Ummm… It’s not like they’re going to bury his albums with him guys
I have time and again admitted to not having a soul, but seriously, I don’t get this at all.
That right. How are the Black Eyed Peas on the charts?
No, seriously, why the big rush to buy Michael Jackson’s songs now that he’s dead? Are people planning to have massively depressing listening parties? Or was his death simply a reminder that he used to make music about 15-20 years ago?
Review: iHD171 HD Radio Receiver with iTunes Tagging
iPod alarm clocks have been around since time began (which was apparently 12:00AM), but none of them were as cool as iLuv’s iHD171.
I have seen many iPod alarm clocks come and go over the years and never got all that excited over them, but the iHD171 grabbed my attention enough to request a review unit because of the fact that in addition to being an iPod alarm clock with all the features you might expect (and a few you might not) the iHD171 is also an HD radio receiver. Being a satellite radio fan (as well as internet radio fan) who had long since sworn off “terrestrial radio”, I was interested in seeing what the big deal was about HD radio. For those who are not familiar, HD radio allows radio stations to broadcast multiple stations in “high definition sound” on the same channel. So for instance Read more
Contest: WWDC invite Wurdle
THANK YOU< WE HAVE A WINNER, and it is DAVE with the word "HAYMAKER"! Congrats Dave!
Attention Wurdle fans! We took at look at the new WWDC invitation Apple just put out, and the SECOND thing that popped into our head was, “Wow, that looks kinda like Wurdle!” So to that end, we thought it would be interesting to put out a challenge… What is the longest “Wurdle-style” word you can make from the WWDC invite? If you are not familiar with Wurdle, the object is to “draw” a word path from letter to letter, trying to make the longest word possible. Your finger can move in any direction, so long as the letters are touching and have not already been used. (See our “Mayor” example above).
Winner will get a $20 iTunes gift card (US only).
In the very likely event of a tie, we will use Scrabble point values to determine a winner. If there is still a tie, um, well, the first person who posted the longest of the tied word wins. And NO, you CANNOT use “MAYOR”.
Contest ends April 1st. 
Good luck!
Will Apple sell iPhone themes on iTunes?
With Apple previewing version 3.0 of the iPhone software next week, it’s a safe bet we’re going to be seeing at least a couple major new features, but will custom themes be one of them? Well, it should be. Here’s why.
First, the cell phone market is not quite the same as the computer market. Apple has maintained an extremely tight grip on the look and feel of OS X running on its Macs, forcing those looking to personalize the look of their desktops to seek out 3rd party apps such as Shapeshifter to change dock icons and colors and such. But the cell phone market is different. Each and every cell phone user has their own idea of what features are considered “deal breakers” when they choose a handset and carrier. I know personally of at least 5 “under twenty-somethings” who have held off on the iPhone due to its lack of MMS, and likewise, I know of at least a couple who held off on buying one until Apple lossened its ban on custom ringtones.
The point here is, people’s cell phones, as ridiculous as this may sound, are considered by many to be a way to express themselves to the world. Usually this expression comes in the form of a really obnoxious ringtone, designed to get everyone’s attention and hopefully illicit a laugh in a crowded movie theater, but it is an expression just the same. And while the way Read more
Building a better iTunes – A visual iPhone interface
Given how the iPhone has become the new face of Apple, even more so than the iPod, it is frustrating that Apple has completely failed at integrating a decent iPhone management tool into iTunes. I probably have 3 times as many apps downloaded as I can fit on my iPhone at this point, and keeping track of them, let alone positioning them where I want them across my iPhone’s nine screens is way more time consuming than it needs to be.
Well, take a look at the below concept video. We here at the lab have been talking about making a similar video, but we’ve just been too lazy, so we’re glad someone else got around to it.
Thanks to faithful Macenstein reader Phil for the tip!
[via Gizmodo]
A “Category 5 Engrish Storm” hits iTunes
We’ve seen a lot of ENGRISH on the iTunes App store, but we’ve never hit a Category 5 Engrish Storm until now. Behold Japanese OMiKuJi. I’m not even sure after reading this that its developers chose “English” as the “to” language when they ran Google Translate. Although I will admit, it could just be a clever marketing tactic, as Lord knows I am dying to “meet the pigging”, whatever the hell that is. Read more
Won’t somebody think of the Children?! 32 Excellent iPhone Games for Kids
Filed under: Awesomeness, Games, Opinion, iPhone, iPod Touch, iTunes
While it may sicken many of us, the fact is that many young children (we’re talking as young as 3 and 4-year olds) have iPod touches and iPhones – MY kids included. And as disappointed as I am in myself as a parent for giving them such an expensive gift, I’ve actually found that my 4 and 6-year olds both take excellent care of their iPods and (so far) treat them with an appropriate amount of reverence. This is likely due to their coveting my iPhone when they were younger, and realizing it was an honor to hold Daddy’s phone and play games on it.
Well, apparently I’m not the only negligent parent out there, as evidenced by the abundance of games and educational applications geared towards pre-schoolers (and younger) for the iPhone. As an iPhone addict and Mac Blogger I have exposed my kids to a larger selection of iPhone/iPod touch games than most, so I will share our experiences here and make some suggestions that will hopefully give you an idea what apps might be worth taking a chance on and plopping down your hard earned cash on. Most of these games are not specifically made FOR young children (in fact most are decidedly NOT) , but I have found that young children can not only handle them, but actually find them more engaging than the predominantly lame kid titles. And believe it or not, kids actually DO learn while playing games. For instance, my kids know if they blow up 6 Orange Robots in Fieldrunners, at $20 each, they can afford to buy a lightning tower and upgrade it once. I’m so proud. Read more
Amazon Introduces Game Downloads Store with 30-minute playable demos – like Apple should have
Amazon has launched its new Game Downloads Store, which gives users the ability to download over 600 game titles priced at $9.99 or less. While not quite a threat to the iPhone app store ( the service is currently PC-only and aimed at the desktop market) it does have a nice feature that I wish Apple had adopted for the iPhone – namely, the ability for customers to download and play games for a free 30 minute trial period.
One of the major complaints about the iTunes store from both developers and customers alike is that users have to buy an application in order to rate it. This obviously led to many unfavorable reviews on the app store by people who paid for an app only to find it didn’t live up to their expectations.
The “solution” many developers decided to go with was to offer both a regular and a free “lite” version of their game which would give customers a chance to play a couple levels of the game before deciding whether it was worth plunking down their hard-earned cash on.
Well, this model creates two big problems. First, by “doubling up” on apps, the already bloated and unnavigable app store becomes even more so. Take a look at the Top 100 paid apps and the Top 100 free apps, and you will find quite a bit of crossover between the two, with lite versions of paid apps dominating the Top Free List. This stops many TRULY free apps from reaching the Top 100 list, which is pretty much their only chance at getting noticed.
But the second, and more important problem is that while offering a lite version of a game is fine for some games, it doesn’t work for all of them, and doesn’t work at all for most non-game developers (that’s right, there ARE apps other than games for the iPhone).
What if your game is not one that is broken into easily manageable levels? What if you can’t just let users play the first 3 levels of your game? And what about the overlooked developers who are not making games at all? What about utility, location-based, or business-based app developers who have no real way of offering a “lite” version of their application without crippling its purpose? What if you have a drawing application? Do you offer 3 colors in a lite version and hope people can imagine what they could draw with more colors? How would a GPS-path tracking or “find stuff around me” app put out a lite version that would still let you experience it’s features? OR even a Boob-jiggling application? Limiting people to one boob is not really an option.
The answer to both problems is to do what Amazon is offering with their service – time expiring apps. While I feel that for the iPhone the 30-minute limit is likely too long a trial period (many iPhone games can be defeated in that time) introducing a “10-minute or two launches” type of business model would go a long way to helping the free apps gain a voice, as well as give the non-game making developers a chance to let people evaluate the usefulness of their app without risking disgruntled reviewers bashing their products.
Apple slowly warming to the idea of iPhone porn
It was just last month that Apple banned the 3D breast jiggling app iBoobs (potentially the greatest iPhone app of all time) from the iTunes app store, sighting its offensiveness (presumably to women) as the reason for the rejection. But what a difference a month makes! Check out these two new apps that just hit the iTunes store today.
First up is iFloaty, a tribute to those pens you used to buy that had a sexy girl on them. Turn the pen upside-down, and the girl’s clothes came off – turn it right-side-up, and back they came. Or at least I assume they did, I always kept my pen upside down. This app works just the opposite – clothes off when upright, clothes on when upside-down.
Next up is Shake Mates. Shake mates takes a different approach to undressing your cartoon gal pal. Here, as the name suggests, you shake your iPhone. The more you shake the woman, the more clothes come off – just like in real life.
Out of the two, Shake Mates’ chick is clearly hotter, but you need to shake pretty vigorously to get her clothes off, and they only stay off for about 6 seconds – then you must start again. Shake Mate’s developers Papa Gong claim more girls are on the way, as well as a male version for the ladies. I’m not sure why they’d want to ruin their app, but OK.
So, are these apps offensive?
I have a wife and a daughter, so I am sensitive that apps like this can be deemed offensive by certain people. However, I also have a Read more
iQuief: Rethinking Apple’s App Store censorship policy
Hmm… remind me again why we wanted Apple to drop its ban on gross or offensive iTunes apps? I don’t remember hearing anyone mention they wanted to have a queefing app, but maybe I was too busy hoping for porn to notice. Anyway, the good news is that (in what will surely be a death blow to RIM) we now have iQuief to hold over BlackBerry users!
“Bored with all those run-of-the-mill fart applications? Want to impress your friends and intimidate enemies? Like the bewildered looks when you explain what a quief (sometimes spelled “queef”) is? This is just the app for you. Simple one-click interface places a variety of cute toots.”
Well, I certainly am bored with all those run-of-the-mill fart applications, but I sincerely doubt my enemies will be intimidated by this.
