Appletell

Today at WWDC, after the iPhone 2.0 demo, they demoed many many apps created using the iPhone SDK.

The first App demoed is by Sega. It’s Super Monkey Ball. Hey, we saw this already. But today they’re showing us the last level. Out of a whopping 100. Super Monkey Ball will be $9.99 at the launch of the App Store.

The second app is by eBay. Easy access to search, at a glance stats for eBay whether you’re a buyer or a seller. By the sound of it, this is basically just a native web-app… Not really sure what the practicality of having a native eBay app is, but Apple likes it. eBay app will be free on the app store at launch.

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Grand Theft Auto IV is set to be one of the biggest games of this year, if not ever. It’s received a lot of hype in the past week, leading up to its release yesterday. The Grand Theft Auto series of games hasn’t always had good press, there are a lot of people against the game’s violent themes. Nonetheless, Rockstar Games has a great sense of humor, and it’s great to see that they have made some hilarious Apple parodies within GTA IV.

Apple is referred to as “Fruit”, and the Think Different campaign is being mocked: ”THINK Simple. THINK Minimalism. THINK Overpriced. THINK Fruit. THINK.” The Apple logo is a fruit bowl with various colored fruits - which if you look at in a certain way may not be safe for work. Apple’s iPhone is called the iFruit Phone, and is a banana-shaped phone with no buttons, no reception, and no storage capacity. No matter how hard Rockstar are bashing Apple in this parody, it’s a great find by Flickr user dunutmaz, and nice to see Apple in some video games - even if it’s not the kind of publicity Apple wants.

Via [TUAW]

MacHeist is a fairly well known name around the Mac community. They have fun “Heists” with some free software, ending in a severely discounted software bundle after all the heists. Now they have released a “retail version” of the bundle, for the same $49 price. It includes some great programs, but a whole bunch of repeats from previous bundles as well. I’m not going to go into details here about the ethics, promotional schemes, or any other moral stuff about MacHeist here. What this article is for is breaking down for whom the bundle is worth it, and for whom it is not.

New Mac User - If you are new to the Mac world, this is a stellar opportunity to get your hands on a nice amount of applications designed with the Mac in mind. You get money management software, an iTunes front-end, a word processor, a shortcut/application launcher, a password and sensitive info vault, three games for the Mac (Nanosaur is especially cool in 3D) and more. If you have a fresh new mac and $50, I’d recommend this bundle in a snap unless you have absolutely no interest in any of these apps.

Previous Bundle Buyer - Chances are if you’ve already bought the MacHeist bundles, it’s not for you this time around. Over half of the applications in this bundle are repeats of previous bundles. It may, however, still be worth it. If there are a couple apps in there that you like that total up to more than $50 by themselves, then of course the whole bundle is a great buy.

Gift Giver - This also fits in with the previous. If you just want a couple apps, why not give the rest away? Hold a contest on your blog if you have one, or just give them away to friends as presents, or perhaps to a relative along with a new Mac. The games will be especially great for kids.

Who Else? Can you think of anyone else who would benefit from these apps? Sound off in the comments below!

The iPhone is Apple’s new gaming platform. Both the iPhone and iPod Touch are powerful devices, capable of playing immersive 3-D games at a decent frame rate. Gameloft is a company known for its previous iPod games on the iTunes store. They have announced that they will bring 15 of their games to the iPhone/iPod Touch platform. Pocketgamer has a mockup of what one of their games may look like. This screenshot was actually shown at a Gameloft conference a few days before the SDK release.

Gameloft already produces some popular games for other mobile platforms, such as: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, Rayman, Might and Magic, Prince of Persia and many more.

Via [TUAW]

Once you saw that they are releasing those EA Games, you wanted them! EA promised them by summer.  Now - they’re starting to be shipped in 7-10 days - so grab your copy of them!

The games include the following

• Battlefield 2142
• Need for Speed Carbon
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Command and Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars

I’m really excited to see these on the Mac. I can now play at LAN parties with my Mac and not feel left out!

Via [Gizmodo]

Some of the old favorite text based games are now coming to the iPhone. A new free application called Frotz Z-Machine Interpreter 0.1 will allow you to run games that were based in the Z-Machine platform on your iPhone.

The Z-Machine games were text adventure games similar to the popular classic Zork. For those that have never played (or seen) Zork you control the game with verb-noun commands such as “go north”. While this sounds fun, at least for those that played Zork growing up, it takes a little more than just loading up another application. In order to install Frotz you will have to already have your iPhone jailbroken/sshd-enabled so you can copy a new directory to your phone.

Read [MacNN]

After pushing back the release date of Madden ‘08 and Tiger Woods ‘08 to September-October, EA Games has finally released the four other games they promised at WWDC 2007. Need for Speed Carbon, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Battlefield 2142 and Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars though a month late, are now available for pre-order on the Apple Store. Need for Speed and Harry Potter will be shipping August 21st, with Battlefield and Command & Conquer following on August 28th.

EA Games says that in the future, they hope to cut down on the time it takes to release the Mac version of a game after it’s Windows counterpart. Apple has trailers of all six games available on their website, or you can visit the Mac section of EA’s site.

Mac gaming still isn’t up to par with what is available for Windows, but it is little steps like these that bring them that much closer.

Via [MacMinute]

Not for the shy and bashful person, or anyone without a strong grip, Tilt Scream Pong is a game that utilizes both the Sudden Motion Sensor and the built in microphone in your Powerbook, iBook, MacBook or MacBook Pro.

Basically a solitaire pong game (think Breakout without the blocks), the ball moves faster and faster and your paddle grows in size the more noise you make, hence not a game for the shy and retiring type!

The game and source are available for free, and future plans hint at maybe eventually a two player game, or even two player network play which will at least help share the embarrassment, but wont do your neighbors any favors!

A word of warning though, this game can make you look (very) stupid! Don’t believe me check this out. Check it out-- but do it behind closed doors or risk people thinking you’re strange.

Via [TUAW]