Hijinks Inc.

Category: Apple

  • Hulu Plus Announced – Invite Only

    Hulu PlusYes, you have to be invited (for now), but holy crap, the long rumored subscription based Hulu Plus is real.

    $9.99 a month gets you access to full seasons of TV shows on all sorts of devices, support currently includes the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, some Samsung TVs / Blu-ray players, and various game consoles and set top boxes will be supported later this year. Did I mention it’s all in HD? And If Hulu can just get some current movies added in there Netflix might have some competition. And remember kids, competition is good.

    Also, the only device I care about being supported is the iPad, I’ve been using Hulu on my TV for years.

    Now what are you waiting for!  Hit up this link to apply for access and let us know if you get in!

  • Hijinks Reviews: Glyder 2 for iPad

    Publisher: Glu Media
    Platform: iPad
    Cost: $.99 (on sale)  [iTunes Link]
    Release date: April 1st, 2010
    Version Reviewed: 1.01

    I remember getting my Nintendo 64 back in the day and playing the 2 games I bought with it for hours on end. There was a snowboarding game whose name escapes me, and then there was Pilotwings 64. In Pilotwings you flew all manner of contraptions with the goal of ending up in the flashing circle at the end of the course. There was something soothing about gliding though the air on the hang glider, skimming across the surface of the landscape and performing gravity defying stunts whenever the fancy took me. I hadn’t even thought about Pioletwings for years until this past month when a new Pilotwings was announced for the Wii. Shortly after that announcement I played Glyder 2.  Heelooooo, dejavu. (more…)

  • iPhone 4 Mini-Review

    Note: I didn’t buy an iPhone 4, but I did get a chance to sit down and play with one for a few hours last night…

    First off, I have to agree with everyone else out there and say that this screen is fantastic, that is unless you get one with a defective screen with that nice yellow discoloration in the lower lefthand corner. HD video is mind-blowingly awesome for such a small screen, colors are crazy vivid and photos look absolutely amazing because of this. Sadly though, screen smudging and fingerprints still run rampant and viewing in bright light is as glare filled as ever.

    Similar to how the iPhone 3G made the original iPhone feel like a cheap toy; iPhone 4 makes the 3GS not only cry like a girl, but feel like outdated lump of plastic. A very outdated lump of plastic. In more technical terms, what I’m saying is the build quality is very impressive and it feels quite solid. Not to mention the hardware specs of the iPhone 4 outshine even the iPad (at least in the RAM department). And you notice those hardware differences, the A4 processor in conjunction with 512MB of RAM allows current applications to load insanely fast, which helps make users feel like they actually are multitasking, and as a developer I’m pretty excited to see what can be done with this extra power in future applications.

    Video recording has also improved nicely since the 3GS, largely thanks to the bigger and better sensors. Image stabilization is quite handy and works surprisingly well, which makes using FaceTime quite a bit less nauseating than it might be otherwise. I only made a short 3 minute FactTime call, but I could see it catching on, albeit slowly as it seems slightly handicapped by the fact that FaceTime is WiFi only. Also, I have confirmed that FaceTime works over a MiFi connection without problem, so what the heck AT&T?!

    As for iOS 4, my opinions haven’t changed much, the big ‘wow’ feature of multitasking isn’t really all it’s chalked up to be. Think of it more as fast application switching and while it’s a step in the right direction, you can’t really label it true multitasking when it requires developers to recode their applications to include support for background audio / local notification APIs. I still prefer the way Backgrounder (Jailbreak required) addresses the issue, though I have not had a chance to test Backgrounder with iOS 4 yet.

    Even though I think it’s a great phone, I don’t think I’ll be upgrading from my current iPhone anytime soon, partially because  I’m considering switching to the Android platform or at least adding one to my arsenal of phones. Now I didn’t get a chance to see if my iPad’s Micro SIM worked as a data only option in the iPhone 4, but I will try and arrange an opportunity to do so in the near future. And of course, I’ll keep you guys updated when I do

  • Hijinks Reviews: Small World for iPad

    Publisher: Days of Wonder, Inc
    Platform: iPad
    Cost: $4.99 (slated for a jump to $6.99) [iTunes Link]
    Release date: March 31st, 2010
    Version Reviewed: 0.99

    Philippe Keyaerts’ Small World has made quite the splash with the release of its iPad version, and with good reason. Small World is a near perfect example of the way table top gaming should be done on the iPad; crisp graphics, smooth gameplay, easy to follow instructions, and excellent replay value. Did I mention replay value? My partner in crime Fred and I sat down and played 5 matches back to back and still could’ve played more if it weren’t for having lives and responsibility in the real world. I suppose this infatuation could be the result of us being easily entertained… but that aside, I really do think it’s a great game.

    Prior to downloading the iPad version of Small World, I’d never heard of it, let alone that it was a board game, but now I’m hooked. And I think you will be too. Unless your hate strategy games, in which case, why are you reading this review?
    (more…)

  • 30 Days Without Voice Service

    AT&TYesterday marked day number thirty since I posted my walk-through on how to use your iPad 3G ‘s Micro SIM in an iPhone for data only service, and more importantly its been thirty days since I last used AT&T’s voice service to make a call. While I’ve been using only VoIP to make calls and send texts, I did leave my service active until June 1st just incase things didn’t work very well. But as of the first, I am no longer paying for AT&T voice service.

    As you might have concluded from the canceling of my service I’m happy to report, that at least in my neck of the woods, using data only with Google Voice, GV Mobile, IPKall, Backgrounder, and Acrobits Softphone has been a smashing success. While I admit that it’s not as straight forward to place calls, it’s still easy to receive them. Which fits quite nicely with my phone usage.

    Overall call quality was surprisingly good, naturally it worked better over WiFI, but it was more than passible over 3G. Over the course of those 30 days I only used 291 minutes of talk time, but I sent over 1,000 texts and used over 16GBs of data streaming content. I also installed MyWi to use my iPhone as a hotspot so my iPad could still browse the net from anywhere I had 3G coverage.

    How my setup works is simple(ish). IPKall provides a SIP number for my Google Voice account to call, which rings to Acrobits Softphone, so if I use GV Mobile to dial a number it then rings my iPhone via that IPKall SIP number. Along those same lines, anytime someone calls my Google Voice number the call rings through to my iPhone using Acrobits Softphone.  You can find instructions on how to setup SIP calling in this post.

    Texting is handle through Mail.app as I have Google Voice forward my texts to my email. For a more real time texting experience I used Boxcar configured with my Gmail account to push notifications of text messages and new voicemails. I can also use GV Mobile or Google Voice’s own website to send texts from my phone.

    I did try all of this without jailbreaking my iPhone, and while it works, I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s a bit more complicated to do things like make calls or even answer them (opening Softphone is rather slow). Plus, jailbreaking was necessary in my case since I wanted to run Softphone in the background and completely remove Apple’s Phone.app from the phone so it wouldn’t continue running and using memory (be advised, this removes your ability to call E911 in an emergency).

    I will admit this option isn’t quite as appealing since AT&T decided to change their iPad data plans, but for those lucky enough to still have unlimited data it might be worth a try. I’ll likely post another update in 30 days or so, as I refine the process.