V-Moda Vibe Duo Earphones

The V-Moda Vibe Duo ($99.00) line of earbuds are some of the best-looking iPhone earphones around, and they also produce a solid if somewhat bass-heavy sound. iLounge gives them a B+ (review), and CNET gives them a 7.3 out of 10 (review) (based on an outdated model without play/pause capabilities).

iLounge found the Vibe Duos to be a real value based on the entire package: style, size, extra features, and dramatic bass ehancements.

The Vibe Duos come with six sets of silicon eartips, three in black, three in clear. The kit also features a leather pouch to store your headphones in.

The earphones come in three different colors: Black, Chrome, and Gunmetal Rouge. The buds are accented by shiny industrial-looking bands of metal. The cord is covered with fabric and features a clip that can be attached to clothing if you want to keep the microphone from moving around as you walk or run. The cord features a cloth covering instead of the usual plastic/rubber.

Lounge found the sound of the microphone to be superior to the Shure brand of extension cords that adds microphone/playback functionality to their earphones. However, the sound didn’t measure up the original iPhone earphone’s microphone.

Because the V-Moda has gone through two revisions recently, buyers should be careful to get the latest version.

Maximo iMetal iP-HS2

The Maximo iMetal iP-HS2 ($69.99) earphones received a B+ from iLounge.com (review) and a 6.5 out of 10 from IGN (review). The Maximo iP-HS2 earphones come with full iPhone functionality of a microphone and play/pause button.

iLounge liked the audio of the iP-HS2, calling it “a little cleaner and more balanced, but flatter,” than the V-Moda Vibe Duo. They suggest using the Vibe Duos for rocking out, and the iP-HS2s for “clinical listening.”

The iP-HS2 uses a more efficient earphone, requiring less volume from the iPhone, and the sound isolation of the earbuds also contribute to volume efficiency by doing a decent job of blocking environmental noise.

iLounge found the microphone of the iP-HS2 as comparable to the Apple earphones and better than the V-Moda Vibe Duo’s. The iP-HS2 microphone does a good job of filtering out environmental noise and isolating the caller’s voice.

Maximo chose wisely in separating the microphone and play/pause button. They placed the play/pause button at the intersection where the left and right cords connect and located the microphone farther up on the cord, closer to the mouth. The problem with the location of Apple’s play/pause button is that sometimes you don’t know which side it’s on, leaving you grasping the wrong cord. iLounge suggests that more companies use Maximo’s approach.

The Maximo iP-HS2 earphones come with three sets of silicone ear tips, a 2-foot extension cord, and a carrying case.

Skullcandy iPhone FMJ

The Skullcandy iPhone FMJ ($79.95) are stylish full-functioning iPhone earphones, with an inline microphone and play/pause button. The headphones received reviews of B+ from iLounge (review) and 6.7 out of 10 from CNET (review).

Both review sites loved the Skullcandy’s microphone call quality. iLounge even found the sound superior to the microphones in the original Apple and V-Moda Vibe earphones.

The music audio quality is bass heavy, according to iLounge, having the side effect of masking some midrange and treble sound. CNET seemed to find the opposite, stating the FMJ’s high-end “was generally very good” and the bass “to be lacking.”

Sound isolation of the FMJ earphones is not quite on par with other similarly priced earphones, but better than Apple’s.

The Skullcandy iPhone FMJ comes with only one size of silicone earbuds, but also has two sets of Comply foam ear tips. Buyers should beware if you have larger ear canals, as the foam tips might not fit. However, the silicone medium-sized tips will fit most “normal” sized ear canals just fine.

The FMJ earphones also come with a carrying case with a zipper and a special mesh inner pocket for storing the extra ear tips.

The first commercial called “Lonely Planet” shows off Lonely Planet’s Mandarin (Chinese) Mobile Phrasebook (free), an app that gives helpful Chinese phrases in text and in audio form.

• Name: Mach Dice
• Developer: Mach Kobayashi
• Price: $0.99
• iTunes Download: Click here

Hanoi is a free iPhone game available in the iTunes app store. It is a rendition of a simple, ancient game called Towers of Hanoi that featured disks and wooden pegs. The object is to move all of the stacked discs across three areas, and no disc can sit on top of another that is smaller.

The game play is very simple, and the game is likewise barebones. There are attractive backgrounds that change with each progressive level. The game also has a limited amount of sound effects. The interface, graphics, and animations worked smoothly and were bug free.

Hanoi is a simple, casual game that be played anywhere. The earlier puzzles are simple to solve but become tougher as more discs are added. There is a pay version called Hanoi Plus ($0.99) that features more levels to beat (more discs) as well as new soothing backgrounds. If you like your games casual and simple, the fact that Hanoi is free makes a definite download

• Name: Hanoi
• Developer: Ian Marsh
• Price: Free
• iTunes Download: Click here

Mr. Trivia Lite is a free iPhone trivia game now available in the iTunes app store. It’s a trial version of an upcoming Mr. Trivia game that will presumably not be free.

The lite version features 2 rounds with 10 questions each. Players are given three multiple choice answers and 30 seconds to answer. The game features pleasant, polished graphics and limited sound effects.

The questions in the lite version are of a general trivia variety and for the most part interesting, but there are some problems. For instance, I noticed numerous typos (check out the misspelling of “ingredient” in the picture above). Questions were sometimes mislabeled with the wrong category (a question about forks and the civil war was labeled “Animal Trivia”). One question began with the anecdote, “I love my cat ‘Pixel’.”

The upcoming pay version will feature 500+ trivia questions, multiple categories, and a bonus lightning round. If you are a trivia nut, this game might be a warm up until something better comes along. But if the sloppiness of the questions from the lite version are any indication, just go ahead and skip it all together.

• Name: Mr. Trivia Lite
• Developer: Iron Square
• Price: Free
• iTunes Download: Click here

Sextuple Word Challenge ($0.99) is a solid clone of the game Jumble (aka TextTwist) and is our pick for one of the top word games currently available for the iPhone.

The graphics of Sextuple Word Challenge won’t win any rewards, but they get the job done. Words are perfectly visible on the small screen, and animations display without any bugs or quirks.

Game play is simple, players are given six scrambled letters to create words from. Tapping on the letters places them on a grid, and it requires at least three letters to form a word. Players must get at least half of the possible words to progress to the next round.

Sextuple’s game interface works smoothly without bugs or lag. The interface features an Enter button to submit words, a Mix button to change the visual order of the scrambled letters, a Clear button to clear letters from the grid, and a Back button to remove the last letter placed on the grid.

The game features minimal sound effects and no music (you can play your own music in the background). Each round has a timer, and the length of each round seems dependent on how many possible words are available in each round.

This leads to main complaint about the game: the length of each round. Many times, I found myself bored waiting for the next round to start after becoming stuck on the few remaining words. The game often does not feel challenging enough, especially in longer rounds, as there is plenty of time to randomly enter letters and figure out trickier words.

However, I do enjoy the fact there is at least one six-letter word in every round, and getting all the letters to form that word is the most satisfying part of the game.

Conclusion

Sextuple Word Challenge is a solid, bug-free version of the classic word game TextTwist. While it won’t win any awards for graphics, and game play may not be challenging enough for some, it perfectly delivers all the features you’d expect from the classic word games Jumble/TextTwist in a bug-free manner. And for 99 cents, it merits the label of a no-brainer download.

• Name: Sextuple Word Challenge
• Developer: nBit Inc.
• Price: $0.99
• iTunes Download: Click here

*Update* AppleInsider is citing “several people familiar with Nike+ initiative” that these screenshots are not from Nike and may be the work of a third-party developer working on a personal project.

French blog iPhon.fr has posted screenshots of what it claims is the upcoming Nike+ app for the iPhone. The Nike+ system has been available for the iPod Nano since summer 2006.

The Nike+ software/hardware combo allows runners to track their workouts, including running distances, times, and calories burned. Runners can create goal-oriented workouts and get audio feedback from the iPod when specific milestones are achieved. Data is stored and can be later downloaded to a computer, then uploaded to the Nike+ website and compared with other runners or for personal workout tracking purposes. The iPhone’s EDGE and 3G connection could remove the need to sync with a computer by directly uploading the data to Nike servers.

The hardware of Nike+ for iPods consists of an accelerometer and a transmitter/receiver. The accelerometer is placed inside the sole of special Nike shoes that come with a built-in pocket. Third-party solutions allow non-Nike shoes to use the device by attaching them to the shoelaces or inside attachable pockets.

The transmitter/receiver is attached to the bottom of the iPod and receives data from the accelerometer. Since the iPhone contains both a transmitter and an accelerometer, it will be interesting to see what hardware will be required for the new software.

The last update to the Nike+ system was the April 2008 introduction of the Sportsband ($59.99), which replaced the need for an iPod Nano.

Links:

See original article and more screenshots at iPhone.fr

Nike shoe and Nike iPod kit images via Wikipedia.

Teto Teto!!

While both of the Tetris clones are flawed, the better of the two is Teto Teto!!  It won’t win any awards for graphics, but Teto Teto’s button controls are much more accurate than Tris’s, which becomes important when the game speeds up. The buttons rotate and move the blocks left, right, and down. The buttons are in no way comparable to classic tactile buttons, but for Teto Teto, they work well enough to not get in the way of game play.

There is one one minor glitch. If you tap the down button, which accelerates the descent of the blocks, too zealously, it will immediately drop not only the block on the screen and but also the next block in the queue. This is an annoying flaw, but not a game killer, as you learn to be careful and work around it.

Teto Teto also features an interesting strategy twist. There is an area on the right side of the screen called the Stock. Tapping the Stock button will place the next block in the queue in the stock area, and tapping Back will place it back in the queue.  You get 5 stocks, which you keep track of on the left side of the screen.

Overall, what makes Teto Teto superior to Tris is the accuracy of control. This becomes more important in later stages when the pace of the game begins to pick up.

Tris

iLounge recently took a look at both of these games and listed Tris as the better of the two. While I agree that Tris is the better looking and intially the smoothest, I found it frustrating to control the blocks accurately as the game sped up.

Tris uses finger swipes to move the blocks left, right, and down. Players simply tap the screen to rotate the blocks clockwise (there is no option to rotate them counterclockwise). The problem with Tris’s controls comes with the inaccuracy of the finger swipe positioning. Also, accidental taps tended to be a problem.

Both of these games are very basic (neither features sound) and make for a very average Tetris-like experience. Their controls will take some time to get used to thanks to some control flaws. Since they’re both free, they are a risk-free proposition.

• Name: Teto Teto!!
• Developer: macer software
• Price: Free
• iTunes Download: Click here

• Name: Tris
• Developer: Noah Witherspoon
• Price: Free
• iTunes Download: Click here