Mike over at Redmond Pie made a little post the other day, one that iPhone gamers will want to take in. He noted that Tony Hawk leaked a photo on Twitter the other day… a photo of him (or someone) playing what looks to be a very familiar skateboarding game on the iPhone. Cool beans! Of course, chalk this up as rumor at this point (albeit an awesome and highly probable one). Also take note that I can’t seem to find said tweet, perhaps the PR folks got angry and made Mr. Hawk pull it down.
Whatever the case, according to Tony’s tweet, the game is real and coming soon:
In the PR world, this is considered ‘going rogue,’ but I’m too excited to contain it. This is real & dropping soon.
Excellent. Perhaps a Tony Hawk Pro Skater game for the iPhone, iPod Touch AND iPad!? Me thinks Pro Skater on an iPad would be OK… that is, if I could wrap orientate my hands in such a way that I could tap the controls with ease. I’m still weary of that thick bezel!
Standard textbooks are so “old school” – the way of the future is a dedicated mobile app, or at least Still Motion Media believes so. The company, which is known for its digital books for kids (MobiStories), is out with a new titled called “President Barack Obama in Pictures” that is readily available in the AppStore.
As you can guess for yourself, the application chronicles the life of 44th President of the United States as a child through his rise to Senator and ultimately to the White House. But it’s not all about images — audio is included as well, both from the campaign trail and Obama’s historical inaugural commencement. Narrating the English version is the recognized speaker and top selling author – Sanyika Calloway Boyce.
Finally, in addition to English – “President Barack Obama in Pictures” is also available in Spanish and Chinese.
Plus, we know Still Motion Media’s next product – it will be about Michelle Obama, and again Boyce will narrate the English version.
President Barack Obama in Pictures ($3.99) [iTunes link]
Right from the floor of GDC, EA Mobile announced that 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa will be released for the iPhone and iPod Touch on April 27!
Those attending the event (unfortunately I wasn’t there) had a chance to play the game, though I’m guessing it was not the build EA was demoing. PocketGamer was there but due to some NDA (I guess), they cannot share what they know at this stage.
We do expect this to be the best FIFA game released to date. In other words, graphics should be slightly improved and possibly even the gameplay. Of course, you’ll be able to play with any of the teams participating at this year’s World Cup. EA is known to license all the players, ensuring “authentic” look and feel.
Price was not unveiled, but we know that FIFA 10 is selling for $9.95 and I would expect this release to follow the trend. As soon as we get first screenshots, we’ll definitely share them. Stay tuned, k?
SKIDATA, the company behind online ski pass reservation service, is taking the “iPhone route.” Their application is called (guess) iSkiPass and it basically brings their online “process” to the iPhone/iPod Touch, allowing users to quickly and securely buy a ski pass from their beloved gadget.
The process involves buying a ski pass, loading it onto an RFID card (a Keycard or a Swatch Snowpass) and then use that card to directly access all ski lifts. It may sound complicated, but it isn’t — especially when you compare it to the traditional way that includes waiting in line at ticketing offices.
During this first phase and until the end of the season, several leading ski resorts in the Swiss Alps are selling ski passes (valid up to 3 days) via iSkiPass. I’m guessing the next step is to expand to more ski resorts and other platforms (Android?).
In the meantime, if you own an iPhone or iPod Touch and plan to visit some of Swiss Alps’ resorts, you’ll definitely want to skip the queues with iSkiPass. Download link is below.
In addition to the dedicated Evernote iPhone application, the popular note-taking service is also used on / integrated with other apps. Here are some that rely on the Evernote API to deliver a better service:
Document reading (OCR) applications that take advantage of Evernote’s handwriting recognition technology include: DocScanner, JotNot, Qipit White and Scanner Pro.
News apps that allow viewing and saving of articles into Evernote: AP Mobile, iNews, mDigger.
As always, like I’m a part of their sales team (and I’m not), I invite you to give Evernote a try. As I said it for quite a few times, I love it for multiple reasons: cross-platform functionality (desktop, web and mobile), OCR capability (great for keeping your business cards on one place) and much more. Hop over to evernote.com and take it from there.
Infoteria, the company behind the TwitCal service (Twitter calendar), is launching an iPhone application – allowing users to share, follow and publish event information through Twitter.
In other words, you can use TwitCal to:
Tweet events – i.e. birthdays, anniversaries, public events, etc.
Follow other people’s calendars – family calendars, artists’ event schedules, sports game days and so on.
Share event information with friends – TwitCal touts itself to be the perfect solution for managing multiple calendars.
The iPhone app supports multiple views — including day, multi-day, list, week, 2 weeks, month, and Hybrid month and day views — and 6 languages: English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean and Japanese.
Finally, there are widgets that enable automatic event synchronization between TwitCal and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Calendar or iCal (Mac OS X), which make the application even more usable.
If you’re an avid Twitter user and a frequent “event goer,” you’re probably already using TwitCal. Now you can access it on your iPhone, too. I’m guessing porting of the application to other platforms is planned for the near future…
LogMeIn Pro2 for Mac is now available, giving Macs the freedom to be accessed from virtually anywhere, using an Internet-connected web browser or Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iPhone. With this newest version of LogMeIn Pro2, MacBooks, iMacs and Mac Pros can now be accessed by their users for work or play, in the office or out, from anywhere with an Internet connection.
LogMeIn Pro2 for Mac is apparently unmatched in its remote access capabilities, with secure file transfer and folder synchronization, printing from a remote Mac to a local computer over the web, on-demand desktop sharing with a remote user, and much more. Whether Mac to Mac, Windows to Mac, or iPhone to Mac, Macs can be accessed and used from virtually anywhere, regardless of the user’s location.
“LogMeIn gives us the freedom to provide excellent support to both Macs and PCs, and we’re seeing more and more customer requests for Mac-based home systems,” said Jeff Tarr, president of Tarr Technology Consulting, a provider of residential technology systems. “The new features in Pro2 for Mac help us better serve clients, connect across PCs and Macs from virtually anywhere, and gives us the flexibility to recommend and install just the right solution for our customers.”
Originally introduced with LogMeIn Free for Mac in 2007, the ability to remotely control Mac desktops from anywhere is still free. In addition to the new premium features of LogMeIn Pro2, LogMeIn Free for Mac now has improved navigation, providing users with quicker and easier access to remote control settings, faster performance to improve the experience as if the user were in front of their Mac, and expanded browser support, including 64-bit Safari.
LogMeIn Pro2 for Mac is available now – pricing starts at £41.20 per year per Mac, with multi-computer discounts available. Users can sign up for a free, 30-day trial, with no credit card required, here.
While trolling around the Game Developer’s Conference this week, I stumbled upon an interesting app from MindGames which lets you use your brain to play a game.
Tug of Mind will be a $5 iPhone game aimed at teaching people how to stay calm under tense situations. You can upload a photo of someone that can cause you stress (boss, significant other, Lady Gaga), and a 3D model of their face will appear on your iPhone or iPod Touch. The face then says disparaging things to you, and if you remain calm, the face will gradually get calm too and stop insulting you.
You need a $200 NeuroSky headset to be attached to the iPhone in order to play the game and it measures electrical impulses in your head as well as your facial muscle reactions to determine what state of mind you’re in. MindGames told me they’re hoping this game can actually help people overcome real-life stressful situations. To be honest, I’m not smart enough to know the exact science of how it works but it seems like an interesting concept for how we may interact with devices in the future. While some are worried about the long-term effects of brain-controlled games, I think it can be incredibly useful if done right. Look for the game to hit later this year and NeuroSky is working on a cheaper, less dorky headset that could hit the market in the next few months.
“My First Game” is an early-learning game entirely devised for children aged 3 to 6, which they can play either on their own or along with their parents.”My First Game” offers a total of 12 different activities which are both fun and encourage learning. Many different skills are covered, such as recognizing shapes, writing, memory, music etc.
For example, children are presented with the following tasks:
Forming numbers and letters of the alphabet
Identifying animal sounds
Finding the odd one out in a list of objects
Putting together a puzzle
Memorising the position of cards
Playing a tune on the piano
Each activity has different variations in order to constantly reawaken the child’s interest. The level of difficulty can be adapted to each age group, and there are lots of animations and sound effects to highlight the child’s actions. Children are supported and guided all the time by Zaps, the App’s resident cartoon character. Zaps will take every opportunity to help children, congratulate them or show them where they have gone wrong, by speaking to them – he explains the purpose of each activity and how it works using explicit, visual tutorials that can be accessed at any time during the game, which is perfect for children who are still unable to read.
Children are rewarded for the progress they make during the game. Every time they successfully complete a series of activities, they can unlock a new picture to add to their collection. This offers them motivation and satisfaction.
Three different game modes are available:
“My notebook” mode offers children a number of random activities.
“My activities” mode allows them to choose one of twelve available activities which they can do.
“My presents” mode gathers all the presents the children have won as they have progressed through the game.
Enough of all this text-based explanation – that’s so last decade! How about a video:
OpenTable, an app for finding and reserving spots at restaurants, has updated its iPhone software to include a few new features. You can now search for restaurants by name, rather than searching by location or category. That’s a no-brainer feature, since not everyone is looking to discover something new, but rather know exactly where they want to eat. On that note, you can also save and manage restaurants as favourites for quick access later, and get a list of your search history to find entries you had looked up previously. Reservations can now be made a full month in advance, and as usual, you can map out directions to particular locations.
OpenTable initially launched their service on iPhone a little over a year ago, and has since spread to webOS, BlackBerry, and Android. The standalone app is nice and all, but I think OpenTable’s primarily useful as licensing partners for applications like Viigo and Poynt. If you’d like to try it out for free, download links for all four versions are below.
Right from the floor of GDC, EA Mobile announced that 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa will be released for the iPhone and iPod Touch on April 27!
In addition to the dedicated 
