MacRumors iPhone and iPad Blog: Apps, News, and Rumors

Electronic Arts is acquiring casual gaming giant PopCap, maker of Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled, among others. EA is paying out $650 million in cash, $100 million in stock and up to $550 million in earn-outs for hitting financial milestones in the next few years. “EA and PopCap are a compelling combination,” said EA CEO John Riccitiello. “PopCap’s great studio talent and powerful IP ...

For iPod Touch owners looking to add a little oomph to their gaming, we present the Mophie Pulse case. It promises "pulse pounding" stereo sound and "bone-shaking" vibration via some fancy technology called ViviTouch. ViviTouch technology doesn't require developers to use an API to generate vibrations. Instead, it converts game audio into a variety of different effects. For example, clicks or ...

Steve Jobs may have been dreaming of The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore when he introduced the iPad as a "magical and revolutionary" device. Morris Lessmore is a charming interactive iPad book that follows the journey of Morris and his flying books as they travel through a world of words. But, rather than simply following along or watching illustrations, the app includes...

Pangea Games is giving away a number of its games in honor of the App Store's third birthday. The App Store opened July 11, 2008 and users downloaded 10 million apps in the first 3 days. Apple recently noted that more than 15 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store, an average of 13.7 million apps per day. Pangea is giving away: - Networked racing game Cro-Mag Rally...

Reuters reports that judges in the United States and Canada have approved the $4.5 billion sale of 6,000 Nortel patents to a consortium of bidders led by Apple. Microsoft, Research in Motion, EMC, Ericsson, and Sony were also part of the winning group, which beat out Google for the patents.Several large technology companies such as Verizon Communications Inc and Hewlett-Packard Co objected to...

Dutch site AppleSpot.nl today reported [Google translation] that the next-generation iPod touch is set to debut in September alongside a new iPhone and will offer 3G data connectivity. According to the report, the new iPod touch will rely on a SIM card to access GSM networks and will be serviced by traditional carriers in much the same way as the iPhone, although presumably with some sort of...

Mobile app analytics firm Localytics yesterday published a widely-cited report measuring the ratio of AT&T to Verizon iPhone 4s in the United States, finding that a surge over the past two months has increased Verizon's share to over 32% just four and a half months after the device launched on the carrier.Summer has seen significant growth in Verizon's market share. After spending most of the...

A study of click patterns by link-shortening service Bit.ly illustrates a distinct difference in usage between iPads and other types of devices, including smartphones and traditional computers. The general curve of most of the usage lines follows the general traffic flow of larger websites. Very little traffic at night, with a steep rise as the work day starts with a peak in the mid-afternoon, ...

As of today, new Verizon iPhone customers don't have an unlimited data option. As a result, new customers will need to keep track of their data usage. From VZ's press release about the change: #DATA – Customers can check data usage by dialing #DATA and pressing send from Verizon Wireless phones to receive a free text message with the information. My Verizon and My Verizon Mobile – Customers ...

Back in the day, DJ's needed to bring hundreds of CD's (or LP's, natch) along to a gig, because in the DJ game, one needs to be prepared. Nowadays, all a DJ needs is an iPhone and Numark's latest product, iDJ Live. As seen in the video above, the rig hooks to your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch via the 30-pin dock connector and interfaces with Algoriddim's djay app: iDJ Live features two large...

A new SLR adapter for iPhones 3 and 4 is out from online photography shop Photojojo. The kit includes a case for your iPhone, UV filter and lens adapter for either Canon or Nikon lenses. $249 for the iPhone 4 edition and $190 for iPhone 3/3GS. There have been several attempts at iPhone SLR adapters in the past, but this seems to be the first mass-produced attempt. The new iOS 5 "volume-up...

Shipping estimates for new online iPad 2 orders from Apple have fallen to just 3-5 business days in a number of countries, down from the earlier 1-2 week estimates that had been in place since April. The new shipping estimates apply to both engraved and non-engraved models and appear to be in effect throughout Apple's North American and Asia-Pacific distribution channels. Shipping estimates in...

Time Warner Cable today announced the release of a major update to its TWCable TV app for iPad, increasing the number of channels available for live viewing to over 100 and adding new channel guide, remote control, and DVR management capabilities when used with compatible set-top boxes. But as noted by Engadget, the updated app also brings one other unpublicized change: jailbreak detection...

Last month, a report claimed that both existing supplier OmniVision Technologies and newcomer Sony had been lined up to produce 8-megapixel image sensors for the next-generation iPhone, with OmniVision said to be set to shoulder 90% of the load. But Forbes today shares a report from FBR Capital Markets analyst Craig Berger, who claims that OmniVision has run into production troubles that may ...

Barron's reports on a new research note from Citadel Securities analyst Shing Yin claiming that the iPhone is likely to debut on U.S. carrier Sprint sometime before Christmas of this year. Yin notes that with Verizon shifting to tiered data plans beginning tomorrow, Apple likely has additional motivation to strike a deal with Sprint, which continues to offer the unlimited data plans preferred by ...

VIA Technologies today announced that it and its partner investment firm WTI are selling off S3 Graphics to smartphone manufacturer HTC. The acquisition is notable because S3 Graphics recently won a partial victory over Apple in an initial judgment on a patent dispute being reviewed by the U.S. International Trade Commission. HTC's purchase of S3 will turn those patents over to the smartphone ...

Some Apple TV users have experienced errors connecting to Netflix over the holiday weekend, Netflix confirmed to Wired's Gadget Lab. Netflix claims the issues have been resolved, noting "we had a technical issue with a few devices that’s fixed now." A number of readers posted in the MacRumors forums about the issues, receiving errors 111, 112 and 115 when attempting to watch a program on...

While Apple took a fair amount of time developing the current copy-and-paste mechanism for iOS, holding off on releasing it until iPhone OS 3.0 in mid-2009, Microsoft's new update for its Bing for iPad app shows off an alternative method for text selection known as "Lasso". The technique allows users to select text to serve as the...