Free Game Alert! Top Gear Stunt School Currently Free in App Store

The BBC TV motoring show Top Gear’s massive and avid worldwide fan base will doubtless be delighted to hear that the Top Gear Stunt School iPhone/iPod touch and iPad app is currently free in the App Store, courtesy of FreeAppADay.com. If you’ve seen the show, you’ll instantly recognise the typical humour portrayed in the game, which gives the player the sort of crazy stunts and extreme challenges to perform that fans will be familiar with from the real-life Top Gear. There are a total of 60 unique physics-based stunt challenges to complete, with 20 additional “sandbox” challenges. Players also get the chance to fit out their cars with bizarre extras such as jet engines, huge wheels and hang-glider wings, with more than 2 billion different combinations of add-ons and modifications overall. You can even use these add-ons and modifications to help you try to beat a lap time set by the legendary Stig on the Top Gear Test track, who will also test out your customised car for you. Another cool feature of the game is the ability to challenge your friends to beat your stunt scores and race times with any of your creations. Not sure how long its free for, so be sure to visit the App Store right away before the price goes up!

Radio Shack and Target to Cut iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS prices from Today

With the arrival of a new iPhone imminent, AppleInsider reports on a couple of stories that have surfaced this weekend revolving around two key retailers reducing the price of their iPhone 4 stock. First up, they have a leaked photo of an internal Radio Shack document that was sent to Engadget, that shows that from today, Sunday July 31, Radio Shack will be dropping the price of the 16GB and 32GB AT&T iPhone 4s to $169.99 and $269.99 respectively, as well as dropping the price of the 8GB iPhone 3GS to $19.99. These new deals will only be available on a new or upgraded two-year contract, however. For those customers who don’t fit that criteria and want to upgrade early, the 16GB iPhone 4 will set you back $399.99, and the 32GB version will set you back $499.99. If you want to buy either without a contract, you’ll have to fork over $749.99 and $849.99 respectively.

The second rumour reported by AppleInsider and initiated by Phone Arena says that Target is also planning to drop the price of both the 16GB AT&T and Verizon iPhone 4s to $149.99 each from this Sunday, with the 32GB Verizon iPhone 4 now being discounted at $249.99, although the 32GB AT&T iPhone 4 will be staying at its current price of $299.99. The source also said that Target will be offering a $100-off trade-in offer for a new iPhone 4.

Apple Rules the Friendly Skies

As people start heading off on their holidays, and airports and airplanes get packed with travellers, more and more of them will be able to enjoy using Wi-Fi during their flight than probably would have done even a year ago. With this in mind, AllThings D reports on a new survey from Gogo, the company that provides Wi-Fi services for passengers on more than 6,000 aircraft for many different airlines, including Delta, Alaska, Virgin America, United and American. According to Gogo’s data, two-thirds of the mobile devices that are using its in-flight Wi-Fi are iPhones, 20 percent are iPod touches, and only 12 percent are Android devices, with a surprisingly lowly 6 percent of devices being BlackBerry, and Windows phones and others making up a collective last place.

This particular survey didn’t take iPads or other tablets into account because Gogo places them in the “computer” category (which also means you have to pay higher rates to use the in-flight Wi-Fi with them). However, Gogo did reveal that the iPad accounts for over one-third of large screens using their in-flight Wi-Fi service, with all Windows version large-screen devices having a total of 41 percent of the usage share, and Mac OS large-screen devices having just below 20 percent share.

Horrid Henry Gets Horrid iOS Game

The first Horrid Henry iOS game is finally here, and just in time for the holidays too! Released to coincide with the opening of the live action 3D film, Horrid Henry: The Movie on July 29, Horrid Henry’s Horrid App for iOS is a collection of three mini-games inspired by the family movie. The games feature familiar characters from both the movie and the three-times BAFTA-nominated CiTV series.

In Dress Up, players get to create their own Horrid Henry scenes by dressing up three of the characters and placing them in front of various backgrounds. Flick the Bogey is based on a mischievous manoeuvre that Henry describes in the film, where he throws a water balloon at Moody Margaret and has to burst it with his yo-yo in order to soak his arch enemy. Finally, Go Giddiantus! sees Henry chasing Margaret through an environment full of traps and obstacles in the hunt for the Purple Hand logos. The app also includes an exclusive link to Henry’s official website where you can view a collection of stills from the movie.

Minneapolis Survey Reveals iPhone Retention Rate of 94% Compared to Android’s 47%

CNN’s Apple 2.0 blog has word today of a new survey reported in analyst Gene Munster’s note to his Piper Jaffray clients which finds that 94% percent of current iPhone owners expect to buy another iPhone, with just 6% saying that they would switch to Android. The survey also revealed that 64% of all respondents said that they planned to buy an iPhone the next time they purchase a new phone, and that 60% of those respondents who don’t already have an iPhone but plan to make their next purchase an iPhone are waiting for the iPhone 5 to be released. Even 42% of existing Android users said they expected to switch to iPhone, with 47% saying they would buy another Android phone. As far as BlackBerry owners are concerned, 26% say that they will buy another BlackBerry, but a massive 67% say that they will buy an iPhone, with Android far behind at 3% of current BlackBerry owners intending to buy.

Munster polled 216 mobile phone users in Minneapolis to come up with the above results, which have lead him to tell investors that he thinks that demand for the iPhone 5 could be even higher than previously thought.

Will Russia be Getting the iPhone 5 in November?

MacRumors reports today on a story on Bloomberg from Russian business newspaper RBC Daily, which says that various carriers in Russia are currently in talks with Apple about launching the iPhone 5 in Russia, maybe even as early as November. The Russian paper says that this would be “almost immediately” after Apple launches the iPhone 5 in the US, which therefore pinpoints the US launch as possibly being towards the end of October. According to the report, earlier iPhone models have taken much longer to be officially launched in Russia, which has led to a big gray market developing. As MacRumors notes, this latest news also follows on from reports that China will also be getting the iPhone 5 sooner rather than later, and as they say, this marks a change from Apple, as previously countries with big populations such as China, India and Russia have had to wait much longer than other countries to get their hands on the newest incarnation of the iPhone.

AT&T Has Started Removing Unlimited Plans For Jailbroken Tethering

9to5 Mac reports today that it has heard from some of its readers that AT&T is going ahead with plans that it announced earlier in the year to remove unlimited data plans from those of its customers who use jailbroken iPhones to tether off the back of their unlimited data plan. According to one of their readers, he or she was told by AT&T that from Thursday, August 11, anyone using MyWi or any other tethering on their iPhone, or using the phone as a modem, will have their unlimited data plan switched to a 2GB tethering plan, at a cost of $45 per month. The customer will have no say in this matter, and it will be done automatically. 9to5 Mac says that they have also had this independently confirmed to them by an AT&T spokesperson, although not the August 11 date. Here’s the text of that confirmation from AT&T in full, which makes things pretty clear:

Earlier this year, we began sending letters, emails, and text messages to a small number of smartphone customers who use their devices for tethering but aren’t on our required tethering plan. Our goal here is fairness for all of our customers. (This impacts a only small percentage of our smartphone customer base.)
The letters outline three choices:
1) Stop tethering and keep their current plan (including grandfathered unlimited plan).
2) Proactively call AT&T or visit our stores and move to the required tethering plan.
3) Do nothing and we’ll go ahead and add the tethering plan on their behalf — after the dated noted in their customer notification.

Screenshot of New iOS 5 Speech-to-Text Facility in Action Surface

9to5 Mac reports today that it has been sent a screenshot from iOS 5’s forthcoming speech-to-text feature by what it refers to as “a reliable source”. The screenshot shows how the Nuance-powered speech-to-text function will be activated in iOS 5, and it appears to operate in a very similar way to the Android speech-recognition feature. Basically, you just touch the microphone icon to the left of the “space” bar, and talk away. As soon as you start talking, you’ll see another screen appear with a larger microphone icon, indicating that recording is taking place. When you stop talking, you’ll be returned to the original view, and the words that you have just spoken will then be shown in the text box. 9to5 Mac also reports that it has heard from its sources that the speech-to-text feature is only planned to be available for iPhone and iPod touch, and not for iPad, which seems a little strange, to say the least!

Google+ iPhone App Skyrockets to the Top of the Charts for Free iPhone Apps

Now, if this isn't an ironic, although unsurprising, twist, then the word needs to be redefined. In only one day's time, Google+ for the iPhone has blasted to the top of the Apple App Store's charts for most popular free app on the iPhone. And, this is just when Google+ is in free trial, and not an actual consumer product yet. In fact, industry analysts have suggested that Google+ has already grown to 18 Million users since its "debut" on June 28th. The only quibble that iPhone users might have with Google+ on their iPhones, is that it doesn't support automatic photo uploading, yet.

Regardless, this growth is phenomenal, and it would appear that Google may just have another massive hit on their hands.

Latest Data from comScore Indicates Google+ Hits 25 Million Users

According to the latest comScore report, Google+ has already reached 25 Million users in less than a month of operation. Of course, this is actually in contrast to Google's own figures of 10 Million registered users, although their report is from July 14th, and would have grown since then. The discrepancy probably arises from the fact that comScore regards "overall unique traffic to the site, including those visitors who look at public posts but don’t necessarily have their own accounts." Of further interest is how some of the individual numbers breakdown:

Google+ had more than 6 million visitors from the U.S., its biggest market, followed by India with more than 3 million visitors through July 24.

Also of note is that the industry analysis VP at comScore, Andrew Lipsman, indicated that the growth in Google+ is so rapid that it isn't as stable as Facebook.

He points to Facebook’s original path of more managed user acquisition, and suggests that the site saw “the most stable growth” out of the social networking services.

Regardless, these numbers seem both impressive, and typical of Google's successes. Although there are a few enterprises that have yet to take off for Google, most of their projects tend to explode with phenomenal growth. As good of a product as Google+ is, it seems likely that we will see it around and competitive for some time to come

Crux360 Turns Your iPad Into a Laptop

If you’re considering using your iPad to replace your laptop, than you would probably need something extra. Say, a physical keyboard could definitely be of help.
Crux 360 is an innovative hard shell keyboard case, designed to protect and to improve the utility of the iPad 2, helping your tablet do its best laptop impression. Inserting the iPad into the case is quite simple: you just place the iPad in and press the two parts until they click.

Crux360 can be used in different ways, depending on the user’s needs: a laptop mode, where both the iPad and the keypad make up a mini laptop; a movie mode, that allows landscape positioning for comfortable video watching; tablet mode, for general use of the iPad and carry mode, when the case is closed and your iPad’s is thus protected. The ‘360’ part in the name Crux360 actually comes from the ability of the hinge, that connects the screen and the keyboard, to rotate through a full 360°. The hinge allows the user to enjoy his iPad in all the four modes, without the need of extra props and it is said to last up to 10,000 open/close cycles.

The keyboard has a power-saving mode, that switches on automatically after two minutes of non-use and in order to bring it back to life a mere touch of any key is enough. The buttons on the keyboard are iPad specific keys, such as music-related buttons, language change or copy/paste buttons. Interesting fact, the keyboard has 2 Enter buttons: a big one, also labeled ‘Return’ and a smaller one alongside it, but no ‘Delete button’. If you want your iPad to be more like a laptop, Crux360 could do the work, almost justifying the $149 price tag.

SMEStorage now supports Office365 and Alfresco for iOS devices

SMEStorage today announced support for Office365, Alfresco and S3 compatible Clouds for iSMEStorage, the iPhone and iPad Cloud File Manager. iSMEStorage uniquely presents a local and Cloud File Manager for iOS devices enabling local files to be uploaded and managed as well as the ability manage aggregated Storage Clouds from a single file system. The new Clouds are available to all free, personal and business accounts and to existing iSMEStorage users.

London, United Kingdom - SMEStorage today is pleased to announce support for three new Storage Clouds fir iOS devices. These are Office365, the online Sharepoint SaaS offering, Alfresco enterprise content management system, and Amazon S3 compatible Clouds. SMEStorage CEO Ian Osborne stated,"We have added these three new Clouds specifically due to inbound business demand. In the case of Office365, this is to enable a well know blue chip company to add the Office365 to their SMEStorage Account so they can manage files from the iPad and other mobile devices we support." "The Alfresco Cloud was driven by demand from a particular reseller who wanted to bundle SMEStorage tools and clients to differentiate their offerings." "We've had a lot of demand for S3 compatible Clouds particularly driven by companies using such solutions as Eucalyptus Walrus, and we've found more companies embracing these or using hosted solutions that offer these. As this momentum has built it became an obvious choice to add to our supported Clouds."

Osborne continued, "as with all the information and Storage Clouds that are mapped to a user or companies account, these Clouds are manageable in a unique aggregated Cloud File System from Windows, Mac or Linux Operating Systems, and from iPhone/iPad, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 mobile devices." Osborne finished by saying, "we're doing some exciting work with information clouds that are not just about traditional storage, and we continue to expand our footprint not just with small businesses but with larger corporates who have shown great interest in our on-premise Open Cloud Platform and Cloud File Server products."

The new Clouds are available to all free, personal and business accounts and to existing iSMEStorage users.

Device Requirements:
* iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad
* Requires iOS 4.1 or later
* 4.8 MB

Pricing and Availability:
iSMEStorage 2.11 is $4.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Productivity category.