Hasta La Gadget!

Are U 2 extreme 2 Tokyo Drift in an actual roided-out spoiler Civic? Well, now you can contain your fury inside the cozy confines of the iPhone. Plus: one hot NYT crossword Dealzmodo.

Fast & Furious The Game: 36 cars, four tracks, a variety of GTA-like missions and all of the exxxtreme attitude you can handle make up this iPhone version of the franchise. It has an interesting feature that allows you to record time trial runs and then upload them to YouTube: here’s one the guys from Touch Arcade did. For more, check them out: [Touch Arcade, it’s $6]

New York Times Crossword Daily 2009: Subscribing to the daily online NYTimes crossword service is $40; with this app, you get each day’s puzzle plus an archive of the entire year for $10, which is a great deal. It’s also very nicely designed, and has a number of different ways to solve, including a mode that separates each clue out onto a separate line. Plus online scorekeeping, it’s got it all. Now you can stick it to Will Shortz on the road. $10, expires at the end of ’09.

iCombat: It’s the classic Atari game of Combat, made up all pretty like for the 21st century, and adding mines, grenades, homing missiles, cloaking devices—the works. Super addicting. $1

MIeko: The app does some funky visual things when you touch it, but had to include this, just for the choice to use as the description this now-heartbreaking passage from one of David Foster Wallace’s first short stories, “The Planet Trillaphon.”

“Swollen and throbbing, off-color, sick, with just no chance of throwing up to relieve the feeling. Every electron is sick, here, twirling off balance and all erratic in these funhouse orbitals that are just thick and swirling with mottled yellow and purple poison gases, everything off balance and woozy. Quarks and neutrinos out of their minds and bouncing sick all over the place.” – David Foster Wallace

RIP. Would be nice if the buck went to a charitable cause.

This week’s iPhone App news on Giz:

• Hudson’s Nostalgiapretty “How Fast Can You Mash Buttons” Shot Watch iPhone App

• iPhone Emoji Apps Back In App Store, Someone Probably Rejoices

• Learn How to Build iPhone Apps from Stanford University

• Despite Being an April 1 Gag, TXT’N’WALK Mobile App is Sweet

• Discount prescriptions lenses FOR FREE UNLOCK IPHONE INTERNATIONAL. 3D Photos Application. PERFORMANCE.

• Star Guitar iPhone App Promo Video Brings You All the Charm of Late Night Infomercials

• Skype For iPhone Now Available in the US, Has VoIP over 3G With 3.0 Firmware

• AirCoaster3D iPhone App Catches Your Constipated Expressions During the Economy Rollercaster

• DirecTV’s iPhone App Browses, Searches and Sets Recordings

• Baseball Season Officially Starts With MLB At Bat 2009 iPhone Apps

• Happy Birthday Cake iPhone App May Result in Spit All Over Your iPhone

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory and our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.

Who doesn’t love killing digital Nazis?

Wolfenstein 3D Classic: Running around 8-bit halls blasting Nazis just doesn’t get old, does it? If you loved Wolfenstein on your Packard Bell in 1991, you’ll love it even more on your iPhone. It’s $5, from iD.

New York Times 2.0: I’ve wanted to love the NYT app since it came out in the early days of the App Store, but now I actually kind of do. Version 2.0 greatly enhances download and processing speed, even over EDGE, and lets you easily save articles for offline viewing. And it doesn’t seem to crash every two seconds like before or display images only when it felt like it. Still free.

MotionX GPS: The folks at MotionX make some of our favorite iPhone apps, and they’ve outdone themselves with MotionX GPS. It’s the only GPS app that can cache significant chunks of open-source maps, and it also can upload geocaching tracks, geotag photos, and do just about everything else one would hope from an outdoor-centric GPS. There’s a nearly cripple-free lite version for free and a $3 paid that adds a few additional functions.

Scrabble: EA’s Scrabble app got a nice update that ties into their Facebook version, allowing you to play games with friends from the iPhone. There’s live chat, stat trackers, and support for multiple concurrent games. It’s $5.

Gadget Junkie: Aggregates Gizmodo and Engadget. Apparently Satan’s rivers of molten hellfire flow on, unfrozen. $1

New Yorker Animated Cartoons: If you just can’t get enough of that high-falutin’, single-cell New Yorker cartoon wit, they’ve gone and animated several and present a new one each day via a free app. If you ask me, putting these in motion kind of messes with the aesthetic, but hey, it’s free.

This Week’s App News on Giz:

• Mugen Pop Pop Infinite Bubble Wrap Now on iPhones

• ConvertBot is the Prettiest Unit Conversion iPhone App You’re Likely To See

• Wolfenstein Now Available for Jailbroken iPhones; Doom Coming Soon

• What the iPhone Has Needed All Along is Coming: Sparkle, A 3D Virtual World

• What the iPhone Has Needed All Along is Coming: Sparkle, A 3D Virtual World

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory and our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.

March Madness: when being a work-from-home blogger pays off. Here are the apps that will help you squeeze every last drop of goodness from the NCAA Tournament, along with the week’s other app highlights.

Madness ’09: There are a flood of bracket tracking apps, most of which are horribly ugly and hastily constructed. Madness ’09 is one of the few that’s actually nice to look at, and it also pipes in live scores, stats and game previews/recaps from ESPN.com. Well worth the buck.

ESPN Tournament Edition Cameraman: There is still no Photo Hunt app that’s erotic enough for my liking, but in honor of The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, the Cameraman folks have released a college-hoops-themed Photo Hunt with ESPN. Well, I guess Larry Bird’s legs were kind of erotic in his Sycamore days. $1

FanFinder Sports Bar Locator: This app ties into the database of sports bars maintained by Sports Fan Live to help you find the local alumni haunts for your favorite tournament teams. Because it’s always more fun to get wasted with the home team fans while you watch. Free.

Boxee Remote: If you use the media center software Boxee on a home theater PC, this free remote app will be handy for text input and navigating menus without having to figure out a mouse/keyboard setup. Useful for Apple TV folks too, I imagine, since text input with the Apple Remote is a bitch. Free.

Locavore: There is no larger trend in food than “eating local” right now, but since its main tenets are increased deliciousness at a lower price (and enviro impact), it’s a trend that I have a hard time being cynical about. This app will not only help you find nearby farmers’ markets, but judging from your location, will tell you which fruits and vegetables are currently in season in your area. Cool. $3

How To Text a Girl: If there’s one thing a girl will love, it’s a canned, slightly suggestive SMS sent from an iPhone app. Trust me. $1

This Week’s App News On Giz:

• How To: Fake the iPhone 3.0 OS On Your iPhone Today

• Click here to read Hands On: Metal Gear Solid Touch iPhone App

• iPhone’s First Turn-by-Turn Navigation App XROAD G-Map Yanked from App Store

• Boxee Gets iPhone App Remote Control With Funky Trackpad Interface

• Why iPhone In-App Transactions Could Be a Disaster

• First iPhone 3.0 Apps Show Off New Functionality

• iPhone App Store Revamped For Content Subscriptions, Game Add-Ons, In-App Purchases

• Sound Curtain Noise Masking iPhone App Hands On

• Pin Up Weather For iPhone Delivers Sexytime Forecasts Rated PG-13

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory and our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody.

If someone told me in 1987 that Oregon Trail would be played on a three-inch touchscreen device with better graphics and improved music, I’d have slapped them in the face. It’s here.

My memory’s not so good that I can remember what Oregon Trial was like 22 years ago, but this is pretty much what I’d picture a “re-imagining” of the game to be like. It’s like Battlestar Galactica—the same robots, but way sexed up.

The basic concept is the same: Drag your poor family on an almost-certainly deadly trip to Oregon by way of ox-powered wagon. You can control your speed, see where you’re headed and stop to rest when one of your kids breaks an arm. But what you want are the mini games. They’re still there.

Hunting is still pretty damn satisfying, but instead of using a D-pad to point the guy in one of eight directions, you move around and shoot by tapping on the ground and animals, respectively. And yeah, killing squirrels and rabbits are as satisfying as they were all those years ago. I didn’t get a chance to off a buffalo, but I did find a dead one lying by the side of the road. Still fresh!

I also got to enjoy floating down a river with the iPhone’s accelerometer while collecting coins and avoiding rocks. Fishing was also pretty fun, as was hammering nails into a board in a DDR-type music section.

In short, if you’ve ever played Oregon Trail as a kid, you need to get this. It’s only $6. I only got a chance to play a little of the game, so there should be lots more adventure and dysentery left to explore. [Apple]

If you want to install cool apps on your iPhone or iPod Touch for free, easily, breaking Apple-imposed limitations without breaking your warranty or Applethingie, here is the how-to guide for Mac and Windows users.

What is a jailbreak?

Jailbreaking is the process required to install applications in your iPhone or iPod touch. It is a very easy procedure. It’s also safe: There are no risks in this operation*, as you can easily use iTunes to restore your iPhone or iPod touch to the default factory settings. When you do that, the iPhone will be like new.

Why jailbreak your iPhone or iPod touch from Apple’s iron fist?

You should jailbreak your iPhone or iPod if you want to install really cool and useful applications that are not in the iTunes App Store. Many of these apps are a complete must for any iPhone user but are not allowed by Apple in their iTunes App Store.

This is what you can do with a phone that has been jailbroken:

• Use your iPhone as a 3G modem with your laptop.
• Record video using Cycorder.
• Unlock your iPhone installing a simple program, so you can use a pre-paid card when you go out on vacation instead of paying outrageous roaming charges.
• Follow speech turn-by-turn directions in a GPS program.
• Copy and paste (yes, copy and paste).
• Play Nintendo Entertainment System games and other emulated classic cames (like Monkey Island!)

In other words: Do it.

*WARNING* Of course, the usual do this at your own risk and we are not responsible caveats still apply, but this process is really fool proof thanks to Apple’s iTunes factory reset. If you are looking to unlock your iPhone now or in the future, DON’T USE THESE INSTRUCTIONS or you won’t be able to unlock it. You will need a different process, which we will explain in another How To.

Opening the backdoor (Mac Users only)

The first thing you need to do to install free apps in your iPhone or iPod is putting it into DFU mode, or Device Firmware Update mode. Don’t worry, this isn’t anything weird: It’s what your device goes through every time you update the operating system in it. With this step, you will be making the iPhone go into this state.

This is the only long part of this tutorial because—since the 10.5.6 update—Apple has made it difficult to easily connect your Mac to a manually DFU’ed iPhone or iPod. This can be solved by replacing some USB drivers from a previous version of Mac OS X. If you have 10.5.6 installed, follow these instructions:

Step 1. To do this, you need to get yourself a free Apple Developer Connection account. Since you are using iTunes with your device, you are already almost there: Just log in with your Apple ID from here. The form will ask you to answer a couple of questions (just answer whatever you want), and you’ll be done as soon as you click the Accept button.

Step 2. Now you need to download and install the drivers. Go to this page and look for this file:

IOUSBFamily-315.4-log.dmg” for Mac OS X10.5.5 Build 9F33

Once it’s downloaded, disconnect ALL USB peripherals except for your Apple keyboard and Apple mouse and install the package included in the disk image.

Once you restart after the installation, you will be ready to run QuickPwn, the program that will allow you to install the applications.

Important: Once you complete the jailbreaking process, you have to restore the previous USB drivers. Go to to this page and download IOUSBFamily-327.4.0-log.dmg” for Mac OS X 10.5.6 Build 9G55, then repeat the same operation. Once you restart, Mac OS X 10.5.6 will be restored to its original state.

Freeing your iPhone or iPod touch (all users)

Here’s the easiest part: Running QuickPwn. QuickPwn is a program that will easily “jailbreak” your iPhone or iPod touch. Jailbreak, as the name says, just means breaking Apple’s limitations on accessing your device, allowing you put anything you want in it. This means installing any application you want, and not only the ones that Apple allows you to install.

Step 1. Download QuickPwn for Mac OS X or Windows from any of the following links:

Windows
• QuickPwn 2.2.5 for Windows: Get the official release via Torrent here.

Unofficial mirrors
• http://miphone.ca/iphone-dev/QuickPwn225-2.zip
• http://foskarulla.com/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
• http://downloads2.touch-mania.com/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
• http://www.applei.ph/devteam/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
• http://phonenews.com/phones/gsm/apple/QuickPwn225-2.zip
• http://rabstalk.bplaced.net/mirrors/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
• http://www.evil-crew.de/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
• http://daniel14.com/QuickPwn-225-2.zip

Mac OS X
• QuickPwn 2.2.5: Get the official release via Torrent here.

Unofficial mirrors
• http://iphone-dev.fgv6.net/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
• http://iphone.schwarzmetall.cn/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
• http://rabstalk.bplaced.net/mirrors/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
• http://jmcoon.net/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
• http://www.iphone-storage.de/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
• http://downloads2.ipod.backshot.eu/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
• http://miphone.ca/iphone-dev/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg

Step 2. Run QuickPwn and pick the kind of device you have: iPhone, iPhone 3G, or iPod Touch.

Step 3. Follow the instructions on the screen. QuickPwn is completely automated:

• Firstly, it will download all the necessary components from Apple on its own.

• Then the software will build a custom iPhone operating system, which includes Installer and Cydia, the two programs that will allow you to install the iPhone applications outside of the iTunes Apps Store microsystem.

• When QuickPwn asks you to enter your system password, do it. It’s not malicious. It just needs this to work.

• Finally, follow the precisely timed instructions on the screen to put your device on DFU (Device Firmware Update) mode. QuickPwn will do the rest.

If something doesn’t work, don’t worry. Start the process again. If your device gets a bit nutty, restore it to default factory settings using iTunes, and you will be back to square one, no harm done.

Step 4. Be patient as your iPhone restarts. Once it’s done, you are done too. It’s fun time.

Installing the applications

This is where the fun starts. You will notice two new icons in your iPhone or iPod touch’s springboard: One says “Installer” and the other says “Cydia”. These are the two competing systems for installation of software. It doesn’t really matter what you use to install your software. Most applications can be installed from both—there are exceptions, like xGPS, which can only be installed on Cydia—and both allow you to browse and install software from a a variety of sources.

• Browsing the catalogs. Whatever system you choose, installing applications is as easy as going through the available catalogs and picking the application you want.

• Manually adding applications. There will be times in which you will discover applications on the web which are not in the default catalogs in Cydia or Installer. Fortunately, you can add these by just entering the URL provided by the developer in the web page, a process that is referred to as “Adding a source”. Here’s how to do it:

In Cydia

• Click on “Manage.”
• Click on “Sources.”
• Click on “Edit” and then “Add.”
• Enter the address in the dialog field.
• Click on “Add source.”

In Installer

• Click on “Sources.”
• Click on “Edit” and then “Add.”
• Enter the address in the field.
• Click “Done” and get back to sources by clicking on “Sources.”

And that’s it. Now you can install any application you want using either program. Have fun!