One of the more common practices these days is for a major video game to be released along side a companion iOS app in some form. Whether that be a portable version of the game itself or an app to support different functionality. Just to refresh our collective memory, here’s a quick rundown of some of the more recent releases:

Burnout CRASH
Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies
EA Battlelog (Battlefield 3)
Mass Effect 3 Data Pad
Mass Effect Infiltrator
Max Payne Mobile
Minecraft Pocket Edition
Soul Calibur
SSX Ridernet
Star Wars: Old Republic

It’s weird, I almost view these apps akin to the release of a companion video game released along side a major film release. It should be noted that most of these games are consistently in the top paid or free apps on the iOS app store. But the point of this is to get a gauge of how our community feels about them, if anything. How do most people feel about these games? Do you only pick these games up if you enjoy the main game they’re associated with? Usually useless or generally okay?

For anyone interested in dabbling in felony stalking, look no further than the Girls Around Me app. Unfortunately for those folks, as of last Saturday the app has been pulled from the iOS store. Here’s how it works, it uses geolocation to point out “things” of interest to the user, in this case those “things” are “girls”. As you being the app it simply shows a local map with various pictures and locations of men and women of your choosing. You may ask the question, so these people volunteer this information? The answer in an emphatic “No”. It is using any public data from Facebook and Foursquare in order to acquire pictures, gender, and exact location.

So whether it is due to laziness or ignorance, each of these people haven’t really locked down who can see what about themselves publicly. It’s an old topic, but the real problem here is how Facebook and Foursquare chooses to expose it’s API to third-party developers. The developer of Girls Around Me, I-Free, has issued a very long statement regarding this issue to the Wall Street Journal of all places. I pretty much stopped reading when I realized they were trying to justify this thing to everyone, oh wait…

You remember that game that everybody loved pre-Draw Something and pre-Hero Academy? It’s coming with a sizable update soon. It may even give people a reason to play again.

True Lies

According to PC World, the new iPad battery actually needs an hour longer charge than the indicator represents. This means that the battery indicator says 100% when it’s actually 90%, which is roughly an hour less of usage. On the other hand, Apple warned users that they should not leave their iPad charging unattended (really?) or charge overnight because it will risk ruining the battery life. Obviously most people believe that Apple should probably fix the battery indicator as well as making the iPad stop charging once the battery is full.

For those with new iPad’s, take care not to overcharge it.

Pretty damn cool. Most people are raving about just how detailed the new iPad display is, and these comparison shots of the iPad 2 (left) and the new iPad (right) from Mashable are really impressive:

This is definitely one of the cooler ideas I’ve seen recently. This Kickstarter project called Geode is attempting to turn your iPhone and Android device into a virtual wallet. It essentially stores every credit card, gift card, or whatever has a magnetic card strip into your phone that can be used anywhere with card terminals. It’s also claiming to have “biometric” security, which I believe just means using a fingerprint. Which would hopefully eliminate the need to cancel credit cards should the reader be lost or stolen.

These guys aren’t sponsoring us or anything, I just thought it was a sweet idea. With that said, I’m not sure I would trust this with every money spending bridge that I have. Or at least it would take a lot of convincing. With Path and their very public exposure of the misuse of one’s personal information, this thing would need a lot of trust-building for consumers.

So far they’ve gotten almost $48,000 of a $50,000 goal with 38 days left, which probably means that they will easily pass expectations. Anyone out there willing to trust this thing out of the gate? When I think about it, it’s not putting any more trust in this thing than we do our credit card companies… well, all of our credit card companies together. But still…

At least according to 9to5mac, the iPad 3 prices are said to be in the same vein as the iPad 2, that is to say they’re exactly the same. There have been plenty of rumors floating around the iPad 3, one of which was that the pricing models could increase about $70, but doesn’t seem to be holding much ground. Another piece of speculation was about the space in each model, and that hasn’t changed either. Still, as tempted as I am for this new iPad, $800 is a lot of money if I wanted to go full out.

iPad… or a new computer… iPad, computer… Huzzah for first-world problems.

I know, I wanted one too. I’ve got to say, that whole set up is really convincing.

Found this infograph via Mashable about who is going to be buying the iPad 3. I found it especially interesting because I have yet to take the iPad plunge and have started to seriously consider my first one with the iPad 3.

Researchers at Gazelle and NextWorth are suggesting that now would be a pretty good time to sell your iPad 2 if you’re planning on upgrading to the iPad 3. They’ve compiled a chart for the average eBay price of the original iPad leading up to the announcement and release of the iPad 2. As one would probably expect, the longer people waited to sell their iPad during the months leading up to the iPad 2 release, the cheaper it became.

Many are speculating for a March announcement and, as a result, many are trying to unload their iPad 2 in lieu of this. So, unless you’re planning handing down your iPad 2 to someone, get it out there now.