jones, The Washington Post, The Associated Press and others have sent Zite a cease and desist letter claiming that intellectual property is being misappropriated, and the publishers have asked Zite to "immediately stop doing so." The letters goes on to say that Zite, "by systematically reformatting, republishing and redistributing our original content on a mass commercial scale without our permission in your iPad application, Zite directly and adversely impacts our businesses." The publishers, of course, have a valid point. Zite articles aren't direct linked, but it is an option within each story. Publishers can request direct links, and some have. The Zite developers may have to change the app to always supply direct links to articles, rather than reformat them inside the app.
Apperian picks up first enterprise iFund payout
The iFund has been pretty influential ever since it was announced a couple of years ago -- it's a pool of money set up by Apple and a few other companies to support and grow companies that are contributing to the iOS ecosystem. It's been growing along with Apple's platform, and now the fund has made its first contribution to an enterprise developer. Apperian is a company that helps enterprises create and deploy their own mobile apps, and it's picked up $9.5 million in a round of funding that includes money from the iFund. We've covered the use of iPhone and iPad in business quite a bit, and Apperian sits squarely in that wheelhouse, consulting with various companies on how to create and securely distribute their own mobile apps. iFund's Matt Murphy says that Apperian is riding the wave of mobile devices that are showing up in the corporate workplace, and that "Apperian's solution is perfectly timed to help enterprises rollout and manage all their applications across their employee base and its wide variety of smart devices." Sounds like a solid plan. It's excellent to see Apple's platform growing in all kinds of different directions.
Report: Windows Phone to beat iPhone in market share by 2015
IDC has released its latest report on the future of the smartphone market, and according to the predictions, there's a lot of growth in store for Windows Phone 7. By 2015, says the firm, Windows Phones should have over 20 percent of the smartphone market, placing it ahead of even Apple's iOS handsets (Apple's market share, according to the report, is going to fall, but not by much). That's not impossible, given that Android has already moved ahead of Apple, and given the growing smartphone market itself, we'll probably see a lot more Windows Phones out and about in the next year or so. But that amount of growth seems unlikely, especially as iPhone prices are dropping and customer awareness is at an all-time high thanks to Apple's innovations. Apple's not really going after market share, so even if Windows Phones do see that growth, it won't hurt the company much anyway. As our sister site Engadget points out, however, IDC also predicted that Symbian would "dominate" the smartphone market through 2013, and this latest report has the bottom falling out of that OS, dropping down to a .2 percent share in 2015. So essentially, it's all just crystal ball guessing anyway. Headline corrected.
Will iOS 5 get integrated voice tech?
TechCrunch is reporting the rumor today, and some sources I have close to the Siri product think it is likely happening. Siri is that very cool personal assistant app. It allows you to ask questions that the app sends (as your voice data) to a server where it is recognized. The query is then sent off to a series of search engines to find an answer, which is finally returned to the user. You can ask for things like the best area pizza shop, the status of an arriving flight or the weather in Omaha. The speech recognition in the app comes from Nuance, the company that developed Dragon Dictation and Dragon Search. Last year, Apple bought Siri, and it seems likely that the tech will find its way into Apple products, especially iDevices. Siri is a very clever app, and it has always made a great demo on my iPhone. To have it built into iOS would be great. It appears Apple is trying to wean itself off Google services, like Search and Maps, and Siri would be a step in that direction. If you don't have it already and want to play with Siri, you can get it free at the App Store. Prepare to be impressed.
TUAW's Daily App: Ring Blade
Ring Blade is an interesting take on the top-down shooter genre (sometimes called "bullet hell," though that specific genre is a little tougher than Ring Blade actually is). Games of this ilk on the iPhone have struggled a little bit with control schemes, and Ring Blade tries something original -- rather than dragging your ship around the screen or blocking the action with a finger, you can flick your ship back and forth on the bottom of your iPhone's screen. You charge shots with a touch, and then you can flick shots up off the "walls" on-screen; they'll bounce back and forth and hit enemies as they go. It's a weird little twist on the controls for the iPhone, and it works pretty well. Of course, as you can see above, Ring Blade's other selling point is the graphics -- they're all based on tribal tattoos, making for some interesting enemies and bosses. The game also features 30 levels and OpenFeint integration as well (no Game Center, sadly). It's available on the iPhone right now for just US$0.99.
Voice Brief for iPhone is a great text-to-speech app with lots of potential
Want an assistant to help you keep up with your world and the world at large? Voice Brief might be just the thing. This US$1.99 app will read your Facebook updates, Twitter feed, email (with limitations), weather, schedule, stock prices that you follow, and even the latest news from RSS feeds of your choice. The voices are computerized, but very clear. There are four voices to choose from: an American male and female, and a British-accented male and female. You set up the app by giving it your location (for weather) and stocks you'd like to follow, pointing it to your iPhone calendar, and selecting some news feeds (I selected CNN and TUAW). Voice Brief also allows you to add custom sentences, like a personal greeting when the app starts reading, or something for when it finishes going through your feeds. You can add multiple custom sentences for transitions between feeds, but you don't have to use any at all. There are some limitations to Voice Brief's ability to read email. Apple doesn't allow third parties direct access to the iOS Mail app, but you can configure the app to read your Gmail inbox feed. At this version, Voice Brief reads the first line of the email, but the developer tells me he is going to add full text reading in a future update. %Gallery-119776%
LogMeIn Ignition update adds file management / transfer capability
LogMeIn Ignition (US$29.99) is a popular tool for making hassle-free remote control sessions to Macs and PCs. We've reviewed the universal app on TUAW before, and it's a well-designed tool for those who may not want to play with router settings and firewall ports to get a VNC connection going. Now LogMeIn has added a new feature to Ignition that raises the bar for remote control apps. In an update that appeared last week to version 2.0.264, LogMeIn Ignition gained the ability to view, transfer, and save folders between your iOS device and Mac or PC. The capability is easy to use and very simple; you have a choice of either doing a remote control session or a file manager session when you log into your remote computers. Once that's done, Ignition keeps a status screen available containing windows with either the remote control or file manager sessions for each computer you've connected to. File transfer works very well. In the app is a Local Files folder where you can store those documents that you bring over from your Mac or PC. You can then open those documents in a compatible app (i.e., Pages for .doc / .docx files) and make changes. There is no "round-tripping" capability -- that is, you can't then save those documents back onto a PC or Mac through the app. However, I'm wondering if the "Saved from Other Apps" folder that appears in the Local Files folder is designed for future use by compatible apps so you can do a round trip. If you have more than one remote computer that you're connected to with LogMeIn Ignition, you can actually move files between those remote computers. There's now support for AirPrint printing of documents that you copy or move to your iPad, and the app can even wake a sleeping remote computer through Wake-On-LAN. Existing users of LogMeIn Ignition should make sure that they update their app as soon as possible, and those who are looking for a remote control or file management app may want to consider LogMeIn Ignition for their work. Be sure to check out the gallery for screenshots of LogMeIn Ignition at work. %Gallery-119777%
Apple airs new 'Retina' iPhone 4 commercial
Apple has released another commercial in the "If you don't have an iPhone" series of ads. This commercial, titled "Retina," shows off the Retina Display on the iPhone 4. The ad cycles through the Photos, iPod (movies), Maps, and Mail apps. The latest ad comes just one day afterApple released an iPhone 4 ad showcasing Game Center. Apple seems to release iPhone ads in groups of twos or threes, so it's likely that another one may hit the airwaves soon.
Erase the social network past with Last Night Never Happened
Let's be honest: We all enjoy a good night out on the town occasionally, and when fun happens these days, chances are you might say or post something on various social networks that you probably shouldn't, be that something negative about your boss or your ex, or just a little too much information about your current state of mind. Now there's an iPhone app that purports to deal with exactly these lapses in judgement. Last Night Never Happened is an iPhone app that, when given access to your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts, will delete or replace any social network postings that you happen to regret. The app will go back up to 48 hours, and as you can see in the demo, will clear out any photos, tweets, or Facebook posts you need to delete, optionally replacing them with a much nicer message. Unfortunately, the app doesn't do any more than Twitter or Facebook, so all of those OK Cupid messages you sent are there to stay. And according to the fine print on the app, it doesn't do Facebook's status updates either, so you'll have to go deal with those yourself. But if you often find yourself regretting messages you sent and posted the night before, Last Night Never Happened may be able to help. It's $1.99 on the App Store right now. [via LaughingSquid]
A look at Weather+ and more weather apps for your forecasting pleasure
There are dozens of weather apps available for iOS. Most of us are pretty interested in the weather, no matter where we live. It can affect our schedules, our driving and our recreation. In my case, I do both landscape and astronomical photography, so I'm all over the latest weather information and forecasts. It's probably the same for many of our readers. Weather+ is on sale for US$0.99. It's a universal app, and a big one, at over 265 MB. The app's huge size comes about because there are a lot of videos that provide a background and give you a visual clue to the current conditions. As weather apps go, it's very pretty, but you have to decide if you want to let it gobble up all that storage. The app has an impressive list of features. There's no limit to the cities that can show a forecast. You get the usual temperature, wind, humidity, precipitation and visibility details, a five day forecast, and the current time at each of your selected weather locations. You also get some control of how much detail to display. %Gallery-119709%
Square Enix launches Hippos Lab, puts App Store titles on sale
Legendary Japanese game developer Square Enix has launched an internal studio called Hippos Lab, which will be dedicated strictly to making original content for smartphone platforms (specifically Android and iOS, we're guessing, but the company's obviously leaving its options open). The studio's been working on a title since March 7, and we're supposed to see its output very soon. Square Enix has already had a lot of success with its own content on the App Store, both original games and ports from other platforms, but this is a more formal dedication of resources to the mobile gaming market. And speaking of Square Enix's content, the company has put a whole slew of its titles on sale to celebrate the Final Fantasy III release earlier this week. We already told you the first two Final Fantasy games were on sale, but the original Chaos Rings RPG is also half off (cheaper than I've ever seen it), as is the great old Secret of Mana title. And the puzzle/real-time strategy game Sliding Heroes has dropped to the low price of completely free. Some excellent deals from Square Enix on the store right now. [via Engadget]
