If you’re like us, you’ve been too busy playing with iOS 5.0.1 today to get any work done or just keep up with the daily news. And who can blame you? We all want to push our iOS devices to the max and see if Apple has made good on their promise of extended battery life with the first over-the-air update. The good news is, now that you’ve done that and still have plenty of battery left to spare, you can still catch up on the day’s happenings. Here’s the latest for Thursday, November 10, 2011.
We think it’s strange that Atari took so long to bring its classic games to iOS -- and then dumped them on us all at once -- but they’re not quite done just yet. On Thursday, the legendary company released its latest title, Asteroids GUNNER, billed as “the next evolution in the legendary Asteroids franchise.” Featuring three galaxies and 150 non-stop waves to test your rock-obliterating skills, the 61.1MB download is not only free, but also a universal build for native support on any iPhone, iPod touch or iPad running iOS 4.0 or later. The only catch is you’ll have to pay 99 cents via in-app purchase to remove the ads, and you also have the option to purchase “space bucks” via the same method, should you be too lazy to unlock the more than 200 achievements hidden inside.
MacRumors is reporting that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs could very well wind up being the first person ever to receive Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” award after their death. The former CEO was nominated by NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, who referred to Jobs as not only changing the world but also “he gave us that spirit again that something was possible, that you could look at a piece of plastic or glass and move your finger -- that’s outlandish. You could make things bigger or smaller like that.” Time’s coveted award goes to “a person, couple, group, idea, place or machine” that, “for better or worse… has done the most to influence the events of the year.” If that doesn’t describe Steve Jobs, we don’t know who it could. The 2011 “Person of the Year” award will be present in December.
Spoiled by talking to Siri on your iPhone 4S and longing for something similar on your Mac? Nuance has just granted your wish with Dragon Express, a Mac App Store exclusive launched today which promises “an easy and fun way to put words to work without the hassle of typing, allowing users to do more in less time.” Nuance, of course, is the company behind all of the popular Dragon speech recognition software, including several iOS App Store titles for dictation and search. With Dragon Express, simply open the app, start talking and your transcribed text can be placed in the application of your choice. The company’s debut title in the Mac App Store is an OS X Lion exclusive, now available for an introductory price of only $49.99.
Need a good reason to stay up late tonight? OnLive is giving you one with the announcement that LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 will arrive at 12:01am PST November 11. “In just a few hours from now you can enjoy lots more quirky LEGO® goodness while you discover and unlock more than 80 characters in LEGO® Harry Potter™: Years 5-7!” the company announced today on its blog. OnLive is also encouraging all-night playing by offering an iPad 2 and the Blu-ray boxed set of Harry Potter movies to the first player to make it all the way through the new game. Five runners up will also score the Blu-ray collection as well. The U.S.-only contest kicks off at the stroke of midnight tonight, so hit up the OnLive blog for all of the details.
Seems as if iOS 5 is a veritable fountain of hidden treasures, with the recent discovery of a panorama mode in the Camera app and now the latest unearthing of an Android-style autocorrect bar tucked inside the keyboard. According to 9to5Mac, the hidden feature can be exposed by adding a text string to com.apple.keyboard.plist thanks to the iBackupBot app, no jailbreak required. Hey, iOS 5 is the gift that keeps on giving, isn’t it…?
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