Tag: iPhone

New Expansion for Galaxy on Fire II

Lukas Rox Games, Mobile , , , , , ,
New Expansion for Galaxy on Fire II

Yesterday Galaxy on Fire II, an iOS game for iPhone and iPad (which I have reviewed here), has received a paid add-on named “Valkyrie“. Another new feature is ability to obtain a player owned station, where it is possible to store multiple ships (before this, player could only own one starship at a time).

The new Valkyrie add-on costs 3,99 EUR (paid as in-app purchase) and brings a new storyline centered around Valkyrie station in Herjaza system. That is of course not all, which the expansion has to offer:

  • New ships
  • Loma, the black market system
  • Guided missiles
  • Scatterguns (AoE guns)
  • Automatic turrets
  • New blueprints
  • Opponent signatures
  • Time extenders
  • Weapon modifiers (similar to weapon upgrades in EVE)
  • New booster
  • New tractor beam
  • Emergency system
  • New thermo weapon
  • Mines

The amount of new content makes this game even closer to the single player EVE-like experience. By the way, dear CCP, when do you release EVE Online for iPad?! (or EVE offline, it could just be a game in EVE universe – money waiting to be made here)

Player owned station can be either bought in-game for 30 million credits and 50 tons of Buskat, or as an in-app purchase for a mere 0,79 EUR. The station is located in Shima system.

EDIT: I found a bug. If you don’t buy the add-on, every time you undock, a character named Cornelious will contact you to offer a mission, which is not available until after you bought the expansion.

Some Flash features are coming to iOS

Lukas Rox Software , , , , ,
Some Flash features are coming to iOS

One of the features missing in iOS is for sure Adobe Flash support. iPad, which in theory is designed mainly as a highly portable web browsing/mail reading device, is not able to view all websites on the internet. Adobe Flash is a de facto standard, it is available for a multitude of platforms, including Linux and Android. Apple however, decided against including Flash in iOS. Apple claims, that the reasoning behind this is purely technical related. Most of the mobile device community, however, suspects that real reasons are business ones: introducing Flash and enabling users to access free web games could severely impact AppStore revenues. Steve Jobs mentioned during his keynote, that developers have earned 2 billion dollars from AppStore sales. That obviously means nearly a billion dollar cut for Apple itself.

Adobe has announced new streaming features

Adobe did not surrender, and some Flash features are still coming to iOS platform. Thanks to HTTP Live Streaming, or HLS in short, it will be possible for the server to decide what kind of stream player to use – either a classic flash player or HTML 5 based one. Unfortunately that means Flash games and websites will still remain out of reach for iPad and iPhone users, but they will be able to access more video related websites.

iOS 4.3 beta2

Lukas Rox Mobile, Software , , ,
iOS 4.3 beta2

On 19th of January Apple has released a second beta release of the iOS version 4.3 for anyone with an active Apple Developer account.

Some of the new features include:

  • Tether 3G connection over WiFi (making iPhone a personal wireless router)
  • Picture Stream – a service allowing publishing of photos to MobileMe
  • Video Streaming
  • The side switch on iPad can be assigned either for mute (like on iPhone) or for orientation lock (like it used to be in iOS 3.x)

Previous beta release of 4.3 also contained four- and five-finger gestures for switching multitasked applications and closing the active one. This feature was for experimental use only and has been removed from beta2.

Now some sad information for iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2gen users: there will be no iOS 4.3 for your device. iPhone 3G suffered poor performance when running iOS 4.0, it did improve a bit in 4.1 and subsequently 4.2.1, but it seems that Apple has decided that iPhone 3G/iPod touch 2gen don’t have enough juice to power iOS 4.3.

Yet Another iPhone Alarm Bug

Lukas Rox Mobile, Software , ,
Yet Another iPhone Alarm Bug

Last weekend we had witnessed yet another alarm clock bug in IOS (All devices running 4.2.1 were affected). On 1st and 2nd of January, single non-repeated alarms did not sound, as a result many iPhone owners were late for work, school, date, etc. Similar problem was reported after daylight saving time change last autumn, but it affected only repeated alarm events.

There is no official statement from Apple yet, but rumours say there will be no patch for this bug, moreover the problem should correct itself on the 3rd of January.

EDIT: Both repeated and one time alarms already work fine on 3rd of January (iPhone 3G running iOS 4.2.1)

Note to self: buy a simple alarm clock, and never be surprised again.

iOS 4.2.1 released, Field Test is back!

Lukas Rox Mobile, Software , , ,

Last monday Apple has released new version of iOS 4.2.1 which is available for iPad’s, iPod touch 2gen and later, and iPhone’s 3G and later. This new software brings some minor changes listed below:

For iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad

  • AirPlay (replacement of AirTunes, AirPlay will offer stream video, music, and photos over Wi-Fi)
  • AirPrint Wireless Printing with Print Center (select models)
  • Import .ics calendar files directly for events
  • Birthdays icon has been changed in calendar
  • Updated Carrier Settings (Orange Poland again shows as Orange instead of PL OPL)
  • New fonts for Notes in Settings (Helvetica and Chalkboard)
  • Added an indicator in the App Store which shows if an App supports Game Center
  • Support for CoreMIDI
  • YouTube voting
  • Minor improvements in UI graphics – new icons
  • New wallpapers
  • Fixes the alarm bug caused by daylight saving time changing, affected on a part of iPhone and iPod Touch owners located in Australia, New Zealand, and some European countries.
  • Improved iPhone 3G performance
  • Additions to multitasking tray: Volume controls & AirPlay controls
  • Assign different text tone alerts to each contact (iPhone only)
  • Restores full Field Test Mode