Hasta La Gadget!

There are loads of games in the App Store for the iPhone/iPod Touch, but if you want to save money and space, which are the true essentials? Here are our 10 must-haves.

While there are enough good games in the App Store to fill up multiple pages on your iPhone or iPod Touch, you don’t need that many, nor do you need to spend that much money. If you focus on filling certain genres with single games and not doubling up on multiples, you can make yourself the ultimate “games page” of apps. Here’s the list.

Touchgrind: This skateboarding game was designed from the ground up for the multi-touch iPhone platform, and it shows. The completely unique control method of using your fingers as legs on a skateboard immediately makes sense and is totally addicting. As you get better, the new skateboards that are unlocked with high scores continually feel just within your grasp. $4.99

Galcon: Galcon is a space-based strategy game that delivers super-short games, which is perfect for the iPhone. Rather than getting dragged into games you won’t finish, Galcon lets you play a bunch of one or two minute games. You can refine your strategy with each game, and every time you lose it’s just too easy to try again. Lite: Free; Pro: $4.99

Fieldrunners: Many call this the best game in the App Store, and it’s tough to argue with them. A tower defense game with a super-high degree of polish, this is the definition of addicting. Basically, you want to set up weapons to stop soldiers for storming your towers. You earn more cash for more weapons for every guy you stop, and you lose health for every guy who gets through. And then you can’t. Stop. Playing it. $4.99

Line Rider iRide: You’ve probably played Line Rider on the internet in some form or another: you draw a bunch of lines, then a little man on a sled gets tossed down your makeshift track. The controls are simple and work great on a touchscreen, and you can play in short bursts, saving your maps for later. It’s intuitive enough that there’s virtually no learning curve, but you can spend countless hours working on your masterpiece of sledding physics. $2.99

Uno: You know Uno, you love Uno. But here’s a version that involves no pesky shuffling. If you’re more of a poker fan you probably went for Texas Hold ‘Em, which is cool, but if you ask me, Uno is a much more fun card game. After all, what fun is poker when you’re gambling with pretend money? $5.99

Rolando: This is a wonderful, cartoonish platformer that uses simple controls that are easy to learn but are used in increasingly complicated and challenging ways as the game progresses. You control a series of little balls—Rolandos—by tilting your iPhone and swiping up to jump. But you can control many of them at once, and there are also obstacles and switches you can manipulate. It’s got a high degree of polish and will suck you in from the first level. $9.99

Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D: This is our favorite racing game, despite not being fully sold on the accelerometer controls of iPhone racing games. But because of that, you really only need one, and this should be it. Great graphics, good stability and plenty of variety add up to make this the essential iPhone racing game. $5.99

SimCity: This port of SimCity 3000 is stunning. This is no gimped version of SimCity, dumbed down for a touchscreen. It’s the full game, complete with advisers and all the building types you can handle, with intuitive touchscreen controls. Finally, you can build the epic metropolis of your dreams whenever you sit down and have a few minutes to kill. $9.99

Touch Hockey: FS5: Air Hockey on the iPhone is just like regular air hockey, minus the high probability of getting one of your fingers smashed with the puck. Simply put your finger on the mallet and try to score some goals. It’s also fun to play with two people, with each person holding an end of the iPhone. And hey, no quarters required. Lite: Free; Pro: $1.99

Trism: This is essentially a modified version of Bejeweled, and if you know that game then you know why you’d want it on your iPhone. It’s a classic puzzle game, one that makes the transition to the touchscreen beautifully. You’re trying to get three pieces of the same color together to make them disappear, and depending on how you’re holding your iPhone, the resulting tumble of pieces will happen in a different direction. It adds a new level of strategy to the game while retaining what made the original so awesome. $2.99

[A Bonus 11th game, From Brian: I’d like to add Motion X Poker Quest to the list for its amazing use of the accelerometer and in game physics used to roll the dice, as well as beautiful graphics and sounds and addicting game play. ]

Mac cloner Psystar claims it’s nothing but an independent Florida-based startup, despite Apple’s suspicions of a conspiracy.

Apple
has been in legal battle with Psystar for several months, and recently
the corporation said it believes the Mac cloner is receiving help from
other parties — possibly corporations.

"Psystar denies that
said activities are unlawful and improper," Psystar said in its
response. "Psystar likewise denies the suggestion that there exists a
concerted effort to commit infringement of Apple’s intellectual
property rights, to breach or induce the breach of Apple’s otherwise
unenforceable license agreements, and to violate state and common law
unfair competition laws."

Psystar in April began selling a PC
hacked to run Mac OS X Leopard — a Mac clone — and the company has since added
several Hackintoshes to its product line. Apple in July filed a lawsuit claiming Psystar was committing copyright, trademark and shrink-wrap infringement.

Apple’s lawsuit against Psystar wasn’t enough to scare off other companies that later arose to offer similar Mac clones. The army of Mac cloners was largely driven by Apple’s switch to Intel chips, which made its operating system easier to hack to run on other non-Mac, Intel machines.   

See Also:

• Apple Cries Corporate Conspiracy Behind Psystar
• Psystar: Blu-Ray Hackintosh for Sale; MacBook Clones on the Way
• Psystar Tags Back Apple With Antitrust Suit
• Psystar Offers Cloned OS X Servers
• Apple Finally Sues Mac Copycat Psystar
• Apple Demands That Psystar Recalls All Hackintoshes

Psystar: No conspiracy against Apple [ComputerWorld]

Photo: Psystar

Here’s another rumor that suggests January’s Macworld Expo 2009 will be a snoozer: Upgraded iMacs are slated for shipping that month, according to a Chinese newspaper.

Chinese publication Economic Daily News says a component supplier leaked Apple’s plans to launch new iMacs in the first quarter of the year.

That doesn’t sound very exciting, since this will likely only be an incremental upgrade. The iMac line underwent the aluminum makeover only about a year and a half ago, so there shouldn’t be any major changes.

It’s highly likely this rumor is true. The last update to the iMac was in April; typically Apple refreshes its computers every six months. So January’s Macworld Expo would be a good opportunity for Apple to announce an upgrade.

Adding to the validity of the iMac rumor, MacRumors’ Arnold Kid last week reported that a string of code suggests there will be a new iMac shipping with an NVidia chipset.

So here’s what we know about Macworld 2009, which kicks off Jan. 5 in San Francisco: Phil Schiller (not Steve Jobs) will probably announce new iMacs and Mac Minis. The rumor of an iPhone Nano is gaining momentum, but the sources don’t appear very reliable, so we still doubt that’s happening.

(Yawn.) And this is going to be Apple’s final appearance at Macworld. Talk about going out with a "thud" rather than a bang.

 
[Digitimes via Gizmodo]

Photo: Jami3.org/Flickr

An iPhone Nano launching at January’s Macworld Expo? You don’t say.

It’s
unlikely, but a few websites are drumming up rumors about the fabled
gadget. An image purporting to be a leaked photo of the iPhone Nano suggests
the device is just like the original iPhone, except shorter and less
wide.

Boring. Apple designers are a lot more imaginative than
that, aren’t they? But while we’re in the spirit of wishing, here’s a
list of features Wired.com would like to see in an iPhone Nano, if one
ever sees the light of day. 

Dual-Screen Clamshell Design
In order to deserve the name "Nano," this iPhone needs to be
considerably smaller than its bigger brother. It should easily slip into a pocket, to the point where one could barely even notice
it. If all Apple did was scale down
the original iPhone, as "leaked" photos suggest, it would be difficult to
control the touchscreen without a stylus. Imagine typing on one of
those things or playing with an app!

Instead, Apple should embrace a clamshell form factor similar to a patent the company published
in 2006 (left). We’re taking this a step further: Folded up, the phone
resembles the iPod Shuffle (same buttons), with a very small, always-on screen to
display status icons (e.g., missed or incoming calls).

Unfolded, the
iPhone Nano would look somewhat like the fourth-generation iPod Nano —
except a second, low-powered touchscreen would replace the scroll wheel. The low-powered touchscreen would display a dialer once the phone is opened. The screen above would be the primary, fully powered one, and this would display the apps. The bottom screen would change depending on which app is open on the above screen (e.g., if the SMS app is open, the bottom screen would turn into a virtual keyboard.) You’d also be able to unfold the phone both length-wise and width-wise. (The photo at the top of the story, illustrated by reader James Camp, is similar to our idea.)

A Separate App Store
So here’s what would make the diminutive size of our iPhone Nano
work logistically in terms of software: It would have its own App Store. The current App Store is
cluttered enough; imagine how messy everything would get if developers
had to code software for two different types of iPhones. With a Nano
App Store, developers could code mini, simple apps meant to be played
around with on a two small screens. Heck, this would
even create a new market for iPhone developers looking to strike it
rich.

Universal Landscape Mode
In order for a mini iPhone to not be a pain in the butt to use, landscape mode should work for everything.
Not just Safari or the video player, which is how the original iPhone
works. We’re talking text messaging, e-mail, third-party apps. Make
this happen, Apple — and while you’re at it, think about doing the
same thing for the current iPhone.

Built-in, Beefed Up Voice Recognition
The current iPhone doesn’t have voice recognition, and a Nano
version would need it even more. Apple could even step it up a notch
and make voice-enabled text messaging, e-mailing and web search to work.

Those are just some ideas that sprung off the top of our heads.
What would you want in an iPhone Nano? Submit your suggestions and vote
on your favorites in the Reddit widget below.

What do you want in an iPhone Nano? Submit your suggestions — and drawings, if you want — in the Reddit widget below. Then vote on your favorites!

Show suggestions that are: hot | new | top-rated or submit your own prediction

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See Also:

• iPhone Nano Rumors Continue, Look More Legit
• Possible iPhone Nano Photos ‘Leaked’
• Rumor: Apple Definitely, Probably Not Working on iPhone Shuffle …
• iPhone Nano To Be Announced Within Next Decade

Photos: James Camp, Apple

This article was written on May 04, 2007 by CyberNet.

Today begins the day that Yahoo will be closing down Yahoo Photos, a process that will occur over several months.  When Yahoo photos originally started, Flickr hadn’t yet been acquired.  It seems like at this point, there really isn’t a need for Yahoo to maintain two photo services.

Users who have been using Yahoo Photos will be able to move their photos over to Flickr of course, but they will also have the option of moving to Shutterfly or the Kodak Gallery.

News.com called Flickr the black sheep of photo sites because it uses a different organization system, a more technical way to do it that doesn’t exactly appeal to everybody which is why they are giving other options. 

Yahoo photos has stood its own ground for quite a while, and a graph that TechCrunch posted shows that it wasn’t until recently that Flickr managed to edge out Yahoo Photos in terms of visitors.

If you use Yahoo Photos, definitely give Flickr a try. I love my Flickr account, and the organizational system is great. It takes a little bit to catch on, but not long, and in the end I think you’ll prefer it.

Microsoft/Yahoo Merger?

In other Yahoo news, is a Microsoft/Yahoo merger in the works? The Wall Street Journal is reporting that it appears Microsoft and Yahoo are taking a second look at a merger, one that would be able to compete with Google. A year ago, they started the talks, but nothing came of it.Mashable says that the estimated pricetag for Yahoo would be a whopping $50 billion dollars!

It makes sense, Google is taking on Microsoft with their online applications, and Yahoo and Google have always been competitors with multiple services besides the search services.

Could this be the acquisition of the year?

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