I’m sure you don’t need to hear about mobile gaming evolution over the last few years once again. The Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS pocket consoles have millions of fans and some really good titles, but mobile phones, and especially the iOS devices, keep threatening their existence. Every new iDevice eats deeper and deeper into their sales.
The introduction of the iPhone 4 and the Apple iPad this year marked a turning point in the iOS evolution. Thanks to the superior hardware of these devices – proper processing power and high resolution – we can now play mobile games we’ve only dreamt of before.
The Apple gadgets don’t have the means to be a game changer (pun intended), but they are preferred by millions of users and the AppStore gaming demand grows by the day. This, of course, brought us lots of quality game titles in 2010.
Here are the games that deserved my money and might easily get yours.
More than half a year ago Google demonstrated a new Android music player. It had completely new interface, a software menu key and was capable of wireless iTunes streaming.
This particular player has now leaked and is available on the XDA Developers. Bear in mind that the app is in early stage of development and is probably full of bugs.
An interesting under-the-hood change has come with Android 2.3 Gingerbread – a new file system called ext4. You may have heard of it, it’s fairly common among Linux distributions. Ext4 is already running in Google’s massive data centers and it will slowly be making its way to their mobile OS, starting with the Google Nexus S…
Capacitive displays are great but gloves are their kryptonite – and let’s face it, in the winter months using gloves is quite common. The thing about capacitive displays is that they react to skin contact and while your fingers are probably wrapped up in warm gloves, your nose isn’t.
That’s right, if you have an iPhone and a nose handy, there’s a solution to your gloved-dialing problems… Read more »
The 360 browser has hit version 2.0, which adds new features ranging from performance improvements, through a download manager to Firefox Sync support. It’s an alternative iOS browser and not an Xbox 360 browser despite the name – the “360” comes from the clever, circular layout of the menus/submenus on screen…
Mozilla released another beta version of their Firefox 4 browser for Android and Maemo devices has been released. It is still in beta (read: not completely bug-free) but it is another step closer to the real thing.
The Android Market just got another update and now supports carrier billing in addition to the regular credit card payments. At this stage it only works for AT&T customers, but others are promised to follow shortly.
It’s finally here, fellas – the promised update to the game that has become a synonym for mobile gaming has just hit the App Store. It’s only available for the iPad version so far but the iPhone, and most probably other platforms, should follow soon.
The update brings 15 new levels and the new Mighty Eagle character that gives you a free pass through any level as long as you are willing to shell out a dollar. The Mighty Eagle will recharge over time so you won’t need to purchase it every time you use it (phew!). As we learned just recently there will also be a free mini-game involving the omnipresent bird. Read more »
Microsoft has finally released the official sales figures for the Windows Phone 7 smartphones. At 1.5 million units to date those aren’t as impressive as the iPhone’s, but sure sounds encouraging.
The XDA-Developers forums have finished baking a Gingerbread ROM for the HTC Droid Incredible. The OMGB-4 ROM is not completely bug-free yet, but it’s the first relatively stable Gingerbread port for a phone other than the Nexus S…
A few days ago the Google dev team officially unveiled the latest version of their Maps mobile application. Later on they have decided to shed some light on the engine that powers the whole thing and have released a lengthy post about it.
For example, did you know that the new vector graphics consume more than 100 times less data than the previously used stitched images. It’s also the reason why offline navigation was made possible – it’s just that far less caching is required now. Read more »
Sony just announced that it will launch a PlayStation app for all iOS 4+ and Android 1.6+ devices. The app will give existing users of Sony’s consoles access to their PSN profiles, trophies and online statuses. Other than that it will be useful for keeping up with all the latest PlayStation news, games and announcements.
The new PlayStation app will feature similar user interface as the PlayStation 3 and PSP.
The Google Nexus S is barely out the gate and it’s been rooted already – at least twice. Not that the Nexus S was ever designed to be locked down (it’s the new developers’ phone after all) but it’s an important first step to fully customizing the phone…
A major update to Google Maps has just hit the Android market. Version 5.0 of the Google digital map software brings in vector graphics, cool new 3D features and offline navigation.
So starting today instead of a series of small stitched together image tiles, Google Maps will be dynamically drawing vector graphics. This means that instead of pre-rendered images, Maps are rendered on the device itself, making scaling and transitions way smoother. Read more »
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