A lot of people enjoy Scrabble. Like a lot. But while the current official iOS rendition is doing okay, it’s been in need of a little tweaking for a while. Well the time for tweaking is nigh.

The list of changes includes a much-improved user interface that not only looks nice but makes setting up matches and finding friends a lot easier. In fact, it makes the act of setting up a game into about as painless a process as I’ve seen yet. The chat features have also been updated, and even include some pretty wacky emoticons. There’s also a rather handy new feature that will allow players to see what other words they might have made with their letters after (emphasis on after) their turn is submitted, which should help to even out the playing field a little for the less spell-savvy while still keeping things fair during multiplayer matches.

However, the most exciting change by far has got to be the cross-platform integration. The Facebook rendition is already available, but once the iOS and Android updates are ready to roll out players will be able to get their spell on across all three platforms. This means PC/Mac users can play against iOS/Android users, and that one user’s account can span multiple devices. So one could play a few rounds on their mobile device, then come home and continue the game on the computer via Facebook. Effectively, just about anyone will be able to play Scrabble with just about anyone else just about anywhere.

Scrabble is already available and is free, but these changes won’t hit until sometime this summer. Do any of these changes have you current players excited? Then chime in below!

There’s a plentiful supply of Scrabble type games on the App Store with the most popular varieties being Scrabble itself and Words With Friends. Today marks the launch of a new word game much like the aforementioned twosome, keen to make its mark on the multiplayer word construction world.

Words Play is that game. Providing an attractive and playful exterior with smiley, cartoon faces guiding the player and a colorful board, Words Play certainly has the potential to be a big hit.

The word game concept we all know and love is there. Players take turns to create words from 7 tiles then place them on the board. The board has a variety of special places that provide double or triple point scores for respective letters or even the whole word. Bonus points are given for creating a word with all the available letters on the rack. Rather usefully, there’s the addition of an in-app dictionary so that players who don’t recognize a word, can just tap on the selection and learn a bit about the term.

Words Play offers a selection of modes. There’s the head to head mode for players who want to play against a friend who’s sitting near them. Then there’s the online multiplayer functionality via the title’s Game Center support. The player can choose to be automatically matched with a random opponent or they can hook up with a friend on their Game Center friends list. For the anti social gamer, there’s also the prospect of competing against the adaptive AI player for the additional price of a $0.99 in-app purchase.

Words Play is a neat little package that’s no doubt sounding pretty appealing right now to words games fans. So readers will be excited to hear that we have 20 promo codes to give away! All you have to do is check in on our Twitter account where we’ll be giving away codes shortly. Obviously, you’re already following us but if not, we’re @148apps.

Enjoy the fun!

Who can resist a word game? I know I can’t which is exactly why I immediately checked out BetterLetter.

BetterLetter is a very simple word game but that’s often all that’s needed for a potent and enjoyable title. Available for free, it’s a game all about adding letters and forming increasingly more complex words from the line up. Pitting the player against another human player or with the AI, each player takes turns in adding letters in their efforts to create the longest word possible and gain the most points.

It’s a simple idea and one that I’m sure I’ve played before as a pen and paper game, but a great way to pass the time. The dictionary included with the game is pretty comprehensive coming up with all manners of words that I didn’t even know existed. Curse my average vocabulary.

BetterLetter also provides themes soon, in order to inspire creativity. These will include a Christmas theme as well as a Breakfast theme amongst others.

BetterLetter is available now for the grand price of nothing. Players can also pay out $0.99 to remove the ads that support the free version, and they can buy a Science Fiction theme for the same price.

Money, it’s a gas; grab that cash with both hands and make a stash!

On This Episode:

Carter speaks to Alex Benoit of EA Mobile about the recent release of Scrabble for Android, discussing its cross-platform multiplayer play, as well as major publishers who distribute games as free to play releases on Android.

Carter and Owens Rodriguez talk about Alien Space Retro, what went into this release of the game, as well as discussing the culture of in-app purchases on iOS.

Who We Are:

Host: Carter Dotson

Guest: Alex Benoit, EA Mobile

Guest: Owens Rodriguez, independent developer

Music:

“Beatnes7 (Theme to The Portable Podcast)” by The Eternal – Download on iTunes here:

“Nanocarp” by The Eternal

How to Listen:

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Listen on WRGT Radio every Friday at 4pm Central

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Apps Mentioned in this Episode:

Some game genres have had a rough time in their induction into the App Store (like action hack n’ slashes), but a few genres seem like they’ve been waiting for devices like the iPhone and iPad. Case in point? Word games work out perfectly with iOS. This week, we’ll showcase our Favorite Four word games.

Crosswords
Released ages ago in App Store years, Crosswords is the one word game to rule them all. At the high price point of $9.99, it’s a tough one to buy. We eventually just took the plunge about a year ago and the app has been well worth the cost. The reason it’s worth such a steep price (for an app) is that it’s the last crossword-related purchase anyone will ever need to make. The app is updated from a ton of free sources as well as some paid ones that require subscription info, like the New York Times. We will never run out of crossword puzzles. Our queue is a little backed up currently at 787 puzzles (and we’re not even using all of the free sources, just our favorites!). In our homescreen folder titled “Favorite Games,” Crosswords is the first app.

Words with Friends
It was obvious that a Scrabble-type game had to make the cut for this Favorite Four, but choosing between Scrabble and Words with Friends was quite difficult. We decided on Words with Friends simply because more of our friends play it (it’s cross-platform). While Scrabble would seem to provide more real-life friends to play with (by linking it with the Facebook Scrabble app), it’s simply easier to play with people we know via Words with Friends.


War of the Words (iPad only)
This app is a hidden gem. The app was released last year and still hasn’t had enough ratings for the App Store to display an average rating. We’re hoping that we might change things for the better with this post. War of the Words includes something that more iPad games should: players sitting across from one another. In War of the Words, when a player forms a words, the letter blocks go over to the other player. Whoever fills the other player’s side of the screen first wins. It’s a simple concept but provides some fast-paced wordy fun.

Wheel of Fortune
We can’t leave out one of the most popular word-based game shows: The Wheel of Fortune apps are great. There are plenty of puzzles to solve and the graphics are impressive on the iPad version. Give them a try!
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As the year winds down and we look ahead to the next decade it’s time for all those wonderful end-of-year lists we all get so excited about. Today we have some exciting news, as Apple has detailed all the top paid and free apps for the iPhone and iPad, as well as the top grossing apps on each platform. Here’s the full rundown, for your edification.

Top 10 Paid iPhone Apps

1. Angry Birds
2. Doodle Jump
3. Skee-Ball
4. Bejeweled 2 + Blitz
5. Fruit Ninja
6. Cut the Rope
7. ALL-IN-1 GAMEBOX
8. The Moron Test
9. Plants vs. Zombies
10. Pocket God

Top 10 Free iPhone Apps

1. Facebook
2. Angry Birds Lite
3. Words With Friends Free
4. Skype
5. Tap Tap Revenge 3
6. The Weather Channel®
7. Paper Toss
8. Bing
9. ROCK BAND FREE
10. Talking Tom Cat

Top 10 Grossing iPhone Apps

1. MLB.com At Bat 2010
2. Angry Birds
3. Call of Duty: Zombies
4. Bejeweled 2 + Blitz
5. FriendCaller 3 Pro
6. Zombie Farm
7. TomTom U.S.A.
8. TETRIS®
9. Plants vs. Zombies
10. Doodle Jump

REad even MORE lists after the jump.

Continue reading Apple Lists 2010 Top Apps »

Newtoy Inc has been picking up some great press of late for its brilliant Words With Friends game, including our four star review. The popular multiplayer app is reminiscent of a word-based board game you may know (that rhymes with dabble) and is now available for the iPad as Words With Friends HD.

The biggest print title in Dallas, Texas, D Magazine, recently featured Words With Friends and its creators, fellow Texans Paul and David Bettner, as its cover feature and is now launching its own Words With Friends celebrity tournament. With 64 places available, the tournament is open to all and will include D Magazine staff, the Bettner brothers and even Dallas Cowboys’ Martellus Bennet among the players. According to Newtoy, Words With Friends is popular with members of both the Cowboys and Texas Rangers.

For your chance to play, click here and sign up before June 1.

Update 5/8: Wow! What a great response. Over 300 of you joined us in playing Words With Friends. Of the 20+ games I’ve got going, I’m losing most of them. No big surprise there! As mentioned below, we picked a winner, emailed them and once they respond we’ll send them the $15 iTunes gift card. Check back later for another Weekend Fun post about another multiplayer game and a $15 iTunes gift card winner.

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Last week, we kicked off our Weekend Fun series with We Rule. 99 of you joined us to build our kingdoms to new levels. We’ve announced the winner of last weekends $15 iTunes gift card on that page and emailed the winner. This week, it’s time to step it up a notch and start to exercise our vocabularies a little.

Words With Friends is our Weekend Fun contest for this week. If you aren’t familiar with Words With Friends, it’s a multiplayer Scrabble type game. What makes it work so well on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad (with HD version), is that you play it at your own pace. Once you play your move, the control passes to the other player who will play at their own pace.

Want to play Words With Friends? The cheapest way is to download the free version (link below), set up an account, and get started. From there you can initiate a game with someone you know, or have the game pick a random player for you. If you are looking for opponents, please add your username in the comments below and I’m sure someone will be more than happy to challenge you! Feel free to challenge me if you feel like winning (jeff148apps) — I have about a 3rd grade vocabulary. (and yes, vocabulary is the largest word I know how to spell)

We’ll pick a random player to win a $15 iTunes gift card (for the US iTunes Store) — all you have to do to win is leave your Words With Friends id (not email address) in the comments below.

Good luck, and happy wordsmithing!

Phew! It’s been a busy week. We’ve had two good sequels to two amazing games, as well as quite a few peculiar titles that piqued my interests. To top things off, we even have an iPhone app that’s meant to work alongside its new iPad brother! Here’s a quick sampling from this week’s new releases. As always, our Friday Five doesn’t represent all of the fantastic new apps that have hit the App Store in the past few days, so feel free to chime in with your own suggestions.

Bounce On 2

The sequel to one of the App Store’s first great platformers, Bounce On 2 is another fun romp through a 2D land populated by enemies, obstacles, platforms, and power-ups. Taking on the role of a red rubber ball, you have to roll and jump through the levels, many of which contain creative twists. You’ll find tons of new features: Plus+ integration, gravity switches, brand-new power-ups, and even the option to use touch controls. If you’re a fan of old-school platformers, be sure to check out Bounce On 2.

Zenonia 2

Zenonia, Zenonia…I think it’s safe to say that Zenonia was also a “first-of” title, though this time I’d call it the first good RPG in the App Store. Zenonia 2 improves upon the original in almost every way, and features a similarly epic storyline, fun real-time battles, and tons of quests and abilities. Plus, it now features four different characters, each with their own storyline and character class, and the new Hard and Hell modes are also slated to come in a future update. The resulting game is fast-paced and deeply satisfying. Zenonia 2 is a great RPG, and once again raises the bar in the App Store.

Poetry Everywhere

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Poetry Everywhere with Garrison Keillor (pbs.org/poetry) is bringing its free poetry performances back to TV, the Internet, and now the iPhone. On TV, the project airs short poetry performances during unexpected moments in public television—personally, I think it’s a really cool idea. Now, you can download the free app and have access to numerous poetry readings. Poetry probably isn’t something that most of us think about every day, which makes the opportunity to carry around a bit of poetry in your pocket all the more valuable.

Babo Crash

We’ve all seen match-3 games before—you know, Bejeweled and its ilk—but Babo Crash brings some fresh new twists to the table. It’s fast-paced, frantic, and features tons of crazy power-ups, which in turn create ridiculous chains of multipliers. It doesn’t hurt that graphics are awesome, either. If you think you’re tired of match-3′s, don’t let that deter you. Babo Crash is incredibly high-tempo, which makes it a great departure from the ordinary lethargy of Bejeweled.

Scrabble Tile Rack

I had to include this one, even though it won’t be of use for most of us, just because it’s a fantastic idea. Meant to work alongside the iPad’s Scrabble app, the tile rack app allows you to play a true multiplayer game on the iPad without revealing your letters to your opponent. You use the iPad as your game board, and then your letters appear on your iPhone, safe from others’ prying eyes. You can then “flick” them onto the board to have them appear on the iPad’s screen. I know, I know—hardly anyone has an iPad yet, right? Still, it’s a really cool idea, and I’m dying to see how close to the “real game” this will bring Scrabble’s app. Can you tell that I’m a Scrabble fanatic?

For a long time now, I’ve been using the Lexulous app exclusively for my online Scrabble games. Why? Well, even if it had less features, Lexulous was just easier to use.

With Scrabble’s newest update, I decided to give the official EA app another shot. The menus are vastly improved: though some things still don’t make sense, it’s a lot easier to jump into a game. The game’s speed has apparently been given a small jolt, too, and you can now use your own music. But what had me most excited was the promise of “push notifications.”

Okay, EA, for the love of god: are you trying to torment me? These so-called “notifications” don’t exist, as far as I can tell. They certainly aren’t push notifications. And yet, despite this, I receive occasional “tips” telling me to turn Push Notifications on in the Settings app. I’ve checked. There’s no option to do so. I don’t think I’m the only one, either: the current version is being bombarded with angry 1-star reviews in the App Store. I’ve tried restarting my iPod and reinstalling the app; nothing changes in my Settings menu.

I’m not sure if EA submitted the wrong app version or if maybe there’s a bug on certain devices. (I’m running a 2G iPod Touch with 8GB of storage.) But either way, this is strange. Shame on you, EA. I got excited over nothing at all.

Google Voice Web App Inbound

Google is reportedly working on a web version of their recently rejected Google Voice application. The app will, if the rumors are true, have all of the features of the rejected native app. Though those features are still less than what the Google Voice application can do on Android phones where it can fully integrate with the dialer for the phone.
[via Apple Insider]

New Apple iPhone Ads

Apple have released a couple new TV ads. If you haven’t seen them yet, the new first ad focuses on sharing information and shows the apps Mover, Bump, and EA’s Scrabble. The second new ad, called travel highlights the apps Rick Steve’s Paris Walk, Tube Paris, and Postman from Freeverse.

Quick App Picks

First up is a new sub hunt game with an overly obvious name, Sub Hunt! This one bumps it up a couple notches with tons of power-ups for your sub. This pretty much converts the typical submarine shooter into a chaotic avoidance game. All in all, pretty good for a buck.

If you live in a busy metro area, chances are you get stuck in traffic regularly. An app was released this week that hopes to help you predict when the traffic is going to be better or worse. Inrix Traffic looks like Google Maps with it’s traffic overlay the difference is the forecast button in the upper right. Hit that and you can look at how Inrix predicts traffic will be up to an hour in advance. Too bad you can only do one hour, but it’s better than nothing at all and it’s free.

And finally, I’m not a big fan of soundboard apps. Typically they are either filled with either boring sound bites or unlicensed ones. But this one piqued my interest, iStooges. A fully licensed soundboard app with a bunch of sound clips from the Three Stooges. This app reminds me of so many afternoons after school watching old reruns of the Three Stooges.

Check back Monday, we’ll have more news for you about the iPhone and some information about an as yet unannounced huge name game to be released for the iPhone next Tuesday.