Happy New Year everyone. Have you taken any resolution for this New Year, as usual? I haven’t yet as I know I wouldn’t be following it after the end of the first month of the New Year. There are people who list down resolutions and stick up to it throughout the year. And there are other people who don’t take any resolution and just go by flow. Also there is a third category of people who don’t realize that they have taken a resolution but they follow or do it very rigorously.  Just like those third category, these four guys are.

Right after the new year holiday weekend, Rasmus Hansson, Mikael Tyrsen, Ivan Isaev and Calle Morck resumed the usual work of iPhone app development but ended up with an exciting yet ambitious project, though not declaring as a new year resolution. It’s Project 72, developing an iPhone app from the scratch within 3 days (i.e. 72 hours). Although all of them are well experienced in each and every aspect of developing an iPhone app, it’s not as easy as a cakewalk to finish an app right from the conception to final working product. So they setup the blog with progress update, webcam for live feed and a timer to race against, then started it with brick by brick.

As the clock ticked and time ran out, Project 72 app was conceived, bits and pieces fell into place with coffee gulped down and even Tylenol cough syrup consumed. App is getting shaped up to achieve the hard timeline.

Almost 2 days completed, as of this writing, they succeeded in releasing the beta version of the app to the test users and still working harder to tweak it.

Here is the short version of game info from their site Dogtown Studios.

You guide your rocket through space avoiding running out of fuel and all the obstacles. When you collide with obstacles you either slow down or die. Asteroids will cause the ship to slow down. How much depends on how big the asteroid is. Black holes will pull you towards them until you run out of fuel and die. There will also be a few other enemies but we haven’t yet decided how they will affect the game play. We are also trying to add weapons so you can shoot enemies.

You can monitor the progress through the live video feed and the frequent status updates in the blog. Also, you can write a comment or feedback to encourage them. I am going to write a review of the app after testing the beta version. Watch out this space.

All the best guys! One more day to go!

Facebook today released an update for it’s iPhone and iPod touch native application with push notification and sync Facebook friends with address book. These two significant features make the app even cooler with the last update’s cool new features.

Now you can receive push notification for below events. This can be configured in the iPhone’s settings.

• Messages
• Wall Posts
• Friend Requests
• Friend Confirmations
• Photo Tags
• Events
• Comments

Also, you can set it to reload the Facebook when you shake it and to vibrate while chatting.

Another beautiful feature in this update is synching Facebook friends with your address book in iPhone. When you enable this sync, your phone contacts details will be sent to Facebook and friends’ names, photos and other info from Facebook will be added to the iPhone’s contacts list. You can also set this sync to replace the photos in your contacts by the Facebook friends’ photos.

Because of this synching feature, iPhone somewhat gets the Palm Pre’s much acclaimed feature to link local contacts with social networking sites’ contacts.

After driving everyone crazy for thirty years with artful puzzles and word teasers, Dingbats (also known as WHATZIT? in the US and Canada) released for iPhone and iPod touch devices. It’s from the cartoonist Paul Sellers, creator of Dingbats puzzles, to celebrate the 30^th anniversary of the game and available for $2.99 in App Store.

In Dingbats, you will have to solve puzzles, which are made of cunningly disguised names, phrases and sayings that are turned around, upside-down, sideways or jumbled up. To find out the hidden word or phrase on each card, you can get the clues from the size, position, direction or style of the words. Sometimes, pictures combined with words or numbers will also you the answer for a puzzle.

Here is how you can play Dingbats. There will be a set of cards with a puzzle behind each of them in every level. Tap a card to select it and find out the hidden word or phrase. You will have to answer the puzzle within certain time. A timer will be running as you started the puzzle. The sooner you answer higher the points you get. When the timer runs out, you will get a clue to on how many words or letters. You can also use PASS to skip the card. But remember, pass will get renewed after every 1000 points. So don’t use it unless you required.

Likewise, you will have 15 levels of carefully chosen very best puzzles to tease your brain. If you hit the home button accidentally, don’t worry, your progress will be saved so you can come back anytime and resume your game. In the cards gallery, you can see all the puzzles that you solved when you hit the ‘Cards’ option. There is a global scoreboard with all the scores submitted from all over the world. You can filter the scores by country and by        day, week or month for each country or globally. You can also see the top scores by time too.

I like the way scoreboard gets displayed. Just like the airport arrival/departure board, scores are displayed with cool and animated style. Also while playing the game, all the cards in the gallery are displayed in beautiful, bright red and green colors with cute 3D-like animation.

If you like enjoying solving word puzzles and tricks, Dingbats is a must-have app for you. Once you solve the puzzles in each level, you can brag about your ability and flair to solve the world’s trickiest yet interesting puzzle game through twitter. Yes, just like every other game app, this one also has twitter integrated to spread your score and level in this app to your followers.

Price: $2.99
Compatible With: iPhone and iPod touch
Required OS Version: iPhone OS 2.2 or later
Download Link: iTunes
Developer Website: Starberry

Paper cat is an interesting puzzle game with fun. It’s from Lionware available for $0.99 in App Store. All you have to do is, help the paper cat to collect different items in the screen. If you collect all the items in each level, you can continue to play until you miss the timeline or you get tired of playing.

Here is the game play; you will have to pick up all the items in each level and some items twice just to make you complete the little complicated levels. There will be up, down, left and right arrows that you will have to use to navigate the paper cat from one item to another. Collecting all the items is not as simple as that. Unless you follow certain order, you won’t be able to complete the level. Remember, it’s time-limited game in each level, you can score more points if you are faster.

The interface looks so soothing and beautiful with simply hand-made layout designs. So is the animation as there will be fresh and colorful bubbles whenever the paper cat picks up the item. The sound and music are also very good and mild while you play the game except when the game is over.

As there is no limit on levels that you can play, this puzzle game is very addictive and clasping to play for hours and hours, if you can clear each and every level. The puzzles in each level are generated randomly, so the successive levels don’t repeat just to keep you interested in the game.

You can submit your score to the global scoreboard and rank yourself globally. Global high score ranks all-time scores submitted by the users around the globe.  Also, you can view the scores locally, in your iPhone or iPod touch scoreboard, and today’s high score board, high scores on each day submitted globally. The high score for the day is displayed on the home screen whenever you login to the app. You might want to give it a try to get your score on the front page globally.

Price: $0.99
Compatible With: iPhone and iPod touch
Required OS Version: iPhone OS 2.2.1 or later
Download Link: iTunes
Developer Website: Lionware