by Stuart Dredge

There are two big golf games coming to iPhone in the near future: Tiger Woods 09 from EA Mobile, and Let’s Golf from Gameloft. Earlier today, we got a sneak peek at both of them.

Specifically, we popped into the Apple Store on London’s Regent Street to meet Eric Jue, senior product manager in Apple’s iPhone worldwide product marketing division. He showed us a bunch of new games, and talked App Store – more of which later.

But among the games were the two golf titles, giving us a chance to directly compare them – and particularly their controls, which work quite differently.

First, Tiger Woods 09, which takes the more realistic graphical style that’s familiar to the console and handheld versions of EA’s golfing franchise.

The game offers an iPhone take on the analogue swing control mechanic from those other games.

You tap your finger on a round button at the bottom of the screen, then draw it back (i.e. down the screen) to set the power against a scale. Then you swipe your finger forward again – straight for a straight shot, or a bit left or right to hook or slice.

Jue told us the game is due out in spring or summer. Although not quite finished, it looked pretty impressive – while the commentary is set to be a big feature, giving you constant feedback on how well (or not) you’re doing.

So how about Let’s Golf? The game is more of an Everybody’s Golf style cartoon game in looks – although that’s not to suggest it’s not packing some decent ball and environment physics.

However, the controls are much more traditional. You tap on the button at the bottom right to bring up a swingometer, tap again to stop it at whatever power you want, and then tap a final time to set the shot’s aim.

It’s got Gameloft’s characteristic iPhone presentation – a nifty 3D flyby before every hole for example.

It’s far too early to tell which game will be better of the two – or indeed which control mechanism will work best. You could argue that Tiger Woods 09’s is more true to the iPhone’s touchscreen interface, but equally that Let’s Golf’s may offer more control.

However, one conclusion is that both games are shaping up marvellously. Naturally, we’ll have full reviews of both as soon as they hit the App Store.

The full list of games Jue showed to us today (with links to our coverage) was: Sway, Tiger Woods 09 and Let’s Golf, Peggle, WordFu, Alpine Racer, and Zen Bound (which we’ve previously reviewed).

Popularity: 42% [?]

Technorati Tags: iphone, iphone games

By Aidan Malley

Published: 06:40 PM EST While the likelihood of Apple releasing new iPhones this year is all but certain, a discussion between analysts and Apple’s top brass has also dropped clues that the iPhone’s pricing may not be static this year.

 Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research mentions in a research note that a discussion with Apple COO Tim Cook, CFO Petter Oppenheimer and worldwide marketing senior VP Phil Schiller point both to an upgrade to the touchscreen device as well as to the possibility of "different pricing/price points" this year, with Cook "examining iPhone’s business model" for possible changes.

Cook and Schiller in particular have teased a "very exciting" 2009 for iPhones.

What these possible price changes would entail isn’t divulged by the Apple executives, although Sacconaghi is quick to dampen rumors of an iPhone nano or a similar low-budget cellphone. Without naming any one of the executives as a source, he gathers from his investigations that the company isn’t presently chasing such a concept.

Any future iPhone, he says, will probably have at least a web browser and access to the App Store, the latter of which has Cook, Oppenheimer and Schiller particularly "bullish" about the iPhone’s success as it gives Apple an (more…)

Popularity: 59% [?]

Technorati Tags: apple iphone, iphone, iphone price, iphone pricing

By Chris Kohler February 13, 2009 | 7:45:00 PMCategories: iPhone   

Your reactions to our recent list of 10 awesome iPhone games said pretty much one thing: We’re crazy for not including your favorite game.

See also:

10 iPhone Games You Must Own
Top 10 Games of 2008
Top 11 Most Anticipated Games of 2009
The 10 Most Disappointing Games of 2008

But then, how could we please everyone? With more than 4,700 games in the App Store for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch music players, completing a thorough review of the library’s offerings would be impossible.

Luckily, plenty of you are playing games on the gadgets. Apple has sold more than 20 million iPhones, plus countless more iPod Touches, and market-research firm comScore reports that 32.4 percent of iPhone users say they have downloaded a game in the last month, compared to an average across all mobile devices of 3.8 percent.

Hoping to tap the wisdom of the crowd, we asked you to vote for your favorites. Here, after more intensive play-test sessions, are Wired.com readers’ top-rated iPhone game picks, plus our take on each one.

10. JellyCar (Free)

You said: "You guide your car through various courses trying to complete in the best time. The game uses ‘Jelly Physics,’ where your car bends, stretches and even breaks. It seems silly at first but after a few minutes, you’re hooked!"

Our take: Based on the Xbox Community Game of the same name, JellyCar has clever crayonlike graphics and a unique gameplay gimmick where your gelatin-based vehicle rolls and smooshes its way toward the goal. Figuring out the physics can be challenging, and playing with the iPhone can be a bit of a pain. You have to press the left and right areas of the screen to get the car accelerating, then tilt the iPhone to add rotation to the vehicle. A few minutes of this and it’s carpal tunnel time.

9. WordWarp ($1)

You said: "Take six given letters and make as many words as possible in the time limit."

Our take: Do you enjoy playing Jumble in the daily paper? Just like the well-known pen-and-paper puzzle, WordWarp gives you a scrambled six-letter word. You’re tasked with unscrambling it, but also with coming up with as many smaller words as can be made from its letters in a two-minute time window. The "warp" feature lets you randomize the letters, which helps when forming words. Unfortunately (and aggravatingly), the word list isn’t complete — we found a lot of words it didn’t accept.

8. Cube Runner (Free)

You said: "Free and highly addictive."

Our take: Looking very much like an early prototype of Star Fox, Cube Runner is a very simple exercise in not screwing up. Pilot your ship by tilting the iPhone left and right. Don’t hit any of the cubes. For each second you stay alive, you get points; crash and it’s game over. No checkpoints, no goal other than a high score. Cube Runner makes great use of subtle and responsive tilt controls, but (more…)

Popularity: 65% [?]

Technorati Tags: apple iphone, iphone, iphone games

 by  Tim Bajarin

When Steve Jobs recently announced that he was going to take a leave of absence due to health issues, I was surprised by Wall Street’s reaction. After the news hit, Apple’s stock took a sharp dive. Investors assumed that without Jobs at the helm, the company would tank. Sure, his absence invites legitimate questions about Apple’s long-term prospects, but the products Apple will bring out this year were designed one to two years ago. The real issue is how successfully COO Tim Cook and his team can bring these products to market. When it comes to Apple’s vision, I think the window for new products is not two years but ten—a cycle that’s actually very well thought out—with key milestones and goals that are fine-tuned on an 18-month basis.

Back in 1997, the company was over $1 billion in the red and deeply in debt. On the second day that Steve Jobs was back at Apple, I asked him about his vision for turning the company around. Jobs gave two distinct answers. First, he said he would make sure Apple was taking care of its core customers. He felt that the prior management had forgotten about users in the graphics, engineering, desktop publishing, and education markets—the folks that had helped Apple grow over the years. Jobs planned to create more-powerful Macs and new products that would meet their evolving needs. But Jobs also said he thought that existing PCs were boring, and that he planned to make industrial design a key issue for Apple products going forward.

At the time, the idea of using industrial design to save Apple seemed far-fetched. But as you know, within 18 months he had (more…)

Popularity: 47% [?]

Technorati Tags: apple iphone, Gaming on the Apple iPhone, iphone

By Judy Mottl
February 2, 2009

RIM told InternetNews.com that carrier partners set BlackBerry prices and declined comment on the new iSuppli report.

See here for the rest of this article at InternetNews.com.

Popularity: 41% [?]

Technorati Tags: apple iphone, iphone