iPhone and iPad gaming is broken: here's what we need to do to fix it

I was just reminiscing about the many great games I've thoroughly enjoyed playing on iOS, which collectively have turned Apple's platform into one that somehow (and surprisingly) managed to surpass the venerable Commodore 64, much-missed Dreamcast and rather wonderful Nintendo DS in my affections.Of late, you'd be forgiven for thinking that iOS has no good games at all. On reading opinion pieces online, you're probably now imagining iOS as some kind of post-apocalyptic gaming wasteland, where the slowly rotting form of Sonic the Hedgehog begs passers-by for money, before being crushed to death by the dual horrors of EA's in-app-purchase juggernaut and a tsunami of mediocrity.This time round, Dungeon Keeper and Flappy Bird are at the forefront of everyone's minds. The former is apparently EA seeing just how far it can push the concept of freemium gaming before angry gamers snap and march on EA HQ, in order to batter the company's accountants to death with obsolete (but now suddenly rather usefully heavy) original iPads.The line of thinking was apparently this: take a much-loved classic game, add as many timers and hateful roadblocks as possible, then send out lots of press releases saying how AMAZING and FREE and AMAZING it is, carefully avoiding highlighting the broken gameplay and hateful in-app purchase system.

Flappy Bird?

And then there's Flappy Bird, a one-thumb survival game that appears to have time-travelled from the early days of the App Store when most games were rubbish.If you've not played Flappy Bird, too late, because the dev pulled it from the App Store, but it was the mediocre yet oddly compelling equivalent of a novelty summer pop-chart single - Mr Blobby in app form.So what went wrong? This: Mutant Mudds. Death Ray Manta. Contre Jour. Monsters Ate My Condo. Forget Me Not. Pivvot. QatQi. Slingshot Racing. Dark Nebula 2. Super Hexagon. Beat Sneak Bandit. Mos Speedrun. Device 6. World Of Goo. Zen Bound 2. Blackbar. Stickets. Beyond Ynth. Edge. HungryMaster. Monster's Valley…

All great games, but you've probably barely heard of any of them. That's because most - SHOCK! - require up-front payment (albeit only an amount akin to buying an 8-bit game. On cassette. In 1985), rather than pretending to be free and then throwing up roadblocks that you can skip by buying a 'Stupidful of Gems'.Also, many of these titles are by indies, who lack the resources of an EA, and so their amazing efforts often go unnoticed. And then Apple merrily bleats about the latest freemium tat, giving it an Editor's Choice, while the cream of iOS gaming goes largely unnoticed.Fundamentally, though, this is all YOUR fault. Yes, YOU. The iOS app ecosystem has gotten to the point where too many people want something for nothing. They expected games to be cheap, and now they expect them to be free and updated forever, because developers can apparently survive on a diet of air.Furthermore, people are suckers when hooked, meaning they'll abruptly forget about their miserly nature and happily shovel money into a game putting up roadblocks, like a crazed gambler laughing like a maniac at a casino slot machine.

So, how to fix things. First, Apple's probably not going to do anything. The company has never had a clue about gaming, and it's not about to find one down the back of the sofa.Secondly, hideous exploitative freemium titles aren't going anywhere, especially when companies are making money hand over fist, bank accounts swelling as countless gamers try to eke some enjoyment from the trudgefest they've invested so heavily in.

The only solution is to start shouting louder about genuinely great games, and recognising that paying a few quid upfront for a title beats paying nothing initially and then getting mugged shortly afterwards.Alongside, punish the bad games by ignoring them; if a game erects arbitrary barriers because a publisher decided the best way to make money was to literally stop people playing it, then play something else. Invest in developers who care about you having a great user experience and an entertaining time, not those who merely see you as a wallet on legs.Naturally, that all sounds a bit grass-roots, and it could amount to a drop in the ocean; but that might just be enough to stop iOS gaming sliding into a cesspit that it cannot escape from. And if you want a starting point, check out the dozens of games already mentioned on this page.

Apple iPhone 4 rises from the dead, but only for certain territories

Apple has reportedly turned back the clock and restarted manufacture of its iPhone 4smartphone, but only for specific territories including India, Indonesia and Brazil,According to a report in the Indian newspaperEconomic Times, the move has been made in response to Apple's recent loss of market share across the territories as companies such as Samsung have been undercutting it with lower-prices Android handsets.The report quotes "three senior executives" with direct knowledge of the company's plan, who said "Apple's Foxconn vendor in China has restarted production of the iPhone 4 just for India and the other two markets."Fresh iPhone 4 stocks, which have reached retail stores in the past 10 days, bear a December 2013 manufacturing date. Trade partners have been informed that new arrivals, reaching next week, would have been manufactured in January. The iPhone 4 production capacity could not be ascertained, but trade estimates put the number of phones that came to India in the first phase at 50,000-60,000," the report added.The newspaper goes on to note that the move marks the first time Apple has restarted production of a discontinued phone.Apparently the decision was made after Apple's local management team in India convinced the US company that an entry-level model at the Rs 20,000 price point was "essential" to claw back market share, which had been reoded with the more expensive iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c. The Times of India notes that the iPhone 4 had been a best seller in the Indian market due in large part to its attractive price point.

[root] Pry-Fi

Description

You are being watched...

Retailers, crooks, the government, and others shady individuals are tracking your movements. Even when your Wi-Fi is turned off, your phone may be broadcasting information to whomever is in range which can be used both to track repeated visits to as well as your exact movements in an area under surveillance.

It's not a big step to couple this to personal information - a retailer for example, could track your trip to the register and correlate with your payment information. Now the tracking hardware and software vendors, the store (or chain) owner, their business partners, they can now all track where you are every time you come into range of one of their systems, and fully profile who you are, what you do, your financials, and your daily patterns!

That is just one example, but there are many uses for tracking you. Make no mistake, this is happening in the real world today.

Pry-Fi

One solution is shutting off Wi-Fi completely (including the background network scanning, a setting most people don't know about), but you would lose benefits like automatically connecting to known Wi-Fi networks and improved location awareness for your apps. It also does nothing to help the situation for others.

Pry-Fi will prevent your device from announcing all the networks it knows to the outside world, but it will still allow background scanning and automatically connecting to Wi-Fi networks. While you are not connected to a Wi-Fi network, the MAC address will constantly be pseudo-randomized, following a pattern that still makes the trackers think you are a real person, but they will not encounter your MAC address again. This will slowly poison their tracking database with useless information.

When you do connect to a Wi-Fi network, unless you specify otherwise, your MAC address will also be randomized - the same MAC address will not be used the next time you connect to this or any other network.

War!

Though of course the companies involved with these trackers claim they wouldn't use the data maliciously, the possibility is there, and we all know that if something can be abused, ultimately it will be. There do not appear to be any laws against these practices yet, nor is it likely Wi-Fi will be redesigned any time soon to get rid of the information leaks.

But we can make an effort to reduce the usefulness of the tracking data for the exploiters. Pry-Fi comes with a Warmode, which when enabled tries to make your Android device appear like dozens of people. Just wandering around an area under Wi-Fi location surveillance for a few minutes can ruin the tracking data for the period of your stay.

Proof of Concept

This is proof-of-concept code, and how for it will go in the future depends on interest and how well it works. It has been tested on several devices and seems to work, but it is very young still. The magic the app does to achieve its purpose is ever subject to changing Android security policies and OEM customizations, so even though it works now, there really is no saying if it will still be possible in future firmwares.

Of course you should also keep in mind that tracking can be done in many ways, and these W-Fi signals are far from the only method in use.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.pryfi

If you play Minigore 2, you’ll have to redownload it from the Play Store

We wrote about a new game called Minigore 2 last week, and obviously I was pretty fond of it. I’ve put a good amount of time into the game, enjoying it every step, but I did encounter one ad that had a ridiculously long timer and instructions to tap the ad to skip the wait. It was unpleasant to say the least, but I kept on playing.Unfortunately, this kind of behavior is actuallyagainst Google’s policies, so it had to be taken off of the Play Store. The game was tweaked and put back onto the Play Store, so those who want it can once again download it. It’s still free, and still has no in app purchases.However, those like me who have put some time into the game will have to redownload it from the Play Store, as it’s a different listing altogether. This means that your progress will be lost and you’ll have to start anew. It’s unfortunate, but necessary. So if you currently have the game installed, hit the widget to download the proper version and make sure to uninstall the old version, as it will not be updated. Not the best of news, but hopefully it won’t affect too many people.

Minigore 2: Zombies

1,635 ratings

by Mountain Sheep

10,000 - 50,000 downloads

Appears in a list of Apptastic fantastic! 

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LG to hold event on Feb. 13, G Pro 2 may be guest of honor

Get out your calendars, smartphone fans, because we may finally have a date on which one of the bigger Android phones of the year will be officially unveiled.LG has sent out invitations for an event taking place in Korea on Feb. 13. The invitation doesn’t come out and say exactly what the Life’s Good crew has planned, but it does include the tagline “Knock-knock knockin’ on,” which is likely a reference to the KnockOn double-tap to wake feature found on LG hardware such as the G2.LG recently confirmed that the G Pro 2 would be introduced in February, and so many folks assumed that the company would be making its announcement during Mobile World Congress at the end of the month. However, LG never specified a specific time or place, saying only that the debut would come sometime in February. It’s also worth noting that LG introduced the original Optimus G Pro ahead of MWC 2013, and so a pre-MWC unveiling of the G Pro 2 actually wouldn’t come as much of a surprise.Does the praise that LG has received for recent flagships like the Optimus G Pro and G2 have you looking forward to the G Pro 2?

Samsung officially announces Black Edition Galaxy S4 and S4 mini, coming this month

All of Samsung’s latest devices have featured a leather-like back. Samsung has been taking the complaints about its device build quality seriously, and while changing a phone’s rear plastic texture doesn’t seem like a big deal, it does make a big difference in its look and feel by making the device grippier and less cheap.The Galaxy S4 and S4 mini came out before this new trend started, so anyone that buys those handsets are getting “cheap” plastic backs. What is Samsung to do? Release new versions of both phones, of course. Samsung’s Black Edition devices recently appeared online and were shown to have no hardware differences from their older siblings, aside from the leather backplates and black fronts. This means that the Galaxy S4 will still be powered by a Snapdragon 600 processor.Now the Black Edition Galaxy S4 and S4 mini are official, as Samsung has not only announced them, it even gave them a release window. The newly-reskinned devices will launch this month in select markets, so the US may never see them. That’s probably for the best, as we don’t need more variants of the Galaxy S4 hitting shelves right before the announcement of its successor. Yes, the Galaxy S5 should be announced soon, so re-releasing a Galaxy S4 seems a bit useless to me.Despite my thoughts on the Black Edition phones, people in Samsung’s select regions will be able to buy them this month, and I’m sure they’ll be happy with them. The Galaxy S4 and S4 mini remain solid devices. What do you think of Samsung re-releasing old devices right before the launch of a new model? Leave a comment!

Rumor suggests Samsung Galaxy S III, Note II and other older devices will get official KitKat

Samsung hasn’t always been the fastest when it comes Android updates, but besides Google and its Nexus devices, I think that Samsung is the best overall. Not only are its updates released in a somewhat timely manner, it supports its older phones for quite a while. This is important because it reassures customers that their device won’t be tossed aside in less than a year. For example, the Galaxy S II was supported for nearly two years and was taken from Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich to Jelly Bean.

HTC may be beating Samsung to releasing KitKat in the US, but HTC also recently dumped support for the HTC One X and HTC One X+. Released in early 2012 and late 2012, respectively, HTC has deemed that those devices are not worthy of anything more than Android 4.2, despite them being just one generation old. Meanwhile, Samsung has updated its 2012 models to Android 4.3, and if a new rumor is correct, they may soon get Android 4.4 as well.

The latest rumor states that a bunch of older Samsung devices will receive the latest version of Android, despite the fact that they’re nearly two years old. There are even some some lower-end devices are on the list:

• Samsung Galaxy Note 2 SGH-i317
• Samsung Galaxy S3 SGH-i747
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 SM-t217a
• Samsung Galaxy S4 SGH-i337
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active SGH-i537
• Samsung Galaxy Mega SGH-i527
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom SM-c105a
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3 SM-N900a
• Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 SGH-i467
• Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini SM-g730a

If this rumor ends up being true, it’ll just add support to my opinion that Samsung is the best Android manufacturer when it comes to providing software updates. If phones are supported properly for two years, it means that security holes and bugs are far more likely to get fixed and new features will be added. Unfortunately, this also means that Samsung ends up being a bit slower at updating its current flagships, but I think it’s worth the tradeoff. Don’t you?