It’s Halloween and so my top pick for this week is Alive 4-ever, a top-down zombie shooter with plenty of guts and gore to go around. I’ve also been checking out TowerMadness Zero, NASA and WordPress 2.

Alive 4-ever ($1.79)

As it’s Halloween, I thought that at least one of my top picks this week should be themed for the occasion. Despite the clumsy sounding name, Alive 4-Ever is a surprisingly polished top-down shooter. The plot is simple and disgustingly cliché: for whatever reason, a zombie apocalypse happens, you take to the streets to rescue other survivors.

The game takes its inspiration from some of the best zombie titles out there, including Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead. There’s a battalion’s worth of weaponry on offer, including zombie-slaying classics like the AK-47. Plus, if you’re after more firepower you’re able to purchase bigger, stronger, faster guns in the shop after each level.

There’s also a Bluetooth multiplayer mode, allowing you to jump into the action with three other friends. Alongside guns, zombies and survivors, the game throws in experience points too. Completing a stage earns experience points, these precious points go towards upgrading your character. In effect, you’re able to become the ultimate undead-destroying warrior.

TowerMadness Zero (Free)

Earlier this month, our own Alfredo Padilla took a look at 49 different tower defense games for the iPhone. Owing to the epic nature of his list, days later Alfredo distilled the document down into five tower defense games worth owning. All of Alfredo’s picks costs a few bucks though and, in this cash-strapped climate, some of us don’t have much money to burn on iPhone games.

That’s where TowerMadness steps in. The game is available in two monetary flavors. You can purchase it for a couple of bucks, or you can download the Zero edition: a totally unrestricted ad-supported version of the game for free. The ads are unintrusive and targeted in such a way that, for the most part, they feel relevant.

Of course the iPhone doesn’t need another tower defense game. Aside from being free, TowerMadness is a pretty good representation of the best qualities of the genre. All the usual TD staples are there — waves of enemies, upgradable towers, strategic play — but it’s all wrapped up in excellent graphics too.

NASA (Free)

National organizations seem to be slowly switching on to the iPhone. Last year, the BBC decided to create an iPhone-specific version of its excellent iPlayer site. Canada’s National Film Board just released a wonderful app for viewing its content on the go. And now NASA has released its very own app, allowing us earthlings to keep up-to-date with space mission news.

The app is essentially like having a tiny mission-control in the palm of your hand. There’s a listing of all NASA Missions, all of which have awesome names like Mars Express and Mars Odyssey. Tapping through to a mission section provides a mission briefing, photos, videos and an ever-so-slightly ominous countdown timer.

For me, the best part of the app is the video section. Rather than attempt to visualize the various space happenings described in the app, the videos bring these extraordinary happens closer to home. You can observe spacecraft launches, see astronauts float around in zero gravity, listen to people in space describe their experiences, and watch history in the making.

WordPress 2 (Free)

The original WordPress app just wasn’t so hot. With a clunky and convoluted interface that was all function and no form, it immediately felt dated. And, for writers and bloggers alike, it certainly wasn’t the most inspiring environment in which to attempt to pen a post.

The user interface has been updated but still, on first look, the app looks worryingly basic. In fact, it’s disconcertingly similar to its clunky counterpart, WordPress 1. I appreciate that the WordPress app is here to serve a function, but, discounting features, surely it could have been executed with a little more pizazz?

Anyway, looks are not the most important thing with WordPress 2. This version introduces several new features to the mix. There’s automatic saving and restoring of posts. A new comments interface which includes author URL and Gravatars. The app even stores password in the keychain. If you’ve got your own WordPress blog, this is certainly an app worth checking out.

That’s all the picks for this week. I’ll be back in seven days with a fresh selection of App Store recommendations.

In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?

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The first week of September has seen a deluge of new arrivals at the App Store. It’s time for me to search through the latest releases for iPhone and hand-pick my recommendations for the past seven days.

This week I’ve been looking at Button, Facebook, BlogPress and Quicksilver.

Button (Free)
One of my favorite sci-fi novels, “Better Than Life,” oscillates between a deep space distopia and an almost perfect Earth as it follows the surviving crew members of the Red Dwarf mining ship. It’s soon revealed that the crew’s collective vision of Earth is actually a highly addictive massively multiplayer online game beamed directly into their brains, leaving their real bodies in a seemingly catatonic state. Rather than take a giant leap towards this sinister style of multiplayer gaming, Button instead takes baby steps. There’s a big button, everyone around the world sees the button, when the button lights up you must push the button, sometimes you win a prize, usually you don’t. Button is effectively a nonsensical distraction that seems to tickle just the right bit of your brain. Plus, you can ramp up the futility by playing as a team. I’ve created a special team called tab just for readers of TheAppleBlog, come join my group and let’s push buttons together.

Facebook (Free)
The official Facebook app has finally received its first major update for some time, bringing the service’s iPhone implementation almost (but not quite) up to speed with the 3GS and 3.0 firmware. For starters, the app’s user interface has been streamlined and tidied up — gone are the tiny buttons, pointless scrollable horizontal groups bar and crash-happy inbox. The main feed benefits from having a clutter free interface and now incorporates likes and comments. The menu screen features several big chunky buttons, designed for ease of navigation. Notably, the app now allows video recording and uploads, a real boon for iPhone 3GS users. However, it’s seems that when Facebook update their app, there’s always something missing. In this case, there are no Push Notifications, an OS 3.0 feature which could have been designed solely for apps just like Facebook.

BlogPress ($2.99)
The official WordPress app just isn’t working out for me. While I appreciate the WordPress app being free, I’m still not impressed by the app’s sluggish navigation and overly technical user interface. In essence, the WordPress app doesn’t feel pretty and it doesn’t work as it should. With this in mind, I’ve been on the hunt for a replacement and BlogPress seems to be just the app to knock WordPress off my iPhone. The app features a WYSIWYG editor, incredibly important as you certainly don’t want to be tweaking your latest post’s code on your iPhone’s keyboard. There’s also video uploading, something which the WordPress app doesn’t currently support, handled by uploading your video to YouTube and then embedding within your latest post. BlogPress also supports posting simultaneously to multiple blog services, including Blogger, MSN Live Spaces, WordPress, Movable Type, TypePad, LiveJournal, Drupal and Joomla.

Quicksilver ($1.99)
And finally, while on the subject of replacing apps, I’ve been on the hunt for an alternative to Nimbuzz — while it’s an excellent feature-rich iPhone IM app, and free too, I’ve been feeling like I need a more streamlined solution. With it’s minimal iChat-esque interface, Quicksilver is the perfect app for a quick bit of iPhone IMing, with one caveat: it’s made for XMPP-compliant servers only, which, in non-geek-speak, means it’ll work with Google Talk but not MSN. The really great thing about Quicksilver is that it incorporates Push Notifications, making it more than worth the two buck asking price. When you close Quicksilver, you’re not logged out of chat, instead you’re status is changed to away. If one of your contacts should get in touch, the message will arrive on your iPhone as a push notification.

That’s all the picks for this week. I’ll be back in seven days with more news from the week and picks from the App Store.

In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?

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• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide
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I have to admit that I’m still working on the Game Design Document. Something which I thought would take only a few days has grown to incorporate minute details alongside gargantuan fundamental gameplay concepts. This document is essentially Tetris in written form: piling on concept after concept, attempting to make it fit together before the whole thing becomes too unwieldy to manage.

While work on the GDD should finish this week – Matias has stated that this Friday is the absolute deadline – I’m finding the time to explore other related areas of app development. In my last entry I spoke to Mills, one of the founders of ustwo, a growing independent mobile content studio.

Mills provided me with some revealing data in terms of development costs and sales. Looking at ustwo’s costs for app development relative to the revenue that they generated led me to think about how I could lower our own development costs while increasing the app’s desirability.

I’ve managed to find three different solutions that add value to our app and cost either very little or absolutely nothing.

Recycle That Code

Recycling and reusing code is a tried and tested convention in software development, particularly in the game industry. When you write a piece of code once – for example a game engine for a first person shooter – why spend time and money writing it again for the sequel? It’s far simpler to copy, paste, modify and deploy.

Working for a game developer a few years back, there were times when I noted that code recycling wasn’t necessarily in the customer’s best interests. In particular, I remember a top-down shooter – in the style of Grand Theft Auto – recycled as two different titles. The artwork was redrawn, the in-game dialogue was chopped and changed, but it was quite clearly the same game.

We plan to be a little smarter in choosing how and where we redeploy certain pieces of code. The PearComp coders, Matias, Markus and Ben, are currently working on Facebook and Twitter integration for the game. The plan is that, from within the game, players will be able to post their high scores to the two social networking services.

Facebook and Twitter posting is the value-adding feature du jour. Being able to link an app to these services provides a seamless connection between a user’s social life and the app in question. For games in particular, it’s a great way of enabling players to shout about their achievements while generating publicity for the title among their social connections.

In effect, the code that the PearComp team have created for the game can be re-used for future iPhone app developments. It’ll benefit some of PearComp’s clients, plus it’ll cut costs, and save time and resources.

Find Your Voice

John J. Dick is a voice actor and DJ who happens to be pretty badly in debt. His biggest gig was working on Serious Sam, an explosive shooter for hardcore gamers. John’s husky vocals helped flesh out Sam, the game’s main man: an alien destroying, gun toting, time traveling mercenary.

Back in the real world though, John’s debt has become such a problem that he’s come up with a cunning way to bail himself out. John has decided to offer his voice acting talent at an incredibly competitive rate: $1 per word.

Commissioning John to record a few words for the game was an easy decision – it cuts costs for sound recording and should save us some time later in the project. Having John’s name, and by extension Serious Sam, attached to the project could also make for some fun PR when we launch.

Collaborate & Communicate

In the previous installment of the App Developer Diary, I found out a little more about ustwo’s MouthOff app for iPhone. After speaking to Mills. I realized that there was potential for a really exciting collaboration.

I called Mills back the next day and pitched my idea: ustwo would create a special version of MouthOff featuring one of the characters from our game. We’d take the MouthOff code from ustwo and put it into our app, essentially this exclusive MouthOff would be accessed from within our game.

Featuring an exclusive MouthOff mode within our app adds some serious fun and replay value to the game. It would also garner some added exposure for ustwo’s app. Of course, we’ll ensure that there’s a link to the App Store for players to purchase the full version of MouthOff.

By recycling code, finding a great deal on audio assets and collaborating with an awesome dev studio, we’ve made our game even better without breaking the bank.

Next time: I finally submit the Game Design Document to the coders at PearComp.

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Once again, it’s that special time of the week when we all join hands, take a deep breath and exhale as we take a spiritual journey through the latest app picks for iPhone.

Before we reach app Zen, however, it’s time for a refreshing run through of the week’s iPhone news and Apple happenings.

Credit cards at the ready, the week opened with the resurgence of the Apple tablet rumor. Fueled by word from component suppliers in China, the rumor is that we could see an Apple tablet retailing by October this year.

One year on from the App Store’s launch and Apple is feeling particularly pleased with its paradigm shifting achievement. So pleased, in fact, that it dropped a big number in celebration: 1.5 billion App Store downloads in the first year. Impressive indeed. I wonder if Nokia, Palm or RIM will ever catch up?

Our own Clayton Lai returned this week with “Jailbreak,” an ongoing series that’s all about getting the most out of your jailbroken iPhone. His latest offering explains how to spruce up your iPhone’s lock screen with calendars, Twitter feeds and more.

Still on the subject of jailbreaking, over on the iPhone 3GS there’s a new unlock in town: purplesn0w. It improves on the Dev Team’s ultrasn0w, providing a much more stable unlock, while improving battery life and Wi-Fi connectivity.

It seems that most users won’t notice any difference with the latest iTunes update, however Palm Pre owners are in for a surprise sandwich filled with the meat of disappointment: Apple has blocked Palm Pre syncing in iTunes. Pre owners, I adore your device, but it was bound to happen, it has happened, get over it.

And finally, Google has brought local web search to the iPhone. The service makes use of the iPhone’s 3.0 software update, which now includes HTML 5 Geolocation API support in Safari. This basically means that web sites can determine your location and provide you with relevant and useful data. By which I mean adverts, lots of adverts.

Moving on to the picks, this week I’ve been looking at Worms, Spell Number, Zombies & Me and Tap Star.

Worms ($4.99)
This brings me back to the old days — all the cool kids got their console fix with the SNES or Genesis, but I had an Amiga 500. For a time, I had very little interest in chubby Italian plumbers or a blue hedgehog with an attitude problem. It was all about British dev studios churning out classic games: Sensible Software’s Cannon Fodder, Ocean’s Robocop and, of course, Team 17 with Worms. Featuring a brigade of cheeky, well-armed worms, the game is a turn-based strategy, incorporating a bevy of weird weaponry, perfect for extended multiplayer gaming sessions. For the retro fanboys with a penchant for the Amiga, this is a definite download, but it’s also worth checking out for newbies looking for an explosive (and amusing) strategy fix.

Spell Number (Free)
So you’ve updated your iPhone to OS 3.0, or you’ve taken it one step further and bagged yourself an iPhone 3GS. Either way, there are a few tweaks and improvements that may make your Apple device even more wonderful. One such tweak, provided by Spell Number, activates Emoji — colorful and scrumptious emoticons, available exclusively to iPhone users over in Japan. Simply download Spell Number, enter the number 91929394.59, then press the Home button, go to Settings → General → Keyboard → Japan and activate Emoji. Unlike various other Emoji-activating apps for iPhone, this one is absolutely free and, notably, works for OS 3 and the 3GS. This is a definite download, especially for folks who would like to spice up their SMS and email messages with some Emoji goodness.

Zombies & Me (99 cents)
The slow-moving dinosaur of the game industry, EA, recently founded its own micro-game production studio to start churning out potential iPhone hits at a fast rate — one a month — while experimenting with new gameplay styles. Zombies & Me is the first release as part of this initiative and, surprisingly, it looks gorgeous, sounds scrummy and plays well, too. The premise is simple, Granny’s house is about to be raided by hungry zombies and it’s your job to dash around the garden, leading the undead in to various bombs, while trying not to have your brains sucked out. Serious kudos to EA for stepping away from the big brand franchise factory methodology and investing in something a little more experimental.

Tap Star ($4.99)
Finally a viable competitor to Tap Tap Revenge hits the App Store. Created by Epic Tilt and with serious support from Sony Entertainment Music — clearly wanting to get in on the App Store game to leverage some of its content — comes Tap Star, a new rhythm action game. While Tap Star lacks the character and flair of Tap Tap Revenge, it makes up for this failing by bundling tons of tunes from Sony’s catalogue, including tracks from Elvis, Cyndi Lauper, Pink and Britney. I’ll be sticking with Tap Tap Revenge, it’s just so much richer, but fans of Sony’s catalogue in particular may want to check out Tap Star.

That’s all the picks for this week. I’ll be back in seven days with more news from the week and picks from the App Store.

In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?

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It’s that time of the week — when we welcome you to the weekend with a selection of the freshest picks for the iPhone from the App Store.

Hold your horses, though, because before we dive headfirst into a glorious ocean of iPhone apps, I’ve got a roundup of notable Apple news from the past seven days.

We’re starting the weekend by giving you the chance to win a free game for your iPhone, courtesy of Poppy, an excellent one-man game studio in Japan. The game in question, Brave Man, is reminiscent of Bishop’s knife trick from Aliens, except instead of an interstellar synthetic, you play a lumberjack trying not to cut his hand with a knife. Want to win a promo code for Brave Man? To be in with a chance, leave a comment at the end of this post telling me about the bravest thing you’ve ever done.

Some unexpected bad news for early adopters of the iPhone 3GS this week when their new devices became literally too hot to handle. It turns out that the 3GS suffers from an overheating problem that is so bad that apparently white iPhones have been turning pink. Is that going to stop me from purchasing a 3GS? Absolutely not, I’ll take mine in limited edition blazing hot pink, please.

The latest update to the iPhone software, OS 3.1, has been rolled out to developers. This also means that it’s probably not too long before it’s pushed to regular iPhone users, too. Expect a raft of fixes and updates to the OS, including improved boot time, fraud protection in Safari, and the potential for video editing in third-party apps.

There’s been a slow drip-feed of app’s hitting the store that support OS 3.0′s new features. Notably, Remember The Milk is the first to-do app supporting push notifications. This means that, even when the app isn’t running, it’ll ping you with a reminder for forthcoming tasks that need completing. It’s a premium service, available only to subscribers, but one that may prove essential for iPhone-toting productivity connoisseurs.

Over in the EU, several phone manufacturers, including Apple, have agreed on a standard charging interface for all cell phones. The news of Apple signing up for this standard comes as a surprise. At first glance, it implies that it would be dropping its traditional proprietary dock port from the iPhone. An Apple representative cleared up the confusion, stating that the iPhone will, at some unspecified point, start shipping with a micro USB adaptor.

And finally, potential purchasers of the iPhone 3GS should head on over to Apple’s brand-new 3GS availability page. After serving an astounding 1 million devices in the opening weekend, sales are clearly going strong enough to warrant launching this handy inventory tool.

Moving on to the picks, this week I’ve been looking at Jamble, Birdfeed, Rolando 2 and RunPee.

Jamble ($5.99)
I just can’t get enough musical toys for the iPhone. I’ve even got an entire menu screen dedicated just to sound-related diversions. My favorites include Brian Eno’s ambient music app Bloom and, of course, Leaf Trombone World Stage, winner of TheAppleBlog’s coveted Golden Apple Award. Jamble, a clever creative toy for making your own mash-ups, may be another welcome addition to my sonic collection. The app takes a bunch of loops from artists including Gorillaz and David Bowie, then lets you seamlessly blend them together to create your own mash-up masterpieces.

Birdfeed ($4.99)
Not even a month after we get hit with Tweetdeck for the iPhone, (which, you should note, is available for free) comes another potential challenger to Tweetie’s Twitter-client throne. The app is called Birdfeed, and it’s got a stripped-down, simple aesthetic, à la Tweetie, but unfortunately, no Tweetdeck-style groups. If you’re already comfortable with Tweetie, this may not be the app for you, but frequent tweeters looking for a change of client should definitely consider checking out Birdfeed as a simple, stylish and functional Twitter solution.

Rolando 2 ($9.99)
iPhone gamers, let us collectively rejoice. It’s the second coming of Rolando in the App Store. Indeed, the app I’ve been waiting many months for has finally arrived at the App Store, albeit for the slightly pricey sum of 10 bucks. The sequel takes place on a tropical island, updating the artwork with a semi-3D view and introducing tons of new gameplay quirks, including weird contraptions for destroying the bad guys and special floating characters. There’s even a special shack dedicated to Manchester’s funky beat maestro Mr. Scruff, where you can listen to all the tunes contributed to the game. We’ve got a full review coming to TheAppleBlog next week, so stay tuned.

RunPee (99 cents)
We’ve all experienced those extended sessions of torture, watching a movie, squirming in your seat, desperate to go rest but afraid to miss a critical moment. RunPee is a quirky stroke of genius and an app which will prove particularly useful for those with small bladders. The RunPee database contains a listing of the latest movies. Just pick the one you’re watching, and it’ll provide a number of opportunities for which you can discreetly exit the movie theater for some much-needed relief. While you’re away, the app gives you a countdown, to make sure you’re back in time, alongside a plot summary for whatever you’ve missed.

That’s all the picks for this week. I’ll be back in seven days with more news from the week and picks from the App Store.

In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?

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• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide
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This is the first installment of one journalist’s diary designing a game. It is a genuine, behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to develop an app, from conception to release, for Apple’s iPhone.

This isn’t your regular developer diary. There’ll be no talk of code and classes, no discussion of the intricacy of integers or vileness of variables. In fact, before we begin my journey into game design, I’ll take a moment to set the scene.

Late last year, I hit the 3-year mark working at a big name mobile game publisher. My grand scheme, after graduating from college — studying for a degree in “Computer & Video Games” — was to take a job at an established game studio, learn my trade, garner some valuable industry experience and then go solo. Deep down, I wanted to make the kind of games that weren’t being made enough: Katamari Damacy, Rez, Jet Set Radio Future and Vib Ribbon.

I wasn’t exactly sure what going solo entailed, but I knew it involved me ploughing my own creative furrow. More importantly, after doing the full-time thing, I also knew that my solo endeavors wouldn’t involve a regular 9-to-5: I work best during night hours, while the city sleeps, like Batman, but with less scowling and cape swishing.

Fresh from college, when many of my peers were jobless, or asking their ‘clients’ if they wanted to supersize, or, worse still, working in QA for a game developer, I landed myself a producer role at a big-name mobile publisher. In just my first year as producer, I found myself working on projects for hit Hollywood movies and my favorite comic book characters.

A New Beginning

For three years I rolled around the company, shifting job titles and launching products, hoarding experience like a demented katamari. When the time came, though, I packed up my Mac mini — the only Apple device in the office — and moved on.

And here I am now, a freelancer, doing what I love — being a creative consultant, journalist, musician. Except that in the process of working for that game publisher, disillusionment set in. I still love playing and talking about games, but those three years sitting behind the wizard’s curtain utterly dissolved my passion for creating games.

Until last week, that is, when I was approached by an iPhone development studio to get involved with their latest project. The three-man team, located in Barcelona, the UK and Finland, had developed a game engine prototype for iPhone.

Breaking Out From the Mold

The dev team’s prototype takes a traditional bat-and-ball game and injects it with physics. They need me to introduce some depth to the game’s design, though, working on everything from the gameplay mechanic and fundamental rules to artwork and sound effects.

As a game concept, though, bat and ball is a dead donkey that has been flogged, with the bat, until only dust remains and then the dust has been flogged some more, just to be sure. And then somebody set fire to the dust. A quick search for Breakout on the App Store reveals a torrent of bat-and-ball games, all reiterating the same concept.

There are some exceptions, however. Paper Breaker takes the breakout concept back to the drawing board, literally. It’s got a hand-drawn aesthetic that, although it doesn’t introduce any notable new twists on the genre, still feels good to play.

Most of the clones aren’t as imaginative as Paper Breaker, though. They seem more like thinly veiled attempts to quickly cash in at the App Store before the bubble bursts. But I’ve got an idea, something that’s going to take the traditional bat-and-ball genre and twist it into something utterly new. Now I just need to convince those clever coders to make it.

Next time: Olly pitches the concept to the coders. Is it really a new twist to an old genre? And do the coders even like his idea? Find out in the next thrilling installment of TheAppleBlog’s App Developer Diary.

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• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide
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The week may be drawing to a close, but here at TheAppleBlog we’ve got an array of apps to get your through the weekend.

As ever, I’ve got four notable new iPhone releases from the App Store to tell you about. Before we jump into the apps, though, let’s take a look at the week that was with a quick news roundup.

The week kicked off with a bit of a downer as news broke that Apple will be charging for re-downloading premium apps that you’ve already purchased for iPhone. It’s not a big deal — it seems downloading via iTunes will still be free — but it’ll be an inconvenience to users who are prone to deleting and re-downloading apps while on the go.

Next up, Microsoft is well and truly on the warpath with its forthcoming Zune HD, and what’s more, it’s gunning for the iPod touch. The new device will have a touchscreen, web browser, Wi-Fi, HD radio and, I think, looks rather scrummy. Delicious-looking it may be, but I still don’t know if that makes it a true contender.

Our own Henry Balanon stepped up to the plate with a seriously impressive iPhone development resources article. He managed to squeeze in 43 different links to various resources around the ‘net. Coders should head on over to the article and bookmark it immediately; it’ll prove useful as a reference tool.

Another new feature coming to the iPhone has been doing the rumor-rounds: Apple is integrating geo-location within Mobile Safari. Are location-aware web sites the next big thing? Setting aside Google Latitude, I’m not entirely convinced. Hit up the article for Darrel Etherington’s take on the matter.

Pipping Apple’s new devices to the post, Palm’s Pre should be hitting the shelves today. Owners of the Pre will be pleased to hear that Palm’s new devices will sync seamlessly with iTunes.

To celebrate the recent release of Dave Matthews Band Revenge for iPhone and iPod touch, I’ve got three promo codes to give away. To be in with a chance of winning, leave me a comment explaining why you’d like to play this new game.

Moving on to the picks, this week I’ve been looking at Put Things Off, Jaman Free Movie Fridays, Pocket Alan, and Terminator Salvation Lite.

Put Things Off ($2.99)
My essential iPhone tool for staying organized is Evernote, however, sometimes I seriously consider switching; especially in the case of Put Things Off — an app that packs in the functionality I need, with great visual design, too. The app allows you to focus on the tasks you need to get done on a given day, filtering everything else out of your immediate to-do list. The aesthetic strikes the right balance between satisfyingly tangible, with office-esque paper trays, and functional. My favorite feature is the auto-nag mode: putting off a task for too long moves it to your “Today tray,” forcing you to complete a given item rather than endlessly procrastinating.

Jaman Free Movie Fridays (FREE)
Never turn down a free dinner, and never turn down a free movie, either. Free food almost always tastes scrumptious, and free movies can make for unexpected fun. In the case of this app, Jaman bring you a new movie to watch every Friday. There are a few big names in there, like the complete collection of classic Superman cartoons and black-and-white spook-fest Nosferatu, however, you won’t find the latest Transformers, Terminator, or Star Trek films on the list. Most notably, though, there’s a great selection of independent full-length features, alongside new short films.

Pocket Alan (99 cents)
It’s interesting that Apple seems to have no sort of process in place for protecting the intellectual property of copyright holders. Interesting but, in this case, lucky for us, as Alan Partridge has unofficially arrived on the iPhone in the shape of a handy soundboard. Essential classics such as, “Ahaa,” and, “Jurassic Park,” are there, alongside oft-forgotten, but no less amusing sound-bites, including my favorite, “Jackanackanory.” Plus, fans of Partridge with friends named Daniel will be be able to make good, repetitive use of the, “Dan,” button. Cheap and fun, nothing more than a novelty item, but a perfect toy for fans of the show.

Terminator Salvation Lite (Free)
Gameloft seems to have surpassed itself with its latest movie-based game. Terminator Salvation packs in convincing 3D environments, reminiscent of console games, alongside a well-designed control-system and game mechanic. Of course, the real joy is trudging through the distopyian, post-apocalyptic devastation, offing shiny silver terminators with a variety of weapons. TheAppleBlog’s David Appleyard checked out the iPhone version of Terminator Salvation a few weeks back. If you’re looking to try out the game without spending five bucks on the full version, download the Lite edition today.

That’s all the picks for this week. I’ll be back in seven days with more news from the week and picks from the App Store.

In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?

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• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide
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A genie, a load of balls, and an ancient labyrinth come together to create a frustrating, but fun, puzzler.

One of the big boys in the movie biz, Warner Bros., has been solidly churning out iPhone apps for the past few months. Most of these apps have been global franchises, though, including Terminator Salvation, Watchmen and — the double whammy of brand-names — LEGO Batman.

Without a movie, cartoon series, or line of toys, Stuck Genie is an entirely original game. Containing 73 puzzles, the game challenges you to complete each one and earn the highest score.

You Look Like You’re Stuck

It’s immediately clear that the game is worthy of the Warner Bros. name. It’s bright and colorful, instantly pleasing to the eye and, although it’s not an established brand, the game has an artwork style that is very much its own.

The attention to detail, especially important from such a big publisher, pervades almost every aspect of the game. Even the name-entry screen is fun, finding you spinning an alphabet wheel, and dragging letters around to spell your name.

Musically, the game features a chill-out soundtrack pinched straight from the beaches of Ibiza. It’s absolutely out of character for a puzzle game — especially one featuring a mischievous cartoon genie.

And yet it works: When the puzzles get tougher, the mellow background music makes it feel more like you’re chillaxing, as opposed to seriously flexing your cognitive problem-solving muscles.

Control Your Inner Genie

Before jumping into the first level proper, there’s a tutorial section. The tutorial explains the basics: By tapping and dragging, you control an orange ball moving through a labyrinth.

Your aim, in each level, is to collect the other balls dotted around the maze. The mazes are incredibly simple, and collecting the balls is achieved simply by colliding with them.

The real challenge is that the balls stick to your orange ball as you collect them; your shape grows and changes with each added ball. Maneuvering through the maze becomes tougher as you collect each ball, and forward planning is key to solving each puzzle.

Misadventures in the Maze

My sojourn through the freaky genie’s labyrinth hit a major roadblock, though. Closing the app to take a break, due to a tough level, I returned hours later to be sent back to the start of level one.

Apparently, Stuck Genie features no auto-save functionality. This means that to save, you have to exit the game by first pausing it and then clicking exit (which instigates a save). Simply tapping the iPhone’s Home button will exit, but it won’t save.

Furthermore, after working my way back to the tough level I’d been stuck on, I discovered that there’s no rest or rewind button. This is an all but essential feature for this genre of puzzle game.

To reset the level, you have to open the menu and select rewind; it doesn’t ruin the game, but it’s an oversight nonetheless. Far more preferable would be, say, tapping the genie to use a magical time-reversing crystal, or even just a plain old rewind/reset button.

Summing Up

There’s something about the cartoony yet ornate artwork, which, when melded with the Café del Mar-esque chill-out soundtrack make for a very mellow but challenging puzzler.

This mellow vibe is immensely important in Stuck Genie’s case, because some of the puzzles had me literally roaring with frustration — the good kind of frustration, though, when you know you’re being beat by a devious puzzle and you’ve just got to solve it.

Despite being so much fun from the off, the difficulty curve was unexpectedly steep. Nevertheless, fans of challenging puzzlers should download Stuck Genie and get stuck in immediately.

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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, even better, it’s a super selection of fresh picks, plucked from the App Store, especially for you.

But that’s not all I’ve got in store for you this weekend: After perusing the week’s happenings right here at TheAppleBlog, I’ve prepared a swift run-down of Apple news from the past seven days.

The folks over at Amazon kicked off the week by dropping an update to the Kindle for iPhone app. A few weeks back, Amazon acquired the company behind Stanza, the free e-Book reader. It seems as if Amazon is still pushing forward with the Kindle for iPhone app, rather than, as I would have expected, focusing its efforts, and considerable resources, on rolling Stanza and Kindle into one.

TheAppleBlog’s Henry Balanon helped melt away those Monday blues with a new iPhone Dev Sessions tutorial. For coders and tech-minded musicians alike, this should be a particularly interesting one, as Henry’s latest article is all about creating a drum machine app for iPhone.

On Tuesday, Microsoft launched a shot across the bow of Apple’s iPod, with its latest Zune advertisement. The ad features Apprentice-losing certified financial adviser Wes Moss, explaining why a Zune is much more of an economically savvy purchase than the iPod.

Perhaps signaling the end of the line for the iPhone 3G, Apple has now made it possible to purchase the device online. It’s the latest in a long line of what seems to be inventory-clearing tactics from Apple, making way for the rumored iPhone refresh this summer. Potential buyers should consider holding out for a possible iPhone announcement in the coming weeks.

Also this week, David Klein posted an excellent tutorial on setting up Google Sync for Mac and iPhone. This is essential reading, both for Gmail users looking to integrate their iPhone more closely with their Google account and for MobileMe users looking for a free alternative to Apple’s service.

Moving on to the picks, this week I’ve been looking at When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth, Guru Meditation, Resident Evil: Degeneration and Peggle.

When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth (free)
Blogger, journalist, author and super-smart guy, Cory Doctorow, has had one of his excellent short stories brought to the iPhone, courtesy of Robot Comics. The story centers around a bunch of sysadmins as chance survivors of a global apocalypse. Although the comic book reader software is incredibly bare-bones, it doesn’t matter, as the story makes for incredibly compelling reading. For fans of short science-fiction stories, this is a must-have app for the iPhone and well worth checking out over the weekend.

Guru Meditation (free)
Whether you use your iPhone for work or play, it’s just as important to get away from the incessant flow of e-mails and PDFs, zombie apocalypses and pachinko-esque puzzles. If you want to relax but just can’t seem to break away from your iPhone, Guru Meditation could be just the app you need. Created as an homage to an old mythical Amiga game, Guru Meditation could be considered a game in the loosest sense; it’s more a tool for encouraging relaxation and calm, albeit with a retro Atari-style look. To play, you simply find a quiet place, sit in a comfortable meditative position and then hold the iPhone still for as long as possible.

Resident Evil: Degeneration ($6.99)
If meditating isn’t your bag, though, and you’re just on the lookout for another zombie head to pop, this may be just the app for you. Capcom’s Resident Evil: Degeneration is an incredibly faithful addition to the long-running series, featuring excellent 3D graphics, shake and tilt to fend off zombies or reload, and, of course, a panoply of disgruntled undead folk to unleash your sweet gunnishment upon. It’s a deep, action-packed experience, certainly ideal for fans of the series, and, at the moment, this is as close to console gaming as the iPhone can get.

Peggle ($4.99)
We’re finishing up this week with Peggle — a pachinko-style puzzler, which is a genre that seems to be all the rage on the iPhone at the moment. Arguably one of the titles at the forefront of this genre, at least in the online casual gaming space, is PopCap’s Peggle. The iPhone version is astonishingly good value for money and an example of just how much of a better experience a little polish and attention to detail can bring. The game packs in 55 levels, various game modes, loads of score-modifiers, replays, and even an array of weird characters, all of whom give it an Adult Swim-lite vibe. Just like Rockchinko, which I reviewed earlier this week, it’s a brilliant game, but it could still do with downloadable levels and online connectivity.

That’s all the picks for this week. I’ll be back in seven days with more news from the week and picks from the App Store.

In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?

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A bag of metal balls, a rockabilly soundtrack, exploding pegs: Rockchinko is the pachinko machine from hell.

Harking back to the old American parlor game Corinthian Bagatelle, pachinko has captured the imagination, and yen, of Japan. While the game may not have invaded Western casinos, there’s a steady stream of pachinko apps arriving for the iPhone.

Rockchinko gives pachinko an injection of rock ‘n’ roll, featuring physics-defying tilting, plectrum powerups and tons of guitars across more than 40 levels.

Pinball Wizard

Breaking away from the seedy glitz and smokey fog of traditional pachinko parlors, Rockchinko restyles pachinko’s dated look for the rock generation — installing a twisted metal board coated in a neon glow.

The design can be a little inconsistent at times though, one moment shiny metal, the next pixellated skulls — it’s a messy milieu that floats between edgy and geeky.

Of course, there’s a rocking soundtrack too: Each stage is based on a different sub-genre, including blues, rockabilly and straight-up rock ‘n’ roll. Although none of the music seems to be directly licensed from well-known bands, à la Tap Tap Revenge, the music certainly captures the theme of the game.

Scales and Modes

There are three main game modes, two of which are initially locked and unavailable. To unlock the two game modes, you’ll have to complete Normal Mode — a feat that’ll only take a couple of hours at most for a new player.

Once Normal Mode has been beaten, Randomizer and Rock Mode are unlocked. Randomizer allows you to play through the array of stages on offer in Normal mode in a random order — it’s simple and effective, and revisiting even the early levels can still present a challenge to seasoned players.

The third game mode, Rockstar, contains a set list of brand-new stages to launch, tilt and turn through. The Rockstar stages blend together all the previous features and gameplay twists discovered in Normal Mode.

Everyone Can Play Guitar

The aim of each level is to destroy all the red pegs by bouncing your metal ball around the stage. The balls are fired from the funnel at the top of the screen, which can be adjusted by dragging side to side.

Tapping anywhere on the screen launches your shot and, once the ball is in play, the iPhone can be tilted, affecting the ball’s direction. With enough practice it’s possible to move the ball around the playing field, squeezing out each shot’s destructive potential.

There are obstacles, too, unlocked as you progress through Normal Mode. Windmills, moving platforms, and warp holes can prove formidable hindrances or useful tools, depending on your perspective. Also enhancing the puzzle aspect of the game is a range of effective powerups, from the tame Triple Ball to the impressive Flame Thrower and bombastic Mega Ball.

Destroying all but one red peg instantly throws the game into “Matrix”-esque slow-motion. The camera dramatically crash zooms on your ball and you’re given full control, even the ability to turn the iPhone upside down, sending your ball plummeting upwards and defying the laws of physics.

As your metal ball speeds across the screen, combusting any pegs it collides with, you’re thrown in to slow-mo for your coup de grâce. Oddly, this destructive slow-mo finale reminds me of Burn Out (the hyper-destructive crash and burn driving game) as it’s so exciting, needlessly dramatic, and satisfying.

Summing Up

Even with the levels I couldn’t beat on first try, I knew I could adjust my strategy, come back and keep advancing through the game. And that’s where Rockchinko introduces depth. You’ll need to be strategic, planning out your shots and tilts before hand, for each stage.

There’s still work that needs to be done, though. It needs more stages, online scoring, and some kind of competitive element. Plus the load times are abominable. However, the main game is executed almost perfectly. It’s incredibly satisfying, so much fun, and has consistently left me wanting more after every session.

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