taptaptap, Tapbots, and Macheist have released a very well-designed calculator app for the iPhone and iPad called Calcbot -- it's available for 99 cents right now on the App Store. I would say that I don't know why we need another calculator app on the store, but this one's designed by Tapbots, so it's basically a clinic in UI design for the iPhone: clean and beautiful Retina Display-enabled buttons, gorgeous animations, a swipe-to-access extra set of functions, and the ability to go back and look at past calculations and even email them off. Basically, this is a calculator app you want to take a look at, even if you already have a calculator app.

Plus, Macheist is sweetening the deal as usual -- that 99 cent price is for a limited time only, and if you do pick up the app, you can spread the word about Calcbot on Facebook and pick up a free copy of the Socialite social networking app, which will allow you to manage all of your various social personalities all in one app interface. So basically it's two pretty quality 99 cent apps for the price of just one. Excellent deal, especially if you're already a Tapbots fan.

Loyal TUAW reader Bill G. was kind enough to face chat with us this evening. What made this especially fun was that he was in flight over Arkansas at the time. On the way to Texas via American Airlines service, Bill was able to use FaceTime with the plane's in-flight WiFi service.

It was a great connection given the circumstances. Video did flake out a little towards the end of our experiment (although audio continued just fine) and might have re-established itself if we had given it a little more time. All in all, just chalk this one up to the "wow, that's so cool!" list for the iPhone 4.

Unity CEO David Helgason gave a talk at the Develop conference, going on this week in Brighton, England, and had some harsh words for Steve Jobs on supporting iPhone gaming. Jobs previously said that using "middleware" like Unity to develop iPhone games "produces sub-standard apps," but Helgason fires back that Jobs "doesn't understand the economics of game development fundamentally." Most developers, Helgason seems to be saying, can't be jack-of-all-trades with their code -- they need libraries like Unity to do some of the lifting, especially on smaller-scale platforms like the App Store.

Stuart Dredge at Mobile Entertainment is doing a great job of covering all of the other iPhone gaming news coming out of Develop as well -- he's got talks by the developers of Ngmoco's Godfinger, Rolando's Simon Oliver, and Ideaworks Game Studio, the company that brought World at War: Zombies to the iPhone for Activision (that last talk sounds similar to the one we saw earlier this year at GDC).

If there's a theme among everything developers are saying, it's probably that they're finding flexibility a must on the App Store -- while an app may be developed with one feature or pay model in mind, things often have to change quickly during development or even after the app goes live. Lots of interesting things to read in there if you're interested in iPhone game development.

Like a league of zombies that just won't go away, Mac clone maker Psystar just keeps coming back for more punishment. In the most recent chapter of this ongoing courtroom drama, Psystar filed an Opening Brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in its request for an appeal to the permanent injunction that keeps the company from making Mac clones. Contrary to its former tactic of making all court filings open, Psystar requested that the Opening Brief be sealed.

Apple, on the other hand, made its Answering Brief public and the contents were interpreted for The Mac Observer by an attorney who said that Psystar's strategy seems to be focused on "getting the court to adopt a radical revision of the Copyright Misuse doctrine that would in effect destroy copyright and force all copyrighted works to be licensed."

Apple's Answering Brief noted that "Because Psystar has no proof that Apple has inhibited competition or suppressed creativity, Psystar urges this Court to abandon long-standing precedent and create a new doctrine of per se copyright misuse. Under this doctrine, any license agreement - such as Apple's SLA - that restricts the use of copyrighted software to particular hardware is per se copyright misuse."

Apple also stated that "Psystar's grossly overbroad per se theory of copyright misuse would eliminate fundamental rights guaranteed by the Copyright Act -- the rights to control the reproduction, modification, and distribution of copyrighted works." The court system is unlikely to completely revamp the long-established tenets of copyright law, but the way this case seems to keep coming back from the dead, anything is possible.

tap tap tap doesn't advertise their apps anymore, although it was part of their strategy for their early successes. Now they feel that contests (they gave away an "ultimate camera package" worth about $10K, and have also held weekly best photo contests) are a great way to get free publicity through social media channels. The company also placed the app in the App Store at a reasonable $1.99 introductory price, although the price is expected to jump up to $4.99 eventually.

Read on for more tips about how they pulled off a success like this.

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One more classic Steam title has been added to the Mac lineup -- Day of Defeat is now available on the OS X version of Steam. It's a Source-engine WWII multiplayer shooter that's not quite as popular as Counter-Strike or Team Fortress 2 (both of which are also available on the Mac at this point), but still provides some Axis and Ally-style fun. Personally, I think I prefer Enemy Territory, but Day of Defeat makes use of the Steam Play feature, so if you already own the game on Windows, you can download and play it on your Mac without paying any extra. If you've never played it before, you can pick it up for just $10 or (even better) buy it along with a few other classic Source titles for $30.

That just leaves the Left 4 Dead line as the last big Valve title yet to be released on the Mac. They've been pretty faithful with their weekly releases, so by this time next week, you could finally be killing zombies on the Apple OS. Stay tuned!

[via Joystiq]

On Thursday, iOS developer Tiger Style will release Spider: Bryce Manor HD in App Store. TUAW was lucky enough to get an early peek at this application. Spider was one of the most popular iPhone games of last year, and offers an interactive puzzle where you explore an abandoned mansion as a tiny arachnid, building webs to trap insects. I gave Spider a hands-on try and, as you can see in the video, I am neither nimble nor quick. I found the game mildly entertaining but a little frustrating -- I think most users who are a little better coordinated will have more fun building their webs and catching their insects but klutzes like myself might not have as much fun.

First released on the iPhone, the game has been redesigned thoroughly for the iPad. Developer David Kalina tells us, "We took a lot of care making the game really sing on the iPad, [adding] an iPad exclusive single device multiplayer game mode called 'Sidekicks' -- it's the sort of experience that you can really only have on the iPad." I appreciated the graphics and music design, where clearly a lot of time has been invested.

The game should be available on the iPad this Thursday for $4.99. If you missed this title last year, the iPad's bigger screen might be just the place to try it out for yourself.

It took some doing, but the iPhone 4 has been unlocked. Unfortunately, you can't get your hands on what you'll need to do it yourself just yet.

A member of the iPhone Dev Team who goes by PlanetBeing has posted a picture of an iPhone 4 on Canada's Bell network. The feat was made more difficult with the iPhone 4 because iOS 4 on AT&T needed a soup-to-nuts rewrite of ultrasn0w.

We don't have a timeline for when the updated ultrasn0w and Spirit will be released, so we'll keep our ears pressed to the ground on that one.

For now, at least one iPhone 4 is flying free in Canada! Spread your wings, little iPhone, and keep those Canadians away from your lower left-hand corner.

What's going on with the iPhone? It certainly depends on who's talking. This morning Dan Frommer of Silicon Alley Insider says the iPhone reception problem is a non-issue and will blow over.

"You can make calls, use the internet, and do everything else you should be able to do on the iPhone 4 all of the time, or almost all of the time."

"But there's no reason for a huge recall. This isn't a faulty car that might kill you. It's a phone, and it's a phone that works."

On the other side of the ring people are screaming for blood, and are sure the phone is just unusable. It's hard to know what to believe.

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My Mac photo editor of choice, Pixelmator, has been updated to version 1.6 just recently. It's mostly a performance update, adding performance and bug fixes, support for 64-bit architecture, and a whole lot of polish for Snow Leopard. Additionally, they've redesigned the transforming tools, added an import feature (to bring in images from a camera or another source), and added the ability to send out photos directly from Pixelmator to Facebook, Flickr, or Picasa. That's pretty slick.

And of course this is a free update for registered users, so you can install it from right within the app. If you haven't picked up Pixelmator yet, you can get a license for $60 -- not exactly cheap (or free, if you're a Gimp fan), but when you compare it to another full-featured editor like Photoshop, it's quite a bargain.