Steal and blow up your opponents’ words in Scrabble-like game War of Words for iPhone and iPad

War of Words is a word game similar to Scrabble or Words with Friends, only with War of Words, you can steal and blow up your opponents’ words! War of Words has action tiles in addition to the traditional letter tiles. With them, you can place bombs or land mines on your opponents words, allows yourself to spell words backwards, gain an extra turn, or even earn the ability to place your word anywhere on the board.

In comparison to War of Words, Scrabble and Words with Friends are so innocent.

War of Words is the next generation online crossword game. It starts with the turn-based word spelling gameplay you know and love – and adds bombs! Have you ever wanted to blow up your opponent’s words? Or maybe steal some words for yourself? Now you can.

War of Words is available on the iPhone and iPad for $1.99. There is also a free, ad-supported version available.

[Free App Store link] [$1.99 - App Store link]

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New Gestures For Swiping and Holding Are Unveiled in Apple Patent

Earlier today, Apple released iOS 5.0.1. Among other things, this update added multitasking gestures to the iPad 1. According to information uncovered by href="http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2011/11/apple-reveals-new-powerful-gestures-in-the-works-for-ios-devices.html" target="_blank">Patently Apple, these may not be the last gestures we’ll need to learn.

According to the site, a patent application published today by the the US Patent & Trademark Office points out two new ways to navigate iOS devices. They are called, aptly, “Swipe Then Hold” and “Hold then Swipe,” so you can probably picture how they’ll function.

But what problems are they intended to solve? Simply put, they get around the issue of navigating around a large amount of visual information on small screens. Panning, pinching and spreading maps or photos can move you through information precisely, but not necessarily quickly. These gestures would be less precise, but they would allow users to zoom, scroll or scan quickly.

For example, if you were looking at a map and wanted to zoom in quickly, you might be able to swipe your finger in the general direction you wanted to zoom, then hold your finger on the screen. The map would then zoom along the direction vector of your swipe, and you could adjust your finger or tilt your device to alter its course.

“Hold then Swipe” would work similarly, but would let the user remove their finger from the display after the gesture is completed and watch as information scrolls by. An example of this presented by Patently Apple examines the use of this gesture in a photo app. The user could select a face and then swipe to scroll through other photos of that person.

These both sound like useful gestures, especially for smaller devices. But as with any patent application, there is no guarantee we’ll see these implemented in a future iOS update. If we do, it will likely only happen after Apple ensures that the iPhone is capable of distinguishing these gestures from those that currently exist without confusion.

Source:href="http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2011/11/apple-reveals-new-powerful-gestures-in-the-works-for-ios-devices.html" target="_blank"> Patently Apple

Daily Tip: How to configure the iPhone’s Weather and Stock widgets in Notification Center

Curious how to setup notifications in iOS 5? With all the various banners and popups, badges and sounds, widgets and lock screen options, it can be a little tricky for first-time users, but worry not — we have you covered! First up, here’s how the new Weather and Stock widgets work!

The Stock widget pulls stock information directly from the native Stocks app in iOS 5. By turning the Stock widget to ‘On’ you’ll see a scrolling ticker displaying your favorite stocks. If you want to change the stocks that are displayed in the Stock widget, just follow these quick steps:

Now, the stock that you’ve just added to the Stocks app will show up in the scrolling Stock widget within Notification Center!

Apple also included a weather widget that displays current weather information as well as a full five-day forecast. Just swipe to the left or right to reveal the five-day forecast. The weather widget pulls information from Yahoo! Weather locations stored in the native Weather app in iOS 5. In order to add or change weather locations, follow these steps:

Now the location you’ve manually setup will be displayed in the Weather widget. If you have more than one location in the Weather app, the Weather widget will only display the 1st location. If you have no manual locations set and have the Local Weather feature on, you’ll only see the temperature relative to your geographic location (make sure you have Location Services turned on!)

There you have it, how to configure your Notification Center widgets. We’ll cover the other elements, like Mail and Messages notifications, Lock Screen info, etc. next time. Meanwhile, if you have any favorite Notification Center tips, let us know in comments!

Daily Tips range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

Prepo Makes Life A Little Easier for iOS Developers

Developers love to create apps, but there are some requirements to the app development process which can be a little tedious. In order to submit your app to the App Store, you need to create a number of icons in various sizes. Thanks to a new app called Prepo (href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/prepo/id476533227?mt=12">Mac App Store link), available for free in the Mac App Store, this process is now made easy.

href="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/prepo-mac-app-store.png" class="lightbox" >class="alignnone size-full wp-image-25160" title="prepo-mac-app-store" src="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/prepo-mac-app-store.png" alt="Prepo" width="553" height="345" />

Drop the icon artwork into Prepo, select the device and then hit export. Prepo prepares the files you ned and the plist, all ready for Xcode.

 

UK voice of Siri didn’t know Apple has used him until he saw the TV commercial

The provider of the voice for the UK version of Siri has been revealed and what makes the story even more intriguing is the fact that the guy who provided all the sounds didn’t even know it was him until he saw Apple’s commercial. The voice, known as “Daniel”, was provided by former technology journalist Jon Briggs; but it was not provided directly to Apple. The voice over work was originally done six years ago for a company called Scansoft which was later purchased by Nuance, which subsequently licensed it to Apple.

He is certainly not bitter that it is now being used by Apple. He was paid well originally by Scansoft for his work and he loves Apple products. Jon Biggs also provides the voice for many other technology products including satellite navigation units for Garmin, TomTom, Jaguar, Land Rover, Audi and Porsche.

Source: The Telegraph

Smash some birds with Raging Pigs for iPhone and iPad

Raging Pigs is an iPhone and iPad game where it’s you, a single pig, versus a flock of birds. It is your goal to smash and destroy them all. Each level has a different challenges including crates, special powers, platforms, and weapons.

Raging Pigs also has a companion app for the controls if you want to use your iPhone as a controller for your iPad or with AirPlay.

I’m am still undecided about Raging Pigs. The controls are on the screen and take a little getting used to. The more familiar with the controls I become, the more I like it. The iPad version has a free trial version, so I definitely recommend picking that up first and giving it a try.

The pigs are back and boy are they pissed! Control the raging pigs as they smash, squish and squash birds through 168 levels of pig jumping arcade fun.

Each level presents different challenges and puzzles to solve including pushing and pulling crates, platforms to activate, hot chili pepper powers, arrow shooting crossbows, protective helmets, fire platforms, disappearing platforms, falling crates and the everlasting infinity level.

Enjoy hours of fun as you win up to 3 eggs per level in this fast paced arcade puzzler! Game Center integration is included for achievements and leader boards as well.

Raging Pigs is available on the iPhone for $0.99 and on the iPad for $2.99. The iPad version also has a free trial version. Raging Pigs Joypad is available on the iPhone for free.

[iPhone - App Store link] [iPad (Free) - App Store link] [iPad (Full) - App Store link] [Joypad - App Store link]

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iOS 5.0.1 Released to Public, How to Update Without iTunes

It seems that Apple decided to go ahead and give the go to iOS 5.0.1 earlier than we had initially thought. Releasing today, the update brings along multiple new minor features, the most significant, however, being the highly anticipated iPhone 4S battery patch. id="more-22498">

The update, which was slowly released worldwide according to region, mainly addresses a few bugs. The main fix that most people were greatly waiting for, was of course, the promised patch to rectify the iPhone 4S battery issues. I haven’t used iOS 5.0.1 long enough to see how much of a difference the battery life is from before, but I’m just hoping that it’s significant…

Here is what accompanies iOS 5.0.1:/> -Fixes bugs affecting battery life/> -Adds Multitasking gestures for original onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.ipadngravy.com');" target="_blank" title="iPad" href="http://www.ipadngravy.com">iPad/> -Resolves bugs with Documents in the Cloud/> -Improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation

I didn’t see that many people across various forms were having problems with battery life – not only limited to 4S users. And some people were ticked that Apple was only fixing the issue for 4S users. I’m guessing by that first note above that other devices’ battery issues have also been corrected.

Now, the good part. This is probably the first time of many that you’ll be updating straight from your devices, of course only if you have iOS 5. It’s simple to do so:

1. Navigate to Settings/> 2. Click on General/> 3. Further, click on Software Updates/> 4. By this time, the update should be available worldwide, so it should show up immediately on your screen. Just click the update, and you should be all set. Your device will download the update and then will update your device followed by an automatic restart./> 5. Voila!

Let us know below if you noticed any changes in your battery life regardless of the device that you own.