Barely a year after Steve Jobs unveiled the game changer iPad tablet on January 27th, 2010, the world is eagerly anticipating the launch of the next-generation iPad (aka iPad 2). Though Apple has successfully managed to keep iPad 2 under the wraps and declined to comment on any speculations, the internet rumor will has been [...]

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If you’ve got an iPhone, you’ll no doubt have heard about Angry Birds – the addictive and frustrating game that’s all about destroying pigs to get your eggs back.

It was one of the most popular apps of 2010, and it’s popularity has lead to a range of Angry Birds toys and accessories hitting the shelves.

If you’re mad about Angry Birds, you’ll want to get your hands on one of these fantastic new Angry Birds iPhone 4 covers. They’re ultra thin, leave all the ports accessible on your phone and will protect the back and sides from scuffs and scratches – but most importantly, they feature your favourite characters from the game - Red Bird, Pig King and Yellow Bird.

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Recently, a friend of mine asked whether we can create fancy email signature using HTML. As you know, iPhone comes with a “Sent from my iPhone” email signature. If you’ve ever tried to manipulate the email configuration, you probably know you can change the signature under “Mail, Contacts, Calendar” setting. However, iPhone only accepts email [...]

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If you’re awaiting an untethered jailbreak solution for your device running iOS 4.2.1, the bad news is you still have to wait for a while. Earlier, the iPhone Dev team has released a beta version of redsn0w that supports the untethered jailbreak for iOS 4.2.1. However, as of now, the software is still in beta [...]

Tags: Google, iphone, iPhone Tips, jailbreak-iphone, p, redsn0w, tethered jailbreak

This guest post is contributed by Joey, the author of The iPhone App Development Blog. Last time I share with you tips about developing iconic iPhone game. Today we’re going to look at some awesome iOS developers hacks (e.g. how to use social media as free ads) most successful developers wouldn’t want you to know. [...]

Tags: iphone, iPhone Development, iPhone Tip, iPhone Tips, p

Are you worried about the rising data usage bills on your iPhone? Unless you have subscribed to an Unlimited Data plan (which is rare in several countries), its best advised to keep a strict vigil on your data usage. Otherwise, it’s possible that you would receive a whopping data bill sooner than later. While some [...]

Tags: billing, e7, iphone, iphone apps, p

I’ve previously reviewed paid streaming radio app for the iPhone and iPad, TuneIn. How does the free Jelli app for iPhone from Jelli, Inc. compare? As their production description states “Jelli is 100% user-controlled” content much like with personalized Internet radio, Pandora, available streaming 24/7 and customizable to the user’s musical tastes. You can think [...]

Tags: Internet Radio, iphone, iphone apps, p, Radio

I love the App Store on iPhone and iPad. Though it’s not perfect, the App Store offers a streamlined and convenient way to discover apps and you can install the apps with one-click. If you love the experience on iPhone’s App Store, you’ll probably love the announcement of App Store for Mac.

Today, Apple has announced the grand opening of Mac App Store that brings the App Store experience on iPhone/iPad to the Mac platform. You can find great apps, purchase them or download them onto the Mac computer with just one-click. It’s just how you use the App Store on iPhone. But instead of navigating the store using your finger, you use your mouse to discover and install the great apps.

For the launch, the Mac App Store comes with over 1,000 Mac apps available for purchase or free download. You can already download free apps such as Twitter app, StuffIt Expander and Evernote. The iLife 11 suite is also available individually in the Mac App Store for $14.99 each, and Pages®, Keynote® and Numbers® apps from iWork® are available for $19.99 each. Angry Birds also introduces its Mac version for $4.99. Other than bundling existing Mac apps into the store, Apple has partnered with several companies to introduce some entirely new apps such as SketchBook Pro:

“We’re delighted to bring our professional-grade paint and drawing app, Autodesk SketchBook Pro, to the Mac App Store on its first day of launch,” said Carl Bass, Autodesk’s CEO. “We’ve seen tremendous success on the Mac, iPhone and iPad with multiple apps. We’re excited to offer SketchBook Pro on the Mac App Store so artists can easily create everything from quick sketches to high-quality artwork right on their Macs.”

“By offering the Ancestry.com Family Tree Maker app on the Mac App Store, we’re making it even easier for people to discover and access their family history,” said Tim Sullivan, Ancestry.com’s CEO. “The Mac App Store will drive a new generation of innovation on the Mac platform.”

My first impression of Mac App Store is pretty good. As you launch the Mac App Store, you should find a familiar interface. The look & feel is nearly identical to the iTunes App Store. You shouldn’t have any problem navigating through the store if you’re already familiar with the iTunes store. Apps are organized into categories. Like the iTunes App Store, you can find the top paid and the top free apps, new & noteworthy and staff favorites in the homepage.

The Mac App Store requires you to login with an Apple ID before downloading any app. You can use the same iTunes App Store account for the login if you already own one. When you discover an app you like, simply click on the “Buy” or “Free” buttons to purchase/download the app. The experience is exactly the same as you install apps on your iPhone.

The Mac App Store only supports Mac computer running on Snow Leopard (i.e. Mac OS X 10.6). If you’re using this version of Mac OS X, you can simply go to Software Update and install the Mac OS X 10.6.6 update. Once installed and rebooted your Mac, you should find a new “Mac App Store” icon in the dock to access the store.

If you have a Mac, do try out the new App Store. I’m sure you’ll love the “iPhone” way for installing your Mac applications. For those using Windows, do you want to have such App Store on your Windows PC/laptop? Feel free to leave us comment and share your thought.

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If you love the “Pull to Refresh” feature on Twitter or Facebook app, I’m sure you’ll also love this hack that brings “Pull to Refresh” feature to iPhone’s Safari app.

Developed by an iPhone develop known as “xh”, the “Pull to Refresh Safari” is a nifty tweak for mobile Safari. With the hack, other than using the reload button, you can simply pull down to refresh a web page. That’s very similar to the refresh feature you can find on other iPhone apps such as Twitter and Facebook.

The hack doesn’t just let you refresh a web page. While the web page is loading, you can also pull down the web page to stop it from loading.

To use the hack, you need a jailbroken iPhone running iOS 3.0 or up and it requires mobilesubstrate which should be installed automatically. The hack is available for free on cydia via BigBoss source. Simply search for “Pull to Refresh Safari” to install the package. Once installed, the hack will be enabled automatically.

If you love this hack, you probably like to check out “Pull to Refresh for Mail”. It’s another hack from the same developer that brings the “Pull to Refresh” feature to Mail app.

Overall, the hack works great and I love to see Apple builds this feature in the upcoming iOS update. What do you think?

Tags: apple, Button, cydia, doesn, Facebook, Hack, iphone, love, mail, Mobile, mobile safari, mobilesubstrate, p, package, Reload, reload tag mobile phone, tweak, twitter, update, web page, webpage doesn't refresh on iphone, xh

Are you a die-hard Archie or Marvel comic fan? Were you a childhood fan of Betty, Veronica or any one of those eternal lovable comic characters? If so, I’m sure that you’ve already tried out the comic strip iPad apps by Archie, Marvel and others. However, adding new comic titles in these apps is a costly proposition and more often than you need to shell out more than a few bucks as “In-App” purchases. So, where do you buy dirt cheap comics for reading on your iPad? Read on to find out more!

First things first, unlike notebooks or conventional laptops, the iPad is a fabulous device for reading comics courtesy the bright and colorful display and the highly responsive touchscreen. Being an avid comic reader myself, I’m always on the lookout for cheap (and free) comic titles for my iPad and I stumbled upon this useful post from Macenstein. As revealed in the post, Amazon is offering a plethora of comic DVDs to choose from at dirt cheap prices of $3 or more. What’s more, there’s an additional discount if you buy three DVDs together.

For comic lovers like me, Amazon’s offerings are truly a god send. Each DVD offers more than 100 comic titles which you can convert to PDF and read on your iPad using iBooks or other tools such as GoodReader as per your convenience. No need to pay extra for “in-app purchases” and truly great value for your money. And it’s not just Archie comics, Amazon is also selling a number of other comics including X-Men, Avengers and several others. Some titles figure a light watermark in the background but considering the dirt cheap price, I don’t think it’s a big deal.

Thanks to Macenstein for this wonderful tip! It feels great to start off the New Year with some great comics and fabulous savings!

Tags: amazon, archie, comic characters, comic fan, comic lovers, comic reader, comic titles, costly proposition, dirt cheap prices, fabulous savings, iPad, p, reading comics

Do you ever wish to rename the app icon on iPhone? If you own a jailbroken iPhone, there is a hack for that. The iPhone developer, Ryan Petrich, has released a hack on cydia called “Icon Renamer” that allows you to rename any icon with just a single tap.

As usual, the hack only works on jailbroken iPhone and it only supports iOS 4.0 (or up). To rename an app icon, simply tap and hold the icon until it enters the wiggle mode. Then you can just tap on the icon you want to rename and edit the text. Once you hit the “Apply” button, the icon title will be changed.

The “Icon Renamer” hack is now available on cydia for free. You can simply search for “Icon Renamer” to locate the package. The hack is not a standalone app. So once installed you’ll not find any app icon on the home screen.

If you’re looking for ways to rename an icon, remember to check out the hack and let us know you think about the hack by leaving comment below.

[Image via Macstories]

Tags: cydia, hack on, home, iphone, jailbroken, mode, p, package, petrich, Renamer, screen, standalone, tap, text, wiggle

If you ever wished all of your life information like your Mom’s birthday, all of your new client’s contact details from mobile number to email address, price comparisons for a new digital camera you really want to get for the holidays, and maybe even the seasonal temperatures for Puerto Rico where you plan to spend your one vacation in 2011 at, could be streamlined, you could keep them all on different apps like Contacts, Calendar, and Notes or even write it all down on post-its.

The smarter thing to do would be to give your life’s different categories of data the encyclopaedic precision of Wikipedia with VoodooPad from Flying Meat Software. For $9.99 on iPad and iPhone with a free Lite version also out there, you can do just that, a scalable and flexible personal wiki just for you to store inspirations, images, passwords, lists, recipes, notes, and pretty much everything else.

Mac Users might have already used the VoodooPad desktop/laptop app. The mobile conversion pretty much on the same principle but lets you take it just about everywhere. This includes integrating other media like links to Pages, PDFs, and synching to your desktop via a MobileMe account or WebDAV server.

Much like Wikipedia, you create pages of information that you can then link through page names. For example, if you make a list of your employees, you can then link from another page to a specific name. However, you can extend this flexibility to the other aforementioned files. You can also embed images or a link to them if you choose. Furthermore, if you type a page name, it will hyperlink itself for added convenience.

This really does elevate it from the usual Note Pad or Notebook applications for iPhone and iPad, bringing numerous possibilities for both personal and work use. And yes, work and personal can intersect pretty seamlessly here but maintaining clear boundaries.

The hardest part will probably be filling it up with data initially. Anyhow, if you are looking for an app to jot down your ideas and organize your note into a personal wiki, go ahead and check out VoodooPad.

Tags: Birthday, client, contact, desktop, inspirations, iPad, iphone, Life, mac users, Mobile, mobile number, mom, new digital camera, note pad, notebook applications, p, page, page names, pms trifluoperazine, price comparisons, seasonal temperatures, Wikipedia

Rough Guides World Lens is a free travel app for the iPhone and iPad from Rough Guides Limited. Since the early ‘80s, UK-based Rough Guides Limited has published a popular series of travel ties for budget-conscious backpackers travelling “off the beaten path.” Still faithful to its slogan “Make the Most of Your Time on Earth,” Rough Guide is now literally opening a window to the world with its World Lens app, putting to use its enviable inventory of high quality travel images (particularly on the iPad’s generous screen). In fact, over 100 hi-res images featuring landmarks and other attractions around the world supplied with captions detailing what you see are offered.

What’s more, you can use the images for both your home screen and lock background. The images are even optimized for the iPhone’s and iPad’s specific screen requirements, requiring no additional editing to appear gorgeous and true-to-life. Furthermore, Rough Guides promises to add new images on a regular basis to broaden your options even a little bit more. Half the fun is browsing through them especially during lunch on a cold day at the office. You don’t even need an active online connection since all the content is locally stored after the first time you use it (which I have to warn you eats up an initial insanely large chunk of time).

The app comes with a World Map from where your adventure begins. Pins identify where a photograph originates, and you can also learn about the culture, attractions, landmarks, and celebrations in that region. Naturally these days, if you want further information about a location, you are easily linked to read more via Safari on the Rough Guides site or buy the region-specific travel guide from Rough Guides Limited via the iBookstore.

There is also a useful directory of picture descriptions you can browse and search through to find specific images. The Rough Guides app is available for both iPhone and iPad. Both versions are free for download. You can simply click this direct iTunes link to check it out.

Tags: basis, cold day, Guide, half the fun, hi res images, home, iPad, iphone, Lens, new images, p, quality, quality travel, Rough, rough guide, rough guides, series, slogan, time on earth, Travel, travel images, world map

I traveled to France two years ago. Most restaurants only offered menus in French that I couldn’t read it. Usually I just ordered my dishes randomly. The experience is not limited to France. I got the same experience when I had a trip to Japan last year. Does this experience sound familiar to you when traveling aboard? Wouldn’t be great if there is an iPhone app to translate the restaurant menus for you? Word Lens is definitely the iPhone app you should check out and install it on your device for your next trip.

Word Lens, developed by San Francisco-based Quest Visual, uses Optical Character Recognition technology to recognize words in image and translate the text in real time. Unlike other translation applications that requires you to input the text for translation, Word Lens offers an innovative way to handle translation. You simply launch the app and point the camera to the sign or menu. Word Lens will then look for the text in the image, translate the text to your language and display the translated words on screen instantly. You do not need to press shutter button to take a still shot before submitting for translation. The translation process starts instantaneously as you point the camera on a sign and the translated words are re-drawn on the screen as you can see from the below samples.

Presently, Word Lens only offers translation from Spanish-to-English or English-to-Spanish, that costs $4.99 each. The company will soon add other European languages such as French, Italian, etc.

You do not need Internet or 3G connection to use the app. As mentioned by the developer, the app is not perfect. It works best on printed text like signs and menus and does not work on handwriting or stylized fonts.

Though you have to pay $4.9 to purchase the Spanish dictionary, the app itself is free for download. For the free version, it offers two demo features – reverse words and erase words. Point your iPhone’s camera at a word, with reverse words, Word Lens will spell it backwards. Erase words simply clear out the words. These features are pretty useless but it intends to give you an idea about how the app identifies words.

Word Lens is now available on App Store [iTunes link] and works on iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch with video camera. To use Word Lens, you need to run iOS 4.0 or up.

I’ve done a quick test and the app is pretty impressive. It’s particularly useful if you’re traveling to Spain. Considered that you can simply point your iPhone on a road sign or restaurant menus, the translation is right in front of you. That’s how the future of translation app should work. I’m hoping the company will add dictionary for Asian languages such as Japanese and Thai. Until then, I’m sure Word Lens will be a perfect travel app for me.

What do you think about Word Lens? Leave us comment below and share your thought.

Tags: character recognition software iphone4, character recognition technology, demo features, european languages, experience sound, Google, iphone, menu word, optical character recognition, p, restaurant menus, shutter button, spanish dictionary, translation from spanish to english, translation word

If getting back into shape is one of your top New Year resolutions for 2011, there’s good news for you. Nike has just released the ‘NikeWomen Training Club‘ free iOS app which works like a virtual personal trainer, anytime, anywhere. Though Nike targets only women members for the “Training Club”, I believe that the included fitness regime/workouts would be equally beneficial for men as well. The app has scores of individual exercises, group workouts and ranks pretty high on my list of top fitness training apps. Here’s why!

Users who’ve used the earlier version of this app on the iPhone will be mighty impressed with the new user interface and the wide range of workouts available in the updated version. There are several full-body workouts for 30 or 45 minutes and the app lets you bookmark your favorite workout as a quick-start. The app can be paused during a workout to see a demo of the current exercise. The app measures your time spent on each exercise and prompts you to switch to the next one as per the workout schedule.

The app provides a number of drills catering to strength, cardio, interval and core training. Each one of us has a different fitness level and varying stamina. The Training Club app takes this into account and lets users select an appropriate goal, fitness level and a list of suitable workouts. The one size fits all rule just doesn’t work for human fitness and I’m glad that Nike has kept this principle in mind while creating the Training Club application.

Nike Training Club not only teaches you how to improve your overall fitness, it encourages you to go that extra mile and unlocks exclusive reward content when you reach training milestones. While it’s still no match for having a personal trainer, the Nike Training Club app is just about as close it gets.

The app is a double treat for music lovers who want to get back into shape as it lets users set their workout to albums and playlists from their own music library. If you are a lazy bum who just doesn’t fancy going to the gym, the NikeWomen Training Club app is nothing short of a godsend for you.

Here’s a video of the NikeWomen Training Club app in action (courtesy of LifeHacker)!

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After years of resisting a most obvious need, I have finally decided to start thinking seriously about setting a budget, and you know, try to figure out where my money goes. Of course there are no shortages of options out there for doing this, whether you use a simple pocket notebook, or lead a personal accountant around with you all day, or try to find an app for this on the iPhone. I have been searching for the latter for some time now and just stumbled across what I feel are two pretty decent offerings among the many.

Expenditure

Expenditure, produced by mobile platform app developers Shape, is a simple no frills expense tracker which has some handy features. I figure if I’m going to budget myself I better keep track of everything, every little…expenditure(hehe, sorry); I have my phone with me all the time so it’s the perfect place to do it. Open up Expenditure and you’re ready to enter how much your checking account just bled in the blink of an eye. Doing it immediately is a great habit to fall into, plus you could potentially cut down on all those receipts you always carry around.

There’s a built in guide which is kind of on the lite side, but the app is really incredibly easy to figure out, you probably won’t even need it. As do many budget apps, Expenditure works with multiple currencies, but unlike its competitor in this review, doesn’t offer currency conversion. You can create any number of tags for your expense/income entries which, of course, can help you to find out exactly where your money goes each day, and you can attach a pic and/or notes to your entries. The pictures are a nice touch for when you need to remind yourself exactly why you’re going to be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on cheap white bread for the next four weeks; there’s nothing like buyer’s remorse to kill an appetite. Although there’s no immediately obvious way to track mutliple accounts in Expenditure, you can set up Groups which would serve just as well distinguishing between your main checking account and your savings, or even to keep track how much that first date is costing you, although I’m not sure how much that would impress your date, whipping out your iPhone to input those bills at every turn. But then, hey, if you don’t want a second date then that may be the way to go, who knows?

One thing I really like about Expenditure is the opening screen. When the app opens you see the balance of your main account, or group, and a listing of sortable entries. You can switch between seeing your expenses as most recent, or the categories(tags) in which you’re spending the most. It’s not pretty or anything but it’s quick and easy to use and basically all you need to keep track of your cash flow.

CashTrails – Income and Expense Tracker

For comparison I’ve also been playing around with CashTrails – Income and Expense Tracker by developer Vasyl Smyrnov. Both of these apps are very similar and mostly have the same functionality, but there are a few differences worth mentioning. CashTrails also deals with multiple currencies, but as mentioned earlier, this app also keeps you up-to-date on current exchange rates. CashTrails let’s you track your  budget with six different accounts such as checking, savings, two different credit cards, and cash. It would appear as this default number of accounts is all you can have; it would be nice if CashTtrails utilized user made groups as Expenditures does, but these categories will probably serve most people just fine.

Entries are made quickly and painlessly just as in Expenditures, although CashTrails has no option for attaching pics to the entries. This is a minor thing though, in my opinion, as I really prefer the way CashTrails presents your budget breakdown. You can bring up reports of incomes and expenses in almost any time frame you need, from one day to the past year, and the app gives you multiple options as to how you want to see your information using either a standard timeline format, or a nice bar graph breakdown and more. CashTrails tagging function seems to me to be much more useful than that of Expenditures, but we might chalk that up to personal preference. I just get feel I get a better, more thorough sense of my cash flow with CashTrails and in trying both of these apps out, I have found myself leaning more and more heavily on it.

Both apps are great and could definitely help you get a handle on your daily finances. In the end it might just come down to price. Expenditures is $1,99 at the App Store, while CashTrails is a hefty $4.99. Is the difference in price worth it? I think so, yes, although I can’t exactly put my finger on what CashTrails offers over Expenditures to warrent paying a few more dollars; I believe it’s just in the presentation of the data, CashTrails simply gives me the impression of having more information at my fingertips. I wouldn’t hesitate recommending either app, but my money’s on CashTrails.

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The Apple App Store and Android Market are world’s biggest and most respected mobile app stores. Both these app stores have a so-called rigorous certification/ validation process before an app goes live. Like any other iPhone user, I too believed that I’m in safe hands with Apple’s strict privacy and security app guidelines. Apparently I was wrong – a startling revelation from Wall Street Journal indicates that a number of iPhone (and Android) apps share at least some of your personal data without your permission.

Believe it or not, some iPhone apps running on your device may be spying on you!

The WSJ investigation was conducted by consulting firm Electric Alchemy using an iPhone 3G and an Samsung Captivate and it covered 101 of the most popular smartphone applications including bestsellers such as Pandora, TextPlus 4, Angry Birds and several others. And I must admit that I’m shocked at the findings.

• 56 apps transmit the phone’s unique device ID to other companies without users’ awareness or consent
• 47 apps transmit the phone’s location without users’ awareness or consent
• 5 apps transmit the age and gender details to other companies without users’ awareness or consent

In a major embarrassment to Apple, the investigation also states that iOS apps are more prone to transmitting more personal details than their Android counterparts. A majority of apps pass this rather sensitive information to Facebook, Twitter and a number of advertising and marketing networks. The usual procedure for apps is to solicit explicit user consent before sharing information with third parties but clearly this protocol has been openly flouted by a number of iPhone applications.

Interestingly, the investigation claims that Angry Birds, one of the most popular games on the Apple App Store, sends your username, contacts, location and phone ID to Google as well as Flurry, an application analytics company. As expected, these claims have been strongly denied by Angry Birds developer Rovio.

There are mixed opinions on whether the findings of WSJ investigation are a matter of genuine concern or have they been blown out of proportion for propaganda. Network World believes that since this information is mainly being used for targeted advertising, it isn’t such a big deal. Others like GigaOm believe that Apple should responsibility to monitor the apps it provides through its storefront for questionable and inappropriate content.

Either way, apps running on your iPhone spying on your personal details does sound a scary proposition. What do you think? Please share your opinion by leaving a comment below this post.

Tags: device id, Google, iphone, iphone apps, marketing networks, Mobile, p, phone id, safe hands, Samsung, startling revelation, strict privacy, textplus, twitter, wall street journal

Using your iPhone for texting or calling while driving will fetch you a ticket and hefty fine in most countries. However, not many people know that their iPhone can actually save them from a speeding ticket. Slow Down – an iPhone application developed by a Belgian organization OVK, Parents of Children Killed in Road Accidents, uses music as an indicator to keep you aware of your vehicle’s speed limits. The more you speed, the more the music slows down!

All you need to do is use the app to listen to your favorite music while driving. The app’s GPS capability keeps track of your driving speed and alters the pace of music accordingly. If you speed over 10 miles per hour, the music goes mute until you slow down to a legal speed again.

While the concept itself is unique and the app is offered free for a noble cause, it has several pitfalls. First, having GPS continuously on to detect the vehicle speed can kill your iPhone’s battery. Secondly, the speed limits in the app are not configurable and this limits the app’s usability across different driving conditions – highways, freeways and city roads etc. And last but not the least, not every body likes to know their vehicle speed in kilometers/ hour, especially in North America where miles/ hour is the norm.

The app is a must have for people (like me!) who love listening to music while driving. The Slow Down apps not only helps you avoid speeding tickets, it’s also a great advocate for safe within-the-prescribed-limits driving. From whatever I’ve seen of the app till now, it works perfectly as prescribed. If the creators can offer customized speed settings and optimize the app’s performance to avoid draining the iPhone’s battery, I for one, won’t mind shelling out a dollar or two for a useful app such as Slow Down. Not to say, the app is free of charge. What about you?

Check out this video to see Slow Down app in action.

Tags: cause, city, city roads, concept, driving, driving conditions, favorite music, freeways, gps capability, indicator, iphone, legal speed, OVK, p, pace, road accidents, speed settings, speeding ticket, speeding tickets, usability, use, vehicle, vehicle speed

This guest post is contributed by Joey, the author of The iPhone App Development Blog.

Angry Birds, Doddle Jump, Pocket God, Flight Control…. Is it just luck that made these games so successful or is there a pattern any developer can learn and apply? In this article I am going to go through the top 3 tips for making an iconic iPhone game.

Obviously, planning is everything. The planning process starts right before you open up X-Code. So before you dive into the coding make sure you have a solid idea. We will go into how to market your app and create hype in later posts.

Tip 1: Controls

Implement Elegant Controls That Apply to Your Game Intuitively
One thing in common for all these successful iPhone games is that they use the iPhone’s unique controls in an elegant fashion. Unlike the ports of big games like Avatar, individual developer don’t have the resource but still can compete with these big companies by exploiting the iPhone’s controls. The reason why the Wii or the iPhone were so successful is that they revolutionized the way we interact with our devices. Hence why PlayStation Move and X-Box Kinect followed suit. The iPhone 4 has a touchscreen display, dual microphones, 3-axis gyroscope, 3-axis accelerometer, digital compass, proximity sensor and an ambient light sensor. There is so much untapped potential to make use of.

Tip 2: 3D is so last decade

It’s Best to Make Your Game in 2D
Honestly, the 3D graphics on iOS devices are far from great. As most people have become accustomed to Playsation 3 graphics, theatrical CGI blockbusters, going back to crappy 3D graphics aren’t too pleasant. Hence why Flight Control, Angry Birds, Cut the Rope are all in simple 2D. I’m sure there’ll be a time when 3D looks gorgeous on an iPhone and when that happens, by all means make a 3D iPhone Game. That would be a perfect time to do so. But with the graphical power of the existing iPhone you don’t have much leverage and choice as you do with 2D-based games.

That said, Epic Games released a visually stunning demo of their Unreal Engine on the iOS platform. However we’re talking about multi-million dollar company here, plus it takes a lot of time to make this type of games. Is it worth to do so when you’re only hitting a niche market?

Tip #3: Flash Game

Turn a Flash Game Into an iPhone App
For those developers with some iPhone development experience, I think you’re going to find this tip useful. During the planning stage, scout the web for old or current popular flash games. Get in contact with the flash game developer, and in case they haven’t read various blogs about how to make an iPhone app themselves, suggest to turn their flash-based game into an iPhone app. You can either negotiate a flat out fee. Or as a safer alternative for low budget flash game developers, you can suggest to take a cut of the app sales.

One more thing…

Bonus tip: The Brag Factor and the 99? Rule

Implement Social Media and Sell at a Dollar
The App store mostly consists of ‘mini games’ (I can’t find a better word to describe them). Commonly, iPhone users play the games while on public transport and before going to bed. So it makes sense why all these mini games are so successful. Another thing that made these games so successful is the implementation of social media. Let’s face it. ‘Mini games’ have been around for a while, but with the iPhone it brought this genre to another level. Before the era of Facebook or Twitter, it wasn’t so convenient to share your new high score with your friends when you won a game. By adding social feature to your game you’re allowed to do free advertising. When someone sees his/her friend gets 1000 points on a random game they’ve never heard of, they’re likely to check it out, and probably buy it.

Joey is the author of The iPhone App Development Blog, an upcoming blog inspiring and helping aspiring and current iOS developers make and sell there apps. Tips rooting in various fields such as simple psychology to gain an edge from making an app efficiently to marketing it.

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There seems to be no shortage of blockbuster games being launched on the Apple App Store this holiday season. Last week, Infinity Blade for iPhone shattered all previous sales records by selling a whopping 274,000 copies in less than 5 days. And now, Tapulous (purchased by Disney earlier this year) has released Tap Tap Revenge 4 (TTR 4), the fourth generation of the longest-running, most-downloaded music gaming app on the iOS platform. With over 100 free tracks from popular artists including Lady Gaga, Linkin Park & My Chemical Romance and a number of bug fixes and performance improvements, it’s surely Christmas come early for all Tap Tap Revenge fans!

It’s worth noting that Tapulous witnessed 800,000 downloads last Christmas. The company is expecting to surpass a million downloads this year and going by the phenomenal response received so far, it looks to be on target for that milestone figure. Disney says that the game is currently witnessing around 35,000 downloads per hour, well ahead of what it saw on Christmas day last year. Tap Tap Revenge is one of the oldest games on the iOS platform and has enjoyed phenomenal popularity on the Apple App Store.

Like most other music tapping games, Tap Tap Revenge 4 works by letting users tap the screen in time to the music to score points. The USP of each version is the set of free tracks including various recent blockbuster titles. The updated version is compatible with the iPhone 4 Retina Display, integrates with Game Center (Facebook, Twitter and several others) and lets and your friends see each other’s “liked” tracks. There’s a new Arcade Mode featuring a new global leaderboard that shows the updated score in almost real-time.

Tap Tap Revenge 4 also represents an interesting cross-promotion experiment from Disney as it allows players to score points by playing Tron songs, while Tron promotes Tap Tap titles with in-game advertising. TTR 4 itself is a free download from the Apple App Store [iTunes link] and premium tracks can be purchased through the app itself.

For a full list of the new tracks included in TTR4, read on for the full announcement here. Here’s a video of TTR 4 in action.

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