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As of now, PhoneSaber will no longer be available, I’ve had a chat with a guy from THQ Wireless (who own the rights for Star Wars apps on mobiles) and as we were always expecting, PhoneSaber is not allowed to be on there.  It was a very friendly chat, and the future of PhoneSaber was discussed.

They want to do some sort of official, Star Wars branded version of PhoneSaber, and will be working with us on that one.  We’re really excited about this – it means that PhoneSaber has the potential to be even better than it originally was!  I don’t know any information beyond that, whether they plan to charge for it, advertise with it or what, but we’ll keep you updated on as much as we’re allowed to tell you.

Apologies to everyone who loved PhoneSaber, we didn’t really have much choice in the matter, but we’re certain that the new, official, PhoneSaber will be even more great than the original was!

TheMacBox will be continuing to make awesome stuff, including some great pay-for games, and some more awesome free apps.

Update: Since this post has now hit the internet, just want to clarify a few things:

• Since it was us that removed the app, it is unlikely that Apple will pull the kill switch we’ve heard so much about recently.  And I’m pretty sure that’ll just be for actual malicious apps (NetShare, Box Office etc. have not been added to that list)
• We’ll be talking to someone from THQ very soon, and will push for this to be a free app, maybe it could be used as a marketing tool for The Force Unleashed?
• THQ plan to let us have access to all the library of Star Wars sounds, etc, that we could never have used before, and we’d like to make PhoneSaber the best it can be for an official app… so if you have any requests, e-mail us now.
• We personally don’t recommend you get iSaber instead because, well… it’s just not as good really, is it?  And it’s likely to go the way of PhoneSaber soon.

However, we were lucky enough to have the PhoneSaber 1.2 update launch in exactly the same window as Apple’s new daily trend reporting went live.  This gave us the opportunity to see exactly how many people had PhoneSaber (and updated it) in the past few days.

And we have the great pleasure of telling you that in the last few days (since PhoneSaber 1.2 went live) just over 317,000 people updated!  And even over just those 3 days we had another 83,000 people download PhoneSaber for the first time!

This number, combined with the fact PhoneSaber has spent most of it’s life on the App Store above Facebook and Tap Tap, leads me to the near certain fact that PhoneSaber has been downloaded (way?) over a million times.

So give yourselves a slap on the back PhoneSaber fans… there’s a lot of you!

To those of you worried this has just become “The PhoneSaber Site”, worry no more… we’re releasing some exciting new games very soon!

Thanks for reading!

PhoneSaber 1.2 is now available on the App Store!  Here’s what’s new:

• The most requested feature (and one you’ll all appreciate) – Much louder sound!
• Full screen mode now animates in and out!
• The interface flips when the device is upside down, so you can use the normal view the correct way up, but still have the speaker facing out for even louder sound!

There’s another update on it’s way fairly soon that will boost the volume, fix a couple things, and more.

Enjoy!

First of all, got to say how truly great the App Store is. Some fantastic apps available – free and otherwise. The remote app from Apple is excellent, NetNewsWire is nice, and the Facebook app is pretty good too.

It’s a shame some developers seem to have sold out and set completely silly prices for apps that really should be free, and there are a lot of clones on there (do I need 10 sudoku apps and 17 tip calculators?)

It’s also great to see our fun little apps doing well. Both NearPics & PhoneSaber are easily in the top 50 free apps, and PhoneSaber is (at time of writing) the 5th most popular free app (beating NetNewsWire, MySpace, Twitterific & The Mobile News Network)! Also, it’s great to see almost everyone taking PhoneSaber in the spirit it was intended – a fun free app. Pointless… but fun.

Getting some attention on the net too, Gizmodo said “Lightsaber application similar to the one on Installer.app. Five choices of iPhone colors and slightly better accelerometer detection for better lightsaber sounds. Free.”  Laptop Mag called PhoneSaber “The best, most useless iPhone app” and posted a moderately amusing video of them playing with it!

Enjoy the App Store everyone!

I say if because when I arrived this morning at 0635, a small queue of about 15 people had already formed, and given that the flagship O2 store on Princes Street, Edinburgh had but 20 16GB iPhones (my model of choice).  It seems that most people also wanted the 16GB model and interestingly, O2 had no iPhones in white.  When I arrived at the door (the queue was let in slowly to allow for activations) I discovered that 12 people had asked for the 16GB model out of the 15 people who were ahead of me.

The 20 units that the O2 store in Edinburgh had was generous compared to the number of units a Carphone Warehouse store that my friend was queuing at had.  She was actually second in the queue and failed to get one.  The store had but one model!

If you have one – I hope you’re enjoying it, otherwise good luck in finding one!

As expected, people who want to upgrade to the iPhone 3G will need to do so online.  This is done here, although you may need to log in first.  You certainly need your account number, which you can get from your O2 bill.  I believe you can also specify a different delivery address, so if you’re working on Friday you’ll avoid a trip to the post office.

In terms of availability and delivery, there are seemingly a ‘limited supply’ and they will be sold on a first come first served basis.  The first batch of iPhones should be delivered on Friday but if you’re not one of the lucky first, delivery ‘may take up to two weeks’.

Activation has been discussed, but O2 have confirmed that those upgrading from the old iPhone will need to use the supplied ‘SIM ejector tool’ to remove the SIM card from the old phone and insert it into the new one.  They also advise that you listen to your voicemail first – activation will delete all voice messages from the account.

O2 had been very quiet about the cost of the iPhone on Pay & Go, and this doesn’t seem to have changed.  O2 now advise that ‘iPhone 3G for Pay & Go will be available later this year’.  It’s a shame they haven’t launched it at the same time.

So, I suggest that if you want your iPhone 3G on Friday, you stay tuned to the website and sign up as quickly as possible when it goes live.

PhoneSaber
PhoneSaber is the app Star Wars fans have been waiting for… As you swing your phone, a range of lightsaber sound effects will be emitted from your phone’s speaker (or connected audio output). Not only that, but you can also withdraw and put away your saber, and change it’s colour! Screenshots and more info on the app’s official page. PhoneSaber will definitely be available on the App Store at launch, so don’t forget to check it out next Friday.

NearPics
NearPics is a simple, fun app for travellers (and everyone else)! As soon as you load up NearPics, it gets your location using the iPhones unique location based services, and uses that to instantly find photographs taken near to your exact location. NearPics is great fun when you’re on holiday somewhere new, or even just when you’re in your home town, to see photos of places you might never have known about! And when you’ve found an interesting photo you can even find out where it was taken using the iPhones maps application. Screenshots and more info on the app’s official page. NearPics will hopefully be available at the launch of the App Store next week.

Units
Units is a really useful app that lets you easily convert from various units into lots of others. It can convert Area, Currency, Energy, Temperature, Time, Length, Weight, Speed, Pressure, Power, and Volume. Last, but not least, it has a small built in ruler for quick measurements on the go. Screenshots and more info on the app’s official page. Units will hopefully be available at the launch of the App Store next week, but if not, should be available shortly after.

Hope you’ve enjoyed that run down of our apps, and we hope you’ll check them out next Friday!

Second, we’ve added an option to UK Train Times to mail journey details to someone, useful if you’re planning a trip somewhere.

Lastly, we’ve done some tweaking to provide much smoother animation in the screen sliding.

Hope you enjoy all the new bits, all part of an effort to make our WebApps as polished as possible!