News

Fans of stand up comedy have a new resource from Comedy Central, featuring over 700 comedians and 6,000 videos. Incredibly, all of this content is completely free in the universal iOS app CC: Stand Up. Clips of favorites such as Louis CK, Gabriel Iglesias, Daniel Tosh, Amy Schumer, Aziz Ansari and many, many more can be watched instantly with a single tap.

Both amateur and star comedians' acts are available uncensored, which earned the Comedy Central app a 17+ rating on the App Store. Besides watching a constant stream of hours of material, featured acts are highlighted and discover mode makes it possible to find new comedians related to stand up you already enjoy. Of course, searching for your favorites is also possible for instant gratification.

A recent report accused Apple and wireless carriers of purposely slowing down data speeds on iOS devices. The controversy revolved around so-called "throttle coding" in carrier files used for network provisioning. The site AnandTech has now published a thorough report explaining why this is not the case.

Not only does Apple have no incentive to limit data speeds on iOS devices, but traffic is better managed on the network as opposed to locally on individual iPhones. AnandTech also throws cold water on the concept that installing modified carrier files can "magically" increase data speeds on iOS. Basically, nothing on Apple's mobile devices prevents the iPhone or iPad from utilizing whatever is provided by the cellular network.

There is nothing worse than waiting for the sequel to your favorite game, only to find out that the developer completely changed it. Kingdom Rush fans will be happy to know this is not the case with Kingdom Rush Frontiers. The sequel to the hit tower defense game features all the towers, monsters, power-ups and same gameplay as the original. Ironhide Game Studios delivered exactly what fans wanted, a bigger and badder version of Kingdom Rush. Fans of the original are going to want to download the sequel as soon as possible, and tower defense junkies are not going to want pass this one up. Kingdom Rush Frontiers is the best iOS tower defense game I have played this year.

Kingdom Rush Frontiers features all new levels, Easter eggs, side missions, monsters and tower upgrades. New features include the addition of heros that you can unlock and upgrade, and a shop for buying helpful items to aid you in battle. There are three free heros, who were previewed before the game's release, and five heros you can buy. It does kind of suck that you don't have access to all the heros after paying $3 for the game, but $3 is pretty cheap for a game of this caliber, and everything else is free.

Warner Bros. has released a trailer for Phosphor Games's upcoming Man of Steel mobile game. The game is a tie-in to Zack Snyder's highly anticipated Man of Steel movie hitting theaters on June 14. Players can recreate the events in the film via story mode, and do battle with the movie's main villain General Zod and his army while controlling Superman. Unfortunately, the trailer is highly disappointing for a $3 iPhone game. Which is odd, since Gameloft managed to release a very impressive free iOS game for Iron Man 3.

Greg Ballard, Senior Vice President of Mobile Gaming for Warner Bros, described Man of Steel as an "addictive brawler that lets players feel the power of being a Super Hero.”

The game also features survival mode which allows players the chance to compete against their friends for the highest score. Man of Steel the mobile game will hit Apple's App Store and Google Play on June 14. The iPhone version will be $2.99 and the iPad and iPad mini version will be $4.99. Check out the trailer below.

UPDATE: The iTweakiOS blog accusing Apple of throttling data speeds has been removed, and Kevin Fitchard of GIGaom has debunked the rumor.

Joseph Brown from iTweakiOS, the developers behind the T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint carrier hacks, claims Apple is working with wireless carriers to slow down the data speeds of certain iOS devices. In a very detailed and long blog post, Brown explains why iPhones are being "out-performed by Android devices," and why he thinks his recent carrier hacks have been able to deliver increased data speeds. Brown says both "Apple and the carriers have implemented coding to purposely slow down or limit the data speeds" a device can achieve.

Brown posted several examples of "throttle coding" (pictured above) from AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, while noting "T-Mobile is the exception" to the throttling accusation. Brown doesn't claim to know why Apple and the carriers are limiting data speeds, he just says they are.