What are the top 5, must-have board games currently available on the iPhone? Many of you have taken a liking to our Top 5 Must-Have Jailbreak Apps features, so TiPb figured why not expand the series and cover some of the better apps directly from Apple’s own iTunes App Store as well? So that is exactly what we did. Today we have compiled what we feel are the current top 5 must-have board game apps available. For the full run down, follow us after the break!

UNO

Gameloft’s rendition of the classic card game has come a long way since it was first introduced into the App Store back in November. With a slick layout, nice graphics and a very fluent control scheme a card game like this is a perfect fit for the iPhone platform.

The feature that makes this a great iPhone board game is Gameloft’s new community based-social network - “Gameloft Live”. This new feature adds friends lists, trophies, chat and personal messaging for players.

• Action Cards are here: Wild, Reverse, Draw 2, and more
• Customize your game with 9 different rules to play your way, including 7-0 and Jump-in
• Play online or with your friends through a Wi-Fi connection.
• Collect prizes by winning increasingly difficult games in Tournament Mode.
• Game invites via push notifications

UNO is available for $4.99. [iTunes Link]

Scrabble

EA Mobile has done a excellent job on it’s latest board game release, Hasbro’s Scrabble, especially for those of you looking for a great multiplayer experience via WiFi. For those of you who may not be familiar with this particular game, the object is to create words from a rack of seven letters that is randomly assigned to each player. You use those seven letters that were assigned to you to build words on the game board. Certain letters have more points associated with them and certain game board squares enable higher scoring. Winning the game is simple, you must create words that give you a higher score than your opponent.

• Now you can play SCRABBLE™ with your friends on Facebook
• Start a match from any platform to play-invite friends the same way
• Play in real time-stats and chats appear instantly
• SHAKE your iPhone to shuffle letters, ZOOM to view the playing board, and DRAG-n-DROP to place tiles
• Tap into your iTunes® libray and listen to your favorite songs

Scrabble is available for $4.99. [iTunes Link]

Monopoly Here and Now: World Edition

Monopoly, what more can you really say but we are willing to bet most, if not all, of our readers has a fairly good idea what this game is all about. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this classic - Monopoly is a board game that can be played two to four players. Each player is represented by a token of their choice: a shoe, a top-hat, a dog, or a car. Each player takes a turn, rolls two six-sided dice and moves his/her token across the board. Each space on the board is either a property you can purchase or it initiates some other transaction - fines, rewards, etc… The goal of Monopoly is to make the most money and bankrupt your opponents.

• Wi-Fi Mode Allows 4 players to connect via the same router on a Local Area Network (Disappointing, we know…)
• 3D view of the board and movers
• Play solo against the computer or Pass n’ play for 4
• Use your touch screen to flick and drag property cards and simulate real-life game experiences

Monopoly Here and Now: World Edition is available for $4.99. [iTunes Link]

The Game of Life: Classic Edition

Just like all of the other EA Mobile board games, The Game of Life translates very nicely over to iPhone. In The Game of Life players travel around the game board landing on spaces that act out various events that you may experience throughout ones life - schooling, work, retirement, etc… During your journey of life you will come be offered jobs, slapped with lawsuits, have children, purchase property, and get life tiles. Life tiles represent major life events that are revealed at the end of the game, each of them will reward players with different amounts of money that will be added to the players retirement totals. The player with the most amount of money at the end of the game, is the winner.

• High replayability - endless choices allow you to recreate your life every time you play!
• Animated tokens bring the game to LIFE!
• Innovative controls for effortless navigation around a colorful gameboard
• Stunning, 3D playing environment with winding roads and plush landscapes

One of most obvious omissions of this game is the lack of Wi-Fi play. Hopefully that will come in a future update.

The Game of Life Classic Edition is available for $4.99. [iTunes Link]

Trivial Pursuit

This last game we have for you today comes from EA Mobile yet again, Trivial Pursuit. This game offers you Classic mode, where the game board has the looks just like the classic board game. The game play is still the same as well. You still collect wedges by answering multiple choice questions for six categories - Entertainment, Geography, History, Sports & Leisure, Science & Nature, and Arts & Literature. The player who is able to answer the most questions correctly and gathers the most wedges - wins.

• Play with up to 4 players using Pass’N Play and local Wi-Fi multiplayer.
• Choose the right amount of wedges to win, set your own time limits, and create personalized difficulty levels.
• Innovative, easy-to-use touch controls allow you to roll the dice with a tilt and a shake. Page through questions with the swipe of your hand and tap to select answers!

Trivial Pursuit is available for $4.99. [iTunes Link]

Conclusion

Well that’s it, TiPb’s Top 4 Must-Have iPhone board games. Did we miss any of your favorites? Overlook any killer features? Drop us a comment and let us know your list!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb’s Top 5 Must-Have iPhone Board Game Apps

It was just over a year ago that the iPhone became the undisputed champion of cell phone cameras on Flickr. Without a doubt, the modern day cell phone camera has become a serious photographic tool and thanks to the release of iPhone 3GS, the iPhone has stepped into 1st place in upload popularity of all cameras just ahead of Cannon’s Digital Rebel XTi.

Now we all are aware that the three megapixel camera on the iPhone 3GS is not the best out there but it does it’s job fairly well. The main reason for it’s popularity on Flickr is convenience. Not only do you carry your iPhone everywhere you go, unlike a regular camera, you also have the ability to upload directly from the device. Convenience reigns supreme.

It was only a matter of time before iPhone was crowned the undisputed overall champion of the Flickr world.

[Via Electronista]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone Now Owns the Title of “Most Popular Camera on Flickr”

Looks like the tempest has run out of room in the teapot, as that bug we linked to earlier, about iPhone 3.0 Spotlight showing email messages that should be well and truly deleted, seems to have indeed been crushed in iPhone 3.1.

[Via WhenWillApple]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone 3.1 Fixes “Deleted Email Appearing in Spotlight Search” Bug

According to NPD, Apple’s iTunes now sells 25% of all music in the US. That’s up from 21% last year, and 14% the year before. Zoom. Zoom. Walmart, by contrast, is at 14% combining their real-world stores and online distribution.

In the strictly digital domain — which continues to gain share — iTunes accounts for 69% of downloadable music, with Amazon trailing at 8%.

Those numbers, in case they don’t smack anyone immediately in the face, are HUGE. Despite the jump to $1.29 for - quote unquote - premium music, the shift to DRM-free, combined with on-device downloads for the iPhone and iPod touch, might just be enough to keep the juggernaut rolling. Next up, we’ll see how Digital-45s and “cocktail” do for them…

[Marketwatch via iLounge]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iTunes Now Sells 25% of US Music

Apple is building a huge, billion dollar data center in North Carolina. However, no one outside Cupertino knows exactly what it’s going to be used for (insert Skynet, Matrix, App Store review AI jokes here). That doesn’t mean people aren’t theorizing, however, including Rich Miller is editor of Data Center Knowledge, who calls the facility “big-a$$”:

One of the leading theories about the size of the NC project is that Apple is planning future cloud computing services that will require lots of data center storage. Cloud computing is a hot trend, and I'd be surprised if Apple isn't thinking hard – and thinking differently – about cloud computing. Many cloud enthusiasts say that cloud computing will eliminate the need for data centers. In reality, the only thing will change is the owner of the building. All the applications and data that are moving into the cloud will live on servers in brick-and-mortar data centers. The companies that are building the biggest data centers tend to also have the biggest cloud ambitions.

What’s interesting to TiPb is that, while a lot was recently made of Eric Schmidt resigning from the Apple Board of Directors due to Google entering Apple’s business with Android and ChromeOS, a ginormous data center could be construed as Apple taking a single step — or leap — towards Google’s bread and butter as well…

Anyone have their own theories about Apple’s new facility?

[via CultofMac]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple’s New North Carolina Data Center Among Largest in the World

UPDATE: iPhone 3.1 does indeed fix this.

Matt Janssen has discovered what looks like a bug in iPhone 3.0 Spotlight, whereby the search feature keeps emails in the index/cache even after they’ve been deleted from the inbox and purged from the trash (and even obliterated from the host server). Janssen claims in the video above he’s found emails he deleted several months ago using this method.

Email is likely cached to speed up searches. Initially tapping on a deleted email in a search result will launch Mobile Mail, which will promptly crash, but searching and tapping a second time will actually show the email, albeit in a buggy manner.

Engadget (via CultofMac) has heard this bug might be fixed in iPhone 3.1, now on Beta 3, and perhaps to be released as soon as Apple’s next iPod/iTunes event rumored for the week of September 7.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Updated: iPhone 3.0 Spotlight Search Finds Deleted Messages?

According to market research company Gfk and their recent survey, it seems like Japan has fallen in love with the iPhone 3GS. So much so that in the month of July, the good people there have made Apple’s 32GB iPhone 3GS the most popular cell phone in all of Japan.

Here is how the rest of the top 10 shakes out.

• Apple iPhone 3GS 32 GB
• Sharp SH-06A
• Panasonic 830P
• Sharp SH-05A
• NEC N-08A
• Sony Ericsson Walkman Phone Premier3
• Sharp SH-02A
• Casio W63CA
• Apple iPhone 3GS 16 GB
• Sharp SH001

It must be those Emoji icons…

[Via MobileCrunch]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Japans Best Selling Phone - iPhone 3GS

Looks like Wednesday, September 9 might just be this year’s date for Apple’s annual iPod and iTunes event, where it’s widely expected we’ll see the third generation iPod touch (with video camera?), iTunes 9 (with Blu-Ray and “social” integration?), as well as other refreshes to Apple’s music-themed lineup.

Now, TiPb thought it would be September 8, because Apple almost always drops product on Tuesdays, like last year’s Let’s Rock event (and it still might this year, the above is only a rumor from a source), but we’re not going to read anything into it if it is a Wednesday this time around either.

All Things Digital also says, however, there’s one big ticked item we won’t be seeing:

The event will be held in San Francisco–most likely at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where it has occurred in years past–and is expected to showcase upgrades to the iPod line and an update to iTunes that may involve some sort of social element. Our sources insist it will not involve any discussion whatsoever of the tablet Apple is reportedly developing.

Still remaining, however, is the other great unknown — will Steve Jobs take the stage once again, or leave things to the Tim Cook/Phil Schiller/Greg Jozwiak team that filled in during his leave of absence earlier in the year?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple iPod/iTunes Event Scheduled for Sept. 9?