Macgasm

Usually when I get a game app sent my way, I never know what the game is, or what I should expect from it. When Need for Speed hit my inbox, I jumped all over it. Who doesn’t love a good racing game on your iPhone? That’s right—everybody loves them! They’re fun to play on a console and fun to play with a small hand-held.

So what we have here is a version of NFS: Hot Pursuit from Electronic Arts. Some of you may have played this game already and loved it. I sure did. You can fully expect to be in control of your car from beginning to end. In order to steer your car, just simply tilt the iPhone (or iPod touch) like you would a normal steering wheel. It takes a bit to get used to, but it’s well worth it and makes for a great game. To streamline the entire game, you have auto-acceleration on, leaving room for your break, nitrous, and map. EA did a fantastic job at fitting this great game into a small screen.

In this app you’ll get a fully functional game, in which you’ll be able to choose your career path as a cop or street racer. Both individual careers feature different tasks and types of races, and a full set of achievements to be earned.

Whether you’re going the route of the law to cut down on street racers, or telling the 5-0 to eat your dust, you will certainly enjoy the heck out of the game. Then you can go ahead and tell your friends about the game so that you can get together for quite possibly the best part of the game: local multi-player.

Within the realms of your connected Wi-Fi network, you and a friend are able to race head to head in NFS: Hot Pursuit to see who is ultimately the best racer in the game. I didn’t experience much lag, if any at all when I drifted my way to the finish line well before he did. This will of course be different for others. But overall it was a fun mode to play. It’s great to see games incorporating this in to their apps now.

I should also note how incredibly awesome the cut scenes are in this game. They’re beautiful. The graphic work on it is as close to high-def as you can get on an iPhone. They’re crisp, clear, highly detailed, and very realistic. The gameplay graphics are edgy but still completely playable and very good looking once you get going. I’m definitely looking forward to see what EA can come up with for their next Need for Speed app! Until next time, keep the pedal to the metal!

Power.ME Pro is an incredible app for increasing and managing your productivity. I quite enjoyed my time with the app and found it to be one of the most incredible tools in my work week. From managing projects I’m on, down to the littlest to-do I have assigned to me, Power.ME really delivered.

What You Can Expect

What you can expect is a fully functioning assistant right in the palm of your hand. You can categorize, manage, create, and edit your projects, tasks, and other to-dos right in this app. Imagine yourself on a big project for your company. You know you’re going to get lost in your work, or maybe you’ll have to run out for a few things to complete the job. With this app, you can take the workplace with you wherever you go.

The Best Thing About the App

The best thing about this app is that you can collaborate with your team. Easily a highly productive feature that allows you to upload documents from your phone or computer in order to transfer them to a colleague, much like Dropbox does. By collaborating with some of your team on a project right from your mobile device, you can explode your productivity anywhere you are! Quite amazing if you ask me.

Looking to the Future

The people at AppTime have got this app pretty solid. Looking forward to the future of this app, I can suggest some graphic updates. While the app is mildly pleasing, it’s not exactly the greatest thing in the world. I’ve shown the app around and received the same thoughts. By no means does this app jump right out of 1998, but with some touching up, we’d all be happy in the long run.

The Gist of It

So, for quite a bang for your hefty buck, you’ll pay $29.99 for this application. It works on iPod touch, iPhone, and of course the iPad. There’s also an iPhone only version of the app for $19.99. Don’t let anybody tell you that the iPad is best suited for this app. While surely it would be an advantage to having the bigger screen, I got along more than perfectly on an iPod. For the $30 (one-time) price, you get quite the package. Power.me’s actual power and usefulness will surpass that $30 price tag before you know it. The convenience and mobility of your workspace will help increase your productivity and workflow. So for someone who works as a project manager or maybe somebody who works in a job with multitudes of tasks or projects.. this is exactly what you need to keep yourself managed and working smoothly throughout each and every day, no matter where you are.

Big changes in Apple corporate partnerships are not a usual occurrence. You never expect to see a MacBook Pro show up on your door step with a DELL logo on it instead of the old glowing fruit. But in the case of the iPhone, a big change is highly anticipated. For months now there have been rumors of an addition to Apple’s cell phone providers. While the majority of iPhone users are with AT&T, some are patiently awaiting the release of the iPhone with Verizon.

The months of rumors have baited, excited, tormented, and exhausted Apple nerds who refuse to stay on the AT&T network. After a report from Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner, the figures show some 12 million customers eagerly awaiting the iPhone on their precious Verizon network. With an expected release in 2011 (rumor), the anticipation can only continue to grow until it’s confirmed.

This massive number of people could possibly generate an additional $7 billion in revenue for Verizon. And, in addition to the 12 million who are waiting, I’d expect some AT&T users to jump ship as well and add to that massive number. Will it put AT&T out of business? Not likely.

Some believe this move will help combat the Android-growing dominance.  With Apple’s continuing “antenna” problems for new iPhone 4 users, it’s possible this help needs to be released sooner rather than later.

With half of 2010 over already, 2011 lurks right around the corner. I can’t help but wonder if this is already under production for an early release in 2011, possibly even early Spring 2011.

Also worth noting are several analysts’ warnings. With any device, it’s not 100% tested until it gets in to the hands of the consumer. With that in mind, they warn (heavily) of issues that will arise for the iPhone with the new technology and components that are needed for the Verizon network. So does this mean that our perfect iPhone will be ready at Verizon in seven to eight months, or is it further off than expected?

Article Via 9to5Mac.

All right, Steamers! Time to buckle up, get that wallet out, and start buying! From June 24 until July 4, Valve, using its Steam platform, will be having another epic sale on video games. Games included in this sale are not just low-rated independent games, but actually include games like Half Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, and more!

Steam does this regularly, but rarely on this scale. With the number of sales going on, you’d think Steam is trying to sell out of stock before going out of business! To top it off, Steam is also having limited-time sales, which means that there are daily and hourly countdowns to their sales, so you’ve got to act fast!

Get off your high horse and start buying. It’s times like these when the price of a new game (roughly $60) can get you ten games! Venture on over to Steam’s website or log in to the platform to see the ongoing sales.

Article Via Powered By Steam

I’m sure by now that all of the Mac fanboys and fangirls are a bit “Steamy” since Valve released the Steam platform on this fruitful OS. And while we’ve seen some pretty awesome games sent to us so far (Portal, Half-Life, Torchlight, & more), we’ve yet to see a real big hitter in the multi-player genre on the Mac platform.

Yesterday Valve released a not-so-cryptic post informing us that big things are coming. No, I really mean that. They said BIG things — in caps. They’ve also teased us with this image and a short coded message:

“Big things are happening RIGHT NOW at Valve. Things involving cultivated tree-fruit. BIG things. Things that rhyme with “grapple.” Things that rhyme with “Speem Gortress zmavailable on the Babac.”

Exciting news on the Team Fortress front, unless they’re releasing a new game call ‘Speem Gortress’ which would probably just be awful.

As of 11:30AM EST, there is no sign of TF2 on Steam, and the title [on the Steam platform] still says, “Team Fortess 2 (Mac coming soon).” It would be totally out of line for Valve to release this title on time, let alone early. I would be offended if they broke protocol.

But to all of you TF2 nuts who’ve been waiting years to play this, or just to play again, today is your day! And remember, don’t touch the Heavy’s sandvich! Game on!

News via Team Fortress

Heavenly news for all World of Warcraft players utilizing the Armory iPhone app! The newly released Auction House addition was announced and will soon go live!

The Armory app was updated recently and will soon feature a section for the auctioneers that will allows us to check auctions on our WoW accounts. While it will take a $3 monthly service fee to go in and create new auctions, it’s still an amazing convenience

Some people are skeptical about the $3/monthly fee, but Blizzard loyals have proven its worthy for the small price. And this is also a big step in a more mobile gaming front. While newer Apple products like the iPad or even the iPhone 3GS are unable to natively run the hugely popular MMORPG game, these little features like being able to buy, create, and check up on your auctions without logging in from your computer are a big step in the right direction.

This will be huge for people who utilize their auctions for their gold incomes as you can check on bids and even manage your auctions if somebody is trying to undercut you while you’re offline. Good luck, fellow auctioneers, and happy auctioning once this drops! Here’s to hoping your significant other isn’t mad that now WoW has officially overcome your entire life now! :)

News via WoW Armory.

Ladies and gentlemen, mark May 12th on you calendars. Today Valve officially delivered their much anticipated Steam client to Mac users, and on time I might add. After joking and speculating over their lack of ability to meet their own deadlines, Valve has proved the naysayers wrong by releasing the client today.

While the content released with it is very limited and there is a bit of trickery involved from Valve, you can still have FULL access to all of Steam and its goodies. The games available on its launch include Portal and Torchlight, with a few others that you can find here.

Where the trickery [EVIL TRICKERY] comes into place is on their store page. Everybody can go in and see that the client has been released. They aren’t hiding that like many PC users would like. However, they are misleading people by saying things like “Now Available on Mac & PC” for certain popular games that may or may not entail you building a civilization and conquering the world. However, when you mosey on over to your game library to download said games, you’re unable to… just yet!

Valve announced that while the selection is limited today, they plan to release new games each subsequent Wednesday making Hump Day one to look forward to! Next week’s releases are unknown at this time, but hopefully we’ll see Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and other popular titles in the coming weeks.

News via Steam.

It seems like daytime talk show host Ellen Degeneres has hit a wall when it comes to poking fun at companies. Those who are regular viewers know that she is always light-hearted when she pokes fun at a company for a product they have. This is the talk-show host that tries to scare her guests with a panda bear; how mean and slanderous could she really be?

On Monday, viewers of the show were greeted with a fake Apple iPhone commercial featuring Ellen who makes the troubled attempt to text her partner Portia. Throughout the video Ellen is stumbling through the interface of the iPhone trying to explain how easy it is to use. Shortly after having trouble she puts her glasses on, and then eventually asks for help.

This was a short 30-second clip that must have sent billions of raging neurons through the people at Apple causing Ellen to update the situation on her show Tuesday. “I got in trouble recently…” Ellen said. “I did a fake commercial for the iPhone…” Ellen really seemed to be generally sorry when apologizing to the people at Apple. She expressed how much she loved the iPhone she has, as well as her iPad and iPod. She even goes on to say if Apple has anything to do with the chain restaurant, she loves IHOP.

You have to wonder what was really said behind the scenes. Did Apple contact Ellen’s team directly? Or did they go to NBC and immediately complain about the content of Ellen’s show? Stranger things have happened of course. Hopefully we don’t have to endure another apology from Ellen in regards to Apple.

Here’s a video of her apology

via Ellen.