App Giveaway: Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation

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The popular FPS series, Modern Combat, has brought a new addition – Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation. It brings more intensity, better graphics, and a battle for freedom of the United States.

The best, most realistic smartphone FPS series returns with even higher intensity and an apocalyptic battle for the freedom of the United States, for one or more players.

BE THE HERO OF AN EXPLOSIVE SOLO CAMPAIGN

Fight through a 13-mission campaign from Los Angeles to Pakistan.Witness multiple memorable moments thanks to AAA scenario-scripting. Experience different types of gameplay: escort, destroy, helicopter, 4×4 chase…

LIVE THE MOST IMMERSIVE REAL WAR EXPERIENCE

The deepest and most intuitive FPS gameplay on smartphones improved once again, now with a sprint and slide feature. Gaze-upon next-gen GFX that allow for an unprecedented rendering of environments. Improved SFX and voice acting will immerse you in an apocalyptic scenario.

ENJOY WHAT IS SIMPLY THE BEST MULTIPLAYER ON SMARTPHONES

Enter battles for up to 12 players in 6 exclusive maps and 7 different modes. Use your customized weapons to move up an addictive leaderboard with more than just ranks.

TiPb knows how much our readers love Modern Combat 3, so we’re gifting copies to 5 of you! For a chance to win, just leave a comment below! Must provided a valid email address and have a valid US or Canadian iTunes account to win – Apple’s rule, not ours!

Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation is available on the iPhone and iPad for $6.99.

[App Store link]

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

More of: App Giveaways, App Store Apps, Full, Games
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Previously: Prepare your kids for school with Qwizful for iPhone [Kids Corner]
Next up: Control Siri with just your mind, Project Black Mirror can do just that

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Control Siri with just your mind, Project Black Mirror can do just that

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AppId is over the quota

If you want to stop talking to Siri and just use your mind to ask it to do things, that possibility may have just become a step closer to reality. A couple of guys decided as a hobby, to tinker around with an iPhone 4S and some ECG (Electrocardiogram) pads. The ECG pads take brain wave patterns and translate them into synthesized speech. The speech is then directed through the 3.5mm headset jack and Siri hears it and acts on the command. The engineers working on “Project Black Mirror” have been able to link 25 brain wave patterns to Siri commands.

Now before we get too excited, you still need to press the home button to initiate a Siri listening mode and the project currently consists of a large test board hooked up to a Macbook pro; it could hardly be called portable. The guys plan on launching a Kickstarter page very soon to attract investment and get the project off the ground.

Take a look at the videos below and let us know what you think. There is a lot of buzz suggesting that the whole setup is a fake. To be honest, it does look too good to be true.

Source: Intomobile via 9to5Mac

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Daily Apps: Hotpost Shield VPN, Cat Catch: Christmas Toy, Chuggington Terrific Trainee, Smoovie, Today in History

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AppId is over the quota

Every day, TiPb gets flooded with announcements for new and updated iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps and games. So every day we pick just a few of the most interesting, the most notable, and simply the most awesome to share with you!

Hotspot Shield VPN: Functions as a bandwidth compression service for iOS devices, allowing users to more than double the amount of Web content they can use under their mobile data plans and save money. [Free for iPhone - App Store link]

Cat Catch: Christmas Toy: A toy for your cat! Delight your cats this Christmas with an unforgettable toy! The whole family will remember this entertaining gift for years to come! [$0.99 for iPad - App Store link]

Chuggington Terrific Trainee!: Now your little trainees can ride the rails with their favorite Chuggington characters, Wilson, Koko, Brewster and Action Chugger! There are sixteen action-packed missions as you follow Vee’s instructions to make deliveries, patrol the rails and race against time. [$0.99 for iPhone - App Store link]

Smoovie: A stop motion animation app. Makes it child’s play for budding animators to bring their toys to life. And more seasoned enthusiasts will feel equally at home with Smoovie’s simple, fast, yet surprisingly powerful editing tools. [$4.99 for iPad - App Store link]

Today In History: As soon as you open the application you are shown all the major events that happened on that day. Created for history, trivia, and knowledge lovers and also for fans of On This Day, This Day In, Today In pages. [$1.99 for iPhone - App Store link]

Any other big app or game releases or updates today?

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

More of: App Store Apps, Daily Apps, Games
More on: apps, Cat Catch: Christmas Toy, Chuggington Terrific Trainee, daily apps, Games, Hotpost Shield VPN, ipad apps, ipad games, iPhone, iphone apps, iphone games, Smoovie, Today in History
Previously: How’s your battery life on iOS 5.0.1?
Next up: Photogene² for iPhone hits the App Store, offers one in-app purchase to Photogene owners for free!

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iCloud suffering partial outage

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According to many of our readers, iCloud is down for them — something Apple’s iCloud system status page currently confirms.

iCloud: Services – Users Affected: Some

11/11/2011 13:40 PST

Users may be unable to access iCloud services. Normal service will be restored ASAP.

Gives us some sympathy for a CrackBerry outage-plagued friends. If iCloud is down for you, let us know for how long, what’s giving your grief, and when it comes back.

Source: iCloud system status

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

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AppId is over the quota

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.

“I did a set of recordings with Scansoft five or six years ago, for text-to-speech services,” says Briggs. “Five thousand sentences over three weeks, spoken in a very particular way and only reading flat and even. Then they go away and take all the phonics apart, because I have to be able to read anything you want, even if I’ve never actually recorded all those words.”

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

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Daily Tip: How to change your iPhone or iPad Notification Center alert style

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AppId is over the quota

New to iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and iOS 5 and wondering how to configure Notification Center so you get the alerts you need but not the interruptions you don’t? Luckily, you can choose between 3 different alert styles, from in-your-face popups to subtle banners to none at all. Follow along and we’ll show you how!

Popup alerts are the old style iOS notifications of the pass, a big box that leaps out at you and won’t do anything else until you either cancel it or act on it. While old school, these types of alerts still have their place for anything your really don’t want to miss — alarms, calendar appointments, reminders, etc. If you want to be absolutely, positively certain you see something, set notifications to a popup alert.

Banners briefly roll down from the top of the screen. If you don’t want to be bothered by a notification, you simply ignore the banner and go about your business, dismiss the banner by flicking it away, or just wait a couple of seconds and it will roll back up and disappear all on its own. Because they’re subtle, they’re best used for things that are nice-to-known but not incredibly urgent — personal email, social network messages, news alerts, etc. If it’s not critical but you are curious, set notification to banners.

If you set a notification to none, you won’t get an alert at all. No popup, no banner, no nothing. Because you won’t be alerted, this is best for apps that you want to keep around but don’t want to know about unless you specifically open them — games you play infrequently, social apps you seldom visit, apps you only use when traveling, etc. If it’s more interruption than notification, set it to none.

Apple has included deep granular controls in the Notification Center, so configuring it can seem like a daunting task for new users. It’s really simple, however, so just follow these quick steps to help you configure Notification Center in iOS 5:

Open the Settings app from the iPhone home screen.Tap the ‘Notifications’ settings pane. Tap the name of the app you want to configure the alert style for.Choose popup alerts, banner alerts, or no alerts.

In addition to the three notification types listed above, you often also have the option to set a sound and/or vibration alert for a notification. Again, if the notification is really important to you — SMS/MMS/iMessage, Twitter DM or Facebook message, work email, etc. you may want to hear and feel when it comes in.

Otherwise, you can turn sound off and enjoy a slightly more peaceful existence.

Launch SettingsScroll down and tap SoundChoose the app you want to set the Sound for

That’s it, you’re ready to stay informed but not overwhelmed! We’ll be back with more Notification Center tips shortly but in the meantime if you have any advice on keeping alerts under control, 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.

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

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AppId is over the quota

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:

Open the Stocks app from the iPhone home screen, or tap the Stock widget in Notification Center.Tap the ‘i’ information button in the lower right-hand corner.Tap the + button in the upper left-hand corner to add a new stock. You can search for stocks by stock ticker or company name.Tap Done to finish.

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:

Open the Weather app from the iPhone home screen, or tap the Weather widget in Notification Center.Tap the ‘i’ information button in the lower right-hand corner.From here, you have the option to either use Local Weather (pulled from location services) or add a location manually. For instructions sake, we’ll add a new location. To add a new location, tap the + button in the upper left-hand corner.Search by City, State or ZIP and input your preferred location.

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…)

More of: Beginner Tips, Daily Tips
More on: ios 5, iOS 5 tips, Notification Center, notification center tips, notifications, stocks, stocks tips, weather, weather tips, Widgets
Previously: App Giveaway: Snapseed for iPhone and iPad
Next up: Steal and blow up your opponents’ words in Scrabble-like game War of Words for iPhone and iPad

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Apple still investigating battery life issues post-iOS 5.0.1

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AppId is over the quota

AllThingsD‘s John Paczkowski received a statement from Apple concerning continued battery life issues following this week’s iOS 5.0.1 release.

The recent iOS software update addressed many of the battery issues that some customers experienced on their iOS 5 devices. We continue to investigate a few remaining issues.

TiPb is conducting a poll to see how, if at all, iOS 5.0.1 has helped improve battery life so head on over there and give us your impressions.

Source: AllThingsD

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

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AppId is over the quota

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.

Start with the standard online crossword gameplay you know and loveNo longer limited to just letters – War of Words introduces Action Tiles!Bomb Tiles let you destroy your opponent’s lettersThief Tiles allow you to steal words from the other playerDrop Land Mine Tiles to catch your opponent unawarePlay your own Multiplier Tiles to get the score of your dreamsReverse Tiles let you play a word backwardsStart Over Tiles let you start a word anywhere on the board – without connecting to another wordUse an Extra Turn Tile to play two turns in a rowBarricade Tiles let you block strategic locations on the boardShield Tiles protect areas from your opponentWildcards can be multiple letters at the same time

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]

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

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Sprint to SIM lock all new iPhone 4S activations starting today

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AppId is over the quota

According to a leaked internal Sprint memo, all Sprint iPhone 4S handsets sold starting today will have their SIM card slots locked to Sprint. It has never been fully clear how Sprint was shipping its iPhone 4S models but it now looks like they were originally shipping them with unlocked SIMS.

According to the memo, the SIM locking will be done during the iPhone’s activation process and it will be done invisibly. The customer will not see any notification of it happening.

What does this mean for any new Sprint iPhone 4S users? Well you will lose the ability to use a local SIM card if you travel out of the U.S. You will now have to have a roaming agreement in place with Sprint and pay the much higher call and data charges. One bit of good news, today’s decision does not impact current iPhone 4S Sprint users; we assume that this means their SIM card slots remain unlocked.

Source: SprintFeed

More of: News
More on: activation, Apple, card, iphone 4s, locked, roaming, SIM, sprint
Previously: Photogene² for iPhone hits the App Store, offers one in-app purchase to Photogene owners for free!
Next up: Unlocked iPhone 4S launches in U.S., international iPhone 4S launches in Hong Kong, South Korea, and more

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