The game, a mobile massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) called Please Stay Calm, makes its debut today in the App Store, though only in Canada for now; Massive Damage is cutting its teeth in the Canadian market in preparation for an October U.S. launch. But the new game is worth a look no matter where you happen to live, because it uniquely combines location and personalization with tried and tested models of iPhone gaming success.

A unique twist on success

At its core, Please Stay Calm bears some strong similarities to games such as World War and Crime City. All the games use a store of energy that refreshes over time and can be spent to accomplish things or take action, like engage in combat, for example.

Please Stay Calm tweaks this, making it much more social through global in-game chat and a clever system whereby players (who take on the role of zombie apocalypse survivors) work together to fight off the undead threat. Also unique to Please Stay Calm is a strong focus on location; the game detects your real-life surroundings using the iPhone’s geolocation services, allowing you to set up a defensive bunker in your local Starbucks, for instance.

Massive Damage CEO and Co-Founder Ken Seto told me that the “core of [the] game is centered on providing a truly local social experience.” He says that “people have an affinity for their favorite spots like cafes, bars and even their offices.”

The major appeal of Please Stay Calm, according to Seto, is that “being able to upgrade a real-life location like your office as the biggest baddest safehouse in your city is quite the feeling.” In this way, the location-based elements of Please Stay Calm sound a bit like Foursquare’s mayor mechanism, except that you invest virtual resources, as well as time in a specific place in order to take control of it.

Location: more than just background

Location is about more than just where you do your zombie-fighting in Please Stay Calm. Seto also points out that “characters you run into in the game are local, and you’ll see them in-game time and time again.” City- and safehouse-specific chat will also soon be added, in addition to the global chat option that currently exists. Also, players near your location, and even “non-player Foursquare users automatically help you out if you’re fighting off the zombie hordes in the same location as them,” Seto says.

It’s exactly the kind of rich use of location mechanics that Ryan Kim recently suggested might be the way forward for mobile location services, but in this case, those added value features are extending, rather than replacing the gaming paradigm.

Blended revenue models to suit different tastes

Please Stay Calm is free to play, but uses in-app purchases to allow players to enhance their experience if they wish. The freemium model employed by Massive Damage for this game is designed to “allow people to spend as little or as much as they like,” according to Seto.

The game’s in-app purchases allow you to buy credits, which can then be used to upgrade items and locations. You can also earn credits in other ways, too, and the game does a good job of striking the right balance so that players don’t feel obligated to spend money. There’s also a clever secondary means of earning credits; players can opt to view 10-second videos (essentially advertisements) in exchange for free credits. Seto says they went with this approach because it keeps the app ad-free, while also providing a way for those unwilling to spend on in-app purchases to experience some of the advantages of the game’s freemium model.

For mobile gamers looking for something that takes advantage of the unique abilities of smartphone devices, instead of just making compromises regarding what iOS lacks, Please Stay Calm is an ideal title. Massive Damage also promises episodic content packages, with more cinematics, missions, zombies and weapons coming in at least 10 free chapter upgrades, so the action shouldn’t get stale. Also, the game features tons of great-looking original artwork that gives Please Stay Calm its own unique feel. If you’re Canadian, check it out now. If you’re not, mark your calendars for October and try to be patient.

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Facebook and Twitter share links are kind of a weird addition, if you ask me. Are people really all that likely to want to share basic information about available Apple products along with links for where to purchase them? I can see people maybe using it to brag about an upcoming purchase, but that’s about it. But it is something that’s been in place at the iTunes Store for a while now, and I suppose if even some people tweet or post about Apple products to their wall, the links will have done their job.

As mentioned, so far, these drop-down menus are only appearing for Mac Pro and iPod classic models. It’s possible that the role out was stopped midway, if it somehow contributed to the store outage, which web performance monitoring firm Catchpoint told GigaOM via email was network-related.

We’ll keep watching to see if these appear throughout the store, and let us know if you spot them anywhere else, too.

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1. Setup Facebook and Flickr albums in iPhoto

This is actually a tip for your Mac, but it makes it much easier to share photos to Facebook and Flickr if you set up Events in iPhoto ’11 that you can dump content to in bulk. Using uploading apps on the iPhone itself usually works best if you’re only doing one photo at a time, and if you’re on vacation, that can get annoying very fast. Connecting your social accounts in iPhoto will make it much easier to create organized albums on Facebook and Flicker with only a couple of clicks.

To set up your services, just go to iPhoto’s Preferences and click on Accounts:

2. Add bookmarklets to mobile Safari for social sharing

Soon you’ll be able to tweet right from within Safari using the native iOS share button, but for now, tweeting links while browsing on a mobile device can be a frustrating procedure if you’re using a standard copy/paste method. Instead, you can use bookmarklets (which are basically bookmarks that perform a function) in mobile Safari to share on Twitter, or on Facebook and Tumblr, too. Check out those, and many other useful bookmarklets, complete with full instructions, over at Digital Inspiration.

3. Get all the primary apps

The iPhone is well-represented when it comes to social network apps. The Facebook app just got a small update to fix bugs and improve performance, and the Tumblr app was updated earlier this week, and now has a completely redesigned interface that’s perfect for mobile sharing. Twitter on the iPhone is a solid client, but there are many third-party options available, too, like the uniquely designed Tweetbot. There’s also a Flickr app , and of course Instagram, which is quickly becoming the default network for sharing pictures on an iPhone. You’d be surprised at how much more likely you are to use these services just by having their native apps on your device.

4. See content recommendations from Facebook in Safari

Want so see some content reading and viewing selections from your Facebook friends without ever leaving your browser? The Recommend browser extension (really a bookmarklet like those described above) by Bob Hitching will let you call up a window that shows you what people in your network on Facebook are recommending most. It can be a little hit or miss, but it does surface some interesting content.

5. Use cross-service sharing apps

You can use Dropico, a service that provides one-stop shopping for photo sharing across networks like Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, Twitter and Tumblr, to cut down considerably on the time it takes to participate in multiple networks, and even apply effects prior to sharing. Likewise, Gowalla can check-in to multiple location-based networks, including Foursquare, Facebook Places and Gowalla itself, all through one app.

iOS 5 will really up the game for iPhone social sharing, and it looks like Google+ might help as well, although initial reaction appears to be split, likely because of Google’s spotty track record with social services (remember Wave?). But if you want your device to be a better tool for engaging with others, there’s no reason to wait when so many choice tools are available right now.

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Google+

Huddle is Google’s mobile group chat service, and probably stands the chance of being the most similar to what Apple’s got on offer with its upcoming iMessage. But it’s designed around a very different type of messaging. You can organize contacts into groups and automatically message across those groups with a simple tap in Huddle, but it resides within Google Plus, and isn’t integrated with your device’s text messaging app. iMessage will serve as a communication tool for impromptu conversations with one or more people, and all the functions people normally accomplish through text and MMS. Huddle looks like it will appeal more to work teams and other more formally organized groups, and will work for the kind of event planning people do with groups of friends on Facebook right now.

Instant Upload and Photo Stream actually have very little in common, and make clear the different guiding principles behind Google’s new product and Apple’s offerings. Instant Upload is for sharing with a wide audience; Photo Stream is for keeping your media organized on devices either you or your close family owns. It’s the same with FaceTime and Hangouts: One is about one-on-one communication between relatively close contacts, while the other is about casting a wider net for a totally different kind of interaction. These could butt heads down the road if FaceTime implements group chat, but even so, FaceTime will likely be used in different contexts, like for catching up with mom and grandma at the same time, where Hangouts could be used for book club meeting, for example.

Google has said there’s an iOS app in the works for Google+, and even the current HTML5, web-based, front end looks great (as it should, thanks to former Apple interface designer Andy Hertzfeld) and works really well on iOS devices, according to my colleague Mathew Ingram. It’s clear Google wants to reach out to as many as possible with Google+, and Apple should bend over backwards to make that happen, because as the name implies, this new social product does nothing but add to the social appeal of iOS and the iPhone.

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Exfm is the free iPhone client for an existing service that started life off as ExtensionFM, a Chrome extension that lets you grab and build playlists out of free MP3s posted to blogs. It also lets you both listen to those and share them on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks.

The iOS app doesn’t let you collect music tracks itself, but it does grab songs you mark as “noted” using the Chrome extension, letting you play them back on your iPhone via streaming over Wi-Fi and 3G.

Exfm scratches a couple of itches that Ping doesn’t: It doesn’t depend entirely on users having a strong network to function, since it gathers tracks for your consideration from music blogs, and it also actually lets you play music from your built-in iPod app and “note” those songs, which means you can share your musical tastes with your social network contacts as you listen.

One of Ping’s greatest weaknesses is that it doesn’t plug in to a user’s actual music library or let her use it easily while she’s listening to music. If I have to go to my library, find the track I’m hearing, and mark it as Liked in the desktop version of iTunes, most of the time I’m not going to bother. If, on the other hand, I can just unlock my iPhone (where I do the vast majority of my music listening, anyway) and, using a single tap, recommend a track, I’m much more likely to participate.

To be fair, Apple did introduce the ability to Like and post comments about songs in the iPod app in iOS 4.3, but it works with tracks purchased from the iTunes Store, which leaves a lot of uncovered ground for many users. Exfm works with anything in your library, and it connects you to Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm friends in addition to those who also use Exfm.

Apple partnering with Twitter to make iOS more generally social is a good idea. If Exfm’s early efforts with its iPhone app are any indication, Cupertino should think about cutting its losses with Ping and teaming up with theses guys to shore up that side of its mobile business, too.

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Basically, WITH lets you tag another Twitter user (or users), and optionally take a photo of or with said user, then post it to both the WITH network and Twitter itself. You can also like the posts of other users, and use free and premium (available through in-app purchase) filters to add Instagram-style effects to the photos you include. The more you check in with specific people, the higher they rise in your profile. If you get close enough with friends through multiple check-ins, you can receive “special benefits,” according to Path. You can also follow and unfollow people on WITH, independent of whether or not you follow them on Twitter. There’s also a with.me web-based presence for the app, although at the moment it just points you to the App Store.

WITH is more useful than Path, because it doesn’t have any arbitrary limit to the size of your network. But WITH is also far more dependent on Twitter than Path, or Instagram, which is probably closer in concept. That’s a strength because it lets you sign on quickly and easily (you do have to provide your email in addition to your Twitter credentials, so it isn’t quite one step), but it also means that in many ways, WITH feels like a cool user-created feature for Twitter, rather than an independent, standalone product. Twitter’s @ replies and hashtags started out from similar, albeit more organic, roots.

WITH seems a little rough around the edges (figuring out how to post took a little while to figure out; it’s the person icon at the bottom in case you were wondering), but it seems like a more generally appealing product than Path. Plus, now that Apple has announced system-wide integration for Twitter in iOS 5, the fact that it relies on Twitter for its existence might not be such a bad thing, though Twitter itself is racking up a nasty reputation when it comes to playing nice with outside devs. We could see more apps like WITH betting heavy on Twitter now that it has the Cupertino seal of approval, however, so we’ll have to wait and see how the social network handles more attempts to exploit its services.

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Instagram

Yes, it’s the one with the hipstery faux-vintage effects. Instagram is also the one that seems to get the most press, and it’s also where you’re most likely to run into people you already know from other social networking services. It’s also iPhone-only at the moment, which adds tons of snob appeal for the Apple faithful like me.

Possibly because the Instagram app is iPhone-only, it has some great features you won’t necessarily find in the other apps in this roundup. As mentioned, it comes with a bunch of filters that you can apply right after snapping your photo. These mimic the cheap plastic cameras you can get at Urban Outfitters, which themselves mimic old-school film photography techniques and hardware. If you’d rather not use them, you can always go naked, but Instagram does automatically crop your image to a square picture.

What I really like about Instagram is the variety of sharing options it provides. You can share to Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr and Foursquare, and you can tag your posts with both a title and location. Your share settings will be remembered for next time, but you can mix and match as you please with each post. Other users can both comment on and like your photos in Instagram, which really reinforces the social aspect of the app.

I also really like the Popular section, where you can view a sampling of photos from users you don’t necessarily follow that other users are really digging. Contact discovery tools that let you find friends from your on-device contact list, Facebook or Twitter friends round out the package.

A warning: if you absolutely can’t stand grungified images created with lomo-style filters, you won’t enjoy using Instagram. Sure, you could share your own images undoctored, but virtually everyone else will be using those effects, no matter what your personal preference.

Burstn

This is a very recent addition to the field. As with Instagram, you can like and comment on pictures, and view photos that are popular even from users you don’t follow. But it isn’t a carbon copy, and that’s a good thing.

Burstn lacks the photo filters that are Instagram’s bread and butter, which makes the appeal of the app quite different. For instance, I like looking at the photos from people I don’t know in Instagram more, since they tend to be somewhat artsy shots just shared for their aesthetic merits. With Burstn, the photos tend to be much more like an actual photo album shared with friends, since they maintain their original aspect ratio and usually depict either a person or a place with a little more of a narrative edge. Of course, you can also edit your photos with an outside app first, then share them with Burstn.

Like Instagram, Burstn also lets you mine your Twitter and Facebook contacts for friends, and share to those services. Unlike Instagram, though, Burstn doesn’t provide Flickr, Tumblr and Foursquare sharing. You also can’t check-in to a location when posting, though your images are geo-tagged when taken with your iPhone’s camera.

Bottom line: Though Burstn doesn’t have quite the reach of Instagram, it’s a nice alternative if you prefer unfiltered images and don’t have extensive sharing needs. Also, the app icon is really cool.

Path

Path is about even with Instagram in terms of buzz lately. It’s the new photo sharing app that limits you to just 50 connections. Hey, if Twitter hit it big with constraint (140 characters), why not extend the concept and see if it works?

Like Burstn, Path wants you to share your photos in their original form, without filters. It doesn’t even let you upload images from your on-device library, instead providing access exclusively to the iPhone’s camera, which makes sense for the intimate feel of photos shared among close friends Path is going for.

That intimacy comes at a price. There are no popular or public images to browse with Path. You’re limited to seeing what you and your up to 50 friends have taken. Even in the “Explore” tab, where I thought I might have access to other photos, you only get to see pictures you and your friends have taken, though they are displayed on a map, which is a pretty neat feature.

True to its aim of keeping your network close, Path doesn’t offer much in the way of contact discovery tools. Basically, it searches your address book, or lets you add people by email address. I think that’s appropriate, given the intent of the app.

My biggest complaint with Path is the inability to comment on or offer feedback on other’s posted pictures. I understand that with only 50 contacts, you probably know these people enough to just speak to them, but then why bother with a social network at all? Why not just show them the picture on your smartphone the next time you see them, or post to Facebook where they can comment and view on a mobile device?

Path works best for those super-concerned with privacy, and who have an interest in building and maintaining more of a local network thanks to its map-based Explore feature.

picplz

This new kid feels a lot like Instagram and Burstn, and comes complete with Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare sharing options, although it doesn’t do Flickr or Tumblr. Unlike other apps, it provides an option to automatically follow your Facebook contacts, which is a nice time-saver.

You can like and comment on any picture, and view both images that are in your network or just “interesting” picks from across the picplz userbase. Stats junkies will love that you can also see how many views any photo has received, including your own and any posted by any other user. picplz also uses these stats to organize photos by popularity, a viewing option when you zoom in on any user profile.

picplz also mirrors Instagram in that it allows you to use filters on your photos. There’s a smaller selection of choices, but the app maintains the original aspect ratio of your photo and doesn’t add a border, so it may be a nice middle ground for people who want to spruce up their images a bit, but don’t like Instagram’s heavy-handed approach. You can also choose an image from your device’s photo library if you’d rather do that.

Of all the apps, picplz has the least appealing user interface. It seems almost like a very basic bottom menu bar overlaid on a web app in terms of how it loads and behaves. It seems much slower to respond to any command than a native iOS app should be.

However, if it’s a popularity contest you’re after, picplz fits the bill. The ability to see both likes and the number of photo views makes this the perfect app for the traffic-obsessed, and positions pretty much directly opposite Path on the photo sharing app spectrum.

Conclusion

So there you have it: four fine contenders to scratch your mobile photo-sharing needs. Each has its strong points and its downsides, but for my money, either Instagram or Burstn are best suited to the task, depending on whether you fall into the pro- or anti-filter camp. Let us know your favorite in the comments.

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This is the ultimate roundup of essential apps for your iPhone from 2009.

Best Game: Rolando 2: Quest for the Golden Orchid

The sequel to 2008′s Rolando expands on the tilt ‘n’ swipe platforming action of the original. This time round, we’re brought an entire troupe of colorful Rolando characters to protect, alongside a tropical island inhabited by new baddies and a lost Rolando tribe. The artwork is gorgeous, the gameplay is excellent and, thanks to NGMoco’s Plus+ awards system, it’s got bags of replay value too.

Runners-Up Best Game: Gangstar: West Coast Hustle, Doodle Jump

Best Social & Communications App: Tweetie 2

Having formed his own development studio after working at the Cupertino campus, Loren Brichter has established himself as one of the premier App Store developers. Brichter’s skill is feeding his experience at Apple into his apps, Twitter client Tweetie 2 is an impressive showcase of his ability to distill a feature-rich experience into an app with a clear user interface. The app also rolls in a few unexpected new features including video tweeting, profile management and improved location-based searches.

Runners-Up Best Social Communications App: Skype, foursquare

Best Use of Push Notifications: Boxcar

Despite the arrival of push notifications on iPhone earlier this year, it’s still taking many developers time to implement these handy pop-up notifiers in their apps. There’s no push for most Twitter clients, no Facebook push and not even native email push from Apple. Boxcar is the missing push notifier for your favorite apps. The app includes push for Twitter, email, Facebook, RSS and even Growl.

Runners-Up Best Use of Push Notifications: NotifyMe, Ping!

Best News App: Byline

Under the hood, the app updates with the latest news in seconds, syncing happily with Google Reader. Unlike other news readers, while Byline is updating with the latest news, you’re able to keep browsing articles without suffering from any lag. It’s certainly not the most feature-rich news reader, but Byline brings together a clean interface with a robust RSS reader.

Runners-Up Best News App: The Guardian, Newstand

Best Use of Content: NFB Films

The National Film Board of Canada have brought a vast quantity of their video content to the iPhone, all of it wrapped in an easy-to-use free app. There are over a thousand videos available to browse, soak up and send to friends: from documentaries and animations to shorts and trailers for forthcoming releases.

Runners-Up Best Use of Content: McSweeney’s, Panelfly

Best Video App: ReelDirector

Apple may be stalling on bringing iMovie to the iPhone, but that’s nothing to worry about thanks to ReelDirector. With it’s powerful features, the app enables you to edit video footage into your own shorts before sending your latest amateur epic to your friends. In particular, the selection of high quality video transitions really add to the wow effect.

Runners-Up Best Video App: UStream Live Broadcaster, iTimeLapse

Best Photography App: Photoforge

Just like ReelDirector brings video editing to the iPhone, PhotoForge does the same for your photography. First-time users will be drawn to the impressive array of filters on offer, including Blur, Tilt Shift, Simulated HDR and Lomo. Once you’ve got to grips with the filters, there’s also a selection of Photoshop-style tools, including smudge, clone and brushes in a variety of shapes.

Runners-Up Best Photography App: Flickr, QuadCamera

Best Sound App: I Am T-Pain

The year’s most over-used and perhaps abused audio-effect, the auto-tune, has landed on iPhone as Smule’s I Am T-Pain. The app essentially makes even the most cat-screechingly awful singer sound as perfectly tuned as Kanye West. Most importantly, you’ll need absolutely no musical ability to have fun with this brilliant sound toy.

Runners-Up Best Sound App: Mujik, Touch DJ

Best Productivity Tool: NotifyMe

If you’re all about organization and productivity, NotifyMe will keep up-to-date with your task list. Thanks to a sleek user interface and ultra-fast startup time, there’s very little friction between you and the app, meaning you can be entering tasks and then getting back to work in moments. When it’s time to get a task done, the app will send you a push notification, plus there’s even a snooze option (perfect for habitual procrastinators).

Runners-Up Best Productivity Tool: Quickoffice, Pastebot

Best Lifestyle App: Jamie Oliver’s 20 Minute Meals

Jamie Oliver brings cooking to the iPhone and true to his style, the entire app is friendly, fun and approachable. There are currently 55 delicious recipes in the app, each one can be whipped up in 20 minutes. To help you along the way, in addition to a range of quick kitchen tutorials recorded by Jamie himself, there’s an interactive shopping list tool and portion calculator.

Runners-Up Best Lifestyle App: Couch to 5K, I Am Safe

Best Utility: Dropbox

The Dropbox service brought off-site backup to the masses. On the desktop, it runs in the background, securing your files and even letting you share them with friends, colleagues and clients with a couple of quick clicks. Although long-awaited, the iPhone app didn’t disappoint. You can browse your Dropbox using the app, plus share files and even save specific content to your iPhone for quick access.

Runners-Up Best Utility: OpenMaps, TimeTuner

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If you are new to chatting, the three major players in the market are AIM, Yahoo and Microsoft (what market are they not part of?). While AIM remains at the top of the mountain (offering great integration for MobileMe customers), rival Yahoo is making it harder for users to stay attached to AIM’s service. For those who aren’t completely satisfied with what AIM has to offer, Yahoo! Messenger is a great alternative or supplement and is a bit more robust, with support for adding users of Microsoft’s MSN Messenger service.

Yahoo has been vocal about its dedication to the iPhone platform, and its support is appreciated and apparent. Unlike AIM, Yahoo! Messenger for the iPhone also supports sending/receiving photos via your built-in camera. It also exists as a free application, and isn’t cluttered with ads like AIM’s free counterpart. Several unique features of Yahoo! Messenger are also supported, including its popular “Buzz!” feature. In true iPhone style, you activate it by simply shaking your phone.

If you are someone who enjoys chatting with users who do not use either service, Yahoo! Messenger also features the ability to send messages to mobile users over SMS, saving iPhone users from SMS charges (similar to AIM).

Having used both AIM and Yahoo! Messenger on my iPhone, I’m a bit biased towards Yahoo’s offering. With better support for seamlessly moving between mobile and desktop use (actually forcing me to sign off my desktop), this keeps me from “losing” messages in one location, unlike AIM. During testing, I kept inadvertently leaving AIM “signed on” on my iPhone and messages were being routed there, instead of showing up in iChat, on which I was logged in as well.

Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone is a free download on the App Store. Check it out and let us know what you think!

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ngmoco’s Plus+

The company who dazzled your iPhone with hits like Rolando, Rolando 2, Topple (my favorite) and others, recently introduced their service called Plus+. This service allows users to challenge your friends on the network (or via Twitter) and track awards and top scores on leaderboards.

For more information, check out Darrell’s review of the service. From what I have been able to find, the Plus+ service is not open to outside developers at this time.

OpenFeint

If you are a fan of Aurora Feint, you’ve likely heard of their social gaming service called OpenFeint. This service allows users to interact similarly to Plus+, but is based around a concept they call “social discovery.” Some unique features to OpenFeint-enabled games include chat rooms for more open social discussion, the ability to see what other OpenFeint-enabled games your friends might be playing (and buy them from within the app), and the largest user base of games supporting its service, with over 100 games based on OpenFeint.

For developers, if you’re interested in integrating OpenFeint into your next masterpiece, its SDK is free to try and is available here. The size of your user base, or if an app is paid vs. free, determines the cost per user for developers to integrate OpenFeint’s service into their applications.

Scoreloop

Another service to enter this market is Scoreloop, a company and service formed by previous Apple and NeXT employees. Scoreloop is based around the simple objectives of global high scores and player challenges. Much like the other services, it also features integration with social networks such as Facebook, and allows for custom avatars and personalized profiles for tracking records and high scores. Scoreloop’s “economy” is based around coins, which helps to provide a unified scoring system between games, allowing users to maintain their collection of coins and gain or lose more via challenging other players.

While perhaps not as fully featured as other services, like OpenFeint, Scoreloop is, however, the first to announce that it is working to release its service on other devices, such as the Android platform. With a larger target market and a cheaper cost of entry for developers, Scoreloop could easily become more popular than OpenFeint (not to mention it’s user interface is more customizable to fit your application). For developers interested in Scoreloop, check out their free SDK here. Bug Landing, by the Scoreloop developers, is also a free application that features integration with this service.

Will one rise above the rest?

As Twitter became popular, we saw a plethora of competitors enter the market, from Plurk to Jaiku to Pownce. At the moment, a similar effect is starting to happen among these social networking services. Where on the console platform, each manufacturer has produced their own service, Apple has yet to bring any sort of unified service to its users. Since we all have an Apple ID for iTunes, Apple could easily integrate a beautiful solution so you can keep one central list of your gaming friends, awards and achievements.

Will Apple continue to stand by and allow multiple social gaming network services to evolve on the iPhone platform, or will they step in to offer their own service?

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Among console gaming fans, there is little doubt that Xbox Live is the current pinnacle of social online gaming. Sharing stats, matchmaking, ranked play, and messaging are all combined in a symphony of interactivity unmatched by the PS3, and certainly not by the Wii. Ngmoco wants to bring some of that social connectivity to iPhone gaming, and has thus launched Plus+.

Plus+ is initially launching only on Star Defense, an update to which is now live in the App Store with the added features. You can sign up for an account from within Star Defense, and registration is relatively painless. Plus+ is also one way to test out push notifications, if you’re looking for more apps that can handle the new iPhone OS 3.0 feature.

Services offered via Plus+ are game awards (like achievements or trophies on Xbox or PS3), leaderboards, a friends list and direct challenges. You can have two types of contacts in Plus+, followers and friends. The names might be familiar if you’re a Twitter user, and for good reason: They represent exactly the same types of relationships. Followers are people who’ve added you, but who you’ve not added, and Friends are people you’ve added yourself.

Push notifications come in when you complete a challenge map. Once you’ve lost your base, you have to option to Direct Challenge any of your Plus+ friends, which will send them a push notification making them aware of the fact. You can also issue an open challenge via Twitter.

I’m excited for what Plus+ will do for asynchronous multiplayer gaming on the iPhone platform. Hopefully Gameloft, EA and other major iPhone publishers will follow suit with gaming networks of their own. I have no friends yet, so I can’t tell if push notifications are working well. Add me and let’s tango, if you’re a Star Defense owner. My Plus+ name is in the screenshot.

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The Palm Pre is here, and while it hasn’t exactly felled the Goliath of Apple’s iPhone, it does have some features that are making iPhone users jealous. One is greater built-in social networking connectivity, including Facebook integration. The implementation of Facebook in Palm’s WebOS basically allows your Pre phone to store Facebook friend info in your address book, and then message those people directly from the phone.

Zynga wants Apple to make a similar move towards greater Facebook connectivity with the iPhone, but the game company has different motives, and very different integration goals as a result. Specifically, Zuora is looking for Apple to implement a platform-wide solution for a feature that it currently builds into each of its individual apps: Facebook Connect access.

Facebook Connect, for those who don’t know, allows users to enter their Facebook credentials to log into an app (web or otherwise) for a variety of purposes, including commenting on forums, and game score tracking and cross-platform integration. So, in Zynga’s case, for instance, it allows your Word Scramble scores on your iPhone and your Scramble scores on Facebook to be tracked across both.

Zynga clearly has a good reason, then, to want Apple to bake Facebook Connect right into the iPhone platform, since its users would then be saved the extra step of having to sign in every time they download and play a new Zynga game. It probably wouldn’t take much effort on Apple’s part to include the service, especially compared to the work required by game makers like Zynga to include it each and every time they produce a game. Including a Facebook Connect API would be much more efficient from a developer’s perspective.

While it makes lots of sense for companies in the social casual gaming sense like Zynga to push FB Connect integration, does it make sense from Apple’s perspective? If the benefits of inclusion only appeal to the relatively narrow audience of regular Zynga players who use both Facebook and iPhones, I doubt Apple will go out of its way to come up with a platform-wide solution on its side of things.

But the potential of Facebook Connect, or Google Friend Connect for that matter, could appeal to a much broader audience than just social game devs. Because FB Connect leverages the power of your social networking sites in the context of virtually any web-connected application, the possibilities that present themselves when you combine this tech with a device as prolific and app-oriented as the iPhone are endless. In theory, you could then have one cohesive identity for all web, phone, and app usage, all from your smartphone, where it makes sense, as opposed to on a computer, where that kind of access would present much more of a security concern.

Apple has to go somewhere from iPhone OS 3.0, and unlike the release of 2.0, user complaints and requests aren’t so deafening as to point the way (read the last paragraph, especially) for future feature inclusions. Facebook Connect integration is fertile ground, especially if one of Apple’s goals is to continue appealing to developers in new and interesting ways. Plus, Palm dropped the gauntlet on greater social network connectivity. Time to pick it up.

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Get your tweet on and shake your verbs, Tweetie — the much-celebrated iPhone Twitter client — has hit the Mac OS X desktop.

As regular readers will know, I adore my iPhone and I’m an avid tweeter. A few months back, I weighed the options and, despite there being an array of free alternatives, the iPhone version of Tweetie, available for $2.99, was my favorite Twitter client.

Over on Twitter there’s been some serious buzz surrounding the release of the desktop version of Tweetie. Available now, either for $14.99 or as a free ad-supported version, Tweetie for Mac blends a streamlined user interface with a host of essential features, including multiple account support, threaded conversations, URL shortening and image uploads.

From iPhone to Desktop

Every seasoned Twitter user’s stream is more akin to a flood of data: names, links, descriptions, useful posts, phatic musings and more. Opening Tweetie for the first time, the most immediately noticeable and pleasing aspect of this desktop application is the streamlined interface.

The main Tweetie window takes up but a slither of screen real estate. Along the left of the window are the main navigation icons, including avatars for shifting through multiple accounts, and shortcuts to view @replies, DMs and more.

The top of the Tweetie window displays exactly where you are in a given thread — incredibly useful as a visual aid when drilling down through conversations and replies. The main body of the Tweetie window contains your stream, filtering out different information depending on which section you’re in.

Minimal & Sleek Looks

Tweetie’s streamlined approach to presenting and navigating the Twitterverse is also applied to the application’s aesthetic styling. Where Twhirl is garishly on-brand and Tweetdeck is a visual overload, Tweetie’s visual style is, despite the vast quantity of information, minimal and sleek.

Only the most essential icons are on display (other functions are accessed via right-clicking) and clicking through icons to navigate to different sections causes tweets to swish and slide around in an incredibly satisfying way.

Individual tweets keep the visual clutter to a minimum. Alongside the message itself and @reply button, the user’s profile picture and name is presented. Setting aside the @reply button, clicking a username within the message body takes you to that user’s stream, alternatively, double-clicking the profile picture takes you directly to the user’s Twitter stream.

When new tweets arrive, Tweetie’s OS X menu bar icon glows blue, while within the app, updated streams are marked with helpful blue dots. Of course, it all seems so obvious, but that’s because navigating Tweetie is intuitive — allowing you to breeze through conversation threads with ease.

It’s worth noting that the ad-supported free download of Tweetie drops an ad into your stream every hour. The ads genuinely don’t intrude or impede your tweeting: They look good and appear rarely, for $14.99, though, you’re able to order a registration code to disable them.

Getting The Message Across

At the bottom left of the main Tweetie window is the compose button. It seems odd to place the button for such an oft-used function so out of the way from the main application interface. Although you can access the same function via the Command-N keyboard shortcut, the tiny button feels totally disjointed from the actual application.

The tweet composer opens up in a separate window, meaning that the integrity of Tweetie’s sleek ‘n’ chic design isn’t impacted. Plus, you’re able to focus on writing your 140 character musing without distraction from the main stream.

The composer window also packs in a broad range of tweet-enhancing features. For starters, users with multiple accounts can select from which account they would like to send the tweet. If your tweet is over 140 character, Tweetie offers to post via Twitlonger. Plus, via a dropdown menu, you’re able to automagically shorten URLs or add an image.

The latter function can also be accessed by simply dragging and dropping an image into the compose window. When you click the Post button, Tweetie will then upload the image to a Twitter image hosting service — you can choose from Imageshack’s YFrog, TwitPic, Twitgoo, or Posterous.

The selection of URL-shortening services to choose from is excellent. All the usual suspects are there — TinyURL, Is.gd and Tr.im — but there’s also feature-rich Bit.ly and URL-squishing newcomer Diggbar.

Bit.ly is my shortener of choice, however there’s no account integration for the service. This means there’s no simple way for me to track a specific link and gather stats such as number of visitors over a given period. Although I’m not as familiar with Diggbar, I’d imagine that users of Digg’s fledgling URL shortener may be hankering for account integration, too.

There are a few outstanding issues with tweeting, though. For starters, prolific tweeters may be dismayed to discover that there’s no drafts functionality. Furthermore — and this is a major issue for me — there doesn’t seem to be a method for deleting tweets once you’ve posted them.

Navigating the Twitterverse

Finding your way through the torrent of tweets is rendered effortless with Tweetie. Alongside the intuitive click and double-click features mentioned earlier, it’s also possible to navigate the Twitterverse via a variety of keyboard shortcuts — a real time-saving boon for power users.

Hash tags are clickable, too, instigating an immediate search for the tag. The search section also incorporates trending topics, however it’s executed in an incredibly obtuse way — clicking the magnifying glass icon on the search page brings up a list of currently trending topics. Clicking one of the topics in the list instigates a search. For such an important feature it’s all but hidden and clunky to access.

There are also a few other features missing which, although I tried, it was difficult to adapt to life without them. For starters, there’s no refresh button on the main tweet stream. As such, users hoping to refresh regularly will find it frustrating to have to use the Command-Shift-R shortcut, or simply wait for an auto-refresh.

I was also surprised to discover that Tweetie doesn’t support groups, allowing you to place users in different categories and filter through your tweets. It’s a feature that, when viewing and organizing your contacts in such depth, would have been perfect for the desktop version of Tweetie.

Moving on, the way in which Tweetie renders profile pages follows suit with the rest of the app with a clear design, integrating core features with a couple of useful twists. Stats such as updates, favorites, followers and bio are all on display, accessed in more detail via a quick click.

Clicking the cog icon on the profile page opens a menu with options to @reply, DM, or follow the user. Most useful, though, is that Tweetie clearly tells you if this user is following you. Such an unexpected feature, yet so obvious in retrospect and, especially for social networking via Twitter, inherently useful.

I’ll Get Back To You

The mentions page, represented by the @ button on the left side of the Tweetie interface, works just like Twitter’s own mention page — grabbing any instance of your @username from the Twitterverse. You can even double-click a message to view the conversation thread in full, however this feature seems a little haphazard. It’s still not entirely clear to me when Tweetie will actually display a conversation thread; sometimes a double-click just loads that single message on its own.

Although there’s a reply button on all tweets, there are no dedicated buttons for DM, repost or favorite. Instead, right-clicking the message body brings up a menu with a variety of options: reply, repost, copy link to tweet, direct message, mark as favorite and open in browser. This isn’t ideal, though, as it’s preferable that frequently used functions — such as DM and repost — have a dedicated button.

The DM section breaks with Tweetie’s overall styling. First, there’s an instant messenger-style conversation overview page, displaying links to all your active DM-exchanges in chronological order. Clicking through brings up an iChat-style page, featuring back and forth tweets in text bubbles. It looks strange and certainly feels out of place but, setting aside the aesthetic, works correctly.

Summing Up

Tweetie’s success is that it simplifies what could be a complex experience — dealing with a Titanic stream of incoming information and interacting with a multitude of other users. Just like its little brother on iPhone, the application is visually streamlined and loads quickly.

There are drawbacks though: there’s a missing refresh button, no method for deleting tweets, the compose button needs to be integrated more clearly with the overall design and, although it’s not essential, the next version of Tweetie will ideally incorporate organizing contacts in to groups.

But these few issues don’t impact on the overall experience of Tweetie, an app that incorporates a wealth of features for the seasoned tweeter and yet is inviting and easy to pick up for Twitter newcomers. Twitter users looking for a well-designed, feature-rich client should certainly download Tweetie today.

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Learn to play the leaf trombone, perform your repertoire before a global audience, and prepare to be judged.

Since the App Store’s launch last year, Smule has been steadily building an impressive portfolio of sound-based social apps for the iPhone. With Dr. Ge Wang — an assistant professor in Music and Acoustics — at the helm, among a smattering of clever and fun sonic toys, their biggest hit to date has been the multi-award winning Ocarina.

Smule’s latest app, Leaf Trombone: World Stage, is a social musical instrument designed specifically for the iPhone. Players can download new songs and perform before a judging panel of other leaf trombonists.

Leaf Your Troubles Behind

In terms of igniting the musical imagination of touch and iPhone owners around the world, Smule’s standout moment has been the creation of Ocarina. The app is an enchanting recreation of the palm-size wind instrument, incorporating several features that take advantage of the iPhone’s tech to connect instrumentalists around the world.

Leaf Trombone: World Stage takes the wind instrument concept even further than before. For musical beginners, Ocarina was a serious toughie, whereas playing the leaf trombone is a breeze for musicians and fresh starters alike.

There are two methods for tooting on your leaf trombone. For beginners, there’s touch mode. Simply tapping and holding on one of the vertical note-markers plays the note. Advanced players can take it further by blowing in to the iPhone microphone — ideal for adding nuance to a performance.

Song Selection

Despite having just been released, there’s already a stack of tunes ready to toot in the song library. The selection on offer is constantly growing, too, as Smule’s provided a song composition and submission platform on their site.

There’s something for everyone in the library. Classical picks like “Ave Maria” and “Auld Lang Syne” sit alongside rock and metal renditions, such as “Iron Man” and “Through The Fire And The Flames.” Notably, there are video game tunes in the mix, too, with several pieces from Legend of Zelda already on offer. The only major drawback with the library is that there’s no way to differentiate between pieces for beginners and more accomplished players.

If you’re familiar with rhythm action games like Rock Band or Tap Tap Revenge, it’s easy to get your fingers around performing the songs. Once the track begins playing, accompanied by a dainty Mario-esque music box, leaves begin floating towards the different note-markers. The note-markers glow when a leaf collides, meaning there’s a clear guide to playing the correct note at the correct time.

There is, like any musical instrument, an initial period of getting comfortable holding and touching the leaf trombone and familiarizing yourself with the interface. However, actually playing a complex score should be surprisingly intuitive, even for non-musicians.

World Stage – Judging & Performing

Fire up your leaf trombone for more than a few minutes and there’s a good chance that your solo soliloquy will be interrupted with an invite to be a judge on the World Stage. As a judge sitting on an “American Idol”-esque panel with two other players, picked from across the globe, you’ll critically appraise a fellow leaf trombonist’s performance.

Represented by three smiley-styled emoticons, the judging panel listens to the performance — posting comments and changing the emoticon to reflect opinion and mood. At the end of the song, you’re invited to score the performance and provide closing thoughts.

Playing the role of judge is an excellent twist on traditional multiplayer gaming. There’s something deliciously addictive and downright fun about judging — whether you’re praising, encouraging, or just laughing at someone’s trombone tooting.

Judging a performance also earns you Leaf Tokens, the currency of the budding Leaf Trombonist. Each performance on the World Stage costs one Leaf Token, an exceedingly cunning solution, on Smule’s part, to ensuring players are involved in both performing and judging, and also encouraging performers to practice a solo before playing online.

Performing works slightly differently compared to the judging. After selecting a song from the library, you’ll perform alone. Once you’ve completed your performance, the judging panel is then selected to appraise it — meaning you’re able to initially perform without being distracted by a shower of praise, or worse, an onslaught of criticism.

Summing Up

Leaf Trombone: World Stage is everything we’ve come to expect of Smule. The instrument part of the game draws non-musicians in — it’s so easy to get satisfying results and is enjoyable to play (plus endearingly individual with its comedic tooting and parping).

And it’s daring, too, linking players up for social fun a refreshing way: Being part of the judging panel is compelling fun and performing on the World Stage — and getting right — just feels good, too.

Leaf Trombone is a wonderful instrument and an incredibly accomplished social toy. Furthermore, like any musical instrument, it’s something that you’ll delight in playing and growing with over time. Smule’s ability to manifest pure gold out of a downright silly concept, earns this app TheAppleBlog Gold Award.

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It’s the weekend, traditionally a time for quiet contemplation of the freshest iPhone releases, welcome to the App Store Pick.

Hang on there one moment though because before we run headlong in to a stack of apps, we’ve got but a few moments to look at the latest happenings on TheAppleBlog this week.

First up, Neil Gaiman’s creepy Coraline just hit the App Store in eBook form. It’s available to download now for $5.99 but we’ve got four Coraline promo codes to giveaway. If you’d like to bag yourself a copy of Coraline, just drop a comment at the end of this post (and make sure to leave an address for us to email the code to), we’ll dish out the promo goodness on a first come first served basis.

Over in iTunes, HD movies are now available for sales and rental too. It’s great that we can reap all the benefits of HD via download, however the price point, $19.99, seems super expensive and thus utterly ill-considered to me. In other film-related news, in a rare publicity move, Apple has opened an official Twitter account, specifically for new trailers, check it out at twitter.com/itunestrailers. Those who doubt the account’s authenticity should check out the Apple Trailers site which now sports a Trailers on Twitter link.

None of this matters though when we consider the real Apple news this week: the long-awaited über-happening that was Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 event; and though they may be Jobless, that didn’t stop a flurry of rumor-mongering activity and excitement focused on the unveiling of the latest iPhone software update, arriving this Summer.

For me, it didn’t disappoint, while there’s still no mention of Flash coming to the iPhone, cut/copy/paste will finally arrive, as will MMS and push. There’s also an array of awesome new features beyond those must-haves. For instance, there’s the iPhone’s new Spotlight page — it brings search to the iPhone — meaning you can simultaneously hunt through contacts, messages, mail and music.

For developers, there’s some serious potential for advanced apps that the iPhone update’s APIs will bring. In particular, access to the iPod library for apps — potentially bringing an added dimension and layer of interactivity to our music collections: think Tap Tap Revenge creating new levels with your iTunes music library.

Moving on to the app picks, this week I’ve been looking at Nimbuzz, Yamanote Soundrop Lite, iGamesDev and Cardsnap.

Nimbuzz (free)
Over at GigaOm, Om Malik mentioned that he’s looking forward to checking out Nimbuzz, a super communication app that touts just about every major IM service, alongside VOIP too. On first look this app is undeniably impressive — setting up is quick and easy, even providing a degree of control over the buddy list — essential for users with tons of contacts over several services. The app looks and sound great too, even — quite unexpectedly — flipping in to landscape mode when needed. For me, and I suspect many others, this is an essential download and has already taken pride of place on my Home screen.

Yamanote Soundrop Lite (free)
I’ve got a soft spot for absurd apps that seem to slip in to the App Store, created by developers who seem to have no notion about who their target demographic might be. I think this is a good thing — it shows that there’s still a spirit of fun floating amidst the dirge of quick-buck, sound-fx apps and useless business tools. This app plays the music from various stations on what I think is a Japanese train-line. With its absurdly long twinkly melodies, this app is useless and cute and, as such, made me smile.

iGamesDev (free)
The concept behind this convoluted game of cards is fantastic. The app is intended as a witty critique of the iPhone game development. The game itself, though, is crazy complicated — resembling something more akin to The League of Gentlemen’s Go Johnny Go Go Go Go, with its nonsensical myriad rules. Unfortunately, the game ends up being amusing only because it’s ironic that this iPhone game about iPhone game development is so poorly coded.

Cardsnap ($9.99)
I’m always interested to know if the expensive apps are actually worth it or if the price is simply the developer’s wishful thinking. Cardsnap — an app for snapping images of business cards which are then processed server-side and synced to your address book — isn’t really worth the price but I imagine business-folk will buy it anyway. The big issue is that the iPhone camera immediately fails when it comes to taking pictures of business cards. The idea is great but the iPhone just ain’t up to it yet.

That’s all from the App Store for another seven days. I’ll return during the week with TheAppleBlog App Review and, as always, on Saturday with my Weekly App Store Picks.

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

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EventBox is an application created by The Cosmic Machine, which aims to provide one place from which to manage all your online social networking activity. It can ‘pack all your social networks in one box’.

I think that an application performing the function that EventBox aims to could certainly be very useful. There are a host of advantages to having several different websites all tied together, not merely the convenience of them ‘all being in once place’. The possibility of being able to move data between networks would be very welcome (integrating Facebook and Flickr photos, or having Pownce know all your Facebook contact details could be really useful).

At present, EventBox ties together six different social networks:

• Twitter – What are you doing?
• Facebook – Connect with the people around you.
• Flickr – Share your photos.
• Digg – Digg it. Get Dugg.
• Pownce – Send stuff to your friends.
• RSS – Content aggregation.
• Reddit – What‘s new online.

However, I’m not sure whether EventBox has quite perfected the ‘mix’ of different networks. There are many more networks which could really increase appeal, such as LinkedIn, Delicious, and countless others. In addition, I don’t really see RSS as a social network — more of a notification/news source, which seems slightly out of place amongst the other counterparts.

The User Interface

On the whole, the user interface to EventBox shows a very promising start. It fully utilizes some of the effects available in Leopard and goes a long way to providing a very usable and sleek-looking system. New updates ‘slide’ in-between existing content, fonts are well chosen and readable and content that you’ve already visited fades away into the background.

My only complaint about the user interface is a lack of a ‘loading’ icon or spinner, meaning there’s no way to know when the application is doing something and when it simply isn’t responding.

Improvements Needed

While EventBox seems to be a good concept, there are quite a few improvements which I’d need to see before it takes the place of using the websites themselves. First and foremost is the support of a wider range of networks. While I’m aware that this takes time from a development point of view, it’s needed for the application to really serve as a valid replacement.

Second, the functionality of certain applications is lacking over what could be put in place. The Facebook section, for instance, is able to only show status updates and photos. Compared to even the iPhone Facebook application, there is a lot of additional functionality which could be integrated in the final version.

The EventBox site heralds the fact that the app is in the early stages of development and new features are planned for the near future (including a ‘HUD’ style Twitteriffic display, which looks nice). I’ll certainly give EventBox another try as some of these new features are introduced. For now, however, I’ll be sticking with using the individual websites themselves.

EventBox is free to download and try for a few weeks and then it’s $15 to continue using it.

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