iSmashPhone

Shake, Rattle, and Sell: iPhone Brings the Fun to Web Ads

Ho hum.  Another ad for the iPod on Yahoo! Games.  Yadda freakin' yadda.  But ya know what?  I'm bored.  Let's see what it has to say:

Insert Keanu-style "Whoa" here.  'Course, we reported on the first outbreak of "self-destructing web pages" all the way back in October, for Fud's sake.  But if it makes you stop your browsing long enough to watch -- and, just maybe, even click over to the advertiser's web site to see more -- then it's done its job.

Wal-Mart To Begin Selling iPhones This Sunday (December 28)

It's official: on the third day after Christmas (Sunday, December 28), you can walk into your local Wal-Mart store and buy an iPhone.

As previously reported, Wally World will offer the current 8 and 16 GB handsets for US$2.00 off AT&T and Apple's MSRP.  The rumored 4 GB, US$99.00 model remains just that.

The announcement is partially blunted by last week's Best Buy blockbuster, in which the big-box electronics monolith debuted iPhones for a full sawbuck less.  However, Wal-Mart's price match policy will allow stores to “match the price of any local competitor’s advertised store price on the same item within the same promotional period.”

Love it or loath it, Wal-mart is still the world’s largest retail chain, with more than 7,000 mega-stores around the world and early $380 billion in sales its last fiscal year.  Analysts predict that this could double the Apple Stores' own 2009 sales figures on iPhone, estimated to be a not-too-shabby 4.5 million units.

[Via CNNMoney.com]

Dropship: Back To The (Computer Graphics) Future

Ngmoco makes iPhone/iPod Touch games like Rolando (reviewed elsewhere in this fine bloggeroo) and the topic of this review du jour, Dropship.  Billed as "the highly anticipated arcade shooter," Ngmoco modestly describes it thusly:

Pilot your Dropship, power-up your weapons and penetrate enemy caverns destroying turrets, tanks & Interceptors as you fight to Evac your stranded allies and retrieve “the pod”. Effect your daring escape with your cargo in tow dodging enemy fire, homing missiles with your vector thrust powered super ship.

The game also boasts "Breakthrough 'touch-anywhere' dual-analog controls [that] deliver 360 degrees of freedom" and -- most tellingly -- "Stunning Visual effects & retro inspired 3D graphics."  Yeah, I thought it looked like the illegitimate offspring of Asteroid and TRON.  Then again, with an asking price of US$0.99, what have you got to lose?

[Available from iTunes]

Flash Video On Your iPhone? Kinda, Sorta...

iMobileCinema bills itself as "the Safari plugin for playing flash videos online in iPhone."  Before you start jumping up and down in joy, be advised that this is a beta app for jailbroken 2.x firmware, so caveat emptor and all that.  Sez the developers:

Here are some bugs the [sic] we already knew:

1. Dragging the seek slider while playing cause crash;
2. Pausing or rebuffering may cause no audio;
3. Not response on the gravity inducer. 

That's why we published a beta testing version. But it does work most of the time. So, have a nice weekend, with or without our beta version.

"But it does work most of the time."  So you gotta ask yourself "Do I feel lucky?"  Well, do ya, punk?