The servers that Apple receives and processes Siri commands was down for many iPhone 4S users across the US on Thursday afternoon. Users began talking about this outage around 2PM Eastern Time on Twitter. Not everyone has been receiving problems.

The problems seem to lie within the carrier. When users ask Siri a question or use it to perform a task, Siri replies with, “Sorry, I am having trouble connecting to the network.” Apple has not publicly confirmed whether the problem is server-side or carrier-side. However, VentureBeat spoke to an AppleCare technician who acknowledged that it’s possible that Siri is experiencing an outage.

Source: Ars Technica

Today, at Apple’s “Let’s Talk iPhone” event, they did more than just talk about the new iPhone 4S. Yep, that’s right. They also talked about iPods. The new iPod Touch will support iOS 5, which contains Game Center, iCloud and iMessage.

Whilst using iMessage, users will be able to send free, unlimited “text” messages, videos and photos over WiFi to other iOS 5 users. This communication is set up to link any two users using an iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad. iCloud will also give users of iOS 5 access to their stored music, books and documents anywhere they are able to connect to WiFi. And as before, FaceTime will still be supported, which is basically a free Skype between iOS users.

Last but not least, the new iPod Touch is now available in white. The previous iPod touch cost $229 for the 8GB model. However, the new version is only $199 for the same storage capacity. The 32GB model will be available for $299, and the 64GB model will be $399. The release date for these iPod Touch’s will be October 12, which just so happens to be the same day as iOS 5 and iCloud.

Source: Ars Technica

Different heroes have different abilities within Tiny Heroes. There is everything from “spiked floor tiles to saw blades to animated treasure chests and angry orcs” available to different heroes.

At some point, you will be forced to decide which defense items you want to take into the battle. Defenses are pretty weak, so you will have to replace destroyed booby traps with the hero as soon as possible. Instead of traditionally building up a brutal force that just demolishes any and everything, you will build a defense that gets by wave by wave.

Purple crystals will provide mana necessary to build new defenses. Unlike most tower-defense games, you will not get anything for killing enemies. Thus, these purple crystals are heavily important, as your “energy,” or mana, relies almost completely on them.

Source: Ars Technica

iPhone users spend nearly twice as much as the average amount of time playing games on their mobile platform. iPhone users spent 14.7 hours playing mobile games over the 30 day period. To compare, Android users spent 9.3 hours. The overall average is 7.8 hours, which would have been impacted by the 14.7 and 9.3, as that is naturally how numbers work. That being said, the Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry platforms would have been significantly lower in order to lower the average. In fact, if my math is correct, and assuming that only the 4 mentioned platforms are being considered, then 7.2 hours would have been spent on both Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry combined.

64 percent of users downloaded a game in the last 30 days, with 60 percent for weather apps and 56 percent for social networking apps. If you aren’t familiar with statistics and realized that this is more than 100, I would just like to add that you have to remember that a user can download from more than one category.

But how hardcore is the gaming? Well, it isn’t quite Call of Duty: Black Ops or World of Warcraft, but the idea is there. The users want to game, not be educated. With the mentioned 64 percent of downloaders grabbing a game from their market, only 11 percent of those were “education/learning” apps.

Source: Ars Technica

This will apparently happen once iOS 5 is released sometime this year. At the same time, they will update the Mac OSx to be able to handle OTA updates as well. This will be quite interesting and a very nice update for Apple and its customers.

Basically, right now there are no OTA updates for a simple reason. When you sync to iTunes, any update that is given to iTunes is digitally signed for and protects Apple for security and legal reasons. That’s why when you update an app, you are required to download the entire app. You give the app the way to run in the way that it says it will for that update.

Quite often, users do not even know when new updates are available. iPad’s and iPod’s are often rarely plugged in. Once you have your music and a wall charger, there really isn’t a need to. However, that also means many users do not get these updates, which leads to Apple updating slower and not knowing what is needed as quickly.

The update for Mac OSx to Lion is expected to be available via the App Store. This is expected for a couple of reasons. One, Steve Jobs called the MacBook Air the “future of notebooks.” What people often forget about the Air is that there is no optical drive. That being said, it’s a necessity that there be the option to OTA update in the future, not only for iOS, but for Mac OSx as well.

Source: Ars Technica

Anyway, there is a new game amidst the App Store entitled Stem Stumper. And this one is even adapted to be able to be played by the visually impaired. Here is what Ars Technica has to say on Stem Stumper:

The premise is simple: you guide an anthropomorphic plant creature around a series of obstacles—ranging from angry tree stumps to clouds of weed killer—in search of bags of fertilizer. You drag your finger along to create a path and various clues will alert you when you stumble across something important. If you’re playing in the standard mode you’ll be able to see as well as hear when you get close to something. And when you play in sonar mode, the visuals melt away completely, forcing you to focus on the sound.

But what about the basic instructions? How would someone that is in fact visually impaired even know what they are supposed to do? Well, the answer is simple. Should they be able to download and open the game, Stem Stumper supports VoiceOver. It can remove the written instructions and tell the user what to do. Sound effects and changes in the music will guide you to your goal.

Stem Stumper is available via the App Store for $2, and is quite entertaining. I am not quite sure if it is available for the iPod Touch or iPad, but it is supported on the iPhone with iOS 4 or higher.

Source: Ars Technica

With the iPad 2 now released, the tablet industry is clearly being dominated by Apple. Realistically, there aren’t any challengers. The only tablet that is even close is the Motorola Xoom, which seems to have as many commercials as sales.

One month after its launch, the Motorola Xoom has but 50 native applications available for the Android 3.0 Honeycomb.

How does that compare to the iPad? The iPad 1 had over 1,000 applications available on launch day. The Motorola Xoom had only 15 apps available on the day it was released.

The source code for Google’s Honeycomb hasn’t been released, so the developers are falling behind. And even with their number of 50 apps available after the first month, that may even be overshooting. Some of these are simply mobile apps that were resized to be compatible with the tablet.

It looks as if Apple is pulling ahead with no plan of slowing down. It would be nice to at least have some sort of competition, but until Google gets better hardware, better designers, and more developers, I don’t see that happening anytime in the near future.

Source: Ars Technica

Of course, you might also be asking yourself something: Why in the world would I be posting the iPad 2 release on this blog? Well, this came to me as a surprise, but more of an observation and expectation than news.

With the faster processor, HDMI out, and multi-touch technology, it has been observed that gaming could now quite possibly be a possibility with the iPad 2. The processor is twice as fast. The HDMI out gives the sense of a way larger screen, if wanted, for a possibility to game on an HDTV. The multi-touch technology is impressive and obviously could support gaming. And last but certainly not least, the graphics performance has been increased.

Here is a quote taken straight from the Apple website:

With up to nine times the graphics performance, gameplay on iPad is even smoother and more realistic. And faster graphics help apps perform better — especially those with video

And if all of these features aren’t enough, the iPad 2 is even now thinner than the iPhone 4 and 33% thinner than the previous iPad. It has been said that the iPad 2 fits comfortable in your hands, as to ease the experience. The last remaining note I have is that the iPad 2 is addicting, and everyone knows that.

With all that being said, I feel as if the iPad 2 might make a gaming appearance more than people think. I’m not talking about console gaming, but perhaps PC-capable gaming.

Source: Apple

Supporting this possible find, Alex Hisbrunner got hold of a Harmony remote and used it on the Apple TV. Normally, you would use their ATV remote. What he found were abilities to do things that the ATV remote is not capable of making the Apple TV do, such as wiggling around icons. Now, this could just be something they developed for something else in the future, but hidden content and no official word on gaming on the Apple TV leaves all of us suspicious and asking a powerful question that only they know the answer to: Why?

Why would they not tell us about the Gaming, was it something they weren’t quite sure about? Why have they hidden simple features like wiggling icons from us? Well, as cheesy as it gets, it seems that only time will tell what is to come of the Apple TV. Gaming could be very interesting.

However, if they are to keep us asking, then perhaps they have another trick entirely.

Source: Engadget

Source: Trend Micro