New Apple retail stores are opening soon in four countries including Canada and the United States. These follow recent store openings in Germany, Spain, and Australia, according to 9to5Mac.

In Canada, the Market Mall in Calgary, Alberta will welcome a 5,448 square-foot store later this year. In the United States, new stores are coming to the City Creek Center Mall in Salt Lake City, Utah and at Valley Plaza Mall in Bakersfield, California.

La Défense

In France, meanwhile, a new Apple store will open in the Quatre Temps shopping center at La Défense. The store is expected to open next month. Finally, in the United Kingdom, a new store (21,045 square-foot) in the Drake Circus Shopping Centre in Plymouth is expected to arrive later this year. A Zara retail store currently in this location is set to close before the end of the month.

At the beginning of 2012, Apple had 363 retail locations throughout the world, which included 246 in the United States. In total, 40 new stores have or will launch sometime around the world in 2012.

Source: 9to5Mac
Photo: MacGeneration

While large companies such as EA, and now Rovio, dominate the App Store with titles like Angry Birds Space and FIFA Soccer 12, there has still never been a better time to be an indie developer. Parachute Apps is the embodiment of the new generation of indie developer.

Parachute Apps is a small company. In fact it is made up of just two brothers, Ben and James, that code in their spare time. They have been toiling away for some time now to bring us their latest title, and first game, Mazes.

The developer has created a short teaser trailer of the debut title, seen here:

If you cannot view the embedded video above, it can also be seen by clicking here.

Mazes is a casual puzzle game with a simple, yet intuitive control system. There are no controls seen on screen. You can, instead, simply swipe anywhere on the screen to change the direction you want to move in.

The puzzles available get progressively harder.

According to the developer, Mazes features:

• Metafy for Spotify
• Angry Birds Space
• FIFA SOCCER 12 by EA SPORTS

The trend for zombie based television and games is still alive and well, unlike the zombies in question. After so many zombie games on iOS, such as Zombie Highway, everything that can be done with the genre has been done, right? Developer Naquatic thinks differently.

Meet Affliction, the worlds first virtual reality zombie shooter. The developer has created a very short teaser trailer of the game, to get you foaming at the mouth:

If you cannot view the embedded video above, it is also available by clicking here.

While looking impressive, the trailer shows little about the unique nature of Affliction and the way you navigate the game world. The game utilizes the iPad’s gyroscope to allow you to look around and explore your surroundings. Hear a noise behind you? You will need to turn your whole body around to see what is approaching.

The team have created a second video, showing off the exciting approach they are taking with Affliction:

If you cannot view the embedded video above, it is also available by clicking here.

Naquatic describes their game not as a simulation, but as a window into the game world. With the power of the iPad you can, “Step into this terrifyingly immersive world and arm yourself for survival.”

Affliction will be wonderful in a darkened room.

Affliction can be played alone, with a friend, or with strangers via online matchmaking. The game sounds like great fun to me, and will be able to try yourself, when it is released May 26.

Keep an eye on AppAdvice for a full review once Affliction hits the streets!

• Zombie Highway

The final Apple product designed by Steve Jobs will likely hit the market later this year. Indeed, it will be the sixth-generation iPhone, according to Bloomberg News.

The iPhone 4S arrived in October, just hours after Steve Jobs’ death. At the time, many Apple fans suggested the newest handset was “4Steve.” As the months went by, however, we heard that the iPhone 4S really wasn’t the handset the late Apple co-founder envisioned releasing for 2011. Instead, it was the mystical “iPhone 5.”

During much of last year, Apple was actively working on an iPhone prototype with a 4-inch screen and vastly different form factor. Instead, Jobs killed off the handset just months before Apple was going to announce it. He thought it would “fragment” the company’s iPhone line, much like the many Android handsets fragment Google’s mobile operating system.

Move ahead one year and Jobs’ final product is almost certainly close to fruition. The next iPhone, if the rumors are correct, will include a bigger screen, thinner form factor, improved camera, and perhaps a different Home button.

I always felt Jobs’ “iPhone 5” would eventually see the light of day. Indeed, that day appears on the horizon; one final product developed and “4Steve.”

Getting excited about the next iPhone launch? What do you want the sixth-generation iPhone to include?

Last March, we offered our readers an exclusive look at Norman Basham’s latest game, The Rebus Show. Today, a free version of the game has hit the App Store. Best of all, the game is now universal.

Originally released for the iPad, The Rebus Show finds its roots in the allusional device known as the rebus, which uses photos to represent words or parts of words. Rebuses, which have been around since the Middle Ages, gained popularity in pop culture with the game show “Concentration” in 1958. The method was renewed in the 1980s with the introduction of “Catchphrase,” a United Kingdom game show that aired from 1986-2002.

Recognizing its historical roots, The Rebus Show looks very old school, but is perfectly crafted for Apple’s tablet. In the game, you guess rebuses using an old-fashioned keyboard as your only tool, in order to gain points. Each round begins with 100 points, but this number drops depending on the number of hints that are used or mistakes that are made. From there, you may share your puzzles on Twitter or send them to family and friends using email.

Naturally, as the game advances, you’ll encounter puzzles of increasing difficulty.

The Rebus Show

The Rebus Show Free offers all the fun of the original game, but with fewer puzzles. Once you get comfortable playing the game, a $1.99 in-app purchase will upgrade it to the full version.

Meanwhile, The Rebus Show Version 1.2 has also been released offering more puzzles, Facebook integration, and smoother transitions.

The Rebus Show and The Rebus Show Free are available now in the App Store. Basham’s other titles include: Cryptogram ($1.99, universal), Crypto-Families ($1.99, universal), and Quotefalls ($1.99, universal)

• The Rebus Show
• The Rebus Show Free
• Cryptogram
• Crypto-Families HD
• Quotefalls

Even as player participation in Draw Something is said to be declining, a couple of guys is keeping their hopes up for The Draw Thing. Created especially for the OMGPOP-developed and now Zynga-owned online Pictionary game for iOS, The Draw Thing is meant to replace your fat fingers as your drawing weapon of choice.

The Draw Thing is an ongoing project by a pair of self-described “creative out-of-the-box thinkers,” Dan Weinstein and Doron J Fetman. “The Draw Thing was born out of our desire to have a really great stylus for the amazing Draw Something game,” said Dan and Doron. “We bought several different stylus models currently available on the market but they all suffered the same problem: they were designed to look and feel like a pen and did not have kids in mind.” In addition, they were all quite expensive.

If you can’t see the video embedded above, please click here.

As announced in the promotional video above, The Draw Thing is intended to be a stylus that’s affordable and appealing to Draw Something fans, real kids and kids at heart alike. It has an iPhone- and iPad-compatible capacitive tip and an interchangeable rubber sleeve. With the project currently in its prototype stage, Dan and Doron have turned to Indiegogo for help on crowd-funding the completion of The Draw Thing. If you’d like to contribute and be rewarded with perks ranging from an original yellow The Draw Thing stylus to your own Draw Something portrait to be included in the project’s contributor gallery on Indiegogo, please click here. The Indiegogo campaign aims to raise at least $7,200 by June 13.

If you’re looking to improve your often unintentionally hilarious Draw Something sketches, you can do far worse than to draw out a bit of your funds for The Draw Thing. So, are you up for this … thing?

• Draw Something by OMGPOP

You are no doubt familiar with iOS puzzle games that require clearing blocks. Usually, blocks in these games are grouped by color, and all you have to do is to tap groups of blocks of the same color to get them off the board. Easy, right? And boring for the most part. Thankfully, Codename.co is set to clear a great deal of boredom out of block-clearing puzzles with its first ever App Store release, Directional.

What’s so special about Directional? The answer, as it happens, lies in the game’s name. Directional adds a new dimension to block-clearing, and that dimension is something called direction. The game involves color matching, to be sure, but each color is associated with a certain direction. Green blocks have up arrows in them, orange ones have down arrows, blue blocks go right, and pink ones go left. In order to get rid of blocks of the same color, not only do you have to tap them, but you also have to swipe them off in the direction they indicate.

If you can’t see the videos embedded above, please click here and here.

Directional has two game modes, which the two videos above sufficiently demonstrate. Both played under time pressure, the two modes are differentiated only by the direction from which new blocks are formed. In Classic Mode, new blocks are sent forth from only one direction, while in Expert Mode, new blocks come from a random corner of the screen. I imagine you have to think quickly before you tap a group of blocks in the latter mode if you really want to maximize your score within the time limit. How’s that? Well, as is customary for the genre, the more blocks cleared at a time, the bigger the score.

Directional supports Game Center leaderboards and achievements, sharing of scores via Twitter and Facebook, and iPhone Retina display. The game is free to download in the App Store, but it comes with a 30-second mode only. If you want to unlock the game’s 60-second and 120-second modes, you can get the full version of Directional via a $0.99 in-app purchase.

If you had any sense of direction, you’d have downloaded this free game by now.

• Directional

Among the perennial chart-topping games in the App Store, Disney’s Where’s My Water? is probably the most frequently updated. And I’m not talking about mere bug fixes, performance improvements, and whatnot here. I’m talking about updates that actually add more content to the game. The last couple of months saw the addition of new level packs to the bestselling physics puzzler. This month is no different, as new levels have also been added to Where’s My Water? as well as to its free lite version, Where’s My Water? Free.

If you’re one of the millions of players who have purchased Where’s My Water? (the paid version), you’ll be delighted to learn that a new chapter called The Lost Levels is now included in your favorite game featuring Swampy the showering gator. The Lost Levels contains 20 classic puzzles originally from Where’s My Water? Free: 10 levels from the Christmas-themed set 10 Days of Swampy and another 10 from the Valentine’s Day-themed Hearts and Crafts. Expect more levels to be added to The Lost Levels as Disney searches for more puzzles gone astray.

If you’ve also purchased Cranky’s Story within Where’s My Water, you’ll be treated to more puzzles, this time featuring Cranky the gluttonous gator, in Overstuffed. The final chapter of Cranky’s Story, Overstuffed comprises 20 new levels.

New "Days of Summer" levels have been added to Where's My Water? Free.

Disney is also treating players of Where’s My Water? Free with a new level pack called Days of Summer. Sponsored by Target, Days of Summer takes Swampy on a trip to the beach across 12 free levels. But wait, there’s more! If you manage to collect all three rubber duckies in each level of Days of Summer, you automatically unlock five levels, dubbed Swampy’s Picks, from the paid version of the game.

Where’s My Water? is available in the App Store for $0.99, with an optional in-app purchase for Cranky’s Story set at $1.99. Where’s My Water? Free is, obviously, free. Which version of Where’s My Water? are you deep in? Or are you just about to dip your toe into this splashy game?

• Where’s My Water?
• Where’s My Water? Free