iPhone Hill

Are you a moron?  No?  What about your friends?  Your brothers or sisters?  Boyfriend or girlfriend?  Kids?  Are you sure?  There is one way you can find out: Moronoid.

Bogdan Andresyuk’s Moronoid is part of the wave of games that tell you whether or not you’re stupid.  Or a moron.  Or not as smart as a fifth grader. 

This one, Moronoid, has a series of questions that test your ability to follow instructions, keep your wits about you, and think fast. If you miss one question- any one question- you fail and the game tells you that you’re a moron.  You must then start over from the very beginning.  If you answer all the questions without making a single mistake, you’ll be able to safely say you’re not a moron.

But I’m willing to bet you won’t be able to answer every single question correctly the first time around. I sure wasn’t.

Moronoid requires a knowledge of geography, counting, memory, spelling, and various other skills you’ve been using all your life.  As far as gameplay goes, it’s not bad at all; it’s fun, a great diversion, and highly addictive.  Once you get started, you’ll probably want to keep going until you’re able to get every single question right.  Be forewarned, though: it might take a little while.

And after you’ve mastered the game, have someone you know play it.  Feel free to give them a hard time while they’re playing.  Taunt them, tease them, laugh at them.  It’s fun that way, too. 

If I were to recommend any improvements to Moronoid, I would say that the game could use more questions.  A lot more.  And a randomizer so that questions aren’t always presented in the same order.  That would definitely keep players on their toes.

I’ll bet I know what you’re thinking: I can beat Moronoid.  I know I can.  There hasn’t been a game created yet that can beat me. 

Good luck.

Moronoid

Version 1.0

Tested on iPod Touch 3.1.2

According to the NYT’s Bits blog, Amazon has pulled Macmillan e-books due to a dispute over pricing, with Amazon wanting to hold the line at $9.99 and Macmillan wanting to raise it to an Apple iPad iBooks-like $14.99.

Eerily similar to Apple and iTunes Music, where Steve Jobs resisted the music industries desire to raise prices from $0.99 a song, and finally came to an agreement for flexible pricing up to $1.29 in exchange for DRM-free 3G downloads in January 2009. Previous to the change, Amazon was able to use music industry dissatisfaction to offer DRM-free Amazon MP3 music at $0.89. The industry was willing to take the loss in an attempt to break Apple’s control, and now it looks like their hoping similar pressure and competition from Apple’s iBooks will break down Amazon.

Ironic, poetic? Here’s where it stands:

Macmillan offered Amazon the opportunity to buy Kindle editions on the same “agency” model as it will sell e-books to Apple for the iPad. Under this model, the publisher sets the consumer book price and takes 70 percent of each sale, leaving 30 percent to the retailer. Macmillan said Amazon could continue to buy e-books under its current wholesale model, paying the publisher 50 percent of the hardcover list price while pricing the e-book at any level Amazon chooses, but that Macmillan would delay those e-book editions by seven months after hardcover release. Amazon’s removal of Macmillan titles on Friday appears to be a direct reaction to that.

And here we thought when there was competition, prices were supposed to go down…

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple vs. Amazon vs. Macmillian — Begun These e-Book Wars Have?

In the days before Pandora, Sirius, and Napster, radio ruled the world.  If you didn’t own the album, CD, or cassette, the only way to hear your favorite tunes was the radio.  Your yearning for the latest from Michael Jackson, Nirvana, Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers or U2 could only be satisfied by a radio DJ.    

Sometimes you might flip on the radio and catch your favorite song halfway through.  That wasn’t so bad.  Sometimes you only caught the last few seconds of it.  That was bad.

Every now and then, if you were lucky- really lucky- you’d enter a kind of musical zone.  In the zone, you could flip on the radio, catch your favorite song as it was starting and listen to it all the way through.  If you were really in the zone, you could change stations after the song had ended and catch it again, right at the very beginning.

Good times.  I don’t miss them one bit.

Gianluca Falasca’s MyTtuner- The Ultimate Radio operates under the principle that somewhere on the world’s wide web, an internet station is playing a song or an artist you like.  With MyTtuner, you tell it who or what you want to hear (you can enter up to 6 choices) and when the app finds that song or artist, it will let you know (as long as you’re still in the app, of course).  Then, just tap your screen and enjoy on-demand music old school style, minus those pesky subscription fees.  If you really like a station, you can select it as a favorite and listen to it whenever you want.  Do you have favorite artists or groups?  Great!   Save them and the next time the app is opened, you can quickly search for their music.

MyTtuner will also generate a listing of every artist being played at the moment and  update every 60 seconds. 

Sweet, right?  Unfortunately, MyTtuner initially had some serious issues with stability; it crashed every time I used it, even after an update designed to eliminate them.  Each crash would erase my saved searches, my saved webcast stations, and music history.  As you can imagine, that was a pretty big disappointment, especially for an app with a $2.99 sale price. 

These past couple days though, it seems to be running better.  When it works, it’s great.  When it works, I start to think about terminating my Rhapsody subscription.  But when it doesn’t, it’s quite frustrating.

My only suggestion for improvement- beyond stability- would be MyTtuner’s appearance.  It’s a little dull and could benefit from a colorful makeover.

With a couple more updates and a bigger pool of internet stations to find the music and artists I like, I might just stop feeding my money to Rhapsody and use those monthly fees to buy more apps…

myTtuner

Version 1.1.1

Reviewed on iPod Touch 3.1.2

Redmond Pie has a nifty tutorial up for those who want to give their Jailbroken iPhone and/or iPod touch an iPad look-and-feel (or just a hint of iPhone 3.2!). Here’s what you need:

• Winterboard
• “Simple iPad Theme”
• MakeItMine app
• Shrink app
• ProSwitcher
• NYTimes app
• Classics app
• Kindle app

Making your old device look like an unreleased new device is hallmark of the hacking community (hey, I had the marimba ringtone and iPhone theme on my Treo 680 for months!), so if you want to get your iPad on, check out Redmond Pie and the video after the break!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

How-to: Make Your Jailbroken iPhone Look Like an iPad

Engadget has been getting tips from deep code divers who are exploring Apple’s latest iPhone 3.2 SDK for the iPad and what they’re finding includes code/hooks for iChat-style video Calling, file downloads from Mobile Safari, support for telephony like SMS and calls, and some prototype support for a “handwriting keyboard”. The video conferencing news is especially intriguing:

We’re told that there are hooks to accept and decline a video conference, flip a video feed (which suggests a front-facing camera) and — most importantly — run the video call in either full screen mode or in just a portion of the screen. That means you’ll be able to chat and do other things at the same time, which could mean there’s at least some type of multitasking going on here.

Could this be another example of the iPad being “unfinished“, or of Apple removing a camera at the last minute — like the iPod touch G3 — because they couldn’t get an implementation that was good enough in time for the big reveal?

Looks like there’s some good news (or good speculation at least) for iPhone owners as well, since the devices all share the same OS code base:

chpwn also tells us [...] both the new landscape orientation for the homescreen and keyboard support appear to be destined for the iPhone itself when 3.2 comes out.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone 3.2 SDK on iPad — iChat Video Calling, File Downloads, Telephony Support, Handwriting Keyboard… And Coming to iPhone?

And 9to5mac finally puts to bed the does-iPad-support-Flash flood they kicked off yesterday by noting Apple and their advertising agency have updated promotional videos and images on Apple.com to properly reflect the lack of Adobe Flash support on the iPad, including the blue lego bricks of plugin fail we iPhone users are so used to.

As we were told by our source at the secretive organization, Apple came crashing down on them with urgent requests to change the video.

In other no-Flash-on-the-iPad news, TheFlashBlog has removed the lone porn fail image from their condemnation graphic, while Merlin Mann at Kung Fu Grippe [via Daring Fireball] points out that if the graphic had been in Flash rather than a JPG, no iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch owner would have seen it anyway… (Or would they, as Gruber updates to pass on that the site in question has an iPhone version that replaces the Flash with QuickTime. D’oh!)

Thus ends the latest flare up in the never ending Flash on iPhone OS saga. Right?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple iPad Promotional Material Updated to Remove Flash Content, Adobe iPad Porn Fail Removed from TheFlashBlog

With the announcement of the iPad comes all the speculation on how we will consume media like newspapers, magazines, and books. As far as books go the format is pretty much fleshed out with digital versions of books available on many devices. Magazines on the other hand are few and far between. Condé Nast Digital has brought GQ magazine to the iPhone and iPod touch. I personally love a good magazine but no longer subscribe to any because I find it to be a lot of hassle in the digital world we live in today. My biggest question has been ” The magazine is made on a computer then printed onto paper so why cant I just get a digital copy page for page on my computer or mobile device.”

The GQ app doesn’t go so far as to deliver a magazine that I can flip through page by page but its a great start. All the content from the magazine is present; Cover page, articles, and pictures it’s all there. The main app menu is split up into sections of relevant articles. The articles are easy to read and have a font re-sizer to adjust the text to be bigger or smaller. If the article has pictures that go along with it, and pretty much all of them do, there is a button you can push to view the media as a slide show.Some of the articles are on the web site but with the app purchase you are given full access to all the articles as well as app only pictures that aren’t on the site. Here’s to you Miranda Kerr, nice photo set.

As far as who is this app for, I would say the casual reader of GQ. If your buying your magazine off the rack your going to save $1.50 by getting the app. If your a subscriber of GQ your going to spend three times as much for the app after a year. If you are a first time reader the app does give you a link to subscribe to the print magazine for a year at a dollar a piece.

With all that said, here are some things I would hope for the future not only with Condé Nast but all publications. I want the actual magazine on my device just as it is in print. I also would like to see a digital subscription, and don’t get me wrong I’m sure things on Apples side need to change for this to happen. All in all I am excited for the future of magazines in digital form and for the GQ app blazing the trail in this open frontier.

EDIT: It has come to my attention that when you go into landscape mode you get the page for page magazine to flip through, ads and all, just what I wanted.

iTunes Link – GQ | Feb 2010

Version 1.0

Reviewed on iPhone 3G OS 3.1.2

TheFlashBlog’s Lee Brimelow, Platform Evangelist at Adobe “focusing on the Flash, Flex, and AIR developer communities” has put up a series of iPad mockups highlighting a wide range of web sites all showing the blue lego brick of Flash plugin fail — and they feature the range of games like Farmville, news sites like CNN, TV sites like Hulu, and online porn like… well, you get the idea.

In all fairness porn is underplayed compared to the rest, but that it’s played at all by someone from Adobe is — forgive us — a ballsy move. Of course easy to access, free, online porn is a major reason a certain segment is upset there’s no Flash on the iPhone or iPad. Regardless of your personal feelings one way or another about it, porn is historically a huge early adapter of technology, including VHS, DVD, online video — now increasingly Flash-based — and even the iPhone via Jailbreak and web apps.

Brimelow is using the visuals, mainstream and adult alike, to point out how ubiquitous Flash is on the ‘net, and how Apple shouldn’t be calling the iPad (and previously the iPhone), the ultimate browsing experience” when it doesn’t include Flash.

That’s a valid point, and one Adobe’s Photoshop Product Manager John Nack addresses candidly and, in our opinion more convincingly, on his own blog. He made me rethink some preconceptions, so it’s well worth a read.

But Apple isn’t aiming the iPhone or iPad at the web, or computing, as it is today. They’re attempting to reframe their mobile devices as appliances for tomorrow. Yesterday’s web was all about Internet Explorer 6 and Microsoft’s proprietary ActiveX platform. Today is about Flash. We’ve moved passed IE6 and ActiveX, and Apple is betting we’re moving past Flash as well.

The porn industry, interestingly, will likely be one of the early indicators on whether that ends up being true or not. Along with sites like Hulu, Brimelow’s post might just end up being less an inditement of Apple today, but a checkbox for HTML5 conversion tomorrow.

As to gaming, Gruber’s right. How would Flash games written for a mouse and keyboard on an iPad — or iPhone — anyway? They’d need to convert them for multitouch and fingers anyway, and then why not make an app that fully leverages the hardware?

[Via Daring Fireball]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Adobe Flash Blog on iPad/iPhone — Bad for Games, TV, News… and Porn!

Qik Video Camera for the iPhone, from Qik [$0.99 - iTunes Link] finally brings 15 frames per second video recording to the iPhone 3G. It also supports zoom, has some fun filters, and adds an easy system for sending your videos via e mail.

For the complete rundown, and pictures of Qik VideoCamera’s effects, stay with us after the break.

As mentioned above, Qik VideoCamera lets the iPhone 3G shoot video at 15 frames per second (FPS) but that’s only when using the default size. It’s basically a trade off. Qik gives you the option of having low video resolution (200×152) and high FPS or high video resolution (400×304) and lower FPS. I usually go for the low video resolution and higher FPS because if the frames are too few the video is too choppy to appreciate.

Qik video has some really fun special effect filters to play with. Like with video quality, however, when you start using a special effect filter the frame rate slows down. Here are some examples of how they look.

Black and White.

Black white and red, which makes any red object show in color and everything else in black and white. While interesting, aside from the novelty I don’t see many real life applications.

As requested here is some video taken using the black, white and red effect with a resolution of 200×152.

Color game, which inverses blue and red (I call it the Avatar effect!)

There are two mirror effects, both vertical and horizontal. These are good for making object suddenly disappear. It can be a lot of fun for the little ones to play with, if you would trust your little one with an iPhone.

Zoom is another nice feature, though I have found that for shooting anything very close it can cause blurring.

One of the other useful additions to this application is the audio and light enhancing controls. Since the iPhone has no external lighting source (plz 4.0!) the addition of brightness control can make those precious moments easier to see in low light settings. The audio boost helps increase the audio track but I usually don’t realize that something is going to be too soft until the event has already occurred.

Qik VideoCamera also allows you to email your videos easily, by choosing which video to email and typing in the email address. The program is also linked to your contacts so you dont have to worry if you have forgotten the address.

All in all, Qik VideoCamera is a very nice app and has a lot of useful and fun effects for saving your life’s special moments. It’s not the same resolution or frame rate as the iPhone 3GS’ built-in video recorder, but for iPhone 3G users who didn’t get that feature, it’s currently the next best thing.

Here is some video without any effects, taken with a resolution of 400×304.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Quick Review: Qik VideoCamera Video Recording for iPhone 3G

e-Book reader Classics [iTunes link, which like Delicious Library saw its UI copied by Apple's new iPad iBooks app, has decided to go free in celebratory protest. Gorgeous app, great public-domain content, so check it out.

iBomber [iTunes link] is also free, though we’re not sure for how long. Georgia recommends it though, so give it a try.

And to celebrate the 2,000,000 download mark one of the top games of 2009, Battle Bears, [iTunes Link] is now FREE for today only in the App Store!

Check out the video of Battle Bears in action after the break!

[Via Touch Arcade]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apps for Less: Classics Free post-iPad, iBomber Free, Battle Bears is Free Today Only!