GamesFree MonkeyJump

At the moment, #1 in iTunes Ireland is a collection of games called “GamesFree” (link to iTunes) developed by a company called DS Effects.  The games are tripe and presumably the application only obtained it’s App Store position by having “Free” in the title.

The thing that bothers me about this application  is that it tries to access my location.  Is there any particular reason for this?
The only obvious answers (besides espionage) are an updated version of the application containing targeted advertising or for acquiring marketing information.  Thank God for Apple being careful and making sure applications get the user’s permissions before accessing their location.  Can you imagine how many suckers clicked the above? Data Protection Act? Hellooooo.

On the other end of the spectrum is an application titled GRINDR (informally endorsed by Sir Stephen Fry) whose functionality is based around GPS.  The application, tailored to gays uses the iPhone’s location services to find users in another user’s vicinty for the purposes of dating, mating etc. The thing about this application (arguably the most popular iPhone application of it’s kind) is that it can be relatively dangerous if you’re relatively stupid.

On one hand if kids ignore the standard 18+ type warnings and post a picture of themselves up they’re likely to see a whole lot of things they may not want to :). I’ll let you figure that one out for yourself.  Also, GRINDR is not a replacement for meeting people on the internet as the user may meet the person in a less public place than they normally would have. i.e. why bother traveling into town if the other user is only 1,000 feet away?

My advice for GPS & iPhone:

• Don’t allow applications access to your location unless it’s core to the application’s functionality.
• GRINDR, or other dating applications can be fun but the same rules apply when meeting people online. (good advice here)

It’s relatively new to me (the iPhone 3G) so apologies if people knew this but here is where I am let down.  This doesn’t include my network problems which is a story for another day.

1. I thought it would be a replacement for my camera but it’s not a good camera.

2. Everytime I pause a video I’m watching or stop it and go back to it, the audio / video isn’t in sync and there’s nothing I can do (bar re-sync with iTunes) to correct it.  I reckon this is a firmware bug.

3. There is no function to record video.

4. There are no Multimedia messages.

5. There is no last.fm scrobbling.

6. None of the iPod functionality can be done over wireless.  If you give a machine wireless capabilities then use them.  I want to update my iTunes library without having to resort to the archaic method of plugging it in.

7. iTunes App Store has become too congested.  There are way too many crap apps out there and seen as I’m paying alot for a 3G connection, it’s time consuming and expensive sifting through applications.

8. Web services I use and recieve messages on i.e. Digg / Twitter and my RSS feeds doesn’t have the function of the little red bubble above the app everytime I recieve a message.  I know this will drain battery life but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

9. On all iPods & iPhones the battery is bipolar.  One minute it can be half way and the next minute it can be three quarter’s full.  This has improved alot with the iPhone but the battery power bar cannot be relied on.

10. The silence button on the side is too hard to flick for those of us who don’t have nails and the first time the SIM is inserted is hella confusing and as far as I can remember there were no instructions on how to insert in the box.

This video has been floating around the internet for a few weeks now.  I’m trying to get some information about the band online but it hasn’t turned up many results (they obviously never made it as far as The Beatles, I wonder why?)  There’s some banter here about the lead singer who got in contact with the guy who rediscovered the video but I doubt it’s authenticity.

All I know is that they’re a Christian Ska Band who rock.  It’s also spawning parodies.