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Posts tagged with "app store"

Giveaway: Mix Music While Mobile With djay For iPhone or iPod touch

djay for iPhone

djay for iPhone

What would you spin with mobile DJ software that integrates directly with your iPhone or iPod music library? Scratch vinyls and interleave music with djay, your personal pocket mixer which loops tracks, fades music, and records live performance right from the palm of your hand. With nothing but a thumb or a free finger, you have precise controls over all of your music thanks to landscape and portrait orientation toggles which give you unhindered access to EQ and Automix controls. Let djay take over your playlist or pre-cue tracks thanks to the polished interface, scrub tracks, and pipe your tunes over Airplay for the ultimate in wireless beats. For only $9.99 in the App Store, it’s like having your own personal studio right in your pocket. Don’t forget about the iPad version, perfect your latest iPad 2 at only $19.99. You can also taste tracks with the Mac thanks to the version found in the Mac App Store, which can be accompanied by a wireless remote for BBQ and scratch synching. We’ve taken a look at the iPad and iPhone versions of djay previously, and we guys could get your groove on with the iPhone version. Past the break, we’re giving away two copies so you can jam wherever your travels take you.

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Rumor: Valve “Looking Into” iOS for Steam Expansion

If you’re familiar with the PC and Mac gaming scene, then you have most definitely heard of Steam: a game distribution platform by Valve that collects thousands of games in a single marketplace that’s easy to use and aggregates users worldwide enabling them to communicate through the platform. Steam, first released on Windows PCs, came out on OS X last year after much anticipation, quickly becoming many users’ favorite way of discovering and downloading games for the Mac.

Member of Steam’s forums Political Gamer recently visited the Valve headquarters and reported an interesting tidbit from his visit and talk with Valve co-founder Gabe Newell: Valve is apparently “looking into” iOS and Android as possible platforms for Steam’s expansion in the future:

After waiting in the lobby for a few minutes it turned out Gabe was in the office and wanted to say hi. To my great delight he was playing DOTA 2 when we walked in and from what I can see the game already looks very promising. After a little “sneak peek” we sat down to talk about Steam and other goings on in Valve. During this chat he confirmed that Steam will get a video recorder very soon, also he said they were looking into the iOS/Android platform for possible expansions with Steam. He also siad that the Source film maker is in the pipeline for a public release. After the chat was over he happily signed my copy of the Orange box and sent me on my way to Robin Walker.

The report doesn’t provide any additional details on Valve’s plans for a mobile Steam, and we only speculate that the development studio might be considering an iPhone or iPad client to check on your online Steam account and friends. Certainly Apple would never approve an iOS Steam app that lets you download and play games out of the App Store, whilst on Android Valve could easily deploy and alternative store like Amazon did (and got sued for the name choice). On iOS, Steam as we know it would be a difficult goal to accomplish: Apple doesn’t allow the installation of apps from alternative sources (the so-called “side-loading”) and the possible implementation of in-app purchases wouldn’t fit Steam’s growing catalogue of games.

Apple has turned its iOS and Mac App Stores into the perfect place for users to discover and buy games, and we don’t expect Steve Jobs to change his mind anytime soon about allowing other developers to “break the ecosystem” with unofficial app stores. So perhaps Steam for iOS will be a simple app to manage your online account? Or a “brand” for App Store developers to publish their games? We don’t know yet, but it’s interesting that Valve is at least looking at the possibilities offered by iOS. [via]


Apple Sues Amazon

Apple Sues Amazon

According to a brief note posted by Bloomberg, Apple is suing Amazon over the use of the “App Store” name. The popular online retail is indeed about to launch its own “Amazon Appstore” for Android devices, a marketplace to distribute and download apps. Yes, pretty much like Apple’s App Store – which counts more than 400,000 apps for iPhones and iPads and generated more than 10 billion downloads since its launch in Summer 2008.

Apple, in a complaint filed March 18, accused Amazon.com of trademark infringement and unfair competition and asks for a court order to prevent the company from using the “App Store” name as well as for unspecified damages.

Recently, Apple had a similar dispute with Microsoft. Clearly the folks at Cupertino aren’t happy with everyone using the term “app store” these days, and they’re now taking action against Amazon.

Update from Bloomberg with Apple’s statements:

Amazon has unlawfully used the App Store mark to solicit software developers throughout the United States.

We’ve asked Amazon not to copy the App Store name because it will confuse and mislead customers,” said Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Apple.

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Giveaway: iPad 2 or iPhone 4, QuickShot Is The Camera App Integrated With Dropbox

QuickShot for iPad

QuickShot for iPad

QuickShot is the camera app Apple would make if your photo library existed in Dropbox and not iPhoto. It’s designed to be simple and pleasant to use, working in the background to upload photos as you attend to other tasks and will import old favorites from your Camera Roll so they’re shared to the cloud as well. Configure your iPhone’s camera flash, enable geotagging, set focus and exposure, then snap pictures from the front or rear facing camera for scenery or photo-booth style pics. Right from your camera controls, you see your uploads with the tap of a button, and send your photos off to custom locations for sharing. Federico has taken a look at both the iPhone and iPad versions of QuickShot (and it’s all one universal app), and while you may be familiar with its photo snapping abilities, you may wondering about video. To be implemented soon, you’ll be able to record video from your iPad 2 or iPhone 4 and upload the raw file just as you do with photos. HUGE! Whether you’re working in the field or sharing photos on vacation instantly with friends and family, everyone could use a dose of QuickShot for iOS. It’s only $0.99 in the App Store if you can’t wait, but you might want to stick around. We’re going to run a relatively short giveaway so you too can have a wireless library, and you’ll want to hurry past the break to join in.

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Google Launches Google TV Remote for iPhone

Google TV Remote for iOS Preview

Google TV Remote for iOS Preview

For the few of you who may own a Google TV enabled device (or a TV such as the Sony Internet TV), your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad can now power your futuristic format thanks to the new Google TV Remote app. It’s chock full of glorious soft buttons that could take the Logitech Harmony to task, and includes Voice Search so you can quickly search for content using your iPhone’s microphone. Multiple Google TV Remotes can work over the same network as well, meaning anyone who has an iOS (or Android) enabled device can browse the television right from their lap. The app is free to download from the App Store, and we’ve included a quick video of the Android version below: the experiences are very similar (the iPhone can’t push webpages to their Google TV, however).

[via The Official Google TV Blog]

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NFC Technology In iPhones Could Also Enable Remote Computing

According to a source of Cult of Mac, Apple is planning to use Near Field Communication (NFC) not just as a method for retail payment services but also to turn an iPhone into a pseudo-ID tag for remote login. According to Cult of Mac:

…when a NFC-equipped iPhone is paired with a guest machine, part of the user’s profile includes the apps they’ve purchased through the Mac App Store. The icons for their apps appear on the remote Mac, but aren’t downloaded, our source said.

Once the guest machine is logged into; users would be able to open any of their apps, which would download on demand, although presumably only those from the Mac App Store. Documents too could be accessed and synced using MobileMe from anywhere using this remote login system and once a user leaves, the Mac would wipe any documents and applications.

As MacRumors points out, it is similar to the once promised feature of ‘Home on iPod’ that would have allowed OS X Panther users to sync their Home directory on to an iPod for easy document storage regardless of where you were. Cult of Mac claims that this new feature is currently being developed in OS X Lion but their source stresses that it isn’t guaranteed to become public.

[Via Cult of Mac]


Firemint: Flight Control for iPhone Hits 4 Million Downloads, $2 Million Budget for Real Racing 2

Developer Firemint has always been one of the biggest “players” in the iOS gaming scene with hugely popular games and Apple Design Awards won at the WWDC, and they’ve been under the press spotlight again recently thanks to the release of Real Racing 2 HD – a version of their successful racing game specifically optimized for the iPad 2 improved graphics, processor and gyroscopic controls. With more updates on the way and a brand new iOS game announced last month, Agent Squeak, Firemint has become one of the top names in the App Store for iPhone and iPad games.

In an interview with Pocketful of Megabytes, Firemint’s Logan Booker has answered some interesting questions about what’s going on behind the scenes of Real Racing and their other game franchise, Flight Control. As revealed by Booker, Flight Control, released in 2009, recently surpassed 4 million downloads for iPhone, and it keeps growing. The game was the result of weeks of sketching and prototyping back in 2008 and early 2009, when the App Store was a relatively new platform and no one really knew whether or not Apple (and third-party developers) could turn a profit out of it. Read more


We Have Five Copies Of Zen Viewer HD For iPad Up For Grabs

File managers on the iPad need not be boring nor unintuitive. Zen Viewer HD for iPad wrangles documents and media into a stylish file viewer that plays back audio, movies, pictures, PDFs, and gives you the ability to organize documents. You also have the cloud at your fingertips, thanks to Dropbox, Box.net, and MobileMe integration so you can pull files from just about anywhere. Record audio on the fly, manage files and folders (easily get files into Zen Viewer HD by drag & drop while in Manage Mode), and compress & decompress files to save storage space on your iPad. If you want to carry your Windows or Mac files around with you, Zen Viewer shouldn’t disappoint. Currently on sale for $2.99 in the App Store (with some additional artist themes costing $.99 in app), who says managing files shouldn’t be both easy and beautiful? Your new iPad should have a proper system in place for handling all of the documents stored on your home system, so we’re giving away five copies past the break.

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iOS Games Now Listed on Metacritic

As noted by TUAWMetacritic, the popular aggregator of movie / TV show / music / game reviews found online, announced yesterday full support for iOS games. For all the people “keeping score of entertainment” through the service, this means iPhone and iPad games are now listed in a dedicated section that displays the overall top-scoring games, and offers the option to filter down results by category and user score. The clean design of Metacritic and the ease of use of the system will surely come in handy to see what the web thinks of a specific game, as Metacritic basically works by aggregating average scores and reviews from highly visited websites like Slide To Play and Eurogamer.

Metacritic is proud to announce that we have added complete coverage of iPhone/iPad game reviews to our site. As many of you know, we have been publishing monthly IPhone/IPad games guides – recommending the best new iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch games available for a total budget of $30 — and this popular feature will continue to appear each month.

As the team behind Metacritic also notes, this change marks a major shift in the gaming community that has grown to accept iOS and the App Store as important distribution platforms for great games. The fact that gems like World of Goo (whose iPad version has been insanely successful), Real Racing, Tiny Wings and Aralon are being listed in the top games confirms many people’s theory that you can find all kinds of games on iOS nowadays.

The big names in the game development industry understand iOS is no platform to ignore, and just about any top console game now comes with an iPhone or iPad counterpart of sorts. On Metacritic you can now browse these games and check out what the reviewers are saying on the web, write a review yourself or even check out trailers and videos for a specific app. To see the new Metacritic page in action, head over here and start looking for your next favorite game.