As has been the case for the past six holidays, on Christmas morning many will find an iPod under the Christmas tree. Nowadays the number is in the millions. Whether you've just torn open a shuffle, a nano, a classic, or a touch: welcome!
In case you're unaware, there's a world of accessories out there to help personalize your iPod and make it your own. What's more, there's a solid selection of games available for the click wheel iPods [iTunes link]. But that's only a shadow of the myriad apps and games available for the iPod touch and iPhone in the iTunes App Store [iTunes link]--over 10,000 at the moment.
Since a single "best" list is such a hard list to come up with due to individual tastes, we've instead compiled a list of games that we consider to an excellent cross section of iPhone gaming and could be seen as "required reading" for iPhone and iPod Touch gamers
The list includes:
Aurora Feint: The Beginning (Free) - Amongst the first games in the App Store, this may have been an eye opener for many iPhone gamers. The game offers a polished match-3 (Bejeweled-like) puzzler in the setting of a role playing game. Progressive accomplishments in the puzzle portion of the game provides you with resources to level up and gain increasing skills.
Dropship ($0.99) - We confidently declared this to be the best shooter in the App Store. Excellent and innovative controls with well balanced gameplay made this one of our most enjoyed games. This is how an iPhone game should play and at $0.99, it’s a no brainer.
Fieldrunners ($4.99) - Tower Defense. Heard of it? If you haven’t, this is the game for you. Even if you have, this is probably the game for you. Named one of Time Magazine's Top 10 video games of the year, we at Touch Arcade feel the title is well deserved. This game has significant cross-over appeal that has introduced countless iPhone users to the genre of Tower Defense (TD). Despite the proliferation of TD games in the App Store, many still consider this one the best.
Rolando ($9.99) - Rolando was one of the most anticipated iPhone games of the year. Even though Ngmoco is a sponsor of this site, I still feel confident that I can unbiasedly say that the game delivered on much of the hype. The game offers an iPhone-specific platformer that incorporates the iPhone’s touch screen and accelerometer into a wonderfully produced game.
See Touch Arcade's full article for more details and...happy iPod gaming!
All of us here at iPod Hacks want to wish you and yours a merry Christmas and happy holidays! We certainly hope that every one of our readers found an iPod, an iPhone, or related goodies under the Christmas tree or next to the Festivus pole, whichever the case may be.
Floola 4.1 has just been released. Floola is an application to efficiently manage your iPod or your Motorola mobile phone (any model that supports iTunes) under Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Video and music files can be easily added and removed. Playlists can be managed with simple drag-and-drop. Lyrics and artwork are supported. Tracks can be submitted to last.fm. Podcasts are supported as well.
Ever seem like an App Store game runs faster (or slower) on your friend's iPhone or iPod touch as compared to your own? We have seen mention of this phenomenon and it always puzzled us. Internally, as far as processor core and graphics chipset, it's all the same...right?
As it turns out, while all devices utilize basically the same hardware, there are differences that have a visible impact on games and apps that push the hardware between the various models of the iPhone and iPod touch.
Touch Arcade recently posted details of a dialog with veteran mobile developer Handheld Games Corp that reveals the second-generation iPod touch to have a distinct gaming advantage over the iPhone or previous iPod touch unit. According to CEO Thomas Fessler, the 2G iPod touch uses a v4.0 version of the ARM1176 core running at 532MHz while all other members of the iPhone / iPod touch family utilize a v1.0 unit running at 412MHz. This performance difference has a clear impact on iPhone developers and the techniques they must apply to games that push the hardware.
Our first step to increase fps performance was to introduce hardware dependent levels of detail. Where we can easily display two 1500 polygon tennis players with 32 bones each on the iPod touch 2G and maintain fast and fluid game play, the original iPod touch just chokes, and in some instances so do the iPhones. To speed up the touch, we reduced the players to 800 polygons in farther away moments of gameplay, and are now using 1000 polygon models for close ups, bringing the original iPod touch game play performance level close to that of the iPhone 3G. We’ve taken this approach across the board with great results.
Fessler indicates that the 2G iPod touch is the fastest member of the family "by far," and that the overall breakdown in performance (from fastest to slowest) is as follows.
iPod touch 2nd Generation
iPhone 3G
iPhone (original)
iPod Touch 1st Generation
Fessler suspects that the GPU of the 2G iPod touch may also be tweaked, but there's no solid evidence of that at the moment. Fessler recommends that those interested in iPhone platform gaming avoid buying a used first-generation iPod touch.
Apple has released firmware version 2.2 for the iPhone and iPod touch. The update can be found through iTunes' software update.
Changes in this latest firmware release according to Apple:
Enhancements to Maps
Google Street View
public transit and walking diretions
display address of dropped pins
share location via email
Enhancements to Mail
resolved isolated issues with scheduled fetching of email
improved formatting of wide HTML email
Improved stability and performance of Safari
Podcasts are now available for download in iTunes application (over Wi-Fi and cellular)
Decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
Improved sound quality of visual voicemail messages
Pressing the Home button from any Home screen takes you to the first Home screen
Preferences to turn on/off auto-correction in Keyboard settings
Firmware 2.2 also fixes an issue with App Store links in mobile Safari. Clicking a link now takes the user to the appropriate item in the mobile App Store application.
Hikers, joggers, and active folk in general should have a look at Berbie's TrailRunner 1.8 (v288) for Mac OS X. TrailRunner is a route planning software for all kinds of long distance sports like running, biking, hiking, inline-skating, skiing and more. If you ever asked yourself how long your workout routes are and what route you should choose for this evening - then TrailRunner should be your training-partner.
We recently reported on the departure of Tony Fadell--the "father" of the iPod--from Apple Inc. At that point the how's and why's were rather vague. John Gruber of Daring Fireball sheds some light on this move by the man who made the iPod happen.
Gruber references Cringely's column regarding Fadell's replacement with Mark Papermaster.
So here’s what’s going on with Tony Fadell. First, he was vulnerable as a charismatic leader in his own right who has been talked about in the press as a possible heir to Jobs. That alone meant he had to die, but it wasn’t enough to mean that he had to die just now. That decision required an external variable in the form of former IBM executive Mark Papermaster.
Gruber points out that Papermaster was not hired to take Fadell's exact position. Papermaster's position is a superset of that held by Fadell. Fadell was the "senior vice president of the iPod Division." Papermaster is "senior vice president of Devices Hardware Engineering."
Apple today announced that Mark Papermaster is joining the Company as senior vice president of Devices Hardware Engineering, reporting to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Papermaster, who comes to Apple from IBM, will lead Apple’s iPod and iPhone hardware engineering teams.
You see, then new hot kid on Apple's block is the iPhone. (And I don't mean that in a pedophilic way.) Fadell had nothing to do with the iPhone or the iPod touch. The last product Fadell was involved with was the iPod nano.
Gruber tells it like this,
The iPhone’s software is overseen by Scott Forstall (Senior Vice President, iPhone Software), and, at a technical level, Bertrand Serlet (Senior Vice President, Software Engineering). There is no such division between hardware and software with the traditional (pre-Touch) iPods. The story I’ve heard is that at the outset of Apple’s iPhone initiative, there was a heated debate within Apple as to what OS should be used. Forstall and Serlet pushed for using OS X. Fadell (and, according to one source, former Apple executive Steve Sakoman) pushed for using something else.1 Obviously, Forstall and Serlet won this debate, and, hyperbolic though it may sound, it may prove to be the single best early design decision in the entire history of the company. It seems hard to imagine the iPhone any other way now, but at the outset it was not a foregone conclusion that a stripped down and revamped version of OS X would work for a mobile phone.
Apple's new golden child is the iPhone, and Fadell is not a second-fiddle sort of guy. And so explains his departure from the company that he injected with an astounding amount of success (and cash).
posted Wednesday, November 12, 2008 - 07:54 PM EST
Floola 3.9 has just been released. Floola is an application to efficiently manage your iPod or your Motorola mobile phone (any model that supports iTunes) under Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Video and music files can be easily added and removed. Playlists can be managed with simple drag-and-drop. Lyrics and artwork are supported. Tracks can be submitted to last.fm. Podcasts are supported as well.
As MacRumors reports, several days ago, iPhone developer Smule released a rather unique musical application called Ocarina [App Store]. Since its release, Ocarina has jumped to the 3rd most popular iPhone application in the App Store.
Ocarina basically turns the iPhone into a wind instrument.
Both experts and beginners will be amazed by this innovative player. Ocarina is sensitive to your breath, touch and movements, making it even more versatile than the original. Unlike other musical applications, there are no pre-compiled riffs so musicians will find unlimited opportunities for self-expression. Advanced options allow you to choose between diatonic, minor and harmonic scales. Or channel your favorite video game adventurer with Smule's Zeldarian mode.
In addition to simply making music, location-based Ocarina includes an Earth browser that allows you to see (and hear) Ocarina tunes being played, in real time, all across the globe.
As TUAW reports, SquareTrade, an independent warranty provider has released a report that shows the iPhone to be more reliable than either the Palm Treo or BlackBerry devices.
The report, titled "iPhone More Reliable than BlackBerry, One Year In" [PDF], analyzes failure rates for more than 15,000 new cell phones covered by SquareTrade warranties. SquareTrade found that after one year of ownership, iPhone owners were half as likely as BlackBerry owners to have a phone failure, and one-third as likely as Treo owners. After 12 months, slightly over 16% of Treo owners had experienced a failure, while just less than 12% of BlackBerry owners had their smartphone die on them. Only 5.6% of iPhone owners had a critical failure.
The report does, however, show the iPhone to be more prone to accidental damage (dropping and the like) than either Treo or BlackBerry units, likely due to the iPhone's small size and slippery case.
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