iPad By Davis: “The pigs hijack the Curiousity Mars Rover in Angry Birds Space for iPhone and iPad” plus 19 more

The pigs hijack the Curiousity Mars Rover in Angry Birds Space for iPhone and iPad
Korean court rules on Apple v Samsung patent infringement
iOS 6 preview: Maps takes you on a Flyover
Doodle Jump adds ninja theme and in-app purchases
Gameloft shows off Wild Blood, their Camelot set, Arthurian Epic Unreal 3 game for iPhone and iPad
VOTE!!! brings Infinity Blade-style fighting to the U.S. Elections
Samsung opens its flagship electronics store in Sydney Australia, claims it didn’t copy the Apple Store design
iOS Game Review: Amazing Alex amuses, but doesn't amaze
Pad & Quill Back to School Sale: Free Shipping and 10% Off for iPad Insight Readers
Walmart joins iPhone price cut parade, as new model looms
Make notification banners less obtrusive with MiniBanners [jailbreak]
Quick Look: Drafts for iPad
TechHive: Updates to iOS Facebook app offers plenty to like
Review: Dell V525W multifunction produces nice output, but ink is expensive
TechHive: The Power Mac G4 coffee table
Facebook Messages: A rundown of its new look
With the Galaxy Note 10.1, Samsung brings a stylus to the iPad fight
Facebook 5.0 brings faster, better, stronger native app to iPhone and iPad
Microsoft unveils new logo, signals the future by clinging even more tightly to the past
iMore show 307: What if Google had never made Android?

The pigs hijack the Curiousity Mars Rover in Angry Birds Space for iPhone and iPad

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 08:48 PM PDT

Angry Birds Space, the one where Rovio's billion dollar birds chased their popular pigs clear out of orbit, has been updated in fairly geeky, spectacular fashion:

NASA and Angry Birds team up for the most epic episode yet! The piggies have hijacked the Curiosity Mars Rover -- but instead of searching for ice crystals, they're looking for eggs!

You get 20 new levels of Mars busting madness, as well as 2 more antenna egg levels. Work your way past enormous, explosive volcanoes, and avoid the firestorm of falling stars. And meet the new astronaut pig, whom I'm assuming has all the wrong stuff... Find three rovers and landers to reveal bonus levels, and learn even more about Curiosity Mars Rover and NASA.

The Angry Birds franchise certainly isn't new anymore, but they keep finding ways to give the hugely popular game fresh new angles and compelling new content, and bringing NASA and Curiosity Mars into it takes Angry Birds Space to a while new level. No pun intended.

Grab it now from the App Store!

$0.99 for iPhone - Download Now

$2.99 for iPad - Download Now

Korean court rules on Apple v Samsung patent infringement

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 08:31 PM PDT

Korean court rules on Apple v Samsung patent infringement

Reports are starting to come in that state Apple and Samsung have been found guilty of infringing on each others patents by a Korean court. Apple has been found guilty of infringing 2 patents and will be hit with an import ban and a $35,000 fine. Samsung may also be facing a fine or ban for infringing on Apple's elastic scrolling patent, but the court ruled they didn't copy Apple designs or violate their trade dress.

Details are scarce at the moment, coming entirely from tweets and fragments by the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. We'll update as the news becomes clearer and more complete.

Any Korean patent attorneys out there care to add some context and color to this?

iOS 6 preview: Maps takes you on a Flyover

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 08:09 PM PDT

With iOS 6, the Google-powered Maps app is gone and in its place is an all-new, all-Apple Maps app, with data supplied by TomTom and others. While Google-specific features like Street View are gone, new Apple-specific ones like Flyover will now be available. Based on 3D techniques Apple acquired when they purchased C3 Technologies, it looks almost cinematic.

Now some may argue that Flyover doesn't provide anywhere near as useful information as Street View -- identifying the front of a store you're looking for is more helpful than identifying its roof -- but it's early days for the new Maps app and its features.

Flyover won't be available in all cities at launch. The exact number of supported cities isn't settled yet, though Apple has shown off San Francisco, Cupertino, Sydney, and a few other places. They're likely still busy improving the quality and quantity ahead of launch.

Here's how Apple introduces Flyover:

See major metro areas from the air with photo-realistic, interactive 3D views. Explore cities in high resolution as you zoom, pan, tilt, and rotate around the city and its landmarks.

Based on what Apple's shown off, here's what we know about Flyover so far:

Apple (and before the, C3 Technologies), has flown through major metropolitan areas with helicopters and planes

Using that data, they built 3D models of the cities, including buildings, roadways, and other features

And incorporated them into the new Maps app on iPhone and iPod touch, and iPad

The 3D models are available in both Standard and Satellite view, and the Hybrid.

Though the Satellite view is inarguably the most impressive, and what Apple reserves the Flyover name for.

Tap an attraction, you can whisked away to it, with Hollywood quality, cinematic camera pans. All the buildings are rendered in realtime, so you can pinch, zoom, and swipe your way around 3D space, and change camera angle just as easily as you do anything else on multi-touch.

Again, Flyover won't make up for anyone who depended on Google Street View for a curb-side look at where they were going, but nor is it meant to. This is a birds-eye view, closer akin to something like Google Earth. Sure, it makes for a great tech-demo, but it also makes for a great way to virtually explore the cities and attractions around us, near and far.

iOS 6 is scheduled for release this fall, perhaps as soon as September 19. For more on iOS 6 and Siri, check out:

Doodle Jump adds ninja theme and in-app purchases

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 05:27 PM PDT

The classic endless jumping game Doodle Jump has had a big update that includes a bunch of new unlockables and a big change in its pricing structure. There's now a store built in, where players can buy new outfits with different abilities. For example, a sumo outfit stomps platforms to shake off enemies off the screen, a shadow outfit which hides you from monsters, and another which enables double jumping. Coins are now peppered throughout levels to help you acquire your new items, upgrades to the propellor hat and jetpack, and one-off power-ups.

If you've never played it, Doodle Jump has you perpetually ascend by leaping on an endless series of platforms. The controls are deceptively simple, since all you really have to do is tilt your iPhone or iPad to drift towards your next target, but the challenge of landing on firm ground without falling and avoiding enemies can make things rather challenging.

Good on Doodle Jump for keeping things fresh after this long, and as a fan of ninjas, this theme gets my personal seal of approval. Are any of you guys still playing Doodle Jump, or have you burned out on that one years ago? Is it a terrible thing that basically every game, paid or otherwise, is drifting towards in-app purchases?

$0.99 - Download Now

Gameloft shows off Wild Blood, their Camelot set, Arthurian Epic Unreal 3 game for iPhone and iPad

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 05:20 PM PDT

Speaking of Epic Unreal 3 powered games, Gameloft has recently shared the first look Wild Blood, their God of War-style action adventure title coming soon to the iPhone and iPad. You're Lancelot, you've bedded Queen Guinevere, and you've driven King Arthur so mad with jealous rage he's partnered with his insane half-sister, Morgana, to reap bloody, demon-fueled vengeance on you -- and all of Albion with you. VentureBeat got an early preview:

As one of the knights of the fabled Round Table, Lancelot naturally comes with a bevy of weapons and special abilities. Though you'll start out with just one giant sword, your arsenal increases as you earn experience points; in the demo (shown on an iPad 3), a leveled up Lancelot dual-wields a pair of magical axes and shoots enemies from afar with his bow.

Combat leans toward a simple combo system that feels very responsive and smooth as Lancelot dodges and rolles his way through a large group (around a dozen or so) of demons. In a matter of seconds, these creatures became nothing more than a fine bloody mist.

Hopefully that means Excalibur makes an appearance, and cuts the realm in quarters. I really enjoyed God of War, and I've really enjoyed the relentless pace Gameloft has set for mobile gaming in general, and iOS in specific.

Anyone else eagerly anticipating pulling this sword form the App Store stone just as soon as inhumanly possible?

Source: VentureBeat

Free - Download now

Samsung opens its flagship electronics store in Sydney Australia, claims it didn’t copy the Apple Store design

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 02:41 PM PDT

Samsung opens its flagship electronics store in Sydney Australia, claims it didn't copy the Apple Store design Samsung, who is currently locking horns with Apple over various infringements with regard to cell phone and tablet patents, has just opened another retail store. This store is just a block away from Apple's own store in Sydney, Australia and what's more if you walked in without noticing the missing Apple logo outside, you may think you had walked into an Apple Store. Samsung claims otherwise but this store and the last store that Samsung opened in Canada appear to come straight from the Apple book of retail. The latest store details come from a report by The Sydney Morning Herald.

It's a flagship consumer electronics store on Sydney's George Street with smiling blue shirt-wearing sales staff, a minimalist design and smartphones and tablets that invite customers to pick up and play. But according to Samsung, the new store - just a block from Apple's Sydney store - was all its own idea.

Samsung Australia's vice-president of telecommunications, Tyler McGee, said Apple "didn't even come into the equation when we were looking for a location [for the store]". But come on, the layout of the store is pretty similar, right? "Well, if you look at our layout this is the layout that we use around the world and it's about basically giving the consumers the opportunity to interact, learn and play with our devices," McGee said.

Surely Samsung could have come up with at least a few original ideas; they even dress the sales staff in the traditional blue polo shirts worn by Apple Genius staff. The layout of the stores with the light wooden bench tables all laid out with working products is far too similar for it to be classed as an original Samsung idea. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but it's all getting a little bit silly now. Samsung can copy only so much from Apple, at the end of the day, Apple's customer service is second to none, I bet Samsung haven't fully copied that part yet and probably never will.

Take a look at the video below which gives you a brief look around the store. What do you think? Is Samsung trying to deliberately copy Apple's proven blueprint for retail success?

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

iOS Game Review: Amazing Alex amuses, but doesn't amaze

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 02:30 PM PDT

Rovio's follow-up to its Angry Birds success is a decent and enjoyable physics puzzle game, though not a particularly exceptional one.

Pad & Quill Back to School Sale: Free Shipping and 10% Off for iPad Insight Readers

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 02:03 PM PDT

Pad & Quill are having a Back to School sale this weekend, with free domestic shipping on all their products from today through Sunday – and reduced shipping for international orders.

The folks at Pad & Quill have also been kind enough to provide a 10% off coupon code for iPad Insight readers. Pad & Quill are the makers of lovely handmade (in the USA) cases for the iPad, iPhone, MacBook Air and more cool devices.

I reviewed their Graduate Edition case for the new iPad last month and found it to be an excellent case all round. I've got a few other Pad & Quill cases I've been trying out and they're all equally impressive.

If you're after an elegant and effective new case for your iPad or one of your other Apple devices, you may want to give the P&Q sale a look. It has already started – and here's the coupon code to use for 10% off:

Code: PD43

Happy case shopping.

Walmart joins iPhone price cut parade, as new model looms

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 01:42 PM PDT

If you want a well-priced Apple iPhone, now is the time to go deal-hunting at Walmart, Target, Sprint, and other phone sellers. Here's the scoop.

Make notification banners less obtrusive with MiniBanners [jailbreak]

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 12:37 PM PDT

Make notification banners less obtrusive with MiniBanners [jailbreak]

If you've got a jailbroken iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and have never been a fan of notification banners or how they take up the entire top of the screen until they decide to roll away on their own, MiniBanners may be for you.

MiniBanners aims to make notification banners less obtrusive by miniaturizing them. You can choose what position you'd like them to show up in such as top left, center, or right or any other position on the screen as well as customizing the animation type. By default MiniBanners will only show the app name that's receiving the notification and a notification count. A long press on the banner will show a preview within the banner but the notification will not go away until you actually view it. This is a nice feature considering you'll still have the reminder in Notification Center in case you can't respond right away.

minibanners for notifications on iphone ipad ipod touch jailbreak

Inside the main Settings app you have quite a few options for customizing MiniBanners just the way you'd like. The options include changing the font color or background color, including transparent, as well as moving the notifications around and controlling the opacity of banners. The only issue I see with MiniBanners at present is that longer names in texts cut off and the badge count appears over it. While this isn't a huge deal, it can be rather annoying if design and presentation mean a lot to you. For regular apps it isn't an issue as app names typically aren't that long to begin with. The only time this issue really presents itself is with text messages where you've got a full first and last name stored for a contact.

Overall, MiniBanners not only works surprisingly well but brings a fresh take to notifications to your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Whether you're tired of not being able to access the top status bar when a notification pops up or you've just grown bored with the regular old notification banners, you really can't go wrong with MiniBanners.

$0.99 - Cydia Search Link

Quick Look: Drafts for iPad

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 12:52 PM PDT

Drafts for iPad has just hit the iPad App Store today, and it's quite a versatile app to have around. There's been an iPhone version of the app for a few months now – and it has very popular in the productivity apps category. Here's a little about the app's uses, via its App Store page:

Drafts is the quick, easy way to capture and share text. In Drafts, text comes first – open the app and get a new, blank draft – ready to type. Don't get bogged down in a timeline just to tweet or post to Facebook. Don't tap your way through multiple screens to get down an email or SMS. Don't navigate folders, create files and name them just to jot down a note or create a todo.

In Drafts you can get that text down quickly and decide what to do with it later. Extensive output options let you send text to Twitter, Facebook, email, SMS, a Calendar event, quickly save it to Dropbox or Evernote – or forward it to a growing list of other Apps such as OmniFocus, Things, Phraseology, The Hit List, Byword, Sparrow and more.

It's touted as 'truly where text starts on iOS'. I've been using a pre-release version of the app for a few days now and I'm impressed by it.

(...)
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Post tags: iPad app reviews, iPad productivity apps

TechHive: Updates to iOS Facebook app offers plenty to like

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 12:00 PM PDT

On Thursday, the company announced that it had rewritten its Facebook app for iPhone and iPad from the ground-up.

Review: Dell V525W multifunction produces nice output, but ink is expensive

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 11:45 AM PDT

Excellent output makes up for this color inkjet multifunction's deficiencies, but its color ink is expensive.

TechHive: The Power Mac G4 coffee table

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 11:15 AM PDT

The classy coffee table gives old Power Mac G4s a new lease on life.

Facebook Messages: A rundown of its new look

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 10:30 AM PDT

Facebook is rolling out a new version of its Messages. While you wait for the changes to hit your account here's what to expect.

With the Galaxy Note 10.1, Samsung brings a stylus to the iPad fight

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 10:16 AM PDT

With the Galaxy Note 10.1, Samsung brings a stylus to the iPad fight

Samsung has released a new iPad-sized tablet and, of course, our Mobile Nations sibling site Android Central has a complete Galaxy Tab 10.1 review ready and waiting for you. Will it give Apple a run for their money in the large-form tablet space? Sadly, doesn't look like it. Here's Anndrew Vacca's bottom line:

The Galaxy Note 10.1 is unique and stands out among a seemingly endless sea of competitors, though not always in a good way. Samsung has stepped back and reshaped its tablet strategy, now focusing on user experience rather than specs alone, and if you keep an open mind about the included S Pen, you just might find it more handy than you would have imagined. However, we believe the $500 you'll spend on a base Note 10.1 would be better spent on two Nexus 7s. However, if you've got your heart set on a full-sized tablet, the Galaxy Note 10.1 is the way to go if you want to keep from breaking the bank.

I've used Wacom tablets for years. When I did design in enterprise software, it was the only sane way to navigate Photoshop and Illustrator on two really large monitors. I like Wacom's technology very much. I haven't had a chance to try the Galaxy Note 10.1 myself yet, but I hope, if nothing else, they've nailed the Wacom experience.

However, nailing the Wacom experience isn't going to do diddly squat against the iPad. They need to nail the tablet experience, and unfortunately it doesn't sound like they've done that. I've been using a Nexus 7 constantly for about a month now, and even that doesn't come anywhere close to the experience of an iPad, so if Samsung isn't even matching the Nexus 7, that's a big problem.

The S Pen-touting Galaxy Note 10.1 will be both a blessing and a curse for Samsung. On one hand, Samsung has created a device that stands out amongst its competitors with unique features and a truly different user experience. In the same breath, the S Pen is sure to scare away folks who balk at the idea of reverting back to a stylus. I'm here to say that love or hate the S Pen, the Galaxy Note 10.1 just may be the best 10-inch Android tablet on the market today.

And if that's truly the case, that's a bigger problem for Google and for Android.

Apple owns the 10-inch tablet market right now. Owns it in a way a market hasn't been owned since Windows began its ascent in the early 90s. Apple will probably never get to 90+% (which is a very good thing -- we want lots of competition), but when the iPad mini launches this fall, they'll likely grab a huge percentage of the 7- to 8-inch tablet market as well. Especially if the Nexus 7 is the best even Google can manage. (The iPad mini won't be a big iPod touch like the Nexus 7, it'll be a small iPad, with all the software implications that involves).

Samsung has been incredibly successful battling Apple on the phone front. They, or someone, needs to bring that same pressure to Apple on the tablet front. And soon please.

In the meantime, go read the entirety of Andrew's Galaxy Note 10.1 review over at AC, then come back and let me know what you think. What will it take to get a real iPad competitor to market?

Facebook 5.0 brings faster, better, stronger native app to iPhone and iPad

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 10:29 AM PDT

Facebook 5.0 brings faster, better, stronger native app to iPhone and iPad

Facebook has just released the highly anticipated new version of Facebook for iPhone and Facebook for iPad, a update they've promised would make it better, faster, and stronger than ever before. That's important because Facebook has always been one of the most popular apps on iOS, yet has also been plagued by bugs and other problems unbecoming one of the largest companies in the world. And here's how Facebook's aimed to make it right:

We've rebuilt the app so it's faster and easier to use. * Scrolling through news feed is faster than ever * New banner lets you tap to quickly see more stories – no need to refresh * Photos open fast and close with one downward swipe * Instant access to your notifications

Now, here's the deal: Facebook may have re-architected their app to use native display elements instead of building everything out of HTML5, but they're still pulling almost all their content from the web, and that won't be significantly faster. So, while scrolling and other elements of the user experience are indeed improved, any time you try to pull anything not already cached, it's still going to take its sweet time.

That's why Facebook dedicating themselves to making great iOS apps is much more important than any relative claims of speed improvement or interface implementations. Facebook wanting to be proud of their mobile apps is what matters, and what I hope gets validated going forward.

In the meantime, grab the update and let me know how it works for you. Is this the Facebook for iPhone and iPad app you've been hoping for? Answer here or Facebook me at Rene Ritchie)...

Free - Download now

Microsoft unveils new logo, signals the future by clinging even more tightly to the past

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 09:52 AM PDT

On Microsoft's new logo

Microsoft's new corporate logo has updated their corporate logo for the first time in 25 years and... it looks more like a Windows logo than a Microsoft logo. As a Windows logo, it would be brilliant. Clean, square, solid, and Microsoft's new logotype, Segoe, is really nice. It's so nice, it could easily stand alone without the Windows logo next to it. And they really should have let it.

But alas, that's seemingly not to be. Microsoft and Steve Ballmer have let the Windows brand permeate its way even into the corporate logo. It's almost as though there really nothing to Microsoft's aspirations beyond Windows anymore. And that's disappointing.

It's not like the Windows brand is the only thing Microsoft has to offer. I spoke about this at length already in my piece on the Surface. It's been around since the 90s. It's not fresh or sexy anymore. It's been on beige boxes in cubicles forever, it's been the butt of BSOD jokes for what feels like an eternity, and it's carried now like a cangue around the neck of every next-generation phone and tablet and computer Microsoft intends to sell. (How Xbox managed to escape being called WindowsBox we'll likely never know, but I'm extremely happy it did.)

Conversely, the iPhone by itself now generates more money than all of Microsoft, and yet Apple treats it as a product, not as the company. Apple didn't call the iPhone the MacPhone or OS X Phone. And Apple would never redesign their logo to ditch the fruit and have an iPhone silhouette as their logo.

I've said this before but it bears repeating -- one of the greatest dangers for any company, even one as big as Microsoft, is to mistake their product for their business. Every product goes through cycles, through ups and downs, thought periods of being hot and periods of being decidedly not. Windows was on fire in the mid 90s, again in the early 2000s, but it took a huge hit with Windows Mobile and Windows Vista. If it ever tanks badly, Microsoft needs other things to take its place.

This does the opposite of that.

Windows should be one blade in an ever-increasing arsenal by Microsoft. It should be what was, but not what will only ever be. Just like iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, despite their success, remain beneath the core Apple brand. Microsoft's CEO seems intent on letting Windows subsume the entirety of Microsoft's identity, and that might just be why they've not yet managed to grow beyond it, despite decades of trying.

Ballmer, let the Windows go. Let it be the desktop and server OS, and limit it to that. Let the phone be the Xphone. Let the tablet be the Surface. Let Microsoft be known for more than one great thing. Only that will truly signal a future for Microsoft.

Go vote in WPCentral's poll, then let me know what you think. And yes, we'll be talking about this on Iterate...

iMore show 307: What if Google had never made Android?

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 09:01 AM PDT

Rene, Georgia, and Seth talk iMore Forums apps, Kenny the Clown, LTE iPhones, AT&T FaceTime face-palms, the iPad mini, and what iOS would be like if Google had never made Android? This is the iMore show!

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