Openfeint is one of the iPhone world’s social gaming engines much like Xbox Live is to the 360. It shares achievements, adds friends, and gives you an incentive to keep playing games and buying more titles. Soon though, this service could fall under the colossal cloud of the new Apple Gaming Center.

With the new 4.0 firmware announced today, Apple said it is creating a new social gaming element for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad dubbed the “Gaming Center”. Since the powerhouse devices have become a popular platform for gamers, Apple decided it was time to implement a technology that has been used countless times by numerous others, a social gaming platform. With this new platform, supposedly it will be like the Nintendo DS’s market mixed with Xbox Live elements (pure speculation at this point) providing users the choice to play friends, gain achievements, and share them on social networks. Wait wait wait, isn’t there something like this already? Oh yeah, OPENFEINT! The service does everything described above and is already in place on your device right now, no update needed. I’m sure the interface of Apple’s ripoff will be phenomenal and make it hard to resist (plus it’ll already be there on your device), but don’t let OpenFeint fall to the wayside. Maybe Apple could provide us with the ability to import achievements and friends from the service if it is going to destroy it. Hopefully, this rant is completely wrong but atleast it may open some minds.

UPDATE: OpenFeint responds to Apple Game Center [Link]

FacetheMusic, an app by my good friend Shabbir Vijapura (@shabzcohelp) over at TouchMiPhone, allows users to post what they’re listening to on their iPod, iPhone, and iPad right to Twitter and or Facebook directly from their device. With some new features added to this release, FacetheMusic has gotten better than ever!

The new update to FacetheMusic improves on many things and rids this app of a few known bugs. It’s sleek interface accompanied by the powerful coding structure gives this app an upper hand on any apps that wish to rival it. Being that it is integrated with the two most popular social networks to date, FacetheMusic will be an excellent buy today as well as tomorrow. If you choose to post to Twitter, there are a few options in place that will automatically place the hashtag’s #musicmonday and #facethemusic onto your post provided you have them enabled. You can also disable them if you only wish to post to Facebook or care not to share with the Twitterverse that you are using this amazing app! Oh and don’t forget to add album art and an actual music link to your post! With FacetheMusic, you can post the album art of the album you’re listening to (provided you have it attached to the music file and the network allows you to at the time) and a music link from either Twt.fm or Youtube, these features are a little hidden so find them!

Pros:

• Ease of use
• Awesome Interface
• Reusable at any given point in the day
• It’s price: a mere $0.99 (cheaper than a cup of coffee)

Cons:

• Network error causing Twitpic uploads to fail
• Youtube may need to be loaded several times

All in all, FacetheMusic for your iDevice is a must have for music fans, status updaters, Twitter fiends alike!

Purchase “FacetheMusic” on the AppStore!

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Screens:

The Ultimate Alphabet Game is an upcoming app from ToyTek Ltd. and it’s going to blow your mind! It’s a game that requires you to find everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) that starts with a certain letter. In this build, there are letters A-D and each one has over 256 things to name! It’s insane! The vocabulary is really hard at times and it does have a little problem with the buttons at times. The target audience for this app is definitely 18 and up not because of the content but because of the words. Most people won’t be able to figure out some of the words without hints but if you don’t mind doing that, then this game is a definite buy when it comes out! Check out their website, or their twitter @toytekltd for more info on when this app comes out!

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

This is a test post to see if the Geotagging feature for WordPress app works on a selfhosted blog! Probably not yet but if it did, this should be tagged.

I attended the Bella Morte concert in C-Ville last night! Here’s my favorite video I shot all night! The song is called “Find Forever Gone” and can be found on their album “Beautiful Death”! Rock On Bella Morte!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATGg1kcUikQ

More on my Youtube Account: CFultz

If you’re like me, you use your phone for everything. By everything I mean check your email, Twitter, Facebook, blog, and surf the web all across your carrier’s network. No problem there unless you’re on AT&T. A figure head at the Dallas, Texas company recently stated that he thinks AT&T should charge more for those who “abuse” data usage. Maybe this is fair, oh wait, it isn’t!

AT&T’s service is below subpar and the “fastest 3G coverage” is limited to high populated areas. Instead of charging more for their data service, maybe AT&T should fix these problems before charging more for a low quality service. If their coverage was as good as Verizon’s then I’d have no problem paying more for my data package.

Although I don’t agree with the attack commercials by Verizon on AT&T, most of the facts aren’t far from the truth. The “map for that” commercials show a massive Verizon red nation and a spotty AT&T blue nation, it’s more true than you know. Another way AT&T could make money is by not retaliating with Luke Wilson commercials. They aren’t that great and the actor has to be the worst spokesman ever. Just fix your network AT&T, that’ll be more of a stab into your enemies side.

What seems to be the beginning of a smartphone war has actually been going on for quite sometime now. The reasons why everyone is taking sides for their team are being pushed on the consuming public via the web, TV commercials, and newspaper ads. The two sides are iPhone versus Android, or is it just two sides? Let’s delve into the market just a tad deeper, say about 20 years back.

The year is 1992 when Big Blue (IBM) decided to jump into a new market, smart cellular phones. IBM released a prototype dubbed Simon for a technology trade show in Nevada. Within a years time the consumer market had their hands on it. With no physical keypad in site, Simon was equipped with a smart touch keyboard, touch screen, world clock, calender, email, and faxing capabilities. Now today this may seem like a low-end piece of hardware, in ’92 Simon was the best thing on Earth!

After seeing IBM’s great success, Nokia decided it was time to jump into the battle. With the Communicator series of phones starting to emerge in ’96, Nokia started firing back at IBM and Simon. The Nokia 9000 was Nokia’s first smartphone that combined a HP PDA making it a strong starting device. Shortly there after, the 9210 series was released and was the first “true” smartphone because it had a color display and ran a smartphone OS. Then the 9500 came out which was Nokia’s first smart camera phone and also featured the ability to connect to wifi networks.

Then in 2001, Handspring unveiled the Palm OS Treo smartphone, featuring a full keyboard and combined wireless web browsing, email, calendar and contact organizer. As well, the Treo was the first smartphone to feature mobile third-party applications that could be downloaded then synced with a computer at a later time. Then in less than a year, RIM produced a new type of smartphone, the Blackberry. Blackberry’s were the first smartphone made for wireless email use and has gained a total customer base of 8 million subscribers by June 2007, most from North America. In 2002, Handspring was marketing the integrated smartphone called Treo; the company decided to merge with Palm because the PDA market was dying but the Treo was quickly becoming popular as a phone with that emulated a PDA.

Fast forward to June 29, 2007, the birth of a new era, the iPhone for Apple and AT&T. Released at 6 PM, the iPhone had thousands of people standing in line at Apple stores waiting to get their hands on it. Featuring a 320×480 pixel touch screen, Safari Web browser, geotagging 2MP camera, Google Maps, Youtube, and an iPod, the iPhone was set to be the “phone killer”. Now with two more generations under their belt, Apple has upped the camera to 3MP and added video recording features for the 3GS. What made the iPhone so great was the App Store, a centralized location where people could download apps, games, utilities all without a computer! The major flaw with the iPhone was the lack of multimedia messaging at launch. This was later fixed on September 25, 2009 after AT&T “fixed” their network to support the mass inflation of picture messages. Still, the iPhone is said to be the most modified phone to date. Using custom firmwares to achieve features “blocked” by Apple, hackers and modders can make their phones unique from their friends and others.

In the past months, Google released an OS for smartphones known as Android. Android is dubbed “the iPhone killer” because of Google’s belief in Open Source Technology. Taking the idea from Apple, Android (as well as others) has an “App Store” known as Android Marketplace where users can buy and sell or just download for free applications and games. Having Google as it’s parent, the Android has all it’s major functions through Google including GPS navigation through Google Maps, Youtube, music player, email, and a lite version of Google Chrome Web Browser. Android phones are available through Verizon and T-Mobile.

Now that all the facts of been presented to you, you now know that there is more than two sides to this war or is there? If you ask and iPhone user who the biggest smartphone competitor is, chances are you’ll hear “Google Android”. If you ask anyone else who is the major competitor for their phone is, you’ll more than likely hear “the iPhone”. Why is this? Is the iPhone such a big hitter in the market that other’s fear it’s “superior” features? Only time can tell which phone will become the top used smartphone in the world but who knows if it will iPhone, Android, or something far more advanced and visibly more beautiful.

With a name like Gowalla, this app gives many second thoughts about downloading it. You won’t be sorry you did. Gowalla by Alamofire is a social networking app that allows users to connect with local people and friends by a system of checking in, much like Loopt and Foursquare. What makes Gowalla so much different than it’s competitors is the ability to be used anywhere unlike Foursquare which service is only avalible in “large” cities and has a scavenger hunt giving incentive to go places, unlike Loopt. Although these services have something different to offer like chatting features, Gowalla still takes the cake for with it’s beautiful interface and the website that accompanies it, www.gowalla.com.

Gowalla’s scavenger hunt is based on a series of different stamps that are posted to a users passport. Visit a certain area, recieve a certain stamp on your passport, this is how all your friends know where you’ve been and what you’ve collected. Pins are given for posting a predetermined amount in a certain area or posting in an area for the first time. It gives off an achievement vibe much like Xbox Live which is why it’s a very addictive app. You want to beat your friends by getting certain “rare” stamps and being pinned for posting in a different state or location more than they have.

The integration of Facebook Share and Twitter API allows you to find friends and followers to share your stamps with even if they are not Gowalla users. This is how I found out about this awesome app through Kevin Rose’s Twitter stream. By using this integration, you can add users that have already signed up for the service and have integrated their user names with Gowalla. This means that if you and your friend on Facebook or Twitter both have Gowalla, regardless if you have on your phone and they use it on there netbook, you can still add each other, view each other’s passports, stamps, pins, and even trade stamps you may have doubles of.

Gowalla is bound to be around for along while given the facet that the rate of smart phone users is on the rise. Apps like this will make up a huge market ratio as more users want to share their location and personal information like what they’re doing with friends with the world.

I recently got back into modifying my mobile devices. This includes my PSP, iPhone, iPod, and soon my DSi. Now you aren’t supposed to modify “THEIR” device to make it do what you want but how is it “THEIR” device once you purchase it? Right? I mean, companies like Sony and Apple are always releasing firmware updates to fix exploits in the firmware to keep your device safe. While this may be the case sometimes, more than likely, they’re patching these flaws to prevent you from making your device work for you, not with you. Think about it this way, my old iPhone was at 3.1.2 firmware and was beat up beyond belief. I took it in the AT&T and they looked at it and laughed. It’s that bad. My old phone’s buttons wouldn’t work half the time and it drained the battery, until now. After “jailbreaking” it with blackra1n, I installed SBSettings from the jailbroken “App Store” Cydia. What this does is allows me to shutdown my device, restart, and most importantly lock my iPhone. On my 3GS, I installed SBSettings for the same reasons even though my buttons work! There’s many more things you can do like theme your phone so it’s unique with Winterboard, install id Software’s Wolf3D LEGALLY because it was released as source code and someone has compiled it and placed it on Cydia, and my personal favorite play NES and SNES games on your iPhone! For my PSP it’s the same way. I can run NES, GBA, SNES, PS1, N64 games and I can use Edison Carter’s Cheat Devices for GTA:LCS and GTA:VCS! It’s awesome! For any help doing this to your devices, leave a comment below and I’ll see what I can do!