We have some wicked awesome news on the iOS gaming front today -- Gameloft, the developer of popular 3D mobile games such as N.O.V.A and Asphalt, has announced a partnership with Epic Games that will allow Gameloft to use Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 in four new titles, two of which are expected by the end of 2011.

Unreal Engine on Apple devices first became a talking point when Epic Games debuted their tech demo of the engine, titled Epic Citadel, at Apple's iPod event last September. The game displayed graphics that far surpassed anything previously seen on iOS, raising eyebrows around the world. Epic later went on to release the full version of the game, which is now known as IGN's iPhone Game of the Year for 2010 -- Infinity Blade.

I, for one, am very excited about this announcement. Between this partnership and their entry into the Mac App Store, Gameloft has been showing some serious ambition. Let's hope we see some great games on the Unreal Engine 3 later this year.

Gameloft working on four Unreal Engine games originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I'll say this: Sticky is an original one. It's sort of a platforming game, though there are no real platforms involved. You play as a little orange blob named Sticky, tasked with saving the world from invading black blobs that slowly move from one side of your iPhone's screen to the other. Sticky can defeat these enemy blobs by bouncing on their heads, so it's your job as a player to catapult him back and forth around the little levels in order to hit the bad guys exactly right.

The game is fun, cute and intuitive, and while it's pretty easy to beat the individual stages (at least until power-ups and more obstacles get added into the mix), each stage also rates you out of three stars, so you need to race against time to try and grab a perfect rating as well. Hardcore gamers will want to clear out all of the levels, while younger (or just more casual gamers) can bounce Sticky around and still enjoy playing.

Full Game Center (and Crystal -- Chillingo is publishing) integration extends the experience, and the fact that it's only US$0.99 means it's probably worth a try if you're interested. It probably won't pull me away from Tiny Wings completely, but it's another fun casual experience.

TUAW's Daily App: Sticky originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LaunchBar is a smart launcher, which learns from your habits and patterns to help you work more efficiently.

Until midnight tomorrow (Sunday, eastern time) MacUpdate Promo has LaunchBar on sale for $17.50, which is 50% off the usual price.

I love LaunchBar because it's smart. For example, I use Mailplane instead of Mail.app, and LaunchBar has learned this, so when I trigger LaunchBar and type the letter 'm' it shows me Mailplane. If I type 't' it shows me Twitterrific but if I type 'te' it shows me iTerm.

It doesn't just let you launch apps either, you can also launch Preference Panes, create new events in iCal, search your address book (one of my favorite 'tricks': search for someone in my addressbook, navigate to their their phone number, and then press Enter. LaunchBar will show the phone number "full screen" like so:

You can also copy Address Book information from LaunchBar, use it to begin email messages, and more.

Using the "Instant Send" feature, I can select a file in Finder, then trigger LaunchBar and press "Command" twice (you can choose from several key commands to trigger Instant Send), and LaunchBar will offer to open the file in whatever application I search for next, similar to if you had right clicked on the file, chosen 'Open With' but your hands never touched the mouse. If you 'open with' your mail client, it will create a new message with the file attached. Or maybe you have an image that normally opens with Preview but you want to edit it in Pixelmator; Instant Send makes it easier and quicker.

LaunchBar also has a built-in calculator and clipboard history. Do you use search engines? LaunchBar will let you create searches right from within itself. It comes with a slew of search engines built in, and adding your own is simple.

Quite simply, LaunchBar is one of my absolutely essential applications. I've tried the others, and I always come back to LaunchBar.

See previous TUAW coverage of LaunchBar.

LaunchBar 5 gives powerful launching options, on sale originally appeared on TUAW on Sat, 26 Feb 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tony Bradley at Macworld points out something interesting that I've also been thinking about: Apple is being awfully sneaky with its timing when it comes to product announcements.

The upcoming March 2 event happens to land not only right around the time that Motorola's much-anticipated Xoom tablet will hit consumers' hands, but also right in the middle of next week's Game Developers Conference, when quite a few developers will be announcing new games for both the iPad and Android tablet platforms. The timing seems more than coincidental, especially with all of the announcements we've seen today.

And this isn't the only recent Apple announcement apparently targeted at shaking things up: The Mac App Store's launch date was set for January 6, right as this year's CES was underway in Las Vegas, and much of that show's sidetalk was taken up by rumors of the Verizon iPhone, which was announced a few days later on the 11th.

You could argue that this is just good business, and you'd be right -- with its keynote events, Apple is the uncontested leader in product messaging for tech, and timing is a big part of that. If Apple is going to announce an iPad 2, why wouldn't it be right when everyone's focused on tablet software? (Not to mention that the event is being held at Yerba Buena, right next door to the convention center). But at the same time, it's quite a coup, hijacking the attention of press and developers without any official involvement in the event they're there to attend.

Apple's announcement timing is uncanny originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last week saw low-cost airline Jetstar offering in-flight iPads to customers, and now 9to5 Mac is reporting on a Variety magazine story which says that Southwest Airlines is about to start selling media content through Apple's iTunes Store. Called InAirtainment, the program offers fliers a playlist of 20 free songs from new artists to entice customers to shop the iTunes store, and Southwest will be receiving a small percentage of sales like any typical iTunes affiliate.

Speaking with Variety, Southwest spokesperson Whitney Eichinger said that "we want our customers to be able to find all their travel needs at Southwest.com and a big part of traveling is loading up on songs, movies, and all the television you've missed during the week." That should be a big selling point for passengers of the airline, which doesn't provide seat-back entertainment in their fleet of Boeing 737 jets.

We have seen a lot of cross-promotion of late between different airlines and Apple media devices, including the approval of the use of iPads in the cockpit for flight planning and iPad check-ins in Malaysia. Seems Apple's products aren't just showing up in TV and film; they are also taking over the in-flight entertainment world.

[via 9to5 Mac]

Southwest Airlines now selling iTunes content originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 23 Feb 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming division has been surprisingly Mac-friendly -- not only has it produced a number of great iOS games already, but its shows have included a number of Mac references as well (always in the service of comedy, of course). I guess it's no surprise that Adult Swim released a universal app of its own. Like many television apps, there are some extras, including a schedule of shows, and a clock, weather, and calendar feature. But the real draw here is that in the app you can watch full episodes of Adult Swim shows, from Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job to Family Guy (reruns), Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and one of my favorites, The Venture Brothers.

And the best part is that the app is completely and totally free. If you're an Adult Swim fan at all, you'll definitely want to go get it off of the App Store right now. Great to see such a solid strategy from these guys on iOS -- I guess they definitely know where their audience is.

Adult Swim releases free universal app with full episodes in the app originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A new patent by Apple reveals that the company has been working on gesture-based commands determined with audio transducers on the corners of a given surface -- in other words, as your fingers press and tap on a surface (like a keyboard or a computer casing or even the bezel around an iPad), the audio receivers would determine where and how you touched it, driving a user interface. The patent outlines a few different ways this could be done, from listening in to the housing itself or just keeping an electronic ear out for the sounds of touching the surface.

It seems like this would all be done via interaction with the surface itself, though of course we've seen interaction done with ultrasound, where a set of receivers actually determine movement and placement in the air. Apple has also included the apparatus as an add-on to a laptop screen, so they're playing around with it in a few different ways. It's hard to see how you'd do multitouch with a setup like this, but of course this is just research rather than application.

Of course, as we always say on these patents, this is just research at this point, and it's unlikely we'll see this out as an actual product any time soon. In my estimation, it seems like this is something Apple was considering before they went with the capacitive surface on the iPad -- now that Apple has bet big on those components it's unlikely they'll switch touch interfaces in the middle of a product's life.

[via Engadget]

Apple patent features sound-driven commands originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It's shaping up to be an interesting week ahead. All of the signs we're seeing point to an announcement of new MacBook Pros this Thursday, which could provide MBP fans with a new series of machines to lust after. Whether it's the new Intel "Sandy Bridge" processors or a possibility of a huge speed boost in connectivity to external peripherals, an updated MacBook Pro line could be just the thing for Mac geeks who crave portability and power.

We'll be talking about the new line of MacBook Pros and anything else you'd like to chat about, tonight at 10 PM ET (7 PM PT) on TalkShoe. Your calls and questions help us make the show the best it can be, otherwise I'm just talking to myself! To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in.

For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 PM EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (yay for free cell phone weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8.

TUAW Talkcast: New MacBook Pros to make a splash this week? originally appeared on TUAW on Sun, 20 Feb 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Another installment of "3 apps" this week as we talk to Kai Cherry, iOS Imagineer at Getaround. Kai is a Mac and iPhone developer and a frequent commenter and guest on the TUAW Talkcast. This time we asked what his "favorite" 3 apps were, but as he couldn't reveal one of them, he noted that one of his most used apps was Camera+. Below are the other apps mentioned.

iShred
Camera+
The TUAW app (aw, thanks!)

My top 3 iPhone apps: Kai Cherry originally appeared on TUAW on Sat, 19 Feb 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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