Swinging, Clinging & Frustrating. We were all young once, so i guess everybody that reads this review can relate to the following: You were walking down the street, minding your own business, when suddenly something catched your eye; it was a beautiful, shiny, filled-to-the-rim-with-goodies Toy vending machine! Aww the excitement!  In my case there was only one thing to be done: secretly taking a quarter from my mom's wallet (in the future they would end up calling this "Stealing"), inserting the 25ct into the machine....rotating the lever....wait for it to click and then....what could it be? A delicious gumball, toys, maybe even a real tattoo? Even the thought of these days makes you wonder: why isn't there a game about it? And thus, with these thoughts in mind, the creative team of IUGO Mobile Entertainment created Toy Bot Diaries: Entry 1; an iPhone/iPod Touch game that's all about a little Toy Robot that has lost its memory. It's up to the player to guide Toy Bot through a number of levels while solving puzzles and collecting Memory-chips to recover your memories. Toy Bot is equipped with Magnetic Boots so he can cling to any metallic object he sees fit, and can use his Electric Grappling ...

Griffin Technology has just released a new addition to their iTrip family. They're probably getting tired to adjust to Apple's 'new standards' every time, because this iTrip works through the iPod's/iPhone's 3.5mm audio jack. Which also means its compatible with a slew of other MP3 devices! Why didn't they think of this before?? Because they would have to add a battery to the iTrip (the 3.5mm is not a supplier of large sums of energy). Thus, this addition to the iTrip family features a lithium-ion battery, which is rechargeable through the iTrip's built in USB connector. If you want one, it'll set you back $39,99 which isn't all that bad for a FM transmitter from the industries' leader. Go check it out at Griffin's website       

Playing games on the iPhone Gaming on the iPhone is just great. The screen makes the games look great. The games run fast, and more importantly; without any glitches. The gameplay has become a lot more interesting because of the accelerometer inside the iPhone. And perhaps the best thing is that you don't have to go out to a store and buy games, but you can just buy games from the iTunes App store...anywhere you like, whenever you like. There are a lot of free games available and some great premium games that sell under $10. I won't describe myself as a hardcore gamer. I am more the casual type of gamer, I hardly ever game. The only gaming I have done in the past year were on a Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii. Now that I have an iPhone, its much easier to see what titles are available and try a game every now an then. Because the iPhone is my phone, I carry it everywhere, so whenever there is a dull moment and I feel like gaming, I just grab my iPhone and a few seconds later I am happily gaming. So I am still a very casual gamer, but ...

The guys over at Crave have had a chance to get their hands on the iRiver Spinn. They really seem to like it. Especially the screen, its one of the best screens they've seen in a mobile device so far. Not everyone at Crave was keen on the Spinn wheel, but most of them liked it or were OK with it. Head over to Crave and check out the pictures and read the whole first look review.      From [Crave] via [Engadget]

Ismashphone has posted a list of 12 iPhone tricks. How many of them do you know? I actually didn't know about 3, out of 12, that's nothing I should be ashamed about.  Go over to Ismashphone to check out the list and see how many you already knew.  Via [iPhoneMatters]

Where did the first million iPhones go??  As you can see the biggest chunk went to the USA (600.000 units). Followed by Japan, France, Germany (around 70.000 units each). Spain was good for the fifth place (59.000 units). The rest of the countries sold far less. Because of low availability? Or because of low demand?? More graphs available on the Medialets website.  From [Medialets] via [Tweakers]

THQ Wireless, the company developing a touch version of 'Star Wars the Force Unleashed' has put some new screenshots of this upcoming game on Flickr (we've posted them below as well). It looks pretty amazing. By just a swipe of your finger you can put the 'force choke' on your enemies or fight of the shooting lazorz with your lightsaber.             Via [toucharcade] via [Macrumors]

Then the darkside of the almighty dollar must have you in it's power. This is for the rich only. The rich that want to flaunt it. Who don't give a ****. Hmm...probably there are people who are going to buy this. Well, good for the developer. Although I am curious if Apple will allow applications such as this one in its app store for long, we'll see. All the app does is display a red ruby in the background...so when you show your iPhone people will know you spent $999,99, which is crazy.     Link to the App in the iTunes store (be sure not to accidentally buy it, because it almost equals the value of a Macbook)  Via [Gizmodo] [UPDATE] App pulled from the App store! Good one Apple!

Apple is a special company and besides technology, design is in their DNA. Almost everything they do looks killer, makes sense and adds to the positive user experience. This goes for their products, their software, their user interfaces, their packaging, their website, their keynotes, and so on and so on. But Apple wouldn't be Apple if it wasn't started in Silicon Valley. The atmosphere there is just different. People think different. There's a whole tech start-up ecosystem, with many, many start-up companies, venture capitalist, lawyers, experts and so on so on. People from all over the USA and the rest of the world move to the San Francisco area to start their (tech) businesses. So I think, to a certain extent, Silicon Valley's business/tech/creative atmosphere helps Apple to stay on top. Its happening in the Bay area.  Watch the vid, its interesting, and will give you more insight in the way new apples come to fruition in the Bay area.     Via [core77]

It seems September is going to be an interesting month for those who are interested in Apple products, at least, if we have to believe all the stories that go round in the rumor mill. Below is an interesting excerpt of a rumor that depicts Apple will plug their entire Mac line with dedicated H.264 video encoding/decoding chips. Which will mean that all Macs will be able to play the 720P or even 1080P HD movies even if they don't really have that much muscle processor wise (or a large enough screen to view them :P). It makes sense to me, since Apple is more and more becoming a media company, selling music, movies and games. With this move they might even be skipping the next gen dvd format (blu-ray, hd dvd) entirely, by implementing their own standard and hooking it up to the iTunes movie store. The article which speculates on this also notes that there might be an exclusive contract for the encoding chip for a year, giving Apple a head start on the competition.  "What really excites me as a content creator is the amazing potential of real-time HD. Video and games are by far the greatest consumers of cycles on ...