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A slew of apps updated today, and 9to5Mac gathered the most noteworthy ones in our regular round up below. Today’s crop includes new additions to popular iOS games, including an app going Retina and some sales, and we will continue to update this list throughout the day.
Other than the launch of the new Instagram clone “Facebook Camera” app, the biggest update today goes to the popular Tweetbot Twitter client for iPhone that is now at version 2.4. Included in the massive update is a new search view, as well as access to Trends, Top Tweets, and People that are now together in a single browse section. Nearby tweets were added with an option to change the location, and a ton of improvements to search, including location-based keywords and the ability to change trends’ location from within search view. And, that is only some of the features and fixes included Tweetbot 2.4.
Below is a complete list of features included in the update, with other notable apps and updates to hit the App Store today including the Infinity Blade II: Vault of Tears content pack.
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Epic Games and Chair Entertainment, developers of the popular on-rails, hack-and-slash iOS franchise called “Infinity Blade,” just announced the two titles have earned over $30 million since the first game launched in the App Store in December 2010. Assuming “earnings” accounts for total earnings, Apple’s 30 percent cut would be $9 million.
Epic Games, Inc. and its award-winning Salt Lake City-based development studio, ChAIR Entertainment, today announced that earnings from ChAIR’s blockbuster Infinity Blade video game franchise have eclipsed $30 million in just one year since the introduction of the original game. One of the most popular gaming franchises to be launched on the App Store, the award-winning series has also created significant licensing interest in the underlying Unreal Engine 3 technology from developers worldwide.
In the announcement (via Joystiq), the developers also noted that Infinity Blade II reached over $5 million in net earnings since its release last month on Dec. 1, 2011. In comparison, it took the first Infinity Blade title three months to achieve that milestone. The first game now accounts for more than $23 million of the franchise’s earnings.
The original Infinity Blade is available as a universal download for $5.99 here. Infinity Blade 2, which IGN gave a “Perfect 10” score, is available for $6.99. The companies also noted a number of other products in the franchise were released, including the Infinity Blade: Awakening digital novel (on Amazon here), and the Infinity Blade: Original Soundtrack.
Epic Games President Dr. Michael Capps said the following in a statement:
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Infinity Blade is to the iPad what the Halo series is to the Xbox 360 (or the Gran Turismo franchise to the PlayStation 3). That is, a killer game – a title so compelling that not only does it showcases what’s possible on a platform, but is also so impressive that folks go out and buy the hardware just to be able to play that particular game. A killer title for iPad gamers has to be Chair Entertainment’s Infinity Blade.
Classed as the first iOS game to run on the Unreal Engine, Infinity Blade went on to become the fastest-grossing app in the history of iOS, selling $1.6 million in four days. Three major updates later, Chair Entertainment launches Infinity Blade 2, a sequel to the elegiac action masterpiece. Here’s the blurb:
Journey into the world of the Deathless tyrants and their legion of Titans. Build skills and upgrade characters… all while delving deeper into this mysterious, timeless adventure.
Expect forty new locations (up from ten in the original title), many new hit points, weapons and spells, plus a bunch of other nuances and nice-to-haves. Chair is already thinking post-launch, teasing an update with the Clash Mobs feature where a bunch of other players attack a monster with millions of hit points. In case you were wondering, IGN gave Infinity Blade 2 a 10. A cornerstone of the sequel is, of course, graphics.
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The game features console-quality lighting effects.
The game runs fine on the original iPad, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and third- and fourth-generation iPod touch. However, you’ll want to enjoy it on your iPad 2 or iPhone 4S due to optimizations that really push the envelope of what’s possible on Apple’s A5 chip, especially in the lighting and shading department. Make no mistake, this is one game that you’ll want to show off to your Android-toting friends.
More information is available at the official site. The game hit the New Zealand App Store this morning. You should expect it in the U.S. store around 11pm Eastern time tonight at this URL, priced at $9.99 (a 941MB universal binary download). To celebrate the launch of Infinity Blade 2, Chair slashed the original Infinity Blade to just six bucks for a limited time. Release notes and more clips after the break, including Donald Mustard (creative director), Adam Ford (artistic director) and Geremy Mustard (technical director) talking the visuals.
More videos below:
The winners were announced at WWDC yesterday:
Just in time for the iPad 2 launch today, first triple-A iPad games have received timely updates designed to take advantage of the gizmo’s advertised nine times graphics performance increase. Enhanced versions of both medieval sword fighting Infinity Blade by Chair and Electronic Arts’ Dead Space for iPad just went live on the App Store, proudly advertising prettier and more complex graphics made possible by the A5 chip inside iPad 2.
