Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Reviews Category: Adventure game Developer: Big Blue Bubble Requirements: iPhone 3.0 software Compatibility: iPhone and iPod touch File Size: 44.9 MB Version Reviewed: 1.0 Price: $2.99 If you don’t know what a Choose Your Own Adventure book is, you’re pretty much dead to me. Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston graphed more of a role-playing game onto the genre, adding stats, combat and dice, while retaining the “make a choice and turn to this page” mechanic. And now the books by Jackson & Livingstone have come to the iPhone: literally; the same text, the same choices and art. In Deathtrap Dungeon, you take on the role of an adventurer trying to make your way through a, well, dungeon filled with deathtraps. You’ll explore and fight your way through the caverns, finding monsters, treasure, and puzzles. Your skill, stamina (health), and luck will go up and down (mostly down) depending on the choices you make and how well you do in combat. The app takes advantage of advances in technology; dice rolls are built into the game (you can either shake your iPhone or tap to roll), and it keeps track of the choices you’ve made—if you drank the mysterious potion earlier in the game, it might open up a choice later on. The game remembers even if you don’t

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Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPad Monday, the LA Times reported that Apple plans to offer most books on the iBook store with fan favorite FairPlay copy protection. Yes, that’s the DRM that gets most of your knickers in a twist on the iTunes Store. Not this again. When will the industry learn? It’s an attempt to keep piracy under control, which is in partly understandable.  Authors—not unlike artists, movie studios and app programmers—don’t want you to steal their hard work. But you’re the one paying for it; you aren’t supposed to be the problem, unless you turn around and give everyone and their brother your music, movies and apps. A quick reminder, FairPlay is the reason you have to authorize your iTunes account on every new computer you buy and install iTunes on.  Well, the ones that you want to play “your” music, movies or other iTunes content on.  Up to five of them at least. And don’t forget to deauthorize any unused computers or hard drives; though that’s hard to remember to do.

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Section: Apple Two Apple-inspired documentaries, Welcome to Macintosh and MacHEADS , are scheduled to be shown during the first week of the new year on CNBC. Save the date and set your DVRs to stun record, you won’t want to miss either. Welcome to Macintosh is a great documentary about the technology and products that have come from Apple over the years. Sure, we all know Apple changed the game in 1984 with the introduction of the Macintosh, but not all of us know the whole story. And that’s fine, because Welcome to Macintosh would love to show you.  And even if you do know everything, the nostalgia is enough to keep it very interesting. MacHEADS takes a very different look at the Apple community. This doc is all about the Apple fanboys we love and the rest of the tech community loves to hate. We’re a strange bunch, and this documentary doesn’t try to hide it. Welcome to Macintosh is scheduled to premiere on Monday, January 4th at 9:30PM ET, and MacHEADS is scheduled to premiere on Tuesday, January 5th at 10:00PM ET. Check both of these out, I’m sure you’ll enjoy them.

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Section: Apple , Mac + Computers , Discontinued Products , Originals Can you boil down the history of Apple to two minutes? Sure you can! This is the era of communicating in 140 characters, so who needs those pesky books, what with their words and pages and weight. Who has the time and physical endurance required to read a book these days? Thankfully, we’ve got YouTube and good folks like applemctom who has given us the History of Apple, told in two minutes. Tom is the fellow who gave us the History of Mac Games video, and this one is just as good. There’s plenty of nostalgia to be found here. Sure, there’s “1984,” but how can you not love seeing those spinning, candy-like iMacs again? Even “Myst” makes a cameo. But it’s not all good times; remember the Newton? Quadra and Performa? Pippin ? Dark days, indeed. But my yappin’ has already taken as long to read as it would to just watch the video, so have at it. Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell .

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Section: iPhone , iPhone , Mac + Computers , Peripherals , Reviews Provides: Wireless music streaming via Bluetooth Developer: Mobile Action Minimum Requirements: Mac OS X v10.5 or later, iPhone 3G or 3GS running OS 3.0 or later, Bluetooth stereo headset, Bluetooth home stereo Price: Varies, approximately $70 Availability: Now Mobile Action creates many great technological products, and the Voiis Stereo Wireless Music Gateway is no exception. This handy device is extremely useful for those with Bluetooth home stereo systems and headsets, as the device’s main feature is Bluetooth connectivity. If you’re lacking one or both of these, I don’t recommend buying this product even though it comes with cables that enable its features without a Bluetooth receiver. One thing I disliked up front about the Voiis unit is how difficult it can be to pair your Bluetooth device with it. Since there is no screen for visual confirmation, and your Bluetooth stereo or headset also may not have one, pairing can be a very painful process, as it was for me. It took several tries before I successfully paired the iPhone with the Voiis unit, and much longer for the stereo. The fact that there is only one button on the entire Voiis unit which controls every single one of its functions is also pretty frustrating, as setting up pairing devices requires holding this button for various amounts of time. Messing this up is very easy, which just makes the setup process more confusing and time-consuming.

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Section: iPod + iTunes , iPod touch , iPhone , iPhone , iPhone SDK & Apps , Originals Honestly, the only app of note to hit the App Store free of charge this week was Flickr’s official iPhone app. Who would have thought it would have taken them this long to get one in the first place? Anyway, I have a full list for you, mostly game demos, though. You win some, you lose some. Take a look. Flickr – Finally, Flickr has an official iPhone app.  You can upload pics and vids and view all of the great (and perhaps not so great) images on Flickr. ZenTap – It’s an advanced text editor that guesses words beginning with the first letter.  This could save you a ton of time, and eliminate spelling errors.  Plus, there’s a spell checker, customizable buttons for text shortcuts, Twitter integration and even a translator.  Spell checking and Twitter are limited to 20 tries.  Remember, you can type in this app and copy it anywhere with iPhone OS 3.0. Max Injury Lite -  Feeling a little frustrated?  Maybe you feel like you could just take someone and throw them down a set of stairs.  Probably not, but just in case you have a secret desire to, that’s the entire premise of this game.  This game has 8 levels with which to test out the rag doll physics. Oh, My Word! Free – There are enough word-based games on the App Store to bury your iPhone with, but that doesn’t stop more from coming.  Why not try another?  This one is ad supported. NFL 2010 Free – Likely nothing compared to Madden, but hey, it’s free.  It’s a fully featured, 3D football game.  The controls are intuitive, but it’s limited to just the Cardinals vs. the Steelers.  If one of those is your team, you’re good to go. Classic Pen and Paper Games: The Business Traveler’s Edition – Remember when you could have fun playing games with just some paper and a pen?  It sucked didn’t it?  Yeah, but just in case nostalgia is enough for you give this one a try.  There’s Tic Tac Toe, Hangman, and Dots and Boxes.  Of course, you could just grab pen and paper for this, but why, when there’s an app for it!?

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Section: Haven’t caught all of the Appletell news this week?  Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles! Apple iPod press event, September 9th – live blog ”  var digg_url = “http://www.appletell.com/apple/comment/apple-ipod-press-event-september-9th-live-blog/”;  It may only be rock and roll, but we like it, too. I think we’ll also like…” MORE » Apple’s September 9th event: rumor round-up ”        var digg_url = ‘http://www.appletell.com/apple/comment/apples-september-9th-event-rumor-round-up/’;  As many of you will be aware, Apple is hosting a MORE » iPhone OS 3.1 available today [update] ” [Update: iPhone OS 3.1 is now available via iTunes.] Steve Jobs has just announced the latest software upgrade available today for the iPhone and iPod touch – iPhone OS 3.1. The new…” MORE » Apple and AT&T to add new phone features to next iPhone OS update? “Word from MacNN has it that Apple and AT&T may together add support to the iPhone for overage alerts and new Voicemail settings. The first proposed new feature, overage alerts, would come in the form of a push notification. This feature might…” MORE » Back to School: Is a Mac the right choice? “Labor Day picnics are in full swing. Amusement parks and water parks are shutting down or shortening their hours. Traffic is slowing down in school zones all across the world. What do these things mean? It’s back to school, and that…” MORE » Apple updates iPod touch ” Apple has just released a few updates to the ever-popular iPod touch at the music-themed press event in San Francisco

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Section: iPod + iTunes , iPod touch , iPhone , iPhone , iPhone SDK & Apps , Reviews Oh, how the people love to have games on the iPhone. Not just player people, in this case, but programmer people. Everyone wants a piece of the pie. Many games are being developed from scratch, of course, but we’re also seeing a lot of games from other platforms being ported over. The good news here is that many of these ports are quite good; occasionally, even better than the original. Here are three games you’ve already played elsewhere, but can now play on your iPhone, too. Pipes, spaceships and frogs. That’s pretty much all you need for a great game, right? Pipe Mania Category: Puzzle Seller: Virtual Programming Requirements: iPhone OS 2.2 or later File Size: 64.8MB Price: $1.99 Appletell Rating: 5 out of 5 App Store Link: Pipe Mania This game has been around so long that the name is actually two separate words instead of one smashed-up word with two capital letters. I don’t even know what system it started on, but it’s been on everything since. If you have an electronic device with a button, chances are can play Pipe Mania on it. The game involves laying pipe to guide ooze to the drain. A better description without innuendo goes like this; you’re presented with a grid that has a tap and a drain. Before long, a green liquid will flow from the tap, and you have to guide it to the drain by placing segments of pipe on the grid, one at a time. You can’t control which segment you’ll get (vertical, horizontal, angled, “t” sections, etc.), and you can’t rotate them

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All this Moon landing nostalgia is wonderful and I’m enjoying every minute of it, especially We Choose The Moon and the CAPCOM and EAGLE Twitter accounts — anyway. If you’ve ever wondered whether you could make it as an astronaut, here’s the ultimate test: Virtual AGC for Mac. What is it? It’s a simulator of the

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Apple is due to announce Wednesday its earnings for the quarter that ended June 27, and you know what that means: wild speculation by analysts followed by pouting and a drooping stock price when Apple out-performs expectations. But lately, it’s gotten still more insane: now, these same analysts are trying to infer some read of the

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