Thanks to a great new discovery by 9to5Mac, there is news of two new types of gestures that have popped up in the iPad SDK 3.2b4. As seen in the picture below, the devices will presumably now include an option for developers to use a “3 Tap” and a “Long Press”. The long press is currently used exclusively by the OS itself for the pop-up copy menu; The 3 tap is used to toggle the display on or off while using VoiceOver. Both of these however, will now be available for developers to include within their applications to perform other functions. Although there is no official word yet that these will be also available to developers for the iPod Touch and iPhone, it is probably safe to assume that they will be.

Apple announced today that they are delaying the release of the iPad until April. When initially unveiled on January 27th, the release date was loosely set for “late March”. Don’t panic, however, if you’ve preordered one or were planning on heading to your local Apple store to pick one up the second they’re available, you don’t have to wait long. The officially set release date when you’ll start seeing the iPad on store shelves is April 3rd, which isn’t too far of a stretch from their original “late March” guesstimates. Apple has not specified what caused the delay in release, so any information you see elsewhere is still speculation at this point.

Anyone who’s ever played multiplayer online games enjoys them and this is no exception when it comes it iPhone and/or iPod Touch (and soon to be iPad) gaming. The following 5 free games are all internet-enabled multiplayer games that any serious iPhone gamer will enjoy.

Words With Friends Free is in a league of its own. As we’ve said previously, this is easily the absolute best word game available for the iPhone today and the online play earns it the top spot on this list. Don’t let the title deceive you, this should be installed even if you don’t have friends.

Chess With Friends Free comes from the same people who brought us Words With Friends, but instead of a Scrabble-esque game, you get to play chess with friends, random opponents, or I suppose even your enemies. If you’re looking to learn this classic strategy game or just practice your chess skills, this is the app to do it with.

Mancala FS5 Free is a hugely addictive version of Mancala for your iPhone. This classic game of who can get the most beads is hugely addictive and the online play is very competitive. If you liked playing this game as a kid, you’ll loving having it on your phone where you can play against AIM buddies, the computer, or just random players.

Live Poker is pretty self explanatory. Play poker, live, against other people. This ties in with the hugely popular version for Facebook, allowing you to play against your friends. It gives you 1000 free chips a day to play with, so don’t worry about going broke. The interface is clean, easy to use, and makes online free poker a fun time-waster.

Cube is one of the first and arguably the best first person shooter available today for the iPhone platform. It can be both single- or multiplayer and provides fast, fun gameplay. The controls take a bit to get accustomed to, but once you’ve got them down you’ll be fragging with the best of them.

Apple briefly released – and then unreleased – the iPad SDK the other day, and much to the surprise of those who got their hands on it, there was camera support. Needless to say it is impossible to know if this was for a once toyed-with feature that was taken out or for the possibility of inclusion in future models, but the software development kid includes support for a front facing camera, camera flash, zoom and even video conferencing.

For those of you who consider the glass half full, this could mean the potential future inclusion of a camera, but the realists out there probably realize that this was a once included feature that was cut for one reason or another.

The iPhone OS 3.1.3 update is now available via the iTunes store. This a firmware update does very little other than fix some small bugs experienced by users of the 3.1.2 firmware. You can update your phone to the latest firmware simply by connecting it to your computer and letting iTunes download and install it. Direct download links for the update are not yet available, but will be posted once they are. For those of you using jailbroken and/or unlocked phones, do NOT upgrade, as your phone will no longer be unlocked and may become temporarily bricked.

In case you missed this, MadTV predicted the now announced iPad way back in 2007.

In case you’ve fallen off the face of the Earth and haven’t seen this all over the place already, Apple today introduced their newest product: The iPad. This is indeed, as you may have suspected, the long rumored tablet that has been getting so much hype over the last several months and from the looks of it so far, the hype was justified. Starting at $499, it offers web browsing, email, photos, video, functions as an iPod with iTunes, is already compatible with 140,000 Apps for the iPod Touch and iPhone, introduces a brand-new type of eReader from Apple called iBooks, has integrated maps, and much much more.

There’s really no way that I can do it justice, so head on over to Apple’s website to find out more.

Words With Friends
Category: Games
Last Updated: November 1st, 2009
Current Version: 3.0.4
Size: 2.7 MB
Price: Free ($2.99 For Ads-Free Version)

Words With Friends is quite possibly the most addicting and fun online game I have yet to play on the iPhone. Easily the hands-down best word game for the iPhone and iPod Touch, Words is a must-have for any fan of word games. Although there is still room for improvement, as I will touch on later, this game takes the classic board game of Scrabble, of which I am also a huge fan, and mixes things up a bit to presumably avoid getting sued. Essentially, the rules are exactly the same as Scrabble, but the double and triple letter and word tiles are rearranged and some of the letters have different values. There is of course an offline mode allowing you to hand your phone back and forth and play with a friend, but where the application really shines is the online play. If you have friends with an iPhone you can send an invite to them through your contacts list (It searches your contacts’ emails to see if they have a matching email on record with a game account) or you can enter their Words username. If you don’t have friends who can play or are just looking for a challenge, you can also have the game automatically search for an opponent and assign you to someone random. Games can be played at a very quick pace or sometimes you only end up making a move every once in a while and the game can stretch over days. For those slower-paced games, it even uses push notifications to alert you when it’s your turn, if you so desire. Don’t worry, though, if an opponent takes too long to play they will automatically forfeit after several days of inactivity. If you’re as hooked as I am and get impatient waiting for an opponent to play, you can also play multiple games at once, up to 20 simultaneous games – a number which makes my brain hurt.

To be fair to an otherwise incredible game, I will be touching on the improvements that I briefly mentioned earlier. First and foremost would simply be an option to mute the game’s sounds without completely silencing your phone. Aside from that, any other improvements would simply make an already great game even better. For starters, some sort of statistic tracking would be fantastic. Even if it isn’t something along the lines of a global leaderboard, just seeing some local stats such as your own win/loss ratio, your best scoring word, and other similar stats would be fantastic. It would also be nice to have a published word list or for them to simply just use the TWL that is accepted by clubs and tournaments across the country. It would also be nice to see the potential score of your word as you are placing down the letters and maybe highlight the placed letters in red if they do not form a valid word. Last, but certainly not least, would be the ability to more easily rearrange your letters when it is your turn and allowing you to move them and test placement while you are waiting for the other player to make their move.

Aside from the improvements I just mentioned, some of which are hopefully already being worked on by the developers, this game is absolutely fantastic. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch and are looking for a good time sink, install the Word With Friends. You will not be disappointed.

Note: I originally posted this over at Chai Life, but felt it deserved a place here as well.

Emoji Icons are a rather extensive set of icons (Emoji being the Japanese word for what we call emoticons or smilies) that are common in Japanese text messaging and web sites and are essentially have been standardized in Japan. They are available on the iPhone and are very fun to use, but it takes a bit of trickery to get them unlocked. Here’s a step-by-step on how to unlock them. Once unlocked, you can sent them in text messages, emails, or whatever else you can type on the phone and they will be viewable by anyone who has a phone or computer that supports them. Even other iPhone users, even if they haven’t done these unlocking steps themselves. So, without further ado, here’s how to unlock them:

1. Install the “Spell Number” app at the iTunes App Store. Don’t worry, it’s completely free.
2. Once installed, launch the app.
3. In the box, type this exactly: 91929394.59
4. As soon as you have that typed in, without doing anything else, press your ‘Home’ button.
5. From your home screen, go to Settings -> General -> Keyboards.
6. Choose International Keyboards, then scroll down to Japanese, click it, and turn on Emoji.
7. That’s it! You’re done! Thought it might be harder? Too bad. You can delete the app now, unless you feel you need it for other purposes. Whenever you’re typing, there will now be a little icon on the bottom left to switch back and forth between Emoji and English (or whatever other languages you use).

Here’s a small selection of the 461 emoji icons now available to you:

It’s been a long time coming and after months of slowly chipping away at the market share of actual units sold, the iPhone has, according to comScore statistics, surpassed Windows Mobile in the actual number of total users. This huge step for the iPhone is due to the usage of Windows Mobile devices holding ground over the last year but not really gaining any additional users, whereas the iPhone’s userbase has been continually growing.

Here’s the raw data, for those that like numbers: