Okay so their Youtube channel is a trip to the future, but back to the point. An impressive display of a detailed interactive 3D scene on a mobile device via a browser on open and standards based web technologies. Well done team IGD.

“ONE WEEK ONLY: biteSMS licenses on SALE HALF PRICE!!! Check out biteSMS, Settings, Themes…NICE!!! Added a ‘mark as read’ icon in the Apple banner roll notification. Added the ability to display the contact pic in the ‘Lock Screen Notification List’ (see biteSMS, Settings, More Stuff, Contact Pics). Better control of Quick Reply. See biteSMS, Settings, Quick Reply: Lock Mode and Unlock Mode. Fixed a whole heap of layout issues on the iPad. Fixed up issue with very new iPhones (currently in China) in relation to Emoji character encoding. For iOS 5.1: Fixed bug in Quick Compose volume HUD where we were restoring the wrong volume category. Fixed a bunch of minor bugs. ONE WEEK ONLY: biteSMS licenses on SALE HALF PRICE!!!”

That is exactly what “The BIGBOSS” on Cydia re-released today, trying to push an already amazing product.  BITESms is within my top 20 Cydia apps.   All i have to say is GET IT!!! If a 10 dollar app is half off after it was just updated for iOS6…. buy it!!!  I cant stress it it enough. BITESms is one of the best “aftermarket” apps/tweaks you can get only because you can personalize it. So go for it!

Any and all questions please feel free to “tweet” me @ichuckydee or shoot me an e-mail or you can check out my *NEW* FB @ www.facebook.com/ichucky.dee  i always respond..always !!! ENJOY!!!

No Cydia on beta breaks!!!!!

If you have been following along with all of the guys who are behind the scenes of jailbreaking, then you already know. Some how, amazingly fast productivity has kept them on the heals of the the iOS6 developers. Releasing update after update of jailbreaks. Presently, you can upgrade your iDevice, by downloading the iOS6 firmware from a copious amount of sites. Then do a custom restore using that firmware using the latest iTunes . You can Jailbreak all the way up to the latest Beta of iOS which presently is 4. The only drawback is that, sure you have an untethered jailbreak. But, you have no “Cydia”. You can install Cydia manually via SSH, but not everyone is ssh savvy. And even if you do install Cydia via ssh, you still may run into some problems. Seeing how all these Beta jailbreaks where originally made for dev’s only, some of the sources may not even be updated yet and will not work on iOS6. My best advice is to do what im doing. Just stay happy with the 5.1.1 UTJailbreak and wait for an “Official” Jailbreak release date.
Besides…. its not to far away guys…. trust me

And as usual any and all questions you can get me on twitter at @ichuckydee -or- my *new* FB  Facebook.com/ichucky.dee

leaked document

According to leaked images from a T-Mobile associate, the company plans on pursuing a campaign against the sales of the new iPhone5. The new iPhone is due out in late September, which ironically is when the “attack” on the iPhone will begin. September 21st, to be precise. The rumored release date of the new iDevice. (Hmmmm)
Apparently, a monthly “planner” of some sort was sent out to all associates, and one section was titled “Selling Against the iPhone”, and is to start, again, on sept. 21st.
Again, the date of September 21st is just a wide spread speculation of the iPhone5’s release date. But…..
Starting in September, the carrier will also be rolling out a “4g Monthly Sim Kit”, which apparently may, or may not, work with the i5. But nonetheless, the more iPhone5’s sold, the less “Sim Kits” sold, once again taking money out of T-Mobiles pocket. Obviously, a very bad thing for the carrier. (slap on iPhones wrist)
Also, this is not the first time that T-Mobile has “banded against” a product that they, themselves sell! Reportedly, a while back they pushed against the sales of the Droid “Edge”, because it didnt cooperate correctly with their 3g network. And who would want to listen to a bunch of whining customers. Its not like they have a customer service department or anything ha.
Let me know what you think about this by letting me know in the comments below. Or you can follow me on twitter @ichuckydee or e-mail at ichuckydee6885@gmail.com. Or you can “friend me on my *NEW* Facebook Facebook.com/ichucky.dee

First is Our Choice, an interactive e-book by Al Gore.  Our Choice is an interactive 400-page book with videos, photos, and info-graphic content that illustrates how powerful interactive story telling can be. It was developed in collaboration with Push Pop Press debuting their digital publishing platform. The e-book is available for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

Push Pop Press’s platform is still in private beta and states it is redefining the way we will publish and experience books. Authors can mix together text, images, sound, video, and interactive graphics into immersive multi-finger touch interactive books without, “dealing with the complexities and costs normally involved in software development.” I can’t wait for public beta!  Have a look at the video below.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fIA5F4dPbo

Next up is 3 Dreams of Black. 3 Dreams of Black is an interactive film by Chris Milk and some friends at Google that showcases the creative potential of combining 2D graphics, video, and hardware accelerated 3D to tell a story.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReH7zzj5GPc

Today I saw Metaio’s press release stating, “The Black Eyed Peas debut in the world’s first 360-degree mobile music video.”

Information on the app from iTunes:

With BEP360 you can be dropped into the party with the worlds first 360 mobile music video. Hold up your iPhone4 or latest iPod Touch and watch as the BEP perform their hit single “The Time (Dirty Bit)” with you literally at the center of the party. Physically look around to change the view as you experience the song in innovative 360 degree video.

The app also features a cutting edge Augmented Reality experience. Just point your device at the album cover and see one of the Baby Peas popup and move to the beat. A chat bubble on top of their head reveals their latest tweet.

Augmented reality component of BEP app

Snap a pic of one of the Peas in your world and upload it to BEP EARTH where you can see people from all over the world sharing and celebrating their love for the BEP and their music.
Step into the Photo session and conduct a virtual Photo Shoot with the

Pea of your choice with the first ever virtual camera experience.
The Pea’s twitter streams are visualized for you and at the tap of an icon.
Finally a really cool puzzle game will keep you in the app for hours of fun.

From what I saw in the video of the app working at the Will.i.apps site, it seems to use the accelerometer and compass of the iDevices to provide a ‘virtual camera’ type effect for navigating the UI, looking at content, and watching the music video. A very clever technique for interaction.

Although iTunes lists the developer of the app as Talent Media LLC, the press release states the app is a collaborative project between Will.i.apps, Metaio (for the AR), and 3D360 (for the 360 video).  The BEP360 app is available for $2.99 from the App Store on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, or at:www.bit.ly/bep360app.

The QR code on the poster still doesn’t do anything, but I am glad to see the BEP get such a cool app.

The tool is from a company called Ansca and it lets you build apps for iOS and Android.  Sounds like something Adobe would have done??  Your right because the company is full of Ex-Adobe people who where working on the flash lite and port to mobile program, so they may know a thing or two about what they are doing.  I have tried this myself and its pretty good.  However, its not in ActionScript, the platform is Lua.  I do not have much experience with Lua, but its pretty close to JavaScript / ActionScript so I was not as lost as I was when starting with CoCo.  So why Lua, I asked Walter Luh, the Co-founder/CTO, Ansca Mobile.

We chose Lua because no other scripting language on the planet offers the combination of speed, portability, and compactness.  Lua is the most portable VM on the planet.  Lua has a proven track record in building world class apps and games from World of Warcraft and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom on the desktop to Tap Tap Revenge and Angry Birds on the iPhone.  Lua is also remarkably fast and is often the benchmark by which other scripting languages compare themselves.

Personally, I think its because his last name sounds like Lua… But he denies it.

The applications you can write are pretty sweet with a full blown physics game engine underneath.  Check out some of the videos at the end of this post.  So the big new is that Corona is out of Beta and ready to roll!  Here is the press release..

Ansca Mobile launches Corona SDK and Game Edition toolkits for cross-platform mobile app development

Palo Alto, CA | September 16, 2010 | Ansca Mobile today launched the upgraded Corona SDK and Corona Game Edition toolkits for mobile app and game development.

Corona SDK (software development kit) adds cross-platform capabilities to the previously iPhone-only Corona toolkit.  Developers now can use Corona to build apps for iOS and Android devices from the same set of code, saving considerable time on recoding for different mobile platforms.  On top of that, Corona SDK automatically scales graphics for each separate platform, saving users the time and effort of manually rescaling their assets between devices.

Corona Game Edition includes the same cross-platform capabilities as Corona SDK with expanded features for building more demanding mobile games.  Game Edition touts OpenFeint integration for easily adding social networking capabilities to games, sprite sheets for advanced texture handling, and a full-fledged physics engine.  Last month, OpenFeint even featured Doodle Dash! – an iPhone game made with a beta version of Game Edition – as their Free Game of the Day, helping it net over 160,000 downloads and a spot on the App Store’s Top 25 list of most downloaded apps.

Corona SDK is available now for $249/year, and Corona Game Edition is available for an introductory price of $349/year. Both SDK’s can be downloaded directly from Ansca Mobile, and include all new feature rollouts for the full year’s subscription.

UPDATE:  Seems they were getting a DNS attack and took the app off the store.  Its back up now..

But based on the writeup in the NY Times, I read all I really need to know.  There have been plenty of VoiP options for the iphone, both through jailbreak and the store, but whats different about line2, is how flexible the service is.   You get a dedicated number to call out on.  It has a pretty good level of integration with the phone giving you an address book, call history, etc..  Pretty cool eh?  Better, this should will work on the ipod and yes iPad.  Want phone service on your ipad?  Here you go.

Whats great is you can get incoming calls too!  The articles says it only works if the app is running, but if you are jailbroken, you should be able to run it in the background.  This is was I wanted to test.  Now this is not free.  Its $15 a month, but if you have dropped call issues, or want to reduce your iphone plan to the minimum minutes , this is for you.

Hopefully I will find a way to get this running on my system and give a better write up down the road. Screenshot below…

from the NY Times

There are lots of really great iphone games out there, but sometime you want a game that does not take too much investment to learn or long term focus. These are simple additive games that you can call up and play while waiting in line or on the subway or wherever you have a quick 10-15 min to kill. So, in typical top ten format, my choices for the best simple additive iphone games out there.  I know there are no images posted.  I’ll get to it. Remember, this blog is written first, edited later.

10. Monster truck TN

This is a fun monster truck game where you have to navigate a monster truck through a 2d course trying to keep it level with the track while beating the preset time to get gold silver or bronze .Through out the game you will unlock two new trucks, a school bus and an indie 500 car. This game is a very simple racing game but still really fun.

9. Paper Toss

This is a pretty popular game that I played for a while that’s addictive. The goal of this game is to throw a ball of paper into a trash can and keep the longest streak you can going. You also have to watch out for the fan because the faster the fan speed the farther your paper ball will go off course.  The graphics are pretty good for this.

8. Icopter

This helicopter game is a game that I always played on the computer and was pretty excited when they brought it to itouch. First you set the speed and gravity and then navigate throught the course lifting your finger off and on the screen trying to last as long as possible.

7. Trace

I haven’t gotten to into this game yet but it is still really fun. There are over a hundred different levels to chose from. There is a little guy who you can make go left and right and jump, but the part of the game is that you draw your own map from point A to B trying to get around all of the obstacles of the map.

6. Blooms TD

This is your classic tower defense game except with the bloons twist. You can buy things such as monkeys, boomerangs, cannons, and supermonkey’s to try and pop all of the bloons before they navigate through the map. Although simple it is one of the most addictive games I have ever played but not enough to make number 1.. yet.

5. Touchgrind

This is a touch skateboarding game a lot like other skateboarding games you have played except in this one you have an arial view and your middle and index finger to all the work of riding ollieing and grinding while on the board.

4. Cube Runner

This is another game that came from the internet and is very simple. All you have to do is guide your arrow through the levels without hitting the blocks by tilting your itouch or iphone. The best part of this game is how smooth the graphics are. I have the feeling this was originally created to test out displaying graphics and working with the tilt, and turned into a game.  This game has been around since the 2.0 days of the iphone. Perhaps before that.

3. Bloons

Bloons is another tower defence type of game and I am really surprised if someone hasn’t heard of this game as it was really popular on the web about a year ago, thus I’m sure that it will become popular on the iphone.  There are fifty levels with different bloon configurations and your monkey is allotted a certain amount of darts to pop as many of the of bloons to pass through the path.

2. Line Rider

This used to be my favorite game of all time. What you do it draw a course using the touch screen making jumps and loopty loops. When your down designing your course, you click ‘play’ and your little line rider on his sled will go and follow your course using the physics of gravity, friction and collision. Pretty impressive really. They even made a McDonalds commercial from the nonIphone version. Pretty crazy really. There is a link at the bottom of this post.

1. DoodleJump

This game definitely has to be my all time favorite game ever. A lot like the game papi jump except you are a weird elephant thing and you get items such as springs, spring shoes,trampolines, and jet packs along the way. You can also change the scheme of the game by changing the highscore name to ooga and snow.

And thus my list.  I’ll update it now and again.  Have better suggestions? Let me know and I’ll give it a try.

McDonalds Line Rider commercial

So now I read in techcrunch that we are back to long sync times again.  What is it with Apple?  Doesn’t anyone test this stuff before they release it?  Here is an except..

“… One main culprit is what should be a nice, new feature in iTunes 9 called “Automatically fill free space with songs.” It does exactly what it says, finds songs to put on your iPhone to fill it up. This is great for people like me with too large of a music library to sync it all with the iPhone, and who don’t really use playlists (the main way to sync music to the iPhone). Unfortunately, if you click this “Automatically fill free space” option, it seems that sometimes it wants to remove and replace much of the random music. If you have a 32 GB iPhone, that is going to take a while. …”

Siegler goes on saying that even with this option turned off, it still takes too long.  Around 5 min.  If its taking him 5 min, then odds are my sync will be 10.   I was holding off on iTunes9 for the same reason I hold off on every iphone/iTunes update.  Just to make sure I would not regret my decision.   Seems like that caution is appropriate in this case.