iPod – Page 2 – StuffWeLike

Chrono Trigger coming to iOS

As if you needed another reason to play it again.
Continue reading “Chrono Trigger coming to iOS”

IDW Publishing Breaks Into iBooks!

This is big news for the comic industry! IDW has just announced a deal in which their content will be made available directly through Apple’s iBooks service, making them the first major comic publisher with such an offering . Previously IDW’s books were made available digitally through providers such as ComiXology and iVerse in which you could purchase individual issues as well as collections, or numerous standalone apps for various series and titles (as shown below) created to take advantage of iTunes’ search function.

A deal such as this could potentially open IDW to a larger audience than ever before with impulse buys via the “Featured” section of the program. Apple has built a reputation of being a king maker whenever it features anything in one of its commercials, be it song, movie or app, and I would love to see this record include comic books.

Imagine this; the next generation iPad commercial just started and there is the device against a solid white background. As the narrational finger swipes across the screen, highlighting the device’s various functions in sync with a reassuring voice over, we momentarily stop on the cover for True Blood: All Together Now via iBooks. As the commercial moves on half a second later that ever so brief screen time could potentially drive a large amount of customers to purchase the book for themselves. In a time when the industry is looking at ways to bring in new readers an official Apple nod might be just what we need.

IDW is currently focused on using this format to distribute longer-form graphic novels and collections with hopes of bringing in new readers in the same way book retailers such as Barnes and Noble has. While the release schedule for upcoming titles are not directly tied to when we may see them in comic shops, there are a few titles books as Code Word: Geronimo that will see day and date release on iBooks to maximize its exposure as IDW continues to look toward the future of the industry and how fan consumption will evolve.

If you are not an iBooks customer or do not own an iOS device then don’t worry. IDW will continue to work with technology partners on distribution for iOS and Android apps, Sony devices, Nokia devices as well as the web. Also, content will remain available for purchase through these methods and pricing will be as closely consistent as possible throughout all outlets. Just consider this as another way for you to get the stories that you love.

Check out the official press release below for more information!

IDW Graphic Novels Debut on Apple iBooks

First major comics publisher to offer iBook graphic novels and comics
for the iPad™, iPhone®, and iPod touch® !!

Continuing to lead the charge of digital comics, IDW Publishing, a leader in digital comics, proudly debuted today the first large collection of comic and graphic novel titles ever available within Apple’s iBooks store. As the first major comics publisher to offer significant content, IDW’s initial iBooks entrée features nearly twenty complete graphic novels, including award-winning books and works by best selling prose authors.

This one-of-a-kind launch kicks off with CODE WORD: GERONIMO, which is launched simultaneously in iBooks and in print. An original graphic novel detailing the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound by SEAL Team 6, CODE WORD: GERONIMO is expertly written by military insider Captain Dale Dye (USMC, Ret.) and Dr. Julia Dye, Ph.D., and offers the amazing, moment-by-moment inside story of the clandestine raid that rid the world of this terrorist mastermind.

“IDW’s graphic novel line is a perfect fit for iBooks,” stated Jeff Webber, IDW’s director of ePublishing. “While our various comic storefront apps, such as IDW Comics, TRANSFORMERS Comics or Doctor Who Comics, are extremely popular with experienced comics readers and fans of those brands, having this significant presence in iBooks will help readers discover creators and titles, much the same as browsing in major book retail chains.”

IDW’s rich catalog of top prose authors and comics creators is especially suited for iBooks. Fans of IDW writers such as Joe Hill, Anne Rice, Max Brooks, Peter S. Beagle, or James Patterson can now find IDW graphic novels right next to their respective prose releases. Award-winning creators like Darwyn Cooke and his acclaimed adaptations of Richard Stark’s Parker books and the first installment of the BLOOM COUNTY: THE COMPLETE LIBRARY are also included in IDW’s diverse iBooks line.

The IDW launch has something for all ages, from classics like Eric Shanower’s OZ series for younger audiences, and Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s best-selling LOCKE & KEY series for mature readers.

“Our internal technology team, led by Lorelei Bunjes, has put a huge effort into developing a great reading experience for iBooks,” Webber continued. “We’re very proud of the team’s efforts to create a quality experience.”

The initial lineup includes the following titles:
•   Code Word: Geronimo
•   Bloom County: The Complete Digital Library 1980-1981
•   Locke & Key Vol. 1: Welcome to Lovecraft
•   Locke & Key Vol. 2: Head Games
•   Locke & Key Vol. 3: Crown of Shadows
•   Locke & Key Vol. 4: Keys to the Kingdom
•   Parker: The Hunter
•   Parker: The Outfit
•   Star Trek: Movie Adaptation
•   Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon Movie Adaptation
•   The Last Unicorn
•   Little Adventures in Oz Vol. 1
•   Dead Space
•   Dragon Age
•   G.I. Joe: Hearts & Minds
•   Witch & Wizard: Battle for Shadowland
•   The Murder of King Tut
•   True Blood Vol.1: All Together Now
•   The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures

Visit IDWPublishing.com to learn more about the company and its top-selling books.

Imagine a Game That Lasts a Thousand Days

1000 Heroz Comes to iPad, iPhone, and iPod

PRESS RELEASE

Finland —June 8, 2011 — Finnish game studio RedLynx is proud to announce the 1000 Heroz App for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch is now available on the App Store.

1000 Heroz is an original and addictive blend of platforming and racing, which brings users new characters and levels each day for 1,000 straight days.

“1000 Heroz delivers something new every day – for a thousand days,” said Tero Virtala, CEO of RedLynx. “That works out to something like three cents a month over the life of the game. That’s a tremendous value for such a high quality title. Only the App Store, with its legions of gamers, could provide us an opportunity like this to put our creative minds to work.”

The game is a 2D, time-based platformer with a physics running engine. Each day players direct a new hero, as he or she runs, jumps and slides through that day’s level. The goal is to either earn three stars on each level and top the global leaderboards, or battle against friends by creating a Custom League. All told, there are 1000 heroes to guide, 1000 levels to explore and 1000 relics to gather. Along the way, players gather gold, earn relics, and, through Game Center, challenge friends and other players from around the world. Previous levels are playable at any time, and players can pick up the game at any point without missing anything, as each day features a new leaderboard.

The 1000 Heroz App is available for $1.99 (iPad) and $0.99 (iPhone, iPod Touch) from the App Store on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

Joining Hands Puzzle Game Now Available in the iOS App Store

The game introduces Peablins, little forest creatures who wish to make the world a brighter place by joining hands with everyone.

PRESS RELEASE

TAMPERE, Finland June 7, 2011 – 10tons Ltd. today announced its new original puzzle game Joining Hands for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch is now available on the App Store.

The game introduces Peablins, little forest creatures who wish to make the world a brighter place by joining hands with everyone. Set in a fairytale forest called the Whispering Woods, the game features polished graphics, memorable music and best of all, an all-new game mechanic to enthrall friends of puzzle games. It is a puzzle in the true sense of the word: something to activate your brain and reward you with a sense of accomplishment.

The goal is simple. Rearrange the Peablins on the board so that all hands are joined. As new characters are introduced the game gets more challenging. Some of them place limitations on movement and some won’t hold hands at all, preferring their own personal space instead of the company of others. Dozens of lovingly crafted levels provide hours of entertainment for puzzle fanatics.

The Joining Hands App is available for $2.99 from the App Store on iPad, iPhone or iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

Apple Introduces iCloud

Store your content in iCloud and automatically and wirelessly push it to all your devices.

PRESS RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Apple® today introduced iCloud®, a breakthrough set of free new cloud services that work seamlessly with applications on your iPhone®, iPad®, iPod touch®, Mac® or PC to automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and automatically and wirelessly push it to all your devices. When anything changes on one of your devices, all of your devices are wirelessly updated almost instantly.

“Today it is a real hassle and very frustrating to keep all your information and content up-to-date across all your devices,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iCloud keeps your important information and content up to date across all your devices. All of this happens automatically and wirelessly, and because it’s integrated into our apps you don’t even need to think about it—it all just works.”

The free iCloud services include:

• The former MobileMe® services—Contacts, Calendar and Mail—all completely re-architected and rewritten to work seamlessly with iCloud. Users can share calendars with friends and family, and the ad-free push Mail account is hosted at me.com. Your inbox and mailboxes are kept up-to-date across all your iOS devices and computers.

• The App Store™ and iBookstore? now download purchased iOS apps and books to all your devices, not just the device they were purchased on. In addition, the App Store and iBookstore now let you see your purchase history, and simply tapping the iCloud icon will download any apps and books to any iOS device (up to 10 devices) at no additional cost.

• iCloud Backup automatically and securely backs up your iOS devices to iCloud daily over Wi-Fi when you charge your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Backed up content includes purchased music, apps and books, Camera Roll (photos and videos), device settings and app data. If you replace your iOS device, just enter your Apple ID and password during setup and iCloud restores your new device.

• iCloud Storage seamlessly stores all documents created using iCloud Storage APIs, and automatically pushes them to all your devices. When you change a document on any device, iCloud automatically pushes the changes to all your devices. Apple’s Pages®, Numbers® and Keynote® apps already take advantage of iCloud Storage. Users get up to 5GB of free storage for their mail, documents and backup—which is more amazing since the storage for music, apps and books purchased from Apple, and the storage required by Photo Stream doesn’t count towards this 5GB total. Users will be able to buy even more storage, with details announced when iCloud ships this fall.

• iCloud’s innovative Photo Stream service automatically uploads the photos you take or import on any of your devices and wirelessly pushes them to all your devices and computers. So you can use your iPhone to take a dozen photos of your friends during the afternoon baseball game, and they will be ready to share with the entire group on your iPad (or even Apple TV®) when you return home. Photo Stream is built into the photo apps on all iOS devices, iPhoto® on Macs, and saved to the Pictures folder on a PC. To save space, the last 1,000 photos are stored on each device so they can be viewed or moved to an album to save forever. Macs and PCs will store all photos from the Photo Stream, since they have more storage. iCloud will store each photo in the cloud for 30 days, which is plenty of time to connect your devices to iCloud and automatically download the latest photos from Photo Stream via Wi-Fi.

• iTunes® in the Cloud lets you download your previously purchased iTunes music to all your iOS devices at no additional cost, and new music purchases can be downloaded automatically to all your devices. In addition, music not purchased from iTunes can gain the same benefits by using iTunes Match, a service that replaces your music with a 256 kbps AAC DRM-free version if we can match it to the over 18 million songs in the iTunes Store®, it makes the matched music available in minutes (instead of weeks to upload your entire music library), and uploads only the small percentage of unmatched music. iTunes Match will be available this fall for a $24.99 annual fee. Apple today is releasing a free beta version of iTunes in the Cloud, without iTunes Match, for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users running iOS 4.3. iTunes in the Cloud will support all iPhones that iOS 5 supports this fall.

Apple is ready to ramp iCloud in its three data centers, including the third recently completed in Maiden, NC. Apple has invested over $500 million in its Maiden data center to support the expected customer demand for the free iCloud services.

Pricing & Availability
The iCloud beta and Cloud Storage APIs are available immediately to iOS and Mac Developer Program members at developer.apple.com. iCloud will be available this fall concurrent with iOS 5. Users can sign up for iCloud for free on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 5 or a Mac running Mac OS® X Lion with a valid Apple ID. iCloud includes 5GB of free cloud storage for Mail, Document Storage and Backup. Purchased music, apps, books and Photo Stream do not count against the storage limit. iTunes Match will be available for $24.99 per year (US only).

iTunes in the Cloud is available today in the US and requires iTunes 10.3 and iOS 4.3.3. Automatic download of apps and books is available today. Using iCloud with a PC requires Windows Vista or Windows 7; Outlook 2010 or 2007 is recommended for accessing contacts and calendars.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.