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PromiseUP has just launched on iOS with the goal of using social gamification to rid the world of broken (or forgotten) promises, one promise at a time. Funded by TDVF Investments and conceived of by a group of Russian developers who were sick and tired of having promises broken, PromiseUP is an novel concept which lets anyone on iOS make, track, record, and get rewarded for the promises they keep. In short: you make a promise with a friend (or yourself), set the ground rules (like when the promise needs to be completed), and set a wager (the app uses its own virtual currency that can be redeemed for a fast-growing list of tangible things). You complete the promise? You get the wager and are closer to cashing in for prizes. You don’t, and your currency is forfeited to the person you made the promise to.

Broadly, the goal of PromiseUP is to make people accountable for their promises. We all make them. Most of us feel good when we do. Then we forget about them, don't do them, and either leave ourselves or others disappointed. PromiseUP wants people to actually follow through when they promise to call their mom, or to run 3 miles a day for a week. By adding a competitive, tracking (and intuitively designed) element to promises, the goal is really to improve relationships by encouraging people to follow through on what they say they'll do. PromiseUP free download link and "The World Of Broken Promises" infographic posted below.

Shutdown of Apple iOS piracy service Installous seems to be a short lived relief for App developers as a new Chinese application is suddenly in limelight offering an "easy-to-use" alternative for "Installous" - and the kicker is that now the device does not even have to be jailbreaked in order to use this one.

The Windows desktop application and iOS application offered by Chinese startup named kuiayong enables any user to simply plug-in and download paid AppStore applications for free, no matter which iOS version and whether jailbroken or not.

A Russian developer has published a hack which enables iOS users to get in-app purchases for free, the trick makes use of a "man-in-the-middle" type of attack making the target app believe it is communicating with the real Apple Appstore server instead of the fake appstore.

The hack is working on all devices running iOS 3.0 to 6.0, to get this working all a user needs to do is to install a root certificate and change DNS servers on their devices. A video demonstration of this working is posted after the jump.

While iTunes provide an easy to use iPhone data backup and restore process, there are times when a user just needs to get there contacts (address book) exported and backed-up in the more widely used and standardized format like .VCF and .XLS (excel).

Free iOS utility "My Contacts Backup" achieves exactly this for users, letting them backup and email there current iOS address book. These backed up contacts can then easily be restored any time by simply opening .vcf file fro their mailbox.

If you keep up with latest tech-news you must have heard about the Palm Pre and Apple tussle regarding support for non-apple devices in iTunes, If you are also looking for an iTunes replacement for syncing your music collection with non-apple devices or simply don't like using iTunes we had shared free iTunes alternatives which got the job done easily like WinAmp iPod Plugin and iTunes Agent; but all new utility DoubleTwist takes this to a whole new level by providing syncing support for wider range of devices and comes equipped with music purchasing facility via Amazon® MP3 Store (coming soon) posing a direct competition to Apple iTunes music store.

DoubleTwist supports both Windows and MAC platforms letting users choose and sync pictures, videos, music or iTunes playlists with hundreds of devices like Apple iPhone, iPod, Palm Pre, Android phones, BlackBerry, Sony PSP, Archos 605, Sony Ericsson Walkman & Cybershot phones, Nokia N & E Series phones, Windows Mobile 5.0/6.0 platform devices, LG's Viewty and Shine, Motorola (V9 and V3xx)/most Razr phones, Amazon Kindle, Nintendo DSi, most digital cameras and flash-memory-based camcorders.