Macenstein

After a hectic 48 hours, Aurora Feint is back online

Well, it’s been a hectic couple of days for the programmers behind Aurora Feint, the highly acclaimed (and then highly criticized) free RPG puzzle game for iPhone. Earlier this week word broke that Aurora Feint’s “community” feature was copying user’s contact lists, and when used, sending them out to Aurora Feint’s servers, unencrypted. Security buffs panned AF’s 2 young developers, who to their credit admitted their mistake, claiming... Read More

Win a $75 iTunes gift card, courtesy of Macenstein and and Headline

If you’re anything like me, ever since Apple opened their iTunes App store you’ve been running up quite a little tab buying apps for your iPhone/iPod touch, and if you haven’t, odds are it isn’t so much because you have amazing self control so much as you are too poor to be plunking down your hard-earned cash on an app that may suck. Well, lucky for you, we here at Macenstein feel your poverty and have come up with our easiest contest yet, and it can net... Read More

Stop Scrabble cheaters in their tracks with CheckWord

We’ve all been there, winning by a close margin in the heat of a Scrabble game when suddenly some little, yellow, spikey haired punk tries to convince us that Quijbo (A fat, balding, North American ape with no chin) is a word. Well, Faithful Macenstein reader Quinton (who sounds awfully close to “Quijibo”, if you ask me) says that the new iPhone/touch app CheckWord is a Scrabble player’s dream app (and here I’d have thought it was Scrabble). CheckWord... Read More

Developers furious over App Store “Line Cutting”

There’s a bit of bad blood brewing between developers of iPhone Apps these days. It seems several different companies have renamed their iPhone games to begin with either a space, a quotation mark, or some other symbol so that they appear first in the list of 197 games on the iPhone portal to the App Store. Jirbo, who often puts a space in the front of its applications’ names, is one of the developers trying to cut to the front of the line. One developer, who... Read More

Is Apple even looking at the iApps before listing them?

Take a look at this iApp, called “Hold On“. Let’s ignore the fact that there’s a good argument it really shouldn’t even have been allowed on the iApp store in the first place – can anyone make the argument that it should be listed under “Productivity“? I’ll assume IMAK Creations was being ironic when they submitted it to the iApp store, but where’s Apple’s Q/C? Were they in that big a rush to hit 500 apps for... Read More

WTF? All iApps now have a “0” popularity score

Hmm… well, we know at least 290 people must have downloaded that… Remember how we got those first quick stats about Super Monkey Ball, where we learned it had sold 3927 copies in the first couple hours after the leaked iPhone firmware came out? That’s because Apple includes a “popularity” counter below each app that allows you to see just how many people have downloaded each app (this is not viewable via the iTunes version of the app store, just... Read More

And the first iPhone game I buy will be…

Aqua Forest. Take a look at this video and tell me if it isn’t the coolest thing you’ve seen yet demoed on the iPhone/touch. Finally, something truly creative that takes advantage of both the touchscreen and the motion sensor in Apple’s handhelds. This seems like a safe way for me to satisfy not only my inner pyromaniac, but my inner carpenter and fireman as well. Now I’m just a police officer and Indian Chief away from the Village People. In addition... Read More

Awww crap… He’ll never get home using that!

ET mistakes iPod Touch for iPhone. Sorry E.T. No “phoning home” until the Skype client is released. Thanks to faithful Macenstein reader abooth for the link!  Read More

Using the world’s oldest video game to pick up chicks

Is it possible to make the classic game Pong cool again? Yes, actually, it is, although these three dorks try their best to blow it. Using their ginormous brains, these guys were able to create a 3-way game of Pong via iPod touches that are able to somehow sense each other, and pass the ball from unit to unit. It is a very cool proof-of-concept and an indicator of great things to come. In fact, it’s so cool, that approximately 1 minute 30 into the video you will hear the... Read More

Rumor: iPod Gen 2 ad at Wal-Mart?

Aside from the mysterious “gen 2”, there’s not much in this Wal-Mart ad snapshot to get excited about as the specs and prices seem the same as the current generation iPod touch. But hey, who needs a legitimate reason to get excited? This is an Apple product we’re talking about! That’s reason enough to go nuts. Thanks to faithful Macenstein reader Art Vandelay for the tip. [via ipodtouchfans]  Read More