Zephyrus of the Anemoi

A friend of mine recently purchased an iPhone 4 and asked me “So what apps can I not live without?”

I started to list off several that I use regularly, but realized that the list was going to grow rather large, rather quickly. So, I sent him a quick email of the ones I have on my first two pages and promised him a follow-up email with the rest. Then, I compiled the list into a blog post for all of you out there just now getting an iPhone or an iPod touch for the first time. This is, by no means, an exhaustive list, and if you’d like to know what other apps I recommend, please check out my iPhone category for all posts I’ve made about the iPhone.

Apps that I feel are 100% necessary are rare, but there are several that I swear by for their “WOW!-factor” or just because they’re so much fun. This is that list. I’m sure, I have forgotten several, and I know that I’ll have to make another one eventually (thus, the use of penultimate above). But, it’ll get you started. So, without further ado. Okay, maybe one more ado.

Twitter – There are several of these apps, but the official Twitter app is probably the best.

Boxcar – So you can get push notifications when someone mentions you on Twitter, or when you receive an email at an email address that doesn’t support native push email, or any number of other things.

Facebook – This one’s obvious. If you have a Facebook account, you need a quick-and-easy way to keep in touch with those on the site. This app is not as feature-rich as the full site, or even the “touchOS” version, but it has push notifications and some other really nice features, so check it out.

Chirpie Pro – Let’s you quickly post to Twitter and Facebook simultaneously. There’s a free version, as well, but Pro is well worth it, if you use both Twitter and Facebook.

qStatus – Same idea as Chirpie Pro but with some other neat features, such as letting you see through your camera while typing (for tweeting on the go).

Simplenote – Best note-taking app on the store. Text is displayed in Helvetica for easy viewing, syncs automatically with server, has a pro version that stores revisions of your notes in case you accidentally delete or modify one and need to go back, and way more.

Meebo – Let’s you log in to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, gChat, and more and remain logged in for 24-48 hours after the app is closed. You’ll receive push notifications from anyone that sends you a message and chat history is saved on the server (unless you turn it off) so that you can even see what someone is talking about if they don’t respond for days. This is a must-have, in my opinion.

Byline – Syncs with Google reader for easy reading of your RSS feeds. Has a free version, as well, but this is one of the best ones I’ve seen on the app store in terms of features and interface. There are some visually amazing ones for iPad, but haven’t seen any of those that translate well to the iPhone.

NotifyMe 2 – To-do app that lets you set reminders for events with push notifications OR local notifications (no Internet required, but affects battery life a bit more). Excellent companion for reminders  you don’t want to put in Calendar for one reason or another.

Audio Flashlight for iPhone 4 – Free flashlight app that uses the LED flash for a flashlight, strobe light, and audio strobe.

The Weather Channel – I’ve tried several different weather apps for the iPhone, and while I stopped using this one for several months, the interface is still the best and the performance is (usually) rock-solid.

Dropbox – If you use Dropbox, this app is indispensable, as you can quickly and easily view your files, send links to them by email, and even save some to the internal memory of your device for quick access. If you don’t use Dropbox, sign up free here, and get an extra 250MB of storage for free.

1Password Pro – If you already use 1Password for Mac & Windows (a password, software license, identity, credit card, and secure notes database program), this app lets you sync your data to your iPhone so you have it on the go. The latest version of the app synchronizes your info with Dropbox, so that you can keep everything up-to-date, no matter where you are. 1Password is shareware on the Mac (and Windows), so you can test it out and see how you like it.

SoundHound ∞ – You’ve probably heard of Shazam, which is okay, but SoundHound goes above and beyond, letting you hum a song, or even just type the lyrics in to find out what it’s called. There’s a free version that works like the free version of Shazam (limited number of song requests per month), but the full version is well worth the money if you are constantly hearing a song on the radio and want to know what it is.

Netflix – Instant streaming from Netflix over WiFi AND 3G. This can eat up your data plan VERY fast, so be mindful of that when on 3G. The quality is phenomenal, even over 3G.

5 Minutes to Kill (Yourself) – All [adult swim] games are on sale for a short period of time, so you need to pick them up as soon as possible. You can play any of them for free on the [adult swim] site (Flash required) and decide which you like the best. This one is pretty fun and takes 5 minutes or less to play. I think the title explains it well enough.

Robot Unicorn Attack – Another [adult swim] game, and easily their most successful to date. It plays similar to Canabalt and other “endless-side-scrolling-sprinters” that you may have seen, but it has an awesome soundtrack and amazing graphics. Plus it’s hilarious.

N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance – If you like first-person shooters (and especially if you like Halo), this game will have you feeling right at home. With a pretty impressive campaign, gorgeous graphics, and a rock-solid multiplayer experience, this game really shows that the iPhone can play just about any game type you’ve ever experienced.

Pinball Remote – When coupled with The Pinball on your Mac, turns your iPhone into the ultimate pinball machine controller. One table is free and two more can be purchased from within the app. Very cool.

Plants vs. Zombies – The ultimate in “backyard defense” games. Honestly, anything by PopCap is going to be amazing on your iPhone, but this one goes above and beyond. The iPad version has additional features, but the iPhone version still contains the entire core of the game.

Final Fantasy – The game that started it all, now on the iPhone. If you’ve enjoyed any Final Fantasy game and you want to see where it all began, you need to check this out. Even if you played the original NES classic, this version contains new graphics, a new translation, and some gameplay tweaks to make it work playing all over again.

Wolfenstein RPG – The iPhone lends itself perfectly to RPGs, and this reinvention of an id Software classic is no exception. If you love Wolfenstein and you love RPGs, you’ll love this.

Ocarina – Turns your iPhone into a working Ocarina. I even have songs I’ve transcribed for easy playing on my website.

Epic Citadel – This is a tech demo of a game that Epic (yeah, the guys behind Gears of War and Unreal Tournament) is currently developing. Graphics like this have never been seen on a mobile phone. Ever. And they make the PSP look weak.

So that’s it. That’s the list of iPhone apps I recommend to anyone picking up an iPhone or iPod touch for the first time and completely overwhelmed by the content on the App Store. I hope that it has helped you, at least somewhat, to make your new device sing.

So far I’ve managed to clock just under 11 hours of play time (8 hours of Standard matchmaking and 2.75 hours in the Arena) with the Halo: Reach beta and I must say, it’s the most entertaining competitive multiplayer experience I’ve ever played.

Last night, I got the opportunity to play around with the Theater for the beta. It is a significant improvement over the Halo 3 Theater, which suffered from a number of usability problems. In the middle of a Team SWAT match last night, I managed to pull off a pretty lucky shot on Sword Base. Using the Theater, I created a film clip that might be entertaining for those of you in the beta that can watch it (I don’t have a Bungie Pro account, so I can’t render it to playable video).

But, I was able to snap a few choice screenshots that I found entertaining. I’ve also included them below in case I pull them out of my File Share later.

So anyone that follows me on Twitter or is friends with me on Facebook already knows that I’ve been excited about the Halo: Reach beta that just went live for everyone that bought ODST yesterday. I’d still rather be playing the game than actually sitting down to write about it, so I’m going to be brief.

It’s awesome.

It’s like they took all the things I loved about Halo 1, added in a few of the things I loved about Halo 2, stripped out all of the things I didn’t like about Halo 2 and 3, and wrapped it up in a gorgeous engine with a dash of class-based warfare and shoved it right into my brain with a hydraulic piston.

Others have said it much better than me. As a result, I’ve decided to post an excerpt and a link for you.

From Tied the Leader:

“This ain’t no real-world military shooter. This is Halo – true to its roots. This is heavy tech. This is dented steel and sex appeal. This is ballistic boxing in the middle of rush hour traffic with your hair on fire. This is rarely a one-shot/one-kill affair. SPARTANS just aren’t made that flimsy. You want to get some? You are going to have to earn it again. Your opponent is wearing a tank.”

I’ve been seeing a lot of Apple fans rabidly proclaiming the iPhone the ultimate mobile gaming machine and the death-knell for Nintendo’s and Sony’s portable platforms. However, as lifelong gamer and the owner of 3 generations of Nintendo’s portable hardware and 4 separate devices in that family, I can say that Nintendo is not going anywhere anytime soon. Let me tell you why:

1. Nintendo makes their own games – Until such time as Apple starts making games of their own (and Texas Hold’em doesn’t count) and competes directly with Nintendo’s offering, these two behemoths aren’t even in the same ballpark. Sure, they both make handheld devices, and both of those devices seem to be primarily used for gaming in today’s market, but Nintendo also makes great games of their own that Apple just can’t compete with.
2. Nintendo serves up “fuller” games – Building off the first statement, it’s important to note that Nintendo both makes and distributes games that appeal to a different market than those that are available on Apple’s iDevices. While there is some overlap (with games like FINAL FANTASY and the like being ported to the App Store), developers for Apple’s devices tend to focus more on bite-sized games than large-scale epic, 40-hour sagas. Nintendo themselves has been making Mario and Zelda games for so long that they barely have to try anymore to create compelling games that gamers will play for days on end. Third parties on Nintendo’s devices also tend to create games that will take 20 hours or more to complete the first time through. Apple’s developers rarely craft games of that caliber. They may be fun, but they’re certainly not that grand.
3. Nintendo has Mario and Zelda – Until such time as Nintendo decides to stop being both a hardware and a software company, Mario and Zelda are Nintendo exclusives. And that alone is enough to keep the gaming giant in business. While the franchises may decline for a time once Shigeru Miyamoto retires, the massive numbers of gamers familiar with these characters will keep the company going for many years. Further, Shiggy has already passed the torch in the Zelda series to Eiji Aonuma and he has done rather well with it. Talent exists, and passion for these franchises has grown immensely throughout the years. Someone will continue to make great games for Nintendo until the lights go dark.
4. Touch-screen only controls limit the gaming experience – Nintendo popularized touch-screen controls with the release of the original DS in 2004. Apple utilized touch-screen technology to make the world’s most advanced and easy-to-use smartphone in history. But gaming was not at the top of their list of priorities. Nintendo knew that only using the touchscreen would cause control of some games to be erratic while limiting what could be done to interact with your characters on the screen. Until such time as Apple allows for controllers to be attached to iDevices, I don’t see developers successfully developing “large-scale” games as mentioned above for Apple’s devices.

All that said, Nintendo cannot sit still and wait for Apple to rectify the deficits that the iDevices have in terms of being a complete portable game system. It certainly seems like they are moving forward with the new 3DS. However, they are going to have to certainly change up some aspects of their business plan to maintain control.

I suggest that they start by allowing 8-bit and 16-bit games on the Wii to be copied to the DS family of devices so they can be played portably. Syncing wirelessly between the two would be easy and would really increase the desire to have both systems.

You hear that, Nintendo? That one’s free.

Several iPhone developers have chosen to have sales this weekend, in the spirit of Black Friday, and Thanksgiving. Some of these sales are pretty nice.

For example, Electronic Arts has slashed prices on a number of their products to 60% or even 50% of their original price. One such game is Wolfenstein RPG, which I picked up immediately, as I’ve been waiting for it to go on sale. While Wolfenstein is famous for being a first-person shooter, it translates really well into an RPG. It doesn’t feel turn-based at all until you enter combat, at which point the enemies just don’t shoot at you until you’ve either moved, fired a weapon, or done some other action. There are puzzles and experience points and all the things that make RPGs great, as well as some great moments of humor (for example, there are chickens everywhere that you can kill in a variety of ways to turn into chicken dinners for health).

In fact, all of id Software’s titles are on sale this weekend, so if you’ve been interested in DOOM Resurrection (an on-rails shooter that’s been very well received) or Wolfenstein Classic (the classic PC game from the early 90s, perfectly recreated for play on the iPhone and iPod Touch), now is the perfect time to pick them up.

In fact, most EA iPhone titles are available (around 30 of them) at the discounted price, so if there are any you’ve been eyeing, but were waiting for a discount, now is the time to check them out.

The other title that I was really excited to find out is on sale this weekend, is Hero of Sparta by Gameloft. When iPhone OS 2.0 first came out, the company Digital Legends Entertainment released Kroll, a beautiful-3D brawler that had some of the most amazing graphics seen on a portable device, but fairly low on gameplay techniques and replay value. Hero of Sparta took it a step further by marrying those beautiful graphics that the iPhone was capable of to a more solid control scheme with more action and a lot more gameplay value. If you are a fan of hack-and-slash action games, then Hero of Sparta is a good choice for you.

Keep your eyes peeled for better deals out there, because if there was ever a good time to find great deals on iPhone software, this weekend is likely to be it.

I read an article recently that told the story behind StoneLoops! of Jurassica and its removal from the iTunes App Store. In the article, it was mentioned that the factor that initiated the removal of Stone Loops was MumboJumbo sending Apple a letter requesting it be removed.

When I discovered this, I was rather upset, as I have long been a fan of this particular genre in general, and StoneLoops! was as great a game as I had ever played. While I have played Luxor 2 on the Xbox 360, I was very impressed with StoneLoops!’s touchscreen implementation. I would have been interested in trying out Luxor on the iPhone, but sadly that day will never come.

Due to the decision by MumboJumbo to use bullying tactics instead of actually trying to improve your product, I will henceforth no longer support MumboJumbo in any way. This means I will stop purchasing games published by you, and I will begin actively speaking against purchasing your products to friends and family. In the future, I hope that you decide to do the right thing rather than simply using your name recognition to remove your competition from the markets in which you compete.

As for your allegations that the developers of StoneLoops! were somehow copying your work, I point out to you that you did not create this genre and have not attempted to use this same bullying tactic against your other competitors (including Stone!Loops!’s other iterations on various platforms).

I hope that this message reaches you as an example of just one of many disgruntled fans of StoneLoops! that could have been fans of Luxor and other MumboJumbo games, but will now instead choose to seek out alternatives rather than supporting a company that uses “the protection of intellectual property” as an excuse to avoid improving upon existing work to compete.

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I have not included any links to MumboJumbo’s website or its games on the iTunes Store due to my decision to boycott them and encouragement of you to do the same. You can, however, contact MumboJumbo by email here. My heart goes out to the developers of StoneLoops! of Jurassica. If you would like to show your support for them, or for indie development in general, you can purchase StoneLoops! for platforms other than the iPhone from their website. For more information about why I am posting this open letter, please visit the AppAdvice article that brought the issue to my attention, and the developer’s blog.

Infinite Continues recently posted a set of images of video game characters reduced to a handful of shapes and colors. They are rather remarkable and would make excellent iPhone wallpapers, so I will probably be converting several for my iPhone soon.

Infinite Continues is a blog that started similarly to my Classic Gaming Sporadically series, though with (admittedly) more journalistic integrity and less humor. I definitely suggest checking it out, however, as the author makes interesting points about a number of games that I know I missed (due to financial obligations or platform exclusivity) and perhaps you have, as well.

The iPhone has been for some time the perfect device for a number of different applications, though not all of them seem as readily obvious up front. However, once the first board games began appearing on the device, it became quite clear that asynchronous multiplayer turn-based games would be a perfect fit. UniWar, Monopoly, Lux. All have been fairly successful implementations of turn-based gaming on the iPhone.

However, the iPhone truly excels when multiple versions of the same product exist and can compete for your hard-earned money. This recently became the case when NewToy Inc. challenged the reigning heavyweight in the board games on iPhone arena, EA. The board game at stake? Scrabble.

Here’s a breakdown of the two versions:

Scrabble – The heavyweight champ — EA brought this game to Facebook as an app and then put it on the iPhone and tied the two together. This was kind of a big deal, as that meant that the number of potential opponents grew much larger thanks to the larger userbase of Facebook. Another nice feature of this version of the game is that the app can actually show you what your highest-scoring move is at any time. The down-side? You might be tempted to let the game play itself, and may account for the reason that the only game I was able to find currently available said “no smartphones allowed”. All-in-all, this is a rather impressive application visually and its feature-set has piqued my interest for sometime. If you love Scrabble, and you want to play with friends that don’t have iPhones, then this is the app for you.

Words With Friends – The challenger — When I saw this app announced today, I did a double-take. First of all, it came from the team that brought you the highly-acclaimed Chess With Friends. Secondly, it was gorgeous in its simplicity. With the same basic interface as Chess With Friends, and very basic interface for the game itself, it managed to completely recreate the game of Scrabble without actually looking like a Scrabble board (an important piece of the puzzle, as EA has the rights to the Scrabble artwork and would very likely defend them vigorously). Notifies you when it is your turn via e-mail, just like Chess With Friends (a feature that I can find no notice of for EA’s Scrabble, though surely it’s an oversight and is on its way).

Ideally, I’d like to see push notification for both apps, but in its current state, I’ll accept what they give me. So long as I can play Scrabble without having to pick up all those tiles I knock on the floor when I “accidentally” throw the board across the room in frustration, I’ll be happy.

Today has been an almost non-stop day of awesome on the Interwebs. So before I begin my bombardment of all things iPhone, I thought I’d give the rest of you some entertaining and/or informative links (some of which may still pertain to the iPhone).

With that out of the way, let’s get started, shall we?

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Google has been hard at work on the development of some awesome new technologies in preparation for the ratification of the final HTML 5 standard. In the interest of viewing 3D graphics directly inside of a web browser, a proposed open standard for doing so is currently being developed. Called O3D, it allows you to view gorgeous 3D graphics from inside your web browser, without ever having to fire up another application. While it currently requires you to install a plug-in, I believe the ultimate goal is to have it become a part of HTML 5 before ratification so that all HTML 5 compatible web browsers will be able to pull it off out of the box. Check out the demo site here.

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Speaking of HTML 5 and the reason that I discovered O3D, Google has also posted a demo page of what YouTube will look like once HTML 5 is complete and Flash will no longer be required to quickly & easily embed video. If your browser supports the HTML 5 draft (Safari 4, Firefox 3.5, Google Chrome), then check this out. While the site looks much the same, you’ll notice that right-clicking on the video no longer brings up the Flash Player contextual menu, indicating that that video is playing entirely through the browser’s built-in capabilities (no plug-in required). This will greatly reduce the memory footprint of your browser and should speed up your computer considerably when visiting sites that were formerly very Flash heavy and can move to HTML 5 methods, instead.

Also, if you were interested in seeing what O3D could do, but don’t feel like installing the plug-in, the YouTube demo I’m talking about is a walkthrough of the O3D demo page.

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This particular clip is more entertaining due to the fact that Steve Wozniak is in a low-budget, body shop commercial. Since he’s hilarious, I recommend taking a gander.

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Also, Rule 34 has no exceptions. Moving on.

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Now, I love me some giant robots. I always have, and I always will. I even liked that movie Robot Jox, and it was frakkin’ terrible. No, really. Just awful. But, it had giant robots. So I loved every minute of it. The exception to that rule is when giant robots are combined with Michael Bay. Cause then you get “Michael Bay Blows Up Egypt in Slow Motion” (commonly known as Transformers 2), which is utter crap and painful to watch. That being said, one of my favorite uses of giant robots is to put gamers in control of them so they can destroy anything and everything they see. MechAssault on the Xbox was one of my favorite games. Chromehounds was pretty cool, as well, though a lot less frenetic. However, all current-gen mech games have a grand-daddy. And that game is MechWarrior. Well good news to all of you that have played it, and to those of you that just plain love giant robots. MechWarrior is getting a reboot.

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And lastly, in this long line of crazy, ridiculous, nerdery: iPhone 3.0 has a feature that has been kept quiet until today. That feature is HTTP Live Streaming. Now some of you are going to say, “What?” Others will say, “Who cares?” Still more of you will say, “My iPhone already does streaming.” To all of you I say, “Shut up and let me finish!”

HTTP Live Streaming is a technology that should finally allow for a standards-based streaming method for video content (this goes back to HTML 5 and Google’s YouTube demo of said feature). Essentially, what it means is that video content can be downloaded in 10 second chunks and then played back, meanwhile grabbing the next chunk or two or three before the current chunk is finished being viewed. On top of that, instead of sending the video using technology that is consistently blocked by most firewalls, or requires a plug-in and therefore eats up system resources, HTTP Live Streaming will be sent to your computer using the same packets that web sites are downloaded to your browser with and will (hopefully) be a part of the HTML 5 standard when ratified. The best part is that if you switch from EDGE, to 3G, and then to Wi-Fi while watching a video, rather than having to re-buffer the clip because you changed network types, your iPhone will be able to automatically grab the chunk that befits the quality that will give you the best image without stuttering for your current connection. And since the sections are only 10 seconds a piece, you don’t have to wait long for the quality to improve if you suddenly find yourself in range of a Wi-Fi network while watching your favorite web series.

The best part? If this tech takes off, there’s a chance that a television network could use it to stream their channels directly to your Apple TV, allowing you to subscribe to only the channels (or shows) that you want without having to pay for an expensive cable TV or Dish subscription to get 10 channels you want and 100 you don’t.

To read more about this, go here.

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That’s all for now, folks. If I have time today, I hope to hit you up with some reviews and recommendations of the iPhone apps I’ve been spending the most time with as of late (or at least that I think are awesome and feel you should, too). See ya starside!

This Next week, I’m going to be bringing you a number of reviews of iPhone apps I’ve been using lately. But before I do that, I wanted to point out a few apps I’ve been on the fence about but think would make really great additions to my collection.

Oregon Trail – This is essentially the same game we played as kids (assuming that most of my readers are past their childhoods) on Apple IIGS and IIE computers in grade school. However, the graphics have received a complete overhaul (even compared to the more robust Mac version from 10-15 years ago). The nicest part of this game is the addition of a number of new mini-games instead of just hunting and rafting the river at the end of the game. While I haven’t purchased this one yet, it’s at the top of my list as I know my son will enjoy it and am looking forward to wasting my day away placing my “friends” into my family and laughing as they die of dysentery.

Myst – With graphics that appear to be from the DVD-rerelease of Myst in the Anniversary Collection and a new touch-screen interface that makes playing this game extremely easy, this has been heralded as the best version of Myst yet. While I was rather partial to RealMyst from the early ’00s, I can’t argue that this game is flooding my brain with memories of trying to solve a number of puzzles that were just difficult enough (and too difficult in terms of that blasted audible puzzle, though I still blame that on not being able to play with proper headphones in a quiet home) to keep me engaged for hours. I hope that this game is successful enough that the sequels will see a rerelease, as well.

Pocket Tanks Deluxe – I have not yet played this game, but I own the Mac version and wasted a great many hours on it back in college. My son loves the Mac version, as well. This is actually the most robust artillery game I have ever played. With a variety of weapons randomly generated for you and your enemy to choose from, the variety of every battle is guaranteed. As you play the game, you will need to adjust your aiming (as well as your thinking) based on which weapon you’re using. I highly recommend this game to anyone that loves artillery games, has played this original Mac version, or who just plain wants to waste several hours of their life blasting away at their friends and family (two-player pass-and-play is included).

Chronicles of Inotia: Legend of Feanor – Since the release of the iPhone, I have been waiting for an iPhone version of Diablo. I have been teased with games like iDracula (which is more like Geometry Wars meets Van Helsing) and have been very nearly satisfied with Underworlds (for which a more robust review will be coming). But Chronicles promises a very uncomplicated and direct type of Diablo clone. Simply tapping to move and to attack, with a minimalist HUD to enhance usability of the touchscreen and an anime/J-RPG art style, I’ve long been looking at this game as a way to pass the time. Perhaps once finished with Underworlds, I will look to this to fill the gap left behind.

The Quest – I have long been a fan of The Bard’s Tale series of games. For those that have never played a Western-style RPG but rather only played J-RPGs like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, Western RPGs focus more on the view of the world through the eyes of the player. While Oblivion and Morrowind are often cited today, when I was younger the king of kings was The Bard’s Tale series. Gameplay for this game can be difficult to explain if you’ve never played RPGs from this era/category. So I recommend checking out the lite version.

Orions: Legend of Wizards – This particular game I’ve been looking at for a long time. The primary draw is the concept of a card-based strategy game that I can take with me everywhere. The pick-up-and-play nature of the game is also a big draw, as receiving a phone call or having to do actual work does not result in starting over or losing progress. While the game is not as robust as say Magic: The Gathering, it certainly does appear to satiate the desire to play something extra-nerdy where manipulation of stats to your advantage will be a key skill.

Last Cannon – What at first appears to be a simple missile command-style game quickly evolves into so much more. With a dark story (that of you manning the final cannon on your planet in an attempt to fend off the invading alien hordes), a puzzle mechanic based around destroying groups of enemies of the same color, and simple controls, this game has quickly garnered excellent reviews. For only 99¢, I still don’t know why I haven’t purchased it yet. It will be on my iPhone soon.