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iPhone forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski, who recently released the AMBER Alert for iPhone app, has a new app designed to help keep deleted data from being recovered from your iPhone. Called iErase, the app "zeros" all the free space on your iPhone and makes sure trashed files stay, well, trashed.
The iPhone, like most computing devices, doesn't actually remove files from you iPhone when you delete them. The bits are all there; the file system merely marks the space that the file was using as available. "The iPhone retains data better than most laptops because its solid state disk is designed to minimize writes," Zdziarski told Ars. "As a result, deleted photos, e-mail, keyboard caches, and other personal data are likely to stay on the device for a very long period of time. All of this information is available to someone who steals or 'borrows' our device."
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There's nothing worse than getting home from the grocery store and suddenly realizing you forgot something you needed. For those of us who aren't accustomed to making lists, it happens frequently. Paper and pen are so passé, though. Groceries, an iPhone/iPod touch app from Sophiestication Software, aims to remedy the problem by easily allowing users to make grocery lists using a huge database of name brand and generic products. We have been waiting since the App Store launched for this one, and it has finally been released. Was it worth the wait?
With Groceries, you can create and save multiple lists, which is useful if you do your shopping at more than one grocery store. Adding groceries to an existing list is a pleasure. The database of American items is gigantic with 11,259 items, while the German database is even larger with over 15,000 items. When all is said and done, the SQL database for the items is 2.6 MB—not huge, but when you consider it's all text, that's pretty big. Still, there are no real performance issues in the application, and scrolling is very smooth.
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Chillingo's Zen Bound made a minor splash when it hit the App Store a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't until this weekend that I had the chance to really sit down and get a sense of what all the buzz what about. Let's just say it's not really what you expect from an iPhone game. Zen Bound offers an immersive experience where users interact directly with three-dimensional on-screen objects. You basically wrap rope around 3D figures by twisting the object on the screen. When you've covered enough surface area with that rope, you gain points and may proceed to the next level. Zen Bound is based on Zen Bondage, which was developed as a demo a few years ago.
When I say immersive, I refer to both the interface and the sound. As the program itself reminds you on each launch, the game's 3D aural effects were built for headphone use. These 3D sounds are designed to move around your head, adding an extra layer of effect to the well-realized iPhone touch interface, which includes dragging, twisting and accelerometer control of the on-screen object.
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Shivering Kittens is an iPhone game that you will absolutely need to download if you are a puzzle game type of person—especially if you want to truly understand how it works. We'll do our best to explain this addictive and challenging game here, but if you're anything like me, you probably won't fully understand it until you have played it a couple of times. That said, you'll probably be glad you did. There is both a "Lite" version, which is free, as well as a paid version, which costs $2.99. This review is about the paid version, though most of the comments also apply to the Lite version.
Ignoring the kittens for a brief moment, the premise of the game looks like Tetris, but it's not. If anything, we might compare it more directly with Bejeweled or even Lumens on the PSP. There are falling blocks composed of different kinds of block pieces that need to be arranged in such a way that similar types of pieces are touching in order to eliminate them and keep yourself safe from the line at the top of the screen. Here's where the kittens come in.
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There's little question that the latest Kindle 2 hardware is much improved over previous versions, but it still isn't quite an easily pocketable, ubiquitous device: it's purpose-built for reading. Although it's portable, I'll wager people are far more likely to have a phone on them at all times. And that's where Amazon's new Kindle for iPhone app comes in.
"We are excited to bring the new Kindle application to Apple's App
Store and think customers are going to love how easy and fun it is to
read their Kindle books on the iPhone and iPod touch, said Amazon Kindle vice president Ian Freed in a statement. "Kindle for iPhone and iPod touch is a great way for customers to catch up on their current book wherever
they are, like in line at the grocery store or between meetings."
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Dracula is one of those quintessential villains who is always fun to go toe-to-toe with. Case in point: no matter how many times we end up taking the Dark Lord of the Vampires out in Konami's Castlevania, we always come back for more. Now, Dracula has come to the iPhone in the absurdly named iDracula- Undead Awakening and it's up to us to put him back into the ground.
iDracula is a survival-shooter game that puts players in the shoes of a nameless monster hunter who starts out with a simple flintlock pistol and proceeds to tear around a small map while taking out waves of monsters that include vampires, witches, werewolves, what look like Igors, and (eventually) Dracula himself. At first, the monsters don't really present much of a challenge because they're pretty weak and slow, but they get exponentially faster and tougher over a short period of time, which the game helps offset by providing players with upgrades to weaponry and new abilities. It doesn't take long to get weapons like a mini-gun, a rocket launcher, and even the BFG to help battle the hordes. Effectively, it's like playing the 1990 hit Smash T.V. with a Castlevania polish.
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Social news community Reddit is a melting pot of current events, endless memes, and obsession with the irreverent—and now it has officially come to the iPhone. Promising virtually all of the site's functionality for the iPhone and iPod touch, we had to dive in to see just how far the Reddit hole goes.
Reddit's official iPhone app, iReddit (iTunes link), is not to be confused with previous entrants like "open source reddit" (iTunes link) and Satellite (iTunes link). While iReddit's $1.99 price may turn off some discerning users (who still felt the need to buy a phone that costs at least $200), a free, ad-supported version is on its way. iReddit offers access to all subreddits (basically "categories," for the uninitiated) and lets users vote, comment, share, and save links on their accounts for reading later. Upon first run, the site's legendarily quirky culture and streamlined experience are both immediately apparent, as one of the four default subreddits available in iReddit's toolbar is "WTF," but you are neither forced to sign up nor log in. Stories simply queue up for your knowledge and amusement, and iReddit only gets (mostly) better from there.
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Sometimes you run into an application so bizzare that, despite it being not particularly well made, you just end up playing with it in an uncontrollable fascination. iPopetz's Monkey (iTunes link) is one such application. Yesterday, I had a chance to sit down and put Monkey to the test.
The idea is this: Monkey provides an interactive avatar that lip syncs to your voice. You control the emotions and actions of the monkey and the application records your session. You can then share that session with friends via a central website. The app costs two bucks and you can upload your clips to the shared site without limit.
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A couple of years ago, a Mac OS X application came along and
blew my socks off. I raved about it at the time, and continue to do so just
about every chance I get. That app was Papers, which has done for scientific literature what iTunes did for music files. Now, the company behind Papers, Mekentosj, has
done it again, this time by bringing its killer app to the iPhone in a timely
manner. It doesn't disappoint.
What made the desktop app so great was the way it took all
the hard parts of maintaining an electronic literature database and hid them,
while at the same time providing a great-looking interface from which to read
papers, search for new ones, and even export them to bibliographic apps. The
iPhone app works in pretty much the same way as the desktop version, bringing
some or all of your desktop library over to your iPhone or iPod touch, along
with the option to search for new articles and so on.
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Now that Apple is allowing third-party browsers into the App Store, Safari alternatives are cropping up almost as quickly as fart apps, sans the lack of utility. While most of these browsers seem to be stricken with an anorexic case of the "me toos," Full Screen Web Browser (iTunes link) by SOPODS.com offers some compelling features over the iPhone's incumbent.
To get the headlining feature of Full Screen Web Browser (FSWB) out of the way, it offers a truly, erm, full screen Web browser. Starting up FSWB reveals a slim address bar at the top and a spartan, translucent toolbar at the bottom as the default Google homepage loads. That's right: I said default homepage. You can change your homepage in the Settings app (loss of 10 points for following Apple's Human Interface Misguide here), and this page loads each time you start FSWB. You hear that, Apple? Someone created an iPhone browser and actually remembered that homepages exist. Astounding!
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When it comes to games in the App Store, rail shooters are pretty much nonexistent. As a result, the news that Namco was bringing its venerated Time Crisis franchise to the iPhone was delightful to hear, even though none of us was entirely sure how the game would work. Now that we've gotten to see Time Crisis Strike in action? The shooter should have stayed in development a bit longer, as it misses the target.
The game's biggest problem is that it's incredibly short and shallow. Whereas other recent action/adventure titles have had a pretty reasonable script, Strike doesn't actually have a plot at all: there isn't an intro cutscene explaining what's going on in the world or why players happen to be going up against the game's terrorist baddies. In fact, there's no way to know that you're going up against Wild Dog and his army unless you happen to read the game's official description.
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For a free ad-supported game, Duck Shoot delivers an amusing little treat that may occupy a few spare minutes of your time, but is unlikely to become a long-term passion. Based on the standard carnival game, you must shoot down little tin ducks while avoiding hitting "babies" with your shots. The ducks move around your screen, changing style, color, and difficulty, adding a light tinge of challenge to gameplay.
To aim, simply tilt your phone to move the rifle sights around the screen. When you've set your target, tap the screen (just once! a second tap will always miss) to shoot. Blue ducks are worth an extra point.
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Bringing 3D games to the Apple's touch-oriented platform is still pretty rare, but Gameloft is doing its best to be the first game developer exclusively associated with the genre. Not only that, but the company is working to put out quality action titles for the App store. Previously, we were taken to Ancient Greece with Hero of Sparta; this time, we're liberating WW2 Europe from the *** in Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes.
The game tells the story of soldiers in the 101st Airborne as they fight their way through a total of thirteen missions across the regions of Normandy, Ardennes, and Tunisia. The story here is pretty basic, not much more than "go here, shoot these guys," but most players don't really need much of a plot when they're taking on Axis forces across Europe.
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Food delivery aficionados who live in Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, or New York are likely aware of GrubHub, an online service that offers a centralized location to find restaurants that deliver to you from all over the city. Through GrubHub, you can even order online from many restaurants and filter for those that are delivering now, different kinds of cuisine, and so on.
At least here in Chicago, GrubHub has a pretty strong following, so when the company announced today that its GrubHub iPhone app had landed in the App Store, we were elated. In order to understand the need for an iPhone app that lets you order food, you must first understand the demographic that would want to have food delivered in the first place: the lazy. If I can place an order for some curry without dragging myself to a computer, or even if I'm on the train heading home and would like dinner to be on the way as I arrive, that's exactly what I want to do. So, with incredible eagerness, we tried out the GrubHub iPhone app in hope that it answered all of our prayers—and it sort of did, but with a few shortfalls.
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iStat is a new iPhone utility that allows a user to remotely monitor computers running Mac OS X 10.4 or higher with a free iStat server application. Additionally, you can monitor the vital statistics of an iPod Touch or iPhone, which we will also talk about in this review. Connections can be made using either Apple's Bonjour networking protocol if devices are on the same network, or TCP/IP if the machine you wish to monitor lies outside. Once the server is launched, it gives you a five-digit pass code used to authenticate the server and the client.
By default, the server listens on port 5109, but that can be changed if another is more to your liking. If you are connecting via Bonjour, the machine running the server will appear in the servers list; otherwise you have to manually add a TCP/IP or hostname. Once you select the server, you are prompted to enter the five-digit code; at that time, you are given access to all of the goings on of the remote computer. Although you can reset authorizations and create new passcodes, I couldn't get my iPod touch to be prompted for a new code after entering in the original. This is a somewhat serious security flaw, but one the company is aware of and is working on a fix for.
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