Category Archives: Reviews

Jul
07
2010
3
comments
 

Review: Jow for the iPhone

Posted by at 12:54 pm

When I was a child, my parents and relatives would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and my answer was always the same: A Mad Scientist. The idea of creating bubbly concoctions and reviving the dead has always appealed to me. Sadly, Jow has not allowed me to experience my life long dream.

The game starts up excruciatingly slow, only to present you with an illegible menu of buttons that are impossible to see or press. Once you decipher the chicken scratch, or tap “Start Game” by accident, you are immediately deposited into an outdoor laboratory with absolutely no idea what to do. I started tapping objects that seemed important, but to no avail. I then realized that my butt-chinned scientist was actually standing on what could only perceived as an invisible skateboard, so I slid him up and down. Success! Actually, it was far from success. I had hoards of granny-zombies shuffling straight towards me. Doing what any aspiring mad scientist would do, I slid a beaker full of green potion across the table.

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Jul
05
2010
4
comments
 

Review: Pro Zombie Soccer

Posted by at 7:07 pm

Brought to you by the team who helped create Plants vs. Zombies, the long awaited Pro Zombie Soccer for the iPhone was recently released into the wild just in time for the World Cup.

There are two difficulty settings, Normal and Hardcore. Being an American who just realized soccer existed a little less than a month ago, I chose normal. The gameplay is great, but can get slightly repetitive. Your character stays on the left side of the screen, and you use your thumb to aim the ball and release to kick. You can hold it down to charge your shot and do more damage, or try to get head shots. The levels are a few minutes long each, which is perfect for on-the-go gaming.

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Jul
05
2010
15
comments
 

Wikipedia App Roundup

Posted by at 2:02 pm

Wikipedia is one of the greatest resources ever created, and should be easily accessible by anyone, no matter where they are. Here’s a roundup of some of the most popular Wikipedia applications on the App Store. All of them will have the most up-to-date information, and work on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

Wikipedia Mobile

Wikipedia Mobile is the official Wikipedia app, so naturally it is completely free and ad-less. One of the unique features is the ability to view nearby points of interest on a map, which can be pretty interesting. The main downsides are that the app is quite slow compared to the others and has limited features, as it is essentially the mobile Wikipedia site rolled into an app. There are no tabs, so you can only view one article at a time which makes it harder to browse multiple articles.

The app is open source and community built, so if you’re a developer this could be a major plus. It’s the most basic solution and feels just like Wikipedia should, but I would stay away until they get the kinks worked out.

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Jul
03
2010
23
comments
 

Free App! Uzu Kinetic Multitouch Particle Visualizer

Posted by at 9:50 pm

Guys. A free app. Not only is it free, it’s crazy cool. I first saw it earlier today and thought ‘eh’, it’s just another one of those colorful particle physics games that gets old after a few minutes. But no. I saw a video of it and realized it’s a little better than that, and promptly downloaded it.

It’s called Uzu, and it’s for the iPad. You touch the screen and all sorts of wild things happen, from making little firework displays to charging up a kinetic ball that looks like something Goku would use in a fight. Yes, you heard me right. Goku.

Please, do yourself a favor and download it. It’s usually $2.99, but it is free for the weekend. As I’m typing this, I’ve found approximately a bajillion more cool things that I can do with it.

[iTunes]

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Jul
03
2010
23
comments
 

Speech Recognition – Future or Flawed?

Posted by at 2:01 pm

Speech Recognition has been suggested to be the next “future technology” – The one which will make the most improvements in 2011, the thing everyone will be ranting and raving about (apart from iPad 2.0 and iPhone 5, of course..) – But I wanted to see how close we were right now…

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Jul
03
2010
17
comments
 

Create your own font with iFontMaker

Posted by at 11:00 am

I’ve been looking for a way to make my beautiful handwriting into a font for a while now, and while there are web-based solutions, most charge you for every set you download. iFontMaker is $7.99 ($5.99 until July 7th!) and allows you to make as many as you want, and only takes a few minutes.

The app is extremely well designed and easy to use, so you can get started straight away; just use your finger or a stylus to create the glyph. There is a complete set of glyphs from A to Z, 0-9, and a ton of other characters. You can even make Japanese, Spanish or Greek letters.

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Jul
01
2010
17
comments
 

[Review] readR Touch for the iPad +Promo codes

Posted by at 7:29 pm

readR Touch is a browser for the iPad that comes closer to real browsing than anything else available. It has a rather intimidating array of features aimed at users who find Safari lacking, and is the big brother of its sister app readR 2 for the iPhone.

User Interface

The user interface is not the prettiest (though not ugly in any way) and is a prime example of function over form. It is designed to maximize screen real estate and options without ever taking you away from the webpage. On the margins are eight buttons that toggle the navigation bar, tabs, bookmarks, and more.

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Jun
30
2010
7
comments
 

[Review] Diacarta Daily Planner

Posted by at 12:31 pm

Diacarta is a visual planner application for the iPhone and iPad created by Squnch. The app is beautifully designed, resembling an old-world map with a modern touch.

When you open the app, you’re presented with a blank clock. Hit the ‘Plus’ button, and icons of everyday tasks will pop up for your choosing. Once you pick one, you can drag it around to the correct time, or double click it to edit the details such as start time, end time, and location. Concentric circles around the clock provide an easy way to see the length of an activity, and your busy time shows up as red and free time as blue. If you click on the compass and then an icon, you can mark it as completed.

Swiping left or right goes forwards or backwards in 12 hour increments, or you can select the monthly calendar button to quickly go to a certain date. When you’re not on today’s date, a home button will appear that you can click to take you back to the current day.

And that’s all there is to it.

The app lacks power user features that others may offer like repeat events and syncing, but this app is not targeted to that audience. Diacarta it is perfect for those who just want a quick reminder of the day’s activities in a visually pleasing way, without too much fuss.

[iTunes]

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Jun
25
2010
7
comments
 

[Review] MPad for the iPad + iPhone

Posted by at 12:16 am

Play More Limited’s MPad allows you to use your iPhone as a controller for the corresponding games on the iPad. As of Today, only 2 games have been released – Snake and Plane, but a third, “Fish”, is coming soon. Both are modern takes on the classic arcade games Snake and Asteroids, complete with bright colors and effects. You only pay for the MPad controller app, which is 99 cents, and you’re promised unlimited free iPad games.

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Jun
18
2010
5
comments
 

Evernote: Your Notes and Ideas, Everywhere

Posted by at 10:16 am

Evernote. As the title implies, it is designed for taking notes, and then seamlessly syncing those notes across Mac, PC, iOS, Android, webOS, and Blackberry (to name a few). Simple, beautiful, and almost infinitely useful.

But Evernote is already popular; if you haven’t heard of it a few times, I’m not sure where you’ve been. So the point of this post will be to cover what you can do, and not a traditional review of the app. Some of these will be common sense, some may be a bit more surprising. Either way, let’s get started!

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