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Posts tagged with "app store"

Foodish: Delightfully Mindful of What You’re Eating. Review & Giveaway!

Calories aren’t fun. No matter what kind of appreciation you have for food, watching what you eat while being a food-a-holic can be difficult when everyone else focuses on just the numbers. Eating should be about discovery. It should enjoyable, shared, and fun without making everything else out to be a dangerous game of cat and calories. In my opinion, it’s much better to be mindful of what you’re eating, and Foodish is exactly the kind of app that fulfills this desire very well.

Not only is Foodish wrapped in a beautiful user interface, it’s fun and simple to use. Based on good conscience alone, you simply snap a picture of your meals and rate them on a general “bad to good” scale that tracks your overall eating habits over time. The concept is great: not only can the foodie in you keep a record of all those great meals and memories, but it also keeps you aware of just what exactly you’re shoving into that pie hole. Plus, you get to totally brag about the incredible meal you’re having at that five start restaurant from within the app. It’s a win-win!

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Guinness World Records Awarded To The iPhone 4, App Store and iOS Games

The iPhone 4, the iOS App Store and a number of iOS games have been honoured with Guiness World Record awards. The iPhone 4 was named the fastest-selling portable gaming system following a first day sales figure of 1.5 million units when it was released on June 24 last year – far exceeding the previous holder of the title, the Nintendo DS which sold 500,000 units over a week in 2004.

“The release of the iPhone has not just changed the mobile industry, but the video game world too,”Gaz Deaves, Guinness World Records’ gaming editor, said in a statement. “With the never-ending App Store selection and an intuitive device, Apple has created a gigantic new space for itself in the casual games genre that literally brings entertainment to users wherever they may be.”

Apple’s App Store has also been awarded the Guinness World Record for being the most popular application marketplace following more than 6.5 billion downloads since its launch in July 2008. The App Store is also the largest downloadable video game store, which had as of September last year, roughly 37,000 games. This figure far exceeds other downloadable game services such as Steam, which offers around 1,110 games, the Xbox Live Indie Arcade, which has 1,300, and the Wii Virtual Console, which offers around 580 games. The final award gong given to the App Store was for having the largest launch line-up of any gaming system – with 145 games that were available on July 10th, 2008.

Several iOS games also received awards including the infamous Angry Birds which received an award for being at the top of the paid apps list in the most countries after selling more than 6.5 million copies since being released in December 2009. Plants vs. Zombies was awarded for being the fastest-selling iPhone/iPod strategy game with more than 300,000 paid downloads in just nine days. It also received an award for being the highest-grossing strategy game in the App Store – generating about $1 million for its developer, PopCap, in just over a week. Lastly, the Tap Tap Revenge game series was awarded the most popular game series in the App Store after more than 15 million downloads since launching July 2008.

[Via LA Times]

Microsoft, HTC, Nokia File Complaints Over Apple’s “App Store” Trademark

Several technology company heavyweights including Microsoft, HTC, Nokia and Sony Ericsson this week filed formal complaints against Apple’s attempt at getting the terms “App Store” and “Appstore” trademarked. In their complaints they formally ask the Community Trade Mark office in Europe for a declaration of invalidity, claiming that the terms are far too generic.

In a statement, a Microsoft spokesperson said that Apple’s application was an “unsupportable claim of exclusivity” and noted that the terms “App Store” and “Appstore” are like “toy store” or “book store” – a generic tem “that should continue to be available for everyone to use for stores that sell apps.”

Microsoft has also heavily invested in a legal battle started in 2008 when Apple first attempted to trademark the term “App Store” with the US Patent and Trademark Office. That dispute is ongoing and both sides have hired linguists in their legal battle.

Furthermore Apple sued Amazon in March this year, in Amazon’s response to the trademark suit they used a quote from Steve Jobs to further illustrate that even he, as Apple’s CEO was using the term “app store” as a generic term to describe online stores that sell apps:

So there will be at least four app stores on Android, which customers must search among to find the app they want and developers will need to work with to distribute their apps and get paid. This is going to be a mess for both users and developers. Contrast this with Apple’s integrated App Store, which offers users the easiest-to-use largest app store in the world, preloaded on every iPhone

[AllThingsD via CNet]

PNG Compressor for Mac Optimizes Your Images for Web

Most of the time (not all of the time), I run my iPod and iPad screenshots through an optimizer before tossing them onto the web. Usually I do this via a script I’ve set up with LaunchBar, but I wanted to take the extra step of running that command after dragging-and-dropping to just the dragging part. If you’re looking for lossless PNG compression in a simple utility, PNG Compressor for the Mac is a utility designed for quickly dragging a folder or group of images into the icon or onto the window for seamless, instant compression. As a wrapper for optiPNG (with support for Pngcrush and AdvPNG coming soon), PNG Compressor is a classy way to reduce the file size of your images before uploading to the web. Currently on sale for $0.99 in the Mac App Store, a quick buck gets you a gorgeous icon and a useful utility.

OmniOutliner for iPad Launch Overview

If I was limited to the number of applications I could install on my Mac, I would probably limit the bulk of that to those made by The Omni Group. From OmniFocus to OmniOutliner, I consistently am able to achieve a workflow standard that enables me to be agile when it comes to getting ideas off of my brain and onto virtual paper. In the case of OmniOutliner, a dated yet incredibly powerful application whose outline architecture is currently being introduced in apps such as OmniPlan, the amount of practicality it has brought to my idea well has been astounding. From typing on a blank slate to producing quick lists of app ideas, article drafts, and review checklists, the key tool in my workflow next to a good text editor has been OmniOutliner.

With a quick approval from Apple (Ken Case first announced the app last week), OmniOutliner for the iPad is now available on the App Store, bringing the quick and powerful features from the desktop app into a carefully handcrafted interface designed to be approachable and efficient. Repurposed to fit the finish and feel of iOS, OmniOutliner for iPad is imaginative in design, incredibly touch friendly, and extremely powerful for styling outlines and creating an experience that I’ve fallen in love with. I’d like to briefly cover just how The Omni Group made it all fit, and what you can expect diving into the app for the first time.

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Apple’s Eddy Cue Confirms Half of iPad Subscriber Base Shares Personal Info

Publishers whom haven’t yet submitted their magazine or news publication to the App Store fear that consumers will simply opt-out of sharing personal information if given the choice. While only names, email addresses, and zip codes can be gathered by publishers, the possible road block via a simple pop-up notification was enough to scare off the likes of Time, Inc. The New York Times, Conde Nast, and others have given the App Store a shot despite the limitation to easily retrieve customer data, and Forbes’ Jeff Bercovici has confirmed that people aren’t that uncomfortable giving that information away.

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Mobile Devices Claim Largest Share Of Digital Game Downloads

Digital game downloads have been on the rise in recent years and according to the latest NPD report, a large portion of that increase can be attributed to mobile devices which count for nearly half of all video game downloads. The report, which focused solely on full game downloads (not micro-transactions, add-ons or previously purchased games), notes that even those who owned a console would generally download more games to their mobile devices.

Following mobile devices were personal computers as the second most common platform for downloading games, no doubt driven primarily by Steam, then consoles and finally portable gaming devices (Nintendo DS, Sony PSP). Obviously it should be pointed out that, typically, a full game download for a mobile device is priced far lower than a game for consoles and even computers. Nonetheless, Anita Frazier notes in the report “Mobile gaming represents one of the fastest growing segments of the digital games market, and potential for future growth remains strong.”

Interestingly, of those that have purchased a mobile game in the past three months, a surprising 60% said they still spend the same amount on console or portable gaming device games. The report also revealed that if a game was available in physical and digital form at the same time, at the same price, 75% would buy a physical copy because they liked to own a “real” copy – the remaining 25% mainly cited convenience as their reason.

[Via TUAW]

Duke Nukem Forever Also Coming To iOS?

As noted by TouchArcade, popular yet never released console and PC game Duke Nukem Forever might be coming to iOS devices, too. Duke Nukem Forever is particularly interesting as a title as it’s become synonym of vaporware online: development started in 1997, but the game never actually came out (in spite of promotional material and screenshots being handed out to the press and fans) due to multiple delays from the original developers, 3D Realms. If you’ve been following Duke Nukem Forever’s history throughout the years, you know that the brand’s userbase came to the point where many lost any kind of hope in seeing the game officially out: that was until 2010, when game studio Gearbox revealed they had picked DNF off 3D Realms’ hands and were busy working on a full adaption and rewrite for current-gen consoles. They announced a release date for May 2010, but the game was delayed again. It should be finally coming out after 14 years on June 9, 2011, and it’s already available for pre-purchase on Steam.

Digging into the game’s manual, a TouchArcade reader found out the developers included “Apple App Store Additional License Terms” – a bunch of legalese that most gamers usually skip, but it’s intended to inform users about licensing terms, agreements, and so forth. This could mean a mobile version of Duke Nukem Forever is also in the works, which wouldn’t be surprise considering the App Store userbase nowadays and the fact that the Unreal Engine runs on iPhones and iPads. Gearbox hasn’t confirmed they’ll use the Unreal Engine in the game, but that’s a possibility if DNF is really being ported to iOS devices. As TouchArcade notes, the license terms might also refer to the Mac App Store, although Gearbox specifically stated there weren’t any announcements related to the Mac or Linux platforms – and the terms clearly mention the iPhone and iPod touch in regards to the software license.

After all these years, it’d be nice to see the Duke on the iPad.

TouchUp for iPad Gracefully Adds Effects to your Photos: Review & Giveaway

The photographs you’ve dumped onto your iPad via the Camera Connection Kit are already pretty swell, but what if you had an app that took an ordinary shot and turned it into something seriously beautiful? With TouchUp by RogueSheep, you can quickly swipe over your photographs in an elegant and friendly interface that encourages creativity. Example photos are included to get you familiar with what’s possible with TouchUp, and we’ll be taking a look at one of these pre-included items to help you get started.

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