It’s official, 365 days & 1.5 billion App downloads later 148Apps has officially turned 1 Year old, Hurray!!!!!!! Now that you know, mark it on your calendar for next year, this year is your freebie but if I don’t get a birthday card from you on July 16th next year we will sooo be fighting!

Seriously though, can you say “wow,” just look at how much we have changed and grown from that very first Aurora Feint: The Beginning Review Jeff started us out with. We’ve reviewed hundreds of apps, added a staff of over a dozen writers, launched our sister site (148apps.biz), and have a Web Fourm section up and kicking, it’s amazing, we are now easily the best gosh-darn iPhone review site this side of Mars.

We have you, our readers, to thank for all of it, so thank you. So in the spirit of thanks I want to announce a new contest. While I know we all love the App & ITMS Gift Card giveaways, we thought that this called for something special, Design your own GelaSkin. Let me explain, for those of you who aren’t familiar with GelaSkins you definitely need to check out their site, they describe it as “Protection with style. Not Bulk.” And it’s true, their skins are ultra thin with amazing print quality.

Alright, I’m getting to the point, we are asking you guys to design a skin/logo for us. I’m not talking about a design for just a few skins, we’ll be ordering tons of these things for different contest and promotional giveaways. Think about it, if you win your artwork could be on iPhones around the world, how cool is that! On top of that we’ll obviously be giving you a free skin of your design and also your very own 148Apps T-shirt.

So heres how it’s going to go down:

The Design
Your design can be of anything, App related or not, but it must be tasteful. You can get some great ideas and inspiration from the GelaSkins gallery page. Although it need not be directly related to iPhone apps we do ask that you work our 148Apps logo into it somewhere. If you check out the GelaSkins gallery you’ll notice that many of the iPhone skins are cropped down from larger pictures, we can definitely do this as well, in the end the picture printed will need to be cropped to 1500 x 1500 pixels. You can grab a large version of our logo artwork here. You’ll also notice that they recommend designing an optional wallpaper to go with the skin which if your skin is chosen we will post the downloadable artwork on our page.

Choosing the Winner
We’re going to be stealing a page from the American Idol book here. The judging panel will consist of 3 148Apps representatives, each counting as 1 vote and then all of the readers will be allowed to vote on their favorite design. The most popular choice of the readers will count as 1 vote in the final panel. If there are enough submissions then there will be a semi final round where the designs are narrowed down to the top 3 to choose from and a new vote will be taken.

Viewing and Voting
There will be a submission gallery page setup where readers can browse through all of the submitted artwork for their favorites. The official voting and design submission procedure is still being discussed and details will be released soon.

Run Dates
While the contest is being announced today it will not officially begin until Monday, July 20th, 2009. Submissions will then be accepted until 11:59 pm Friday, July 31st, 2009. Votes will then be counted at 11:59 pm Monday, Aug 3rd, 2009. Results will then be announced on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009.

**One note about the artwork submissions. At 148Apps we fully appreciate artistic nature and encourage everyone to follow that nature and design anything they would like. But because of the wide demographic of readers we have we request that all submissions remain tasteful and reserve the right not to post any which we consider to be inappropriate or offensive. Thank you and have fun!

Oh, the horror. I remember the bitter battles fought to wedge those triangular pieces of cardboard into their proper spaces—the dismay at realizing that I had just created a mutant, two-colored frog—the frustration as I dumped the entire puzzle onto the floor, time and time again…

Okay, so Triazzles weren’t exactly the bane of my childhood; actually, I loved them! They were pretty darned popular in the 90’s…so popular, in fact, that they’ve sold over 5 million copies worldwide. Basically, a Triazzle is a triangular matching puzzle. It looks easy on the surface, but don’t worry; it’s a challenge.

The iPhone version, set to be released on July 17th, includes both 9 and 16 piece puzzles, three difficulty levels, plenty of eye candy, and a “Shake to Solve” (cheater!) feature. Personally, I spent a ton of time with these things as a kid, but somehow managed to lose my collection in the intervening years. I’m looking forward to the chance to solve one again!

Will the physical glory of the brainteaser translate to a digital platform? I certainly hope so. The pre-release screenshots certainly look great.

Game features after the break —>
Continue reading Bestselling Puzzle Triazzle Coming to iPhone »

Gamevil has just released a new teaser for their upcoming game HYBRID: Eternal Whisper, which is set to release in the US App Store this Fall. The product of the same team behind the amazing RPG Zenonia, HYBRID has a lot of promise. Gamevil’s calling HYBRID a “a new breed of stylish action adventure,” and it looks like it’ll focused more on combat and special moves than on a storyline. There will be 150 levels, a complex storyline, and plenty of challenge. If Zenonia’s success and level of polish is anything to go by, HYBIRD should delight the hardcore gaming crowd.

Gamevil doesn’t have a huge App Store presence on this side of the ocean yet (their only games with English localizations are Zenonia and Baseball Superstars) but from what I understand, they’ve got a solid presence in Korea. Like their other two US releases, HYBRID will be a port from a popular Korean title.

EA has announced recently that they have started a new label to focus on casual iPhone games. Their first release is out now and we took a quick look.

This small group of apparently skinny-leg jean wearing hipsters will focus on creating a casual game per month for the iPhone. Their first release, Zombies & Me (App Info) was released this past weekend. The game is an interesting yet simple little game.

The idea if the game is that you are in the middle of a zombie invasion. You are tasked with protecting your grandmother who stays in her house and shouts one liners at you every once in a while. The government is bombing the zombies, you must guide them into the marked bomb targets. You do this by running around, past the house, and the zombies will be drawn away from the house and follow you. When they cross a bomb target, they will stay and wait to be destroyed. Zombies aren’t the smartest. The game ends when either you get hit by a bomb, or the house is destroyed.

The controls are simple — you just touch in the direction you want to go. This of course leads to the inevitable problem of you covering the screen with your hand so you can’t see what is happening on the screen. Tilt controls might have made this better, but yet more difficult.

The thing that’s really missing from their first release is any form of community. They have recently posted on their Twitter stream that they will add a global high score system to the game if enough people download the app. To me, this misses the mark.

For casual games to really stand out from the crowd, they need to be integrated with a social gaming platform from the start. I really think that EA/8 Lb. Gorilla should include a social gaming platform with all of their games. Perhaps they should integrate with one of the existing systems like OpenFeint or ngmoco:)’s Plus+ network. I really hope they don’t create their own system, there are already too many systems to really serve the needs of the consumer.

To release a casual game isolated from everything else on a communications device just doesn’t make any sense anymore. It’s an area where EA has lagged behind, really most of the large developers have lagged behind. Let’s hope that they get something ready in time for their second or third release.

In spite of the missing community features, not a bad first effort. From the things I’ve read about the group they have pretty loose reigns — it will be interesting to see what they come up with next.

More pics after the jump.
Continue reading The 8 Lb. Gorilla in the Room - EA Casual iPhone Games Label Launched »

Apple today announced that the iTunes App Store has served over 1.5 billion app downloads worldwide. This comes less than 3 months since the Apple announced the 1 billionth download in April. The App Store continues to show amazing growth and has seen over 100,000 developers sign up for the iPhone developer program.

While there are many discussed problems with the app store from a developer prospective, it has really taken off with consumers. The word revolutionary seems to be thrown around a lot in relation to the iTunes App Store. But the app store really has done things for consumer app shopping that we’ve never seen before. Even others that have tried to reproduce the functionality of the app store since it was launched just over a year ago, such as Google and Blackberry, have failed to even come close. Steve Jobs commented on this fact in the announcement:

“The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality. With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.”

With 58,088 active apps in the US app store today, and 300 new ones added every day, will the growth ever slow?

We recently asked our readers to weigh in on how many apps and how much they have spent in a survey. The average number of applications and games downloaded thus far by the 160 respondents was 230. This is a larger number than I would have expected for a fairly new platform. Respondents also noted that they have spent, on average, $136 thus far on applications and games with the average monthly spend being in the $11-$20 range. That puts the average price paid per application at just $0.59 indicating that more than half of the applications downloaded by the people responding to the survey were free.

It took 9 months for the first billion apps to be downloaded and just 3 for an additional half billion to be added to that. So as we continue to up this steep growth hill, there’s still not peak in sight. I’m sure developers hope that Apple will get some of the issues they face with developing and selling apps fixed, but for consumers, it’s been a pretty smooth ride.

Today, July 11th, 2009, we celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the iTunes App Store. As of today the app store contains over 56,801 apps and has hosted well over a billion app downloads. I asked some of our writers to look back over the year and discuss how the app store and iPhone apps in general, had changed their mobile usage and their lives.

Read on for our thoughts, screen shots of our home screens, and our favorite apps.

Continue reading How Has the App Store Changed Your Mobile Usage? »

I did an app review a few weeks (months?) back about a game that I just didn’t feel lived up to its potential primarily due to controls that I didn’t feel were perfect for the iPhone. People bombarded me with flack about it because they said that the games controls were perfectly fine, but one comment stuck with me to this day. Someone told me at some point that they could spend a few hours with the game not even shooting bad guys, but just flying.

Now there are games that I have experienced this. Some of the old Microsoft Flight Simulator games, X-Wing vs Tie Fighter, and Midtown Madness (driving), all fit the bill as games that I just wanted to be left alone, but they all were displayed on a large screen and I usually had some kind of huge joystick or driving wheel on my computer desk. The size of the iPhone and the typical nature of playing on it just don’t seem conducive to that type of playing style.

Well yesterday I got an e-mail about a new game called Aera. I thought, ok, here we go again, another iPhone flying game. I would certainly let someone else review the game because obviously the genre, on the iPhone, just isn’t for me. On a recommendation, I watched the youtube video and was astounded.

The flow of the game, along with the graphics are just beautiful. I have to say that Aera may be the first game of its kind that I think that I would want to fly around endlessly doing dogrolls and loops. According to the developers, there are mission modes, a free flight mode, and even some multiplayer that will include capture the flag and duel. I haven’t done much investigating yet, but hopefully Aera will be out soon, because now I want to finally fly on my iPhone.

I’m hardcore… yeah. I’m a Mountain Dew drinking, app crushing machine (I do crush apps… Mountain Dew is a bit sketchy though) and it looks like I have a new app to annihilate. IUGO Mobile, the makers of Zombie Attack and the Toy Bot Diaries series, just released Star Hogs and Star Hogs Lite today, and they look quite awesome.

“This is definitely one of our most ambitious games to date,” states Sarah Thomson, Director of Business Development for IUGO. “We hope our users enjoy the amount of detail and customization we put into Star Hogs. We wanted to create an experience that is immersive and very in-depth for the hard core users, and yet a pick-up-and-play experience for gamers on the go.” Word on the street is that it also has unlimited online multiplayer. If you haven’t heard, I’ve been really into multiplayer lately, so I expect to see all of you online later on this week.

I just pulled up the lite version, and if the in-game music doesn’t excite you, nothing will (well, maybe your own music will… you get that option on start-up). The game seems like a super stylish version of the ever so popular cannon trajectory/ Worms genre, but with a bit of an RPG element. I haven’t given the game much of a play yet, but you do get to buy, upgrade, and name units at the beginning of the levels, which is always a welcome feature.

Star Hogs is out now and costs $4.99, a bit less than a plate of Orange Chicken at Panda Express… well worth it if you ask me. I expect to beat *cough* see you online over the next week. Unless some impostor steals my user name, I’ll be dismantling opponents as chris148 very soon.

Star Hogs Lite

Category: Games / Strategy
Released: 2009-06-16
Price: FREE

Star Hogs

Our Rating:   Read Review >>

Category: Games / Strategy
Released: 2009-06-16
Price: $4.99

What a week in apps. With so many new apps and updates available, I definitely haven’t payed enough attention to the apps that are being announced. I feel like I just went to a movie and showed up too late to see the previews. What a waste! To make up for this, I am going to create a Thursday roundup of everything (well maybe not everything) awesome that is coming soon to the app store.

First off is the greatest mystery in the history of the app store. I had a friend send me a link to this site the other day, and I wasn’t sure what to say. Is it GTA for the iPhone? Is it… not?

I did a bit of research (I scoured the Touch Arcade forums) and found a few different opinions. One clever person, dpmpolo, went to http://whois.domaintools.com/coming-on-iphone.com, and found that the site is registered to Gameloft. DaveMc99 claims that the game is called Gangstar, while another guy CDubby94 said, “It’s called The Cartel. I beta tested it. It’s almost ready for submission.” I love forums.

Admittedly lost, and a bit anxious, I was forced to contact the internet Oracle, who told me that the trailer is actually for Poker vs. Girls 2. Check out the original here, it’s amazing.

With that squared away, my attention turned to Doom Resurrection, an amazing app that we reviewed a day or two ago. After reading the review, I thought, “Wow, that looks awesome. I wonder where the original Doom is?”. Fortunately, the gaming gods heard my plea and told me to hop over to idsoftware.com to check out the “iPhone Doom Classic Progress Report“.

Basically, the article states that John Carmack, the inventor of the modern FPS and the technical director of id
Continue reading Coming Soon to Your iDevice »

Firemint gotten their hands on an iPhone 3GS and decided to take it for a little test drive. With it’s increased processor speed, better graphics processor, and extra memory, it’s built for killer games. The best way they came up with to test drive the 3GS was to make a special version of their fantastic racing game, Real Racing to stress it. The normal version of Real Racing has 6 cars on the track at once. Their iPhone 3GS test version has not 12, not 20, but 40 cars on the track at the same time! Take a look at the demo video below for the amazing proof — the real fun starts around 30 seconds in.

Amazing, just amazing. Looks like they might have even been able to put even more cars on the track! If you haven’t picked up Real Racing yet, what are you waiting for? It’s the best arcade game we’ve seen yet for the iPhone.

Real Racing

Our Rating:   Read Review >>

Category: Games / Racing
Released: 2009-06-08
Price: $9.99

We’ve just heard from QuickOffice, the leading giant who provides office software for mobile phones, that soon iPhone and iPod Touch users should be able to edit their e-mail attachments on-the-go. This a feature that has been lacking on the iPhone natively since day 1.

Currently, Documents To Go can “talk” to mail and retrieve attachments for editing (only .doc and .docx supported at the minute - excel promised soon): however, only through Microsoft Exchange. Whilst this should accommodate many, QuickOffice hopes to accommodate all. For those who do use Microsoft Exchange for their mail, Documents To Go with Exchange Support is available for $9.99 (£5.99). For those who don’t, the best work-a-round at the minute is provided by QuickOffice themselves, who take on an Air Sharing-avec-Office role where a user can add files from their computer onto their iPhone for editing provided that they are on the same wireless network. I spoke to the QuickOffice team, and they said that “we understand the ability to open email attachments is an important feature many users want and [we] are excited to be adding this capability.”

This is rejoicing news for Blackberry users who have long had the ability to receive an attachment, edit it and send it back within a matter of minutes. Whilst the App Store’s “Business” section has been flourishing of late (as has 148Biz), it is surprising to see that it has taken this long for this feature to be available to the public.

We’ll keep you posted as we get more information - and we’ll have a review ready as soon as we can. QuickOffice is currently on the App Store for $19.99 (£11.99) and - of course - the new update will be free.

Note: current review is of an older version.

Yesterday we reported on a plan by ngmoco:) to remove Rolando from the iTunes App Store once Rolando 2 had been released. Today, I spoke today with Clive Downie, VP of Marketing from ngmoco:) and we’ve got some good news for Rolando fans.

After reading our article and others relating to the proposed plan to pull Rolando from the iTunes App Store and the response from consumers, ngmoco:) have decided to rescind the plan to remove Rolando. Rolondo will remain on the iTunes App Store and Topple, the original, will be coming back as well.

To understand why this all happened and why the plan was hatched in the first place, it’s important to understand the climate that publishers on the iTunes App Store are currently working in.

The App Store is a whole new environment in which to run a software business. Apple has full reigns over what’s allowed and how you can operate. That’s great for Apple, their app store, and their devices. But it’s non-standard in the software world and not so great for publishers. It’s particularly difficult considering that Apple does not publish full guidelines on what is and isn’t allowed and has even been known to change it’s mind without telling anyone.

Then there is the sheer volume of new apps launched every day in the app store. Currently the app store is averaging over 300 new apps in the store every single day. That’s more new titles per day than most platforms see in a year. Just a staggering number.

At this point, the app store is less than a year old and has had over 57,000 apps approved. Some of the standard practices of marketing software just don’t apply to a volatile and chaotic market such as this. Trying new things, finding what works amid the chaos is the key. That’s what ngmoco:) is doing.

For ngmoco:) the question was become how do they best launch a sequel in the iTunes App Store. There’s very little history on how to do that. One method they wanted to test was to remove the prequel to see what impact that would have on the launch of Rolando 2. What happens if you launch an episodic title into the app store without the predecessor there. It was learning they thought was worth doing.

That was the plan, until they started hearing from consumers. Consumers didn’t like the idea of it. It can be a big concern to a user who has purchased a copy protected digital file when they discover they may not be able to download it again if something happens to their copy. Since all that was really purchased was a bunch of bits, if it’s no longer available, it can seem to the consumer like you’ve lost your purchase.

What the consumers said was the they didn’t care about the test, they want their Rolando and Topple to remain safe. That’s what ngmoco:) have decided to do.

So due to the consumer feedback, Rolando will stay in the store and we will see Topple return soon as well. Since Apple provides no way for customers of the apps, people who have already paid for the app, to get it any other way than for the app to be live in the store, this is what’s required.

I think we can call that a lesson learned. But maybe not the lesson they were looking for.

Mr. Downie made it clear that ngmoco:) will continue to test the market, figure out ways to best navigate the turbulent seas of the app store. In addition, they will continue to innovate, as they remain laser focused on developing the best games for the iPhone OS platform.

As a closing thought, Mr. Downie wanted to remind us all that after the dust has settled over this Rolando issue to remember that Rolando 2 is coming out really soon and it looks fantastic. He’s right about that — we got a chance to see it recently in it’s nearly complete form. It’s looking very impressive.

When we asked if the release date was still July 1st, his response was “let’s hope so.”

Firemint has just released a 1.3 update for their extremely popular Flight Control game that adds the ability to play cooperatively with a friend over bluetooth. Flight Control has sold over 1,000,000 copies on its way to becoming an App Store classic.

Flight Control is a deceptively complicated game in which you must guide planes and helicopters to their proper landing places by drawing paths with your finger. The game starts out very simply with very few vehicles on screen at a time, but quickly ramps up in difficulty as more planes and helicopters of varying speeds appear on screen simultaneously. If anything collides, the game is over. When Christine reviewed the game, she gave it a perfect five stars.

In previous updates, Firemint has added new maps and online leader boards via the Cloudcell service. Now, in order to utilize the new 3.0 software for the iPhone and iPod Touch, Firemint has added bluetooth play so you can share air traffic controller duties with a friend. No wifi is required, as you simply need two devices with bluetooth capabilities (note: only the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and iPod Touch 2G can use bluetooth).

In this new mode, you and your friend share a cumulative score for a game. Each person has a complete map on screen (you can either use the same map or different maps), but can only land planes of a certain color. If a plane appears on screen that you cannot land, you have to direct it to the side of you screen, which will cause it to appear on your partner’s screen. This makes the game even more hectic, as you have to manage planes that both normally appear on your screen and those redirected by your partner all while trying to communicate with your partner.

Flight Control

Our Rating:   Read Review >>

Category: Games / Strategy
Released: 2009-04-29
Price: $0.99

When the release date of Rolando 2 was announced, ngmoco:) also indicated that Rolando, the original, was going to be pulled from the app store when the sequel goes live. It’s an odd move, very smart, and yet wrong at the same time.

I recently asked Neil Young, CEO of ngmoco:), why the original Topple was no longer in the App Store, his comment was “We pulled it, trying something.” Short response and at the time I didn’t think much of it. I assumed they were planning on trying some new marketing technique with it. Turns out they were testing a fundamental business idea in preparation for the Rolando 2 release. Something new, something that really may change the way we think of games in the app store. Apps aren’t forever anymore.

According to our App Store database, Rolando was released originally on December 8, 2008. That effectively puts the lifespan of the original Rolando at 7 months. Is that really all the life Rolando has left in it? I doubt it. One thing is for sure, it’s going to be pulled from the app store when Rolando 2 is released.

While Rolando is their product and they have the absolute right to do with it what they choose, pulling it just doesn’t feel right. Something about the spirit seems wrong. They aren’t doing anything odd with the price to rise up the charts and increase the price to ride the higher exposure as many high profile developers have been doing lately. But they are sacrificing a product and it’s customers for increased expose for the next episode. Maybe I’m just being too sentimental, but I want to see the game stick around.

Back to the original test that ngmoco:) did, removing Topple from the app store. I’m not sure that it relates directly, removing Topple, a free app, to see what it does to sales of Topple 2 at $0.99. But there is something obvious to it. By removing Topple, they see if that increases sales of Topple 2, the more recent game.

By removing Rolando when the sequel comes out, they don’t lose any sales to the original, cheaper version. When users search for Rolando, they will get just 1 result, and 1 price. That makes sense as a certain percentage people would probably choose the cheaper one, and it removes any confusion of their marketing message for the new game.

What doesn’t make sense is why remove one of the best games on the App Store? Rolando may not have been a runaway commercial success, but it is a great game, very well reviewed, and still has some life in it. You know, what about the long tail? What about all those articles that point to Rolando on the app store. They won’t point to Rolando 2 automatically — you’ll just get the error on the app store that the app is not available.

This decision is also bad for people who have purchased the original Rolando. The app store is a digital delivery system. The only way to get Rolando is to download it from iTunes either on the desktop or on the device. If you don’t have a backup, and you lose it, you’ll never get it back if it’s no longer in the store. In addition, there have been weekly updates for a while from Rolando, building up to the release of Rolando 2. If you haven’t updated in a while, and you wait until July 1, you’ll never see those updates.

And what about the people that try Rolando 2 and want more? They know it’s a sequel, why can’t they get the original. Perhaps the original Rolando levels will be available as in-app purchases in Rolando 2.

It seems as though ngmoco:) is willing to live with a little bit of bad customer experience to try to increase the sales of a new game. Not a great thing, but considering the constraints of the App Store and the very limited ways that developers can operate, it might be the best decision. If nothing else, you have to hand it to them for trying something different and thinking about how to best build a business in the maddening chaos known as the iTunes App Store. It will be interesting to see if other publishers follow suit and do the same. Let’s hope not.

I hope we’ll see Rolando and Topple back in the store, re-released as classic versions maybe, at some point in the future. For now, I think I’ll make sure I have the latest version, do a back-up, and play a little Classic Rolando while I wait for Rolando 2.

Related Apps

Rolando

Our Rating:   Read Review >>

Category: Games / Action
Released: 2008-12-17
Price: $5.99

Topple 2

Our Rating:   Read Review >>

Category: Games / Puzzle
Released: 2009-03-11
Price: $0.99

Back at E3 I met up with Don Lim from Com2uS, who showed me a few of his upcoming games, one of which being Baseball Sluggers. At first glance, the game looked pretty fun, but certainly nothing groundbreaking. It looked like MLB Slugfest for the iPhone, except without an MLB license and limited only to the home run derby. Being the skeptical gamer that I am, I picked up the game with low expectations, thinking that the game would probably be average at best. But boy, was I wrong.

Instead of showing me all the different menu options and gameplay modes, Don had me just straight into the matchup mode, which is unlike anything else I had ever played on the iPhone. Within a minute of booting up the game, I was engaged in a matchup with one of the beta testers of the game in Korea. The game was easy enough to pick up instantly, but with a variety of pitches and speeds, had enough depth to satisfy my inner gamer. Surprisingly I ended up beating the beta tester, shocking Don… and myself. What can I say guys, I’m just good at sports games.
Continue reading Casual Gaming Perfection? »