Developer The Binary Mill has been trying a number of different approaches on iOS (including the Penny Arcade-approved Decide-o-Tron game recommendation app), but Mini Motor Racing HD is the company's most solid release yet, in my estimation. It's a top-down mini car-racing game with a pretty exceptional amount of polish. The controls are well-made, there's a lot of fun progression options for a number of different cars, and the cars themselves are really well-rendered, so much so that on the iPad especially they really do look like real little toys.

The game only has one option for multiplayer, you can only play with one other player, either over WiFi or Bluetooth. But the single-player campaign mode is pretty filled out anyway, with more than 20 tracks and plenty of cars to unlock and upgrade. There's Game Center integration for leaderboards as well, so there's plenty of game to play through.

Mini Motor Racing HD is a solid mini racing game -- the cars feel solid, handle well, and the tracks are short and fun enough that the game's enjoyable even when you don't come in first. It's available on the iPad right now for $3.99 or on the iPhone for $1.99.

Daily iPad App: Mini Motor Racing HD originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 21 Dec 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I'm excited about this one, both for what it is, and for the potential of what it could be. The NFL has decided, in a (rare?) move of generosity, to stream the Super Bowl broadcast out to its mobile device apps, including the official NFL app on the iPhone and iPad. The stream on the app will actually have more information, including more camera angles and live stats on it, than the official television broadcast, and of course it'll be available in places that people without a normal television setup might not reach. The NFL has already provided some games for streaming, but this February's Super Bowl (and also the Pro Bowl) will likely be one of the largest potential audiences the apps could yet reach.

I think this is awesome -- I don't have an HD cable set up any more (instead, I use Netflix and Hulu for my television content), and so, at the bare minimum, this gives me a way to watch the game officially. But even more than that, I'll probably be at a friend's house to watch the proceedings anyway, and this means that we'll have second screen access through my iPad to more information, stats, and live updates as the game goes on. That means more engagement for the NFL, not to mention more places to sell more ads, and create more revenue on what's already one of the most profitable broadcasts around.

In short, this is a great move, not only for us the NFL's consumers, but for the network itself. I'll bet that we'll see some very surprising stats after the game in February on just how many people tuned in this way. Given how popular "second screen" content is getting, I think this will do very well.

NFL to stream the Super Bowl to iPhone, iPad apps originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ron Wayne is the man who missed out on the fortunes of Apple. He was one of the three co-founders of Apple, along with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Shortly after he signed the contract (which sold last week for almost $1.6 million) that founded the company, he sold his share for a mere pittance -- $2,300. Engadget's Brian Heater spent a couple of days talking with Wayne about his brush with history, and tells the story in prose, photos, and video.

Heater notes in the intro to his post that the 77 year-old Wayne seems genuinely puzzled about why people find him to be fascinating. From his small pre-fab home in Pahrump, Nevada, Wayne now makes his living buying, selling and trading coins and stamps. He's also written a couple of books: Insolence of Office, which is a treatise on morale and economic collapse, and Adventures of an Apple Founder.

Wayne was the designer of the original Apple logo, an ornate Victorian-looking drawing of Isaac Newton underneath the proverbial apple tree. That logo was quickly replaced by the now-classic Apple "byte" logo, erasing one of the few traces of Wayne's time as an owner of the company. Wayne still has a stack of drawings of Apple I case concepts he designed, as well as a photocopy of the contract that sold last week for millions. He sold the original contract to a collector in the early 1990s for about $500.

Heater's interview is a rare look at the man who was so close to becoming a billionaire, but says he has "no regrets." Be sure to visit our sister site Engadget for the full interview, and enjoy the video clip below.

Engadget interviews Apple co-founder Ron Wayne originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Although relatively few people voted in this category, we have a winner in the TUAW Best of 2011 voting for the best Mac game.

Machinarium (US$9.99) from Amanita Design, a small independent game developer in the Czech Republic, pulled in 46.9 percent of the votes in our reader polling and won the title of Best Mac Game in the TUAW Best of 2011. The beautifully drawn puzzle game caught the imagination of both TUAW readers and buyers on the Mac App Store, who have given the app 4.5 stars (out of 5).

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic ($19.99) came in second with 28.1 percent of the votes.

Many thanks to the TUAW readers who nominated their favorite Mac game apps and then voted in the competition. Congratulations to Amanita Design on being the winner in this category for the TUAW Best of 2011.

Machinarium wins best Mac game title in TUAW Best of 2011 voting originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 18 Dec 2011 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Israeli business publication Calcalist reported this week that Apple plans to site an innovation center (translation, original here) in the northern Israel city of Haifa, close to the country's leading technical university. The site points to a visit by Apple R&D VP Ed Frank to the area, and also notes that Apple appears to be in talks to acquire chip technology firm Anobit.

The Anobit acquisition would be in line with Apple's other buyouts of companies like PA Semi, as it continues to pull critical chipmaking IP and capabilities in-house to ensure that mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad have the purpose-built silicon they need (and, not coincidentally, that competitors have a harder time getting those crucial parts). Anobit's technology concerns flash memory; Apple's devices use the lion's share of worldwide flash production.

Haifa's mayor, Yona Yahav, sounded more hopeful than certain when asked about the company locating its first non-Cupertino R&D center in his area: "The future arrival of Apple in Haifa would be a very great celebration and we would embrace them in the city." It's possible that the press push on the R&D center is just wishful thinking at this point, but if Apple does build out a facility there it would be in good company. Intel, Yahoo, IBM and other international tech firms have offices there, taking advantage of the talent pipeline coming from Technion. The Israeli technology institute is a rival to top US computer science schools like MIT, Carnegie Mellon and Stanford, but also maintains tight ties to the high-tech Israeli military establishment.

[via Reuters & MDN]

Haifa may host Apple innovation center originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 18 Dec 2011 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yes, Christmas isn't until next week, but around here, a free app is always welcome. Here's some apps that have gone free for this holiday season.

• The excellent match-3 Call of Atlantis is free this weekend.
• Chillingo's puzzle platformer NyxQuest is also free.
• Babo Crash is another match-3 title that's gone free.
• Pro Zombie Soccer, where you use a soccer ball to kill zombies, is free.
• Bejeweled is usually 99 cents, but you can get it for free thanks to a promotion on Apple's Facebook page.
• Gameloft's Asphalt 6 racer has gone free.
• And the great RPG Fara is now completely free as well.

And there's some solid sales going on as well:

• Com2Us has most of its catalog on sale for 99 cents.
• Peggle and the HD version are down to just a buck each.
• Just in case you missed it on our Twitter account, Edge Extended is on sale for just 99 cents, while the original Edge is free.
• And EA is continuing its daily deals through the holidays with lots of free and discounted games inside their catalog.

Lots of great games for cheap or free this weekend! Enjoy.

Lots of free and discounted apps this pre-holiday weekend originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple has updated the Apple TV's software to version 4.4.4, though Mac Rumors and several other sites note that it's not yet clear what improvements the update offers over 4.4.3. The Apple TV's software remains significantly out of step with other iOS-powered devices; iPads and newer iPhones and iPod touches are now capable of running iOS 5, but the Apple TV remains running on iOS 4.

Apple has also issued a new version of iOS 5.0.1 exclusively for the iPhone 4S. While the build version differs from the previously released 5.0.1 update, users who have already updated to iOS 5.0.1 will be told that theirs is the most current version, suggesting that the new build contains only very minor tweaks not necessitating a 5.0.2 release. Anyone who has not yet updated to iOS 5.0.1 will consequently be updated to this new build version when/if they choose to update from 5.0.

Meanwhile, iOS 5.1 is currently in beta and recently had its second developer build released.

Apple TV updated to 4.4.4, iOS 5.0.1 'tweaked' for iPhone 4S originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iTunes Match has started rolling out in markets outside the US. International users have said that signups are now available in the UK, parts of Europe, and Australia. Here in New Zealand, I can confirm directly that iTunes Match is available as a signup option in my NZ-based account, for a fee of NZ$39.99 per year (compared to the US$24.99 per year it costs in the US store).

Signup links aren't showing up in the main pages of the iTunes Store for international users; instead, you have to navigate to your "Account" page to see an option for the signup. Some sites, such as Mac Rumors, have suggested this means iTunes Match has been accidentally revealed early to international users and therefore may not function as expected.

UK users will pay £24.99 for the service, while Europeans will pay €24.99. Australian users pay similarly higher fees at AU$34.99 per year.

iTunes Match allows users to mirror their entire iTunes libraries in the cloud, enabling near-instantaneous playback/download of any song in the user's library on any connected device.

iTunes Match international rollout begins originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 14 Dec 2011 20:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Inertia is a really amazing platformer for the iPhone that uses a mechanic I haven't seen in any game in recent memory. It's a platformer, so you control a little spaceman that can walk left and right and jump from platform to platform. But Intertia adds another button that essentially will keep you moving at whatever speed and direction you're currently moving, sans gravity, when you press it. If that sounds confusing, it is, and fortunately, the game has quite a few levels of tutorials to really get you used to how the inertia button moves and plays. If you're rocketing up and you press the button, you'll keep rocketing up. If you're falling down at an angle, you'll keep falling, at exactly that angle.

Once you figure it out, it's quite fun. And that very original movement also opens up all kinds of cool levels, where your little spaceman bounces around through 2D environments collecting various scrap pieces and running time trials. There are 35 levels to go through, and the game uses OpenFeint (not Game Center, though) for leaderboards and achievements.

The lite version is well worth the download to check out the mechanic if nothing else, and you can buy a universal HD version for $3.99. I'm really impressed with this one -- the iPhone isn't always the best device to play a platformer on (given that movement really needs to be precise sometimes), but this inertia mechanic really opens up some new elements of a very old, well-traveled genre.

Daily iPhone App: Inertia: Escape Velocity HD originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 13 Dec 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Last week, Japanese blog Macotakara reported that Apple hosted its "Made For iPhone" (MFI) technology summit in Shenzen, China (translated version). The conference last week, including 2,000 accessory makers and OEMs, featured Apple's announcement of a new certification chip for MFI accessories and future support for AirPlay over Bluetooth 4.0.

Only 2 percent of the MFI-licensed peripherals on the market use the Bluetooth version of the iPod Accessory Protocol, according to the story, which was introduced in iOS 5. Apple plans to help manufacturers accelerate the development of compatible devices, and grow the AirPlay device ecosystem by 7x by promoting the MFI program.

Bluetooth 4.0 (or Bluetooth Smart) has optional lower power requirements that make it a better fit for always-on remote peripherals, but at the moment the only Apple mobile device that supports 4.0 is the iPhone 4S; Macs with the new Bluetooth stack include the current Mac mini and MacBook Air.

The Verge reports that the article may have been misinterpreted from the original Japanese; the site's sources say that AirPlay is not headed for Bluetooth 4, but will remain a WiFi-only connection for now. The process of authenticating and linking an AirPlay device, however, may get easier; 9to5Mac's Seth Weintraub points to the Bluetooth 3.0 HS+ spec, which uses a hybrid of Bluetooth for negotiation and a colocated 802.11 (WiFi) connection for bandwidth up to 24 Mbit, more than adequate for music streaming.

[via AppleInsider, MacRumors]

Apple accessory developer conference pushes AirPlay, Bluetooth originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.