Until I started using an iPhone, I was never a fan of mobile gaming. The graphics were bad and there were no games that really grabbed my interest. Since the iPhone launched I spend a good bit of time playing games on the device.
Handmark has announced a new game for the iPhone called Astraware Casino that is actually more like 11 games in one. The app has 11 of the most popular casino games around in one place for a limited time price of 99 cents.
The app also allows the player to choose tracks from their own playlist to use as background music. Among the games offered in the app are Texas Hold ‘Em No Limit and Limit Poker, Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, Slots, Baccarat, 3 Card Poker, Video Derby, and Keno. Players start the game with $1,000 virtual dollars and must win to keep playing.
Back when the original iPhone first launched I bought a case for my phone to keep it from being scratched up. I was beyond mad three weeks later when I took the case off to clean the iPhone and found that the case had caused scratches that I expected it to prevent.
Speck has announced a new line of cases that are hard on the outside and have a soft rubberized coating on the inside to prevent scratches called the CandyShell cases. The case is available in black, blue, purple, white, and pink colors with the cases having a two-tone design.
The outer shell is glossy and the cases ship with a screen protector film and a cleaning cloth. Speck promises that the wide openings in the case make the iPhone ports and controls accessible and the phone can be docked without removing it from the case. The cases retail for $34.95.
Today TiPb brings you round four of the Top 5 Must-Have Jailbreak Apps series, this one focused on what still makes Jailbreak compelling in a post-iPhone 3.0 world.
Now, all of the Jailbreak experts out there will (or should!) know about all these apps already. The purpose of this article is to give our readers who may not be familiar with the jailbreak community just a little taste of what is out there. So, if you’re still debating whether or not to jailbreak your iPhone, after reading this we are guessing that you will make up your mind one way or another…
All of the following applications can be downloaded via Cydia on your Jailbroken iPhone.
Read on after the jump!
GV Mobile
Is it really a shock that the first application in this article happens to be the latest and greatest app to be removed from the App Store by Apple? Right after the app’s removal, developer Sean Kovacs tossed it directly into the hands of the jailbreak community. With GV Mobile and a Google Voice phone number you can do the following:
Dial numbers via the iPhone address book or typing on the keypad
Full SMS support (view historic, reply, send new)
Retrieve and delete recent call history
Playback and delete voicemails
Take calls from different phones other than your iPhone
Enable or disable the phones that Google Voice forwards calls to
Add or delete phones that Google Voice forwards call to
Backgrounder
Backgrounder allows you to multitask App Store apps on your iPhone in the background. Yes, you heard me correctly, you can now listen to Pandora while you are in your favorite App Store app! This is your perfect opportunity to show Palm Pre owners how it’s done.
Just press and hold the home key while running any application. After a few seconds, the “Backgrounding Enabled” pop-up appears. Release the home button, Backgrounder automatically returns you to SpringBoard. After that feel free to open any of application you see fit. To quit the background application, re-launch it from SpringBoard, then press and hold Home until the Backgrounding Disabled pop-up appears. It’s as simple as that.
qTweeter
Do you find yourself on one of the million iPhone App Store Twitter clients most of the day? If you answered yes to that question you may just find this app worth a good look. qTweeter is status update application that lets you tweet messages and update your Facebook status. You launch qTweeter by sliding your finger down from the status area and can start tweeting right away. Then you simply press the update button to update your Facebook status, send your Tweet, or both.
Some features of qTweeter are as follows:
Update Facebook and Twitter at once
Update your status on top of any app
TwitPic support
TwitVid support
Shortened URL
Music Tweets, YouTube Tweets, Safari Tweets
Long Tweet and TweetShrink support
Fast shortcut to your other Twitter app
Winterboard
For those of you who really want to apply a different look to your iPhone user interface, Winterboard. is the app for you. Using Winterboard you can apply complete skins to your device or just specific parts of it. Some of the things you can customize include app icons, wallpaper, statusbar, dock, etc… You can spend hours tweaking your UI ways that will make you wonder why Apple didn’t think of this.
SBSettings 3.0.2
The last app for today, SBSettings, addresses a common complaint that we hear a lot about the iPhone. Do you want a way to turn Wi-Fi on and off without going through all the settings? SBSettings can help you out. How about adjusting your screen brightness? How about the ability to toggle Bluetooth on and off with a single button on your home screen? Edge and 3G? I’m sure you get where I am going with this.
Conclusion
The jailbreak community seems to have a bright future with the way Apple has been keeping the App Store on lockdown lately. Whether you decide to jailbreak your iPhone – please remember TiPb and any and all staff and writers take no responsibility for any mishaps, mistakes, wrong doings, etc, that may occur during the jailbreak process.
For more on Jailbreaking and Jailbreak apps, see the TiPb forums!
Warning that its profits may decline, Wii and DS manufacturer Nintendo played the “current economic conditions” card but also laid a new one on the gaming table — increased competition thanks to Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch.
The newly launched Nintendo DSi is seen as a partial response to Apple’s new gaming model, according to Electronista, which includes an on-device digital App Store, rather than the cartridge based physical media traditional gaming companies have thus far preferred.
Still, if the next edition of Mario has an Apple or Steve Jobs looking boss level, we’ll know Nintendo is taking it seriously…
Turns out that leaked black bezel that made the internet rounds prior to the iPhone 3GS’ rounds was… actually for a Creative Zii Egg. Says CNET Asia provides the picture, and MacRumors the short version:
The Zii Egg is a multi-touch iPod touch-like device that runs Google’s Android operating system. The device, though, bears a strong resemblance to the leaked bezel images, suggesting that it had simply been mislabeled all along.
[Insert Price is Right fail music]
Hey, at least now we know. Though, admittedly, the nearly intoxicating swarm of pre-release rumors are much more fun than the cold, headachy, post-release rumor smashing that followers…
Two security researchers, Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner, have discovered a serious security vulnerability on the iPhone and will present their findings later today at the Black Hat convention in Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, they have already demonstrated this flaw in action to CNET’s Elinor Mills before the conference.
Here’s what happened: While I was talking on the phone to Charlie Miller, his partner, Collin Mulliner, sent me a text message from his phone. One minute I’m talking to Miller and the next minute my phone is dead, and this time it’s not AT&T’s fault. After a few seconds it came back to life, but I was not able to make or receive calls until I rebooted.
The attack is enabled by a serious memory corruption bug in the way the iPhone handles SMS messages, said Miller, a senior security researcher at Independent Security Evaluators. There is no patch, despite the fact that Apple was notified of the problem about six weeks ago, he said.
Technologizer is reporting on the developing story on SMS attacks coming out of today’s Black Hat Conference sessions. Seems like while the iPhone is grabbing a lot of attention, almost all GSM phones are said to be vulnerable. Basically, they get around the anti-spoofing security and send data designed to get access and take control of the phone.
On the iPhone specific side, however:
In a final coup for the conference, Lackey and Miras demonstrated an iPhone app they call TAFT which can, at the click of a few buttons, transmit various types of attacks against specific, vulnerable phone models, including iPhones, and phones running the Windows Mobile 5 and pre-”cupcake” Android operating systems.
Vendors, including Apple are working on patching the exploit, though there is still no word which specific models or firmware versions are vulnerable.
One of the games that I never really found interesting was marbles. I know some people like the game; it just doesn’t make sense to me. If you are a marble aficionado, a new game app for the iPhone is now available for you.
The app is called Play Marbles and you can even put your face or other images onto the marble. The developer promises that the game is simply to learn and play. While the game is simple, it promises to be challenging as well.
Regular updates to the game will be made available and new play modes and custom features will keep the game fresh. The marble design phase is intended to be robust and the developer is running a contest for the most interesting marbles to be included in the game. The app is available now for $1.99 on the App Store.
The iPhone is an undisputed hit all around the world with users in just about every country. Italian users who want to keep both hands on the wheel of that Ferrari can now get an Italian version of the Promptu ShoutOUT app customized for Telecom Italia Mobile.
The app lets users speak what they want to send in a text and the spoken words are turned into a text message and sent to another user. The app is integrated with TM’s billing system allowing the provider to charge for texts sent.
The company behind the app says that it is looking forward to rolling the app out here in America as well. The firm says that U.S. mobile subscribers send and receive more texts than they make calls.
Join Dieter, Chad, and Rene for iPhone 3.1 Beta 3, Google Voice rejection, iTablet and Verizon rumors, Palm/iTunes escalation, SMS exploits, and all the news and how-tos. Listen in!
Meanwhile, they have already demonstrated this flaw in action to CNET’s Elinor Mills before the conference.
