Every week the editors at iMore carefully select some of our favorite, most useful, most extraordinary apps, accessories, gadgets, and websites. This week's selections include a crazy hard abstract puzzle game, a killer audio accessory, a classic comic book, and a app for expecting parents.

Soundwave SW50 Bluetooth Speaker - Chris Oldroyd

I have been on the lookout for a reasonable priced good quality Bluetooth speaker that I can use in my bathroom and bedroom. Sure the Jambox is a lovely solution but the price is just a bit too tasty for me. Instead I decided to go for the Soundwave SW50 Bluetooth speaker and I am really glad I did.

I ordered it from Amazon here in the UK and it cost in total with free shipping, just £20 or $32. It arrived today and to say I am impressed is an understatement. Once I paired it with my iPhone 4S (which was very straight forward) I started to play some music through it and the quality was excellent. The most impressive part is the bass reproduction for a speaker that fits in the palm of your hand and it is really loud, more than good enough to fill a reasonably sized room. It even comes with a rechargeable battery which uses micro-USB to charge it and it can even be used as a Bluetooth speaker-phone.

The Soundwave SW50 is a real bargain and is now sitting in my bathroom. It is compatible with any phone, mp3 player, tablet or laptop that supports the Bluetooth A2DP profile. It's available from Amazon in the UK.

• £19.90 - Amazon UK Link

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Animated, Part 1) - Rene Ritchie

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is arguably the best comic book mini series ever written. It used an established, classical, iconic character in the Batman, rescued him from the camp of Adam West and the 1960s, and boldly, brutally re-imagined and re-defined him in a way that set the standard for everyone from Tim Burton to Paul Dini to Christopher Nolan. Gone were the "old chums" and "holy blankety-blanks Batman!" and in their place were creatures writhing and snarling, alighting with ancient grace, and howling out how we all felt.

This, the story of Batman's end, was also his new beginning, and a new beginning for the entire comic book -- and comic film -- genres. Brilliantly written and drawn by Frank Miller (who would go on to make Sin City and the 300), its stunning, innovative visuals were not only matched by the characterization and scripting of the writing, but eclipsed by it. This is the Batman as he was meant to be portrayed, as he stood in opposition to Two Face and the Joker, and in contrast to Superman. This is the reflection, the man come to terms with his cost, the man who knows the price of all power. Shattered by age and war, indomitable in will and purpose.

This is Robin Hood launching the arrow to mark his grave. This is the legend. This is the end. This is the Batman.

And now it's in animated form.

Which is good but not great. The animation itself is terrific. Fast, visceral, beautiful. The voice is Frank Weller, who was the original Megatron. The violence and fanaticism is all still there. But Warner Bros. has split the story in two, and this first part has been filled out with material not in the book and not for the better. Likewise, the very best part of Miller's script, the internal monolog of Batman, some of the most iconic writing ever seen in the genre, has been almost entirely stripped out. As a creative choice, that's not only disappointing, it's unforgivable.

Still enough remains to make it heads and shoulders above what usually passes for comic book adaptions. I watched it with a friend who had the preview screener but who isn't into comic books and was only vaguely aware of the source material, and he absolutely loved it. (So much so he wants to read it now so he gets all that amazing scripting Warner's left out.)

If you liked the recent Batman trilogy. If you liked the Burton films. If you've liked any interpretation of Batman in the last couple of decades, you'll love this, their secret origin.

This the is the Batman come alive again. This is the Batman who owns the night again.

For the last time.

• $19.99 - Pre-order now

And seriously, get the book. It's available in both Kindle and paperback format.

• $9.99 - Kindle - Download now

• $12.62 - Paperback - Buy now

Super Hexagon - SimonSage

You are going to hate me for suggesting Super Hexagon. Why would I share it, in that case? Because the only way I can cope with how this game has broken my brain is by exposing as many other people to its insanity as possible. Super Hexagon is an intense and obscenely difficult abstract puzzle game with an awesome 8-bit soundtrack. By tapping and holding left and right sides of the screen, you move a small triangle around a stationary hexagon to avoid getting squished by lines and shapes that drift inwards. Sounds easy right? Well, the speed, randomness, and continually shifting colors, perspectives, and shapes may give you more than you bargained for. After playing for about an hour last night, the longest I went before dying was 25 seconds or so. The creator of the game (who made the equally awesome VVVVV title for PCs) tops the Game Center leaderboard with 100-odd seconds. There is no easy mode, there are no save points. There is only a cold uncaring female voice telling you when you lose over, and over, and over again. Despite all of that, I honestly can't put this game down. Get it while Super Hexagon is still on its $0.99 promotional launch price.

• $0.99 for iPhone and iPad - Download Now

Baby Names

My second baby girl is due and January and my husband and I are having a heck of time choosing names that we like within our specific criteria. I've been using the baby names feature of some of the pregnancy apps that I have, but haven't had much luck. Today, I decided to download Baby Names, an app who's primary purpose is to help you with naming your child -- and it's amazing! Baby names comes with 60,000 names for boys and girls and lets you sort them by origin, popularity, or alphabetically. Baby names also comes with pre-created idea lists for ancient, animal, beautiful, Christmas, city, color, cowboy, fall, preppy, southern, spiritual, spring, strong, and summer names, as well as flowers and trees, number one names, old time names, popular in California, trending down/up, and U.S. Presidents. You can also search for specific names and add your own.

The UI for Baby Names is great and each name includes the pronunciation, its meaning, and its popularity ratings going back over a hundred years (if the name has been around that long). When you encounter a name that you like, you can mark it as a favorite so that it's easy to see a list containing only the names that you like.

With Baby Names, I may not have settled on a name, yet, but I've been exposed to many more that I like. Baby Names is a free download, but you are limited to minimal browsing before being prompted to purchase the $1.99 upgrade for full access.

• Free for iPhone- Download Now

Your choice?

Now that we've chosen our favorites for the week, we want to hear yours! Did you pick up a killer app, accessory, or game this week? Let us know in the comments below!

One of the many things we didn't get at Apple's big iPhone 5 event was wireless charging. Palm has inductive charging all the way back to 2009 and the original Palm Pre and TouchStone. Samsung incorporated resonance charging into the new Galaxy S III, and Nokia showed off wireless charging with the upcoming Lumia 920. Apple, however, is sticking to wired and the new Lightning.

Apple SVP of Marketing, Phil Schiller, recently said:

[Wireless] charging systems still have to be plugged into the wall, so it's not clear how much convenience they add. The widely-adopted USB cord, meanwhile, can charge in wall outlets, computers and even on airplanes. Having to create another device you have to plug into the wall is actually, for most situations, more complicated.

But what do you think? Did Apple lose a step by not including wireless charging? If so, is it a big enough problem to be a deal-breaker to you or just one more minor annoyance? Do you think Apple is still waiting but will introduce wireless charging one day? Could you care less? Or are you happy Apple is sticking to traditional, albeit smaller, hardline power solutions?

You know the drill! Vote up top and leave me a comment below saying why you voted the way you did!

Marc and Rene talk about the Amazon Kindle and Nokia Lumia events, 4Cast.me, and Retinizer, and interview M.Saleh Esmaeili of Carbon for webOS, Windows Phone, and Android fame. This is Iterate!

• Our podcast feed
• Download Directly
• Subscribe via iTunes

Iterations

• Amazon Kindle Fire event
• Nokia Lumia event
• 4Cast.me
• Retinizer

Hosts

• Marc Edwards (@marcedwards) of Bjango
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford) of Nickelfish
• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) of iMore.com

Guest

• M.Saleh Esmaeili (@dot1ne) of CarbonWP.

Feedback

• Email: podcast@iterate.tv
• Twitter: @iteratetv
• Facebook: Iterate page

If you're one of the best-of-the-best-of-the-best in mobile design for Android, BlackBerry, iOS, webOS, or Windows Phone, we'd love to get you on the show, or if you've found a drop-dead gorgeous app on any platform and really want us to talk about it, contact us and let us know.

If you yearn for the days when you had a Polaroid instant camera and loved the square white bordered instant prints that it produced then this Kickstarter project is for you. The Impossible Instant Lab looks to transform your iPhone's digital photos into real instant photos that you can touch, feel and share with your friends.

Right! We are Impossible and we love instant photography. We love it so much, we were crazy enough to buy the last Polaroid factory in order to save instant film for the future. If you've ever held an SX 70 in your hand, you probably understand. It's such a beautiful piece of design and the photos it makes are so different from any other camera - unique and magical. But even we instant film aficionados take a lot of pictures with our iPhones, so we wanted to find a way to turn those digital iPhone images into true instant photos. Well … we invented it. The Impossible Instant Lab!

The Impossible Instant Lab is designed to transform any digital image via your iPhone into an instant photo that is exposed using only the light from the display, then processed and developed by chemicals. A photo that exists physically – IRL. A photo that is a one-of-a-kind original that can be shared, exhibited and preserved. A photo that no longer needs an electronic device to be seen.

The Impossible Instant Lab is very simple to use too, you just fire up the companion app, select an image you would like to print, place the iPhone face down into the cradle and open the shutter on the Instant lab. The signal will tell you when it has received the image and then it ejects it where you can watch it develop right in your hand; just like the good old days!

If you like the look of this nostalgic Kickstarter project and would like a piece of the action then you had better be quick; it has received a phenomenal amount of interest already. The first two pledge options are sold out so you are looking at a minimum pledge of $229 to secure one of the first off the production line. The Impossible Instant Lab set out to achieve a funding total of $250,000; it has already smashed through that goal and currently sits at $414,000 and still has 22 days to go. It is safe to say that there is a lot of demand for instant iPhone printing.

What do you think of the Impossible Instant Lab?

Source: Kickstarter

At the iPhone 5 event on September 12, Apple not only announced a new iPhone, but also a new system-on-a-chip (SoC) sequentially named the Apple A6, While we'd heard about this new chipset prior to the event, we hadn't heard anything specific. Rumors ranged from an updated, higher clocked version of last year's dual-core ARM Cortex A9-based Apple A5 with a PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU, to a bleeding edge ARM A15 and PowerVR 6 "Rogue". Turns out the Apple A6 is nothing as conservative or futuristic as either of those things -- it's something even more exciting. It's Apple's first custom-designed ARM chipset. Anand Lal Shimpi of Anandtech did some investigating and came up with what he believes are the details:

The A6 is the first Apple SoC to use its own ARMv7 based processor design. The CPU core(s) aren't based on a vanilla A9 or A15 design from ARM IP, but instead are something of Apple's own creation. [..] The deeper machine plus much wider front end and execution engines drives both power and performance up.

He also puts it at 32nm. He isn't clear on the number cores yet, but give the realities of power/performance Apple wants to hit, the same logic seems to dictate dual-core as still being the sweet spot. Licensing the instruction set (ARMv7) rather than the specific processor (like Cortex A9 or A15) is an interesting move for Apple. It's similar to what Qualcomm for the Krait.

As for that GPU, he pegs it at a PowerVR SGX 543MP3 clocked "marginally" higher:

The [PowerVR SGX 543MP3] is sort of the best of both worlds. You don't take a huge die area penalty and at the same time don't run at a significantly higher frequency, and you can get to that same 2x value. The third option is the most elegant and likely what Apple chose here. Remember that overall die size is dictated by the amount of IO you have around the chip.

Apple has always branded their versions of ARM chipsets, with the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3GS all bearing the logo if not the name. With the iPad (and later iPhone 4), Apple introduced the Apple A4 and the line took on a public naming convention. That continued with the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S SoC, named Apple A5, and the iPad 3 SoC, named Apple A5X. Through the years, Apple also bought chip companies PA Semi and Intrisity, hired and later let go IBM chip-whiz Mark Papermaster, hired and later let go Jim Keller, and others.

Making their own ARM chipset instead of licensing one would be the ultimate extension of Apple's desire to make the whole widget, bit to atom. It's something that makes a lot of sense, but felt like it might have been a year or two away still. Not so. If Anand Lai Shimpi is right. it starts now.

Source: Anandtech