iPhone UK

Working with Star Wars has proven to be huge money for nearly all of the companies who have done business with entertainment mogul George Lucas over the years and THQ Wireless expects the same results for its upcoming title Star Wars: Trench Run. The game will offer users of the iPhone the chance to relive major scenes from the early movies and have an experience in one of the world’s biggest science fiction fantasy epics ever to grace not only the silver screen, but television and gaming platforms. The focus of the title will be around the destruction of Darth Vader’s Death Star, the giant planet killing machine featured in the original Star Wars movie.

Players will take command of an X-wing space craft of the same variety that Luke Skywalker flew in the films. They will go up against the Imperial Tie Fighters in order to get close enough to the Death Star to begin descending into the trenches, fielding off an attack from Darth Vader himself and eventually shooting a proton torpedo in to the Imperial fortress in order to destroy it. The game will offer both Mission and Arcade modes so that players will be able to choose the style of play they prefer.

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has given the global pizza restaurant chain Pizza Hut two awards for its Pizza Hut app, a true first for the iPhone app industry. The app offers users the ability to order pizza directly from their iPhone and is the first of its kind from a national pizza delivery chain. Beyond its award, the app is also a leader in the iTunes Lifestyle category, being widely embraced by consumers who are hungry for greater utility from their mobile devices. The categories that the Pizza Hut app won are Mobile Display Campaign in North America and Emerging Technology Campaign in North America, both categories with heavy competition.

Even before the MMA awards were given, the app had already pulled in an OMMA award and was a finalist for a MOBI award this year. Since its release in July, the app has brought in more than one million dollars in sales for the pizza industry leader, proving that consumers are more than willing to use their mobile devices for food related purchases. Not only does the app allow consumers to place orders, it also allows them to use the touch screens on their iPhone or iPod Touch to drag and drop the toppings they would like on their pizza, creating an interactive experience akin to gaming.

With more than 1.4 million downloads of its highly popular gaming app Shift, successful developer Fishing Cactus has designed and released a brand new app for the iPhone called Minim. By working in tandem with another developer, Atomic Ciccada, the developers have built a flash based puzzle game that they believe will be hot property in the mobile gaming market. Using a science oriented approach, the companies hope to draw in a more hard science crowd that makes up a major segment of users for the popular Apple device.

Players will work their way through 50 unique levels in the full version of the game, which retails for $1.99 in the Apple App Store. Game play involves the opposite of most games where the goal is to increase the score or gather loot and powers. In Minim, players start with a chemistry set which they will use to combine various substances in such a way that they gradually reduce the elements in play. By combining connected atoms, players work to eradicate molecules and minimize down to subatomic particles until there is only a single particle left in play. This unique twist is expected to grab the attention of gamers looking for a different experience than they are used to.

With travelers increasingly focusing on meal time as a primary component of travel oriented vacation experiences, Disney Resorts is rising to the occasion by offering their own app which allows guests to select their menus long before they travel to the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort. The growing popularity of Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch has convinced the entertainment giant to develop this app so that foodies and travel enthusiasts can get a taste of what their resort offers in advance, as well as save time by knowing what they will be dining on before they arrive at the resort, freeing them up for other activities.

Having more than 17 lounges and restaurants to choose from, users will be able to scan through the offerings of eateries like Todd English’s bluezoo and former NFL player Don Shula’s restaurant, Shula’s Steak House. Since the resort has more than 2,200 rooms available, it’s large capacity serves as a focal point for tourists in the South Florida area, both children and adults. Users will be able to browse categories and select restaurants by type, get further information on dishes served, read descriptions, browse photos and even make a direct connection with the reservation hotline.

Mobile ad company AdMob has announced that it intends to deliver video ads that users can interact with via their iPhone and iPod Touch mobile devices. The ads are intended to run as users surf the web or check out other videos. This innovation is expected to be met with great enthusiasm by advertisers and developers who are looking for a way to pull in new customers as the traditional pay per click ad strategies sink in effectiveness due to the ever changing nature of the web, particularly with the addition of widespread mobile device use.

The theory is simple, consumers have proven time and again that they are more willing to watch videos than they are to read text. YouTube’s rapid and tremendous impact on the web is cited as proof of this trend, so advertisers are looking to videos as the next generation of commercials formerly used on TV. The addition of the ads being interactive is expected to raise conversion rates much higher than traditional video ad units alone which usually perform quite well.

The ads will be served over a highly regimented network that will choose the file size that best suits a user’s technology and bandwidth in order to offer the smoothest viewing experience and users will be able to control the pop up ads by using an interactive player to pause, rewind or play the ads.

Zen studios, creators of the popular iPhone game ZEN pinball: Rollercoaster have released their new pinball game for the iPhone, Pinball: Inferno that features a 3D environment and physics as well as five modes of gameplay. It also features multiball stages where more than one ball can be in play at a time. One of the features in pinball: Inferno is that you can obtain a new extra ball for every 100 bumper hits. The game also features a hot seat multiplayer mode. ZEN Pinball: Inferno is currently available at the app store and costs $4.99.

Target has recently released a gift recommendation app for the iPhone called gift globe. To get a gift idea from gift globe, you have to input some information such as the gender and age of the intended recipient of the gift, and then shake the iPhone. Gift globe will then recommend a suitable gift for that person. You may then tap the recommended item onscreen to purchase it online or add it to a favourites list. You can also get a different gift recommendation by shaking the iPhone again. The app also helps you locate the nearest store with the chosen gift in stock. Gift globe is a free app and is currently available at the app store.

People is an iPhone app from Caffeinated Cocoa that can be used to look up the full name, address or phone number of any person by performing a search. A search can be performed using the information known about the person such as name, partial address or phone number. People utilizes whitepages.com and geonames.org to perform this search and any persons found through a people search may then be added to the contacts list or be called via the iPhone with a single tap. People also has a “Nearby” button that is useful to find contact details of people who live near the iPhone user’s current location. People is a free app and is currently available at the app store.

Despite the bad shape of the US economy, Apple put out a good fiscal 4th quarter report on the back of a strong sales performance by the iPhone 3G, which drove Apple share prices up. However Apple was cautious in its future outlook, which it attributed to widespread economic uncertainty. In the 4th quarter, which ended on September 27th, Apple’s profit increased by 26% and sales were up by 27%. The actual profit exceeded Wall Street predictions, while the sales figures failed to match up. iPhone 3G also managed to outsell its competitor Blackberry in the 4th quarter. While 6.9 million iPhone 3G’s were sold in the 3 months till September 27, only 6.1 million Blackberries were sold in the same period.

Bayhoff Software has introduced three apps that are currently available at Apple’s app Store, namely ListCalc, iStartup and TouchFonts. Another app, a magic 8-ball variant 5-ball is currently pending approval. Of these three apps, ListCalc, which is priced at 1.99$ is a calculator that displays a list of all the numbers that a user has previously entered and allows the user to add, remove or modify various numbers as need be to find the average and total. The second app, iStartup is an application priced at $1.99 that informs you of the key combinations to use on a Mac to perform various actions such as starting in safe mode or to eject a DVD at startup among others. The 3rd app named TouchFonts costing 0.99$ is a utility for iPhone users and font developers that lists all the fonts, which come loaded on an iPhone. Inside TouchFonts, the fonts are grouped by font family and each font can be viewed utilizing many separate character sets.