This clever game, won the Technical Achievement award in the Mobile Division at the Independent Game Festival competition, lets you get out some aggression by pushing someone down a flight of stairs. Even better, it can be a friend of yours! Facebook integration lets you stick a friend’s profile picture on the stick man before you give him a shove. Realistic physics, a good selection of staircases, and addictive gameplay bring out the inner sadist in us all. Stair Dismount is $1.99, sold by Secret Exit .

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Video: Stair Dismount

A few years ago it would’ve been only the insane and the insanely prescient who were predicting that Apple would replace RIM in terms of world mobile phone market share. Now it doesn’t seem that outlandish, but the question of how soon we’ll actually see it happen remains up in the air. According to a new financial analysis company, Trefis (via Forbes ), the iPhone will pass BlackBerries in 2011. So as of next year, the iPhone will supposedly overtake RIM’s varied line of smartphones, despite offering far less in terms of consumer choice, and being limited to only one network in major markets like the U.S. So how’s that supposed to happen? Before we get to how , let’s look at why Trefis thinks this information is important. If you’re looking to buy Apple stock, then it’s very important indeed. Trefis estimates that around 52 percent of Apple’s stock value is dependent upon its mobile phone business, so that as the iPhone’s global market share continues to grow, the stock price will climb accordingly. They have a neat little tool that illustrates this, and you can set your own prediction to see how it affects the model.

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Analyst: iPhone to Overtake BlackBerry in 2011

Yesterday Apple announced the arrival date of its much-ballyhooed tablet, the iPad. It will have a staggered release throughout April, beginning on the 3rd in the U.S. Once it does arrive, we’ll see what effect it has on the mobile landscape. But right now, Apple has other things to worry about if it wants to keep its newly minted status as a leading mobile device company. The recent threats are at least twofold, one of immediate concern and one potentially dangerous down the road. First, there’s Android’s continued growth in terms of mobile marketshare, compared to Apple’s shrinking slice of the pie. Second, there’s Sony’s potential expansion of its mobile operations into direct competition with the iPhone. Web analytics firm Quantcast released figures this week that show iPhone OS is still the dominant force in terms of mobile web usage, but the trend is working slowly against it. It lost 3.2 percent of its market share last month, while RIM and Google’s Android both gained ground. Over the past quarter, Android has gained a whopping 44 percent, while Apple has lost between five and 10 percent during the same period. That’s only market share percentage, though. Apple is still showing positive growth in terms of mobile users and pageviews, but Google is just doing it that much faster.

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Android Rising, Sony Poised to Join the Smartphone Fight

Things are heating up in the patent wars with Android’s market share growing while the iPhone’s growth has shrunk. Both Apple and HTC have hit each other hard in the press while Cupertino has taken the competition to court over multiple alleged patent claims. Wired takes a look at those patents and envisions just what Google’s Android phones would look like if Apple won every part of the suit. Short answer: back to the drawing board for Android and HTC. For starters, there’s a number of just sheer aesthetic issues at play. The one near-constant about Apple products is that they are gorgeous. Layout, design, iconography, everything.

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The Ugly Nexus One (If Apple Wins Patent Suits)

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , iDevice Accessories Maybe you didn’t think ThinkFlood’s original RedEye IR dock was the best solution for controlling your IR gear. That’s okay, because ThinkFlood listened and is preparing to release the RedEye mini; and like their original IR solution it’s just a bit different from the competition. Instead of using the dock connector and a dongle like everyone else, the RedEye mini uses your iDevice’s headphone jack. Anyone else feeling a little deja vu? This was how Pocket PCs without built in IR added this functionality too many years ago for me to remember.  While this technology might seem a little antiquated, remember two things: IR isn’t exactly bleeding edge technology in the first place, and more importantly, your dock connection remains open. That means you can have your iDevice plugged in to a battery, a battery case or other accessory that hogs the dock connection.  This also means you don’t have to hold your iPhone upside down to use it as a remote. Yes ! The RedEye mini uses the same app as the original RedEye dock, so there are no surprises there.  Well, actually, it seems they’ve added an electronic program guide. Awesome.

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The RedEye mini, Thinkflood’s new low cost iPhone IR adapter

Section: Apple Business , iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPhone Competitors In a press release out of Cupertino this week, Apple announced it is suing HTC for patent infringement in 20 different cases. According to Apple, the patents in question deal with the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware, meaning that HTC is being attacked from all sides on this one. While the specific patents aren’t mentioned, this could become a long battle for HTC to stay above water if it turns out Apple’s case is well presented. As for the reasoning behind the suit, Steve Jobs has been quoted as saying: We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours. As you may know, HTC was responsible for creating both the first Android based mobile phone as well as Google’s current Nexus One . In terms of design, it appears as if the interesting phones coming out of HTC have become too much like the iPhone for Apple to handle. Either way, it will certainly be fun to watch this one play out. I’m sure Apple’s patent lawyers have been building this case for a while (well, when they’re not suing Nokia at least). Via [ Business Insider ] Full Story » | Written by Josh Holat for Appletell . | Comment on this Article »

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Apple sues HTC over iPhone technology patent infringement

Writing in the Huffington Post, Larry Magid raises the point that PC netbooks are hot sellers for very good reasons — namely that these small laptops, which typically cost between $300 and $400, can do most things a large portion of users want to do with a laptop computer, and do them much more cheaply, as well as being handily smaller and lighter than traditional laptops. Small Laptop Price Premium Dynamic Turned On Its Head I agree, and along with Magid note the irony of a changing dynamic where, reversing erstwhile conventional wisdom that computer consumers would be obliged to pay extra for the required engineering of miniaturization, with smaller laptops often costing more than larger siblings of the same brand (think PowerBook Duo vs. PowerBook or MacBook Air and MacBook), netbooks have turned the cost/weight equation on its head. Mainstream netbooks, particularly ones equipped with the latest Intel Atom N270 processors running at 1.60 GHz, with a GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive, are perfectly adequate for most common tasks people use computers for such as Web surfing and e-mail, and even for watching web video. At least for non-touch typists, their usually undersized keyboards are also considered tolerable. Downward Pressure On All Laptop Pricing Then there’s the netbook phenomenon’s collateral effect of exerting strong downward pressure on standard sized notebook computer prices, to which even Apple has not been immune, as exemplified by the 13″ MacBook Pro being cheaper than its aluminum unibody MacBook predecessor, and the debut of a lower entry level 15″ MacBook Pro stripped of its ExpressCard Slot and discrete graphics processor/VRAM. A prima facie topical example is Lenovo’s new ThinkPad Edge , which has a 13-inch display, a typically excellent Lenovo full-size keyboard, an AMD Athlon dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 320GB 5400 RPM hard drive, three USB ports, runs Windows 7, offers five-hour real world battery runtime, and is priced starting at an easy-on-the-wallet $599. Move up to a 1.3GHz Core Duo Intel processor and 4GB of memory and you’re still at $799. That’s of course only $200 less than Apple’s entry-level MacBook, which at $999 has a much more powerful 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo processor and Nvidia 9600M integrated graphics, but only 2GB of RAM, a measly two USB ports, and a 250GB hard drive. To get the same 4GB of memory and 320GB of storage specs as the $799 Lenovo or even a $399 Dell Inspiron 15, you’re up to $1,149, while a comparable spec MacBook Pro will set you back a whopping (by comparison) $1,399 — a thousand dollars greater than your typical netbook.

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Apple Still Needs a Sub-$700 Conventional Notebook

While Tuesdays are known for Apple product launches, today the company announced not a new Mac but a lawsuit over patent infringement related to the iPhone. The target was mobile phone maker HTC , and none other than Steve Jobs was making the accusations. “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.” At issue are some 20 patents relating to the “iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware,” though specifics have not yet been divulged, nor has there been a response from HTC. More details will undoubtedly be made public as the lawsuit proceeds in both the U.S. District Court in Delaware and with the U.S. International Trade Commission. Nonetheless, the accusation of intellectual property theft over handheld device patents sounds oddly familiar, except it wasn’t Apple making the accusation recently, but Nokia. In December, Nokia sued Apple over patents relating to standards covering “wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption,” accusing Apple of “attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia’s innovation.” Apple promptly countersued , General Counsel Bruce Sewell also using the S-Word, stating that “other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours.” If this all sounds harsh, it is. The flurry of patent lawsuits and counter-lawsuits is something of an anomaly, in that companies like Apple, HTC, and Nokia normally use their massive patent portfolios to protect themselves from litigation.

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Apple Sues HTC Over iPhone

If you thought the smartphone patent battles would end with Nokia vs. Apple, think again: Cupertino has just filed a lawsuit against HTC. PR Newswire is reporting on Apple’s latest patent battle, with the company filing a lawsuit against HTC for “infringing on 20 Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.” In a sign that Cupertino isn’t messing around, the lawsuit was filed concurrently with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) as well as in U.S. District Court in Delaware. "We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours." Apple recently filed a countersuit in their legal battle with cellphone giant Nokia, with the ITC planning to look into both companies’ claims of patent infringement, according to AppleInsider .

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Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Mac Software , Originals Macintosh and iPhone/iPod/iPad product updates and announcements for February 26, 2010: Macintosh iPod Macintosh iTacet Software has released Cookie Platter 1.0 , a Mac OS X application which automatically deletes all unwanted cookies and saves specific cookies based upon a user’s favorite websites. This innovative software can process cookies for multiple web browsers simultaneously and allows customization by browser, domain and type of cookie. Users can group all domains into their root domain, as well as the ability to preview the cookie’s website without opening a browser and more. Codewave Software Michael Descher has announced that MyTunesRSS has been successfully introduced at Jazz at Lincoln Center for digital music library sharing. MyTunesRSS was selected from the pool of music sharing tools because of its advantageous features and overall usability. MyTunesRSS is a Media Server that makes iTunes libraries or simple watch folders available on a local or corporate network, or even over the internet. Zevrix Solutions has announced BatchOutput Server 4.2.8 , an update to its output workflow automation solution for Adobe InDesign. Originally developed for a major publisher in the U.S., the software automates InDesign output by processing files from hotfolders. BatchOutput Server offloads printing and exporting to PDF and PostScript to a central system leaving operator workstations free from the output process

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Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad product news – February 26, 2010