iOS Devices

The Game Center compatible-games are beginning to populate, starting with Ms. Pac-Man earlier, and now two awesome titles from Firemint. Both of Firemint’s popular iPhone titles, Flight Control and Real Racing, were updated today for Game Center. They should hit the App Store very soon.

Feel free to add me on Game Center. I’m Gurman.

Update: The updates from Firemint appear to now be live, and some games from Pangea including Cro-Mag Rally were updated for Game Center also. Firemint Game Center integration screenshots and app update logs after the break.

More Updates: Farmville and iMobster Don have been updated for Game Center. – Thank you loyal reader, Randall! The very popular World Series of Poker was also just updated for Game Center! – Thanks, Kevin.

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We reported that Game Center’s first compatible title hit today, and users are already playing it. Here is our first look at “High Score” boards and achievements.

The main multi-player screen for Ms. Pac-Man allows access to the leaderboards, the achievements center, and recent games stats:

The leaderboard screen ranks all the gamers by score and you can choose to view this list for “all time,” “today,” or “this week.”:

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Last week we discovered that Apple has included a vibrate mechanism on the new iPod touch as an accessibility tool for those unable to hear when a FaceTime call is incoming. Well, today Apple has amended their iPod touch accessibility page removing the line you see highlighted in the screenshot below.

It is not clear while Apple decided to remove the vibrate function from the iPod touch as it seemed like a pretty neat feature for consumers but even better for those really in need of it, like the deaf. The folks down at iFixit even tested this by simply receiving a FaceTime call on their iPod touch 4. They can confirm Apple’s change in plans. This does not even seem to be some Apple copy/paste or photoshop error as they were very clear to say “a vibrating alert – on your iPod touch.”

Well, it looks like Ms. Pacman is the first game to support Game Center. TUAW says it’s crap though.

It’s $4.99 so if any of you have it, feel free to send in your impressions and screenshots to tips@9to5mac.com. Also, let us know if you discover anymore Game Center-compatible titles, mK?
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One other major difference between the iPhone and the iPod touch:  The iPod touch, because of its razor thin size, lacks the battery heft of the iPhone 4.  Compare the battery sizes below:

iPhone 4 (left) 5.25 W/Hours vs. iPod touch 4th Gen, 3.44 W/Hours (right)

Obviously the iPod doesn’t require 24/7 3G radio power as well so the difference isn’t as profound in the real world as you might initially expect.
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In a tweet comparing the specs of the new iPod touch and the iPhone 4, DF’s John Gruber said the new touch has half the iPhone’s RAM.

That would be 256 MB as compared to the iPhone 4’s 512 MB. iFixit has just confirmed this!

Oh.  You just got your new iPod touch with video recording.  You might want to pick up iMovie as well.  Apple has a freshly updated version for you as well as some additional features for current users.

Thanks@SquidgySam!

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Apple updated its iOS SDK today to build 10M2309.

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Go get it!

Here are direct download links via IOS.e-lite.

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Apple Stores and other brick and mortars like Target have the new iPods today.  Below is a picture of a happy Target customer/9to5mac reader Jay:

Unboxings are coming in from all over.  iLounge have rushed to open up their new music players, publishing (rather nice) unboxing photos of the new products.

The photos include all seven colors of the iPod nano and the new FaceTime-capable fourth-generation iPod touch.  If you can wait a week, Amazon has some significant tax free discounts (up to $15 off).  More images below.
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Computerworld: Introduced last week it seems Apple has built a new class system presently favoring major label artists in its social network for music, Ping. Meanwhile if you’re a music fan and want to contribute to the discussion, bad luck, you have no posting rights beyond comment as Apple’s iTunes thought police do their best to keep control.

Read more

Apple’s iPhone 4 seems set to hit the insanely populous Chinese market as the device has won key approval from government agencies there.

The company has won a China network license for the iPhone 4 from China’s Telecommunication Equipment Certification Center. That’s broadly in line with statements from Apple’s Chinese iPhone carrier, China Unicom, which has previously said it expects to offer the iPhone in China later this year.
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Those jailbreakers seem to know when it is about to rain.  Their advice to other jailbreakers?  “Don’t hit the button, it’s a trap.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dddAi8FF3F4&fs=1&hl=en_US&hd=1]

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti6daTBZx00&w=700&h=415]

This is the world’s first intelligent stamp, delivered by the UK Royal Mail. This is an augmented reality experience in partnership withb AR specialist junaio. Point your iPhone (or Android smartphone) with the juniao app running at any of Royal Mail’s Great British Railway Special Stamps and you will launch video footage of Bernard Cribbens reciting the W H Auden poem “Night Mail”.
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iPhone isn’t just playing games, it’s the smartphone for making money, at least that’s how it looks when you ponder PopCap’s boss, Dave Roberts, who points out, “I continue to be amazed at how much business we do on the iPhone.”
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Here’s a weird one from Chris Anderson, editor of Wired:

That would be lame.

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The new iPods will be arriving in stores tomorrow and many will be getting them in the mail over the next few days as well.  Fittingly, Apple has lifted the embargo on reviews and they’ve come flooding in.

Engadget weighs the pros and cons of the new Touch:

As we noted last week, the iPod touch doesn’t get the same IPS display as the iPhone (above).  It doesn’t have a GPS or a good still camera either.  But that’s about the only bad things you can say about these things which for many will be fantastic portable devices.  It gains A4 processor, Retina display, front and back cameras, gyroscope, and vibrate.  They continue to have the same price-points (Apple sold a previous generation 8GB version for $199 before)

I personally would have traded a few millimeters of thickness for even a two or three megapixel still camera and GPS.  The screen angle differences in the real world won’t matter that much.  On the Flip side, cameras add a whole new dimension to these devices and gaming with the new screen, processor, Gyros and A4 chip is going to be on a whole other level.

The Nano review, because it is an entirely new form factor, is a bit more interesting…

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The new iPod shuffle had a busy day today.  First iLounge took theirs out of the packaging (always an exciting event).

Perhaps a little bit more exhilarating…
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If you are an iOS developer, you better go chase your Gamecenter username back down pretty quick because Apple reset all Gameceter IDs without any warning this morning.  They also clarified their intentions on putting the service on 2nd generation iPods but not on the slightly slower iPhone 3Gs.

That means Gamecenter via iOS 4.1 are coming via Software Update pretty soon here.
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Every time you do a Maps.app search on your iOS device (or on a Mac) and see a brand logo, Google gets some cash it was revealed today.

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