Social iPhone games with OpenFeint - just add friends!

I am looking for friends to play with! Facebook apps are all good, but the real recent revolution in games is the iOS platform (iPhone / iPad / iPod touch). I love the way the iPhone has revived casual gaming with small, simple and fun games.

The thing which is surprisingly missing from most games still is the social factor. When we were kids, the only thing me and Lada had to amuse ourselves with was IR pong between our Palm Pilots during lectures, and while OnLive with social features like brag shots and spectators during tournaments is still to take off, I'm settling for OpenFeint on the iPhone.

As is usually the case with applications and IT habits, you need to reach out to people to learn of their preferences, which is why I'm writing this blog post. I really want to know if you're playing any OpenFeint games! Later I hope to write a post about iPhone apps in general. Leave your comments!

I'm asking for competition for example in:

• Spinzizzle
• Doodle Kart
• Blue Block
• Bit Pilot

And as you can see in the attached screenshots, these are some games my friends seem to play (but I can't really know if it's currently or just old stuff):

New iTunes 8, and why you should start using it

Rumor has it that Apple will be releasing both a new major iTunes version and a new minor version of the iPhone firmware during their "Let's Rock" event (Tuesday) September 9th.

It is still curious how even releases of just software updates from Apple still manage to stir some excitement. However, when Apple releases a new version of iTunes for example, it usually indicates some pretty big new feature somewhere in the Apple product family. iPod video, iPhone, movie rentals through iTunes and other big announcements from Apple have all been accompanied by a feature update of iTunes. So if iTunes 8 is released tomorrow, at least I am curious about what will come with it. My best bet is that Apple is moving towards the location aware-market with the GPS iPhone, I suspect they will have some cool location-related feature.

Even with how great iTunes is already today, there are several of you out there who haven't realized it, so here goes my favourite features of the current iTunes:

• DAAP / iTunes server using (the free!) Firefly on my home server gives me seamless access to all of my music archive. Now I'm just missing iTunes remote speakers in software, but I guess I can live without it (Yay, there exists, cool now I will have to try it! - Umm... no "The key stored in iTunes has been extracted by Jon Lech Johansen, enabling 3rd party software to stream music to an Airport Express. However, the key stored in the AirPort Express is not yet known, and 3rd party software that mimics an Airport Express is thus not possible"):
  
  


• iTunes party shuffle is very nice to keep track of the playlist not only during parties. You see what next bunch of songs will be played and can modify it, you can add tracks manually or let them fill automatically as you play. Unfortunately DAAP / iTunes servers doesn't offer a party shuffle:
  
  


• iTunes manages my podcasts and syncs them to my iPod, including displaying which I have listened to. Very convenient:
  
  


• last.fm scrobbler plugin logs what music I listen to and keeps track of it in my online profile. Besides providing a great smörgåsbord of music, as I have previously written last.fm also keeps a great track of upcoming events:
  
  

These great features aside, iTunes is nifty for cleaning up the ID3 tags and filenames when you're an compulsive order nut like me, and of course it's simple and convenient for mom to rip her CDs in iTunes.

(Update: So that's it (on IDG here and here) indeed iTunes 8 was released, and except as I said, another version of an already great program, it's got some nice new shuffle function and a closer connection to the iTunes Music Store. Cool. iTunes is still the only program which cares and does justice to your cover art)

iPhone 3G is released by EMT in Estonia

Estonian EMT has released the iPhone 3G too now. If I understand the newsletter correctly the contracts are all 24 months, so it's not comparable to the 18 months column above. I was saying that I think traffic should be cheaper in Estonia, but instead it seems they simply do not provide any "maxi" plan, and charge a bit more than Telia does in Sweden. My phone bills are currently too high, but I am not very excited about this deal.

price plan	traffic included	monthly fee	iPhone 3G 8 GB, tied 24 months	iPhone 3G 16 GB, tied 24 months
i550	100 minutes, 100 SMS, 100 MB	550 EEK (= 329 SEK)	2670+24·550 = 15870 EEK (= 9486 SEK)	3960+24·550 = 17160 EEK (= 10257 SEK)
i890	250 minutes, 250 SMS, 250 MB	890 EEK (= 532 SEK)	1490+24·890 = 22850 EEK (= 13658 SEK)	2780+24·890 = 24140 (= 14429 SEK)

Now I would buy an iPhone! If only it had buttons...

Yesterday the lesser of two annual events in the Apple world took place - the Apple WWDC - World Wide Developers Conference keynote (the more significant one being the January Macworld Expo).

Apple are really amazing about being able to create a buzz about every little thing they are doing. They used to broadcast the conference keynote live, but nowadays (apparently not for technical reasons) they keep them for a while but bloggers provide both live text and commentary. The day afterward, the event is available over QuickTime.

Of course, yesterday's event was focused on the iPhone (and is of course in both DN.se and NyTeknik). Some have complained that the keynote provided little juicy news for developers in terms of hardware or development tools, but the biggest thing for me is the new 3G iPhone, with GPS capability and roughly half the price of the old iPhone. The deal is: 8GB 3G iPhone with GPS at $199 ^* ≈ 1990 EEK ≈ 1190 SEK ≈ 127 € ≈ "Twice as fast, half the price" (with significant coolness added). I am very very tempted at getting one now.

Still, the major hurdle I've learnt of the iPhone remains - it has no buttons... It was the most revolutionary thing with the iPhone, to use as much as possible of the device surface for adaptable buttons and display, great. Though, it also requires way too much attention to input, it gives no feedback to touch so it may be the worst example but - how can you SMS while drivingwalking for example?! I have inherited a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone, and it may be subtle, but it has a lot of features you require of your phone! Finding contacts, forwarding SMSs or texting, it is really fast when you don't have to pay attention to what you're doing and can just let your fingers type away. So Apple, it's great that you have been trying to cater to enterprise users, now please figure out a way to work with the iPhone even with minimal attention, and it will really start selling.

The second most interesting bang from the WWDC is the wealth and variety of applications which seem to be coming for the iPhone. Sure, games are fun, but I am really keeping a keen eye on location aware and social mobile applications like Loopt or for that matter, my friend Peter's social picture messaging application MoYuMe (I recently found him in a video by some Latvian blogger). If you think the GSM phone, IM and SMS have changed the way people live and what they do, the scale of the mobile social revolution is breathtaking. Reactionaries object that who cares about all that social and mobile silliness, but remember they said the same about mobile phones and SMS. You heard it here first (well, unless you heard it somewhere else before), and for a head start of understanding the revolution, head over to our friends CommonCraft explaining Twitter in plain English:

(Update: In Sweden Telia and in Estonia EMT will be selling the iPhone 3G, and at least in Estonia you can pre-sign up already. I think EMT's ad is much cooler than Telia's press release at least)

(Update 2: Teliasonera has released it's price plans for the iPhone 3G:

price plan	traffic included	monthly fee	iPhone 3G 8 GB, tied 24 months	iPhone 3G 16 GB, tied 18 months
iMini	100 minutes, 100 SMS, 100 MB	299 SEK	1695+24·299 = 8871 SEK	3295+18·299 = 8677 SEK
iMidi	250 minutes, 250 SMS, 250 MB	489 SEK	995+24·489 = 12731 SEK	2695+18·489 = 11497 SEK
iMaxi	1000 minutes, 1000 SMS, 1000 MB	859 SEK	1+24·859 = 20617 SEK	2195+18·859 = 17657 SEK

No surprise really, after the initial pretty useless buzz Apple released, $199^* has the asterisk so to say - the subscriptions you this time probably will be tied to in the store are pretty horrendous. I think a "3G-soap" as they are called in Stockholm, a 3G USB modem for the laptop costs roughly 500 SEK per month, and that's still less limited and a lot more versatile than what you can do with an iPhone and 250 MB.

Swedish wireless access prices are generally ridiculous compared to Estonian and I hope to see that EMT will be less scotch. Also, count on me writing a piece on how to forever get rid of the despited "high speed extreme use"-clauses in broadband contracts, also discussed in Swedish here)

(Update 3: Estonian EMT has released the iPhone 3G too now. If I understand the newsletter correctly the contracts are all 24 months, so it's not comparable to the 18 months column above. I was saying that I think traffic should be cheaper in Estonia, but instead it seems they simply do not provide any "maxi" plan, and charge a bit more than Telia does in Sweden.)

price plan	traffic included	monthly fee	iPhone 3G 8 GB, tied 24 months	iPhone 3G 16 GB, tied 24 months
i550	100 minutes, 100 SMS, 100 MB	550 EEK (= 329 SEK)	2670+24·550 = 15870 EEK (= 9486 SEK)	3960+24·550 = 17160 EEK (= 10257 SEK)
i890	250 minutes, 250 SMS, 250 MB	890 EEK (= 532 SEK)	1490+24·890 = 22850 EEK (= 13658 SEK)	2780+24·890 = 24140 (= 14429 SEK)