FarmVille iPhone App update boosts speed and improves performance

farmville iphone app update
The FarmVille iPhone application has received an update addressing some of the issues plaguing the older version.

Continue reading to see a list of the improvements.

The FarmVille iPhone app updates are as follows:

    Optimizations to allow large farms to load better.
    Fixes for users having issues loading their farm.
    Performance improvements for older devices.
    Support for multitasking (for iOS 4.0 users).
    Better organized gift area.
    Bug fixing.


Before the update, the FarmVille iPhone app was slow, choppy, and overall, provided a pretty terrible gaming experience, especially on older devices. As seen in our demo video, FarmVille ran at a snail's pace running on an iPod touch. Fortunately, Zynga is well aware of the performance issues being suffered by players on slower handheld devices. FarmVille players with larger, more extravagant farms had it the worst as the game struggled to load their massive amount of items and land.

We're definitely relieved to see most of these troubling issues were tackled in the FarmVIlle app update. Hopefully now it plays more smoothly than ever. In addition, we're pleased to see the support for multitasking, letting able players take breaks from the grueling farm life without closing the app.

Big Fish Games Labor Day Sale sees all iOS games priced at $0.99

While EA Mobile is holding an iPhone / iPad sale of their own, I think I have just found one that trumps all others. Big Fish Games, one of the biggest names in the casual gaming space, has price-dropped all of their iPad and iPhone games... Let me repeat - all of their iPad and iPhone games to $0.99.

This deal will only be available until (apparently) the end of the day on September 5, Labor Day proper. While that doesn't give you a ton of time to shop, it doesn't take a lot of convincing to pick up some of these stellar games. To put this awesome sale into perspective, I'll remind you that most (if not all) of Big Fish's iPad games start at $9.99 for the full version. Do the math on this, and you're saving 90% on each iPad game! As for the iPhone games, they start at a price of $3.99 for the full version of each, which makes the $0.99 another great deal, but not 90% off.

If you're a hidden object or puzzle game fan, but may not have much experience with the genre(s), some of my personal recommendations would be to pick up Drawn: the Painted Tower, along with both games in the Empress of the Deep series. Even if these don't do it for you, there are games here combining fantasy and historical themes, and everything in between, so you'd really do yourself a disservice if you didn't at least browse through the available options.

To look at the full list of available sale titles, head over to Big Fish's official website. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some games to download!

AT&T social gaming platform coming to Android phones

Ever since Apple opened up its iPhone to Verizon customers, AT&T has been pouting over its loss of exclusivity through scathing ad campaigns. The carrier hopes to restore some of that with a new project in conjunction with mobile social games network OpenFeint. According to Social Times, this new mobile social games network will be exclusive to Android phones and appears to be a direct competitor with Apple's Game Center for iOS.

OpenFeint is available on both Android and iOS with over 65 million registered players across 4,500 games. An AT&T spokeswoman told Social Times, "The net-net here is that we want developers to build more connected games for our customers." In other words, AT&T wants to scrounge up some level of exclusivity with a platform ... any platform. Will it do any better than Game Center has for iPhones? Isn't "How will AT&T will cope with iPhone 'Big Love'?" a more pressing question?

Zynga, well, drops Drop7 Free on iOS, ad-free $2.99 version available

Since Zynga acquired NewToy in late 2010, the developer behind Words with Friends, it has been serious about mobile gaming. This is the company's next major release, and its not FrontierVille Mobile--it's Drop7. Both a color and number-matching puzzler, Drop7 lives in a strange world where Tetris and Bejeweled are just best friends. The game features three difficulty levels, public leader boards and automatically saves your state when closed through the Home button. The free version, of course, contains ads, though the company offers an ad-free version for $2.99. Does this mean a future in original, (possibly non-social) mobile games from Zynga? If that depends on this critically-acclaimed title, then yes, most likely.

[Image Credit: iTunes; Zynga]

Have you played Drop7 on your iOS device yet? What do you think about Zynga's mobile efforts thus far?