Although most famously known for his system-crushing, next-gen 3D engines, id software’s John Carmack has been a passionate enthusiast of iPhone app development. He’s personally cited the platform as a return to the older school of game design, where a single enthusiast can turn out a great game in a matter of a couple months,

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id software’s John Carmack promises “Rage” on the iPad

While at the Unity booth, we ran into a few of the developers at Graveck games. You may be familiar with one of their popular iPhone games, Skee-ball. It hit the #1 paid apps spot during the holidays and is still hanging out in the top paid apps list. What started out as a part-time side project for the developers turned into a surefire hit. Now, the company is gearing up to prepare for the April launch of Apple’s iPad. Jonathan Czeck, the director of technology and co-founder of Graveck, believes that the iPad will really open up the possibilities of mobile gaming. "It would be a great platform for a simple RTS (real-time strategy game)," he says. "This is the first time you can [play] with all ten fingers. Frankly, that sounds fun." In addition to praising the iPad, the Graveck team are also heavy users of Unity, a game development tool used to create 3D video games for Windows, Mac, Wii and the iPhone, as well as browsers that have the Unity web player plugin installed. They also use Macs for all of their game coding, and Czeck cites himself as one of the first users of Unity, back when it was released in 2005. Check below for a video showcasing one of Graveck’s games developed with Unity.    

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Graveck Discusses Using the Mac Exclusively for Game Development

Some iPhone applications use the built in features on the iPhone, update and offer promotions for existing iPhone games, or spoil the plots for your upcoming season finale. Gym Finder Gym Finder is as strait forward as you can get with a free iPhone application.  With Gym Finder you can, well, find a gym.  When you open it up you are given a list of popular gym chains like 24 Hour Fitness, Athletic Club, Bally Total Fitness, Curves, Gold’s Gym, and others.  You can select one of these gyms and then it will locate those that are relatively near to your location.  You can select a specific location and it will give you directions utilizing the iPhone Maps feature along with basic contact information.  It is also possible to do this in reverse by searching just by location to find what is near by.  Gym Finder does what it promises adequately, but it does make you wonder why you need a program that is so specific to finding one type of business.  Why not just use a Yellow Pages application?  Why not use the Maps function on its own?  Gym Finder is perfectly reasonable for the purpose it promises, but this is still part of the trend at the iTunes’ App Store that stresses quantity over quality.   iMobsters 28 Favor Points The most important quality that is universal between all text based iPhone MMO RPGs is the constant need for updates and promotions.  iMobsters, which is one of the most popular mafia themed text based iPhone MMO RPGs from the Storm8 tradition, has now released its most recent update.  iMobsters 28 Favor Points is actually more of just a free Favor Points offer than a true iMobsters update.  The reality of iMobsters 28 Favor Points is that it is used to simply to perpetuate interest in the free iPhone game.  Since Favor Points are really the only way that Storm8 can make money off of the iMobsters franchise this is really just to spark interest in what will supposedly just be a later series of purchases.  Inside iMobsters 28 Favor Points you are not going to see much quantitatively different to the base iMobsters software except for the most minor of update changes.  Fundamentally iMobsters remains the same, which puts iMobsters 28 Favor Points into a weird place.  Any free Favor Points package is going to be of interest, and possible necessity, to iMobsters players.  On the other hand, free Favor Points are not going to be really attractive to those who do not already have an interest in iMobsters.  There is nothing about iMobsters 28 Favor Points that is going to attract new players.  If you already play iMobsters then iMobsters 28 Favor Points is going to be one of the first free iPhone downloads on your list, but if not you can forget it entirely. Spoilers For the TV addict in the room online spoilers can be the main source of water cooler gossip.  The ‘there’s an app for that’ logic has infected almost every possible online institution, and this one was a late arrival.  Spoilers is a basic free iPhone application that gives you the available episode information for some of the most popular  on the air.  These are presented mainly in a large list of alphabetical options like Burn Notice, Entourage, Desperate Housewives, Dexter, and others.  These are presented in the largest list in the Shows tab where you can select the shows you want.  You can then find the ones you want and then add them to your Favorites, which will then list them under that specific tabs.  This is really where Spoilers becomes useful, especially once you have established a clear list for your Favorites.  You can also look according to Upcoming Episodes, but it is much more relevant to just get information from the episode specific lists.  All of this is find if Spoilers was more than simply adequate in what it provides.  Spoilers is not extremely detailed in the information it offers about each program, and more often than not you are not going to have access to the entire list of shows you will want.  Program information is limited at any given time, and Spoilers usually has issues bringing up all of what you are requesting.  This does not make Spoilers incredibly useful even in the marginally interesting feature it has.  With the time it takes to sift through the occasional info from the application you can easily use more reliable and complete online sources.

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Mini Reviews: Gym Finder, iMobsters 28 Favor Points, Spoilers

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Mac Software Macintosh and iPhone/iPod/iPad product updates and announcements for March 12, 2010: Macintosh iPod Macintosh Alesis has announced that the MultiMix 6 USB six-channel USB mixer, is now shipping to retailers. The MultiMix 6 USB is a six-channel desktop mixer designed for easy integration into a computer-based recording environment. This compact mixer is perfect for use in recording setups, video editing and production studios as it outputs not only line-level analog audio, but also stereo 16-bit, 44.1 kHz digital audio over USB for low-noise, simple computer connection. MacinMind Software has released Radiologik DJ 1.7 , optimizing loading and playback for this radio automation and DJ tool. This release includes several optimizations to help ensure the Radiologik system is as reliable and robust as possible for 24/7 radio stations both streaming and terrestrial. Radiologik DJ is the DJ music and playout system for radio or most DJ needs, offering beautiful real radio transitions by employing Track Prep through the accompanying scheduler program. Mode de Vie Limited has announced MyThoughts 1.1 , an update to their popular Mind Mapping software for Mac OS X. Intuitive, flexible and powerful, MyThoughts for Mac provides an ideal solution for those wanting to improve their brainstorming, learning and recall abilities through the use of Mind Maps. MyThoughts for Mac features an intuitive interface that lets the user focus on expressing and developing ideas with fluid, organic, Mind Maps. Bohemian Coding has released Fontcase 1.5 , a free update to the Apple Design Award-winning font manager that is like an iPhoto for your fonts. A few feature-highlights include versatile metadata support, the ability to share fonts on your local network and fantastic ways to preview all your fonts. Version 1.5 adds much-requested auto-activation, duplicates detection, speed increase and stability among other things

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Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad product news – March 12, 2010

Soft Sailor is a tech blog I’ve not encountered before, but today I stumbled across a very odd post indeed. Published just yesterday, it recommends downloading something a little bit unusual: Internet Explorer 5.2.3. Which is only, let’s see now… about seven years old. The author Dragos Pirvu writes: “Although it’s not that popular on Mac computers,

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Tech Site Recommends 7-Year-Old IE5 Download

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Originals You’ve all pre-ordered your iPad , right? Better get on that before the available stock is gone. And since you’re only about three weeks away from delivery, you should also stock on free apps to transfer to it when it arrives. This week’s list is all about driving games, Twitter and limited time freebies.  Half of this list won’t be free for long, so I’d better cut to the chase. Brizzly – There’s a new best Twitter app on the App Store every week, it seems. This week’s new best is called Brizzly.  It has most of the snazzy features like trends and news, lists, multiple Twitter account support, pics and more.  If you don’t already have a Twitter client, this is as a great app to take for a spin. Mini Desktop Racing Arcade – Take a toy car for a spin on your desktop.  You control the car entirely with your finger, just don’t hit anything. Transformers G1: Awakening Free – You ready to roll out?  Play as the classic Autobots against the Decepticons in this turn based strategy game.  Obviously you can transform and this is to your advatage when you want to travel faster.  And it’s all in 3D; not the red and blue 3D, this is the kind that stays in the screen

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Free apps roundup for March 12th, 2010

PopCap’s games aren’t ones that require eight-figure budgets and massive media campaigns, but we defy you to find anyone who plays games on any sort of basis who hasn’t poured hours into Peggle, Plants vs. Zombies, or one of the studio’s other addictive hits. While the company initially made its mark on Mac and PC, the last couple of years have seen expansion to other platforms, notably the iPhone, which has hosted pitch-perfect iterations of those aforementioned favorites. Now, with the iPad release looming on the horizon, the big question is this: What’s PopCap planning for Apple’s tablet, and how soon will we be able to play it? Andrew Stein, director of mobile platforms at PopCap, wasn’t able to share many specifics in a recent phone interview, but did offer some insight into how the company approaches new platforms, as well as what opportunities they see in iPad development. Plants vs. Zombies on the iPhone "The iPad offers a new experience for both developers and customers, given that it has higher performance," says Stein. "Having the additional horsepower under the hood and the bigger screen, the higher-resolution graphics give a tableau for developers to get more creative with games. We can do things with the iPad that we can’t do on a smaller iPhone screen." In particular, Stein believes the large 9.7-inch screen will initially surprise iPad users, and likens the upgrade from an iPhone to that of bumping up to a new video game console. "I think that the size of screen is going to make the experience much more immersive, and it’s going to be more than what people expect

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PopCap Discusses iPad Gaming Opportunities</