iPad By Davis: “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City coming to iPhone and iPad later this fall” plus 14 more |
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City coming to iPhone and iPad later this fall
- Noteshelf for iPad brings calligraphy pens, pencils, custom colors, and more
- Forums: Ditching the iPad 3 to get the mini, What's your best way to preserve battery for the iPhone 5?
- Sakura Quick Math for iPhone and iPad review
- Halloween Costume Contest 2012: Email us a photo of you in costume with phone or tablet in hand and you could win!
- Amazon attacks iPad mini, forgets Kindle Fire is useless in most countries
- Marware’s iPad Mini Cases
- Upgrading to Windows 8? Here's what you need to know about iTunes!
- Here comes Hurricane Sandy: Charge 'em if you got 'em
- Letterpress vs. Words With Friends vs. Scrabble: best word play games for iPhone shootout!
- iPad Numbers & Notes from Apple’s Latest Financial Results Call
- Does iBooks 3 Vertical Scrolling Only Work for Books Created in iBooks Author?
- The new Mac mini is not only upgradeable, but easily repairable too
- Air Canada launches iOS 6 Passbook support for boarding passes
- Deal of the Day: Save 47% on the Seidio SURFACE Case for iPhone 5!
| Grand Theft Auto: Vice City coming to iPhone and iPad later this fall Posted: 27 Oct 2012 12:02 AM PDT
This is certainly exciting news for anyone who is a fan of the platform. If Rockstar's last GTA iOS port is anything to go by, expect the game to be hugely entertaining, graphically excellent and above all very true to the original. Let's hope we don't have to wait too long for it to arrive; Rockstar say this fall so hopefully in the coming weeks. We will keep you posted as soon as we know more! Source: Rockstar Games 
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| Noteshelf for iPad brings calligraphy pens, pencils, custom colors, and more Posted: 26 Oct 2012 06:17 PM PDT
Noteshelf is by far one of our favorite note-taking apps here at iMore and now it's even better than ever. A recent update has introduced pencils and calligraphy pens to the selection of writing tools, and as if Noteshelf didn't already have enough colors to choose from, you can now bring up a color pallet to get the exact color you want or choose from millions of online pallets from ColourLovers.com.
In addition to the new writing tools, Noteshelf now lets your create notebook covers from your own photos and has improved landscape support and a more flexible page thumbnail view. Although it's not mentioned in the update notes, I have also noticed that if you want to cut a section of your notes, you are not limited to a rectangular shape but can outline exactly what area you wish to cut -- this is a huge improvement for my use. Noteshelf now also supports the following pressure sensitive stylii: Adonit Jot Touch, Pogo Connect and Hex Jaja styli. To celebrate the new update, Ramki is having a sale and Noteshelf is currently available for just $2.99 (normally $5.99). I am a huge fan of Noteshelf and use it on a regular basis and this update just makes me love it even more. What do you think of the update? $2.99 - Download Now
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| Posted: 26 Oct 2012 05:46 PM PDT
Found an interesting article you want to share with iMore? Have a burning question about that feature you just can't figure out? There is ALWAYS more happening just a click away in the forums. You can always head over and join in the conversation, search for answers, or lend your expertise to other members of our community. You check out some of the threads below: If you're not already a member of the iMore Forums, register now! 
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| Sakura Quick Math for iPhone and iPad review Posted: 26 Oct 2012 04:08 PM PDT
Sakura Quick Math is an educational iPhone and iPad game for children and adults that drills your basic arithmetic skills by having you race against the clock and input your answers by simply writing them on the screen. It's gorgeous, innovative, and fun.
Sakura Quick Math has 5 different modes: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and mixed. Each mode also has 3 different levels of difficulty: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. All these modes and levels makes Sakura Quick Math great for kids in grades 1-5. To play the game, you simply answer each arithmetic problem that comes up by writing it anywhere on the screen. If you get it wrong, you have to keep trying until you get it right or you can choose to skip the question. The goal is to get through all the problems as quickly as possible, however, so skipping a question will result in a time penalty.
When you complete a round, your time and penalties will be calculated and displayed on a graph. This lets you keep track of your progress to see if you're getting better. Since a faster time means you did better, you want your graph to decrease over time, not increase! As with anything that uses handwriting recognition, it's easy to be skeptical and think "does it really work"? Sakura Quick Math is off to tremendous start with their handwriting recognition. It's definitely not perfect, but works pretty darn good. It will sometimes misread my 2's and 5's and mistake them for 8's and 6's. My husband also runs into an occasional hiccup. Unfortunately, since Sakura Quick Math is a game where speed is everything, this can be rather frustrating. But my guess is that young kids won't be bothered by this as much. The good
The bad
The bottom lineSakura Quick Math is a fun way for adults and children to test their arithmetic skills. It does occasionally make mistakes with handwriting recognition, but overall, Sakura Quick Math is a great educational app. In fact, I'm highly considering reserving my school's iPads and having my students compete against each other during class sometime this semester -- I think they'd have a lot of fun. $1.99 - Download Now
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| Posted: 26 Oct 2012 02:55 PM PDT Mobile Nations No Tricks, Just Treats Halloween Costume Contest!
With Halloween falling on a Wednesday this year, we know a lot of you will be out this weekend in costume getting your party on. Odds are you'll be carrying a phone in your pocket too. Heck, some of you will probably even be dressed up as a phone or tablet. We had a great time with our Halloween Costume Contest last year, so we're making it an annual event! While you're out in costume, be sure to snap a photo with your phone (or tablet) in hand. Then email it to us. We'll put together all the photos receive into a sweet video for the blogs. And beyond that, you can win some awesome prizes for taking part. Full details below!
What You Need to DoWhen you're out at Halloween parties this weekend or out trick or treating on Wednesday, get a photo snapped of you in costume holding your smartphone and/or tablet visibly out in hand. Be scary, funny or do a crazy pose. Whatever you want is cool. Have fun with it. For brownie points, load up iMore.com in the web browser or throw a iMore wallpaper on. Group photos with friends and co-workers are welcome too.
Submit Your PhotoWith your photo taken, all you need to do is email it in to halloween@mobilenations.com by midnight PST this Wednesday, October 31st. It would be super helpful if you renamed your photos with your username. Also, if you would like to include a caption or any other information about your picture, be sure to send it in.
How and What You'll WinCome November 1st we'll go through all the photos and pick out a bunch of winners in a variety of categories - scariest costume, funniest costume, sexiest costume, best group photo and more! We'll put all the winners and other photos received into a video collage and post it up on the blogs Tuesday afternoon. Check out last year's entries here. As for the prizes? Well... it's Halloween - which means you might get a treat, or this could all be just a nasty trick. But you know us... we like treats. We're going to keep the treats a surprise though, so take your photo this Halloween, email it in, and stay tuned. From all of us at iMore and the Mobile Nations team, have a safe and happy Halloween!! 
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| Amazon attacks iPad mini, forgets Kindle Fire is useless in most countries Posted: 26 Oct 2012 03:02 PM PDT
While announcing their Q3 numbers yesterday, Amazon took the opportunity to take a few shots at Apple and the newly announced iPad mini. Amazon listed what they think are key advantages for their Kindle Fire HD over the iPad mini, including higher screen resolutions, better speakers, and lower cost. This, perhaps, to help distract from the loss Amazon suffered during the quarter. Here's the checklist courtesy of Amazon's press release:
Amazon posted a $28 million operating loss last quarter, and they expect losses for next quarter as well. This isn't good news. Neither is Amazon is bringing specs to an experience fight, a strategy that has proven catastrophic for every other iPad competitor in the history of iPad competitors. The Kindle Fire HD is particularly amusing here for a couple of reasons. First, it's not a tablet. It's a media appliance, a front-end for the Amazon store with great shopping software and middling everything else. Second, because of that, it's barely more than a paperweight outside the small handful of countries in which Amazon sells it. The iPad mini is a full tablet, available in 90+ countries, with the best tablet software in the industry, and over 250,000 tablet class apps. So, as they say, good luck with that Amazon. Source: Amazon Media Room 
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| Posted: 26 Oct 2012 01:19 PM PDT
Even before the iPad Mini was officially announced by Apple there were already third party accessory vendors touting their wares for the new smaller iPad. So it's not surprise at all to see that in the three days since the iPad Mini was unveiled, there are already quite a number of accessory manufacturers hyping their new accessories for it. I've been receiving plenty of promo emails about iPad Mini cases and accessories since before the unveiling and the volume of them has of course increased this week. I'll be sharing some of the more attractive and interesting ones here as and when I get a chance to look at them. Today I took a glance at the range of iPad Mini cases from one of my old favorite vendors, Marware – makers of the popular and versatile C.E.O. Hybrid case for iPad. Marware have got five iPad Mini cases available already, with prices ranging from $29.99 to $54.99 -along with some other accessories including a screen protector kit and a stylus. I'm glad to see there's a C.E.O. Hybrid for the iPad Mini, available in 5 colors, which is priced at $42.99. It's currently listed as 'temporarily back-ordered'. I called Marware customer service, who are always very helpful and easy to get through to and they say these should be shipping by the end of the first week or early in the second week of November. I've ordered a C.E.O. Hybrid,as I've always been impressed with them on a number of my iPads – my daughter still uses one on her hand-me down original iPad. You can see more details on Marware's iPad Mini accessories and place an order at their iPad Mini page. © patrickj for iPad Insight, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us         Related Stories
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| Upgrading to Windows 8? Here's what you need to know about iTunes! Posted: 26 Oct 2012 11:08 AM PDT
Windows 8 hit physical and electronic store shelves this morning, and Mobile Nations' own WPCentral was up early grabbing Surfaces and giving everything a look. For iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users, however, you can also now get your hands on Microsoft's latest and greatest operating system. If you are a Windows user, like most of us, you can download Windows 8 Pro and install it straight onto your PC as an upgrade to an existing Windows installation or set up your computer as a new PC and wipe it clean. Windows 8 comes with an upgrade compatibility wizard which will check your hardware and software and let you know what is compatible and what isn't. It looks like the current version of iTunes is compatible -- but there's something you need to be especially aware of. You need to de-authorize iTunes on your computer BEFORE you upgrade to Windows 8. If you don't do this, it will be authorized as an additional machine and use up two out of your five allowed computers. To de-authorize a computer in iTunes follow these simple steps:-
If you decide to upgrade to Windows 8, you can download the update from Microsoft for $39.99 or buy it on physical media for $69.99. If you want to discover exactly what Windows 8 is all about, Microsoft has you covered with a dedicatedWindows 8 portal right here. I will be updating my computer over the weekend so should have some more information on using your iPhone or iPad with Windows 8. If anyone else does the update, let us know how it goes in the comments! Source: Microsoft 
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| Here comes Hurricane Sandy: Charge 'em if you got 'em Posted: 26 Oct 2012 10:58 AM PDT
OK, boys and girls on the East Cost. Listen up. Hurricane Sandy's on her way, and she's liable to make a mess of things next week. Just how bad depends on who you're reading, but regardless it's time to start getting ready. Here's how your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad can help.
Those are but a few ways your iPhone or iPad can get you through this. Have a tip you'd like to share? Let's hear 'em in the comments! And good luck, everyone. Stay safe. 
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| Letterpress vs. Words With Friends vs. Scrabble: best word play games for iPhone shootout! Posted: 26 Oct 2012 10:36 AM PDT
Whether you're a hardcore iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad gamer or just need something to kill time or secretly make meetings less deathly dull, word games are not only addictive but available by the truck load in the App Store. Letterpress, Words With Friends, and Scrabble are all equally addictive and, frankly, no-brainer buys. But even if they're cheap or free, no one has unlimited time so the question becomes, which iOS word game is the best? Letterpress vs. Words With Friends vs. Scrabble: Gameplay
Letterpress by Atebits is a completely new twist on word games and reminds me of the popular iOS game, Welder. When you launch Letterpress for the first time, you're given a description of how to play. From there you can start a game with any of your friends on Game Center. After you start a game you're presented with a brightly colored five by five grid of letters. The object of the game is to create words out of the letters you're given. Each word must be at least two letters long and the same word can't be played twice. You also can't play a prefix of a previously played word (so you can't play MARBLE if someone has already played MARBLES). Once you create a word you can submit it, the tiles on the board will turn blue. Your opponent's tiles will show up red. (Assuming you're using the default theme.)
The game ends when all tiles on the board are colored. Then, whomever has the highest score wins. To gain an edge over your opponent you aim to surround a letter with your color. That will lock the surrounded tile to your color (visually it looks darker or more intense). Your opponent can still use that tile to make words, but gets not points for it. Even though the game is ridiculously simple, it's extremely addictive and can vary greatly in challenge depending on the skill of your opponent. The real key it to try and lock in as many tiles as you can or your competitor will just steal them right out from underneath you. An in-app purchase lets you unlock themes and have multiple games going on at once.
Words With Friends, purchased by Zynga, is socially aware version of Scrabble. Once you start a game your letters are available along the bottom of the screen, as well as a few options and the current score. The object is to use all your tiles before your opponent, and get the highest score for words you play. Along the board are colored areas labeled with letter codes such as DL, DW, TW, TL, etc... These are areas that award double or triple points. If none of your current tiles allow you to play, you can swap them out but it'll use one of your turns to do so. Using all your tiles in one play also earns you additional points. Zynga being Zynga, Words With Friends also has a few add-ons you can purchase to enhance game play such as Tile Pile which will tell you what tiles are remaining in the game. The Word-O-Meter will also give you the ability to see how strong your word is before you play it. You can choose to buy them as you need them or purchase infinite use of them for a one time fee of $14.99. A game of Words With Friends ends when you or your opponent completely runs out of tiles. And just as in traditional board games, you'll be docked for any tiles you have remaining at the end of the game.
Scrabble by Hasbro is exactly what you'd expect from a digital version of the popular Scrabble board game. Even though Words with Friends was made to be very much like Scrabble, there are a few key differences in the original. The main one is that you have the option to play with 3-4 opponents instead of just one in Words With Friends (or Letterpress). As far as game play goes, you get the exact same letter coded board you see in a traditional game of Scrabble as well as what you see in Words With Friends. You want to go after the coded tiles to maximize your score wherever possible. And as expected, the game will end when a player runs out of tiles. Unlike Words with Friends, which charges extra for it, Scrabble shows you to the bottom right of the word exactly how many points you'll get for playing that word. Of course you can always do the math inside your head but most likely, you'd rather just know than sit their guessing or figuring out how many points a word will score you. When it comes down to game play, which game you prefer is going to be a personal preference. Words With Friends and Scrabble are very much alike (again, Words with Friends was made to be like Scrabble). Words With Friends, however, is more fluid, is arguably a better designed app, and seems to attract more players. While Scrabble is the original, I did have trouble finding friends that were using the Scrabble app which meant I ended up playing against random opponents more often than not. Letterpress is a completely different kind of word game. If you're tired of Scrabble or Words with Friends and want a fresh take on the word game genre, Letterpress is it. Letterpress vs. Words With Friends vs. Scrabble: Multiplayer support
Letterpress has built-in Game Center support which lets you match up with any Game Center friends or helps find you a random opponent. As of now, Game Center is the only way to match up with people or find friends. There's no Twitter or Facebook support. Since most people probably don't have a lot of friends using Game Center, you'll either have to bug them to join, or settle for getting matched up with random people.
Words With Friends has both Twitter and Facebook integration which makes it easy to find friends to play against. From within the app you can easily view which friends on your social networks are already playing Words With Friends. If you're in the mood to play a quick game or can't find anyone to play with, you can also choose to match a random opponent off of Words With Friends' own servers. Scrabble tries to push its own native game play service, Origin, which is anything but user friendly and can actually be downright annoying. The up side is that Scrabble also has support for Facebook, single player against the computer, and random opponents. Even so, I've found it extremely hard to find actual friends playing the game where tons of my friends are playing Words With Friends. I'm not sure if this is just contributed to good marketing on Zynga's part or if people just prefer Words With Friends. Either way, if you're looking to play more than a one on one game, Scrabble is your only option. So again, if you're okay with playing against random opponents, you won't be affected but if you prefer playing against people you actually know, Words With Friends is a better choice. Words With Friends supports multiple platforms across both iOS, Android, and computer as well as integration with both Facebook and Twitter which makes the odds of you finding a friend to challenge quickly much more likely. Letterpress vs. Words With Friends vs. Scrabble: Pricing
Letterpress is available now in the App Store for free and is a universal download for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch The only limitation on the free version is that you can only play two games at once. A $0.99 in-app purchase removes the two game limit, adds themes, and gives you access to previously played word lists. At $0.99 you really can't beat it. Words With Friends offers a free version of their iPhone app, but unless you want to be inundated with annoying popup ads, you'll probably want to purchase the $2.99 version. If you'd like it for the iPad, you'll need to shell out an additional $2.99 for Words With Friends HD. Both the free and the paid version have the same default feature set but the paid version makes the ads go away. There are additional add-ons that you can buy as in-app purchases such as the Word-O-Meter and Tile Pile. You can purchase each at $2.99 which will give you 99 Word-O-Meter uses or 10 Tile Pile uses. The Ultimate Play Pack will get you unlimited use of these features plus Word Count for $14.99 which seems quite steep in my opinion. Scrabble has a free, ad-supported version as well as a paid version for iPhone and iPod touch for $1.99. If you'd like to add the iPad counterpart you'll have to fork over an addition $9.99 which is far more than the Words With Friends iPad counterpart. Aside from that, there aren't really any other additional expenses to incur. So depending on which features you want to be able to use, Scrabble may be a cheaper option in the long run. When it comes to price, Letterpress has the best offering across iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. At $0.99 to unlock every feature the game offers, there's no contest. Letterpress vs Words With Friends vs. Scrabble: The bottom line
Letterpress, Words With Friends, and Scrabble are all great for killing time and can be incredibly addictive. While Words With Friends and Scrabble are very much the same game with different interfaces and price points, Letterpress is very different. Not only is the concept different but the actual game play experience is completely different. Words With Friends has the largest network of any of its competitors and considering you don't really need all of the extras in order to play, it isn't a bad deal. Unless you're friends are Game Center geeks, this is where they'll likely be. Scrabble just doesn't have the network or fluid experience that Words With Friends does which makes it hard to recommend over its competitor. Unless you absolutely want to play against up to 4 people at once, you're better off playing something else. Letterpress is a refreshing take on word games. While options beyond Game Center would be nice, the quick pace makes it the best time killer of the bunch. If you're into classics, go with Words with Friends and also try out Letterpress. If you want something new, just go with Letterpress. Letterpress - Free - Download NowWords With Friends - $2.99 - Download NowScrabble - $1.99 - Download Now
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| iPad Numbers & Notes from Apple’s Latest Financial Results Call Posted: 26 Oct 2012 10:01 AM PDT
Yesterday Apple had their Q4 financial results call, and shared a vast amount of information about their latest results and how each of their major product lines is doing. This included some interesting numbers and comments related to the iPad. Here are some that caught my eye: – Apple sold 14 million iPads last quarter. That's down from 17 million the previous quarter, but up 26% over the year-ago quarter. It was noted that lower sales in September are usual due to K-12 organizations doing the bulk of their buying in the previous quarter and not much in the September quarter. – They also told us at the iPad Mini launch event that they sold their 100 millionth iPad earlier this month. – It was noted that the gross margin on the iPad Mini is "significantly below" Apple's average. An indication that Apple is pretty damn keen to get into the smaller tablet space, and not cede it to Google and Amazon. – One final bit that has drawn plenty of people's attention – Tim Cook's comments on the Microsoft Surface: Cook said he gets the impression it's a "fairly compromised, confusing product." and added that "You could design a car that flies and floats, but I don't think it would do all of those things very well." Bazinga. © patrickj for iPad Insight, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us  Related Stories
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| Does iBooks 3 Vertical Scrolling Only Work for Books Created in iBooks Author? Posted: 26 Oct 2012 09:05 AM PDT
iBooks for iPad (and iOS) has been updated this week – to Version 3.0. The biggest new feature in iBooks 3 is the ability to scroll vertically through books – described like so in the update's change list:
This update to iBooks was mentioned at Apple's iPad Mini announcement event this past Tuesday, which on the face of it seems a little odd amidst the other big new hardware products announced at the event. The reason I think Apple dropped in a mention of this update is that this new scrolling feature seems like it is especially well suited to the new iPad Mini. The vertical scrolling should be a relatively easy gesture to use even while holding the iPad Mini with just one hand. I've been trying out the vertical scrolling on my iPad 3 and I like it a lot … when it works. What I've noticed though is that it only seems to work with books created with iBooks Author. I've tried several leading iBooks titles where the new vertical scrolling does not work at all – including the Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs, Guy Kawasaki's 'Enchantment', and a couple others that do not look as it they were created in iBooks Author. Maybe I missed it, but I don't recall seeing it mentioned anywhere that this new vertical scrolling feature is limited just to books created with iBooks Author and I don't see a mention of that in the App Store change list for iBooks 3.0. Perhaps it's just me, but it looks like this new feature is more limited than advertised. © patrickj for iPad Insight, 2012. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us  Comments
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| The new Mac mini is not only upgradeable, but easily repairable too Posted: 26 Oct 2012 08:20 AM PDT
The new Mac mini is the latest in Apple's staggering list of new releases to get the teardown treatment. Though the outward appearance hasn't changed much from last year's model, teardowns are all about finding out what's new on the inside. And that's just what iFixit has done:
The Mac mini looks to be the most repairable and upgradeable device Apple has released in quite a while. Adding another drive or upgrading the RAM is an easy task earning the the Mac mini an 8 out of 10 repairability score. For Apple, that's stratospheric. Also, unlike many Apple devices, the Mac mini actually doesn't require even a single pry tool in order to access the internals. The bottom simply twists off. Considering the Mac mini is aimed at being a simple and more customizable solution than a retina MacBook Pro, it only makes sense that Apple would allow certain components to be easily upgradeable. Many users seem to steer towards a Mac mini not only because they're much more affordable but because they are upgradeable which makes the Mac mini more future proof, and more functional. Any of you plan on picking up a new Mac mini? What kind of upgrades do you plan to do either right away or over time? Source: iFixit 
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| Air Canada launches iOS 6 Passbook support for boarding passes Posted: 26 Oct 2012 08:10 AM PDT
Air Canada has launched Passbook support for their electronic boarding passes, and submitted an update to their App Store app that will include iPhone 5 support and allow for on-device Passbook generation as well.
Passbook is a new feature of iOS 6 that collects all tickets, coupons, gift cards, and similar vouchers, all in one place, for convenient mobile access, including notifications and live updates. Air Canada also says they have more Passbook enhancements planned for 2013. Frankly, I hope they have better ones as well. The current version of the Air Canada app is one of those all-too-common websites in a thin app wrapper and that's never a good user experience. (Which is still the biggest problem facing Apple's Passbook in general.) I'm not going to hold out much hope that the Passbook updated version of the Air Canada app includes, you know, an actual native app, but the sooner large organizations learn that loading a web view into an app just isn't good enough, the better it'll be for everyone. There are tons of great development houses out there. Hire them, don't handcuff them, and let them make you great apps. Kudos to Air Canada for the rapid integration of Passbook, relatively speaking. Now let's see them really wow us. 
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| Deal of the Day: Save 47% on the Seidio SURFACE Case for iPhone 5! Posted: 26 Oct 2012 07:54 AM PDT |
Rockstar Games has announced that it will be bringing its world famous game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City to select iOS devices this fall. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was originally released way back on October 29 2002. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the ground breaking Game it's coming to iOS devices as well as some Android devices too.
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