iPhone Daily News Digest

Gizmodo isn’t waiting for the new year to shoot old rumors into the stratosphere, gossiping that the Google Phone (an honest-to-Jobs unique, branded phone by Google) is in a fact a fact, runs the here-to-fore unseen “real” Android (yes, everything from the G1 to the Droid has been running fakety fake fake Android), and is about to flood Google’s HQ for testing:

Our best guess is an Android OS with Google Voice at its heart.

And maybe a side order of VoIP? (They say it’s not Chrome OS either, but it’s hard not to imagine Google ultimately going in that direction).

If to, would this make Android less competitive with the iPhone by utterly shattering the faith and market of Google’s partners, or would it let Google ship the kind of killer integrated experience Apple, Palm, and RIM have been serving up? Oh, and, you want?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Crazy Competition Rumor: Secret Google Phone Running Secret Android is Real

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chad’s Pick: Lumines

This week I am picking Q Entertainment’s Lumines. This game came out a little while ago with poor fanfare due to the horrible controls. Good news? There is now and update that fixes these issues and this game is now a pleasure to play. You even have in-app purchasing for additional theme packs. The music is not as good as the original IMO, but still fun!! [$2.99 - iTunes link]

James’ Pick: TripIt

As a consultant, I am on the road each week. In order to keep my life organized, I would always enter my trip details (hotel info, flight numbers, etc.) into calendar entries. TripIt makes my life easier by automatically creating my trip entries for me. The service syncs with various iPhone apps like FlightTrack Pro [$9.99 - iTunes link] and they even have their own free app. If you don’t have any room for one more app, you can subscribe to an iCal feed right on your iPhone. Perfect for the road warrior. [Free - iTunes link]

Leanna’s Pick: KENKEN

As someone who loves math and anything involving logical thinking, I am quite the sudoku fan. KENKEN took it to the next level. Just as with sudoku, each row and column must contain every number exactly once with the additional requirement that the bolded groups of blocks must add, subtract, divide, or multiply into a specific number. I love a great challenge and KENKEN is a great way to get that brain working and have fun at the same time. [$4.99 - iTunes link]

Matt’s Pick: Pocket Tunes Radio

II was initially wary of purchasing Pocket Tunes as there where other apps at a much cheaper price, however, more recently Pocket Tunes made some significant changes and addons that blows all other competition out of the water – with the ability to play streams in the background, record your favorite stations(& play them back later), and the ability to play AAC+ audio ($3 in-app purchase, but highly recommended), and if you have sirus/XM subscription, pocket tunes will play that as well! Quite frankly I got rid of my XM subscription because I could use Pocket Tunes instead! [$6.99
- iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick: NetNewsWire Free/Premium

I need to keep up with RSS, and I’ve tried every RSS reader on the iPhone. Each have their pros and cons, each makes a tradeoff somewhere between interface and feature sets, and while I wish I could just stuff several in a Hadron-esque collider and god-particle myself the one perfect reader, they just won’t (and shouldn’t) grant me access to CERN. So, I’ve been using NetNewsWire Premium a lot lately, simply because it gives me my Google Reader-synced news fast enough, lets me see the most recent updates across all my feeds, allows me to star and email out complete articles, and/or save them to Instapaper for later offline perusal. It’s not perfect, but perfectly usable for me, for now.
[$4.99 - iTunes link] or [Free - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Lumines, Tripit, KENKEN, Pocket Tunes Radio, NetNewsWire — TiPb Picks of the Week

Overview

Classic monopoly is now on the iPhone. Everyone seemingly knows Monopoly, and there have been different versions for just about everything. Now the classic Monopoly from Baltic Ave to Marvin Gardens and finally off to Board Walk you can play on the go.

Pass Go, collect $200, and try to make as many Monopolies as you can to bankrupt your opponents. Try to make monopolies by collecting all of the properties of a certain color, and the values increase as you move around the board.

Features

Monopoly includes classic monopoly gameplay. The controls are all tap except for shake to roll the dice. Most every action is a tap away which is great. Three AI difficulty levels are included, and you can play in five different rooms as backgrounds.

Local online play is included for wifi and bluetooth. Also the game saves your local progress for each device that was playing. You can edit game rules a little, to add auctions, edit free parking, and the value of landing exactly on Go.

The Good

You can now play the great gameplay of classic monopoly on your iPhone anytime anywhere. Monopoly is always fun, and despite all of the different versions the classic is still the best. It’s always great to collect park place and board walk and the green ones, build up some houses, and start bankrupting opponents.

The entire game flows quickly, as you’re not dragged down by the physical limitations of working with all of the physical items whether it’s counting out money, moving the pieces, or adding houses. The computer players move quickly so you don’t have to wait too long until it’s back to your turn.

The game is nicely designed from the board to the pieces, and even the background rooms you play in. The animations flow well from the burst of gold dollar signs when money is exchanged to the actual movement of the pieces. It’s great to see the dog walk around or the iron steam ahead. The dice roll is pretty good, and when an opponent goes to jail it’s amazing.

You can turn on your own music, but even better are the three monopoly specific playlists. You can listen to smooth jazz music seemingly right out of the 20s, and it’s just so pleasant to listen to. The sound effects though are basic at best with not many noises ever coming out of the game except for dings, and clomping of pieces.

The wifi and bluetooth multiplayer worked well to allow you to play locally. The games set up quick, and work well between multiple devices. As a super special feature I’ve yet to see, the game actually saves the wifi/bluetooth game so you and your friends can go back in where you left off. This is great because Monopoly does take quite awhile to finish, and it saves single player too.

It’s really easy to interact with the game, and do all of the Monopoly transactions without all the fake money, cardboard property cards, and plastic houses. All of the purchases, trades, auctions, and mortgages are extremely easy, and streamlined. The AI actually makes intelligent moves, and provides nice difficult opponents.

The Bad

Not much to dislike with Monopoly. One thing is that it’s just like the Here & Now edition, and doesn’t introduce anything new. It just is a classic monopoly paint job on the game.

Another concern is that despite EA’s resources they still haven’t made any games able to play online. You would think EA could do something like ngmoco, (maybe not). Also facebook connect could be useful for monopoly, and EA employs it in Scrabble.

Though you shake to roll the dice it doesn’t feel completely random like that of MotionX Poker. Also it seems that your character often lands on opponents places, but opponents skirt by yours with just the right dice roll. Another problem is that its just Monopoly that you’ve played many times before, and other than playing with friends there doesn’t seem to be much repalyability.

The Verdict

Monopoly is the best Board Game EA has made for the iPhone, and the best overall in the category. It’s great to play Monopoly on the go as it plays quickly and smoothly. The animations work well, and classic monopoly gameplay is still always fun.

It is just like the Here & Now edition, and you can only play Monopoly so many times. Monopoly is a should buy for $2.99 – $4.99 depending on when you buy it.

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It looks like Donut Games has done it again.  Just when we thought they were completely out of games to make available for free, they go ahead and slash the price of their casual traffic controlling game Traffic Rush for a limited time.

In Traffic Rush you are tasked with controlling the flow of the traffic in order to avoid a massive pileup.  You are able to stop vehicles in their tracks to allow the cross traffic to mosey on through with a simple tap of your finger.  You can also swipe over a vehicle to give it a little extra boost of power to get through the four-way crossing in haste.  No matter which method you use, however, you simply can not let vehicles collide.  If you do, the game is over.  Traffic Rush also features local and global leader boards to satisfy the competitive gamer in you.

Traffic Rush is normally available for $.99, but it is now available for free for a limited time.

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ReelDirector landed in the App Store in mid-October as the first full-blown video editing app for the iPhone 3GS.  At that time it was priced at $7.99, which is fairly reasonable considering the amount of features it contained, but the app was recently upgraded to v2.0 while also being placed on sale for the holidays, making it a steal of a deal.

ReelDirector makes it easy to create professional looking movies while on the go.  The app allows you to edit videos on your iPhone 3GS in their original resolution (640 x 480) or scale them down to 480 x 360 to speed up processing.  It features a drag-and-drop timeline, the ability to stitch clips together, add text watermarks, add opening and closing credits with four different styles and nine positions, add 27 pro-grade transitions, preview your final piece, and share your movie via email.

ReelDirector v2.0 now features the ability to add photos with the Ken Burns effect, trim and split imported clips, and record and mix soundtracks.

ReelDirector is normally available for $7.99, but it is now specially priced at $4.99 for a limited time.

[Thanks to Jomskylark for the tip!]

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AppAdvice has teamed up with RedMadRobot to give you a chance to win one of four (4) promo codes for an old school paper and pen version of Battleship that may just make you feel like a kid again.

Battleship Classic plays like the same game from your childhood and, surprisingly, it looks and feels the same as well thanks to the  hand-drawn graphics and human-made sounds that go along with every action that takes place in the game.  Battleship Classic also features two different gameplay modes, intelligent A.I., and local multiplayer via Wi-Fi.

Since we have a fair amount of promo codes to give away, we are going to employ the same system we used for our Lexic giveaway. To win one of three Battleship Classic promo codes, simply hit that green retweet bottom near the bottom of this page or retweet this post from your favorite Twitter app before 11:59 PM PDT tonight (November 30th). We will then search the Twitterverse for all of the retweets and randomly choose three winners. Winners will be notified via Twitter, of course, so please be sure to follow us so we can direct message you your promo code.

If, for whatever reason, you don’t have a Twitter account, that’s totally fine because you can win one Battleship Classic promo code via the usual comment method. To have a chance at winning one Battleship Classic promo code, simply leave a relevant comment below before 11:59 PM PDT tonight.

Feel free to participate in the giveaway via either or both methods.  We are absolutely fine with someone winning multiple codes as long as they are willing to share with others.  As always, this giveaway and all promo code giveaways are only open to U.S. iTunes account users. Good luck!

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Before Google showed off Chrome OS, essentially the Chrome Browser running on top of an ultra-lite Linux Kernal, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington tried to will something very similar into existence — a capacitive touchscreen CrunchPad tablet that would run Firefox and nothing else.

The rumored price tag rose and “delays” seemed to abound, and now it looks like the little CrunchPad that almost could will never be:

Bizarrely, we were being notified that we were no longer involved with the project. Our project. [partner and Fusion Garage CEO, Chandra Rathakrishnan] said that based on pressure from his shareholders he had decided to move forward and sell the device directly through Fusion Garage, without our involvement.

Err, what? This is the equivalent of Foxconn, who build the iPhone, notifiying Apple a couple of days before launch that they’d be moving ahead and selling the iPhone directly without any involvement from Apple.

Like the Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Microsoft Courier proof-of-concept, we were really interested to see more attempts to define this still nebulous “tablet” style device, and given the browser-centric nature of the CrunchPad in particular, it would certainly have niche appeal (we’re looking at ourselves there).

We’ll keep some hope, however, that Arrington can find a new partner. (Maybe a Google sponsored Chrome OS CrunchPad?) If for no other reason then to help faster shake-out this space before (or rather if) Apple enters it with an iTablet…

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Mythical iTablet Competitor CrunchPad Dead Before Arrival

You already knew TiPb’s very own store is having a huge sale today and if that isn’t enough, Amazon has an excellent deal on the 2nd generation 8GB iPod touch. For $158 you can nab one with free shipping along with a small bonus of a $5 Amazon MP3 Store credit.

If you spot any other worthy Cyber Monday deals be sure to let us know!

[Via 9to5Mac]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Amazon Selling 8GB iPod Touch (2nd Generation) for $158.00

You already knew TiPb’s very own store is having a huge sale today and if that isn’t enough, Amazon has an excellent deal on the 2nd generation 8GB iPod touch. For $158 you can nab one with free shipping along with a small bonus of a $5 Amazon MP3 Store credit.

If you spot any other worthy Cyber Monday deals be sure to let us know!

[Via 9to5Mac]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Amazon Selling 8GB iPod Touch (2nd Generation) for $158.00

After making a lot of noise about Android Market not being ready and how they would be scaling back development for the platform, Gameloft has done an about face and looks to be full speed ahead:

Paris – Gameloft®, a world leader in the publishing and development of downloadable video games, plans to launch High Definition games on next generation Android phones like the Motorola Droid and the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

“The arrival of this new generation of phones will allow the development of High Definition games that make the most of the technological capacity and the speed of execution offered by the new Android phones. Consumers will benefit from a top quality gaming experience,” says Gonzague de Vallois, vice-president of Publishing at Gameloft.

Gameloft also continues to support the current generation of Android phones and announces the imminent arrival of titles such as Assassin’s Creed. These titles will be accessible on the Android Marketplace and Gameloft internet sites and will further strengthen our catalogue of Android games already available.

As our buddy Casey over at Android Central points out, the reversal is stunning considering how Gameloft claimed they make 400x as much on iPhone apps as they do Android. (Casey also points out that persistent app size limit annoyance in Android land — fix that Google, would ya?)

We say — awesome. More competition for the handset makers and better games for everyone. Bring the fun!

What do you think, did Gameloft re-run the numbers, see a secret prototype, or did someone from Google use Maps Navigation to find France, pay them a visit, and show them search rankings before and after for their “re-consideration”? (We joke! Don’t Wave us!)

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Gameloft Flip Flops — Will Develop for iPhone AND Android

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