Does your dad like golf? With Father's Day this weekend and the summer finally hitting its stride, heading out to the links is probably on a lot of dads' minds. But why let your dad's golfing be limited to the weekend or the warm months of summer when you can bring the links to him on his iOS device?

This week's collection of apps is all about playing a quick game of golf during downtime. The first app lets you play through nine-hole courses in strange, multilevel fantasy 2D worlds. The second lets you join one of the best golfers around, in a more involved golf simulation, playing on real-world courses. The last, out this week, is the sequel to an excellent pick-up-and-play golf game, perfect for when you need a quick fix.

Super Stickman Golf (99 cents) is a 2D golf game that's really easy to pick up and play, with tons of fantastical themed courses, interesting power-ups, and excellent physics-based gameplay. Though the game has a huge amount of arcadelike features, the goal is always the same: try to get the ball in the hole in as few shots as possible. The challenge is that it can be much harder than it looks.

Rather than your standard 3D layout as seen in many golf games, Super Stickman Golf offers up a 2D platformer experience. The courses often have multiple levels you'll need to reach and obstacles you'll need to avoid to finally get on the green.

The interface consists of arrows on the left to adjust the arc of your shot, a button in the middle for bringing in bonus items (more on that later), and a "Go!" button you'll need to hit twice for each shot: once to start the swing, and a second time to adjust shot power.

Beyond the many themed courses that keep the game interesting, you also have some extra arcade elements to add some flavor. As you play, you'll unlock unique balls like the Sticky Ball, which sticks to surfaces after you hit the ball--great for courses where there are shafts you need to climb to get to the green. You also can unlock Super Clubs that make it so you can stop a ball in midair, or freeze water hazards, for example. Each of the arcade elements is well thought out and adds a unique twist to the game.

Overall, with over 260 holes to play across several themed courses, unique obstacles, arcade elements, and local and online multiplayer, Super Stickman Golf has plenty to offer any arcade golf fan.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 ($4.99) is the first golf simulation from the popular golf franchise on iOS since April 2009, and it's easy to see that this latest game is leaps and bounds beyond the original. The graphics on the iPhone 4 Retina Display are smooth, reminding us of console-level golf games. The controls have been fine-tuned as well, making it easy to adjust shot types and switch clubs depending on the situation.

You get the choice to play as Tiger Woods, alongside him, or as any one of several current pro male and female players. You can also create your own player and customize clothing, clothing color, and skin color. Later, when you earn some money for various challenges on the course, you'll be able to upgrade your equipment for more powerful shots and better accuracy to help you improve your scores.

Rather than the standard three-touch hit method found in other golf games, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 uses a vertical swiping method for better precision--the down swipe determines shot power and on the up swipe you can slightly curve your swing for draw and fade shots. Even once the ball is in the air you can swipe repeatedly in any direction to put spin on the ball. All of these shot variables will come in handy in various situations, and we like that there are so many controls for shot precision.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 lets you play quick games, head-to-head matches against friends over Bluetooth or a local network, or Tiger challenges with unique requirements, or you can play through your own PGA Tour. You can also connect to Facebook and try to beat your friends' best shots (which you can watch) on specific holes. Sadly, there is no online multiplayer at this time, but it seems like a no-brainer that EA would add that functionality in a future version--we'll just have to wait and see.

Even without online multiplayer, with a streamlined control system, customizable players, and tons of challenging courses to play on, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 is the golf game to beat on iOS. Anyone looking for a golf game that's closer to simulation than arcade will enjoy this title.

Flick Golf Extreme ($2.99) is the sequel to Flick Golf (iPhone or iPad), a very well-made arcade golf game we've reviewed here in the past. But instead of the usual golfing experience of trying to work your way to the green in the smallest number of shots, in the Flick Golf games your goal is to get as close to the hole as possible in one shot--ideally with a hole in one. Flick Golf Extreme takes the game a step further by moving off the grassy links of traditional golf games into all sorts of strange environments.

The interface and controls in Flick Golf Extreme were made for the touch screen, and it shows. When you start a hole, check for wind speed before taking your shot (this is especially important in later levels). To send the ball toward the hole, simply flick your finger in a forward motion across the ball toward the pin. While the ball is in the air, flick the screen to guide the ball toward the hole. You'll also be able to apply spin to the ball as long as it is still bouncing--great for small adjustments to get extra points. Each hole is surrounded by concentric circles, each with a point value that increases the closer you are to the hole.

Flick Golf and Flick Golf Extreme share the same precise controls, but where Flick Golf Extreme really shines is in the environments. With beautiful 3D graphics, you'll be taking shots across deep canyons and, on another course, from rooftop to rooftop high atop skyscrapers. In one level, you'll actually need to take shots from a hovering helicopter onto an aircraft carrier. All of the environments are meticulously detailed, with gorgeous animations and excellent sound design (in one level you can see and hear a huge waterfall as you take your shots, for example). It's clear that the developers went to great lengths to make this game a striking visual experience to go along with the already great gameplay.

Flick Golf Extreme offers three game modes: Quickshot, in which you hit as many shots as possible within a time limit; World Tour, in which you'll need to achieve high enough scores to unlock each course; and--new to Extreme--a 5 Ball Challenge, in which you get five balls that you can only replenish by hitting holes in one. Each of the game types requires a different strategy, adding to the replay value of the game.

Overall, Flick Golf Extreme is a fun and addictive pick-up-and-play arcade golf game with excellent controls, strange and beautifully made courses, and plenty of replay value. If you liked Flick Golf or want a quick golf fix, Flick Golf Extreme is a must-download.

Do you have another golf game you would like to share? Let us all know in the comments!

Yahoo has just entered the mobile music app market with its newest release for the Android platform, Play by Yahoo Music. With this "full-featured music player," Yahoo claims to offer a one-of-a-kind listening experience thanks to a few patent-pending technologies.

Taking a page out of Shazam's book, Play by Yahoo Music uses its own proprietary audio fingerprinting technology to help identify songs you hear on the radio or anywhere else. The Identify feature can also be used in a continuous mode, for automatically identifying multiple songs played in a row.

Smart Shuffle is another a feature that Yahoo is touting. Similar to Apple's iTunes Genius, Smart Shuffle gets to know your musical taste and tailors its shuffled playback accordingly. And it doesn't require any active input from you in doing so (e.g. ratings, thumbs up, or other cues).

Finally, Play by Yahoo Music is introducing a nifty Music News feature. Built into the player, Yahoo Music News allows you to tap on an Artist News button from any song you're playing, to bring up any related news.

Play by Yahoo (download) is available now for free in the Android Market. Give us a try and let us know how it stacks up via comment below.

Sure, you know enough to steer clear of Nigerian princes (hopefully), but what about when the hotel desk calls your room because of a problem processing your credit card? Would you know better than to give the "receptionist" your number?

That's just one of the 350-plus scams exposed and explained in Scam Detector for iOS, an informative fraud database that can help you avoid getting ripped off.

The app doesn't "detect" scams so much as educate you about them. The data is divided into five categories: Auto, Face to Face, Internet, Telephone, and Travel. Within Internet you'll find five sub-categories: Social Networking, Financials, Employment Online, Houses & Properties, and Online Auctions & Tech.

In other words, it covers all the bases--and reveals a lot of scams I guarantee you've never heard of. For example, you know the guy standing in line behind you at the register, the one who looks like he's texting on his phone? He might actually be snapping photos, trying to get a readable shot of your credit card as it passes back and forth between you and the cashier.

And if you ever travel to China, beware of friendly, English-speaking people on the street who recommend a nearby "tea ceremony." You could get stuck with a huge bill for something as simple as a cup of tea.

There's a lot of enlightening, eye-opening stuff in here, even for those who consider themselves pretty scam-savvy. The app costs $1.99--a pretty small price considering how much it can save you--but there's also a free Lite version that includes several dozen scams.

Remember, the best way to prevent fraud is to know it when you see it. This app can definitely help.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Microsoft has declared WebGL too risky to use, but it turns out Apple is an ally of the 3D Web graphics technology.

Apple hasn't said whether it plans to ship WebGL, though nightly builds of the WebKit open-source browser on which Safari is based include support. But an Apple employee said this week it will be an option on iOS 5--for iAds only.

"WebGL will not be publicly available in iOS 5. It will only be available to iAd developers," said Apple's Chris Marrin on a WebGL mailing list.

That's right--all you folks who relished the absence of intrusive Flash ads on your iPhones and iPads, brace yourself for animated 3D graphics based on WebGL. WebGL can be good for 2D animations such as "sprites" that move around the screen, too.

It's not clear if WebGL will arrive in Safari for personal computers, although that seems like a likely possibility now, or if Apple plans to make it available later for mobile Web programming in general.

Apple's support, however limited, gives some support to a technology under attack. Security firm Context Information Security has raised concerns that are being addressed, but a bigger blow to WebGL came yesterday from Microsoft.

"We believe that WebGL will likely become an ongoing source of hard-to-fix vulnerabilities," Microsoft said. "In its current form, WebGL is not a technology Microsoft can endorse from a security perspective."

Another notable voice chimed in today: John Carmack, founder and technical director of Id Software of Doom and Quake fame.

"I agree with Microsoft's assessment that WebGL is a severe security risk. The gfx [graphics] driver culture is not the culture of security," Carmack said in a tweet today. "They are orthogonal technologies, but NaCl is much, much easier to make secure than WebGL, even though it sounds scarier," he added.

NaCl is Native Client, a technology under development from Google that lets downloadable native apps run at high speed in an environment Web apps run

It should be noted, too, that Google is building 3D into Native Client, too.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

Apparently happy with its test drive effort to promote the combination of advanced Web programming and its new IE9 browser for Windows PCs, Microsoft is trying the same formula with its mobile browser.

The company unveiled its Mobile Test Drive site yesterday as a showcase for what can be done with mobile browsers.

"It's organized essentially the same way as the original, except laid out to be easily read and used on the mobile form factor," said Joe Marini, principal program manager for Internet Explorer on Windows Phone, in a blog post. "We've ported over some of the more popular samples from the full version of the IE Test Drive and have developed a few of our own mobile-specific ones too, including the demos that Joe Belfiore showed at MIX 11 earlier this year.

Web developers have no fondness for the elderly IE browser that ships with Microsoft's mobile operating system, but the Mango update to Windows Phone 7 will bring IE9.

"It's important to note that even though we use the same core rendering engines on both the desktop and mobile versions of IE and adhere to the concept of 'same markup' when we produce our samples, we felt that it was worth creating a mobile test drive site to illustrate how we approach some of the key issues that developers face when creating mobile-optimized content: screen sizes, device capabilities, etc.," Marini said.

"Same markup" refers to Microsoft's ideal that a Web developer should be able to write a single version of a Web page that will look the same in all browsers. Some IE rivals have carped that the company could have just used the phrase "Web standards," an area Microsoft largely ignored for several years.

But Microsoft is back in the browser game now, helping to craft, promote, and test those standards as well as try to build a browser with performance that matches or exceeds older rivals such as Safari and Firefox and the newest challenger, Google's Chrome.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

It looks likely that Apple's iOS 5 will will address an issue that deprived some Web apps from a speed boost that came to the mobile version of Safari.

On iOS, Web sites and Web apps can be launched from an icon that the user places on the home screen from Safari. Those apps didn't benefit from a speed-up that came with Safari in iOS 4.3, though: the Nitro engine that runs Web-based code is written in the ever-more-important JavaScript language.

It appears iOS 5 could address this issue, though.

"Did they fix the bug from 4.3 where home screen Web apps don't use Nitro?" asked user MatthewPhillips on Hacker News yesterday. The reply from Xuzz: "This is probably breaking my NDA to say this, but yes, they did. Web.app now has the 'dynamic-codesigning' entitlement, which enables Nitro."

There's also a way to create Web apps on iOS that doesn't use Safari proper, an interface called UIWebView.

That doesn't look to be getting the Nitro speed-up for security reasons involving just-in-time (JIT) compilation that Nitro uses to create faster versions of JavaScript software on the fly.

"They don't [get Nitro benefits], but that's a security restriction," Xuzz said. "They can't give dynamic-codesigning to all apps, or their security (which that disables, as a requirement to enable the JIT) would then be useless."

Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

With the Internet's importance steadily gaining, it's not as if Web programmers needed an ego boost. But Microsoft has given them a major one anyway with a radical change coming in Windows 8.

The next-gen Windows will come with a new programming foundation, letting developers build native apps with the same techniques they use for Web applications. Microsoft calls this new variety "tailored apps."

It's a bold move for the company. Microsoft's financial fortunes have depended heavily on Windows sales, and Windows' continued momentum has depended heavily on the wide range of software written to use Windows' direct interfaces.

Tailored apps, in contrast, use a higher-level interface: a browser engine. Now we know why Microsoft has been so gung-ho on IE9 over the last year.

Why this sharp break from the past? Microsoft isn't commenting on its rationale beyond speeches earlier this month, but here's one very good reason: ARM processors.

Today's ARM processors, from companies including Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Nvidia, Samsung, Apple, and Freescale, are usually used in mobile devices. But they're growing up fast, and Microsoft is designing Windows 8 to run on ARM chips, too.

Windows has run on other processors besides x86 chips from Intel and AMD--Itanium, MIPS, Alpha, and PowerPC. Although each of those versions has been abandoned over the years, Microsoft clearly has adapted the Windows code base for processor independence.

Getting programmers to come along is another challenge altogether, though.

It's a chicken-and-egg problem. Why should a Windows programmer create, say, an Itanium version of some product when there are so few Itanium computers shipping? And why should a person buy an Itanium-based computer if there is so little software shipping?

Web programming, though, is inherently cross-platform, as illustrated by the wide range of computers and operating systems that can be used to browse the Web. Windows 8's tailored apps will call upon browser interfaces: HTML (Hypertext Markup Language, for describing Web pages), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets for formatting), and JavaScript (for executing programs).

Once Microsoft issues its ARM version of Internet Explorer--Windows 8 will come with IE10--the tailored apps should become cross-platform. In contrast, ordinary native apps such as Adobe Systems' Photoshop or Microsoft Office that are written to Windows' lower-level interfaces would have to be created separately.

Mike Angiulo, vice president of Windows planning, demonstrated the approach in a Computex speech, playing a touch-screen piano app on two machines. "These are the same apps. This is running on x86, this is running on ARM," he said. "It's the same app, completely cross-platform, based on the new Windows 8 app developer model."

Microsoft already has a cross-platform programming foundation, .Net and Silverlight, and there has been fretting among its fans about Microsoft's Web-tech move.

But ultimately, Microsoft's position makes some sense. Windows remains a powerful force in the industry, but almost all the hot consumer-level programming action today is taking place either with Web apps or with mobile apps running on iOS and Android. Every now and again a new native app arrives for Windows--Angry Birds, say, or any number of other video games--but the hot platforms of the moment are mobile and the Web.

"Over 60 percent of people's time is spent in a browser when they're using virtually any system," said Angiulo said.

There's already an army of Web-savvy programmers, a fact that helps ease with the chicken-and-egg problem of spinning up a new programming foundation. It's not clear how closely tailored apps will resemble Web apps, but it's likely that something like Facebook's interface could be repackaged without major difficulties. That could help flesh out the Windows 8 app store faster.

"This application platform is based on HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS--the most widely understood programming languages of all time," Angiulo said. "These languages form the backbone of the Web, so that on day one when Windows 8 ships, hundreds of millions of developers will already know how to build great apps for Windows 8."

In addition, Web programming is expanding beyond the Web already: Hewlett-Packard's WebOS uses Web technology, as do browser extensions written for Google's Chrome, Apple's Safari, Opera, and the imminent Jetpack framework for Mozilla's Firefox. Note that Chrome extensions can be sold as full-on Web apps through the Chrome Web Store already, and that Web apps are what Google's Chrome OS runs.

Thus, in a way, Windows 8's tailored apps are close cousins to Google's Chrome OS apps.

With the fevered rush of standards development, the Web is getting more powerful. One of the hot areas today is in CSS, It's growing more advanced not just as a way to put drop shadows behind boxes with rounded corners, but also as a way to animate changes such as boxes popping up and even provide 3D effects such as windows flipping over.

Other work is improving CSS Web typography and layouts. With Scalable Vector Graphics, more complex graphics are possible. HTML5's Canvas element provides a two-dimensional housing for such graphics.

Browsers haven't been known for their performance compared to native apps, but Microsoft is pushing as hard as it can to use hardware acceleration. It does so for Canvas, SVG, CSS, and even text rendering. It also is working on faster JavaScript, in part by spreading work across multiple processor cores.

Another Microsoft effort makes more sense in light of tailored apps: pinning. IE9 Web pages can be pinned to Windows 7's task bar the way native apps can. With Windows 8, this behavior makes perfect sense since the Web-style tailored apps will be full peers to native apps.

One big unknown is how closely Microsoft will adhere to Web standards and how broadly it will support them. After years in the wilderness, Microsoft has caught Web standards religion, participating in their development, promoting them, offering test cases to iron out compatibility problems, and most notably, building them into IE9. So it seems likely Microsoft will toe the line here, but given how fast the Web is changing, it's probably safe to expect compatibility problems between, say, Chrome OS apps and Windows 8 tailored apps.

But it's not clear just how far Microsoft will go in its support. Much of the development of Web standards takes place in browsers, not just in conference rooms at standards meetings, and browser makers are keen to move forward as fast as possible. Windows itself hardly moves at a breakneck pace.

One uncertainty is whether Microsoft will support IndexedDB, a database technology that a browser can use to store complicated data and could be helpful for applications that have to work when there's no Net connection. And it looks all but impossible that Microsoft would support WebGL, a new standard enabling 3D graphics on the Web that also can improve 2D apps such as games.

Don't expect existing Windows interfaces to go away: Microsoft has a huge collection of existing software to support, and you can bet programmers who don't want to be confined to tailored apps' limits will keep demand high.

What's not clear, and won't be until Microsoft's Build conference in September, is when Microsoft thinks programmers should use the different programming foundations.

Here's one big difference between Web apps and native apps, though: state. It's an arcane technical subject, but in short, it refers to who's in charge. With Web applications in a browser, state is maintained on a server. That lets multiple people simultaneously edit a Google Docs spreadsheet, for example; the server handles connections to all the browsers. With native apps, though, it's the local machine that typically maintains state.

For a good illustration of state, think of what cloud computing means to Apple vs. Google. Apple's iCloud synchronizes data among different devices, but when you play a music track, it's playing from the local device's storage system. Google streams it from a server, and the browser is at its beck and call.

HTML is getting more powerful abilities to store information locally, though, so that a server isn't required. The browser increasingly is able to maintain its own state.

Here's another difference: programming tools. Microsoft has kept the loyalty of many programmers through highly regarded tools used to build software. Web programming is comparatively primitive.

It seems very likely, therefore, that part of Microsoft's news at Build will concern how programmers can quickly make tailored apps.

After all, while Microsoft has had trouble matching Apple and Google in mobile devices, it's stayed competitive with programming tools. Don't expect the company to throw that asset away any time soon.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

A new version of Google's JavaScript rendering engine and security fixes land in Google Chrome 14.0.794.0 dev today, available for download for Windows, Mac, Linux. The latest rough version of the browser improves secure HTTP support in several ways, updates the V8 JavaScript engine to version 3.4.3.0, and tightens security when installing Web apps from the Chrome Web Store.

The security changes are small but nevertheless could have a positive effect on your browser's security. Chrome 14 dev supports DNSSEC authentication for HTTPS, which strengthens the secure Web protocol, and Chrome 14 dev for Macs fixes invalid server certificate errors that were being generated for some secure sites that had untrusted roots certificate authorities. The Chrome Web Store now prompts with a native confirmation dialog box when installing a Web app, which streamlines how the Web store appears to integrate with your computer. SSL v3 server connectivity issues have been fixed, which will prevent some connections from being lost.

Google is taking HTTPS issues quite seriously and has taken steps to address mixed secure site scripting conditions in Chrome 14 dev. Just after announcing that Gmail will always load in HTTPS, the company has ensured that mixed secure site scripting conditions are blocked by default in Chrome 14 dev. The first is a command line flag that actually landed in Chrome 13 dev called --no-running-insecure-content for advanced users who want to help clean up sites with mixed secure scripts. Another flag is available that will block the display of insecure content, --no-displaying-insecure-content, but Google stated in the above-linked blog post that it will not block displaying insecure content by default since it's not as dangerous a use-case.

And in a hat-tip to the users and site administrators who may not have the resources to address the issue immediately, Google has included an inverse flag: --allow-running-insecure-content.

Also, Linux users get a makeshift multiple profile support button for creating different browsing profiles from within the browser.

There are some known bugs with Chrome 14 dev, including nonfunctioning keyboard volume controls within the browser and a browser crash related to reloading a site via HTTP Post, which most often appears as the confirmation page following a form submission from an online transaction.

Along with bumping Chrome dev to version 14, Google has moved its beta channel to Chrome 13. Chrome 13 beta (download for Windows | Mac | Linux) makes two notable changes to the browser. The first is the addition of pre-rendering technology that will make some Google search results appear "almost instantly," according to Google's Chrome blog. Since pre-rendering is a Web standard, it's not limited to Google and can be used by other Web developers. The second is a fix for a bug that's been annoying Chrome users since 2008: the lack of a print preview. Still no word on default support for RSS feeds, which requires users to install an add-on before it will work in Chrome.

The release notes for Chrome 14 dev are available here. Google's official notes on Chrome 13 beta can be read here.