Your flight path is distinctly pre-determined. You race straight ahead at mach speeds, playing tag with wave after wave of enemy fighters and ground vehicles. Tilting your device moves your plane around, allowing you to paint targets with missiles while holding down the missile button. In addition to missiles, your plane also has Vulcan cannons that are surprisingly effective at shattering airborne rivals. And each of the three possible planes has an ultra-effective secret weapon that recharges after several seconds, such as a wall of missiles or a tornado of Vulcan fire. You may upgrade all of your weapons with cash earned by surviving a mission, although don’t plan on maxing everything out in a single play. You must replay stages multiple times if you want to juice each fighter until you are Death Incarnate.

Thanks to each plane’s unique special weapons and gadgets (such as afterburners or shields), replaying missions with a different jet actually offers a fresh experience. This prevents me from harping on Top Gun 2’s seemingly meager seven stages. Plus, each stage is fairly long and puts up quite a fight. If you can get through each stage without crashing on your first play, you have serious skills. Because it is so easy to survive a stage only to fall against a tough boss, I would prefer twice as many shorter stages. Though so many people play the iPhone like a DS or PSP (longer gaming sessions), there is still something to be said for making sure your game can be enjoyed by folks with just a few stolen minutes to spare.

Now, though I like Top Gun 2’s change of pace, I do wish it was easier to pull off defensive moves. Because the flashing Danger Zone signs are gone, you have to watch out for each and every incoming missile yourself. When the action gets hairy, that’s not an easy task. The specials like shields and afterburners help escape some hits, but some basic maneuvers like a barrel roll would be useful, too. As it is, you can tilt your plane into the extreme left and right sides of the screen, but you completely lose the ability to target enemies while doing so.

As an arcade game, Top Gun 2 looks the part. It glides with zero hiccups. The stages are bright and colorful, your planes look dynamite, and the cheeseball rock — including a remake of the classic «Danger Zone» — are all appropriate. There are no iPhone 4-specific visuals, though.

In a study that ended on June 28, 16,4% of respondents said they plan on buying a new smartphone over the next three months, the highest percentage on record since January of 2008, when ChangeWave first initiated its quarterly smartphone surveys. In contrast, only 10,8% said «yes» to that question on a ChangeWave study completed at the end of March.

Apple iPhone 4iPhone and Android Will Keep Dominating
Among consumers who are about to make a purchase, a total of 52% answered «Apple» when asked, «Who is the manufacturer of the smart phone you plan of buying?”

On that question, Apple made a huge leap from the March survey, when only 31% of those planning to buy a smartphone had decided on an iPhone, Apple, by the way, started delivering its next generation iPhone 4 smartphone at the end of June.

Meanwhile, Android OS phones also continue to bear a major impact on the market, according to the report. «HTC (8%, up 2 points) [with] its new Droid Incredible and EVO models [is] the biggest beneficiary,” said ChangeWave analysts Jean Crumrine and Paul Carton, in a publicly available free summary of the study.

Conversely, however, Motorola, maker of the Android OS-based Droid and new Droid X, dropped 7 points, from 16% in March to only 9% in June.

HTC Droid Incredible from VerizonBuying plans for RIM’s BlackBerry fell even further, from 14% in March to 6% in June.

For its part, Palm seems to have just about dropped off the map among prospective buyers, fading from a 3% score in March to 0% in June, also according to ChangeWave.

Samsung, LG, Sony-Ericsson Smartphones Not in the Chart
Yet not listed on the comparative chart for consumers’ smartphone buying plans are Samsung, LG, and Sony-Ericsson, all of which have introduced new Android OS phones in recent months. Although some of these phones — like the Samsung Captivate and Vibrant — were unveiled after the close of the June study, others — such as the LG Ally and Sony Xperia X8 — had already been announced.

Samsung’s Galaxy S is set to be sold in different flavors by at least six US carriers. The Galaxy S-based Epic 4G will compete on Sprint’s Wireless Network directly against HTC’s evo 4G.

Samsung Captivate from AT&TIt ChangeWave’s report does highlight the Droid X, first announced on June 28. «The recent unveiling of [Motorola’s] new Droid X device — featuring a 4,3-inch display, which the company believes is ideal for watching video (in contrast, the iPhone 4 only has a 3,5-inch display — suggests it’s determined to fight back to regain its Android leadership mantle,” wrote the two co-authors.

iPhone Owners the ‘Most Satisfied’
ChangeWave’s study also points to a correlation between customer satisfaction ratings and smartphone buying plans. In the study that closed at the end of June, Apple and HTC beat out Motorola, RIM, and all other cell phone makers in customer satisfaction, with 73% of current Apple iPhone users saying they were «very satisfied» with their phones and 39% of HTC phone users giving this response.

In comparison, the percentage of users «very satisfied» with their current phones amounted to 34% for Motorola, 34% for Palm, 31% for LG, and 30% for RIM.

Only 27% of current Samsung phone users said they were «very satisfied.» The same held true for merely 22% of Nokia phone uses and 20% of Sony-Ericsson phone users.

Do satisfaction Ratings Translate into Smartphone Sales?
«Customer satisfaction among existing customers helps explain much of the momentum shift in the smartphone market,” according to the report summary.

It’s probably also worthwhile to point out, however, that the customer satisfaction ratings were performed across all cell phones. Although Apple’s phone line-up that consists only of the iPhone smartphone, HTC, Motorola, Samsung, and some of the other players ranked by respondents produce lower-end cell phones in addition to smartphones.

Consequently, it seems as though some owners of phones made by Apple competitors might have been voicing their satisfaction levels about feature phones, not smartphones, leading to an «Apple-to-oranges» comparison of customer satisfaction.

Also, if sales are indeed closely related to customer satisfaction, ChangeWave’s finding that zero percent of consumers plan to buy Palm phones over the next three months doesn’t seem to dovetail with the fact that Palm ranked higher than several other manufacturers on satisfaction.

Hewlett-Packard, however, unveiled plans to acquire Palm at the end of April, and HP hasn’t yet made any announcements about specific future smartphone products yet.

Skype for iPhone could debut at the CTIA Wireless trade show that begins April 1 in Las Vegas next week, Malik speculates. Industry watchers have anticipated an iPhone version for some time, particularly since the popular service already runs on other mobile devices. In addition to Skype for Windows Mobile and Skype Lite for Java phones, there’s a version for Google Android phones like the T-Mobile G1.

While Skype’s mobile ambitions are good for iPhone users, the VoIP service won’t bring the end of standard voice-call service anytime soon. As PC World’s Liane Cassavoy reports in a recent review of four mobile VoIP apps — EQO, Skuku, Skype for Windows Mobile, and Truphone — mobile VoIP call quality isn’t quite there yet, and the cost savings aren’t that great.

“Most notably, the call quality remains iffy at best, and in some instances it’s absolutely abominable. Also, depending on your calling habits, you may not see any savings at all. Most services still charge a per-minute rate, so you’ll save on domestic calls only if you’ve exceeded your regular voice plan’s allotment (in which case you might still be better off upgrading your voice plan).”

Cassavoy does point out, however, that international callers can save big bucks by using a mobile VoIP service.

While Skype for iPhone may not offer immediate benefits for everyone, the service has plenty of potential in the near future. If the next-gen iPhone, which may appear as early sometime this summer, includes video capture, Skype could turn the iPhone into a portable video conferencing device. That may not happen immediately, of course, but AT&T’s upcoming 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) broadband network, slated to debut in 2011, could very well have bandwidth necessary to make two-way, real-time video a popular app, particularly among business users.

Whether it was Apple’s objective or an incidental side effect, one thing’s for certain: The stream of gossip-generating goodies strewn throughout Apple’s world works brilliantly. Apple’s wall of secrecy, combined with its well-placed collection of clues, may have created the best cost-free, user-generated marketing network a company could possibly envision.

iPhone 3.0 Rumors

The latest round of rumors includes speculation about upcoming iPhone and iPod devices, as well as some scuttlebutt about advanced features that could end up in future releases.

First, the devices: While looking through the murky bowels of the iPhone 3.0 software, someone found references to codes suggesting the eventual support of at least four new models. One appears to be iPhone-related, one appears to be iPod-related, and the other two are anyone’s guess. The mystery items are referred to as “iFPGA” and “iProd.”

The iFPGA is still puzzling most people (FPGA generally stands for “field-programmable gate array” and indicates a chip that can be configured post-manufacturing). Rumors are already running rampant about the “iProd,” however, with theories ranging from it being a tablet-like device to it being a code for an iPod Touch HD.

The other, slightly less speculative findings include a “Find My iPhone” option within MobileMe, a “Publish Video” screen under an image publishing tool, and some hidden settings accidentally found for iPhone-based USB tethering.

The Brilliance of the Buzz

You can rest assured the blogosphere will be bursting with discussion of the discoveries for weeks, probably even months. Somehow, that always seems to be the case with Apple — more so than with any other company I can think of. When I joke about the “Apple rumor of the week,” it’s often not much of an exaggeration. Sometimes the gossip is good, sometimes it’s bad — but it always makes Apple one of the most active topics within the tech community.

Few people know how much Apple attempts to promote the process — it could quite possibly be a pure result of user excitement and anticipation. As long as the talk doesn’t involve the fabricated death of the company’s CEO, though, the chatter almost always works in Apple’s favor. And I assure you there’s no shortage of other tech giants just wishing they could create the same reaction with something as simple as a single square image.

When it comes to this latest buzz, of course, the truth is that no one outside of Apple knows the real scoop. Still, that won’t stop countless people from working nonstop to figure it out — and while the folks at Apple won’t say a word, I suspect their closed lips are quietly smiling at all the speculation.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to trying to decipher this damned iProd.

Connect with JR Raphael on Twitter (@jr_raphael)