The Iphone Blog

Archive for the ‘Iphone Nano’ Category

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This week’s must-have iOS games include the awesome new Real Soccer from Gameloft, which features gorgeous high-definition graphics optimized for the retina display. We also have their long-awaited Gangstar sequel, Miami Vindication, and some seriously addictive gameplay in ngmoco’s We City.

Check out a few of our favorite games from the past week after the break!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oTEXZPxWyU

Real Soccer 2011 — ($6.99) iPhone — Games

I’m a huge fan of soccer games, and Gameloft’s Real Soccer has always been one of my favorites for iOS. None have been as impressive as their latest offering however, as Real Soccer 2011 runs circles around its predecessors with some awesome new features. It’s incredible high-definition graphics and fluid player animations make it the best looking soccer game yet, and the new online ‘playerbase updates’ keep your game up to date with the most recent player transfers and team lineup changes, with regular online updates. You can also share your favorite goal replays with you friends over YouTube with direct uploading from within the game. A must for any soccer fan — you won’t be disappointed. Check out the trailer above if you’re still not convinced.

We City — (Free) iPhone/iPad — Games

Some of the most addictive games I’ve played on iOS have been ngmoco’s We Rule and We Farm online empire builders. Their latest is We City, and it puts you in charge of creating your own city from over 100 unique buildings and decorations. You have complete control to build the city of your dreams with cafes, salons, apartments, hospitals, hot dog stands, and more. Fresh content is added regularly, and the facility to earn coins and level up with XP keeps you addicted to the game. The Plus+ gaming network is also built-in, just like the previous games. Probably one of the most enjoyable free games available at the moment. Although We City is for both iPhone and iPad, it’s not actually a universal game; you’ll need to download a different version for each device.

Gangstar: Miami Vindication — ($6.99) iPhone — Games

Welcome to Miami and the next instalment of Gangstar. Featuring more than 75 varied missions, tons of new vehicles and weapons, and a deep storyline co-written by a scriptwriter from the TV show The Wire. Miami Vindication offers hours of exciting gameplay set in a massive virtual reconstruction of Miami that includes Miami beach, the harbor, Miami bay and the swamps. Live the Miami gang life in a thrilling adventure to liberate your younger brother who’s been kidnapped by the Armada gang. The graphics are optimized for the retina display and look fantastic. Fans of the first Gangstar are sure to enjoy this one!

PipeRush — ($0.99) iPhone — Games

PipeRush is a frantic puzzle game from Clickgamer.com in which you help Pippa connect underground pipes to deliver water to the townsfolk in a race against the clock. With a variety of 15 different pipes over 15 levels, you’ll be challenged as you attempt to find the correct configuration and solve each puzzle. Try to earn each of the 20 achievements and compete for the best score on the online leader board with the built-in Crystal game network. Great fun and very addictive; a bargain at $0.99!

What’s your favorite? Let us know in the comments!

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This week’s must-have iOS apps include Napster’s new music streaming application that provides access to over 10 million of songs on your iOS device, Google Voice calling with GV Mobile+, and a media player that supports pretty much every codec out there!

Check out a few of our favorite apps from the past week after the break!

Napster – (Free) iPhone – Music

Stream over 10 million songs to your iPhone from $10 a month with the new Napster music app. Save songs, albums and playlists to your device to listen to while you’re offline, get music recommendations based on your favorites and check out the Billboard charts from all the way back to 1955. A feature-rich application that’s worth the subscription. Instant access to new releases and your old favorites!

VLC Media Player – (Free) iPad – Entertainment

VLC is an open-source media player that supports pretty much every video codec there is, which means you won’t have to convert all of your movies before watching them on your iPad. It’s incredibly simple to use, and you can add files easily through the iTunes File Sharing feature. It’s a must-have for anyone who watches videos on the move, and it’s a free download, so you have nothing to lose if you don’t like it.

GV Mobile+ – ($2.99) iPhone – Productivity

One of the first Google Voice applications available in the App Store, and certainly the best. GV Mobile+ allows you to use your Google Voice account on your iPhone to call, send & receive SMS, access your Google contacts, and play your voicemails. It has a list of great features, and is the best designed Google Voice application in the App Store yet.

NotifyMe 2 Control Centre – ($9.99) iPad – Productivity

NotifyMe Control Centre is a powerful task management application that lets you create, categorize and manage your to-dos and tasks efficiently and effectively. It features notifications to remind you of things that are due, and you can sync to the NotifyMeCloud to back up your tasks with a free account. There’s support for multiple user accounts, so you can manage your whole family’s tasks as well as your own. It’s beautifully designed and it has some great features. Use it on its own on your iPad, or in conjunction with NotifyMe 2 for iPhone to keep on top of your tasks wherever you are.

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After a disappointing Wi-Fi-less iPhone debut last year, more than 1000 people lined up to be among the first to buy an iPhone 4 at the Xidan Joy City Apple Store in Beijing on Saturday.

A number of Apple fans camped out for the release, according to a report covering the launch, with the coveted first place in line going to Yu Zhong Hui, who lined up in the early morning hours Thursday. “Physically, it’s been painful. But mentally, I’m very happy,” Yu said.

“It’s like waiting in line to see a movie star,” said 26-year-old systems engineer Sun Jian Kuan. “No phone can best the iPhone.”

China Unicom, the mobile carrier for the device, has reported 50,000 users signed up for an iPhone 4 on the first day of pre-orders. China’s pricing for iPhone 4 without a contract is 4,999 yuan ($744) for the 16GB model and 5,999 yuan ($893) for the 32GB model.

[Computerworld]

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Apple has issued an update to iTunes today which brings with it several bug fixes, and adds some small features for its social music network, Ping. Version 1.0.1 weighs in at 86.4 MB, and it fixes the following bugs:

• Addresses an issue where the picture quality of a video changes depending on whether the on-screen controls are visible.
• Resolves an issue where iTunes may unexpectedly quit while interacting with album artwork viewed in a separate window.
• Fixes a problem that affects the performance of some third-party visualizers.
• Addresses an issue where the iTunes library and playlists appear empty.
• Resolves an issue that created an incompatibility with some third-party shared libraries.

As well as these bug fixes, new features for Ping now make it even easier to share your favorite music with your friends – instead of having to ‘like’ or post about music from the iTunes Store, you can now do it straight from your library. There’s also a new Ping sidebar:

iTunes 10.0.1 makes it easier to share your favorite music with your friends on Ping. You can now Like or Post about music right from your iTunes library. You can also easily see the recent activity of a selected artist in your library, or of all artists and friends you follow on Ping using the new Ping Sidebar.

Grab the update now via Software Update on your Mac, or from the Apple website here.

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Comment Of the Week comes from reader Dayne Jones.

Earlier this week we published the following headline about Steve Jobs ranking in Forbes’ annual rich list:

Steve Jobs Ranked 42rd Richest American In Forbes Annual List

“What’s 42rd?” asked one reader, to which Jones replied:

“It’s pronounced “Forty Terd”

Made me laugh. Here’s the thread.

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Case maker Sena designs premium handcrafted cases for leather junkies, myself included. Their cases are all of superior quality and come in plenty of designs to choose from, which makes it a no-brainer choice if you are looking for something classy to protect your iDevice. The $69.99 Sarach Flip Leather is no exception.

What’s Good?: The case itself is a piece of art. As you would expect, a lot of thought has been put into the styling of the case. All the classy hand stitching on top of the high-grade leather distinguishes it from the rest. It even has a little card slot hidden in the flap. My corporate-ish dad loves it!

I dropped my phone a couple of times with the case on and it provides great protection from a five foot drop – thank God! Everything is pretty accessible, too; even the holes for the speakers are cut out pretty well.

And did I mention how good the leather smells?

What’s Bad?: There isn’t too much bad about it, although the magnet closure bothered me. I had some issues using the built-in compass with the case on. However, the company assures that these magnets aren’t strong enough to harm the device.

Conclusion: The Sena Sarach Flip Leather case isn’t just another case, it’s a good investment considering the price of $69.99. The quality is amazing and well matches its much-loved competitors such as Vaja – I use one with my iPad. It’s available in several colors, too. I’d recommend getting it if you are not really bothered by the magnetic closure and want to protect your device the right way.

Cult of M ac rated

★★★★½ 

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I’ve used Safari as my default browser since 2008, but lately I’ve decided to give Google Chrome a shot at becoming my new standby. The main reason I chose to give Chrome a chance was that one of the sites I use every day loads like molasses in Safari, yet loads quickly in Chrome.

Since I know some of you are going to mention Firefox, I’ll tell you right now that I’ve ruled it out. It just doesn’t feel right to me. I’ll use Firefox on Windows, but on a Mac it’s just… weird. Feel free to disagree in the comments.

Interface

I suppose Chrome has an attractive interface, but I do think it looks better on Windows, partly because it feels designed for it rather than OS X (look at Chrome’s bookmarks manager and you’ll see what I mean). It just looks better with Aero.

Some aspects of Chrome’s tabs implementation annoy me. Mostly, I’m pretty happy with them, but there are two drawbacks. One being that, because the tabs take up the title bar, there’s less room to drag the window. This isn’t a problem for people who maximize their browser windows, but I like to keep my windows a certain size and I move them around a lot, since I’m always dragging images onto my desktop.

Another side effect of having the tabs in the title bar means that Chrome’s title bar doesn’t really function like one; you never actually see the full title of a web page unless it fits within the tab, which seems like a small complaint, but it’s still annoying.

Features

There were several features I missed from Safari when I switched to Chrome. Probably the one I missed most was Safari’s Reader view, which lets you reformat a long passage of text in an attractive drop-down that cuts out the clutter.

Fortunately, there’s an extension for Chrome that mimics Reader, and actually surpasses it in some ways. The extension’s called iReader and is available in the Chrome extensions gallery. When you hit the arrow keys to scroll through something in Reader for Safari, the cursor doesn’t disappear like it does in normal web pages, but it does in the iReader extension, which is less distracting for me.

Speaking of extensions, there aren’t any extensions I’ve come across for Chrome that aren’t available for Safari, or that I absolutely can’t live without. The opposite isn’t true. In fact, one of the unofficial Safari extensions that I love, ClickToFlash, isn’t available for Chrome, and it looks like that’ll be the case for some time.

Performance

It’s almost a crapshoot here. I can tell you that using Chrome feels faster than using Safari, but only a little. They both use the same rendering engine, WebKit, but they use different JavaScript engines, and from what I’ve learned about both Safari’s Nitro and Chrome’s V8, V8 is superior, but the difference in speed is also small.

On the interface performance side, I’ve noticed that when I have about six tabs open in Chrome, dragging the tabs around gets laggy. I don’t experience this lag with Safari, which I think has the best implementation of tab-dragging in any browser.

Bugs

I can generally say that I’ve experienced more bugs in Chrome than I have in Safari. For instance, in Chrome, almost every time I go back to a Google search result from, say, a Wikipedia page, the page doesn’t display and I’m left with the cute little dead tab face, then I have to re-enter the search in Google. It’s almost a deal-breaker for me.

There are other bugs, of course, but none that are as annoying or pervasive as the above.

Security

Chrome wins here, bar none. Safari is notorious for being a vector of vulnerability attacks, having famously been hacked in just 10 seconds at the annual Pwn2Own contest in 2009, while Chrome was the only browser that wasn’t hacked. However, security isn’t enough to make me switch to Chrome, as there’s very little chance I’d get a virus anyway, since there aren’t many viruses developed for the Mac and I’m a pretty safe surfer.

Will I stay with Chrome?

After using Chrome for a couple of weeks and getting accustomed to all its quirks on the Mac, I’ve decided to switch back to Safari. There just isn’t enough reason for me to stick with Chrome, and the Google search bug mentioned above is a huge annoyance, one that outweighs the poor performance of Safari on the one page that had me considering a switch to begin with.

Did I make the right choice? How’s your experience with Chrome been?

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According to the Taipei newspaper/rumormonger DigiTimes, Quanta Computer “has reportedly landed orders for 11.6-inch MacBooks from Apple. Shipments of 11.6-inch MacBooks are expected to top 400,000-500,000 units in 2010.”

I want to believe, too, but the facts get in the way.

First, there’s the source: Digitimes has a wildly uneven track record regarding Apple rumors. Some of the worst predictions include Apple laptops running everything from the PPC G5 to AMD CPUs, though regarding the MacBook Air, the record is better.

In December 2007, DigiTimes reported on a deal for 90,000 13.3-inch backlit-LED displays for an “upcoming laptop,” which turned out to be the MacBook Air. A month later, DigiTimes was the first to report that Quanta had been contracted to build the MacBook Air. While not a big surprise, as Quanta had built other MacBook models, it was still an accurate report.

More recently, a senior analyst at DigiTimes Research first predicted an 11.6″ MacBook Air running an Intel Core CPU for the second half of this year, though it should be noted the same analyst also predicted a 3-megapixel camera in the latest iPod touch. Nonetheless, a decent track record on the MacBook Air, plus a second rumor on the 11.6-inch model Air should at least have us pondering whether it’s possible.

The biggest engineering problem would appear to be impact on the rest of the enclosure from reducing the diagonal of the display by 1.7 inches. As the image of a MacBook Air logic board next to a pencil illustrates, there’s not a lot  left to reduce. One place where the Air could possibly lose some volume would be around the bezel, at least on the sides. Between the edge of the lid and the actual screen of the MacBook Air, there’s just over half-an-inch on each side.

The logic board itself would definitely benefit from Intel’s new microprocessor architecture, Sandy Bridge, which puts the CPU and GPU on the same die. Since the new integrated CPU also supports OpenCL, which Apple is a big supporter of, it’s possible the discrete GPU could be eliminated. However, Sandy Bridge isn’t entering production until early next year, and these rumors call for both current Core-series CPUs and a ship date in 2010. Of course, Apple has received special assistance from Intel on the MacBook Air before: the original Core 2 Duo being a one-off fabrication that was 60 percent the size of the standard version.

However, there’s another manufacturing issue of concern. At a paltry five hours, the MacBook Air already has the worst battery life of any Mac portable. While it’s true a smaller display would consume less power, a smaller battery has less to consume. Beyond that, there’s the minor issue of Steve Jobs’ and Apple’s design philosophy. When the original 13.3″ MacBook Air was introduced, Jobs asserted that 11-inch displays were too much of a “compromise” in design. Perhaps the overwhelming success of the 9.7″ iPad has changed his mind.

While it seems highly unlikely that a new MacBook Air would be released this year with a first-generation Core CPU, an Apple event in January seems like the last, best hope for the MacBook Air.

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