New Year's Day breaks iOS 6 Do Not Disturb mode, makes it silence your iPhone permanently
The Do Not Disturb mode introduced with Apple’s latest iOS 6 appears to have a serious bug. Since the turn of the year, it stopped functioning as promised and prevented quite a lot of people from getting their calls and messages.
The DND feature allows you to set a period of time when your iPhone will stop alerting you of incoming calls, messages and notifications. It doesn’t affects the alarms though.
Unfortunately since last midnight the DND mode won’t turn off automatically once the scheduled time comes and continues to silence pretty much everything. If you are in iPhone user, don’t panic, your friends didn’t forget you (probably), your phone is not alerting. And maybe those friends you have a hard time reaching since last night, are probably victims of the said bug.
Anyway, you can’t fix this with just switching the feature on/off (already tried this, it eventually get stuck again), so you’ll have to turn it off until an official update becomes available.
New version of redsn0w is out, jailbreaks everything 4.3.2 but the iPad 2, again
Apple released iOS 4.3.2 shortly after iOS 4.3.1. It fixed a few things and brought another batch of security updates making the jailbreak tools unusable once again.
Well, the jailbreaking community is a hard working one and a new version of redsn0w compatible with the iOS 4.3.2 is now available.
The latest redsn0w version jailbreaks every iOS 4.3.2-supported device but the iPad 2. It seems Apple has done good job protecting it. The jailbreak works on iPad 1, iPod Touch 3G/4G and iPhone 3GS/4 (GSM).
If you are interested to jailbreak your iGadget just hit the link below. And make sure you read the instructions carefully!
A few leaked webOS 3.0 screenshots give us a glimpse of what’s coming this summer
In case you haven’t heard HP is preparing to launch a webOS-based tablet called TouchPad this summer. It will run on the tablet-optimized webOS 3.0 that nobody has seen. Up until now.
Today five screenshots taken from a webOS 3.0 emulator escaped into the wild for our viewing pleasure.
The shots give us a glimpse into the browser, messaging, maps and music apps plus the dock icons and notification area.
As you can see all the apps use a minimalistic and intuitive interface. The Web (the browser app) has been renamed to Browser. There you can also see the new virtual QWERTY keyboard, which has a dedicated number row and a Next key to ease your interaction with various page elements (such as text fields).
The maps and messaging apps
HP replaced Google with Bing maps within the Maps application and added map scale info.
The notification area and the music player
The notification area now occupies just the upper right corner, while the Dock seems to be intact.
One more thing – the new music player seems awfully familiar. iPad anyone?
The webOS 3.0 seems promising and so does the TouchPad. We’ll know more this summer. The webOS should also be available on HP PCs and laptops later this year.
Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 is the first 7200 rpm 3TB 3.5-inch hard drive
Today Hitachi announced its Dekstar 7K3000 hard drive – the world’s first to offer 3TB storage and 7200 RPM speed. The 3.5” drive also supports 6Gb/s SATA interface and packs a whopping 64MB cache.
These specs should give it an edge over the other available 3TB internal drive – the Western Digital 3TB Caviar Green, which only runs at 5400 RPM.So if you have been delaying that hard drive update for until 3TB units get up to speed it might be time to jump in. The Deskstar 7K3000 offers maximum interface transfer rates of up to 600 MB/s and media transfer rates of up to 1656 Mb/s.
There’s no mention of pricing or target launch date just yet but those should be revealed in the coming weeks.
Nokia Windows RT tablet pictured, alleged full Windows 8 version on the way
What we may be seeing here is Nokia’s rumored Windows tablet, which has been doing the rounds in Rumorland for quite a long time now, but is yet to be officially confirmed.
The slate runs Windows RT nd not the full-blown Windows 8. However sources, allegedly close to the situation at Espoo, claim that Nokia may have given up on the RT version (pictured here) and will move its focus to delivering a slate with the full Windows experience.
The Nokia tablet was rumored to be running on a lowly Tegra 3 processor, have a 10″ display, HDMI and USB ports, SIM slot and a MagSafe charger, similar to that of the MacBook and Microsoft Surface – a charger that magnetically attaches to the port for convenience.
The tablet is said to sport the model number NVIDIA P1001, but we doubt it will be what the final version is called. When we hear more, we’ll update you immediately.
If there’s one thing Gameloft’s good at, it’s consistently bringing console quality games to the small screen. Some of these are perhaps too close to some of the console titles out there, close enough to be labelled as clones, but for those who want to experience some of the audio visual glory that they are used to seeing on the big screen in the palm of their hands, these games have rarely disappointed.
The newest title to fit this description is Wild Blood. The first Gameloft game to feature the exceptional Unreal Engine, Wild Blood promises gory hack and slash action with stunning visuals that the engine is known for. Let’s see how well it manages to do that.
Title
Wild Blood
Developer
Gameloft
Platform
iOS
Android
Release Date
September 6, 2012
October 8, 2012
Content rating
12+
Medium Maturity
Size
771MB
698MB
Cost
$6.99
The Premise
Our hero in this game is Sir Lancelot, who is having an affair with King Arthur’s wife, Queen Guinevere. When the king finds out about this, he goes berserk and sets out to destroy Lancelot, and everything in his path. He employs the services of the evil sorceress Morgana, who opens the Hellgate and sets all sorts of not very nice creatures upon the land. Oh, and she also captures the Queen Guinevere and holds her hostage. Now Lancelot has to stop the carnage going about him, kill Morgana, free Guinevere and make it home in time to catch Medieval Britain’s Got Talent. Okay, so I made up the last part.
The story is not much and just an excuse to shove that massive sword through all sorts of evil hell spawn. And Sir Lancelot is perhaps the most boring lead character in the history of gaming. He even looks like he’s slightly bored. You don’t really care if he saves the day or gets used as a mop by one of the ogres in the game. If you have played Horn that we reviewed last week, you’d know that even that young blacksmith’s assistant was more involving a character than this fancy knight. Heck, even Pac-Man was a more involving character.
Gameplay
Wild Blood is an action-adventure game with a third-person camera view. You use the left side of the screen as a joystick to move the character around and the right side to control the camera. The right side also has buttons for all the weapons and attacks that you will be using.
To attack enemies, you get a host of weapons, from swords to axes and a bow and arrow. You can upgrade these weapons using gold coins you collect by killing enemies, opening chests and breaking pots and barrels spread around. You will also often come across civilians who are held captive. Breaking their cage releases them and in return they give you some more gold.
Other uses for the gold is purchasing potions for restoring health and mana. You can also purchase additional powers that you can use a limited number of times depending upon your mana. These powers are usually devastating attacks that can take down enemies in one blow. You can upgrade these powers to cause even more damage.
You can also use the gold (a significant amount of it, mind you) to instantly revive yourself after you die, or you can choose to use the restart the game at the last checkpoint, which could be close by or somewhere far away. At times you have no choice but to keep replaying a significant section of the game because the damn checkpoint is just so far back and you don’t have enough gold to instantly revive yourself. This is where you might be tempted to use the game’s in-app purchase option to purchase additional gold by spending real money.
Most of the game has you running around and battling enemies. The enemies come in great variety, 20 of them in fact, and it includes some bosses. The boss battles are all well spaced out and every time you think things are getting too easy the game throws one at you. The other enemies are also quite varied in their attacks and range from mildly annoying to extreme pain in the nether regions.
Other things you do in the game involve opening chests, as mentioned before, except there is another type of chests that has you solving puzzles. The puzzles involve moving blocks around and in return you get a lot more gold than from the usual chests. The puzzles reminds strongly of the game Unblock Me, except here they are easier. These serve as a nice diversion from the usual action but they are also the only type of puzzles you’ll be solving. And they are completely optional.
While the general hack and slash action is enjoyable, there are two things that make the game fairly frustrating. First of all the joystick controls suck. This is extremely apparent when you’re trying to run, or use a special attack that involves directing yourself towards the enemies. The number of times you miss your enemies and run straight past them is not funny. Also, you can’t turn, so if you miss the enemy, you end up raging alone in some corner wasting your mana while the enemies are half a mile away from you.
Another area where the control situation crops up is when you are controlling a ballista in the game’s many moments. It would be easier to give someone instructions over the phone to control a real ballista instead of controlling one of these in the game. Even the tiniest motions moves the thing around as if it’s some pea shooter and you need to be extremely accurate to kill, which means even before you can line up your shot you are killed by the enemy, who all happen to have their own projectile attack and don’t have to deal with terrible controls at their end.
The other more atrocious problem is the camera. First of all, it seems all enemies have decided before they spawn that they are not going to be anywhere inside the view that you see on the screen. Each one appears perhaps as far away as possible, so you have to run to them to kill them. What’s worse is that moving the camera around is extremely slow. You have to keep swiping on the screen like an idiot to make the camera turn 180 degress and by then the enemy has probably moved. Half the time in the game is spent adjusting the camera and pointing it in the right direction so you can see what you’re supposed to kill. At this point you seriously start wondering if the Queen is worth rescuing and start contemplating on letting Morgana keep her as her pet.
One last issue for me that others may not have is the feeling of having done all this before. It’s not just about the fact that the game takes heavy inspiration from the God of War series in practically everything it does but more with the genre itself. The third-person action adventure genre is probably older than the real King Arthur and doing the same things again and again has become terribly boring. Bringing games that have started to feel stale on the consoles to mobile doesn’t make them any more interesting. You can marvel at the visuals for a while, but it doesn’t take long to realize you did the same basic things ten years ago.
What I’m saying is that mobile doesn’t need more recycled titles from old genres. Games like Super Hexagon that we saw last week work because they do something new and even though the game probably had 1/100th the budget of Wild Blood it will hold your attention for longer and will you have you coming back more often. We need more games like that. Not just the same old FPS, racing or action-adventure games.
There is a multiplayer mode as well, but it’s not really about skill but rather who has the fanciest weapons and armor around. If your weapons aren’t upgraded you won’t last ten seconds, even though most arenas have 4-5 players right now. Also, being against smarter and more powerful human enemies only further exposes the game’s inherent flaws.
Graphics and Sound
Having an Unreal Engine in a mobile game is a surefire recipe to have great visuals. We have already seen what this engine can do on game such as the Infinity Blade series and even on Wild Blood it does a great job. The game looks stunning throughout, especially on the new iPad with the Retina display. Gameloft has also made good use of the engine’s prowess by creating amazing level and enemy designs. In short, it all looks great.
Sound-wise there is not much to say. The soundtrack is passable (it sounds ridiculously similar to The Dark Knight Rises soundtrack in the menu where you have to solve the puzzles to open chests) and the weapon and enemy sounds are the usual affair. The dialogues are cheesier than a cheese burst pizza and the voice acting is lame. The character mouths do move this time around but they don’t move with what they’re saying. Lancelot could be swearing at you for all you know.
Conclusion
It might seem as if I have been harder on this game than usual but that’s just because I expect big budget games from big developers selling for big bucks to be more than just console game rehashes. It’s time mobile game developers stopped looking at what the folks on the consoles are doing and started doing something new designed specifically with the touchscreen in mind.
Wild Blood is a fine game if you don’t mind having the same sort of gaming experience that you have on the consoles. Of course, the camera and the controls still suck, but they would probably be fixed and then the game would have few real flaws. And besides, it makes for a great showcase for your hardware, particularly if you have the new iPad as the Unreal Engine gives it a nice workout. But if like me you’re bored of this genre and were looking for something new, give this one a pass.
Rating: 3/5 Pros: Great visuals, wide variety of weapons and enemies Cons: Botched up controls and camera, cheesy dialogues, lacks originality
A few quick impressions on Lenovo's IdeaPad K1, ThinkPad, and IdeaPad A1 Android tablets
Being already one of the premier PC makers, it was only logical for Lenovo to take a shot at the quickly expanding market for Android tablets. This summer, the Chinese manufacturer released three different models, which include the IdeaPad K1, ThinkPad and IdeaPad A1, in an attempt to offer a droid tablet for every taste and budget. We managed to spend some quality time with the entire lineup of Lenovo slates, running the Google OS at an event in New York, and here are some fresh initial impressions for you.
We will begin with the Android Honeycomb 3.1 running Lenovo IdeaPad K1.
Lenovo IdeaPad K1
The 10″ tablet sits right in the middle of the Lenovo lineup of droids, and is expected to compete with the offerings from ASUS, Acer, and Toshiba.
The IdeaPad K1 is powered by a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra CPU, and comes with a gig of RAM on board. The internal memory of the tablet varies between 16 and 64GB, and can be further expandable via a microSD card. Full connectivity suite is available, including optional 3G support. The tablet has a 5MP camera on its back, along with a 2MP front-facing snapper. Its 10″ screen has 1280×800 pixels resolution. The IdeaPad K1 weighs 1.7 lbs, and has 10 hours of battery life. Software wise, you get Android Honeycomb 3.1, which has been slightly tweaked by Lenovo with a launcher on the homescreen, and a proprietary app store, offering apps which have been tested for compatibility with the tablet.
Bearing that in mind, as far as specs are concerned, most Android Honeycomb tablets come quite close, we believe it’s factors such as design and build quality, which are crucial for the success of any of them. In this aspect, the Lenovo IdeaPad K1, much like the other products from the Chinese company, gets a high score. The build quality of the tablet is superb. The back is made from textured plastic with a pleasant feel and prevents the slate from easily slipping from your grip.
The Lenovo IdeaPad K1 from Lenovo is currently available with prices starting at $449 for the 16GB, Wi-Fi only version. Like we already mentioned above, if you like the looks of the device, it is certainly worth attention.
Lenovo ThinkPad tablet
The next object of our attention is the Lenovo ThinkPad tablet. The device is an extension of the highly popular line of business oriented laptops, which can be traced all the way back to the times, when they carried an IBM logo.
Just a brief look at the ThinkPad can tell you that the tablet means business. It shares most of its internals with the IdeaPad, but there have been a few major additions, which bring it up to par with its laptop cousins. Among them are a full USB port, 3 in 1 card reader, and data encryption. Software wise, along with Android Honeycomb 3.1, the slate comes with a serous number of productivity apps preloaded such as Documents to Go, Printer Share and Citrix Receiver. The latter allows you access to your Microsoft Windows running desktop in the office. Battery life is claimed at 8 hours with Wi-Fi turned on.
The Lenovo ThinkPad droid comes with a tablet pen which, with the help of software, transforms your hand-written notes into digital text. As an option, you can also purchase the keyboard dock, which has the exactly same design as the ThinkPad notebooks, including the signature red mouse bud.
By far, we dare to say, the Lenovo ThinkPad is one of the best Android tablets on the market. With a superb build quality, a number of options which are not offered by the competition, and a starting price of $499.99 for the entry level, 16GB version with Wi-Fi, the tablet brings its game closer to full blown personal computer than any of its rivals.
Lenovo IdeaPad A1
The last tablet offering from Lenovo which we encountered, was the recently announced, 7″ IdeaPad A1. Priced at the highly affordable $199.99, the Android 2.3 Gingerbread offering is aimed to compete mostly with the dedicated e-book readers out there.
The IdeaPad A1 runs on a single-core Cortex-A8 processor, clocked at 1GHz. Its 7″ screen comes with a 1024 x 600 pixels resolution. The entry model comes with 8GB of on board memory, which goes up to 32GB. A microSD card slot is available for further expansion. There is a 3MP camera on the back, along with a VGA unit for video calls in the front. Full connectivity is on board sans 3G. The latter will not be available as an option. All this functionality comes in a package which is only 10.1mm thin, and weighs 400 grams.
In our brief encounter with the budget tablet, we found it feeling a lot more upscale than its price tag suggests. We attribute this fact to the high quality materials used by Lenovo. Given that the price is marginally higher than what basic e-book readers command, we believe that the Lenovo IdeaPad A1 is a viable alternative to them.
We do look forward to spending more time with the Lenovo Android tablets. Our first impressions were quite positive across the entire range. In the meantime, feel free to tell us which one do you like the most in the comments section below.
