The Most Ridiculous iPhone Game I’ve Ever Played

In these past four years, I’ve played a lot of iPhone games. From Doodle Jump and Angry Birds to Real Racing and Chaos Rings, you can find any kind of game you want on the App Store nowadays. But a game like Pah! wins the long-awaited MacStories award of “most ridiculous iPhone game I’ve ever played”.

Available in the App Store for $0.99, in Pah! you have to control a spacecraft using your voice. Okay, many games have voice control options. Problem is, in Pah! you actually have to shout “pah” to shoot and “aaahhhh” to move up and down. That’s right: pah, pah, aaahhh, ahhh, pah, pah. Directly into the iPhone’s mic. You will look like an idiot, guaranteed. And I can tell you, playing this thing with your friends around is a rewarding experience. I haven’t laughed so much for an iPhone game since the original fart app was released. And maybe more.

The game itself isn’t a masterpiece of gameplay, sounds or level-design – but it will make you laugh. For $0.99, that’s a pretty good deal.

Samurai II For Mac: Good, Bloody Fun

For fans of the original Samurai: Way of the Warrior, we ended on quite the cliffhanger. Confronting your demons, things hadn’t turned out exactly as planned. In Samurai II: Vengeance (now on the Mac App Store), the quest for revenge will leave no prisoners. Cel-shaded environments mix with 3D combatants for a hack & slash adventure that takes you through the second chapter of the Samurai story line.

Heads up: there are some graphic screenshots behind the break (those swords can be pretty sharp), where we take a look at how well Samurai II fares with a keyboard or mouse.

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Could The iTunes Store and Address Book Look Like This in iOS 5?

A new patent design uncovered by Patently Apple today gives us a hint at some interface elements Apple may implement in future versions of iOS, perhaps as soon as iOS 5 is released later this year. The patent doesn’t provide many details and the mockups realized by Apple are nowhere near the final style of an iOS product, but they can let us speculate on the interface changes several apps will likely go through.

In this patent, Apple has focused on browsing the iTunes Store and accessing the Address Book. The main concept seems to be that raw lists of items – songs, artists, and even contacts – should evolve into a visually richer experience based on “tiles”, rather than vertical lists. Does that ring a bell? Yes, at first I thought of the Windows Phone 7 UI – but the implementation Apple is envisioning here is quite different. From what we can see in the sketches posted online, the design looks like a mix of the Finder’s standard icon view and the iTunes album art screensaver: there’s a grid containing albums and songs in the iTunes Store and a different contact visualization in Address Book with a series of thumbnails for all your friends, and a bigger one in the foreground for the contact you’re currently talking to / editing in the app. Apple is calling these things “Segmented Graphical Representations”, and from a first look it sounds like they’re aiming for a more visual interaction with the OS based on thumbnails and graphics, rather than lists of text. Read more

Wooden iPad 2 Cover Is Cheap, Beautiful, And Smart

For as much as we at MacStories are in love with Apple’s Smart Cover, we’re also curious to see what kind of products third-party accessory makers will release for a device that’s got magnets and a flat surface perfect for covers and stands. Now that word about Apple’s magnet implementation is out there, it shouldn’t be long enough until we see all kinds of Smart Cover replacements come out. And while I’m sure many of them won’t offer Apple’s exceptional build quality and usability, the Miniot Cover for iPad surely is something to get excited about.

It looks like a Smart Cover, but it’s got a wooden surface that rolls into a cylinder (that’s right) to offer typing and stand modes. It easily attaches to the iPad and the wooden finish on the surface is simply beautiful. I can’t wait to try one of these things out, and I’m just going to say that Apple should allow Miniot to feature their product into the retail stores.

Shipping in a few days at €50 (it’s cheaper than Apple’s leather model sold at €69 in Europe), the Miniot Cover is set to provide a great alternative to the Smart Cover. Check out the video below. [Miniot via TUAW]
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Instacast 1.1 Casts New Features, Updated Playback Controls

If you’ve been consuming podcasts with Instacast or have been waiting for some more features to trickle down the pipe, Vemedio has opened up the fire hose with their latest update. The interface plays a huge role in making Instacast incredibly user friendly, thus interface sounds have been added to provide the audible feedback element. That doesn’t seem like much, but the biggest improvements have been made to the playback controls. Shake your iPhone or iPod touch to rewind the podcast thirty seconds, and adjust the playback speed of your podcast (if you prefer 2x speed for example) with a simple tap on the artwork. Other interface tweaks include clearer button labeling and options to control how many unread feeds you want pouring in when you add new podcasts, and best of all there’s been lots of little bug fixes that make Instacast more pleasurable.

If you haven’t dove into to Instacast yet, now’s the time. It’s only $1.99 in the App Store, and you can supplement the recommendation with our original review.

Analyst Predicts Apple Will Be Bigger Than IBM and HP→

Analyst Predicts Apple Will Be Bigger Than IBM and HP

Founder of Forrester Research George Colony thinks Apple will outgrow IBM and HP, keeping its steady 50% sales growth rate year after year:

They’ll be bigger than IBM next year, and they’ll be bigger than HP the year after that,” Colony said, citing Apple’s 52 percent sales growth last year. At current growth rates “they’re going to be a $200 billion revenue company,” he said.

Hewlett-Packard had sales of $126 billion in the year that ended in October and IBM’s revenue was $99.9 billion last year, making them the largest technology companies, respectively, by sales. Apple ranks No. 1 by market capitalization.

HP is coming out with a tablet this summer (following the Palm acquisition), whilst IBM has become more of a research giant rather than a consumer electronic company. Apple may be bigger than both companies from a user’s perspective, but it’ll be interesting to see whether the HP TouchPad will be able to change the current tablet market landscape.

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#MacStoriesDeals - Thursday

If you didn’t already know, we’ve set up a new twitter account for Deals, it’s @MacStoriesDeals. We’ll tweet the daily deals there as well as exclusive weekend deals too. Help spread the word! Here are today’s deals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em while they’re hot!

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iPad 2 Lines Around The World [Pics]

(iPad 2 line in Sydney via BeauGiles)

The iPad 2 is coming out tomorrow in 25 countries. As announced by Apple earlier this week, the device will be available in the following countries at 5 PM local time: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. The launch was delayed in Japan as Apple is focusing on recovering from the earthquake and tsunami that hit the country two weeks ago, and helping out employees and their families.

In the 25 countries scheduled for launch tomorrow, the iPad 2 will be available in Apple retail stores and authorized resellers. With the Apple Stores opening at 5 PM (same as the US launch on March 11), it’s no surprise that some people have decided to spend the whole day in line waiting for the doors to open – but some Apple fans have really broken any record this time. Take the Sydney Apple as an example: as reported by Fortune, Alex Lee and Marius Eilertsen started waiting in front of the store on Wednesday, 53 hours before the iPad 2 launch. Crazy. They are, of course, no. 1 and 2 in line, but they had to bring chairs and blankets (and water, I guess) for their adventure. The line has grown bigger, and it’s not extending down George Street with dozens of customers waiting. Read more