Gizmodo recently posted this video, which is beautiful to any PSX-era gamers: it's Final Fantasy VII running right on the iPhone, like buttah thanks to the 3GS hardware. How is this possible? Through the magic of emulation -- ever since computers got powerful enough to pretend to be other computers, people have resurrected old consoles and hardware by writing code that makes old games and software think its right at home in the computer it belongs in (an old NES system, a Genesis, or even a Playstation or Nintendo 64). As a result, by loading up ROMs into an emulator program, you can play old games you can't find (at least working) in the store any more.

But the problem, as it usually does, lies in the legality. Even though those games are hard to find, companies still often own the copyrights on them (Square, for example, just released FFVII in an official emulator on the PSP, and they wouldn't be very happy with someone else releasing it on the iPhone). So while it's very easy for someone to write software that pretends to be an old NES (and there are lots of jailbroken apps around that will do just that), it's not easy to get all the rights and legal sign-offs to make it legit. Legit enough for Apple to keep it in the App Store, anyway. And while the video Gizmodo shows is awesome, and is possible on a jailbroken phone, it's not likely we'll ever see that app make it through Apple's approval. Not to mention that even when people jump through the legal hoops, Apple isn't happy with running other systems' code on their hardware anyway. Lame.

That doesn't mean that the old games are gone forever -- there are certainly emulators of open-sourced or expired hardware on the App Store (here's one for Chip-8), and obviously there's a commercial reason for companies who do own the copyrights on popular games to bring them into the App Store officially. But as great as it would be to have a GBA emulator that automatically played any GBA game ROMs you loaded into it, that kind of stuff will have to stay in the jailbreak underground for now.

It's on the master list of 3.0 features, but we've been sent enough tips and suggestions about it to conclude that the advanced podcast/audiobook controls came as a pleasant surprise for lots of iPhone and iPod touch owners who upgraded.

In the 3.0 version, from the playback display for a podcast, tapping the screen brings up a set of expert controls: a button to email a link to the podcast's page on iTunes; a 30-second "What's that, now?" instant rewind button; and a playback speed control to give you 1/2 speed, normal or 2x "FedEx mode" playback.

The scrubber bar itself has been given a charge, even though it doesn't look any different until you tap it; it displays the relative playback position within the episode being played. Dragging horizontally gives you high-speed scrubbing (previously known as "just plain old scrubbing"), but if you keep your finger on the screen and drag down, your scrub rate lowers step by step through half-speed, quarter-speed and 'fine scrubbing.' This detail control makes it a lot easier to cue up a particular spot in a long show or book chapter.

I've started to enjoy listening to some of my longer subscriptions in 2x mode, especially when I have a fixed amount of time to listen to the podcast but I still want to cover as much of it as I can. Even shorter news-centric podcasts can sometimes benefit from a speed boost. If any of you try out the 2x mode on an audiobook, do let us know how it works for you.

Surprisingly, I find myself using the 'email this' button quite a lot, especially to let friends and family know about some of my favorite shows. I imagine they'll be getting tired of that pretty soon.

I didn't really take last week's Twitocalypse that seriously, but as you probably know by now, it turned out a little worse than expected -- we'd been told that Twitterrific (and, we assumed, most other Twitter apps) would be fine, and of course, as Craig Hockenberry explains on his blog, things ended up not-so-fine. Desktop app developers, of course, could publish updates as quickly as they could code them; iPhone developers were in a different situation.

When the Iconfactory's app stopped working, most people (including me) got an API error all weekend. Craig found the bug, then he and his team were able to leverage their contacts at Apple Developer Relations to help expedite the release; in short order, an update was pushed out to the App Store. I downloaded it yesterday, and can tell you that things are fixed... at least until the numerical limit on Twitter's tweet identifier raises its head again (or the Newton flips out, but that's another story).

Hockenberry also has ideas about how to keep issues like this from happening again. Not the actual issue of a variable overflow (that will undoubtedly happen again at some point, on Twitter or any other API that scales way faster than anyone expects it to), but the issue of iPhone apps needing a quick fix. He says that Apple should give every developer a number of "incidents" -- situations rarely used, in which a high priority fix can get sent out to apps in major emergencies. He says, and it's true, that for most developers, it's not a question of if you'll need to send out a critical fix, it's a matter of when. And support by Apple, obviously limited to one or two instances per developer, would help developers, distributors, and consumers.

Of course, it's up to Apple, and it's not like they've smoothed out the approval process so well already that they can start adding wrinkles to it. But clearly, given that the Twitterrific update went through quickly, there's room for exceptions to be made.

[via DF]

If you didn't jump to pick up Kaloki Adventure [App Store link] after our first look last week, now's your chance: the game is on sale today (not tomorrow, apparently -- you've got under 24 hours) for just $1.99, a buck cheaper than the usual $2.99 price. The game offers some fun but casual real-time strategy business simulation, so if your dream has ever been to own a burgeoning spaceport, they don't come cheaper than that.

And as an added bonus, NinjaBee is also offering a catchy tune from the game's soundtrack on their website for the low, low price of completely free. It's the jumpy, swingin' background music to the main gameplay, composed by Eric Nunamaker, who's apparently been working on video game music for quite a while.

Oh, and finally, while we're talking about awesome iPhone games on sale, Peggle is only a buck. 'Nuff said.

Fortune has the results of an AdMob survey up, and they're pretty surprising -- Apple has apparently taken over 59% of smartphone traffic on the Internet, and in the mobile category in general, they've got a giant 43% of 'net traffic surveyed. But there's another side here: the report doesn't just point out that Apple accounts for the lion's share of mobile 'net traffic, but it states that smartphone traffic, and specifically the iPhone in general, hugely overshadows the actual sales numbers. The iPhone has 8% global market share, but accounts for 65% of HTML traffic. And smartphones in general overshadow their sales to a lesser degree: smartphones represent about 12% of mobile device sales, but AdMob calculates them at around 35% of their traffic last month.

What does this mean? AdMob suggests it's a phase -- right now, because we're so early in the development stages of this platform, mobile web makes up the main chunk of traffic. But in the future, we may go through applications to get data, or use push notifications, and/or come up with other, more streamlined ways to get information out to mobile devices. But for now, iPhone and iPod touch users are still browsing the web, and as a result, they are accounting for way more traffic than their sales hint at.

I first came across developer NinjaBee by playing their XBLA platfomer Cloning Clyde -- it was a game that seemed pretty genre, until you started playing it and discovered a unique charm and depth. Since then, they've brought that flair to a few other types of games, including the turn-based strategy RPG Band of Bugs and Xbox Live's Kingdom for Kieflings, and now they've arrived on the iPhone by porting their original XBLA spaceport business sim Outpost Kaloki X and renaming it as Kaloki Adventure.

I liked Kaloki on Xbox Live and I still like it on the iPhone. The graphics have taken a hit -- the textures don't seem as clear and the menus are a little more functional than good-looking, but the solid core of gameplay is definitely still here in spades. The idea is that you're running a space station with a limited number of expansion slots on it, and you can put various expansions in each of those slots -- some will give you more power (which you can use to grow bigger expansions), and some will make you more money (which you can use to build more power). The idea is to satisfy your power needs, make money, and keep your customers happy all at the same time, turning your space station from a tiny little lemonade stand off the back end of Jupiter into a thriving powerhouse of space commerce.

If the rumors are to be believed, then cameras and the iPod are getting it on lately, because in about nine months (or whatever the gestation period is for gadgets -- you're welcome for that mental image) we'll be seeing lots of iPods with lenses in them. First up is the fine folks at iLounge, who claim they've seen the newest iPod nano, and it's got a camera right where your finger usually is. They also say the new version has a lower click wheel and a smaller action button. You may laugh (it does look pretty silly), but on the other hand, I just saw the nanos during a trip to the Apple Store the other day, and I held it by its corners... while I was watching video. Add that to the rumor that Apple is adding in video recording to the iPod lines, and it becomes slightly more credible.

In fact, we're not the only people who've seen that line of reasoning: Computerworld's Seth Weintraub follows the same path, speculating that not only is Apple beefing up the camera capabilities on their iPod lines, but they're set to branch the iPod touch off into a digital HD camera/"photography computer": "Imagine an iPod Touch with a good camera and lens. That's about it." All rumors, of course, but he says it's very easy to see happening, and we have to agree.

Enough of the fart apps -- here's an iPhone function we really need. The Bad Decision Blocker (BDB for short) is an iPhone app that will let you block any of your phone's contacts for a predetermined set of time.

We've all been there -- you go out Friday night, get a few drinks in you, and suddenly calling up your former friend, or a girl you're trying to ask out, or a girl you used to go out with (who decided not to hang out with you any more thanks to all the drinking) becomes something you're suprisingly willing to do. BDB, however, will say no, and keep that contact out of the contact list, until whatever time you'd said it was OK to let it back in. And, presumably, by that time you can be in a more sober state of mind, and realize that you don't need any girl whose idea of a good time is keeping you from having fun. Take that, Susan!

It's helpful for sure. All the program seems to do is erase (and rewrite) whatever contacts you choose in your address book, so you've got to re-open the program after the set time if you want your contacts back. Also, the app doesn't actually block the phone, just the contacts you choose, so if you have their phone number memorized, you might still end up doing a little drunk dialing. But you never know -- BDB might be just the thing to help you leave that old relationship right where it is, or at least come to your senses long enough to not sabotage that new one. It's in the App Store right now for 99 cents.

If you haven't yet tried Sway, the game from Illusion Labs and ReadyFireAim, now's the perfect time to do so. They've released a free version of the game that limits you to three levels and just two characters, but it's enough to try out the really unique control scheme. Back when I first posted about the game, I hadn't tried it yet, but it's now been on my iPhone for about a month, and it's excellent. Each of your thumbs is a "hand" on your characters (i.e., to grab something with your left hand, in game, you just touch your thumb to the left side of the screen), and then once you've grabbed something, you can swipe that thumb back and forth to sway the character around. It gets pretty complex, but practice makes perfect, and a few stages in, you'll be swinging from grip to grip with the greatest of ease.

The full version still costs $4.99, and if you enjoy the free version, I highly recommend it: there are many more characters that you can pick up and choose from, and the stages actually get really tough, as there's a lot of precise swinging that you'll have to do to explore the whole area and find everything there is to find. Sway might be a sleeper hit for the iPhone -- it took me a little while to figure it all out, but once I did, I found a control scheme that's delightfully original. If you haven't tried it out yet, definitely take advantage of the free version.

Neil Young (not that Neil Young, the other one), former EA exec and head of ngmoco, fresh from his appearance at the Apple iPhone 3.0 event the other day, showed up on a keynote stage at the Game Developers' Conference in San Francisco to talk about the big, wrapped present that the iPhone and the App Store are to game developers. The platform is "better than the DS, better than the PSP," he said, referring to Nintendo and Sony's handheld gaming devices, because not only is tops in terms of usability (it's "always on, always with you"), and not only is it easier than any other platform to develop for, but the market is gigantic and growing -- unlike Sony and Nintendo's markets, there are no first party titles to compete with.

Which makes a lot of sense (and Young should know -- his company is poised to become one of the platform's early big developers). Other game developers agree, too -- according to a survey at Games Beat 2009, the iPhone has beaten out social networks, web-based content and even consoles as the area that has the most potential for gaming. There's no question at all: the future is extremely bright for gamers on the iPhone.

Update: Original version of this post contained some accidental misinformation. Errors have been corrected.

Azureus was my Bittorrent client of choice back in the day -- it used to be open source and easy to use and install, and served up any torrents you'd like. Eventually, however, the app was turned into Vuze, got put under a much more restrictive license and added a bunch of extra content bloat, and I abandoned it in favor of the much simpler µTorrent (unfortunately, it's not open source either, but you can't win them all). Now, however, it sounds like Vuze is trying to make things a little easier on their customers -- the restrictions are still there, but you can now watch any or all of their content on any or all of your devices, including the iPhone and iPod touch, the Apple TV, and even consoles like the PS3 and the Xbox 360.

It's only slightly easier -- everything still has to be downloaded under the Vuze umbrella, but with just an option, you can drag and drop into iTunes or onto any of your other devices and then sync things out from there. If you do choose to access content through their application, at least you'll be able to bring what you download out onto the other devices you own.

You can download Vuze over on their site. Downloading content from their network can be done with just the app, though using their comments and Friends system will require a free onsite registration. The device integration currently only works in OS 10.5, though they're working hard to make it possible in 10.4 as well.