OpenFeint’s Founder Talks Game Center

TUAW has published an interesting interview with OpenFeint’s founder Jason Citron here, where he talks about the future  of the platform and the Game Center announcement.

From the post:

“So why now? “Apple stumbled onto this,” he told us. “They were trying to make cool phones, an iPod and a phone coming together. They opened up the SDK, and all of a sudden there were all these games out there, and now it’s disrupting the handheld gaming industry.” We’ve seen a few hints, mostly in commercials and rumors, that Apple has been looking at the iPhone and specifically at the iPod touch as a gaming platform, but Citron believes the wind has changed for good. “I don’t think they’re thinking of it as an accidental opportunity any more. I think they’re diving in headfirst.”

And considering all the mentions regarding the iPhone (and thus the App Store) being more successful than Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PSP as a gaming device, I definitely agree that Apple is seeing this a huge opportunity.

Radium Winners Announced

Thanks everyone who entered the Radium giveaway.We also want to thank the CatPig Studios developers for the promo codes they offered to MacStories readers.

Here are the winners:

Matt

SensorPro

Henry Yue

Bruno

Sofia Fontes

Adamtree

Juan Angosto

Remy

seventoes

jaryre

Viktor

Cindy

Adam Jones

Patrick

Joresch

svenmw

You’ll receive the promo codes in your inbox in a few hours. Thank you!

Taska Winners Announced

Thanks everyone who entered the Taska giveaway.We also want to thank the bitAlpha developers for the promo codes they offered to MacStories readers.

Here are the winners:

bacce

Levi Figueira

OddIceTroll

TrevorML

perKypot

Richard Cousins

You’ll receive the promo codes in your inbox in a few minutes. Stay tuned for other giveaways coming this week. You can follow the official MacStories Twitter account as @macstoriesnet or Federico as @viticci

Twitter Acquires Tweetie, Becomes “Twitter for iPhone” Soon Free in the App Store

This is today’s big news: with an official blog post, Twitter has announced the acquisition of Atebits’ Tweetie 2 for iPhone.

From the press release:

“We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve entered into an agreement with Atebits (aka Loren Brichter) to acquire Tweetie, a leading iPhone Twitter client. Tweetie will be renamed Twitter for iPhone and made free (currently $2.99) in the iTunes AppStore in the coming weeks. Loren will become a key member of our mobile team that is already having huge impact with device makers and service providers around the world. Loren’s work won the 2009 Apple Design Award and we will eventually launch Twitter for iPad with his help.”

And there you have it guys. As I’ve just said on Twitter, we at MacStories won’t write our take on this until further details ( Tweetie for Mac, for example) come in. What we know for sure, it’s that when an indie app is acquired by “the mothership”, it usually gets screwed up. We’ll see.

Congratulations Loren, enjoy your new job.

Felt Tip Couch to 5K Review & Giveaway!

Got cottage cheese for thighs? How bought that muffin top? Moobs got you down? Now I’m not making fun of anyone, but the casual American lifestyle often carries some weight with it. We enjoy our cheese-puffs (do not get me near cheeseburger flavored Doritos), our soda, and our time in front of the television. In fact, I’d say it’s safe to say that we’re a pretty sedentary society. If you already lead an active lifestyle by choice, then I gotta hand it to you guys: please continue to lead the example. Being a reviewer and a college student, a lot of time is spent writing for MacStories (which admittedly has been slack this week), doing homework, or blowing up protoboards in the labs on campus. But you have to find time to at least get out, get active, and do something.

I’m not that tall (I’m under six foot), and right now I weigh 175. I was 180. My target weight is around 155, and it’s certainly possible now that I’ve started the Couch to 5k program. I want to feel good again - like I’m actually in my twenties. So being the geek I am, I decided to hunt out some iPhone and iPod touch applications that would aid me in completing the program. Believe me, holding a wrist watch and having to remember the training times with an attached sticky note sucks.

I got in contact with Felt Tip Inc., who makes an application by the name of the program. Their c25k app is quite excellent, and a personal recommendation for iPhone owners looking to make a change in their lifestyle as well. Running is an incredibly wonderful feeling, so why not start things off with a great app designed to get you running five kilometers non-stop.
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iPhone OS 4.0, The User Centric OS

To tell the truth, I didn’t have God knows how big expectations for the iPhone OS 4.0 keynote. Sure I was hoping that Apple would announce new features and functions, but I actually didn’t really expect the event to turn out this good. Because yes, in my opinion the latest keynote has been one of the most important since years, which is gonna be remembered in the future as the day Apple marked the path for something new and revolutionary. Yesterday, Apple showed us  that there could…there should be a better way to work with a mobile phone. To use a mobile phone. To enjoy the web on a mobile phone.

Apple has reinvented mobile operating systems.

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You Can Enable Multitasking on the iPhone 3G

Right after Steve announced yesterday that iPhone OS 4.0 multitasking is going to be exclusive to iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3rd Gen., people started complaining. Steve said that due to hardware limitations these devices won’t be able to support multitasking, but it turns out that some people have started looking into the OS beta and found out that, actually, it’s possible to have multitasking on the iPhone 3G.

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Twitterrific for iPad, Reviewed.

When I was waiting for my iPad to arrive in Italy, I spent a good amount of time browsing the iPad App Store looking for some great apps to install and try. Of course I searched for RSS apps, word processors, PDF readers but most of all, Twitter clients. As I started looking for decent Twitter apps to install and review, the most obvious choice was to give a try to Twitterrific from the Iconfactory already out in the App Store in its free version with the possibility to upgrade in-app to the premium version.

After 24 hours of intensive usage of the app, here are my thoughts about it.

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