Plants vs. Zombies on the iPhone: Nut up or shut up
Plants vs. Zombies was planted on the iPhone App Store today, and we couldn’t download it fast enough. The tower-defense-style gameplay, where you have to collect the power of the sun in order to place offensive and defensive plants on your lawn to fight off the incoming zombie hordes, was a blast on the PC and Mac, but it seems as if it had been designed for touch screens. We finally get to test that assertion.
If you need to know more about the mechanics and gameplay of the title, feel free to read our original review of the PC version. On the iPhone, the graphics remain clear and easy to read and understand, and the ability to tap on the falling suns to collect them and tap where you’d like to plant your army works incredibly well and is very satisfying. This is a direct port of the original game with a few new features, so don’t expect anything shockingly new, but this version of the game may be superior to the original due to the touchscreen.
Andrew Stein, director of mobile platforms at PopCap Games, laid out what the game includes. “We’ve stayed true to the original computer version with the full-featured gameplay of Adventure mode, and have optimized this adaptation around a seamless touch interface,” he said. “Plus, we’ve added great content, including the new Quick Play Arena which allows easy replay of any level after completing the Adventure mode, and more than a dozen achievements to reward successful completion of in-game challenges.” Ars pinged PopCap to ask about an iPad-specific version of the game, but were given a solid “no comment.”
We’ve been playing all morning, and at $2.99 this is an absolute steal compared to the original’s $20 price point. Today, we can literally say it’s time to nut up or shut up.
This American Life iPhone app gives fans unlimited content
Fans of This American Life, a weekly Public Radio show hosted by Ira Glass, were thrilled to discover that a dedicated iPhone app had been released. Developed by Public Radio Exchange, the This American Life (TAL) app not only gives users unfettered on-demand access to the show’s entire archives going back to 1995, but provides the content in a user-friendly and interactive format.
Now, instead of buying those back episodes for 99ยข apiece on iTunes or getting stuck listening on the Web, you can grab those episodes anytime for a flat app cost of $2.99. We gave the TAL app a whirl—being the huge TAL fanboys and girls that we are—and found that it was definitely worth the money, despite a few of the typical annoyances that come with third-party apps.
Review: Pastebot gives your iPhone multiple clipboard items
Tapbots is back with its third iPhone offering, and for those of you who are familiar with the company’s beautifully designed applications, you will not be disappointed. On the surface, Pastebot is a clipboard manager for your iPhone or iPod touch that stores clippings in a beautiful, intuitive UI, but it’s more powerful than that. The folks at Tapbots have thought of everything, and Pastebot is the result.
Pastebot is more powerful than the name suggests. While the application’s intended purpose is to give you access to a clipboard history, you’ll quickly find unintended uses that make it much more valuable.
A review of the iMac 27" Core 2 Duo: yep, it’s still an iMac
Though users in general—and Mac users in particular—are quickly moving to a notebook-dominated world, Apple’s iconic iMac remains a strong seller in the desktop market. And for good reason: aside from the obvious portability offered by a notebook, the sleek machine offers more bang for your buck than a mobile, but without any of the ugliness that typically comes with a desktop machine. Apple’s latest iMac offerings continue this trend by refining the cosmetic aspects of the machine and adding just enough new stuff on the inside to make things interesting.
It has been just over two years since Apple last revamped the iMac’s design, and the refinements are largely worth it. The new iMac now comes in three processor flavors and two screen options. The stock processor options are either the 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (the same processor offered in the last-generation iMacs, but with faster configurations) or a 2.66GHz Intel Core i5 (the first quad-core option to come to the iMac), and you can get a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 as a build-to-order option. For the display, the 21″ iMac has now morphed into the 21.5″ (to accommodate a 16:9 aspect ratio), and the high-end option is now 27″.
Week in Apple: Ars fondles iPod nano and iTunes 9, peeks at iPod touch innards
Our review of the new iPod nano and a hands-on with iTunes 9 topped the charts this week, as did speculation on how the Apple TV could be improved and revelations about the updated iPod touch hardware. If you’re in for the top Apple news of the week, we have it for you in one tidy package:
Apple’s fifth take: Ars reviews the iPod nano with video: Once again, we have taken a look at the new iPod nano to see if its new features are cool enough to keep it at the top of Apple’s bestseller list. And, since video is one of the nano’s major new features, we compared its video quality to other pocket video cameras.
Hands on: iTunes 9 refinements cool, but hard to find: iTunes 9 ushers in several changes to Apple’s media app—some obvious, some far more subtle. We took a look around to see what we could find, and we bring you our impressions of what Apple has done with the latest version.
Week in Apple: Ars fondles iPod nano and iTunes 9, peeks at iPod touch innards
Our review of the new iPod nano and a hands-on with iTunes 9 topped the charts this week, as did speculation on how the Apple TV could be improved and revelations about the updated iPod touch hardware. If you’re in for the top Apple news of the week, we have it for you in one tidy package:
Apple’s fifth take: Ars reviews the iPod nano with video: Once again, we have taken a look at the new iPod nano to see if its new features are cool enough to keep it at the top of Apple’s bestseller list. And, since video is one of the nano’s major new features, we compared its video quality to other pocket video cameras.
Hands on: iTunes 9 refinements cool, but hard to find: iTunes 9 ushers in several changes to Apple’s media app—some obvious, some far more subtle. We took a look around to see what we could find, and we bring you our impressions of what Apple has done with the latest version.
Apple’s fifth take: Ars reviews the iPod nano with video
Another year, another iPod nano. As expected, Apple introduced the next generation of its flash-based music player during the September 2009 iPod event, once again building on its current feature set in an attempt to appeal to more buyers.
The new nano (fifth generation, for those keeping count) is very similar to the fourth-generation version. What differentiates the 5G nano, however, are a few major feature additions plus a handful of refinements intended to keep the nano on everyone’s stocking stuffer list.
Hands on: iTunes 9 refinements cool, but hard to find
Earlier this week, Steve Jobs characterized iTunes 9 the “the biggest release of iTunes in a long time.” We naturally grabbed a copy and took it around the block a few times to see if we could verify that claim for ourselves. Though the biggest changes (aside from the Home Sharing feature) are mainly connected to the highly revised iTunes Store, what we discovered is that iTunes 9 has many refinements that are hidden all over the application. Unfortunately, many of these little settings and features aren’t easy to discover, and may be buried in menus you rarely think to check.
Apple’s fifth take: Ars reviews the iPod nano with video
Another year, another iPod nano. As expected, Apple introduced the next generation of its flash-based music player during the September 2009 iPod event, once again building on its current feature set in an attempt to appeal to more buyers.
The new nano (fifth generation, for those keeping count) is very similar to the fourth-generation version. What differentiates the 5G nano, however, are a few major feature additions plus a handful of refinements intended to keep the nano on everyone’s stocking stuffer list.
Hands on: iTunes 9 refinements cool, but hard to find
Earlier this week, Steve Jobs characterized iTunes 9 the “the biggest release of iTunes in a long time.” We naturally grabbed a copy and took it around the block a few times to see if we could verify that claim for ourselves. Though the biggest changes (aside from the Home Sharing feature) are mainly connected to the highly revised iTunes Store, what we discovered is that iTunes 9 has many refinements that are hidden all over the application. Unfortunately, many of these little settings and features aren’t easy to discover, and may be buried in menus you rarely think to check.
