Just like every year since 2008, Apple is having a special Christmas promotion on the iTunes Store. Ever day from December 26th to January 6th, users will be able to download a “fantastic selection of songs, music videos, apps, books, TV episodes and a film” completely for free on iTunes. This year’s “iTunes 12 Days Of Christmas” website went live in Europe a few hours.
You can check out the UK version (which was unavailable until today) here. Read more
As spotted by The Next Web earlier today, the Flipboard team is hiring. Most specifically, the latest job openings on Flipboard’s website reveal that the company is looking for a “Designer-Web Developer” and a “Front-end Web Developer”, together with an additional iOS developer. Flipboard was named iPad App of the Year by Apple last week in the annual “iTunes Rewind” compilation.
The web developer Mike McCue’s startup is looking for should be able to “envision and design the future of reading content online” across “web and mobile”. Standard JavaScript, HTML, CSS, PHP and Photoshop skills are required for the front-end web developer opening.
A web version of Flipboard, in my opinion, would make a lot of sense, especially considering the availability of magazine and newspaper web apps in Google’s recently launched Chrome Web Store. Flipboard for the web would directly compete with the already popular paper.li service, which allows you to build digital newspapers around Twitter links and users. What’s for sure is that if this is true, if Flipboard’s really planning a full-featured web version, we won’t be seeing it until 2011. We’d also appreciate an iPhone version, a lot.
Great results for the first game based on the Unreal Engine for iOS:
Take away Apple’s revenue and it’s over 1 million for the developers. Not a bad start, right? Now we’re waiting for multiplayer to be activated in a next update, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for “free roaming” to find its way in Infinity Blade. At least not in this first version.
DailyBooth, the popular service that allows you to communicate with your friends by sharing pictures of yourself, launched a completely new version of their official iPhone app. The app reaches version 2.0 and it’s been redesigned from the group up to accomodate new features, an improved UI and Facebook / Twitter sharing.
Last week, Apple launched a new feature for Ping users: social playlists. As the name suggests, a social playlist allows you to group two or more songs together and share the playlist with your friends (followers) on Ping.
It’s a very simple and effective concept, but the menu to get started with it is somehow buried into Ping’s homepage. Here’s how you can create your first social playlists. Read more
I know a lot of people who don’t listen to music through their iTunes library, or a Music folder saved somewhere on their computers. Every time they want to listen to their favorite band, they fire up Youtube. This behavior is particularly common among my friends, who find it “easier” to search for a video rather than organizing a media library. Maybe they just don’t want to buy songs and don’t feel like downloading pirated copies, either. I don’t really know why they keep doing this.
There’s also another reason why people listen to music through Youtube: rare footage and live performances. iTunes offers a large selection of official live performances from thousands of artists, yet Youtube manages to keep an impressive archive of unofficial, yet high quality, footage from millions of bands. That 1994 Oasis concert at New York? Go find it on iTunes if you can. Sometimes the quality isn’t exactly record-like, but the average user (and fan) doesn’t care.
That’s where an app like Grappler for Mac by The Little App Factory comes in handy: it’s a beautiful and simple utility that helps you save music and videos from the web, especially Youtube.com. It’s deeply integrated with iTunes, so you can have the best of both worlds with an organized library that relies upon a huge web archive. Read more
N.O.V.A. (Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance) by Gameloft is one of the most popular first-person shooters for the iPhone and iPad, featured by Apple at the tablet’s announcement in January. The first N.O.V.A., released on the iPhone last year, quickly jumped the charts of the App Store thanks to its stunning graphics, good gameplay and large maps.
The second iteration of the FPS – N.O.V.A. 2 – is coming out on December 16th and it looks like it will be a lot better.
N.O.V.A. 2 will feature a new multiplayer mode in 10 new maps with 10 players simultaneously. No word yet if this has been achieved through Game Center or not. The game will of course come with new weapons and improved AI for enemies, but as far as gameplay goes Gameloft has added the possibility to drive vehicles during missions. Reminds me of Halo. Graphics have been optimized for the Retina Display and previous N.O.V.A. customers will get access to “extra bonuses”.
We can’t wait to get our hands on this new version, which hopefully will be released as a universal app for iPhone and iPad this time. In the meantime, check out the new trailer featuring in-game footage below. Read more
For all those of you who were hoping to get your hands on a mobile version of Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of Lions (announced in June) before Christmas – I’m sorry, folks. The game’s not coming this year, as reported by TouchArcade. It will be released, according to a note appeared on Square Enix official Facebook page, in Spring 2011.
The iPhone version of FFT was first unveiled at this year’s E3 and scheduled for a September 15th release. Square Enix then claimed they never thought to release the game in September, and told the press FFT was still “TBD”. Various delays aside, it looks like SE has been busy improving the new game menu graphics, designing new controls specifically for the iPhone. The new screenshots look better than the old ones, and here’s to hoping that Square Enix is taking the extra time to make the entire game better, perhaps with new features, quests and enemies. An additional storyline for iPhone users would be great, for instance.
Still, these delays with brief press releases always make me worry. Because you know what else is coming in Spring 2011? The white iPhone 4. Read more
Speaking of Angry Birds: can you imagine if iOS’ most successful game was created 20 years and made available on the Game Boy or SNES instead? Frankly, I cannot – but these mockups posted over at Penney Design can give you an idea of what it might have looked like.
While the graphics are cool – and nostalgic – I don’t think Angry Birds’ current control scheme would be easy to port on handhelds without multi-touch. Angry Birds was built around the iPhone, and eventually released on Android devices. How would you control the slingshot on a Game Boy? With the D-Pad?
Game controls debate aside, Angry Birds in 8-bit looks great. I think the world would have been a better place with the birds & pigs in 1992. [via]
