Yesterday Wired magazine had finally released its iPad edition. Chief editor Chris Anderson told that the magazine now uses new publishing technology created by Adobe that allows using the same tools for creating both digital and print versions of the edition. He also admires the version created for iPad:
"It has all of the visual impact of paper, enhanced by interactive elements like video and animated graphics. We can offer you a history of Mars landings that lets you explore the red planet yourself. We can take you inside Trent Reznor's recording studio and let you listen to snippets of his work in progress. And we can show you exactly how Pixar rafted each frame of its new movie, Toy Story 3."
To create a digital version compatible with iPad (which doesn't support Flash), Adobe had to recreate it in Objective-C, The Wall Street Journal explains. Rebuilt edition has all the features of the initial version. Though the edition looks great, there are still many other features, such as search functions and social connectivity, to be added in the future issues.
Wired publisher Conde Nast also owns other magazines, but the company noted it will not create special iPad edition for them.
iPad version of Wired is available here for $4.99. It is a June issue; next issues will be available as a part of library included in application. The subscription will become allegedly available this autumn.
Navigon created a series of regional U.S. GPS turn-by-turn navigation applications for the iPhone. Each costs just $24.99. This is significantly cheaper than its more comprehensive MobileNavigator North America ($79.99).
These apps divide the United States into three overlapping segments, permitting customers to purchase discounted versions covering their area of the country. Additional regions are available through in-app purchasing for $12.99. Here are AppStore links: U.S. East, U.S. Central, U.S. West.
Navigon reports that сгккуте prices are valid through April 12th. After that date MyRegion apps will cost $29.99 for the application and $14.99 for in-app expansions.
Apple's finally announced the iPad (Apple Tablet). It is perfect for tasks like browsing, email, photos, e-books and videos. It's a half-inch thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds (680g), with a 9.7-inch capacitive touchscreen IPS LCD display and it's running a custom 1GHz Apple "A4" chip developed by the P.A. Semi team. The 10-hour battery life and a month of standby is quite exciting.
There will be devices with 16, 32 and 64GB. All iPads will get a 30-pin Dock connector, a speaker, a microphone, Bluetooth, 802.11n WiFi and optional 3G, as well as an accelerometer and a compass. There's also a keyboard dock, which connects underneath in the portrait orientation. iPad supports up to 1024x768 VGA out and 480p composite out through dock adapter cables. There is a camera attachment kit that lets you import photos from your camera over USB or directly through an SD reader.
The device is managed by iTunes, just like the iPhone and iPod Touch. iPad can run iPhone apps: either pixel-for-pixel in a window, or pixel-doubled fullscreen. Developers can also target the new screen size using the updated iPhone OS SDK, which is available today.
The 3G version runs on AT&T and comes with new data plans: 250MB for $14.99 and an unlimited plan for $29.99 a month contract-free. Activations are handled on the iPad, so you can activate and cancel whenever you want. Every iPad is unlocked (!) and comes with a GSM "micro-SIM".
The price starts at $499 for 16GB, 32GB for $599, and $699 64GB. Adding 3G costs a $130 per model, so the most expensive model (64GB / 3G) is $829. The WiFi-only model will ship in 60 days, and the 3G models will come in 90.
Simsons comes to iPhone! Unfortunately the title isn't really what the app is about. This is not The Simpsons Arcade, it's a upgraded port of a J2ME game.
The gameplay is still a lot of fan. There are many familiar characters. Simpsons fans will be impressed. The only real variety in the game is from the power ups you pick up along the way, which consist of weapons for you to use as well as other members of the Simpson family coming to briefly help you out.
Here is the first few levels, including a boss fight with Chief Wiggum and Mayor Quimby:
The iPhone game 7 Cities is a Tower Defense type game available in AppStore. The price varied from $0.99 to $4.99. Today it is offered for free. This is limited time offer, thich means it is free for a short period of time.
The game is very nice and well done, the graphics are rich but not too confusing. The goal is to defend against different attacks and to do that user has types of 5 towers and 12 different skills.
Electronic Arts, one of the biggest game developer company, EA has discounted all their iPhone games for this holiday week/weekend. You can save a lot of money:
Gameloft is having their own sale today with a few of their games reduced to $0.99. We're not sure how long this is going to last, so if you've been thinking about picking any of these up it probably is a good idea to do it now.
Here is a list of apps available at $0.99 for the Thanksgiving/Black Friday Sale:
Apple today posted two new iPhone commercials to its ad gallery and also began airing them on prime-time television. Here is a list of applications, that are used in these videos:
Here are new iPhone ads: 'Dine', ' Nature', and 'Pass'. Each one feature six applications per ad. All three commercials also mention that there are now 75,000 applications available in the App Store.
The first one is named "Dine". Here is the list of apps used in the video and the video itself:
- TripCase [App Store, Free]
- New York Subway 09 [App Store, $4.99]
- Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List [App Store, Free]
- Zagat To Go '09 [App Store, $9.99]
- Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite [App Store, $9.99]
- Gap StyleMixer [App Store, Free]
Here are a few interesting sales over the past couple of days:
Silent Hill: The Escape ($7.99 -> $0.99, AppStore link) – Konami's first person shooting game set in a creepy environment has seen a massive price drop from $7.99 to $0.99. So, if you've been curious about this title, now's a good time to try it.
Resident Evil 4 ($7.99 -> $2.99, AppStore link) – The mobile edition of Resident Evil 4. There was some very split opinions between those who loved the game and those who felt it paled in comparison to the original console version. Regardless of your position, a $5 price drop certainly makes it easier to pick up.
Dirt Moto Racing ($4.99 -> $0.99, AppStore link) – A solid off-road racer that's easily worth $0.99.
Crash Bandicoot ($5.99 -> $2.99, AppStore link) – One of the original kart racers for the iPhone, it seems they are starting to feel the pressure with Konami's Krazy Kart Racing and the upcoming Shrek Kart.
And, we've heard of one major game that will be holding a sale soon. Firemint's Real Racing (App Store link) will see its first sale this weekend dropping from $9.99 to $6.99 temporarily. The sale should be live by Saturday morning, so keep that in mind if you've been holding out.
Each European App Store is also carrying a fifth TomTom application offering a more narrowly localized version for the respective countries at a lower (~$30-40) price than the complete Western Europe version.
Benelux (iTunes link): offered in Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and covers those three countries
D-A-CH (iTunes link): Germany, Austria and Switzerland
France (iTunes link): France and covers France, Monaco and Corsica
Iberia (iTunes link): Spain and Portugal and covers Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Gibraltar, the major islands of the Balearic and Canary Island groups.
Italy (iTunes link): Italy, San Marino and Vatican City
Nordic (iTunes link): Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden and covers those four countries
U.K. & Ireland (iTunes link) - the U.K. and Ireland
iPhoneclub reports that four regional versions of TomTom iPhone navigation application have appeared in Apple's New Zealand App Store: U.S. & Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.We are expecting TomTom to appear in other AppStores.
Pricing is as follows (Users should set their iTunes Store to "New Zealand" prior to clicking the App Store links.):
- U.S. & Canada (App Store link): NZ $124.99 (US $84.41)
- Western Europe (App Store link): NZ $179.99 (US $121.55)
- Australia (App Store link): NZ $104.99 (US $70.90)
- New Zealand (App Store link): NZ $119.99 (US $81.03)
The App Store application prices include only the iPhone application and not the companion car kit.
Another developer has just entered the North American turn-by-turn GPS fray, joining Navigon, Sygic, iGO and others in providing an alternative to help iPhone 3GS and 3G users get where they need to go. CoPilot Live North America by ALK Technologies, Ltd. made it to the App Store earlier today and joins previously-published versions of the app for the United Kingdom and Europe.
CoPilot Live has all standart features: turn-by-turn navigation, route optimization, pre-trip planning, an automatic day/night mode and more. CoPilot Live North America is currently priced aggressively relative to competing apps at $34.99. The North American navigation apps by Navigon, Sygic, and iGO are currently priced at $69.99, $79.99, and $79.99 respectively.
SkyVoyager and SkyGazer are two wonderful Carina Software applications that you can download for free only today, because of the 40th first landing on the Moon anniversary. Here are brief details of these two appplications:
SkyVoyager (regilar price is $14.99, AppStore link) is a powerful astronomy program, with a database of 300,000 stars and 30,000 deep sky objects. It renders the planets and moons in detail, using NASA mission imagery.
SkyVoyager is a planetarium that precisely shows the sky from any location on Earth, at any time in the past or future. It contains informative descriptions of the planets, stars, and constellations; and includes hundreds of images from both NASA and leading astro-photographers.
SkyGazer (regular price is $2.99, AppStore link) is an easy-to-use planetarium program designed for beginners in astronomy. This app can be considered as a lite version of SkyVoyager, much smaller database, smaller functionality. But still it is a very good app.