Last month BlackBerry (formerly known as RIM) announced that it will release a multi-platform version of BlackBerry Messenger, adding support for iOS and Android. BBM has been hugely successful messaging service with over 10 billion messages sent per day with 60 million monthly active users.

BBM on iPhone will compete with Apple’s own iMessage and other popular instant messaging services like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. The release date for BBM for iPhone hasn’t been announced yet and it’s availability is likely scheduled for later this summer.

BBM set the standard for mobile instant messaging with fast and reliable service and an added layer of engagement with delivered and read statuses. You’ve shared with us your stories about how BBM has kept you connected when it mattered most to you. Upon release of the multi-platform BBM service, you can broaden that real-time connection to friends and colleagues on other supported mobile platforms.

Yesterday, Salshgear was first to spot a tweet from T-Mobile’s twitter account that announced “Great news – BlackBerry Messenger will be available to download on iOS and Android from June 27th!”. That tweet was later deleted and when BlackBerry PR was contacted by Mashable they confirmed that the release date was incorrect.

While there have been reports that BBM will be available to iOS and Android on June 27, this is not accurate,

A multi-platform BBM client on iOS and Android will fuel the growth for the instant chat messaging service. The first version of BBM on iPhone will include the following features:

– The immediacy of BBM chats
– Multi-person chats
– Voice note sharing
– BlackBerry Groups, where BBM users are able to set up groups of up to 30 people and share calendar, photos, files and more

Since, Apple allows messaging services other than iMessage to be available on the App Store, the approval process shouldn’t be an issue for BlackBerry.

“Epic Citadel” has been downloaded more than a million times since then. And although it is not an actual game it has even been reviewed in its own right by many respected industry web sites.

At the event Epic made a vague promise that the “Unreal” Engine would be available to developers at some point in the future. Assuming that is the case then it is likely to be at the same Indie friendly rates that the desktop version of the same engine has been; Epics “UDK”.

When at the Korea Games Conference in Seoul this week Epic’s VP Mark Rein confirmed that iOS is the focus for the mobile “Unreal” engine at the moment, but that it will also come to Android in the future. As well as other mobile platforms, like Nintendo’s 3DS perhaps?

In other comments in an earlier interview with Gamasutra Epic’s Mike Capps hinted that the license for Indies will be at, or below the rate of the current Unreal Engine SDK (UDK). So it may simply be a royalty based model. Which is good news for those that want a professional level game engine that is based on the tech behind hits like “Unreal Tournament” and “Gears of War”. And they want it soon, and to try ideas out on for free, or next to free.

There is nothing ground breaking about the visual fidelity of Epic’s mobile graphics. Those are limited to Apple’s more recent shader capable iDevices, and hence are impressive because Epic are simply using the GPU with a level of talent we would expect from a company of their resources. Certainly in the coming months you can expect a wealth of games with the level of graphical detail that “Citadel” promises. And not necessarily just from Epic. We have id and their equally impressive engine, running “Rage” to look forward to also.

But where the Unreal Engine really gives a leg up to developers is that it is a mature and complete SDK with all the tools and standards that make developers lives that much easier. As well as a wealth of developer experience using the engine inside Epic itself, and in the developer community at large which can support promising projects.

Expect gaming, and the competition between game makers to hot up on the App Store very soon. Are you excited about Unreal Engine on iOS? From a gamers perspective, or a developers perspective? Let us know in the comments…

The app, called Vonage Mobile for Facebook, connects with facebook using Facebook Connect and then displays a list of all of your friends. The friend list is grouped into two groups, those who have the app installed on their iPhone and those who do not. For the users who do not have the app installed, you are able to chat with them using a SMS like user interface. The real power of this app, however, is for friends who do have the app installed.

Friends who have the app installed on their iPhone can be called without using their airtime minutes or incurring additional charges (data charges not withstanding). To call, simply choose the friend to call and the app will make the call. If your friend does not have the app running, they will get a notification that they have a call waiting for them and when they view the notification, the app will start and ring. The App emulates the iPhone’s phone app user interface and even supports bluetooth audio.

In my initial testing of the app, the call quality was very good (if not perfect at times). I was able to hold lengthy conversations without experiencing any drop offs. It remains to be seen whether or not this app will be able to survive against the likes of Skype, Fring, and the several other providers of VOIP calling including Vonage’s other apps themselves which provide some of the same functionalities. When Vonage will be releasing the same type of app for the Android, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile platforms, this app will allow for easy, VOIP communication using a social platform that many are already using as a contact list.

Vonage has hinted that there is going to be an iPad app coming soon (the name of the current app has the words iPhone and iPod in the title.) Hopefully, the app will also be updated to support background running (such as Skype) which would make it more user friendly and streamlined.

Overall, this is a great solution for those who do not want to maintain yet another contact list and require yet another set of invites and acceptances. For those who have never used the likes of Skype and Fring, but are active Facebook users, this app will be a welcomed option. To make this app infrastructure complete, Vonage should release a facebook app that can accept calls via a browser. Only time will tell how far Vonage will take this app and its infrastructure.

Vonage Mobile for Facebook – iPhone and iPod touch [App Store] ]]> https://touchreviews.net/vonage-lets-call-facebook-friends-free/feed/ 0 https://touchreviews.net/ilookfunny-gets-free-for-iphone/ https://touchreviews.net/ilookfunny-gets-free-for-iphone/#comments Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:43:49 +0000 https://touchreviews.net/?p=8281 Aurora, Colorado – Riptide Games today is pleased to announce the release and immediate availability of iLookFunny Free 1.1.1, the free version of the hit fun photo app for iPhone. iLookFunny is the latest in a line of iLook Apps being developed by Riptide Games. With it users can mix and match from a variety of objects to take funny pictures with their iPhone camera. Customize each photo with moustaches, wigs, glasses, bow ties and more to create fun photos of anyone or anything. Photos taken with iLookFunny can then be posted directly to a user’s Facebook photo album, emailed to a friend or they can be saved to the camera roll for future use and abuse.

iLookFunny Free has all the features of the recently updated full version, but it is completely free for any iPhone user.

“We were so thrilled with the early success of iLookFunny that we decided to make it free.” said Brian Robbins Founder of Riptide Games and programmer of iLookFunny. “Now there’s no reason not to try seeing how funny you can make your friends look!”

iLookFunny works with any iPhone and for iPhone 4 users will take advantage of the front camera and retina display for an even better user experience. This is the latest of the series of iLook apps being developed by Riptide Games. Other iLook Apps include iLookGood, the free mirror for iPhone and soon iLookGangsta, the perfect way to gangstafy yo’self.

Device Requirements:

* Compatible with iPhone

* Requires iOS 3.1 or later

* Optimized for iPhone 4 and Retina Display

* 7.0 MB

Pricing and Availability:

iLookFunny Free 1.1.1 is completely free and is available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Photography category.

iLookFunny Free 1.1.1
Download From iTunes
Screenshot
App Icon

Riptide Games is a next-gen mobile game developer based in Denver, CO. It creates entertaining game experiences across all advanced mobile platforms. Copyright (C) 2009 Riptide Games. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Mr. Narayen called Steve’s accusations of Flash draining battery power “patently false.” A statement which is in itself “patently false”.

Mr. Narayen also said that if Adobe crashes on Apple, then that actually has something “to do with the Apple operating system.” Something which brought both laughter and ire from a large portion of both the Apple User and Developer communities.

And finally on Jobs’s assertion that Adobe is a closed platform, Mr. Narayen chuckled and said. “I find it amusing, honestly. Flash is an open specification.”

None of these statements make much sense. And all smack of damage limitation in a battle that Adobe themselves have admitted defeat in with their announcement earlier this week that they would not be pursuing development of tools for Flash on the iPhone.

Microsoft themselves in a blog entry about Internet Explorer have also made it very clear that in future implementations of Internet Explorer their HTML5 engines will only support H.264 video.

Even more embarrassingly ex-employes of Adobe have openly criticised Adobe’s strategy with regards to mobile-platforms and the iPhone in an interview with Wired. In that article they cite Adobe’s strategy as the reason they ultimately left the company.

For a second time in Apple’s and Adobe’s history it seems that Adobe have chosen to ignored an Apple platform in its early stages and been caught out looking incredibly slow later on. If they had only made some fairly intelligent decisions early on we may not all be obsessing over this tech grudge match, and we might even have seen some form of Flash on the iPhone. This seems like something that will never happen now.

Meanwhile the majority of right thinking bloggers and technical analysts all agree that Apple is forging ahead with an aggressive strategy to create a dominant product eco-system, and ensure continued market leadership in mobile devices with the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Basing this strategy on hard lessons they learned in their dealings with companies like Adobe in the past, and their loss of market leadership in the desktop computer sector in the tech industry’s now ancient history.

What is your take on Adobe’s reaction to all this? Do you think Steve is right, or Mr. Narayen’s response was on the right track? Let us know in the comments.

The biggest barrier for good quality high-performance 3D games on Palm Smart-phones has finally been removed.

Palm (PALM) have finally officially confirmed that they have added a component to their webOS Software Development Kit which will allow developers to target high-performance 3D graphics and native ARM code. This is in the form of a webOS plugin that Palm plans to release at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week. It was first announced in January at CES.

What this means effectively is that the OpenGL ES API as well as the ability to compile C/C++ in gcc should now be available to all developers. OpenGL ES and C/C++ are the most commonly used API and language for game development on most other mobile platforms. It’s almost unbelievable that it has taken this long for Palm to do this. In my opinion this delay is one of the contributing factors to Palm’s slow decline and the lack of success they are seeing in their own App Store.

The great opportunity here for Palm (and games developers) is that any game written for OpenGL ES (1.1 or 2.0) can now be relatively easily ported to Palm’s smart phones which run webOS. i.e. The Pre and Pixi. That means the majority of iPhone, iPod and Android games catalog could be brought to their devices by developers in short turn around times. What it doesn’t mean is that any of the successful iPhone OS and Android OS UI based apps and utilities will be ay easier to port. So this doesn’t really spur popular utilities developers already seeing success with iPhones, iPods and Android devices to rush to the webOS platform; as they would still have to rework their user interface code considerably.

It’s taken Palm far too long to open this aspect of their device up to developers. It’s also frustrating to smaller game developers that the big players have had access to this since January. These small developers are now going to have to play catch up to the big names who will fill the store very quickly with their own IP, backed by strong marketing campaigns. This is somewhat dissimilar to Apple and Google, who have by and large let developers big and small work with their SDKs in parallel from the day they have been announced.

I am sceptical if this will cause a massive boost in the Pre’s popularity. But it is a step in the right direction, finally. And means that frustrated Palm gamers can look forward to some more fun with their devices.

Details for developers here

Some eye-candy on Palm’s site with games from some big partners such as EA, Gameloft and so forth, who have been working with Palm using this plugin since it’s announcement at CES in January: here

Is this too little to late for Palm? Are you a Palm user and are you excited by this? As a Developer have you been asking for this for a while, and are you frustrated that Palm have made you wait this long? I know I have, and I am.

By: Stephen Northcott