iPhone Hill

Internet Alert, from Modern Digital Media AB, is about as straightforward an app as you can imagine. Its purpose is amazingly simple: to notify you whenever a web page is updated. 

Compression is on sale for free – normally $1.99
Compression is a snazzy, Dr. Mario – style tetris game that I reviewed a few months back.

It’s casual, fun and pretty easy to pick up and play. There’s also a new $0.99 in-app purchase that unlocks another addictive game mode. A recent update fixed some of the issues with the first version, giving you another reason why you should definitely pick up this game while it’s on sale.

iTunes Link – Compression

Version 1.1

Apple CEO Steve Jobs turned 55 this week according to TUAW, so we’ll start off by wishing him a healthy, happy, peaceful, and prosperous birthday! What do you get the man who gave us the Apple II, Mac, Pixar, iPod, iTunes, Apple Retail, iPhone, and iPad? Well, a couple of awards aren’t a bad place to start…

MWC and Jim Henson Awards

While neither Apple, nor the iPhone were at Mobile World Congress, Macworld reports Steve Jobs still won their award for “Mobile Personality of the Year”. (Stephen Fry accepted on his behalf).

Macworld also tells us Jobs received a Jim Henson Company Award/Celebration Honor for reflecting “the core values and philosophy of the legendary Jim Henson and the company he founded.”

Calling all iTunes $10K Winners

While not winning awards, Steve Jobs has been personally calling the winner of his own contests — in this case the man who won the 10 billionth iTunes song download. Rolling Stone got the details:

Sulcer first thought was that he was being pranked. “He called me and said, ‘This is Steve Jobs from Apple.’ I said, ‘Yeah right, I have a son that loves to play tricks and he does that every now and then — calls me and imitates somebody.” After three or four times of asking “Come on now, who is this,” Sulcer realized that his caller ID read simply “Apple,” and only then did he believe that he was the winner of the contest and a $10,000 iTunes card.

Apple Annual Shareholder Meeting

Jobs also ran Apple’s annual general meeting, fielding questions in classic style according to Business Week. On why Apple needs a $40 billion war chest:

“We know if we need to acquire something — a piece of the puzzle to make something big and bold — we can write a check for it and not borrow a lot of money and put our whole company at risk. The cash in the bank gives us tremendous security and flexibility.”

In defense of Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, now resigned from the Apple board:

“Eric conducted himself as a board member appropriately and recused himself whenever discussing matters that might involve conflict.”

Macworld caps it off with a response on what keeps him up at night:

“Shareholder meetings,” Jobs quickly quipped, before giving the meeting a cold splash of reality.

“Apple requires stability in the world. People aren’t going to worry about which laptop to buy if they can’t afford dinner, can’t afford to send their kids to school, can’t afford textbooks. There are things much bigger than us that are out of our control. So we try to just do the best we can.”

iPhone 3.1.2

Amazingly, Steve Jobs managed to do all this, according to 9to5mac, while still rocking iPhone 3.1.2. That’s the older version of the iPhone OS updated a couple of weeks ago to 3.1.3. (We too were hoping he at least would be on iPhone 4.0 by now!) This was determined by looking at the email headers in a response he sent to an Apple customer concerned about developers let go on the Final Cut Pro Team:

No worries. FCP is alive and well.

Steve Jobs: Birthdays, Awards, Contest Calls, Shareholder Meetings, and iPhone 3.1.2 is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Mole – Quest for the Terracore Gem! by Roo Games is a digging game. You play as Mark the mole and unsurprisingly, he digs. That’s pretty much all we know about Mark, as the game is pretty light on story. He’s a mole that owns a mining operation and has an unquenchable urge to find the Terracore Gem. Think “Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Terracore Gem”, but with moles. It belongs in a museum! Actually, don’t think that…

Like I was saying, Mark digs deep down into the earth or “mole planet” and finds literally tons of jewels, gems and metals. The jewels and gems pump up your score but the metals are the real treat. With these metals, Mark can upgrade his equipment. He can upgrade his pickaxe, metal and gem detector, bombs and most importantly, his airtank. The pickaxe allows him to dig faster, the detector obviously lets him see further, the bombs can blow more rocks more quickly and the airtank lets him stay underground longer. If he runs out of air down there, he has to be rescued and everything he found on that dig is lost. Yes, at the beginning, Mark is a fragile backyard digging enthusiast but as you upgrade his equipment and dig down deeper, Mark becomes a professional one mole mining operational maniac.

You find large drills at certain points during your spelunking that allow you to ride them back up to the surface instantly. This is especially helpful, because you can then use these drills to get back down to where you found them. They are basically unlockable shortcuts. There are also several different layers of soil underground and each has it’s own properties. Properties like not being able to use bombs, detector not seeing as far, or just really slows down your digging speed. These layers add some extra flavor to the world and make it exciting to keep digging.

Did I like this game? Yes. Did I beat this game? Yes. Did I play the crap out of this game? Yes. You can take it from me that Mole is fun to play. It has a great art style and very nice graphics. The digs are quick enough that you can easily sneak a few in here and there. Also, I’m a total sucker for equipment upgrades. It’s all around a very well polished game and I cannot wait to see what Roo Games does next.

iTunes Link – Mole – Quest for the Terracore gem!
Version 1.1
Reviewed on iPhone 3GS OS 3.1.3

Some apps you get, you use for about a week or two and then you delete them.  I call those my ‘one and done’ apps.  Games are a good example.  Other apps you get and use over and over again, week after week.  Social Networking apps for Facebook or Twitter are good examples.  I have about two or three apps for these that I go back and forth between, though I occasionally try out something new.

Every iPhone or iPod Touch owner should have a good Instant Messaging app and while you could simply download Yahoo Messenger, AIM, GoogleTalk, MSN, or Facebook’s individual apps and use those, who really wants to clutter up their homepages with all those app icons and suck up precious memory space?

Not me. Plus, some of those individual apps cost money.  If I’m going to pay for an app, it’s just more convenient to have everything I need in a single one.

Enter eBuddy Pro.  I have to say, this is one robust IM app.  Here are some of its features:

• Push notifications for incoming messages up to 3 days even after exiting the app
• Automatic reconnection if your cell or wifi signal is lost
• Ability to view offline messages
• Ability to select a display image from your iPhone/iPod Touch library or camera
• Chat features including landscape orientation

The current version has 11 different themes, from a Classic white with light blue diagonal stripes to a retro wood paneling design.  It can go into an auto-away mode after a customized time and will even send auto-away messages should someone send an IM to you and you don’t want to can’t respond.

On the plus side: I liked the fact that eBuddy Pro would keep me logged in to my accounts for up to 3 days at a time.  And that auto-away response came in very handy with those who felt the need to send me IMs at 3 in the morning.  On the minus side: I did notice some lag in the push function at times.

The $4.99 price tag seems a little steep, but I guess that’s the standard cost for IM chat clients.  If the price makes you a little nervous or you’re the frugal type, try their free version (eBuddy) first and then upgrade.

iTunes Link – eBuddy Pro

Version 3.0.4

Tested on a Ipod Touch 3.1.3

Live from Macworld 2010, Leanna and Rene talk with Maksim Loffe, co-founder and CEO of UMEE about their TV remote software and FastMac’s remote case for iPhone, the iV Plus.

Watch along after the break!

TiPb Gear — Fastmac/UMEE iV Plus TV Remote for iPhone (Macworld 2010) is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Once again, a new ngmoco’s game has hit the Canadian App Store first — this time it’s kingdom-builder We Rule [Free with in-app purchases - iTunes link]. Hey, there’s no Hulu or Google Voice in Canada, so fair’s fair!

[It should be hitting the US and other App Stores shortly though, so don't fret!]

Like all recent ngmoco games, We Rule leverages the social gaming element via their Plus+ network, and has in-app purchases for “Mojo” which basically speed up things like growing crops and building homes, so you can pay if you don’t want to wait. In this case, Mojo can run from $0.99 to for 1 to $49.00 for 800. You don’t have to buy it, you just have to be patient if you don’t.

It seems like you do have to log in to play, however, which is handy since you can keep one game going over multiple devices (like your iPhone and iPod touch, as long as they’re logged in to the same Plus+ account), but if you don’t care about that and just want to launch and play on your own, it’s a step you can’t skip.

No doubt ngmoco is doing what they do best here, taking a popular category of game and making it their own — and making it excellent for the iPhone OS platform. If you’re a fan of these types of farming, kingdom building games, you’ll likely be a big fan of We Rule.

Again, Canadian only for now, though @ngmoco is giving away codes to allow early US access on Twitter. If you download it — or score a code — let us know what you think!

Ton’o pictures and a video… after the break!

ngmoco’s We Rule for iPhone hits Canadian App Store is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Sky Force Reloaded is on sale for free – normally $1.99

Sky Force is a top-down shmup similar to iFighter and Hotfield… it’s a quality game and has its own style, and apparently it’s on sale for one day only so grab it for free while you still can! I don’t know exactly when the sale ends but it’s probably very soon.

iTunes Link – Sky Force Reloaded

MacRumors points us towards the Associated Press‘ announcement that they’re setting up a new digital unit to target “next wave of Internet-connected devices such as Apple’s iPad”.

The AP’s iPad app could compete with offerings from some of its member newspapers, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, which also are believed to be mulling whether to sell subscriptions on the iPad to take advantage of its format. [...] The plans reflect the news media’s hope — still untested — that consumers will be more willing to pay for content on the iPad and similar handheld devices than they have been on traditional computers that depend solely on Web browsers to surf the Internet.

There’s no definitive word on pricing, though it’s suggested it might start off free. Subscription, however, remains the goal of newspapers in order to support their news-gathering business.

Whether or not the continued talk of individual newspaper apps for the iPad, like the New York Times, means the odds for an Apple-centric solution like iBooks is diminishing is unknown.

Let us know which future you’re looking forward to, diverse App Store offerings, or a unified iNews Store?

Associated Press App Coming to iPad is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

A high school student had her iPod explode on her desk yesterday and luckily not a single student was injured. This is not the first time we’ve heard of exploding iPods or iPhones but this particular case seems to be a little different so don’t be so quick to blame Apple. Gizmodo points out that another student has told the true story.

“The iPod did not just explode. It was broken so a kid took the entire thing apart and was rubbing wires against the battery, which became very hot, then exploded. This is not a faulty product that caused a danger to people. This was bored kids, in a classroom with a substitute all week, who found a dangerous way to entertain themselves.”

Moral of the story, if you don’t know what you are doing and it can be dangerous… don’t do it!

[Via Gizmodo via Newburyport Daily News]

Student Makes iPod Explode During Class is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog