Kiss whats left of your free time goodbye as Doodle Jump, one of the most popular iPhonegames ever, has been updated with multiplayer functionality, allowing you to comepete with other iOS players globally via Game Center over a Wi-Fi connection.

The new multi-player mode pits Game Center friends or auto-matched Game Center foes against one another in a "heated race to the finish line." The ever-useful power-ups can now only be used by one of the match players, making for an ultra-competitive gameplay. And if you lose, there is always the rematch option, presuming the other player wants to fight you again.

Several weeks ago, Twitter for iPhone was updated with a number of new features. Perhaps the most prominent and undoubtedly hated feature was the QuickBar, which quickly earned the Twitter hashtag #dickbar. It was permanently stuck on your main timeline showing you trends you did not really care about trends that were typically generated by crazy teen fads or weird events going on elsewhere. Users decried the addition of the QuickBar, but instead of removing it, Twitter simply adjusted it by making sure it did not overlap tweets.

Today, Twitter announced that it is finally getting rid of the ugly, obtrusive and obnoxious QuickBar. The company says in its blog:

Rather than continue to make changes to the QuickBar as it exists, we removed the bar from the update appearing in the App Store today. We believe there are still significant benefits to increasing awareness of whats happening outside the home timeline. Evidence of the incredibly high usage metrics for the QuickBar support this. For now, we are going back to the drawing board to explore the best possible experience for in-app notification and discovery.

 

Yes, it is important to know whats going on outside of one home timeline, but thats what other news outlets are for. The value of Twitter is that users get to pick and choose friends, celebrities, news sources and important figures so that their stream contains exactly what they want to learn and discover every time they fire up the app. And while the usage metrics for the QuickBar are high, how many of those might have been accidental touch events or users hoping that by messing with it somehow.

Vimeo has just launched its official iOS app. You can watch all the Vimeo videos and upload yours. But wait, there is more the app offers quite a capable video editor too.

You can record videos directly from the Vimeo app interface and edit them. You can trim or combine videos, add external audio tracks or even subtitles and choose different transition effect. You can also choose a video from your library or export one to there. The best part of all is the Vimeo app is free and offers quite a premium functionality that can surely compete with the Apple iMovie.

The rest of the functions are pretty similar to the YouTube app. There is one important feature missing though video search. You can only browse different channels, but there is no searching. I guess Vimeo devs will add this later.

Glu Mobile is bringing another freemium (social) game to the AppStore Contract Killer. The first person shooter/sniper game rocks gritty, realistic 3D graphics with immersive gameplay as well as sniper action-packed missions, multiple vantage points and a variety of locations.

In the game, you control a hardened assassin sent on a myriad of deadly missions. Along the way, you will be paying off informants, purchasing equipment and planning your missions within 5 gritty 3D locations. In total, there are 17 story missions and unlimited random missions by completing which you’ll earn virtual cash, experience points and lots of intense sniper action. Moreover, you will be able to choose from 20 distinct weapons including tranquilizer guns, handguns, sniper rifles, machine guns and assault rifles.

Demo Below!

When Nokia flagship N95 began shipping in the spring of 2007 it was first flagship device to ship from a major phone manufacturer with GPS built in. Since then the race to bundle GPS inside mid to high end mobile phones has come to an end, and its damn near impossible to buy a smartphone today that does not have the ability to show you where you are on the planet with an accuracy of a few meters. The real battle is now centered around who can write the best software that can take advantage of the ubiquity of GPS devices on the market.

Apple fanbois do not want to admit it, but when it comes to maps nothing comes to close to Google Maps for Android. The folks at Cupertino know this and they are looking for a pair of developers to "radically improve how people interact with maps and location-based services". Those words have since been removed from the previously mentioned job listings, but its got us thinking. Now that Google and Apple are ferociously competing with each other, why has not Apple bothered to come up with their own maps application? They have got the designers, they have got the developers, now they just need to ship, but is that going to be enough.