Ben Jackson, Owner and Technical Director of Brainjuice, LLC, spoke about an iPhone application called Arcade Hockey.  The application is a table hockey game that is apparently a ton of fun.

The game is set to release into the App Store in early to mid November, no word on how much it will cost.  The game is very well written and executed. Posted are a few screenshots of the simple yet addictive game play. Arcade Hockey is a one or two player game. The game allows you to choose the size of the paddles and pucks as well as the version of the game. The versions include Standard, Arcade Deck or Boomerang Style.

The game play is played just as the average air hockey game most people are use to. You control your paddle with the tip of your finger, trying not to let the puck get in your goal. Physics are reported to be spot on, reacting exactly as you would expect it to in real life. Greg Hughes went on to say, “As a former air hockey addict, I can say this game is quite a bit of fun, and there’s something to be said for pulling the game out of your pocket and playing a surprisingly accurate and realistic game on the bus, before the movie, while out on a hot date you want to impress with your skillz, or at lunch.”

[Via Greg Hughes]

According to comScore, the fasting growing user base of the iPhone are people with lower income who are using the device in order to cut down on other internet and entertainment sources. ComScore found that 43 percent of iPhone owners make more that $100,000 a year, with the strongest growth in users being in the $25,000 and $50,000 range.

Between June and August 2008, iPhone owners in the lower income bracket jumped by 48 percent, increasing the figures to about 3 times as many as those making more than $100,000 a year. The iPhone user base, overall, has grown 21 percent. Mark Donovan of comScore said, “this data indicates that lower income mobile subscribers are increasingly turning to their mobile devices to access the Internet, e-mail and their music collections,” “Smartphones and the iPhone, in particular, are appealing to a new demographic and are satisfying demand for a single device for communication and entertainment, even as consumers weather the economy by cutting back on gadgets.”

The study shows that with the low cost of the iPhone, it moves from being a luxury item to a means of saving money by replacing multiple devices. It appears that the witch in the iPhone user base points directly to the cost of the phone itself. The early iPhone was at least $600 making it only available to those who had a higher income. With the iPhone 3G, now starting at $200, it will now be accessible to a larger audience.

[Via MocoNews]

More screenshots from the new iPhone firmware 2.2 are surfacing over at MacRumors. First it was Google Street View, then we saw a newly added rating system for applications.

MacRumor member, TUAW posted new screenshots of the firmware, this time it seems to reveal that Apple will allow an over the air Podcast download on the iPod Touch and iPhone. The iPhone seems to be getting a lot more independence with Apple realizing that mobile phones can’t always download podcasts from a computer at any moment.

Apple seeded the iPhone 2.2 beta 2 to developers last week, still with no word as to what people can expect in this version. If what we have seen so far is true it will be more than worth the wait. There is also speculation that this may be the reason Apple rejected the Podcaster application. What we want to know is, what are your opinions?

[Via MacRumors]

There seems to be news every day about the newly seeded firmware 2.2 for the iPhone. Yesterday it was the Google’s Street View feature, today it’s the option to rate an application when deleting it.

Recently a Greek Language website, iPhone Hellas, reported that in the new firmware version 2.2 a user is now given an application rating screen when they delete an application. After pressing the little “X” to delete an application a “Please rate before deleting” box pops up with a 5 star rating option and a “No Thanks” button.

With all the changes to the rating system to make it fair on the developers, this suggests to us that Apple is not happy with the amount of rating they are receiving at this time. We do not think that this method will accurately depict the applications worth as most people will either hit 1 star because they did not like it or just randomly select a rating just to bypass the screen. At any rate there does not seem to be any happy medium with the application rating system.

[Via iPhoneHellas]

Google is expanding rapidly, this time they have released a Google Earth application for the iPhone. This application is second to none with very easy controls and all the features you come to expect from such a service.

The Google Earth application is currently available in the app store for free. The application opens to a view of the world with four controls in the corners of the screen: search, compass, information and location buttons. People who have used Google Earth in the past may be asking, why is there a compass button? The need for a compass button is to deliver a very unique experience on the iPhone with the use of multi-touch controls.

With Google Earth you can view anywhere on a map as you would from above. To zoom in just pinch the screen, to turn the view just place two fingers on the screen and twist. It is obvious that there was a lot of time and work put into this application before it was released. It is quite fast when it comes to rendering and scrolling, controls make the feel of using Google Earth a pleasant experience. Google has managed to create another application that is one of only a few that I will keep on my iPhone, Google Earth gets a big two thumbs up.

[Via iPhone Matters]

Despite the availability of a few apps such as the now pulled NetShare and PdaNet which is available in Cydia users are not supposed to be tethering their iPhone to their laptops.
From the beginning, AT&T made it clear that tethering was not permitted and followed up stating that an official plan was not something [...]

While still unreleased, the recently announced eBook reader Classics seems like it may rise to the top. The Classics app was developed by Phil Ryu and Andrew Kaz who seem to have taken great care in designing the UI. Immediately many will notice the Delicious Library look of the bookshelf, which comes courtesy of Ryu. [...]

Apple is reported to have begun seeding iPhone 2.2 beta 2 to developers, and as a nice addition it is coming along with the updated NDA. Developers are reported to have until 9 PM PST on November 6th to read and accept the new terms.
If you remember back just a few weeks, we saw iPhone [...]

Mark/Space has just released Fliq, their first iPhone application. The app is being billed as a “social networking application,” but in reality that description is a little generous, but that said it does seem that Fliq does have some real potential in the future.
When you first launch Fliq you are given a list of iPhones [...]

There’s been a lot of good news for Apple lately. Now that they’re the third most popular mobile phone manufacturer in the world and have outsold RIM (by a lot) they’re feeling pretty good. And to top it off, the App Store is still raking in the sales.  

It turns out over 200 million applications have now been downloaded from the App Store. That marks a definite increase in downloads since it was just last month when we learned the 100 millionth download had been passed. That’s pretty impressive if you ask me.

This still doesn’t tell us how much Apple is making off of the App Store, but 200 million downloads can’t be hurting business, that’s for certain. We do know, however, that in August Apple was making about a million a day in App Store revenues. 

[via MacRumors]

Despite the economic downturn, Apple is still doing pretty well for itself. Their Q4 earnings call today revealed that the company sold about 6.9 million iPhones. Want a bit of a comparison? Apple only sold 1.1 million iPhones in Q4 of 2007. That's a substantial increase.

Jobs, not to be one to speak lightly, pointed out that the iPhone has sold more than RIM phones. Another interesting point? Apple has $25 billion in the bank so the poor economy won't affect them at least right now.

39% of Apple's business is from the iPhone. Yeah, that's crazy! To put this in more specific terms, Apple is now the third largest mobile phone supplier in the entire world. The only two largest are Nokia and Samsung! If anyone doubted the iPhone, it seems this ought to keep them quiet for awhile.

[via CrunchGear]

The latest in iPhone related websites is dedicated to allowing users to voice their wishes. The website is appropriately dubbed “Please Fix The iPhone” and lets you add your wish to the list as well as add your support for other peoples wishes. It breaks the wishes down into categories and even has a section that [...]

The Beatles music may not yet be available in iTunes, but that has not stopped the release of a limited edition Beatles iPod from coming available. The newly released collection is retailing for $795 and is limited to just 2,500 units and based on the description it sounds like it will be left for the [...]

Sadly an unlocking has not yet been achieved for the iPhone 3G, however it is nice to see that progress is still being made. According to a recently posted message they were able to make “significant 3G progress this week.” It seems that the Dev Team was able to modify the baseband and have the iPhone [...]