The Iphone Blog

Archive for the ‘I Cafe’ Category

Apple’s fledgling social network is off to a decidedly rocky start. Not only is it extremely tedious to find other people and follow artists, but the system has already been overrun by spam, usually some sort of attempt to sucker users into a “free iPhone”. Apple needs to get on top of this now, before the system becomes utterly unusable.

And while Ping won’t stop spammers, what it will do, is censor any profanity in your comments. And iTunes 10 kills Automator workflows that worked with previous versions.

All told, that’s a pretty poor start for Apple’s service.

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The Tap Tap Revenge games topped the App Store charts for years, bringing a simplified version of Guitar Hero—in a way—to the iPhone before the real thing came along. But the new app Lyric Legend takes the Tap Tap favorite to another level by challenging players to think a bit more critically by tapping along to lyrics instead of beats.

Read the full Lyric Legend review after the jump

The concept of the Lyric Legend is much like that of Tap Tap Revenge: follow along with the music, tap an orb when it begins to glow, win points, rule the universe. But with Lyric Legend, instead of the orbs syncing up with beats and parts in the music, the orbs each contain one word in a lyric of the song, each glowing one after the other to guide you to tap the right words in the right order. Each tap gets a score of accuracy before the orb falls off the screen to make room for the next words in the lyrics, though the orbs are, of course, jumbled on the screen to make you work just a bit harder while furiously tapping all over your screen.

Though the game seems fairly straightforward and somewhat easy, I can assure you—it’s not. Part of the difficulty is in the overdrive your brain goes into, desperately trying to process both the music and the text in front of it then communicate its conclusions to your fingertips. Let’s just say it doesn’t always work out too well. Also, if you’re familiar enough with a particular song, you can almost feel when to tap the orb accurately, if you’re following along with the beat. But this isn’t always the case, as the orb begins to just slightly glow before the word comes up in the lyric, then you have to hit it at just the right moment when the orb is in full-glow mode—which doesn’t always seem to match up with this natural feeling you get of when to tap.

The major downside to the app: Only three free songs are included. Though the rest of the Lyric Legend catalog is fantastic (good variety of very current top 40 hits from bands like OneRepublic, indie favorites like Owl City or Phoenix, classics like No Doubt, etc.), each song costs $0.99, with the exception of a few “bundle” packs (bundle, meaning just two songs). I managed to luck out with the free songs included in the app, as I’m familiar with them, but I would have liked to be able to use my own iTunes library with the app. The popular game Tune Runner allows access to your own music, and it’s a fantastic way to kill time while still enjoying your own tunes.

One added bonus: There’s a multiplayer mode that lets you compete against friends via bluetooth. Watch along the top bar as you play each other remotely to see who’s ahead of who with points, then share your victory with your social networks on Facebook and Twitter.

Recap & Conclusion

Lyric Legend
Price: FREE
Released: Aug. 31, 2010
Our Grade: B+

At the gentle price of FREE, you really can’t complain too much about this challenging, somewhat frustrating, yet highly addictive alternative to the overplayed Tap Tap Revenge games. It’s a refreshing twist that kicks your brain and your patience into overdrive, though once you catch on, you’ll probably be unable to stop—which is also probably what the developers were counting on when they only included three free songs without access to your own music library. Open the game up to users’ own libraries, and this game will be a mega-hit.

Go ahead, download it!

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In this edition of Apps of the Week, we finally end the wait for an app that gives us reliable restaurant waiting times, test out our Parkour skills via the character in Mirror’s Edge, and get a good picture of what our under construction room will look like when the paint dries.

TBS Very Funny Laugh Track
Price: $0.99

Everyone’s had a moment of thinking, “I could really use a laugh track right now.” (Well, some of us, anyway.) TBS has been rolling out a slew of iPhone apps recently, and this newest one lets users play with the idea of having their own personal laugh track to use at their discretion. Tap a single audience member in the app to hear a chuckle, or swipe across an entire row to get a room roaring with laughter. Record your productions to use later; everyone will be none the wiser, really.

The developers who brought us the MyTown app, the closest competitor to FourSquare for a while there, have just released their new app, InCrowd. The app utilizes the new Facebook feature, Facebook Places, creating a game with custom avatars and simulations based on your locations shared via the social networking tool. Meet up with your friends’ avatars at locations and interact with each other (high fives, fist bumps, etc.), compete for popularity, and update your friends on what you and your avatar have been up to lately.

If you’re an avid visitor of places with food that aren’t your kitchen and you’re not already using WaitList on Twitter, you don’t know what you’ve been missing. Operated by the A.V. Club (The Onion), the Twitter feed has been a lifesaver for me in Chicago on more than one occasion, cautioning and updating me on the wait times at the most popular restaurants. They’ve finally released an iPhone app, where you can see wait times for restaurants via a map, list, or search. Get tips from others on the wait times, see info on the restaurant, or contribute a tip yourself.

We were stoked for the Mirror’s Edge release on the iPad back in April, for its promising stellar gameplay and graphics, and now the game is available for the iPhone. The interface translates surprisingly well to the small screen, and the game doesn’t lose much of its luster. Try your hand at some awesome Parkour-style moves as you run up walls, ride ziplines, and hurdle from building to building as you fight to save society from “sinister surveillance.”

Sure, this may just be another app for finding wallpapers for your spiffy new iPhone4, but the inventory is pretty solid. Find images for your backgrounds, with everything from city scenes and flowers to drawings and 8-bit renderings, all utilizing the high-resolution retina display on the iPhone4.

We’re big proponents of home improvement apps on the iPhone that really aid dwellers in their redecorating and rearranging processes. This app does a great job of helping with the most anxiety-driven part of the process: guessing what crap is going to look like when you’re all done. Edit a photo of a room you plan to paint with this app by using a pre-selected color to splash on the walls, or use a color from another photo to get an accurate-as-possible glance at what the room will resemble when the paint dries.

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With the upgrade to iTunes 10, Apple has mysteriously killed a significant function that was available in older editions: the ability to make ringtones from purchased music. You can still manually create one (the third method talked about here), but the nifty little tool for making them in app has completely vanished.

Why? We have no idea. Maybe no-one ever used it. Maybe Apple is going to start pushing ringtone sales. I still rely on Audiko for my custom iPhone ringtones, which works well enough, is free, and will work with any MP3 I have, rather than just purchased files.

[via Engadget]

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Apple has set up a “coming soon” website for iOS 4.2, teasing a number of the features for the hotly anticipated iPad update. The website covers a number of the “100+ new features and innovations,” including multi-tasking, folders, printing, AirPlay, Game Center, and a number of tweaks to how other features run.

iOS 4.2 will be the introduction of the iPad to iOS 4, and finally add the features that iPhone and iPod Touch users have been crowing about for months now. It’ll arrive in November, so all you iPad users are just going to have to sit on your hands for two months, until you can get your hands on it.

[via AppleInsider]

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The appearance then disappearance of Facebook integration on Ping has left many of scratching our heads in bewilderment. It looks like Facebook may have killed it. According to AllthingsD, Facebook disallowed Apple from using their API, as an agreement had not been made between the companies:
According to sources familiar with Facebook’s platform, the social networking giant essentially denied Apple’s Ping access to application programming interfaces that would allow it to search for an iTunes user’s friends on Facebook who also had signed up for Ping.

Normally, this API access is open and does not require permission.

That is, unless some entity wants to access it a lot. In that case, Facebook requires an agreement for reasons primarily centered on protection of Facebook user data and, of course, infrastructure impact.

With 160 million iTunes users, that could potentially mean a lot of impact.

Sources said Apple (AAPL) and Facebook conducted negotiations about an agreement, but could not come to terms.

I really hope some sort of integration is developed, as right now it’s freaking abandoned, and finding your friends en masse is impossible.

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The FCC have taken the new iPod Touch, with fancy-ass retina display and two cameras, and done that wonderful think they do, where they rip it to shreds. Interesting stuff, if you’re interested in chip numbers, and individual components.

Also on the subject of the new iPod Touch, when it popped up at the presentation and was announced to be even thinner than the previous generation, we all wanted to know how they managed to fit a camera and sensor in the damned thing! It turns out the rear camera’s resolutions is…underwhelming. Check out the specs page, it can only take images at 960×720, aka 0.6 megapixels, aka the size of 720p video. You’re not going to get nearly as awesome shots with this thing as the iPhone 4, though if the sensor isn’t too small, you might get pretty good quality.

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The ads for Apple’s new iPod Nano and iPod Touch are both available on the YouTubes, as well as on the pages for each device. The Touch ad uses Chappo’s “Come Home”, and the Nano has the classic “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” by Cake.

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Twitter’s official iOS app has finally made its way to the iPad, with a huge number of new features! They’ve massively overhauled the interface to make it work on the iPad, and it now has panes, gestures, and in-line media.

The new version appears to be damned good, though there are still issues. Most noticeable is Twitter’s insistance about doing RTs their way, without adding any comments of your own.

This free app is obviously pushing to become king of the iPad Twitter apps. What’s your Twitter app of choice? Do you go for the official version, or is there a third party one you love? Tell us in the comments!

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One of the big announcements that Apple made yesterday was ABC and Fox show rentals for just 99-cents, as part and parcel of the new Apple TV. Amazong quickly jumped on this, beating Apple at their own game, by offering shows by the same companies to buy for 99-cents an episode. No waiting four weeks, available right now. And you get to keep them.

Given how low of a price this is, some are even theorizing that Amazon is losing money on these sales, as they’re priced lower than DVD purchases.

[via Engadget]

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