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We’re giving away a limited edition Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 bundle!

We are kicking off our holiday giveaways with a bang! We’ve teamed with our friends at shoot it! to bring you this Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 limited edition console, a $400 value. The bundle includes a custom Xbox 360 console with exclusive design, a 250GB Xbox 360 hard drive, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, a pair of black controllers, and more. It hits stores on November 10th, and we’ve pre-ordered one that we’re giving away to one of you. Be sure to check out the giveaway rules to see how to enter!

Show us your Pwned Face and win a Limited Edition Xbox 360 Modern Warfare 2 console!

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Announcements, Cell Phones, Video Games

Xbox 360 Modern Warfare 2 console giveaway

We love the holidays. Why? Because it puts us in a giving mood, and we know how much you guys like receiving from us. That’s why we’ve teamed up with our friends at shoot it! to bring you this awesome promotion. If you’re a gamer, you probably know that Microsoft is set to release a limited edition Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 console. It hits stores on November 10th, and we’ve pre-ordered one that we’re giving away to one of you. In case you’re unfamiliar with the console, here’s what’s in the box:

  • Limited edition Xbox 360 Console with exclusive design
  • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Standard Edition.
  • 250GB HD
  • 2 black wireless controllers
  • 1 black Xbox 360 wired headset
  • 1 Ethernet cable
  • 1 Standard Xbox 360 Composite A/V cable

Yeah, did you see that? A 250GB hard drive. That is more than twice the size of any other Xbox 360 hard drive that you’ll find. This is a serious piece of kit! So, how do you win? Simple. We want to see your “pwned face.” This is where shoot it! comes in. We want you to take a pictures of the face you make when you just pwned a n00b straight out of existence - but we also wanna see the sad pwned face you make when you get straight-up schooled by an 6-year old Halo prodigy. Entertain us, make us laugh, and strike fear into our hearts. We’ve got a few ways that you can enter the contest:

  1. If you don’t have the shoot it! app: You can register for the shoot it! app and they’ll email you a link to download the app for either your BlackBerry 8900, Bold, Tour, or iPhone. They’ll also add 3 FREE postcard credits to your account. All you need to do is snap your photos and send them off using shoot it! to the Gear Live mailing address listed below.
  2. If you already have the shoot it! app on your phone: Enter the promo code “gearlive” to receive the 3 FREE postcard credits. All you need to do is snap your photos and send them off using shoot it! to the Gear Live mailing address listed below.
  3. If you don’t have any of the shoot it! compatible phones: Take a photos of your pwned face, send them to the Gear Live mailing address listed below.
  4. On Twitter, send the following message:
    “Hey @gearlive - I’m sending you my #pwnedface with @shootitmobile. That Xbox 360 is mine! http://bit.ly/pwnedface”
    (Click here to tweet this now)

You should be following the Gear Live Twitter account. Be sure you put your email address and Twitter handle that you used to enter in the message area so that when we get your shoot it! postcard, we can contact you if you win! We will be picking a winner on Monday, November 30th. You can enter as many times as you like, so if you wanna send us fifty different shoot it! images, go for it. The more, the merrier. Here’s the address:

Gear Live
PMB 443
914 164th St SE Ste B12
Mill Creek, WA 98012

Of course, there are always rules to keep things legal. In this case, you’ve gotta be 16 years old or older as of November 1, 2009 to qualify, and you’ve gotta be a US resident. Good luck to all!

Read More | Gear Live shoot it! Xbox 360 giveaway

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In app purchase now available for free apps

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: App Store News, Free Apps

Free in-app purchase

It took Apple a while, but finally, in-app purchases are allowed to be used in free apps. Why is this exciting? Well, previously, only apps that had a price were allowed to include an in-app purchase model. That means that games like Tap Tap Revenge 3 has to cost at least $.99 if the developer wanted to sell you add-on packs. This is also the reason that you see so many demo, or “Lite” versions of apps in the App Store. Now, you can download a demo version of an app, and upgrade to the full version while playing the free version. We’d love to see apps like Shoot It! get on board with this as well, as we think the freemium model is the sweet spot in the App Store.


Ping! app updated to 1.0.1, fixes bugs

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Social Networking, App Updates, $0.99

Ping! 1.0.1

Ping!, the iPhone-to-iPhone messaging app, has just been updated to version 1.0.1, and with the update comes a bunch of bug fixes. Here’s a little of what’s changed:

  • You can now unregister your Ping! ID
  • Landscape keyboard fixed so you can now send updates from that view
  • Duplicate messages will no longer be received
  • Notification settings icon fixed
  • There’s now an in-app invitation email

Ping! certainly isn’t the prettiest app in the world, but it is definitely functional, and allows free iPhone-to-iPhone messaging without having to use SMS, and it’s way faster. You can pick up Ping! for $0.99.


Tweetie 2 makes long-awaited debut

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Social Networking, App Updates, New Apps, Reviews, $2.99

Tweetie 2

Tweetie 2 has just launched and is now available for the and , and the popular Twitter app brings with it many, many improvements and feature additions. Some of the more notable additions include full app persistence, which means that if you leave the app for any reason and come back to it, Tweetie 2 will remember exactly where you were. There’s also a nice offline mode, that lets you read, favorite, and even write drafts of tweets. Once you connect to the Internet again, everything gets synced up.

Many users have been waiting for video support and push notifications to come to Tweetie as well, and Tweetie 2 delivers on both fronts, but we feel both are lacking. With video support, we’d love to see Posterous added as a hosting service, as opposed to just yFrog and TwitVid. As is pertains to push notifications, Tweetie 2 gives it to you, but only on a per-user basis. So you have to go into each user that you want to receive notifications from, and enable them in a menu that is buried a couple of levels deep. We’d love an option to get all mentions and direct messages pushed to the phone from Tweetie 2, rather than having to rely on another Twitter app that can do it (like SimplyTweet) or an app dedicated to pushing content (like Boxcar.)

Still, don’t let those two issues deter you. We’ve been playing with it for a while, and can say without hesitation that Tweetie 2 is now our iPhone Twitter application of choice. It is fast, elegant, and a great deal at $2.99. You can buy Tweetie in the App Store now, we’ve got a full feature list for you after the jump. Oh, and feel free to follow Gear Live and App.tapper on Twitter!

Click to continue reading Tweetie 2 makes long-awaited debut

Read More | Tweetie 2

Preview: ngmoco’s new iPhone FPS: ELIMINATE

Posted by Drea Avellan Categories: Games, New Apps, Reviews

ngmoco Eliminate FPS

Oh, San Francisco. Home to the 49ers, majestic bridges, historic Alcatraz, cable cars and even countless videogame development studios. Amongst these studios, in a cozy restored building cloaked by the AT&T Park, lives Neil Young’s iPhone & iPod Touch game developer—NGMOCO.

ngmoco has been put out some of the most successful games for the & , including the Rolando series, Topple and Word Fu. Ranging from puzzle, strategic and adventure, ngmoco knows how to create entertaining portable games. Now, they are set to release one of their most exciting titles yet, ELIMINATE. ELIMINATE is a 3G/Wi-Fi enabled First-Person Shooter (FPS) game, which takes advantage of micro-transactions, where you can upgrade characters, weapons, and the like.

Uncomplicated games currently dominate the App Store platform, due to their casual nature and mass appeal. The creation of more complex genres, such as FPS and strategic games, require a higher level of thought and consideration— a challenge ngmoco was more than willing to take on.  ELIMINATE brings with it an FPS online arena with intuitive controls that make it simple to jump in and play, and while the game might be a pick up and play experience, they haven’t ignored the importance of creating a story. ELIMINATE casts you as an employee of Arsenal Megacorp, a company in question for the use of humans in testing as a way of perfecting their gear. You and three other players are the guinea pigs of this project—SURPRISE!

Click to continue reading Preview: ngmoco’s new iPhone FPS: ELIMINATE


Best Camera iPhone app and community

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Photography, Social Networking, New Apps, Videos, $2.99

If you’ve been looking for an app that can replace the default camera app for taking photos, Best Camera just may be what you’ve been looking for. Developed by Seattle photographer Chase Jarvis, Best Camera provides a full-featured camera control app, fantastic photo editing (think of it as an iPhone version of Photoshop,) and a great online community that lives both online and in the app, where you can see great photos that have been taken by other Best Camera users.

The app lets you fade, crop, lighten, darken, and add a ton of effects to photos you take. You can then share those photos to social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and the Best Camera community.

As part of the launch, and to build up the Best Camera community, there will be a photo contest where the winner receives an . Hit the video above to get a look at the idea behind the app, and how it works. It costs just $2.99, and you can download Best Camera now on the App Store.

Read More | Best Camera

Ping! brings iPhone-to-iPhone messaging to the App Store

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Social Networking, New Apps, Reviews, Free Apps

Ping! App

We were just alerted to a new and app called Ping!, which aims to provide free iPhone-to-iPhone (and iPod touch) messaging to users of those devices. We tried it, and thought it was worthy enough to give a shout out to.

Basically, once you download the free Ping! application, you set up a username, and you are set. You can invite others from within the app over email, letting them know your username, and also set up whether you want push notifications or not. Once you start a conversation, it’s very similar to SMS…except it’s free, and instant. You get the speed of an IM conversation with the persistence of SMS, all at no extra cost. Even better, it works internationally. So you can send and receive messages with people in other countries, and again, at no extra cost.

Go ahead and give Ping! a try, we think you’ll like it.

Read More | Ping! in App Store

GIveaway: Win a One Year MAGHOUND Membership

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Announcements, Features, Internet

Free Maghound Membership giveaway

We’ve been using MAGHOUND for a couple of months now on an evaluation basis, and we must say, we like the concept. The easiest way to describe it is to say it is like for magazines, but even that isn’t quite right. In a nutshell, when you join MAGHOUND, you choose a number of magazines that you’d like to receive each month. Let’s say, 3. Unlike traditional magazine subscriptions, though, if it turns out you don’t like a magazine, you just log in to your MAGHOUND account and replace it with something else.

Even better, if you subscribe to a magazine that only publishes every other month, then you also get to specify what substitute magazine you want to receive in the off months. You see, you are paying for three magazines per month, period. So if a magazine doesn’t print that month, you get to choose something else. It’s very cool, especially if you know there is an upcoming issue of a magazine that you definitely want. You can take a look at their complete magazine offerings to see what I mean.

Want in on the action? We are giving away TWO one-year subscriptions to the 3-per-month MAGHOUND plan, which would normally cost you $4.95 per month. Entering is simple - we will give one subscription away on Twitter, and the other on Facebook:

To enter the Twitter giveaway, be sure you are following Gear Live on Twitter, and tweet the following:

Hey @gearlive - Count me in on the MAGHOUND giveaway! http://bit.ly/maghound #gearlive (Click here to tweet this now!)

To enter the Facebook giveaway, just become a fan and leave a comment on the Gear Live Facebook page.

Feel free to enter both. Winners will be selected at random, and if you enter both, you will only be able to win one. The contest runs from today through September 11, at 11:59 PM PDT. We will announce winners on Monday, September 14th, and you must be a US resident to enter.


Gifters app review

Posted by Brandon Gribin Categories: Lifestyle, Reviews, $1.99

Gifters app review

Gifters, currently available for $1.99, lets you create and manage gift lists. If you’re patient and comfortable with getting friends and family on-board, this may be for you. To some though, the app may be just a little too cumbersome.

After creating an account - where you’re forced to input your physical address, for some odd reason - you’re guided through a tutorial by means of several notification windows. Following that, you’re free to create and share lists. The app has no gift database though, so when creating lists you have to fill in several information fields all on your own.

Click to continue reading Gifters app review

Read More | Gifters

Spotify streaming music app coming to iPhone

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Music, App Store News, New Apps

Hey, streaming subscription music fans, it looks like Spotify has finally been approved by , and it will be appearing in the App Store shortly. You may not realize how big a deal this is at first glance, but trust me, this is huge. Spotify is a service that gives you all-you-can-eat access to music for a set fee each month. The app appearing on the iPhone and iPod touch means that you can use another store besides iTunes to listen to, and download, music. Yes, Spotify even lets you listen to downloaded tracks if you are offline. This is a game-changer, and we look forward to getting our hands on Spotify once it is released!


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