ARCHIVE: December 2011

As the year draws to a close we thought it was time to take a look at Apple’s iTunes Rewind 2011 which reveals the best iPhone and iPad apps, podcasts, TV shows, music and movies categories – according to Apple themselves. We focus on the paid and free iPhone/iPad apps and games, presenting the main results below.

As 2011 draws to a close it has been a big year for the mobile handset industry; one of the topics that has caused quite a stir amongst developers and hardware manufacturers is patent trolls and we take a look at where that is all at now.

I was one of the sceptics when tablet computers were first released, because I couldn’t see too many buying a pricey device that was neither a mobile phone nor a fully-fledged computer. I was underestimating the power of the “mobile” element of tablets – the fact that some of them can fit in an inside jacket pocket or in a handbag or school satchel – which seems to be more important than the limitations I was considering.

If we ran a respected game review site and received emails from game developers about the release of a new app, with an accompanying review or two already written by the developer and a request to cut and paste portions of the review on our site, we would probably feel a bit indignant; even insulted.

With this week’s release of Monkeybin’s classic side scroller game Jumpship Thrust Control 2 – for the iPhone, iPad and iPod – we thought it would be good to take a look at side scrollers in general and why they remain popular….then give you our thoughts on the genre.

The folks at Monkeybin have been very busy chimps over the past months; you may have seen some of the things that have been going on round here with the release of a new app or two and the pending release of a couple more…but this week we all breathed a huge sigh of relief when our “baby” finally got the release it deserved. It’s taken blood, sweat, tears and not a small amount of time but we’re proud to announce the release of Jumpship Thrust Control 2 – now available in the App store.

You can’t really have a great mobile game without great mobile graphics, though the old fans of Tetris may disagree! As mobile gaming continues to boom, the demand for more sophisticated graphics for mobile devices also advances; it presents many challenges because of the obvious size, memory, processor power and battery restrictions of the mobile devices like smart phones and tablets; we take a look at that below.

OK, it’s been a tough week and we’ve had enough of the serious talk, so we thought we’d have a bit of fun and take a look at the craziest smartphone apps around. We introduce the 10 maddest apps for iPhones and Androids to you below – in no particular order.

El Dorado – the “Lost City of Gold” - eluded the conquistadors and everybody since; many people seem to be searching mobile gaming in the belief that it may actually reside within the sleek confines of an iPad or on a Facebook Wall! What are we talking about you ask? We’re referring to the developers and businesses flocking to mobile gaming because of the opportunities of making a mint quickly.