Weekly News Recap
by Eric Norwood
October 26, 2009
AppAdvice.com reported a lot of exciting news last week. In case you missed any of it, here are the highlights.
On the app front:
EA and Harmonix released an App Store version of the epic rhythm game Rock Band. The Rock Band app includes multiplayer bluetooth play, Facebook friend challenge, and in-app song purchases. AppAdvice gave it four and a half stars.
Adobe's free Photoshop.com app reached a million downloads in just over a week, becoming both the number one free app and number one free photography app.
Earthworm Jim made his way into the App Store in a true-to-the-classic app version of the epic platform game.
Sling Player 3G was held up by Apple, and NASA put other space-tracking apps out of business with a free app of their own. StoneLoops! of Jurassica was pulled from the App Store at MumboJumbo's request. MumboJumbo claimed the app was too similar to their own, Luxor.
A forthcoming Chuck Norris app was teased - (Chuck Norris can use his iPhone on Verizon's network) and EA Games put out NBA Live.
In Cupe-town: Apple announced record iPhone sales in their "most profitable quarter ever," despite a bleeding economy. Apple sold more than seven million iPhones in this last fiscal quarter, the most sold since launch. Verizon started airing anti-iPhone ads promoting their newest attempt to compete with the world's best smartphone. The commercial featured a list of iDon'ts like: "iDon't take pictures in the dark, iDon't have interchangeable batteries... and everything iDon't, Droid Does."
I agree with those that said the best part of the commercial was the opening segment that mimicked an Apple advertisement. Apple released a new product line including a new remote, some new computers, and a beautiful new "Magic Mouse". Apple started selling the TomTom Car Kit, first in the UK, a few days later in the US. The $120 kit promises to enhance GPS service and work with third-party navigation devices. Nokia made headlines with a lawsuit against Apple, claiming patent infringement on ten registered Nokia patents. In other copycat news, Microsoft opened their first Apple Store in Scottsdale (Arizona). And to top it all off, the iPod celebrated its eighth birthday. We told you how to: Restore Internet tethering, with an important fix, create free ringtones, and jailbreak with the newest version of blackra1n, RC2. We reviewed: AppBox Pro, RedLaser, Rock Band, TapTap Revenge 3, Shrek Kart, Cocoto Kart Online, 33rd Division, and MobileNavigator. All that and more in just seven days, here at AppAdvice.com.