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Arcane Legends Brings Cold Weather In It's Battle of Nordr Expansion

Posted by Andrew Stevens on April 22nd, 2013
+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Our rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar :: BRIGHTER :: Read Review »

Things are about to get chilly in Arcane Legends. The Battle of Nordr expansion is now available and tells the story of the warrior's frozen homeland. Players will witness new cold weather monsters, items and pets. Also, the level cap has been raised by 5 levels, letting hardcore players hit level 31.

Note: you may not see the update in the App Store description, but the developers say that the update is live, and will update in-app. Give it a shot and let us know what you think.

Now Free: Get 100 Classic Atari Games For Free This Weekend

Posted by Jeff Scott on August 30th, 2012
+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad

We just heard from Atari that the in-app purchase for 100 classic Atari games will be free this weekend from 8/31-9/1. Grab it while it's free, it's a great collection of classics.

Elder Sign: Omens Updates with Free and Paid Campaigns

Posted by Kevin Stout on April 13th, 2012

Elder Sign: Omens, winner of an Editor’s Choice award here at 148Apps, just received a major update last week with new additions to the game as well as options and bug fixes.

This new update makes an entirely new campaign, the Cthulhu campaign, available through an in-app purchase. The new campaign contains over 30 new adventures, ten new monsters, and four new investigators. An unlockable bonus investigator is also available. The new map in the campaign includes new gameplay features for Elder Sign: Omens. Also, available as an in-app purchase, new Ancient Ones are for sale.

In addition to the in-app purchasable campaign, a free, Yig campaign has been released with this update. Another unlockable investigator is available (different from the one with the paid campaign).

A few options have been added like skipping transitions, audio fading, and a low resolution option (likely for older iOS devices struggling to run the higher-end graphics).

Elder Sign: Omens is based on a dice game where investigators work to keep powerful Ancient Ones at bay, preventing ancient evil from invading our world through the museum’s exhibits.


Patchworkz HD Review

iPad App - Designed for iPad
By Greg Dawson on December 20th, 2011
Our rating: starstarstarstarblankstar :: COLOR PUZZLE
A unique puzzle that combines textiles and colors for challenging gameplay.
Read The Full Review »

Edovia and FutureTap Announce Open Source Project InAppSettingsKit

Posted by Arron Hirst on January 12th, 2010

I get a lot of e-mails daily, most of them the usual snore-worthy PR mailshots from the App Store big boys .. and of course (well, at least most of the time), these are about upcoming games and apps for the iPhone itself. So, it was refreshing this morning to receive the heads up on a new completely open-source project from iPhone development studios Edovia and FutureTap.

Originally a Canadian-German co-production between both firms, InAppSettingsKit is an open-source project which allows iPhone developers to place settings in-app, as opposed to hiding them away in the iPhone OS Settings.app.

Edovia and FutureTap admit there has been extensive discussion among the iPhone community about which option is better. Do you oust your app's settings to Settings.app and hope the user finds them successfully, or do you opt for the in-app route and risk cluttering your once streamline app with a bunch of settings most would only use on the rare occasion? According to Edovia and FutureTap, there are quite a few reasons in-app settings should be considered.


- Settings.app becomes a total mess with longer load times
- If only in Settings.app most users simply don’t understand the mechanism and miss the settings
- A context switch is needed to switch between settings and the app. If on the 16th screen, this involves quite some tapping and flicking.
- In-App settings can instantly change the behavior of the app

Sure, in-app settings are popular. After all, What's better than to be able to edit the global settings of an app, without having to leave the actual app? We've seen a slurry of the big name apps take this approach. Including the likes of Twitterrific, AIM and more recently, Tweetie 2 .. among others.

What's interesting about this project is, as a developer, instead of having to choose one route and ultimately having to accept the consequences via user feedback, it proposes a new outlook on settings for iPhone OS. Dubbed 'Hybrid Settings' the settings are place in Settings.app sure, but they're also available in-app too, providing the best of both worlds - and don't worry about visual consistency of your settings either, using the kit your in-app settings will look just like as if they were pulled straight from Settings.app.

"We’re proposing a second approach that we call “hybrid settings”. In this model, the user has the choice: the settings are available in Settings.app. But they’re placed in-app as well. That way, every user can decide where to edit the settings. The in-app settings are a 100% clone of the Settings.app style."

Developers can find out more about the project at InAppSettingsKit.com - and if you have an app and you've recently added the InAppSettingsKit to it, the guys at Edovia and FutureTap want to know. Add yourself to the list at: inappsettingskit.com/apps.

Thoughts on In-App-Purchasing For Free Apps

Posted by Jeff Scott on October 20th, 2009

With the announcement last week that Apple would allow In-App Purchasing (IAP) for free apps, we wondered what will really change in the App Store. Obviously right now this is a theoretical exercise as, so far, very little has changed. We've seen a couple apps that were previously paid switch to free, and at least one high profile app released as free with IAP.

We talked to a few users and a few developers to get their take on what this could mean for the future of the iPhone App Store.

This new app type, free but with In-App Purchasing has quickly been nicknamed free+. There are some really great things about it, and some really bad things about it. Let's break this down into what's good and what's bad for developers and consumers.

Good for Developers

There are lots of really good things to like about this decision for developers and they are almost uniformly happy with the decision. We asked Kyu Lee of Gamevil for his thoughts, "In-app purchasing for free apps is a huge step for Apple, and it really shows how much they are willing to adjust to the developers/publishers needs. Apple was first to adopt in-app purchases, and now first to adopt in-app purchases for free games. We strongly believe the next steps would be introducing microtransactions that are lower than 99c or the ability to use an intermediate currency within the game. We believe that Apple should provide as many options available to the developer/publisher as possible as long as it enhances the customer's experience, and we're very excited about what the tracks they've been following so far."

For some types of apps it makes the developers job a lot easier and potentially more profitable. Then there's the added bonus of making piracy much harder with apps that include in-app purchasing.

More Income Options

With in-app purchasing there are many more income possibilities for developers. Not only can they sell expansions to their app from within the app, but they can also sell subscriptions, upgrades, and virtual goods (think MMO apps). Doing in-app purchasing allows for the impulse buy. For example, the recently detailed Eliminate from ngmoco:) will feature a certain amount of time you can play per day while advancing your stats. If you are really getting into the game and you run out of time you are pretty likely to drop a buck and buy more time. Maybe just once, maybe a few times. Depends on how compelling the app is. Think of this as the candy racks at the grocery store checkout. You are standing there looking at it, a certain number of people will decide to buy.

In addition to more options, income opportunity is spread out for a much longer time. The way it is now most apps that make it to the top 100 do so quickly, then fall off quickly. This little spike represents a very high percentage of their sales. Sales after that are usually tied to an upgrade, press, or other such promotion. IAP allows for longer term income opportunities for developers as they can add content to the app and charge for it over a longer period of time. In addition, you can continue to get money from the dedicated users more than just once like most current apps.