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Aug 18
| OrbitalMain Category | 0 views No Comments »
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Orbital has two gameplay variations – pure and gravity. Pure is the traditional mode that will be familiar to most and all physics are normal. Gravity is a unique mode in which spheres add gravitational forces to the playing field. 
Thus, balls can curve, and this tends to be the easier mode, and certainly my favorite, as balls are usually attracted away from the line of doom. Both modes are integrated with both online all-time scores and 24 hour scores, and you can challenge your friends through Facebook. There is also a nice “hot-seat” multiplayer in which two cannons are juxtaposed on either side of the playing field and players alternate shooting balls out of their respective cannons.
Snazzy graphics do a great job of dressing up this simple game. The retro-neon looks fantastic, and there are snazzy particle effects in no short supply. These graphics, however, come with a small price – there are occasional but noticeable frame rate drops (at least on my iPhone 3G). In addition, there are major camera issues. The camera zooms in when a ball gets close to the line, but often the ball will bounce away quickly, causing the camera to jarringly zoom out out. The camera also needs to wait till the ball is a bit closer to the line to zoom in, as frequently the zoom is activated while the ball is still far away. The audio is good, if slightly limited. Sound effects are good, and the music is pretty nice, but there is little variety.
The bottom line for the simple, “quick-play” game of this nature is whether you want to play it again, and the answer for Orbital, though it can be brutally frustrating at times, is an unequivocal “yes.” Sure, there are similar games out there for less than the asking price of $2.99, but the combined allure of the snazzy graphics, unique gravity mode, and online feature set make Orbital worth the extra cash.
Popularity: unranked [?]
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Aug 18
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I just read an interesting article by the Dev Team showing that some applications available in the App Store are spying on you, tracking your personal data and reporting this information “home”.
The apps in question are applications using Pinch Media, a mobile analytics company that aims at helping developers figure out how their users interact with their apps (ie. how long they spend on the app every day, is it accessed over 3G or wifi, etc…). Apparently, apps that use Pinch Media are doing much more than reporting your interactions with the app and go as far as tracking the following information:
- iPhone’s unique ID
- iPhone Model
- OS Version
- Application version (in this case, camera zoom 1.x)
- If the application is cracked/pirated
- If your iPhone is jailbroken
- Time & date you start the application
- Time & date you close the application
- Your current latitude & longitude
- Your gender (if Facebook enabled)
- Your birth month (if Facebook enabled)
- Your birth year (if Facebook enabled)
Pinch Media says the company is no spyware as it requires YOUR approval to track the data, but as the Dev Team explains:
Being an approved app, it must first ask you for permission to use your location. If you tap “Don’t Allow”, it will ask you again in about a minute, the next time its ad changes. So you either stop using this app (because it pesters you so much about the location question), or you finally submit and tap “OK”. From that point on, your location and path info (your actual physical path through your area each time you launch the app) belongs to Pinch Media, Inc. We think that’s a Pinch too much.
I don’t know how concerned you are about your privacy and I assume most people wouldn’t care about that. Although the data being recorded is anonymous, I am not necessarily excited about a company that doesn’t disclose what type of data is collected, and more importantly, how this data is used.
What do you think?
Popularity: unranked [?]
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Aug 18
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Babe Alarm Clock 1.1
Category: Utilities
Price: $0.99 (iTunes)
Version: 1.0 -> 1.1
align="right">Description:
* Wake up on the right side of the bed every morning – now, for a limited time, $0.99 (reg. $1.99)! *
Babe Alarm Clock plays a slide show of beautiful women in bikinis and lingerie when you wake up. The Alarm clock is as full-featured as the iPhone's built-in alarm clock but plays a slide show when the alarm goes off, allowing you to wake up to the girls of your dreams every morning!
Babe Alarm Clock downloads a new image every day, so you always wake up to a new babe!
If you like beautiful women at their finest, then this application is for you. Start the day off right!
Features:
1) When an alarm goes off, a slide show of cycles until you turn if off. Wake up to the girls of your dreams!
2) Comes with 3 "sexy" sounds and 17 "normal" wakeup sounds.
3) Multiple named alarms settings, just like in the iPhone's built-in alarm clock.
4) Night stand alarm clock mode with current time and next alarm displays.
5) The alarm will go off even when sleeping, or if the ringer volume is off.
Tips:
– To conserve battery life, instead of displaying the time, you can place the phone face down and the screen will shut off. Picking up the phone will turn the screen back on.
** NOTICE **
* Please do not buy this application if you are offended by images of sexy women in bikinis and lingerie.
* All photos are legally obtained and properly licensed.
* This application does not contain any nude or topless models, and has no reference to sex or pornography.
* Automatic babe update requires 3G access (iPhone) or Wi-Fi access (iPhone and iPod Touch)
What’s New
- Added a flashlight mode. Click anywhere on the screen when in "clock mode" to activate, and anywhere to deactivate.
- Added vibrate mode when an alarm goes off.
- Added the capability to "sleep" for 10 minutes after an alarm goes off.
- Fixed slide show image positioning. The animations slide show is much smoother, as it uses the Ken Burns effect on the slideshow.
Babe Alarm Clock
Popularity: unranked [?]
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Aug 17
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With the addition of the “landscape” mode into the Mail app it has started being used as my main method of email composition, but that could soon change. Cult of Mac reader Matt Janssen recently announced that the Mail app has a major security flaw that could allow others to view your deleted email with an easy search.
Those who use the new firmware update 3.0, regardless if it’s for the iPhone 2G, 3G, 3GS, or any iPod, might want to watch how many sensitive emails they have stored on their iPhone. Even if you delete the email…
Popularity: unranked [?]
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Aug 17
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After being released yesterday in the New Zealand App Store, TomTom turn by turn navigation for iPhone is available in the US App Store.
The application is available in four different versions:
TomTom US & Canada:
- Fully covers the US (including Hawaii and Alaska), Canada, and Puerto Rico
- $99.99
TomTom Western Europe
- Fully covers Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, France, Monaco, Italy, San Marino, the Vatican City, Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and the Canary Islands.
- $139.99
TomTom Australia
- Fully covers Australia
- $79.99
TomTom New Zealand
- Fully covers New Zealand
- $94.99
Popularity: unranked [?]
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