20 Best iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Phone games this week - The Guardian (blog)

It's time for our weekly roundup of new games for smartphones and tablets, this time covering iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

The week's pick of new and notable games includes Peter Molyneux's mobile comeback, Angry Birds getting The Force, ponies, hobbits, rope-cutting, magic, knights and word puzzles. A good night in, you could say.

Prices apply to the initial download, so when a game is "Free", it may well include in-app purchases. All prices are correct at the time of writing (8 November), but may have changed if you're reading this at a later date.

This is veteran games designer Peter Molyneux's big new idea for smaller screens: a giant virtual cube that players around the world are chipping away at, trying to discover "the life-changing secret" buried in its centre. Is it a good game? Is it even a game? That's being fiercely debated, but it's true that the actual chipping is rather moreish.
Android / iPhone / iPad

You can read our full review for an explanation of why Angry Birds Star Wars is the best Angry Birds game yet, but as a guide: it does a good job of integrating Star Wars characters and weapons, provides plenty of depth with its 120 available levels, and isn't over-aggressive with its in-app purchases.
Android / iPhone / iPad / Windows Phone

If you've been keeping up with the 'bronies' phenomenon, you'll know that My Little Pony isn't just for young girls these days. That should be good news for Gameloft's official game, which sees you rebuilding the town of Ponyville, playing mini-games, and connecting to friends. It's a freemium game, which parents of younger fans should be aware of when downloading.
iPhone / iPad

Peter Jackson's new Hobbit trilogy hasn't made it to cinemas yet, but there's a new game from social developer Kabam. It sees (in theory) thousands of players teaming up to drum the goblin hordes out of the Misty Mountains. Expect elves, dwarves, lots of diplomacy, and in-app purchases to fund your ambitions.
iPhone / iPad

EA has already turned FIFA into a social mobile game, but now another of its big sporting franchises is following suit. Madden NFL 13 Social has been launched across Facebook and iOS, and sees you building a team and taking on friends, all based on real-world NFL players.
iPhone / iPad

Windows Phone got two Angry Birds games this week, with Angry Birds Space finally making its way onto Microsoft's Marketplace. The game sees you firing birds through gravitational fields across 150 levels.
Windows Phone

And here's one more huge mobile gaming brand making the leap onto Windows Phone. Cutesy monster Om Nom has brought his rope-cutting action to the Marketplace, with 300 physics-puzzle levels and the promise of "more to come".
Windows Phone

Describing itself as a "visceral whack'n'smash action-adventure", Wraithborne uses the Unreal Engine 3 to deliver spiffing graphics alongside its fantasy ("wraiths, goblins and werewolves stalk the lands...") plot. Your job is to kill as many as possible with spells and weapons, while exploring the landscape.
iPhone / iPad

Less a pure game (although that's its App Store category), and more a "GPS-triggered treasure hunt" around the capital city. This is based on a 1908 map of London, and a book by folklorist Edward Lovett. The game involves wandering around London looking for 64 of Lovett's amulets, while listening to audio readings, looking at images and reading the text.
iPhone

Atari is busily updating a number of its famous games from the late 1970s for the apps era, with Outlaw following Centipede Origins and Super Bunny Breakout onto iOS. This takes the Wild West theme of the original Outlaw game and runs with it: a variety of locations, weapons and a freemium pricing structure.
iPhone / iPad

Air Patriots is an inventive take on the line-drawing genre that made Flight Control such a hit: while planes figure here, it's as much a tower defence game than a copy of its predecessor. It's also the first mobile game from Amazon Game Studios – yes, that Amazon – available on its Kindle Fire tablets, but also iOS and Android.
Android / iPhone / iPad

Wreck-It Ralph is the new animated film from Disney, but it's also crashing onto the App Store in game form. In fact, there are three mini-games based on the movie to play here: fixing, blasting and climbing along with characters from the film.
iPhone / iPad

More tower defence here, but with less planes and more shambling undead monsters. Based on the famous movie from the Evil Dead trilogy, it sees you fending off 50 waves of zombies with the help of various characters from the film, with power-ups to help you stay unbitten.
Android

It's a good week for app-based warmaking, with Gameloft joining the fray with its freemium strategy game World at Arms. It sees you building a base, training up troops and then battling other players from around the world, like a modern-warfare (as opposed to Modern Warfare) take on the currently-popular Clash of Clans.
iPhone / iPad

Square Enix's Mensa Academy game started life as a Wii, 3DS and PC title, but has now been ported to iOS. It promises more than 1,000 questions spread between numeracy, language, logic, memory and visual, with shades of Nintendo's famous Dr Kawashima in its tracking and testing features.
iPhone / iPad

More zombies here – a week without any new mobile games featuring zombies remains an unfeasible prospect – but they're joined by robots and ninjas, at least. The game sees you boarding a train to have at them all with a range of weaponry and gadgets, with virtual coins (and thus in-app purchases) fuelling the destruction.
iPhone / iPad

League of Heroes is a charming, social hack'n'slash adventure that sees you slashing (and hacking) your way through monster armies while earning coins, upgrading your character and connecting to Facebook friends.
Android / iPhone / iPad

As elite iOS word-game players mull whether to ditch Words With Friends for Letterpress, Electronic Arts enters the fray with its own literate game, Word Smack. It involves trying to find as many five-letter words as possible over three rounds, playing against individual friends asynchronously.
iPhone / iPad

Here's another interesting puzzle game designed for online multiplayer action, this time splicing poker with match-three puzzles. Friends can be challenged through Facebook or Game Center, as you swipe to match pairs, straights and other cardy combos.
iPhone / iPad

This looks great fun: an Android version of an existing Flash web game called Coign of Vantage, which has been out on iOS for a while. Each level presents you with a cloud of pixels, which you have to rotate until you uncover an image. More a "zen exercise" than a pure game, but still good.
Android

That's our selection, but what are you playing this week on your smartphone or tablet? Make your recommendations, or provide feedback on the games we've chosen, by posting a comment.

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Can Android Tablets Topple the iPad? Not Just Yet

Apple's iPad remains the tablet king with 67 percent of the global market, but Android is picking up steam, according to Friday stats from Strategy Analytics.

"Apple iOS remains the world's dominant tablet platform with the most established services ecosystem," Peter King, director of Strategy Analytics, said in a statement.

As Apple revealed in its earnings report this week, the company sold 11.12 iPads during the quarter, for a grand total of 40 million iPads and iPad 2s since their April 2010 debut. That was enough to nab a "healthy" 67 percent of the global tablet market, King said.

A September report from Strategy Analytics found that the iPad has 80 percent market share in the United States. Gartner recently said that the iPad will likely make up 73.4 percent of worldwide tablet sales in 2011.

Android's share, however, also grew—from 2 percent last year to 27 percent, driven by offerings like the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Acer Iconia. All eyes are now on the Amazon Kindle Fire, which one analyst estimated is the only real credible threat to the iPad.

"Amazon's strategy of minimizing its hardware price is set to ignite the entry-level tablet segment and attract more mass-market consumers," said Neil Mawston, director at Strategy Analytics.

Microsoft and Research in Motion are in a distant third and fourth place, the firm found. Microsoft had a "niche" 2 percent of the market, and the "future release of Windows 8 cannot come quickly enough," Strategy Analytics said. RIM had 1 percent, and really needs its next-gen PlayBook 2.0 "to offer a much improved ecosystem for messaging and consumer apps if it wants to take off."

Google this week unveiled Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, which pulls together the best of the phone-centric Gingerbread and tablet-focused Honeycomb operating systems. It will show up first on Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone, but Asus said at the AsiaD conference this week that its new Transformer 2 tablet will eventually get the updated Ice Cream Sandwich.

Apple, meanwhile, is reportedly ready to start production on the iPad 3.

For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.

For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.

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Did the iPad really lose a big chunk of share to Android?

Almost all market indicators show that the iPad continues to shut out Android rivals. But is that the whole story?

First, let's take a look at some recent headlines that seem to point to the iPad's unassailable market position:

iPad, iOS adoption heating up the business world
Apple's iPad surpasses 100,000 app mark
Apple's Runaway Train: 9.25 Million iPads, 20 Million iPhones sold in Q3
All the world's an iPad? Maybe
Apple iPad awaits back-to-school boom

These kinds of stories (of which there are way too many to count) are not encouraging for forward sales of Android tablets like the Motorola Xoom, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the Lenovo ThinkPad tablet, or the Acer Iconia, among others. The 100,000 apps mark headline especially stings.

But wait. Dig a little more and this recent headline pops up: iPad share of tablet shipments fell in second quarter, says report. The story continues. "For the second quarter of the year, Apple grabbed 61 percent of the global tablet business, shipping a record 9.3 million iOS-based tablets. Though still a healthy chunk, that number was down from the 94 percent share the company scooped up a year ago."

Are these numbers representative of Android's growing market strength in tablets?

(Credit: Strategy Analytics)

So, what's going on here? Are we at last seeing some real market gains by Android? It appears that the key metric is sell-out. Apple undoubtedly sells out all the iPads it can make. Is that the case for Android tablets? Sell-in numbers are notable, but what about sell-out?

The latter--also referred to as sell-through--appears to be murky for Android. That said, Android sell-in (shipment) numbers may increase as more large players enter the market, like Lenovo and Sony.

Which raises the question, will bigger sell-in translate to large Android sell-out numbers? Android, after all, does have maker momentum (if not market momentum). Name all of the top device makers in the world and pretty much every one of them is selling Android tablets or will sell them soon. Samsung, Sony, Motorola, Lenovo, LG, Acer, HTC, and Asus.

That market clout is already manifested in the U.S. via a phalanx of kiosks and displays at Best Buy and Staples proclaiming that Android tablets have arrived. (And count Hewlett-Packard among those making a big tablet-market play.)

And the Android camp's decibel level is rising every month--and it will only get louder. Will that noise be enough eventually to distract more consumers and make them tune in to Android? Just visit a major U.S. electronics retailer now and you may get your answer.

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Enterprises Favor iPhone, iPad Over Android Devices

Apple's iOS devices continued to be the principal driving force behind the rising adoption of smartphones and tablets in the enterprise space during the second quarter, according to a new report from Good Technology. Significantly more iPad and iPad 2 activations took place in the three months through June than for Google Android-based smartphones and tablets, according to the mobile-device management and security provider.

Apple's iPad and iPad 2 activations (27.2 percent) exceeded Android smartphone and tablet activations (24 percent) for the first time ever. And when smartphones as well as tablets are included in the mix, Apple's iOS drove 75 percent of all enterprise activation activity -- with Android accounting for the remaining 25 percent in the second quarter. (Good Technology does not currently track BlackBerry or Windows Phone 7 activations).

"While Android may be gaining smartphone market share with consumers, our business users are clearly gravitating to the iPad and doing so in large numbers," said Good Technology Senior Vice President John Herrema.

"With new devices from Apple expected in the third quarter, we expect iOS to finish the year as strong as it started," the firm's report added.

Apple's Enterprise Dominance

Apple told investors Tuesday that 86 percent of Fortune 500 companies are deploying or testing iPad -- up from 75 percent in the prior quarter. "To be this far into the enterprise with a product that's only been shipping for 15 months in the case of iPad is absolutely incredible, because the enterprise is typically much more conservative and takes a long time to evaluate products," Apple COO Timothy Cook said.

The device maker sold more than 33 million iOS devices in the second quarter and now has more than 100,000 iPad-specific apps in its App Store. Moreover, Good Technology reports that the iPhone accounted for 66 percent of all activations in the second quarter, with Android smartphones representing nearly 33 percent.

Android accounted for 30.1 percent of all tablet shipments in the second quarter, according to Strategy Analytics. However, Good Technology pointed out that 95 percent of tablet activations in the enterprise space were iOS devices. Additionally, financial services accounted for 46 percent of net iPad activations among the top 10 industry verticals.

Due to perceived security issues among some IT administrators and corporate users, Android has gained relatively little traction in the enterprise space. And this is likely to remain a niche market for Android tablet vendors in the second half of this year, according to Strategy Analytics Director Neil Mawston.

Android's Consumer Opportunities

The consumer space is where the Android platform is poised to make the most gains in the second half of this year with the launch of new tablets from familiar vendors such as Lenovo and Sony. Amazon.com is also rumored to be interested in entering the Android tablet race later this year, which would "bring fresh excitement and buzz" to the Android community, Mawston noted.

"But Amazon will need to deliver a truly standout offering if it really wants to make headway against the popular iPad," Mawston said.

Barnes & Noble is another possible Android tablet player. "If B&N sticks with e-book readers, then it risks lagging behind Amazon -- or being consumed by the surging tablet market," Mawston said.

Mawston thinks Barnes & Noble will eventually have to "bite the bullet" and formally enter the tablet market while hoping that its products can be differentiated enough to stand out from the crowd. "However, B&N is relatively U.S.-centric, and it remains to be seen whether it can generate the scale or brand equity arguably needed to compete with the larger global players like Apple in the long term," he added.

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Did the iPad really lose a big chunk of share to Android? - CNET

Almost all market indicators show that the iPad continues to shut out Android rivals. But is that the whole story?

First, let's take a look at some recent headlines that seem to point to the iPad's unassailable market position:

iPad, iOS adoption heating up the business world
Apple's iPad surpasses 100,000 app mark
Apple's Runaway Train: 9.25 Million iPads, 20 Million iPhones sold in Q3
All the world's an iPad? Maybe
Apple iPad awaits back-to-school boom

These kinds of stories (of which there are way too many to count) are not encouraging for forward sales of Android tablets like the Motorola Xoom, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the Lenovo ThinkPad tablet, or the Acer Iconia, among others. The 100,000 apps mark headline especially stings.

But wait. Dig a little more and this recent headline pops up: iPad share of tablet shipments fell in second quarter, says report. The story continues. "For the second quarter of the year, Apple grabbed 61 percent of the global tablet business, shipping a record 9.3 million iOS-based tablets. Though still a healthy chunk, that number was down from the 94 percent share the company scooped up a year ago."

Are these numbers representative of Android's growing market strength in tablets?

(Credit: Strategy Analytics)

So, what's going on here? Are we at last seeing some real market gains by Android? It appears that the key metric is sell-out. Apple undoubtedly sells out all the iPads it can make. Is that the case for Android tablets? Sell-in numbers are notable, but what about sell-out?

The latter--also referred to as sell-through--appears to be murky for Android. That said, Android sell-in (shipment) numbers may increase as more large players enter the market, like Lenovo and Sony.

Which raises the question, will bigger sell-in translate to large Android sell-out numbers? Android, after all, does have maker momentum (if not market momentum). Name all of the top device makers in the world and pretty much every one of them is selling Android tablets or will sell them soon. Samsung, Sony, Motorola, Lenovo, LG, Acer, HTC, and Asus.

That market clout is already manifested in the U.S. via a phalanx of kiosks and displays at Best Buy and Staples proclaiming that Android tablets have arrived. (And count Hewlett-Packard among those making a big tablet-market play.)

And the Android camp's decibel level is rising every month--and it will only get louder. Will that noise be enough eventually to distract more consumers and make them tune in to Android? Just visit a major U.S. electronics retailer now and you may get your answer.

View the original article here

Original iPad, iPhone 3GS outsell new Android devices - Digitaltrends.com

Research shows that consumers are buying more units of the iPhone 3GS and original iPad than newer devices based on Google's Android operating system.

Smartphones and tablets running Google’s Android operating system may be quickly taking over the mobile industry overall. But according to an industry analyst, previous-generation Apple devices often still outsell new Android units, like the HTC Inspire and the Motorola Atrix, reports Apple Insider.

A study of US mobile retail sales conducted by Canaccord Genuity technology analyst Michael Walkey found that Apple’s most recent smartphone, the iPhone 4, is “by far” the most-sold smartphone for both AT&T and Verizon, the only two wireless carriers that offer the popular device. But in the face of increase competition from devices that run on Android, Apple has found success in keeping the older iPhone 3GS on the market for a considerably lower price.

“Interestingly, our April checks indicated continued strong demand for the iPhone 3GS at AT&T and iPad 1 at Verizon, as these older generation products with reduced prices often outsold new Android products,” wrote Walkey in a note to investors on Monday. “We believe this highlights Apple’s significant competitive advantage, and these older products help Apple offer a tiered pricing strategy at key channels.”

One of the reasons for the success of Android, which now runs on a whopping 35 percent of all smartphones worldwide, is the availability of “budget” devices, which cost far less than a full-priced iPhone 4. But when confronted with the option to purchase an older-but-still-Apple iPhone 3GS for only $49 (with a two-year contract) on AT&T, the deal is too good for may to pass up.

The iPhone 3GS isn’t the only previous-gen device making Apple money. According to Walkey’s checks, both the 16GB and 32GB versions of the original iPad sold out within the first two weeks after the iPad 2 went on sale, most likely due to a drop in price for the first-gen tablet. Compare that to the “modest sales” of Android-based tablets, like the Motorola Xoom.

Some say consumers’ willingness to buy older iPhones further supports the theory that Apple could release a less expensive — but still new — model of the iPhone for greater push-back against the Android juggernaut. But when they already have exactly that in the form of their previous year’s device, why would Apple even bother?

Edit: Correction made at 12:45pm EST

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Apple iPad Tops Android on Twitter

SAN FRANCISCO (TheStreet) -- Apple's(AAPL) iPad has beaten Google's(GOOG) Android operating system, not to mention teen heart-throb Justin Bieber, in Twitter's list of 2010's top trends.

The iPad and Android clinched the fifth and sixth spots, respectively, in Twitter's end-of-year list, just ahead of "Justin Bieber" and the movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. "Gulf Oil Spill" was the most popular trend on Twitter this year, followed by "Fifa World Cup," the movie Inception, "Haiti Earthquake" and "Vuvuzela," the cacophonous horn that became the symbol of this summer's World Cup.

Apple, which launched both the iPad and the new iPhone 4 this year, also dominated Twitter's list of technology trends, with four listings in the top 10. The tech giant's iPad came in at No. 1, followed by Android, although iOS, iPhone and MacBook Air all featured on the list. Google Instant, a search enhancement that was launched in September, came in at No. 10.

2011 is already shaping up to be a big year for Apple, and the Cupertino, Calif.-based firm is expected to unveil a new version of the iPad. Launched amid great fanfare earlier this year, the iPad has left tablet rivals such as H-P(HPQ) and Dell(DELL) in its wake. Canaccord Genuity expects Apple to sell just under 14 million iPads this year, a figure that could leap to just under 27 million in 2011.

There have, however, been signs that Android is gaining momentum in the U.S. smartphone market. Canalys, for example, recently reported that Android-based smartphones accounted for almost 44% of U.S. smartphone sales during the third quarter, up from 34% in the prior quarter.

Apple shares rose $4.05, or 1.26%, to $324.61 in pre-market trading on Monday. Google's stock was also heading northward, climbing $5.95, or 1%, to $598.16.

--Written by James Rogers in New York.

>To follow the writer on Twitter, go to http://twitter.com/jamesjrogers.

>To submit a news tip, send an email to: tips@thestreet.com

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