Tap Tap Revenge will forever be remembered as the first true music game on the app store. Since the dawn of the App Store, Tap Tap Revenge and its subsequent sequels have defined music games on iOS devices. To put it into perspective: the previous iterations of Tap Tap (including Tap Tap Revenge Classic, Tap Tap Revenge 2.6, and Tap Tap Revenge 3) are three of the top ten all-time paid downloads in the App Store. Yikes.

Tap Tap Revenge 4 debuted about a month ago to record downloads, continuing the series’ tradition of rampant popularity. Tap Tap Revenge 4 brings many changes to the table along with its tried-and-true formula. The game still revolves around tapping “notes” as they scroll towards you, but now there’s also an Arcade Mode and up-to-date global leaderboards thanks to Game Center. You can also engage in online battles against other players. Given that Tap Tap claims 15 million players, you ought to be able to find someone to test your tapping skills against. The graphics are also much spiffier, though now the company recommends you play on a third- or fourth-generation device.

Of course, one of the foremost reasons people love rhythm games is the music itself. Tap Tap Revenge 4 includes plenty of paid tracks like its predecessors, but there’s a decent library of over a hundred free songs as well. Additionally, Tapulous promises that a new free song will be released every week. The music trends toward the mainstream, but that doesn’t make it bad. You’ll find hits from artists like Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Rihanna, Owl City, and Avenged Sevenfold, just to name a few of the stars on Tapulous’s lineup.

Tap Tap Revenge has a long and successful history on the App Store. This fourth iteration delivers more of the same, but in this case, “more of the same” should be more than enough to sate even the most rabid rhythm-lovers. For now, Tap Tap Revenge is free on the App Store. Grab it while it’s hot!

$2.99

Tap Tap Revenge 4

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-12-19 :: Category: Games

The Tap Tap Revenge franchise is already a huge one and it just became even bigger. Developer Tapulous has just released Tap Tap Revenge 4, and the newest edition of the game bundles the franchise’s huge back-catalog of songs together into one massive app. As if that weren’t enough, the game comes pre-loaded with over 100 free songs to tap along to, featuring bands such as Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance. The crew behind the game has also been updating the store, adding tracks from artists such as Nelly, Katy Perry and more.

The app is also showcasing a slickly redesigned interface, optimized for the iPhone’s new Retina Display. The game is also integrating Game Center, as well as a like button which will show you which tracks are most popular amongst you and your friends, as well as constantly updating leaderboards to show who’s got the fastest fingers. This is easily the most comprehensive game in the series, and there’s really no reason for franchise fans to skip out.

The genius of Tap Tap Revenge is the freemium model it follows, tempting users with free songs and then hooking them into buying premium tracks. The fact that Tapulous releases a new free song every week means that players are constantly checking back into the app, and while they’re browsing they may just find a song or two they wouldn’t mind paying to add to their collection. Granted, the music in the game tends to skew towards the Top 40 charts, but its hard to blame the developers for that, they’re just giving the people what they want.

Though Rock Band and Guitar Hero may own the console scene, Tap Tap Revenge dominates iOS, and rightly so. The sheer volume of content available and free price tag is music to the ears of gamers, and this latest edition only serves to further cement Tap Tap’s place at the top of the heap. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to tap some Katy Perry, take that sentence in whatever way you want.

$2.99

Tap Tap Revenge 4

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-12-19 :: Category: Games

[via PocketGamer]

Tapulous has long reigned as king of the App Store music games. Back in the App Store’s early days, they released a humble, free music game…one of the first. Since then, they’ve expanded, partnering with major artists and raking in the cash thanks to in-app purchases and a plethora of music-related apps. And now, it looks like the original developers have scored again—only this time, they’ve been acquired by Disney.

While Disney doesn’t immediately come to mind when it comes to the App Store, they actually have 30+ apps released. It’s not the first time they’ve acquired an iPhone game, either; Jelly Car 2 is also now a Disney property. As for Tapulous, well, who could blame anyone for being interested? Though the purchase price hasn’t been announced, we know that Tapulous is very valuable indeed. The Tap Tap Revenge series has already racked up 1 billion song plays and 35 million downloads.

Moving forward, don’t fret about Tap Tap Revenge suddenly disappearing from the App Store. Tapulous founder Bart Decrem and COO Andrew Lacy will be joining Disney as senior VPs, but they certainly aren’t abandoning their company. Rather, Tapulous will be “spearheading [Disney's] drive to be the leader in mobile entertainment.” Translation: Disney plans on putting the Tapulous team’s knack for mobile success to good use.

Hats off to the folks at Tapulous!

Sources: TechCrunch

Fridays are the perfect time for reflecting on the past week…and Fridays at 148apps are no exception. Here are five interesting apps released in the past week for your perusal!

Inkstrumental
ustwo seems to enjoy creating unique apps, such as the masterfully titled “…“. Inkstrumental is their newest app, and it’s a funky one. The point is to create your own weird music videos and strange soundtracks, using the 31 creatures included. See, each character will emit a musical sound when you tap it. A “VIP character” allows you to record your own sounds, too. By mixing them together against different backdrops you create a unique mash-up of noise and your very own music video. It might not be as complex as other sound-mixing apps, but Inkstrumental is intuitive and packs a ton of character. Who couldn’t love these fuzzy creatures? As an added bonus, you can share your masterpieces by in-app uploading to YouTube.

FREE!

Inkstrumental

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-05-07 :: Category: Entertainment

Nirvana Revenge
By now it’s an established fact that the Tap Tap Revenge series reigns supreme when it comes to iPhone rhythm games, at least in terms of popularity. Nirvana Revenge is the latest spin-off, featuring—you guessed it—hits from Nirvana. Fourteen songs are bundled with the app, including songs like Smells Like Teen Spirit, Breed, Heart Shaped Box, and Lithium. (Note that the fourteen includes three live versions.) The songs give you a good sampling of the band’s work, and you get to tap along to the fourteen tracks for far less than they would cost on iTunes. This being a Tap Tap game, you also have a few neat features like four difficulty levels and four boss tracks thrown in. If you’re a Nirvana Fan looking for a gaming fix, you’d better check out Nirvana Revenge.

$4.99

Nirvana Revenge

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-05-12 :: Category: Games

Komenten
To quote Komenten’s description: “A comet has been born, please take good care of it!” Komenten is a colorful space exploration game in which you zip around the galaxy like an intergalactic tourist. There’s no real objective, but the vivid watercolor graphics coupled with the soundtrack make a relaxing, beautiful ride. Even if you don’t usually enjoy non-traditional games, I’m willing to wager that anyone in touch with their inner child could easily get lost in Komenten’s vibrant, bizarre world. The universe is such an exciting place—why not explore it?

$2.99

Kometen

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-05-12 :: Category: Games

Zombie Infection
Gameloft just keeps rolling out games. Zombie Infection is one of their latest titles, and if it looks familiar, well, chances are that’s because it’s highly similar to Resident Evil. That doesn’t stop Zombie Infection from being a technically stunning title, however, and Gameloft’s new zombie game is sure to devour both your brains and your free time. Zombie Infection comes with a 12-level campaign mode in which you switch between ex-soldier Damien Sharpe and journalist Alex Rayne, as well as a Survivor Mode. There are tons of enemies, including mutated and infected animals, plenty of weapons, a sinister zombie-filled storyline, and top-notch 3D graphics. In short? Gameloft does it again…this time, with zombies!

$4.99

Zombie Infection

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-05-10 :: Category: Games

StreetSpark
StreetSpark is one of those apps that needs a large user base to function, which is probably why it’s free! StreetSpark is a location-based dating app that takes your location and searches for nearby users who match your profile (they call this a “Spark”). With an eye towards safety, StreetSpark doesn’t reveal your location or personal contact info. Instead, you can chat in-app or meet up in one of StreetSpark’s HotSpots, which give StreetSpark users discounts and offer users a place to congregate. Think FourSquare, but for dating. It’s a really interesting use of the location feature, and thankfully it looks like the app’s developers are aware of privacy concerns. Sadly, it’s currently limited to the UK, but the developers plan to expand to other countries (and, for that matter, handsets) in the future.

FREE!

StreetSpark

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-03-10 :: Category: Social Networking

Christmas Time Is Here!
Christmas is in just four days, and the best gift of all is definitely a new iDevice for your loved one. Sure, you could give a plain ol’ iPod Touch or iPhone, but wouldn’t he/she be so much happier with an iDevice loaded up with a few apps? Here’s 4 that I think everyone should have.

1. Tweetie 2
Whether or not the person you are buying your iDevice for uses Twitter or not… they will very soon. They may scoff at the idea now, but the ability to Tweet about your surroundings with text message ease makes the idea far more attractive. Being the best of its kind, Tweetie 2 is the way to go for all of your narcissistic Twitter needs.

FREE!

Twitter

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2009-10-09 :: Category: Social Networking

2. Midomi Sound Hound
It used to just be called Midomi, and it used to be absolutely free, but given the fact that Shazam charges too, I figured I’d go with Midomi for my recommendation. Like Shazam, Midomi can tag a song out of midair, but it goes one step further and pulls songs that you sing or hum into the mic. Is “Hey Mr. Tambourine Man” stuck in your head, but you can’t think of The Byrds? Pull out Midomi and start humming. Warning. If you are entirely tone deaf, this really won’t do you much good.

$6.99

SoundHound ∞

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2008-07-11 :: Category: Music

3. Yelp
Sure, it’s an old, no-fun app, but it is an app that I use on almost every vacation I take. Just select ‘near me’, choose ‘restaurant’, and then pick. It’s that easy. If you need a bit more excitement in your life, I’d go with the even older UrbanSpoon, which does the same thing but leaves the selection process to the phone itself. Watching the slot machine selection process is great though.

FREE!

Yelp

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2008-07-11 :: Category: Travel

4. Need For Speed: Undercover
I know I’m going to get flack for this, but here is my rationale. If you are pre-loading a game for this iDevice, I’m assuming that the person is somewhere between the ages of 13-18, and that they like games… otherwise they would probably just go buy their own games. You could certainly take a gamble and buy an RPG like SEED, Zenonia, or Inotia 2, but RPG’s really don’t show off the system like other games do. Remember, this is the game that people are going to show of to their buds and say, “Pshh, eat that PSP”. Personally, I would go with a tower defense game, but there is nothing sexy about tower defense. To show off the full graphics capabilities of the iDevice, I would go with a full speed racer. Most would probably say that Real Racing is the way to go here, but as a show-off piece, it falls in one crucial area… cut scenes. Sure, the cut scene does nothing to enhance the gameplay, but if you really want to stick it to your UMD toting, PSP playing friend, just show them that your iDevice can roll with a game complete with full motion video. NFS: Underground really is the most complete video game on the device, even if it may not be the best.

$2.99

Need For Speed™ Undercover

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2009-05-05 :: Category: Games

Vector TD
Speaking of Tower Defense, Candystand just put Vector TD onto the iPhone. Sure, it’s not the prettiest thing you’ll ever see, but if it’s anything like the web version, it will be fun. I’m just now downloading it to my iPhone, but I’ll hopefully have a review up soon.

FREE!

Vector TD

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2009-12-18 :: Category: Games

Big Dollars
For all the stories I hear of iPhone devs struggling to make ends meet, it’s good to hear a success story or two every once in a while. According to a recent Reuters article, Tapulous says that it is pulling in a million dollars a month from its ‘Tap Tap Revenge game series. According to the article, “Earlier this year, research group comScore said the game had been installed by one-third of Apple app users.”

Having only 20 employees total, the guys over at Tapulous are certainly doing well for themselves. They aren’t the only ones though… Lima Sky, the dev behind the Top 10 Paid App stalwart, Doodle Jump, recently announced that they have passed a million downloads. While they aren’t pulling in a $1mil a month, they are splitting all the profit between its 2 employees, Igor and Marko Pusenjak. Merry Christmas indeed.

$0.99

Doodle Jump

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2009-03-26 :: Category: Games

Big Finish
Well that’s all I have for this week. I hope all of you have a great holiday weekend… just don’t eat so much that you won’t be able to read 148apps on Monday. That just wouldn’t be good for anyone.

Big changes and a small price tag. Tapulous have submitted and are awaiting approval of their latest instalment of the highly popular Tap Tap Revenge game, according to Business Insider. A myriad of new features include in-app purchasing of avatars and music, a new feature of 3.0, allowing users to download two tracks for $0.99 or six tracks for $2.99.

Tap Tap Revenge 3 is due to be live on the App Store “sometime next month” at the price tag of $0.99 (£0.59). The price tag was unavoidable with in-app purchasing, which Apple requires all developers to price the application itself also. Expect to hear more in the next coming weeks, and as always, we’ll have a review up within days of its release.

Puzzllotto the first release from United Lemur is due to be released Monday with a huge promotion attached. While the game briefly showed up in the App Store tonight, it quickly disappeared. The game itself is puzzle based set in an amazingly lush jungle. The actual method of game play and the goal is unknown at the start — it’s all part of the exploration aspect of the game. Similar to Myst in that aspect, it’s all up to the player to figure out. What is known is that the first person to finish the game is in for a big surprise.

We got a chance to play with a pre-release version of this game and the graphics and sounds are fantastic. The sounds have been provided by the amazing Dr. Douglas Quin — who also did the sounds for EA’s Spore. While the graphics have been done by Louie Mantia who made many of the Tapulous apps look so goodDavid Lanham. While we’d like to say that we don’t want to ruin the surprise on how the game is played, the truth is we haven’t spent enough time with it yet to figure it out.

While we can’t tell you everything we know about the promotion that’s backing this game’s release — well not until the embargo is lifted, hopefully Monday, United Lemur has set up an amazingly huge promotion lined up for this first release. The name of the app may give you some clue as to the direction, but you will be amazed at the details.

One small clue from the description of the game in the App Store:

Be the first to uncover its secrets and claim the title and trophy of the Puzzllotto Champion. The malevolent spirits are all in your head, but the fun—and the treasure—are real.

United Lemur, you may remember, is the group of veteran developers many of whom were most recently at Tapulous. After a few of them left the company, Mike Lee formed United Lemur as a socially conscious indie development house.

Check back Monday for more on the game and the promotion. Until then, keep hitting this URL as you might be able to get it early and get a head start.

Tap Tap Tap, developer of a couple of the most popular and beautifully designed applications like Where To? (4.5 stars), Tipluator (3.5 stars) has imploded over differences in direction between it’s founders. It’s a theme we’ve seen before in iPhone developer Tapulous.

In this corporate divorce, most of the software has gone to Sophia Teutschler and will go under her Sophiestication Software name. This includes Tipulator, Groceries (unreleased), and Where Am I? (unreleased). The one odd ball, Where To? will be sold off by Tap Tap Tap and has already been removed from the App Store.

Tap Tap Tap has a few other projects in the works, though no details have been released.

For more info on this, see the latest Tap Tap Tap blog post here.

What’s going on over at Tapulous? They have now lost two more employees, Sean Heber (engineer, employee #1) and Louie Matia (designer/UI) has left as well. They must be down to 3 employees now after losing Mike Lee and most recently Tristan O’Tierney.

Originally, the future looked so bright for Tapulous as they had built the top notch development team. But losing the majority of the company in just over a month can’t signal good things for their future.

In another sign that Tapulous is having some internal problems, Tristan O’Tierney sent a tweet tonight that he is no longer at Tapulous. No reason has yet been given nor any indication if the parting was amicable, though a blog post has been promised by Tristan.

You may remember that Tapulous also lost a co-founder Mike Lee just a few weeks ago. Does this latest loss show continued signs of problems at Tapulous or just a direction change? It has been speculated that Tapulous is looking to VCs for money, a decision that could easily change the direction of the company and it’s products. A change that could disagree with some of the original employees.

Tristan is the developer of Twinkle, Tapulous’ first officially released application in the App Store.

Tapulous, the developer of some of the most popular free applications in the iTunes App Store has lost a prominent engineer and co-founder, Mike Lee. Mike Lee, self designated toughest programmer in the world, was asked to resign from the company over voicing concerns the engineers had on the direction of the company.

This is a rather shocking turn and points to obvious strife in the company. Something that can destroy a young company like Tapulous. Especially so in such a rapidly growing industry like iPhone development where talented people are at such high demand. With the current boom in iPhone app development, the engineers at Tapulous can all pretty much name their price at dozens of companies.

Consider this a turning point for one of the brightest stars in iPhone app development. From this point they either get stronger or implode.

Tapulous is a development company behind Tap Tap Revenge (iTunes) and Twinkle (iTunes).

[via Mike Lee's Blog ]