Square Enix has recently launched a tower defense game for the iPhone called Crystal Defenders. The game uses Final Fantasy characters such as the Black Mages and follows a standard tower defense format. At $7.99 for the full version, and a free Lite version, it’s worth checking out.
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The guys who made this app are easily the funniest guys in the business. Their app is not only great but the press release they sent out is so sarcastic it’s amazing. The app, turns your screen black in order to create a reflection. Here is what they have to say about it:
“We’ve spent almost 8 months in R&D developing technology to put a black background on your iPhone. Go ahead and stare into your iPhone with pride. Our aim is to provide millions of people with that sort of confidence in their lives,” said Dan Paik, CTO of Juice Wireless and the mastermind behind the Mirror apps.
Imagine that wasn’t sarcasm? I would seriously wonder what they were doing during their 8 months of R&D.
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Nokia Image Exchange in now available in Nokia Beta Labs. The app is an always-on, always-connected, experimental image gallery that enables users to browse and share images with people they know. With all the camera phone pics going around, it makes sense for Nokia to develop this app. Also, their phones have the best cameras on them. It has been tested to work on the following devices: N95 (all versions), N85, N82, N81 (all models), E71, N76, N78 and Nokia 5320 XpressMusic (as well as many other 3.1 and 3.2 S60 devices). While it has been tested to either NOT work or have some issues on the following: N96, E90, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.
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Okay I won’t post too many more iPhone game releases but I know you’re stoked about Metal Gear for the iPhone. The game is based on the characters and story from Metal Gear Solid 4, and according to Konami, 8 levels will be available in the game with more stages to be added later. I’ll keep you updated about its release.
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EA has launched an iPhone version of the classic game SimCity. SimCity is what started it all. Before virtual worlds were popular, SimCity had everyone going nuts over the idea of making their own city. Created by Will Wright and originally released for the Mac and Amiga in 1989, the game has been a hit release after release.
SimCity is now available for $9.99USD through the App Store.
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I love the idea of console games coming to mobile. Back when QB was first starting out, we were solely about mobile games. The problem was, they all totally sucked. It made for a really cynical blog that pretty much only doled out bad reviews. Most of our hate was concentrated on the RAZR and every game that came with it. I constantly talked about how the day will come when mobile gaming will be fun and we’ll have genuine console ports. It’s incredible that I’m still blogging and that day has come.
Katamari is now available for the iPhone. Heck yeah! The game costs $8 on the App Store and although I haven’t played it yet, it seems to have most of the functionality of the original game.
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Pastebud is the latest attempt to bring cut and paste to the iPhone. The app is a bookmarklet/webapp combo with a fairly interesting setup process. What you do is head to Pastebud’s site, drag the bookmarklets to your browser toolbar, and sync your device. Once you’ve installed the bookmarks (and probably re-arranged them higher in your list), you can head to any web page containing text you want to copy to a web form or email. Hit the “COPY” bookmark, and all the page text gets sent to Pastebud and put into a JavaScript-powered applet, where you select the particular text to copy by tapping and dragging to select. Seems like a pretty intense system doesn’t it? The app works but can we please just get an OS update that does all this natively? The app costs $5 and it has a somewhat annoying feature that involves attaching a “copied from Pastebud” note at the end of every paste. No thanks.
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Making a good iPhone app is fairly simple once you realize that people are looking for quick fun and they’re motivated by conspicuous consumption. It’s a totally different purchasing system than for a device such as BlackBerry, where you are buying an app out of a specific need. The fact that the iPhone cannot run apps in the background is the main proponent of this purchasing system. Their are a plethora of apps out there for other devices that become useless on the iPhone. For example, one of my favorite apps is an IM aggregator. Why bother with one on the iPhone? If it can’t stay running while I’m browsing the internet and let me know if a message comes through, I’m not spending a penny on it. With every other smartphone on the market, this isn’t the case.
The iPhone turntable app is a great example of something that would sell well on the App Store. It is a fun little app that you can show your friends, get a few minutes of fun out of, and you’re done with it. The app features a dynamic turntable that you can backspin, scratch and pause. You can even pick up the needle and drop it on a different track while the record is spinning. So if you’re an iPhone app developer, I think you would bode well to think small, fast and simple. Save your expensive app development projects for a different smartphone.
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At the 3D Entertainment Summit last week, James Stewart, producer/director at Geneva Film Co. claimed he had “the world’s first 3D iPhone.” What he really had was an advanced copy of 3Dee!oadr by Spatial View.
3Dee!oadr gives you the option to select side-by-side images from Flickr and convert them on the fly to an anaglyph you can view with 3D glasses. It also lets you to search, view, and manage your Flickr account from your iPhone. You can even save Flickr images to your iPhone for later viewing.
The app launched a few days ago and I’m not sure if you can say “the world’s first 3D iPhone” because it’s very misleading. I can’t quite put my finger on why, but for some reason I think you would have to have the ability to create 3D without using special glasses in order to make such a claim.
In any case, 3Dee!oadr is available on the app store right now for $1.99.
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Every BlackBerry user has a special love for their BlackBerry theme of choice. As one of the few ways users can personalize their BlackBerry, it’s a pretty significant statement: do you choose something trendy like an iBerry theme, or relive your youth with a Super Mario Bros theme?
We were recently contacted by DreamTheme, a company that is looking to evolve BlackBerry personalization beyond simple themes with LiveScreens. LiveScreens are essentially animated homescreen applications, but there’s more to them than meets the eye. Hit the jump and come check out one of the coolest new things you can put on your BlackBerry.