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 video player for jailbroken iPads, a classic board game, a lawyer game, and an ADN client.

XBMC for iPad - Chris

One of the things that I really hate about the iPad or any iOS devices is the restrictions placed on video playback formats. The iPad can handle playback of lots of different video formats however Apple will not support them for whatever reason and it drives me mad!

Thankfully if you have a jailbroken device you can take off those Apple hand cuffs and start to unleash the power that the iPad has when it comes to video playback. I store all of my vast collection of TV shows and Movies on my dedicated NAS box which then streams the content around the home over my network. The files are mostly stored in AVI or MKV formats and these are just not Apple friendly formats.

This is where XBMC come into the picture. XBMC is an open source project derived from the original XBOX games console. It is a front end to your media and with a little bit of setting up it can grab meta data for all of your movies and TV shows and present them in a fantastic way. Cover art, movie synopsis etc etc all there on your iPad screen ready for you to peruse and select. Now the best part, when you click on a movie or show, it plays it, no matter if the file is an MKV, AVI or MP4 file or something else, it just works. Streaming from my NAS is a wonderful experience and the one and only reason I will not give up my jailbreak on my iPad.

XBMC is just phenomenal!

If you have a jailbroken iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you can grab XBMC from Cydia or follow the guide below:-

• Free - XBMC

Ticket to Ride - Leanna Lofte

Ticket to Ride is an oldie but goodie. I've had this game installed on my iPad for a couple years now and went a long time without playing it. It somewhat recently received an update that included a new Legendary Asia Map, so I got hooked again. In the past few weeks, Ticket to Ride has become my goto I-need-a-minute-to-relax game.

For those who are not familiar with the classic strategy board game Ticket to Ride (I wasn't until I purchased the iPad version), the goal is to create paths with your train cars in a way that completes the routes indicated on the cards you collect. Longer, more difficult routes are worth more points and if you collect routes that you don't complete, you loose those points instead. You have to gather train cards in order to place your train cars and compete with other players for routes. It's fun, challenging, strategic, and makes you think.

• $1.99 for iPhone - Download Now
• $6.99 for iPad - Download Now

Devil's Attorney - Simon Sage

Devil's Attorney is a brand new lawyer game that revolves around a skeezy lawyer in the 70s called Max McMann. With twists logic and befuddling charisma, he dismantles lawsuits against shady characters, earns a profit, and decks out his apartment in the gaudiest things you could imagine. The game has a cartoony, colorful art style, and excellent voice acting that fully conveys McMann's sleaze and depravity. The game mechanics are also solid. Every round in the court room, action points are spent on abilities like "Reverse Psychology" to reduce the credibility of evidence, lawyers, and witnesses. Home decor enhances materialism, decadence and vanity scores to unlock new abilities.

Devil's Attorney is a lot of fun, and I guarantee that you'll get at least a few chuckles out of playing it.

• $2.99 - Download Now

Felix - Ally Kazmucha

Last week I chose Netbot as my pick of the week, another ADN client. Even though Netbot is just as good as it's big brother, Tweetbot, I found myself easily confusing the two and forgetting which service I was actually posting to. While Tweetbot is a very good app, I think Netbot should have gotten an interface all its own.

While looking at the best App.net apps for iPhone, I came across Felix. The interface is gorgeous, it's well laid out, and push notifications work great. Netbot is still lacking push service as well. Not only does Felix has just as good of an interface as Netbot but it's got its own identity on my iPhone and I can easily keep the two services separate. Felix has honestly been a breath of fresh air and I actually enjoy using the client, maybe even more than I like Tweetbot.

If you're already on App.net, make sure you check out Felix. You won't regret it.

• $4.99 - 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!

Following up on previous reports of talks between Japan's Softbank and Sprint, numerous reports are now suggesting that Softbank will take on a 70 percent stake in Sprint.

Although nothing official has been laid down by either company at this point, CNBC and Business Insider are both reporting the deal will officially be announced as of Monday.

When it comes to the terms of the agreement, it's been suggested the deal will cost Softbank $20 billion -- $8 billion in shares directly from Sprint, and a $12 billion offer to buy shares from the public.

Overall, the deal is interesting and should buy Sprint some time to roll out their LTE network on a grander scale though it remains unknown what, exactly the deal will mean in the long-term for either company.

Source: Business Insider; CNBC

Two images that are thought to be of the battery from an iPad mini have surfaced overnight and they not only look legitimate but the performance figures of the battery seem to stack up too when placed against the new iPad and iPad 2; the images were sent to MacRumors.

MacRumors has received a pair of photos showing what is claimed to be the battery from Apple's forthcoming "iPad mini". The photos show a battery carrying a model number of A1445 and an Apple part number of 616-0641. The battery runs at 3.72 volts, offering 16.7 Whr of energy on 4490 mAh of charge.

The 16.7 watt-hour capacity for the iPad mini battery unsurprisingly places the device between the iPhone 5 at 5.45 watt-hours and the third-generation full-size iPad at 42.5 watt-hours. Given that the iPad mini has been said to be based more on the iPad 2 and lack a Retina display, the iPad mini's battery may be more appropriately compared to the 25 watt-hour battery of the iPad 2.

The battery figures would, if correct certainly appear to confirm what we have already heard and that is the iPad mini will not have a retina display but indeed be more in line with the iPad 2. Obviously the 7.85-inch screen would need less power that the iPad 2's 9.7-inch screen, so to offer the same battery life, a smaller battery could be used. This particular battery is still in the testing stage and is not ready for a public release as there are blank areas for numbers and logos waiting to be added.

Not much longer to wait for all to be revealed, the iPad mini should be shown off at a press event by Apple on October 23; if all the recent rumors are correct. As that day approaches, expect more and more leaks and images of this exciting new Apple device.

Source: MacRumors

The second day of the second annual Cingleton Symposium -- Ç deux -- was all about the presentations. With Guy English serving as master of ceremonies, a series of all-star developers, designers, media, took turns on the stage to discuss the general theme of scaling.

Michael Jurewitz, formerly an evangelist at Apple and currently a director at Black Pixel kicked things off with a look inside the App Store -- how to work with Apple and how to value your work. He explained that developers shouldn't see their relationship with Apple as one of equals, but likened it more to animal husbandry. One of the best things in the world for a developer is to get featured on the App Store and the way to increase your odds of that is to embrace iOS and OS X's newest features as quickly as possible in a way that delights users and brings value to the platform. He also, bluntly, told developers that while there are issues with the App Store -- like no trials or paid upgrades, sandboxing, Gate Keeper, etc. -- that they need to get used to it and deal with it, because that's the world they currently live in. He also told developers not to undercharge for that apps, and asked them if doubling their price would cost them less than half their user base, because if it does, it's ultimately more money. And an un-successful app is a dead app, for developers and users.

Molly Reed, a vice-president at the Omni Group, talked about how they handled scaling their company. She used the example of her puppy growing from a tiny size to fill the projector frame. At Omni, they chose to grow very carefully, making sure employees matched their culture and goals, could work locally, and could always feel like their voices were heard. They had to give up working on some older projects, like Omni Web, to focus on their new projects, including going all-in on the iPad, but always wanted to make sure they provide great benefits back to their employees -- including fun and games, and sometimes even going outside.

Marco Arment of Instapaper and The Magazine challenged himself by presenting without slides. Using the same mix of keen insight and fun he brings to the Build and Analyze podcast, he talked about his last -- bad -- experience presenting at a show, and then dove into the terrifying subject of scaling a career. His overarching point was to take initiative, do things without asking for permission, and force yourself to survive by becoming great, using his own path from developer to writer to editor as an example.

Serenity Caldwell of Macworld and TechHive talked about ebooks, and how Amazon [screwed] up their head start in the field by sticking to black and white digital copies of black and white print books, until Apple came along with colorful, interactive, WebKit-based iBooks and kicked them square in the complacency. She laid out how Macworld struggled to scale their ebook efforts to an increasing range of formats, and the compromises that had to made along the way, in terms of toolsets, workflows, and her own perceptions. And she also laid out those things that shouldn't be compromised.

Brad Ellis of Pacific Helm talked about what it means to be a designer, both in terms of the different skill sets possessed by visual, product, interface, and other types of designers, and in terms of the perceptions towards designers and design in general. Using a flabbergastingly awesome Quartz Composer program, he then went through an example of using math to solve a design problem, namely a navigation bar that had to look great no matter the color or platform it's deployed on. Combining formulae for waited average to flip text color from black to white depending on the background with an explanation of blend modes, he explained how to avoid having him make fun of your desaturated interfaces by properly using color burn and linear burn.

Glenn Fleishman of Macworld and TidBITS talked about love and money -- including the love of money, he won't judge -- when it comes to creating products. He elaborated on business models and practices that aligned developer and manufacturer needs with those of customers, and then dove deeply in the crowd-funding and micro-investment trend, including Kick Starter. He explored why some crowd funding efforts succeed, why success can be its own challenge, and why some fail or simply don't suit the model.

Michael Lopp, formerly of Apple, currently of Rands in Repose and Palantir talked about how careers change every three years, even if you stay within the same company. He then set the table for the engineer, he designer, and the dictator. He spoke of the importance of the engineer, who solves problems and strives for the perfect system, and designers who make sure real things work for real people, and of the tension between them. He also spoke about the value of the dictator who makes the tough choices, including the toughest and the most important -- saying "no". Steve Jobs was an obvious example, as were several of the heads of the various divisions inside Apple. He also focused on Natasha Lampard of Webstock and her singular drive to make everyone and everything awesome, and of Microsoft who succeeded under Bill Gates' dictatorship but has floundered under Steve Ballmer's lack thereof, even if some divisions like Xbox have shown individual signs of dictatorial brilliance.

Tomorrow brings "something" from Dan Moren and Lex Friedman of Macworld along with live tapings of John Gruber's The Talk Show and Jason Snell's ensemble geek-fest, The Incomparable.