Touching Up XIII: Kingdom Lores, Poddle, Touchpad Pro…
by Eric March on May 22, 2008 at 1:05 am
There’s no shortage of news these days, though there frequently seems to be a shortage of time, which is unfortunate. Still, that’s what this series is about: Quickly covering a bunch of smaller news bits so keep you all up to date and informed about the latest developments and updates. To that end, today I’d like to go over Mobipocket’s upcoming eBook reader, Poddle 1.1, iToday 2.0, Snake 1.0, iTaste 1.0-1.1, Touchpad Pro 4.11, SugarTracker 1.5.1, iScreenshot, Pieces 1.2, iPhone Video Recorder 1.2.2, and Kingdom Lores 0.0.62 with a bonus screenshot gallery.
iPhone Video Recorder 1.2.2
The putative first video recorder on the iPhone has had an update to 1.2.2. Not a whole lot new this time around, but the preferences menus have been given a facelift, and registered users also have a new option to add a “signature” (up to 16 characters) to your videos. I presume that means a small custom watermark tucked away in a corner. One other change that may annoy some is that the demo version now watermarks your videos with the URL to the iPhone Video Recorder website, something that can only be eliminated by coughing up the dough for the full version. However, if all you want to to is evaluate with the intent to buy if you find that it’s up to your standards, then this shouldn’t be an issue. You can grab it from its own dedicated repo (http://www.iphone-recorder.com/install2)
(via Apple iPhone School)
Pieces 1.2
Pieces is a jigsaw puzzle of sorts. It takes an image, cuts it into a configurable number of squares (from 40 to 80 pieces in increments of 10), then mixes them all up for you to reassemble. The previous version offered a few built-in images to puzzle out and solve, but this latest update can now grab images from your camera roll, image library, contacts or wallpaper library, which means you can create your own puzzle images on the fly (on the iPhone) or use any of the images stored on your iPhone or iPod Touch. (This part just crashed for me, however.) That makes this simple little puzzler much more interesting than it was. You can install Pieces from the iSpazio repo (http://repo.ispazio.net)
(via Apple iPhone School)
iScreenshot
What, another screenshot utility? Before you skip to the next entry, this isn’t your ordinary screenshot utility, because this one runs through a wireless SSH connection from your Windows desktop. Sounds weird, right? Kinda pointless? Not exactly. What about taking screenshots of OpenGL-ES games? You just can’t do with on-board screenshotters like Capture. You can do it with an iPhone using the Home+Mute switch combo, but that’s pretty awkward, especially if what you want to take a screenshot of also involves you touching something on the screen at the same time. Plus, it takes screenshots in TIF format, so you have to convert them to a more web-friendly JPEG or PNG, and anyway, this doesn’t work on the iPod Touch. Solution? iScreenshot. It will connect wirelessly to your iPhone or Touch through SSH (so make sure you have it enabled and configured iScreenshot to use the root/alpine login and pass with your local IP) and grab screenshots remotely, storing them on your local computer — which also eliminates the step(s) involved in moving them off your device. Its only potential drawback is that it’s a bit slowm taking up to 5 seconds to take and transfer the screenshot — but then, Capture isn’t much better at times, so not really a big deal. Just don’t expect to be capturing Great Moments-style action shots, as the delay involved will probably miss it entirely. See this MMi thread for details and a download link, and check the source link below for installation instructions.
(via Apple iPhone School)
SugarTracker 1.5.1
SugarTracker still won’t make diabetes fun, but this latest update should fix a few issues some of you may had with the application. The main problem with crashing back to springboard after opening the app has been fixed, and there have been some internal changes to the way temporary data is handled, and a permissions bug was fixed. You can grab this one off of BigBoss (http://thebigboss.org/repo.xml).
(via Apple iPhone School)
Touchpad Pro 4.11
Here’s the 411 (haw!) on the latest iteration of this most excellent WiFi VNC-eseque remote controller Touchpad Pro: Those of you with humongous monitors, or even more humongous monitor walls, who run in resolutions that would embarrass the RED ONE cams, you may have noticed that Touchpad Pro won’t let you scroll down past a certain point. This version fixes that particular bug — which you’ll eventually notice when you’re finished playing Crysis at full res and detail on your quad-SLI GeForce 9800 GTX rig, I’m sure.
(via Apple iPhone School)
iTaste
I’m not sure what avatar creation has to do with flavours or fashion sense, but I’m sure Heng Liu does, because it’s his app, and that’s what it does: Creates avatars. It’s like those segmented kids books that let you create faces using available combinations of mouth, nose, eyes, and hair. And ears, too — this one lets you do ears, so in your face, primitive children’s flip books! The first version, 1.0, was basically a pointless time waster, since you couldn’t actually do anything with the faces you created — so really, it amounted to the ol’ 2600 game of Strawberry Shortcake’s Musical Mix-Up. (Shut up! You can’t complete your 2600 collection without it, okay?) The 1.1 update however allows you to “take a picture” of your avatar (basically screenshotting it and saving it to your camera roll.) iPod Touch users might have a bit of difficulty with this, but iPhone users will see it turn up in their camera roll, and from there you can copy it to your computer if you feel like using it on a message board. 1.1 also adds more faces designed by iSpazio. Speaking of which, that’s where you can find it (http://repo.ispazio.com).
(via Apple iPhone School)
iSnake
Ahh, Snake. A simple classic from the early days of computing, and a game many a Nokia user remembers fondly. I never had a Nokia, but I remember the first phones that featured it, too. Mostly from the beepity-beep noises it made behind me on the bus while I tried to split my concentration between reading my book and figuring out how I could shove the phone up the player’s sewage pipe sideways before he had time to react. But I digress; iSnake by Sergey Tikhonov brings the classic to the iPhone and Touch with some upgraded graphics and accelerometer control that seems to have swapped left and right for some odd reason. Oh, and you’re not eating apples anymore. You’re eating bunnies. Hey, uh, Sergey? PETA would like a word with you — and probably anyone else who installs it from the iSpazio repo (http://repo.ispazio.com).
(via Apple iPhone School)
iToday 2.0
Users of Skrew’s iToday 2.0 will be interested in this latest update to their lock screen info panel. Version 2.0 adds a new dynamic weather icon, separates scheduled events from birthdays, adds a new battery charge indicator, and — finally — a missed calls indicator. It also allows you to disable the video background, which will be nice for those who don’t want it. It does seem to have its issues though; reports say that birthdays appear scheduled a day later than they actually are, and scheduled events seem to be listed in chronological order, even if they’ve already expired. If you aren’t a fan of IntelliScreen though, then this may be the ticket for you, and you can install it from Skrew (http://i.danstaface.net).
(via Apple iPhone School)
Poddle’s 1.1 and 1.2 Updates
LgChicken has been busy working on his Peggle clone. The updates are relatively minor, but definitely show that things are just starting to come together. Verison 1.1 included some optimizations and fixed the last peg standing bug, while 1.2 now adds golden bonus pegs (though they don’t do anything different yet) plus menu and new game buttons, so you no longer have to quit and reload to reset the game. There’s still no scoring or ball limit yet, nor any of the other features you may be anticipating, but I am sure they’ll be coming along eventually. You can grab it from the MMi repo (http://modmyifone.com/installer.xml).
(via Installer)
Mobipocket Gets Busy with iPhone SDK
Anyone who’s spent time with a PDA or Smartphone will probably have at least a passing familiarity with Mobipocket. They are both a developer of the premier (and free) eBook reader for mobile devices and a large online retailer of eBooks themselves. Those of you who like your literature portable and digital then will appreciate the fact that Mobipocket have announced that they will be releasing their free eBook reader for the iPhone and iPod Touch through the App Store before year end.
(via Just Another iPhone Blog)
Kingdom Lores Updated to 0.0.62
Marco’s been busy with his still-alpha RPG Kingdom Lores. There have been numerous updates which collectively have amounted to some big changes. The “town” has changed and become a little bigger, with new building types and textures; There are now three different creatures to fight in the game; the treasure chest has been fixed, though it still doesn’t do anything and is still buggy; there’s a new LAN gameplay mode, but you’ll need someone else in the room to play with; accelerometer control now works; config is now saved properly; a new option, “game tweaks,” features an “auto-attack” toggle; three-quarter and FPS view modes have been joined by new behind-low and behind-high modes; the game has been reduced to a single package, so you can delete the old directories and install just the new one; and the 3D engine looks to have been noticeably optimized such that moving around is much faster when there aren’t a lot of polygons to draw, but it does slow down noticeably in FPS mode when there’s a lot to draw. Furthermore, Kingdom Lores is now available on the BigBoss repo (http://thebigboss.org/repo.xml) so you don’t need to do a manual install anymore. This one is really starting to shape up, and the way Marco is working on it we might start to see some real RPG elements added soon enough, instead of just the hack-and-slash fest it is right now. Check out the bonus gallery below for screenies.
(via reader tip. Thanks, setec!)
Okay, time to put this edition in the can. Check back in a day or two, I’m sure I’ll have lots more to report on.
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Posted in Gaming Related, In The Works, Win/Mac Related, iPhone OS 2.0
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:27 am
Pieces is just awesome. Of all the homebrew stuff released so far, that’s the first one I’ve thought “Wow, I’ll be playing this a lot.”
Too bad it’s all gonna go to hell in a couple of weeks or so with the appstore. Community is going to be factioned then… Hope things can co-exist. I love my stuff I have now, but there’s at least one app I simply MUST HAVE (that nobody has made a version of for the jailbroken device.)
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I don’t see any reason why the App Store will necessarily polarize the scene. There’s no indication yet that the two will not be able to coexist, so no real reason that I can see for the scene to be split between the two ends of the spectrum. Those who don’t want to jailbreak will continue not wanting to jailbreak and just get their software from the App Store. Those who are into the jailbreak scene will presumably benefit from the best of both worlds.
As for the app — I’m not big on jigsaw puzzles; those are a little too casual for me. However this one is quite well done, I must admit.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
You have some great iphone stuff on your blog. Your insight and expertise would be a welcome addition to our new community, i hope you will consider joining :-) and thanks for sharing!