However, if you are like me and missed the first version, you have to get this new and improved game Chopper 2. Let’s see why I say that.

The first thing that jumps at you in the game is the 3D effects in the landscapes and instructions. Chopper 2 is built as a Universal app so it works both on the iPhone and iPad. It is an amazing deal at the launch sale price of $2.99 if you have both iPhone & iPad.

The graphics are eye popping and the effects are very cool on the iPad as well as in the iPhone 4’s Retina Display.

Game Play

The game starts out very simple and builds up with weapons and controls. It is essentially a side scrolling game where you tilt up/down to fly/land the helicopter. You tilt sideways to move forward or backward.

You fire your machine gun by just touching the screen anywhere. If you press and hold you will see an onscreen arc which you can trace to change the direction of fire.

You will notice that the landscape itself is kind of in a 3D thanks to the author David Frampton’s Magic Jungle software.

The game has 36 action packed missions over 12 unique and beautiful locations. The firing and 3d engine have totally been rewritten and you will see the difference instantly.

In fact, the instructions in the game are also rendered in kind of a 3D effect with great music to go with the game. It actually features a 17 minute long original soundtrack and with the OpenAL’s spatial sound effects it will be a shame to play this game on mute.

The game is rendered with HD graphics on both iPad and iPhone 4 and it looks absolutely gorgeous on the iPad’s larger screen!

On the iPhone 4, it even utilizes the iPhone 4 gyroscope for increased controls.

iPad Coolness

If you have both an iPhone or iPod Touch and an iPad, you are probably already jumping on this deal of $2.99 for both devices. Wait until you hear this.

You can use the game’s remote control feature and control the chopper wirelessly with your iPhone or iPod Touch over Bluetooth. How cool is that? It includes all iDevices except the first generation iPhone and iPod Touch.

Also, you can TV out this game from the iPad and play it with this Bluetooth remote control on your TV!

If there is one thing that I have nitpick about this game is the missile bomb control. You have to be perfectly still to fire it and aim right. The slightest move sends it off course. Maybe I haven’t figured out how to do it right.

I rarely give a 5 out of 5 for an iPhone game but this is a ground breaking effort from David Frampton and is definitely one of those games that redefines the iDevice gaming landscape forever.

If you are a fan of Coldstone Creamery, Chopper 2 game is a ‘I gotta have it!’

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Availability: App Store

Price: $2.99 (Universal app – launch sale price)

Reviewed at version: 1.0

But, you don’t get to order it from the online Apple Store.

You use your iPhone 4 to download Apple’s own app – iPhone 4 Case Program from the App Store.

You then use the app to view and select a free case from their offering. 

Here are a few of the cases available for you to order

1. Apple’s Bumper Case – Black
2. Incase Snap Case – Smoke
3. InCase Snap Case – Clear
4. Belkin Shield Micra – Clear
5. Griffin Motif Diamonds/Smoke
6. Griffi Revela Etch – Black/Black Graphite
7. Speck Fitted Case – Black Tartan
8. Speck PixelSkin HD

I am glad that Apple made this order process easy and I was able to order mine in under a minute. I was a little bummed that the Bumper Cases wasn’t;t available in multiple colors. I am also intrigued about offering just 8 different cases. But, it could also be that this offering could keep changing as they sell out of certain cases. We’ll have to wait and see.

Let us know in the comments if you are seeing a different set of cases while you try to order. Another thing to note is that it’s going to take 3-5 weeks for the case to ship!

iPhone Case Program iPhone App {iTunes link}

Taptaptap has brought out a killer app that is Camera+.

There are plenty of camera apps we have reviewed in the Photography apps section. But, with all the apps that come out sometimes one app makes you stop and play with it a little longer.

Camera+ did that for me. (I am reviewing this app on iPhone 4 so it might slightly be different for 3GS/3G)

As soon as you launch the app, you will be greeted by a camera view that mimics looking through a DSLR. the LCD viewfinder has two options – Take Photo & Lightbox. And you have a Menu button in the bottom just like a camera button. The UI right at this point is gorgeous and it only gets better.

Menu

Let’s wrap up the Menu section first. Here you can turn on off Sound, Grid, configure sharing in facebook, twitter, or flickr. Sharing it on Flickr right from the camera app, a huge plus for me!

You can also choose to adjust the quality of images saved. Depending on what you plan to use your images for, you can save a ton of iPhone space by using the Optimized option.

Take Photo

Lets take a look at the most important feature of a camera app – taking photos. If you have a iPhone 4, you will see the usual flash option and front facing camera switch as-is.

The camera itself is a no-frills app except it adds an image stabilizer that turns green when you get a steady shot and is red when it’s shaky. Also, it does have the tap to focus and the 5x digital zoom you find the native Camera app.

You can continuously take photos and you will see a small image thumbnail on the left with a number badge showing your current count.

Now, go ahead and tap that thumbnail after you have taken your pictures. You have to hit ‘Save all’ at the top left to save all the photos you have taken so far to the camera roll.

You can also choose to tap on individual photos and hit save. I like this option as I can save only the photos I like instead of flooding my camera roll.

Lightbox

In the last screenshot you would have seen the menu when you tap on a photo. One of the options there is the ‘Edit’ option. This is where the app shines the most.

Lightbox feature lets you edit your picture in different ways.

• Scenes lets you give it different looks like Flash, Sunset, Night, Backlit, Portrait, Beach, Scenery, Concert, Food, Text. All these presets apply a different look to your photograph instantly.
  
• Crops lets you crop your picture in different ways. You can do a freeform crop by dragging the ends or do a golden or square crop.
  
• Effects gives you more control with options like Colors, Retro and Special effects.
  
• Borders lets you add different kinds of borders like a white border to vignette, etc.

Now, that you have taken a classic shot and applied some cool looks and borders, use the Share option to share it with the world through Facebook, Twitter or Flickr!

The app has high resolution graphics for the iPhone 4 retina display and looks gorgeous. It also has support for multitasking in iOS 4.

Sometimes the app seemed to take a bit of time for processing but it is on par with other effects-processing camera apps.

Even though you can get a lot of these effects and crop features in the free Photoshop iPhone app, Camera+ offers it in one neat package and in an elegant interface at an incredible price of $1.99. I highly recommend it for those who use their iPhone cameras a lot and have fun with it.

Rating: 4.5 out 5 stars

Availability: App Store

Price: $1.99 (was $2.99)

Reviewed at version: 1.1

However, the on-screen keyboard on the iPhone isn’t ideal for a lot of things – typing a long SMS message or typing in a long web address or even lengthy notes.

So when I am working on my laptop and I need to send some stuff over to iPhone I initially would drop that info in Dropbox and access it from the Dropbox iPhone app.

Then, I came across an interesting app called PasteFire that let me send various forms of data to my iPhone and it intelligently recognized what was being sent and will initiate actions based on it. You can read my PasteFire review here.

myPhoneDesktop is a new tool I just came across that provides an easy and effective way to work with your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch right from your desktop.

myPhoneDesktop consists of 2 components

1. Desktop component – you can install the free myPhoneDesktop desktop cilent on Windows, Mac OS X or Linux. Or if you are on a computer where you don’t have desktop client installed, you could use the browser bookmarklet.
2. iPhone/iPad app – myPhoneDesktop is an Universal app that works on both iPhone and iPad and it costs $4.99.

You need to have both the desktop and iPhone app installed for this to work.

Desktop Client

The desktop client opens up in a small window similar to the iPhone screen in size with tabs in the bottom just like a typical iPhone app. The tabs are Phone, URL, Text, Image and Settings. As the names indicate, you can send these 4 types of data to your iPhone.

iPhone App

The iPhone app shares the same interface as the desktop counterpart. It sends push notifications for everything sent to the iPhone from the desktop app. And I have seen it to be almost instantaneous. The app works over 3G and WiFi.

The app is also iOS 4 compatible and fully supports fast app switching. The universal app is nicely priced at $4.99 and it is a bargain to gain such an awesome functionality for both your iPhone and iPad at one low price! (check out the promo code giveaway details at the end of this post)

Phone

You can store your favorite numbers on the desktop app and you can initiate a call/sms that number right from your desktop.

With the phone tab, you can also send phone numbers to your iPhone. The myPhoneDesktop iPhone app then notifies you with a push notification and it opens up. You can choose the right top icon to see different actions you can do on the number you just receieved. You send a SMS message, call the number, add to a new contact, add to an existing contact, etc.

The desktop client tightly integrates with the operating system where it supports keyboard shortcuts for copy paste, etc.

URL

You can also send web addresses such as long Google Maps url or anything that you come across to your iPhone. Let’s say you are leaving work but would like to continue reading an article on your ride home, you can send the URL to your iPhone and even have it open in Instapaper or do any other actions associated with it.

Text

This is the tab I often use the most. Even after using the iPhone for a couple of years I am still not very good at typing on the virtual keyboard. So, I send big blobs of text from the desktop app to my iPhone.

Image

Since my iPhone doubles as an incredible blogging tool, this app helps me send screenshots from my desktop to my iPhone seamlessly by just pasting it. You can choose a file from your computer or at any URL or even from your clipboard to send.

myPhoneDesktop provides a very efficient way to use your computer and iPhone together with ease. If you are a person who uses both extensively in your workflow, you will see a huge benefit in productivity and decrease in mind numbing workaround we used to do for simple tasks like the above.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Availability: App Store

Pricing: $4.99

Reviewed at version: 1.4 (iOS 4)

myPhoneDesktop iPhone App Giveaway

The app developer has kindly provided some promo codes for 5 lucky Top iPhone Resource readers to win in a giveaway.

You can do one of the following or all to enter the giveaway

• Leave a comment  in this post (with a valid email address so I can email you the code)
• Tweet this message on Twitter
  ”Retweet this for a chance to win myPhoneDesktop iPhone app ($4.99) from @TopiPhone http://bit.ly/9AYKjl“
• Become a fan on TiR Facebook page and leave a comment there mentioning you want to win this app.

We’ll announce the winners by the end of the day on July 14.

Winners announced! Congrats to Edbertin, @bones00, @jiushijeff, @smartpig, @urvaksh. Stay tuned for more giveaways like this one.

Bliss Winterboard theme is a stylish, light, clean and pleasant theme. It comes with a smooth, seamless, vibrant panoramic scrolling wallpaper, over 150 matching icons, a custom dock, slider and battery. It also borrows a few buttons and bars from another theme called iPhoenix.

I highly recommend trything this theme out if you like a light and feel-good theme for your iPhone. Thanks to the developer smi4450 for a wonderful theme.

How to Install Bliss?

1. Your device must be jailbroken.
2. You must have Winterboard installed via Cydia.
3. You must have modmyi Repository added to Cydia.
4. Search for Bliss theme in Cydia and install it.
5. Launch Winterboard and activate Bliss.

Screenshots

Don’t forget to check out our collection of our favorite iPhone Winterboard Themes. We also have started a collection of iPad winterboard themes.  So check it out if you have an Apple iPad

.

The Munkey is a mobile device stand that works with a variety of phones including the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Munkey was designed to give consumers a sturdy stand for their mobile devices so they can watch videos on them without looking down on it. Munkey also stands out from the rest as it comes with a strap that enables you to secure it to an airplane seat headrest or a car seats headrest.

Munkey is comprised of 3 components

1. Anodized lightweight formend aluminum frame
2. 1” x 24” side release polypropylene buckle strap
3. Protective carrying pouch

The frame feels really solid in my hand and sits well on the desk. It is made of solid aluminum frame and is pretty sturdy. Also, it is designed to work with multiple mobile devices so it actually fits my iPhone 3Gs even with DLO silicone case. Some of the stands I have seen are designed for naked iPhones and many of us protect it with some kind of case.

You can use the Munkey without the strap as a stand in your desk or night stand. Or you could use it with the attached strap on a car seat or flight seat with the strap harness. However, you can put your iPhone or iPod Touch only in the landscape mode.

Also it comes with a carrying pouch that doubles as a seat pouch where you can hang your Munkey.

Munkey offers support for upcoming iPhone 4 as well. So, your investment is protected even if you are purchasing it for the current version or if you ever switch to another smartphone. It supports Motorola Droid, HTC Hero & Imagio, BlackBerry Storm, & Zune HD.

Munkey is a well designed and a thoughtful product and I like it. I especially love the harness that makes it so much more useful on an airplane or a car’s back seat.

The Munkey sells for $29.99 (+ tax & shipping) and is available in 5 colors – yellow, red, black, green and white.  The product we reviewed was black and it had a nice brushed metal feel to it.

The Munkey Giveaway

The seller of Munkey provided an extra ‘Munkey’ for a lucky Top iPhone Resource reader to win in a giveaway. However, unfortunately this giveaway is open only to folks in the U.S. for shipping reasons.

You can do one of the following or all to enter the giveaway

• Leave a comment  in this post (with a valid email address so I can email you the code)
• Tweet this message on Twitter
  ”Retweet this for a chance to win the Munkey iPhone stand from @TopiPhone http://bit.ly/aAGbDd “
• Become a fan on TiR Facebook page and leave a comment there mentioning you want to win this app.

We’ll announce the winner by the end of the day on June 17.

Winner Announced

Congratulations @cit0boi.

Thank you for all the entries. We bring giveaways such as these all the time so stay tuned here and on Twitter @TopiPhone.

InvisibleSHIELD is made high quality nearly indestructible materials that they offer free lifetime replacement. I had put my SHIELD on my iPhone 4 & 3GS as soon as I bought it and the front and back are still intact. The sides are peeling off only after a year and all I have to do is to order a replacement from their website.

?

And it’s a FREE replacement.

I just need to send the one my phone back to them within 6 weeks of getting the replacement. Nice deal, eh?

If you ore planning on ordering your iPhone 4, you can place your order right now for your InvisibleSHIELD.

As you probably heard, the new iPhone 4 is glass on both front and back. Previously, you might have gotten away with just the front screen protection but I highly recommend going ‘full body’ protection with the iPhone 4 InvisibleSHIELD.

Are you ordering an iPhone 4?

Tip: On Zagg’s site, there is an iPad giveaway going on. before you order, enter your email address there and you will instantly get a 20-50% off code you can use to get an InvisibleSHIELD.

With the recent very-easy-to-do Spirit jailbreak for iPhone OS 3.1.3, there are a ton of a new jailbreakers around.

I have written a lot about one off jailbreak apps but never put together a starting guide. It is a great time to put this together as I just scrapped everything and jailbroke my 3GS with Spirit and setting it up to my liking.

Free Must-Have Jailbreak Apps

As soon as you Cydia, here are a few jailbreak apps to consider installing from the new brown app – Cydia.

A small on primer on using Cydia.

• Apps are often referred to as Packages – especially in the manage screen.
• Sources are repositories from various developers where you can find jailbreak apps, themes, etc.

Backgrounder

The very first app I install after jailbreaking. This gives you the ability to run any app in your iPhone in the background.

Tip: In Cydia, when you search for Backgrounder, make sure you do not download the one with (2.x).

Once installed, open up Backgrounder app and for the most part the default settings would work. I’d highly recommend checking out the Activator screen where you can control the shortcuts to enable & disable backgrounding.

Also, I always go into ‘Global’ tab and turn on the badge. This helps me know when an app is running in background so I don’t run my battery down. (the reason Apple doesn’t allow backgrounding natively) We just have to have a watchful eye on it.

Activator

I believe this app gets installed along with Backgrounder. But, even if you don’t get that Activator lets you add some awesome gesture & button controls. It totally lets you customize your volume button control, home button, power button or swipes across status bar, or on the screen to do various things for various apps installed in your phone.

For eg. you can set your iPhone to open Weather app when you shake it.

Tip: Take it easy and start off with a couple of settings. Once you remember those shortcuts add more.

Categories

I have written in detail about Categories here, so I won’t repeat it again here. It basically lets you organize your apps in folders.

SBSettings

SBSettings is a powerful app. It provides easy to access toggles for most of the services in your iPhone. You can turn off 3G, Voice, EDGE, Bluetooth, WiFi, adjust volume, SSH, etc. with a single swipe across the status bar and a tap on the toggle. A must have.

With Winterboard installed, you can also theme your SBSettings windows.

Tip: Check out SBSettings ‘More’ button and ‘Set Toggles’ to turn on/off the toggles you use often. And Processes button gives you another way to kill running processes and free

Circuitous

Circuitous is a relatively new jailbreak app that gives you easy access to currently running apps by showing an overlay of app icons no matter what app you are currently in.

You can use Activator to set an action or gesture to activate Circuitous. I use the short hold on the status bar to activate it.

Circuitous makes it very easy to switch to backgrounded apps or even kill the onles you are not using anymore.

Winterboard

Winterboard is the open source version of iPhone’s native Summerboard. This basically lets you add powerful theming to your iPhone. Winterboard itself does not gives you themes. Once installed, you can search and find winterboard themes you like in Cydia. There are a lot of them. To make it easy for you, we have collected some of the best iPhone Winterboard themes as well as in the process of curating iPad Winterboard themes.

Tip: When you look a theme in Cydia, check out Winterboard themes (Complete). They tend to have more apps, lockscreen, dialer, iPod, etc.

OpenSSH

This is for a power user who is familiar with ssh’ing into unix/linux/Mac with a terminal. You need OpenSSH installed to SSH into your iPhone or iPod Touch.

MobileTerminal

For a power user. You can use a terminal from within your iPhone! Try managing your web server from your iPhone. The feeling is priceless! :-p

RockApp

Rock is an alternative place to look for jailbreak apps. It has gotten a lot more stable lately and fast. I like to browse through the ‘Top rated’ & ‘Release Date’ tabs in the ‘What’s new’ section especially to find new and interesting apps.

Tip: Not all apps are available on Rock to download even though you can browse through it.

Other Good Free Jailbreak Apps

I am going to leave this section to you guys. Share your best finds in the comments and I will add them to the list here with a brief description.

• Lockdown – A great app to password protect certains apps or all apps. Also, has an useful option to prevent apps from getting accidentally deleted.
• Battery Control – Nice options to display battery as percentage and a paid option to add more styles. (thanks @speedlifes)
• Notifier – Adds taskbar notifications for stuff like new mail, missed calls, voicemail, etc. (thanks @ragart)
• WiFiFoFum – An awesome WiFi hotspot scannerwith several interesting features. (thanks @speedlifes)
• WeatherIcon – Adds current weather to your status bar.

So, comment away!

iPhone App Development: The Missing Manual by Craig Hockenberry.

Here is an excerpt from the author

In short, there’s more to learn than just how to code, so I wrote about it.

Of course, I cover topics like Objective-C and Cocoa Touch in detail, but that’s not the overall focus. As the header on this website states: This book walks you through the entire iPhone app development process from start to finish.

Here is an excerpt from the publisher

Anyone with programming experience can learn how to write an iPhone app. But if you want to build a great app, there’s a lot more to it than simple coding: you also need to know how design and market your creation. This easy-to-follow guide walks you through the entire process, from sketching out your idea to promoting the finished product.

• Get to know the tools for developing your iPhone app
• Design a great app before you start coding
• Build a complex app with Xcode and Interface Builder
• Decide how to brand your app-then beta-test that brand in the real world
• Learn the inside scoop on how to get your app into the App Store
• Promote your product, track sales, and build a strong customer following

iPhone App Development: The Missing Manual is available in Amazon for $26.39 with free shipping.

One of these days I should start developing some iPhone apps myself.

What is your favorite iPhone add development book?

I am sure you might have come across this problem too if you live in the northern hemisphere or wherever it’s too cold. So, we went on a quest to find some of the best winter gloves made just for iPhone and similar touch enabled devices.

One of these could make a great Christmas gift for a loved one using a touch screen device! Let’s look at them without further wait.

1. Freehands Tech-Tip Glove for iPhone (Unisex) $35.00 free shipping
   
   It is waterproof and has silver-nylon tips on the thumb to help you operate your iPhone when it’s –10F outside. It looks pretty good.
2. Freehands Leather Gloves for IPhones $39.95 (free shipping)
   
   If you like leather gloves this is a good alternative. Instead of nylon tips, it has caps for thumb and forefinger that are kept back by little magnets while you are using your phone.
3. Tavo Products TG002BLS with Playpoint $39.95 (free shipping)
   
   This elastic, thermal fleece-fabric glove has silicon tips to make it easy to swipe and click smooth surfaces in touch screens.
   Update: FWIW, this glove seems to be the best liked by our users based on our unscientific click tracking on this post.
4. Dot Gloves $15-$25
   
   One of the stylish among the gloves listed here, Dot Gloves just feature dot like surface on your finger tips and you can easily use your iPhone when it’s freezing outside. They are so popular that they are sold out at the moment but keep an eye on the site.
5. Etre Touchy $32
   “>
   Etre Touch is a stylish fleece iPhone gloves that have the finger tips cut out so you can use your iPhone just with your fingers. Great for not so cold but cold places. You can read our Etre Touchy review here.
6. North Face E-Tip Glove $40
   
   NorthFace is known for their winter gear and their E-Tip glove is no exception. With the silicon gripping tips, this could be a perfect match with your other Northface winter clothing.
7. TouchTec Gloves $200+
   
   TouchTec by GasperGloves claim to be made from a patented nano-technology that gives new functionality to a variety of textiles. It is supposed enable the wearer operate any touch screen surfaces with greater accuracy than bare fingers (?). For $200+ price, it better!
8. Echo Touch Sport Glove $30
   
   Made of polyester fleece, it is designed to be used with iPhone and iPod Touch while keeping your hands super warm. Looks very good for the price.
9. 180s Urban Tech-tility Commuter Gloves $40
   
   Made of polyester shell, this stylish looking gloves have grippers on fingers that helps using your iPhone or other touch devices easily. On sale at Macy’s for $34.
10. Pogo Stylus $15
    
    Why buy a new glove when you can use a good old stylus pen with your iPhone. It works with all iPhone models and has a soft tip that can work on iPhone and iPod Touch touch screen. You can also get a clip pack so you don’t lose your stylus and keep it with iPhone
11. Freehands Fleece iPhone Gloves $20
    
    Just like the Leather counterparts, it’s fingertip caps flip back and are held in place by little magnets. Great for fleece glove needs.
12. Make Your Glove Work $0
    If you are the do it yourself type and love your existing gloves too much, you can convert your own glove to work with your iPhone. Find out how.

Hope you enjoyed our iPhone and iPod Touch gloves find in our quest. Hopefully, this made your Christmas shopping a little bit easier. Please share it with your friends and family.

Did we miss a cool glove that is being made just for iPhones? Leave us a comment.

If you are into top 10 lists, check out the top 10 best selling DSLR cameras of 2009.