Sure Apple, the iPhone may have set a precedent in the Smartphone sector by marking a touch screen as just ticket to compete with the big man that you are. Yea that’s working well, you even out paced RIM, taking their spot in Smartphone sales as number two. Heck, RIM is pushing the Storm at a lower price and is the first Blackberry with a touch screen but you know what all of these new phones are lacking Apple? Yea, a glossy screen.
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Rhythm based games are quickly becoming “The Game” to own, manifesting in all forms from miniaturized plastic instruments that quickly gobble the living room and knockoffs of anything that so much as brings up the word beat, in a musical sense of course. “The Game” to have for the iPhone has always been Tap Tap Revolution and since its Jailbreaking reliant days, have provided hours of fun for casual users, asylum for Dance Dance Revolution fanatics and of course something to pass the time from those big boy console games. Tap Tap Revenge rose from the ashes of the fractured Jailbreaking community and took center stage on the iPhone’s own App Store from day one and has only gotten better thanks to a partnership between Tapulous and Nine Inch Nails. The end result is a tapping frenzy synchronized with a sonic felatio of music.
What makes the newest iteration of Tap Tap Revenge so appealing is the partnership between a band providing content that powers the game which is sure to tickle the sweetspots of fanboys and challenge seeking gamers alike. Besides dipping into Nine Inch Nail’s latest albums, Ghosts and The Slip, to assault finger tips everywhere, the close integration of the band’s theme throughout the game makes it all the more enjoyable. You’re almost immersed in a complete NIN induced music frenzy sans mic throwing and a graveyard of beat down broken instruments. The close integration between not only the music and album production make for a tight knit game that doesn’t skip on features and doesn’t sell out for the sake of appealing to a niche userbase.
The App is further sweetened by a promotion being ran by Tapulous in which floor tickets for NIN’s remaining shows of this year will be gifted to a select few who manage to conquer their way into a score of 150,000 of higher. Oh and don’t forget that one of you lucky tapping connoisseurs will be worthy of receiving a Les Paul guitar signed by Trent Reznor himself. There will be no pork based appetizers as a consolation prize, however.
Whether you’re a fan of Tap Tap Revenge or Nine Inch Nails, none of that matters once you plop down and unleash your fingers of fury. Sure you’ll get an extra dosage of NIN’s newest release but it’s still a challenge worth taking up by dedicated Tap Tap fans. While the few tracks included from The Slip make waves, the remaining selection is slotted full of Ghosts songs. Despite any perception you may have of the instrumental laden album, they translate quite nicely into Tap Tap, possibly due to the emphasis of hitting dots as they roll down the screen and not trying to impose your horrible Karaoke playing skills on the general public.
The setlist for Tap Tap NIN consists of 13 tracks which all contain difficulties of Easy, Medium, Hard and Extreme. The tracks included are below.
-1,000,000
-Discipline
-3 Ghosts I
-Echoplex
-18 Ghosts III
-19 Ghosts III
-Head Down
-21 Ghosts III
-26 Ghosts III
-Demon Seed
-31 Ghosts IV
-Letting You
-9 Ghosts I
What’s interesting to note however is the comparisons in price between the NIN version and Tapulous’ free version. The price of $4.99 doesn’t technically consist of the cost for songs. The six songs from The Slip can be had for free from Nine Inch Nail’s website while two songs from Ghosts can also be obtained for nothing through the teaser posted for the album. The 5 remaining Ghosts tracks make up the whole 36 song disc and comes to $5 for the whole shebang or 14 cents per individual slice of sonic solace. That puts 70 cents into the cost of the game’s music but the price is worth every penny considering the excellent quality of the game and awesome integration between Nine Inch Nails. This kind of development skill and expertise is rarely seen as gaming companies butcher a brand until its assimilated into a cookie cutter environment.
Gallery On Flickr Tap Tap Revenge (NIN)
AT&T has been one of the most successful carriers when it comes to marketing Apple’s iPhone raking in bigger profits than other carriers across the globe. That doesn’t appear to have changed as AT&T is boasting record numbers thanks to the iPhone. During the latest quarter, AT&T claimed 2.4 Million activations and an increase in profits.
Of those 2.4 Million activations, 40% were new subscribers adding 960,000 new customers to AT&T’s cellular division. The news of record iPhone sales for AT&T comes after Apple’s quarter earnings report that revealed 6.9 Million iPhones had been sold.
However, by subsidizing the iPhone at such huge cuts, cost AT&T $900 Million during the latest quarter. AT&T is expected to make up the losses over an iPhone’s 2 year contract.
Via: Gizmodo
Scaled back production of any Apple product usually indicates and upcoming update but in the case of the Mac Mini, could signal its imminent end. While an upgrade could come as hinted by various rumor sites, this could go either way considering the Mini’s upgrade track record. The last update to Apple’s lunchbox sized Mac was mid 2007 and has aged considerably without any worthwhile upgrades.
Gizmodo interprets Apple’s notification to retailers regarding an immediate cut to Mac Mini shipments as the worst case scenario. While there is no solid ground whether or not the Mini will receive a much, much needed update, its demise wouldn’t be surprising. Out of all Apple’s Macs, the Mini lacks 802.11N support and still utilizes the older Intel Merom CPU with a 667 MHz Front Side Bus and GMA950 Graphics Processor.
The high price point for such a configuration and lack of expandability beyond the RAM, Hard Drive and Optical Drive leave much to be desired. The Mac Mini was positioned as an entry into the Mac family with an attractive $500 price point but was soon raised when the transition to Intel CPUs was made during early 2006. Ironically, it would share the same fate as the PowerMac Cube which was the unofficial successor to the failed product.
However, rumors point towards a possible refresh occurring before the holiday shopping season or Macworld 2009. This would give reason to a halt on Mac Mini shipments to European retailers as its customary for Apple to do so before massive upgrades to their products. Early July Apple notified Best Buy of limited MacBook shipments which indicated a revamp to the MacBook line. This did not come to fruition until October when Apple introduced a new MacBook and MacBook Pro in refined Aluminum enclosures sporting all new Nvidia GPUs at a lower price point than previous Mac Notebooks.
Via: TUAW
Written by Tanner Godarzi on October 22nd, 2008
Posted in: Uncategorized
New firmware updates for the iPhone are inevitable but before they’re pushed out to the general public, they don Beta status allowing developers ample time to tweak and modify their Apps while providing bug fixes to Apple. Firmware 2.1 came out recently with Apple focusing more on stability and bug fixes, but this time around, a few extra goodies are being baked into Firmware 2.2; ‘Emojicons’ and Google Street View support for the bundled maps application.
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Some people look forward to Billy Idol concerts, Political conventions and Tupperware parties which are usually pre planned along with a seemingly infinite amount of anxiety tacked. Mac fans, Bloggers and the occasional market analyst don’t get the star treatment so much with only a few rumors to guide us in freeing up our “socially burdened” calendars to casually stroll into an Apple event. Oh hey, looks like one is going down September 9th, thankfully casual wear is allowed.
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You know a concert is good when the technical engineering and production not only flows with the show but provides a drastically different atmosphere of realism. Sometimes things do go awry or just happen to fuck up in general but very rarely are they supposed to fuck up per show requirements.
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