To prove that the iPod touch is the funnest iPod ever, and a gaming force to be reckoned with, Apple’s advertising department has been using it to take over websites like IGN and ESPN, and TUAW (twice now!) has screen captured it all for posterity.

We’re not sure everyone will appreciate the disjointed attack on their senses such website take-overs produce, but it is a sign Apple is taking gaming seriously, and the internet seriously. (And IGN and ESPN are taking Apple’s cash and handing over the website banners, seriously!)

Second video after the break!

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

iPod touch Gaming Takes Over the Web

Dan Moren of Macworld has an interesting post up about this year’s C4 Independent Developers Conference, and how the indie devs seem to have cooled towards iPhone development and turned their attention back to the Mac. Why? Not the technology, of course. They’re up on the handset and almost everyone had at least one. No, it was dissatisfaction with the state of how Apple runs the iTunes App Store, of course.

Lack of control over elements like release times was cited as one issue. Profitability, another:

The problem is that the prices in the App Store, which tend towards the lower end, make it harder to recoup the investment put into developing the program in the first place. Sure, there have been over two billion downloads from the App Store, but remember there's more than 85,000 apps available. Even if your 99 cent application gets downloaded 10,000 times, after Apple's 30 percent cut that's just $7,000 in revenue—not profit, mind you, just revenue—and if you spent the last six months of your life working on that application, you better hope you're still working a day job if you want to cover living expenses.

Rather than abandoning the platform, however, some devs had suggestions for how Apple could help make things better, including upgrade pricing (to avoid Tweetiegate situations), creating a mechanism for demos, and something we’ve heard before from Craig Hockenberry — having a higher-priced developer account option that comes with a better service level from Apple ($999 platinum account, for example, in addition to the current $99 version).

With the current volume market, Apple may not care since they’ll make their 30% off Apps and CrApps alike. But here’s hoping their pride wins out, and Apple decides they don’t merely want the most successful App Store, but the very best one as well — for users and developers.

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

Macworld: This Be the C4 of iPhone Developers’ Discontent

While TiPb is still waiting for an iPhone 3.1.1 bug-fix update, not to mention iPhone 3.2 betas to start dropping, it looks like the competition is getting their OS on this week:

• Palm webOS 1.2 didn’t re-enable the iTunes hack (kudos Palm!) but did bring some nifty new features including Amazon MP3 downloads over 3G, the foundations for paid apps in the App Catalog, improved cut and paste, and much more.
• Android 1.6 Donut is expected to hit now’ish as well. A new Android Market is coming with it, but not multi-touch — at least not yet.
• BlackBerry OS 5.0 still doesn’t seem to be official, but is leaking out all over the place (would that Apple had such porous pipes!). It’ll make your Berry more Berry, though it doesn’t seem to integrate a real browser yet, despite what the commercials say…
• Windows Mobile 6.5 might be on 30 Windows Phones by 2010, though even Ballmer is finally admitting Windows Mobile 7 should have been out this year. Bottom-line, it’s a skin-job, and even though it looks hawt’er than a old style centurion, it’s still a machine on the inside.

What does that mean for the iPhone? Even if RIM looks locked in stasis, Palm and Microsoft appear to have up-hill battles re-gaining their traction, and Android is still slowly ramping up, Apple can’t afford to coast. A new OS from RIM, a Palm-style rebirth from Microsoft, and webOS and Android gaining marketshare are all possibilities. Many of these updates have interesting new features that hopefully Apple is looking at and working their own magic on.

So, let’s get on with the 3.2… and 4.0. March is only 6 months away, after all, and Apple needs something else to wow Smartphone buyers with at the next SDK event…

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

The Competition: Palm webOS 1.2, Android Donut 1.6, BlackBerry 5.0, Windows Mobile 6.5

My home screen is incredibly boring. Because I have a few devices, and I do a lot of testing with them, I also have to restore them fairly often and it’s gotten to the point where I just leave everything in its default location because it’s a) easier than rearranging and b) I don’t have to hunt for stuff I haven’t rearranged.

So, my second screen has become where I move my non-default, but still more often used apps. Typically the exact order will vary due to the reasons above, but the apps are fairly consistent.

I’ll list out what I use after the break, but we’re really more interested in what’s on YOUR iPhone home screen and why. If you’re willing to share a screenshot, jump on over to our TiPb iPhone Forums, attach it, and share the details!

My screen: Top row is secondary Apple apps, which I use once-and-a-while but like to refer back to.

Next is UDID so I can quickly get an Ad Hoc distro set up if I need to test something. 1Password is typically the first thing that goes onto my Macs and iPhones. Life. Saver. BeeJiveIM is for those rare occasions I keep IM on, on the go. Qik is the Ad Hoc version that actually does stream live (Apple/AT&T need to approve that version now).

TWiT.am is for when I want to listen to streaming Leo Laporte. Wikipanion gets hit often for pop culture reference. Jaadu hasn’t been set up in a while, but I dream of it working for remote desktop one day. Skype just came to Canada, but only works on full bar WiFi right now.

TwitBit 2.0 is what I’m testing for Twitter right now. Tweetie is just so Apple-like I often default back to it for power posting. Shazam is Shazam. It might get banished to a lower screen soon. Navigon keeps me from getting lost, which I am wont to do.

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

What’s on YOUR iPhone Home Screen?

The iPhone now accounts for 40% of AdMob’s mobile network usage, gaining ground against Nokia’s Symbian (which fell to 34%), and staying way ahead of any other platform (RIM was third, falling from 10% to 8%).

Clearly, that’s HUGE. However, it’s important to remember exactly what these measures are — and are not. From AdMob:

AdMob Mobile Metrics report is a reflection of the data flowing through our network each month. The statistics do not represent handset sales or unique devices in the market, rather they represent the relative mobile usage we see from the sites and apps in our network.

We won’t let that stop us from asking Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer — who recently told TechCrunch that Safari’s desktop marketshare a “rounding error”, what that makes Windows Mobile’s 4% share?

[Thanks everyone who sent this in!]

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

iPhone Now Owns 40% of AdMob Network Usage

While Jailbreaking iPhone 3.1 on the original iPhone 2G and iPhone 3G has made some strides, there’s still no sign of an iPhone 3GS version. What there are signs of, however, are more and more apps taking advantage of iPhone 3.1-only APIs, meaning they can’t be run on iPhone 3.0, meaning they’re not available to iPhone 3GS Jailbreakers.

So far these iPhone 3.1-only apps are confined to a few camera-specific apps, but including the new features of the update, as augmented-reality functionality spreads, never mind whatever comes with the iPhone 3.2 beta when it appears, the number of incompatible apps is only going to grow.

So here’s our question for iPhone 3GS Jailbreakers — are you still content to wait for the Dev-Team to Jailbreak (and allow safe unlock of) 3.1, or are you getting tempted to restore to the plain vanilla OS? And how long will you wait?

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

iPhone 3.1-Only Apps Getting iPhone 3GS Jailbreakers Down?

Google’s “Email 2.0″ service, called Google Wave was announced back at the I/O conference, and has now entered a limited beta (in terms of number of people invited, no telling how long the service itself will be in beta).

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

Since Steve Jobs probably isn’t getting an invite anymore, if Google — or anyone else — has any to spare, please send them TiPb’s way and we’ll happily pick up the iPhone testing slack. (Shameless, yes. Joking, not one bit).

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

Quick WebApp Update: Google Wave Goes Beta

Back in July, Apple stealthily acquired Placebase, a mapping company that provides a service similar to Google Maps, but with more robust customizations and set of APIs, called Pushpin, for layering data sets over maps.

Google and Apple have been steadily moving from friends to frenemies of late, with the advent of Android and CloudOS, the whole Google Voice and Google Latitude rejection brouhaha, and Google’s CEO leaving Apple’s board. TiPb’s conjectured that Apple might see Google as trying to take over everyone else’s platform as well, so it makes a certain amount of sense (especially given their history with the Mac) to have in-house backups for all the services Google currently offers for the iPhone. A billion-dollar data center might factor into that as well…

Given that Apple wrote the iPhone Maps app themselves, and just used Google for the backend, a switch to Apple Maps might even be transparent to the end user. TiPb’s also discussed Apple’s philosophy that the interface is the app, which again shows why Apple might be hesitant to give UI over to Google through Google Voice or Latitude — they can’t swap that out as easily.

Regardless, it will be interesting to see what an Apple Maps might look like…

(via 9to5mac and Computerworld)

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

Apple Now Own Google Maps Competitor Placebase

Stickam Live Video [Free - iTunes link] brings the popular live streaming website’s content right to your iPhone or iPod touch… and it even works over 3G!

No doubt they’re using some magic behind the scenes to transform the Flash-bound web content into racy H.264 for the iPhone, similar to how other video platforms have adapted. With it, you can watch featured shows and popular live shows, and view, search, and chat with live friends and users. It also supports both portrait and landscape mode.

If you’re a Stickam fan and you try it out, let us know what you think!

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

Quick App: Stickam Live Video for iPhone

UPDATE: Just so everyone is clear, the developer did this as a parody, Apple didn’t censor anything. B’okay? Read the full 8008135 story on Three Letter Acronym…

PCalc RPN Calculator [$9.99 - iTunes link] for iPhone has just updated to version 1.8, and the update is… rather unique:

Have you, or somebody close to you, ever turned your calculator upside down and accidentally seen a mildly suggestive word? Have you ever been in a maths class, and had to put up with groups of giggling boys performing elaborate calculations that are not part of the lesson?

Yes, it’s one of the main problems affecting the calculator industry today, the so-called “calculator words”. These otherwise harmless devices can be made to display smut at the press of a few buttons. Added to that, the iPhone App Store is very strict about having inappropriate content in apps. Nobody wants their app to get a 17+ rating, or worse, to be rejected entirely.

Which is why we are happy to announce that the latest version of our PCalc scientific calculator for the iPhone contains a new patent-worthy profanity filter.

Simply enter a number such as “5318008″, turn the calculator upside down, and the offending word will be discreetly censored. Many common calculator words have been included as standard, and we plan to increase this over time via software updates.

The new version also comes, you know, calculator features, and a $9 off coupon for the Mac version (which doesn’t seem to change when you turn your Mac upside down… hmmm… feature parity?!)

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

Quick App Update: PCalc RPN for iPhone 1.8… With Censorship?!