If you've read iPA for any amount of time, you probably know how much we enjoy pretty apps and games. GloBall is one of those games that's not only pretty, but incredibly well done. Its basic DNA is derived from the brick breaker genre, but it's so much more. It's got tons of visually engaging power-ups, bonuses, and enemies to defeat. Not only is it visually gifted, it's also incredibly responsive.

With over 40 levels at just $0.99 (sale price), you can't go wrong with GloBall [App Store]

I think I speak for everybody at iPhone Alley when I say that we LOVE Daft Punk. We also love free apps. So when I found iDaft, I nabbed it. Essentially, iDaft lets you be Daft Punk for the song Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger by presenting a series of pads which you tap to play the chorus. Not only can you play the individual chorus lines, but the app even comes with the song minus lyrics so you can play along with it. How fun is that?!

If you like Daft Punk, grab this app. Right now. It's free. [App Store]

One of the more impressive hardware improvements in the iPhone 3G S compared to the previous generations is the impressively powerful graphics unit, the PowerVR SGX. MICHAELSD has spotted a demo video showing the kinds of thing the new chip is capable of (after the break).

Earlier this week at the WWDC iPhone Launch Party, Freeverse announced several upcoming games they have been developing for the iPhone and iPod touch: Warpack Grunts, Warp Gate, TrackZ, Flick Baseball and Thor.

Smub.it is a handy little website that lets you share just about anything in Safari on your iPhone. All you have to do is type smub.it/ to the left of the http:// in Safari and boom, you can share that link via Email, Facebook, Myspace, Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Reddit, del.icio.us, and some other random place I'm not familiar with. It's super easy and FREE. Check it out!

Filed under: Software, WWDC, iPhone

Ben Stahlhood of ds MediaLabs presented 3 new iPhone games to TUAW when I met him at the iPhone Intelligence Party at WWDC. A 3-D version of LightRiders (think TRON), a carnival game and a role playing game designed to get role players out of the basement and into the world. Have fun watching!

Update: This video has been moved to YouTube and is now watchable.

Continue reading WWDC Live: ds MediaLabs at the iPhone Intelligence Party

WWDC Live: ds MediaLabs at the iPhone Intelligence Party originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

WWDC Live: ds MediaLabs at the iPhone Intelligence Party originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Interesting take from the Macalope this week with regards to the ongoing confusion and resentment surrounding current iPhone 3G owners and the price they’ll likely have to pay when upgrading to the iPhone 3G S on AT&T. See, the Macalope believes both sides of the debate have it wrong:

[AT&T fronting part of the hardware costs to Apple] isn’t a “subsidy” by the traditional definition. It’s a loan. AT&T is loaning you the money to buy an iPhone and you’re signing a contract to pay it off over the next 18 months. If you decide you want out of your loan, you have to pay a buyout. [...] See, AT&T gets its money one way or the other. Nobody’s “subsidizing” anything.

Even if it is more of a “loan” than a “subsidy”, though, does that make understanding the pricing model easier?

Also worth reading, In typical fashion, the Macalope thoroughly gores PCMag over their WWDC take-away — using ponies, and their reaction to today’s Safari 4 download numbers.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

AT&T Offering “Loans” not “Subsidies”?

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, App Review

There are quite a few programs that allow you to create panoramas on the iPhone. I've reviewed some of them, and they all get pretty good reviews. The differences are often in how much work you have to do versus letting the software do the alignments of the various images. Since iPhone photos are almost always hand held, there are going to be issues of the camera not always being level.

AutoStitch [App Store] is a US$1.99 app that gets most of the process just right. When you run it, it asks you to import images from your camera roll, as many as you like. They can be horizontal for a wide panorama, or stacked vertically. As an experiment I shot both vertically and horizontally, and rocked the camera significantly out of level by tilting it up to about 45 degrees. I took 10 images, and the software assembled the images in the proper order. There were a couple of gaps, where there was no image, but that was my fault, not the application's. The result was pretty impressive: not as a great image, but that AutoStitch could make sense out of the jumble of shots. You can see this image in the gallery I've created.

No panorama software I've seen is perfect. When I look closely at the full resolution images I see a bit of ghosting in the distant mountains, but overall AutoStitch is an excellent program that lets you take the pictures while it does the work. All panoramas need some cropping cleanup, and iPhoto can do this when you import from the camera. If you want to do all the post-processing on the iPhone itself, I suggest Photogene, [App Store] which will straighten and crop your photos, plus lots of other functions if you want them. It's a great US$2.99 investment. I'll be reviewing this app in a future post.

Here are some sample panos taken assembled with AutoStitcher. I've reduced the size of these images so they will load faster. You can find more on the developer's web site.

Image Examples:

AutoStitch raises the bar on iPhone panoramas originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

AutoStitch raises the bar on iPhone panoramas originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has struck again with another absurd App Store rejection. Developer Kenneth Ballenegger recently received a rejection notice for an update to an app that included only back-end bug fixes and performance enhancements, with no apparent reason being given other than that "Apple reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to reject an application for any reason."

Macworld recently surveyed iPhone owners O2 for their carrier (1,400 at the time it was written), and found that there is strong resentment toward O2 for their subsidized pricing policies. Only 14% of respondents will be making the upgrade, and 4.1% will be within their contracts and have to pay the higher price. 47.7%, nearly half, of voters said they would be waiting out their 3G contracts to get the 3G S. In fact, 21% were so outraged that they say they won't buy the new iPhone until it's on a new carrier.