Macenstein

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.... 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... Read More

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... 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... Read More

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  Read More

Won’t somebody think of the Children?! 32 Excellent iPhone Games for Kids

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... 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... Read More

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... 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... Read More

A prime example of why Apple needs to overhaul the App store – and the solution

There has been much complaining on the interweb of late about the amount of useless/worse than useless apps cluttering up the iTunes app store, with some folks even calling for Apple to overhaul the approval system. Now, obviously an app that may appear useless to one person might be deemed critical by another, so it would be nearly impossible for Apple to make judgment calls on which apps to ban and which to let through. Yet the problem is real, and needs to be addressed. To... Read More