Today Apple held an event based around Education. They announced a few new cool products!

iBooks Textbooks

iBooks is now going to start selling textbooks! They are intuitive, interactive, multitouch books, and they look amazing. Read more and check out a video here.

iBooks Author

This is a new app on the Mac App Store. It is a way for an Average Joe to easily create rich books or textbooks that include videos, 3D objects, and more. Read more here.

iTunes U

“The free iTunes U app gives students access to all the materials for your course in a single place. Right in the app, they can play video or audio lectures. Read books and view presentations. See a list of all the assignments for the course and check them off as they’re completed.” Read more here.

All of the apps are free (free to download, not to purchase books/textbooks from) and you can download them here:

iBooks 2

iBooks Author

iTunes U

New Apps

There are some cool new apps now out on the App Store you should check out!

1. Infinity Blade 2: Out this week, this is the sequel to the hit original, Infinity Blade. Sporting the awesome Unreal Engine 3, the game has amazing graphics, a cool story, and intuitive controls. A must have for any true iOS gamer, and casual iDevice owners as well! The game is already #1 on the App Store, and has received many accolades from multiple game websites, like IGN, G4TV.com, and Touch Arcade.

“Featuring 3 All-New Styles of Combat:
Now you can choose from multiple classes of weapons, armor and spells, each with specialized capabilities such as Dual Wielding, Two-Handed and the standard Weapon & Shield class. Learn each discipline by using Infinity Blade II’s intuitive pick-up and play game play style that is easy to use, yet difficult to master!”

The creators have definitely been able to add in multiple new aspects to the game, without changing the game too much. Good job Chair Entertainment!

Get the game here for the great deal of $6.99!

2. Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies: Another sequel, this time from popular game company Activision. This game follows in the footsteps of the orginal, except with some good changes. First, instead of playing old maps from Call of Duty: World at War, you get to play Kino Der Toten, a map from Call of Duty: Black Ops. Second, this game has Retina Display support, so you will be experiencing much better graphics than the orginal. Third, this game has voice chat built into it’s online play.

Also in the game is the map Dead Ops Arcade, a map that you enabled in the console version of Black Ops through an easter egg. This map is a top down shooter, and looks like it will play great on a touch screen device.

Beware, however, because multiple reviews have stated they haven’t been able to get into the online play, so don’t buy unless you will be ok with waiting a week or two for an update.

Another thing to note is that these two maps are the only ones included. But don’t fret, because Activision has told buyers to stay tuned for updates coming for the game. Surely more maps from the console hit will be added into this game.

This game is also doing successful already, having skyrocketed to #8 on the App Store charts.

Pick it up here for a cool $6.99.

3. Desert Zombie: Last Stand: This is a game I have been looking forward to for a while now. Another zombie shooter game, which is powered by Unreal Engine 3, like Infinity Blade 2. The game boasts its amazing graphics, which truly do look amazing. The game is a free roaming third-person shooter where you fight off hoards of zombies, also running into some boss battles, while trying to unlock new characters, weapons, and upgrades.

Note: iPhone 4 owners are advised to wait until a game update is released on Friday, December 9th. Until then, gameplay most likely wont be as smooth as it will be after the update.

To check out the game website, which includes a video with gameplay, click here.

To head out to buy the game for $5.99, click here.

As you all know, Steve Jobs passed a little more than two weeks ago. Apple decided to hold a special event celebrating his life. It was held on October 19th, and you can check it out here.

P.S. I will try to put up an iPhone 4S review soon!

iPhone Announcement

Apple has announced the date of their iPhone 5 event, and it’s going to be on October 4th. Here we could see Apple unveil an iPhone with NFC, a bigger screen, a better camera, battery life, who knows! Maybe we will get a surprise, like a new iPad or some kind of software. Only time will tell.

One item people are speculating over is whether Tim Cook will make the Keynote, or whether it will be Steve’s (Steve Jobs) final announcement. Here is the invite.

You can see the Calendar icon represents Tuesday, October 4th, and the Clock icon represents 10:00 AM. These represent the date and time for the event. The Maps icon shows the Apple campus, where the event will be held. The final one is interesting. There has been speculation that there could be two iPhone’s announced. The final icon shows the Phone app, because there will be a new iPhone. There is also a “1″ notification. Could this be hinting there will be only 1 iPhone?

The text says, “Let’s talk iPhone.” It says iPhone, not “iPhone’s,” or “about the iPhone.” Could this also be a hint there will be only one iPhone? Or is Apple trying to trick us, and then release two iPhone’s? Let’s not over-think it now, because there is less than a week until the event.

I can’t wait, can you?

Mac App Store Sale

Gameloft is having a back to school sale on the Mac App Store. You can get any of these four games for just $0.99.

The games on sale are:

N.O.V.A. 2

Modern Combat: Domination

Fast Five the Movie: Official Game

Let’s Golf! 2

Go pick up some of these cool games for just $0.99!

If you have an AT&T Samartphone, you can text AT&T for 1000 free rollover minutes! Text 11113020 and say “YES” for your free minutes.

Steve Jobs

Today Steve Jobs resigned as the CEO of Apple. COO Tim Cook will take his place. It’s a very sad story, as Steve’s health has been declining, as a few years ago he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Tim Cook has been running day to day activities for a little bit now, so with Steve stepping down we shouldn’t see much of a change in comparison to Apple recently. Also, Steve will be staying on the Apple board, and I’m sure he will still be a major part of the company. Hopefully he will be there at the iPhone 5 announcement, maybe even speaking on stage.

Will we see changes in Apple? Will Flash now be allowed? Will private API apps be allowed on the App Store? Will some things we never thought would happen, happen? Who knows, but to most of these questions, it’s probably a no. Tim Cook has some big shoes to fill, but I’m sure that for awhile now, Steve has been mentoring and training him to be a great CEO.

Apple did once go without Steve. For the time that Steve was gone, Apple plummeted. When he came back in 1997, he soon after introduced some products that would change the world. This time though, there has been preparation. Steve is going to remain a part of Apple. Things won’t be like last time; things are going to be left in better hands.

Also, everything is timed just right. The iPhone 5 is right around the corner, and it is going to be just in time for the holiday season. Also, it is rumored that it will be released for AT&T, Verizon and possibly even Sprint. They’re going to make more money than ever.

Apple stock also didn’t plummet today, only dropping about 5%, much less than expected. We will have to see tomorrow how they do.

Google has changed CEO, Microsoft has changed CEO, and now Apple. Apple will stay strong like those other companies have.

Goodbye Steve, and thanks for everything. You will be missed greatly.

Touchgrind for Mac has been released for free on the Mac App Store. Get it here!

A couple recent updates

Recently, the extremely popular game Plants vs. Zombies was updated to support the Retina display on the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4. Took awhile, but at least it’s here! Get it right here.

Second, a pretty fun game by Mika Mobile, creator of Battleheart and more, has finally been updated to support the Retina display, multitasking, and it is now universal. The HD version is no longer being sold. Get the game here for iPhone and iPad.