Make It Rain: The Love of Money [APP]

For those who have grown tired of Flappy Bird, or didn't even have the opportunity to get tired of Flappy Bird, Make It Rain: The Love of Money is the current top free iOS App, and it's an anticapitalist spoof that’s making $50K per day!

May is the has been downloaded 1.6 million times, mostly on the iPhone, and it’s making $50,000 per day, half from in-game purchases and half from ads. Most of this has happened in the last week, with something like 250,000 installs per day. Based on reviews and other data, it appears to be particularly popular with young men in high school and college — the frat boy demographic.

Make It Rain co-creator Josh Segall is a bit befuddled. “The new Flappy Bird is about income inequality and political corruption,” he said. “I wish we had been expecting it because maybe then we would have made a game that people would want to play for longer.”

GAMEPLAY: You essentially make it rain until the virtual FBI investigate you virtual stockpile and threaten to seize it, but if you have the funds, you simply buy them off with a virtual bribe. Afterwards you may want to buy a virtual cigarette factory, or possibly a virtual strip mine. In the meantime, hire a virtual PR person and a virtual lobbyist.

It’s not necessarily clear that the app’s cynical undertones are getting through to its users. Sure, when you open the app the first screen shows quotes like “The love of money is the root of all evil.” But then you start swiping as fast as you can to make it rain.

“Some people are in on the joke and really get it and love it,” Segall said. “Some people it takes longer to get, I think.” He sent over a negative-turned-positive app review in which a person initially left a complaint about having spent so much real-world money to make his virtual-world money pile grow faster without reaching any sort of end point. The reviewer later added an update that said, “You end up scrambling for all this money, and for what? I’m definitely not happier I accumulated it. Valuable lesson.”

Download it now for FREE.


via Red Code

Snapchat x Video & Instant Messaging [APPS]

Snapchat, everybody's favorite sexting app, has just grown up. Now, to complement its simple self-destructing messages, the iOS and Android apps both handle instant messaging and live video chats.

To use them, you just swipe right from the main camera screen to find a list of friends, from where you can send them a message or start a video call. In keeping with Snapchat's ethos, text is wiped as soon as you exit a chat screen, though you can tap messages to save if you so wish.

Video chats are designed to be ephemeral: a throbbing blue icon tells you when a friend notices you, and you press—and have to hold—it to provide a one-way video stream to their device. Your friend can do the same right back at you.

It's an interesting pair of additions. They radically expand functionality of Snapchat, but also avoid changing the purpose of the app. Sexting has never had it so good. [Snapchat]

Tab: Mobile Restaurant Payments [APPS]

Gone is the awkward pause when the server brings the check. Tab, a new free mobile payment application that launches today in Toronto, offers a simplified payment process for restaurant-goers. To get started, users download the app, create a profile, and register their credit card information. When at a participating restaurant, users can simply "create a tab" or "join" an existing tab (the bill will automatically split between the members). When it's time for the bill, users tell the server they are "paying with Tab" and leave whenever they are ready. Tab is currently ready to use at 13 participating eateries that includes The Chase, Playa Cabana Hacienda, Blowfish, with more being added in the coming weeks.

The Tab Team is led by Adam Epstein, Fahd Ananta, andMichael Kimel. Epstein founded HUDDLERS, a mobile sports scheduling app for recreational athletes. Ananta, the technical lead, founded Chime acquired by Hubspot in 2013. Kimel is the principal of MJK Capital, and a partner in the Chase Hospitality Group. Other funders of the company include Tyler Bozak and Phil Kesselof the Toronto Maple Leafs, as well as various leaders in the Toronto food and beverage industry.

via EATER

BlackBerry 10 Sneak Peek [TECH]

Android, iPhone... the BlackBerry has taken its fair share of heat from its competitors over the last while. This innovative re-haul of their device platform looks like it just might be what it’s going to take to win back some RIM dissidents. The fact that Barack Obama still uses a BlackBerry is just not enough to do it.

via BGR