Rock’n'Roll – Review

Rock'n'Roll Icon

 

Rock’n'Roll is a new funny game available on the App Store. The protagonist is a little round “fish” (or what it is) that wants to save his friend: to do this, he has to come trough different underwater mazes. In this game you have to move the maze to move the fish by moving the iphone with the accelerometer or by using your finger (set one of the two possibilities in move Options).

Moving the phone with the accelerometer is well calibrated and the mazes are pretty exciting. Graphic could be a bit better, but it’s ok. Sometimes it could happen that the app crashes, also if with a new release some problems were fixed.

Apple’s 14th October KeyNote

Today, 14 October 2008, in the Town Hall of Cupertino, CA, from about 10:00 in the morning, Steve Jobs and his colleagues Tim Cook and Jonathan Ive presented the new MacBook & Mac Book Pro series: completely new design and structure (this time this laptops are made out of only one metal platen) and some new features, like the glass trackpad and the re-designed keyboard.

The keynote is still not available as a PodCast on iTunes, but it’ll be there tomorrow or in two days.

Visit Apple Official Website.

14th October Keynote Ad

White Noise Update (version 2.0)

  

White Noise Icon

A new 2.0 update is available today on the App Store for White Noise: this 30 Mb app is in Healthcare & Fitness category, but I would say in the Entertainment category too.

This program contains a lot of different sound effects that are supposed to relax you, and that is true. You can choose from 36 different sounds (like thunder, beach, fireplace, shower…), adjust the volume and also set a timer if you don’t want to waste all your iPhone battery by falling asleep relaxed by this application. 

Unfortunately, this update (or new purchase) will cost you 0.99$ against the last version that was free.

Winterboard – Review

Winterboard Screenshot

Winterboard is a little but powerful application: it changes the theme of the iPhone. That means that you can also set a “real” wallpaper (under the icons of the Home Menu) and not only in the “Slide to Unlock” window. There aren’t any options or instruction, the app simply shows all the themes and mods available on the iPhone. It’s available in Cydia and in Installer, unfortunately not in the App Store (for the moment). You can directly download themes on the phone or copy them in the folder ([root]/Library/Themes) from a computer. 

It’s also very easy to create customized themes: simply create a folder and put inside all images and files that you want to use for the theme (of course you need to give them an exact name and save them as .png).

In this webpage you can browse a lot of themes and then also download them.

Fring for 2.x: it’s finally here.

   

Fring Icon

It’s one of the newest free app one the app Store and already one of the most downloaded (today it’s in the third place). We’re talking about Fring.

This is the best app of his “Social Networking” category: it’s a chat and a Voip program. It

Fring ScreenShot

supports MSN, Yahoo!, ICQ, Google Talk, AIM, Twitter and SIP and, most important, it’s the only app that’s compatible with Skype accounts. In fact it allows to make pretty High-Quality calls with iPhones trough the WiFi connection, but, but unfortunately, without using webcams. Another nice feature is that you can use multiple accounts, also from different providers, and see all your contacts together.

It’s easy to use and to configure, and so really user-friendly.

Fring was available the first time from Installer for 1.1.x firmware iPhones. And now it’s still free on the App Store.

It’s possible to download it also on other devices like Nokia and WIndows cell phones.

Visit Official Fring Website for more information.

New free games from the App Store

I wrote a post about the best free apps for iPhone from the App Store saying that I would keep you updated. So, that’s the moment to do an update.

iGolf Icon

iBowl Icon

Two nice games were made by SGN: iGolf, the older one, and iBowl, a new one. This two games are evry original. In the games, instead of pointing the ball in the right direction and pressing a button for the speed, you have to move your iPhone as you would do playing the game in the real life (swinging the phone like using a golf club or like throuwing a real bowling ball. The graphic is not the best, but you have to appreciate that it’s free (apps like these would cost 2.99$ or more).

Knots Icon

Next game, Knots. It’s the family game called Twist, only for your hands. You can also play it in 2 players mode, and having fun with frineds. It’s also very userfriendly and there are only a few setups (game difficuly, esay, medium or hard, and number of players, one or two).

SolarQuest Icon

Another nice game, which is unfortunately only a demo version (the full app costs 2.99$), is SolarQuest Lite. The graphic is not bad, and the game controls respond good and fast. In this demo you can only play the first level, which is short and not very excting. I hope the full version has more different levels and locations.

Some news

All these are not officially released news that are still under construction at Apple’s home in Cupertino.

The first new they were talking about is a REAL Bluetooth support: that means, not only using the iPhone for headphones but also for transfer data from computers and from other mobile devices.

Flash Player on the iPhone

Second new, the future version of the firmware, the 2.2, will also include a Flash Player for Adobe Flash compatibility. Adobe has announced this a few days ago and has already done some agreements with Apple.

 

 

Third new, Apple starts selling unlocked iPhones in Japan too. “Wow, it will surely cost less than in the USA! All technology stuff costs quite less in Japan!” I thought. But is it really so? No, it isn’t. In fact, iPhones will cost 695$ for the 8Gb version and 798$ for the 16Gb version. Well, ok, you don’t have to take out a 60$ minimum subscription, but it’s too much for a cell phone.

Official Apple Channel on YouTube

 

 

Official Apple Channel

I just found in YouTube a quite new channel: it’s not a common Apple fan channel, it’s APPLE’S OFFICIAL Channel. It has been created the 25th September 2008 and now it’s already the most subscribed channel in this month and in this week world wide. There, you’ll find all Apple’s ADs and Guides for all products. The quality of the videos is not as good as the ones on the official Apple website (www.apple.com), but now they are accessible from more people, also those who don’t have Quick Time player. So, give a look at it: Official Apple Channel.

 

New 2.2 Software under construction

Not so long ago, the 2.1 firmware came out for our iPhones.

But already they are talking about 2.2. In fact Apple has just started sending the new BETA version of the 2.2 software for iPhone to the apps developers. But for now, nobody know exactly what it’s going to looklike. Someone says that the Copy-Paste feature is coming out with it, someone else says that it will support MMS messages. 

But the only sure known thing is that the new Mobile Safari is going to have some small changes: the google toolbar is going to be always visible on the right top, where now you see the Refresh button which is going to be inside the Address Bar.

So, the only thing to do is wait that it comes out officially, and I’m sure it won’t take long.

Here’s a image that shows the iPhone’s actual Mobile Safari browser and the possibly new one that is coming out with the 2.2 firmware.

 

Actual Safari and the 2.2 Safari

Cycorder – Review

   

Cycorder Icon

Cycorder is a nice little app that lets you record videos with the iPhone. It’s available for downloading from Cydia and it’s completely free. It’s also easy to use: only 2 buttons: the first one’s for starting recording a new video, the second one to see the already recorded videos. The app is meant to be used horizontally and so, and the top, left you can see a timer, that displays you how long the video you are taking is, and right the free space of your iPhone.

The app saves the your videos in: [root] > User > Media > Videos. [use a program like iPhoneBrowser to explore your iPhone and copy files].

“Video Recorder” is another similar app, but the video size is quite worst and, most important, it’s not free: you can download it from Installer, but then you can only take 30 videos of a maximum of 30 seconds; after that, you have to buy it for 19.95$ (too much for a program that should be built in the iPhone).