We just mentioned that watching the NCAA Men’s Basketball March Madness basketball tournament is now quick and easy on your Mac. It is also available on your iPhone.
The CBS Sports NCAA March Madness On Demand application is available on the iTunes Store for $4.99.
Overall the app works well, however the video streaming is only available to users connecting with a WiFi network. Audio streams of all games can be accessed over the 3G and Edge networks.
Live scores and statistics as well as additional informations about the teams playing are also provided to users on the go.
Apple has been selling iPhone ringtones for some of your favorite songs for some time now, but you don’t need to spend money on songs you already own. This is even more true now that iTunes Plus is becoming the standard amongst songs purchased from the iTunes Store. Now your songs are setup DRM free and ready for you to customize as you would like.
In addition to selling media that can be modified to an iPhone ringtone, Apple also provides you with the tools to make the changes to the songs. All you need is a computer (PC or Mac) and iTunes.
Create Ringtones With iTunes
To make your own Ringtones with iTunes:
- Find the song you’d like to make into a ringtone and right click (command+click). Select Get Info and click the Options Tab. Ringtones are 40 seconds long so change the Start and Stop time listed to the 40 seconds of the song that you’d like to set as your ringtone. Be sure the Stop time is checked.
- After you’ve change the start and stop times, return to the iTunes song list and right click again on the song you’d like to make a ringtone. Select “Create AAC Version”.
- If everything has worked correctly you’ll see a 40 second version of the song you’ve been working with. We’ll use the 40 second version of the song to finish creating the ringtone.
- Next, I suggest opening the song in Finder and locating the version of the song with a .m4a extension. We’ll need to modify that in the next few steps. Return to iTunes, find the 40 second version of the song and remove it from the library.
- After the warning screen appears, select “Keep File” and return to the finder location of the .m4a version of the song we just created
- Select the .m4a version of the song we created and rename the extension to .m4r. This will make it read to be imported into iTunes as a ringtone.
- Return to iTunes and select your Ringtone library. Drag the song with the .m4r extension from Finder to the Ringtone library. It should now sync with your iPhone and work like all your other iPhone ringtones.
Now you can take your continually growing iTunes library and transform any song into the perfect iPhone ringtone for your friends, family, and other contacts. A future article will include additional details about how to customize iPhone ringtones so be sure to check back at Maciverse for all the details.
Since the iPhone SDK has been released the most popular category of applications is Games. Apple themselves have marketed the iPod Touch as the “Funnest” iPod ever and encourages the idea of the iPod/iPhone competing with other hand held gaming platforms.
It seems that most game developers for the iPhone have focused on optimal game play that can be played with short moments of free time. A game that is a perfect example of this is Dr. Awesome.
Gameplay
Dr. Awesome was developed by the same company that brought us Topple, one of the most successful iphone games. ngmoco Continues its recipe for success with Dr. Awesome. The gameplay takes advantage of the iPhone user inputs and allows gamers to control their medical “tools” by tilting the iPhone back and forth, forward and backward. The controls are very responsive and allows for a unique gameplay experience.
Story
The story line on Dr. Awesome is the classic premise of a Doctor who must save his patience from various sickness and illness. What makes Dr. Awesome unique is that will select its patience from your iPhone Contacts list. Don’t worry, the game won’t send anything out to your friends, but it does add a bit of character to your life saving attempts.
Not only does Dr. Awesome pull in your real life contacts to the game, but it adds a timer for how long you have until your friends or family don’t make it. 24 hours after becoming ill, your patients will die if you don’t save them. This design gives you incentive to find a few minutes to play Dr. Awesome again.
Overall Feel
Dr. Awesome has a unique feel which combines beautiful still images with witty commentary and unique gameplay. The game increases in difficulty as your skills improve and it allows for a very interesting and enjoyable overall experience.
Conclusion
For just $.99 in the app store, Dr. Awesome is a steal. It can be played with just a free minute or two and overs a lot more enjoyment than you’ll find with other iPhone games.
The team at ngmoco have done it again, and seem to be developing a solid line of iPhone games.
