04.22.09
Posted in iPhone Apps, iPhone Games at 11:55 am by mc
I will admit I was late to the Mafia Wars party. I actually avoided it altogether on the iPhone until a friend got me hooked on it on Facebook. So today I decided to put it on the iPhone and I am even more hooked. I am adding and growing my mafia left and right. This is a lot of fun. So I am going to share my Mafia Code:
8702 2331 05
Feel free to leave your Mafia Wars code here. Also I know there are a lot of knock-offs out there, but if anyone wants to recommend any of the knock-offs they find as addictive as the real thing, please let me know.
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04.19.09
Posted in iPhone Rumors at 5:01 pm by mc
Well someone who posted over at Mac Rumors seems to think so. At least their wife who had a meeting with Hulu reps claims that they are working on an iPhone app for their site and it will launch this summer.
This is obviously not confirmed at this point, but let me just say to any Hulu execs reading this, I would be a huge fan of a Hulu interface for the iPhone. If you can keep it within the advertising model even better. I love your site and if you could bring your content to the iPhone, it would be a monster offering for portable devices. I really hope this is true. While I got your attention Hulu execs, could you also make your service available on the Roku?
Update: Apparently the Silicon Valley Insider is all saying that there will be a Hulu application for the iPhone.
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04.18.09
Posted in iPhone Games at 6:25 pm by mc
Call me stoked when I was doing my not-often-enough browse through the App Store look for something to download on my iPhone, when I got nothing better to do, and I came across Galaga. Previously I had been impressed with the turnout of games like Pacman, for example, but I was never really a Pacman guy back in the day, but I was definitely a Galaga guy. So when I saw Galaga Remix, I was intrigued. I have to admit though I am a perennial cheapskate though, so the $5.99 price tag took me for a bit of a loop as I am never really sure how much interest such a game will hold for me. In other words, will I play it once and then never play it again?
So I filed it away as a cool blast from the past and something I might consider in the future and went back to my browsing. This is when I got to the free applications and found Galaga Remix Lite. Now the price was right for me. I realized it was probably a very limited reproduction but that is okay I just wanted a taste of the old days. So I downloaded the Lite version and started it up. First I chose the arrow controls over the slider controls, because it seemed to make more sense, although I was a little concerned about my abilities to play Galaga on the iPhone. So as it loaded up, automatically in landscape mode, I got ready. I was hit by the music first, then the very nice graphics and I was engrossed. I was able to clear the first two levels even though one of my dogs attacked me on the second screen. That being said, the game was over, and now I had to decide what to do.
As soon as I finish writing this, I will be forking out the $5.99 as Galaga is one of those games that never gets old. The only game that might capture me more is if someone made Tempest on the iPhone, although I am really not sure how that control would work.
Check out Galaga Remix or Galaga Remix Lite.
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04.13.09
Posted in Apple News at 12:50 am by mc
Apple is celebrating the impressive fact that their App store is nearing 1 billion downloads worldwide. Regardless of how you do the math it is impressive. They are also having a contest to give away a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, an iPod Touch, a Time Capsule and a Mac Book Pro. Certainly a prize package worthy of any Apple fan’s eye.
The puzzling part is the rules are not clear. On first glance I believed all downloads of applications between now and the 1 billionith download would count as one entry into the contest. (They also have a form for people who don’t want to “buy” free downloads.) This was capped with a maximum of 25 downloads/entries a day.
However some language in the details on Apple’s site seem to indicate the winner will be the person who makes the next download or entry AFTER number 999,999,999. The only thing downloads previously to that would count for would be to break a tie if downloads happened simultaneously. I hope that is not the case as that is a crazy contest that does not encourage anyone to download until the last minute which will undoutedbly crash all of Apple’s servers and make the whole thing an unsatisfying mess.
On the other hand if they count each download (maximum of 25 per day) as individual entries in a big lotto for the prize they will have a nice and steady increase in downloads without a massive peak at the last minute. Everyone enjoys the contest and someone wins. Could they have gone a bit deeper in the prize pool and given out some more items of lesser value as well? I think so, but not my contest and not my money. So in the meantime assume that each download, up to 25, per day will count towards entries into the contest, until Apple clarifies otherwise. No reason to lessen your chances.
Personally, I am downloading free applications for the most part and then just synching apps I want to keep on my phone. My phone was already maxed out on applications so I had no room for 25 new ones a day. So download free ones to fill it out. If you have a few pay-for-applications you have had your eye on then get those now too. Also a note to all iPhone Application Developers. Not a bad time to offer programs up for SALE right now with all the interest. People are going to be downloading anyways, let them download from you.
Here is the link to Apple’s page about the One Billionith Download and you can even see the faux counter they have counting it down!
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04.11.09
Posted in iPhone Apps at 3:46 pm by mc
I recently found Twitter (you can follow my inconsistent tweets here), and am looking for the best twitter application for the iPhone. Right now I am using Twitterfon and have had no problems with it. It allows me to tweet, view people I follow, post pictures etc. The problem is I am not experienced with Twitter so I don’t really know if this application is missing any functionality.
What iPhone Twitter applications do you recommend?
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Posted in iPhone Apps at 3:12 pm by mc
Is there a good suite of network monitoring tools out for the iPhone? I want to be able to punch in my websites and have them saved, then when I run the application it will just go through them all and check all the services I want to see if it is available. Then as long as I keep it open it will keep polling on some interval I can set myself.
Along with that basic ping, nslookup and other network tools would be great. I went looking for this in the App Store and I could find nothing close. If someone wants to go to the next level, when Apple introduces the push service, set up a monitoring service that will push alerts to my phone. I would pay a good monthly fee for this as long as I could monitor all my sites/servers.
If anyone has any recommendations let me know. I will be more than happy to check out any apps tht might work and give them a review.
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