Break out your galoshes, because we’re about to wade through another flood of freebies. Yeah, I know I’m a little late, but your mom just would not let me get dressed. (Badda-BING!) Anyway, there are a few pretty choice apps in today’s issue, which is cool, because I like it when I get to enjoy new stuff — like when I first met your mom. (Badda-BANG, badda-BOOM!) There are some stinkers hereabouts, too (like your — oh, forget it), but it can’t all be sunshine and rainbows and puppy dogs and your mom. (HEY-oh! Okay, I’ll stop now) I’m just going to go ahead and kick things off, because there’s a lot of ground to cover and I’m wearing a hole in my hip waders. (…you thought there was going to be a Your Mom joke here, didn’t you?)
Those of you with Freemanic Paracusia should particularly enjoy this edition.
App Name: Flying Rider
Developer: FlyingTom
Category: Games
I’m only including this here (dead link and all) to say this to inXile: With regards to games on the iPhone/Touch that take their cues from your precious IP, put up or shut up, and if you’re not going to bring the original to Apple’s handhelds, then for the love of all things fruity and Darwinian, leave the poor sods trying to give the public what they want
for free alone, because right now, you’re just looking like a whiny yob who doesn’t want to share his toys. That is all.
App Name: myColorWave
Developer: doapp, inc.
Category: Unentertainment
Here’s a perfect example of a product not even trying to match the box shot. You’d think, based on the colourful, swirly “screenshot” on the left that you’d have some kind of funky, miniature
Colourspace/
Trip-a-Tron/
Virtual Light Machine (Jeff Minter is an underappreciated programming God, amen) on the go, wouldn’t you? Of course you would. You’d also be in for a hideous let-down, because all this thing does is cycle through solid colours whenever you tap or shake your device. This wouldn’t even be entertaining after a whole bag of shrooms. (Not that I’d know or anything) I’m not going to waste any more time on this pile, so I’m going to take this opportunity to say: Jeff Minter, we need you! Please write VLM or Hover Bovver or Llamatron or Tempest 3000 or ANYTHING. Forget that Xbox 360 thing.
UPDATE: Oh, look. They changed the “screenshot” before I had a chance to capture it. (It was all swirly colourful wavy lines ‘n stuff) Now it’s more representative of its true nature: A solid colour. Well, thanks for ruining a perfectly good rant and removing any excuse for me to mention Jeff Minter. Just for that, I’m going to leave all of the original text in there.
App Name: myLighter
Developer: doapp, inc.
Category: Utilities
Boy, doapp are masters of the useless, aren’t they? This one was even posted in
utilities. It displays your average Bic lighter and an animated flame. That is all. The screenshot pretty much gives you the beginning, middle and end of what you should expect from it — which is refreshing after the misleading screenie in the previous entry. What was also refreshing was deleting this from my iPhone after 20 seconds of trying to get it to do something interesting and failing.
App Name: WhitePages Mobile
Developer: WhitePages.com
Category: Reference
A native front-end for WhitePages.com that enables you to easily search for anyone in the United States. Search for businesses, people, or do a reverse phone number lookup to see who owns a particular number. It can detect your current location, search nearby places, give you maps and directions, save listings to your contacts, tap to call from listings, autocomplete city/state, and more. It’s actually pretty handy if you live in the US.
App Name: Tris
Developer: Noah Witherspoon
Category: Games
The parade of former jailbreak apps making themselves all official-like continues with the release of Noah Witherspoon’s
Tris. It’s your classic Tetris with a touchscreen interface; drag left, right and down to move the pieces and tap the screen to rotate. This official App Store version also features state saving, so you can quit the app to answer the phone or pick some new tunes and then resume where you left off whenever you feel like it.
App Name: Teleport Lite
Developer: Jugaari
Category: Utilities
Figure this one out: Teleport, a very nice but rather expensive VNC client for the iPhone and Touch, is available in the App Store and, at the very least, is available to both Americans and Canadians alike, if not the rest of the world. Teleport Lite, on the other hand, which is ostensibly a scaled down demo of the full app, is not available to Canadians. Hey, Jugaari, what’s the dealio? You’ll take our money but you won’t let us play in your sandbox? I’m going to be charitable here and assume that this is a submission error on their part. Meanwhile, please enjoy a lovely image of OH MY GOD KILL IT WITH FIRE.
App Name: TanZen Lite
Developer: Little White Bear Studios
Category: Games
I remember way back in the earlier part of the 90s when a cool game came out for the Atari ST called Tangram, based on the old wooden puzzle of the same name. It was deviously addictive, rotating predefined shapes into place to form a larger design. TanZen Lite is an iPhone version of that same tangram puzzle game, and it features some very nice and intuitive multitouch controls, soothing graphics, and smooth gameplay.
App Name: Latest Chatty
Developer: Alex Wayne
Category: Social Networking
Well, that’s a little different. This isn’t quite a full-blown social networking app. Instead, it’s a browser and comment submission app for what amounts to a shoutbox on Shacknews.com. It’s a pretty specific kind of social networking I suppose. Meh.
App Name: Kazoo
Developer: Chudigi Software
Category: Music
“Music?” That’s stretching the category so far that if it were a facelift, you’d have nipples on your cheeks. Okay, so, remember that scene in “Dumb & Dumber” where Jim Carey says, “Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?” Combine that noise with the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard, pieces of styrofoam rubbing together, and Fran Drescher’s laugh, play them all simultaneously on repeat, and you’d have something that still isn’t as annoying as “Kazoo.”
App Name: iTip
Developer: Uncouth Software
Category: Finance
Since when to uncouth people tip? Well, no matter. It’s another basic tip calculator for those of you who feel that the built-in calculator app is too complicated. In other news, it’s 0.0MB, so apparently this will take up no room on your device — which is good, because it isn’t worth any. (I kid…)
App Name: Pop Quiz!
Developer: Sina Mobasser
Category: Games
A simple multiple choice trivia game featuring 6 categories (Movie Trivia, Music, Celebrities, Television, Movie Quotes, Fill In the Blanks) and online high score tables. Fairly average stuff as these things go with a clean if unremarkable UI. Sina pimps a future release of Pop Quiz! Round 2, with more questions and the chance to win a new iPod.
App Name: Free Tic Tac Knoe
Developer: Rob Rightmyer
Category: Games
Knoe, I don’t knoe why this is named the way it is, but Rob’s got a solid handle on how to spin one of the simplest paper games into then next great RTS. So it’s Tic Tac Toe. What’s the hook? For one, each and every level is given its own graphical theme chosen from a bowler hat containing an old copy of ULead Cool 3D and six hundred random textures and lighting presets. Second, the computer AI increases with each passing level. Third, if you fail to win a level you’re forced to go back one and complete it again. Third and a half, it’s a demo, and the full game — which promises 33 levels and new ones downloadable as they become available — costs a buck. Does it make Tic Tac Toe fun again? Absolutely — in the same way that the advent of laproscopy made gall bladder surgery fun again; it’s all tarted up, but it’s still Tic Tac Toe, and when it’s over, you’re a little emptier inside. (Okay, maybe that was excessively harsh. It’s not terrible. It’s just … Tic Tac Toe, dude. Lipstick on a pig. The kids will probably like it though, kids like colours and variety — just as long as they stay off my damn lawn.)
Tim Knape Softwaretechnik
Category: Entertainment
The description is in German, and I said I wasn’t going to review apps that weren’t described in English, but this one is pretty obvious and uncomplicated: It’s an app that keeps track of how many beers you’ve had. My high score is 23. Did I ever tell you you’re the best pal I’ve ever had? ‘Cos you’re the best pal I’ve ever had. You’re my mate. Oh crap, where’s the bathroom?
App Name: Chimps Ahoy! Lite
Developer: Griptonite Games
Category: Games
More demos of commercial games, this time for Chimps Ahoy! It’s got Pong, it’s got Arkanoid, and it’s got monkey pirates all rolled into one game. What’s not to like? I mean,
monkey pirates. With powerups and treasure. And for the record, they’re flinging coconuts, okay? Coconuts.
App Name: Crossy
Developer: Vayen
Category: Entertainment
Another one from the jailbreak scene. Crossy is a simple snow globe with crosses instead of snowflakes to give it a Swiss flag motif. Not much more to say about it, really; other than a bit of a graphical facelift, it hasn’t really changed any.
App Name: Freebird
Developer: Dru Nelson
Category: Lifestyle
Oh, for Pete’s sake. Another (poorly) animated lighter that doesn’t do anything. But! But! This one has a candle, too! It’s just a picture though. It doesn’t even animate. Oh! And a glo-stick. It flickers faintly. And don’t think invoking Lynyrd Skynyrd makes it any more entertaining.
App Name: iHourglass Free
Developer: Headlight Software, Inc.
Category: Utilities
Being yet another title with a misused “i”, iHourglass with diagnose any rash you take a picture of. What, did you think I was going to do something lame like state the obvious? Fine. It’s an hourglass. A virtual representation of a mechanical timer. Happy? It features little pellets of virtual silica sand that trickle down, and the demo version lets you choose from several preset timers. The full version also features multiple different hourglass images. It would probably have been cooler if the movement of the “grains” wasn’t tile-based, used some simple particle physics, and accumulated at the bottom, but I’m just nitpicking because I like neat things.
App Name: iMaracas
Developer: ObjectGraph LLC
Category: Music
Continuing on with the nonsensical “i’ convention (yes, I am going to keep harping on that. I’m a curmudgeon. Deal) is iMaracas. You shake, it goes
shika. You shake shake shake, it goes
shika shika shika. You shake shake shake shake shake, and Charro appears in a puff of smoke and tropical fruit. It’s a one trick pony, but this is about the only virtual instrument that makes any sense.
App Name: Flipbook Lite
Developer: Josh Anon
Category: Entertainment
Now this one’s fun — or it would be if the limitations of this “lite” version weren’t so extreme. This is, as you have surmised, a virtual flipbook app that lets you create frames of finger-drawn images and animate them just like those old pads of paper you used to create little walking stick figures or morphing geometric shapes with. It works like classical animation, providing a virtual “onion skin” effect to let you see the last frame underneath and draw your new frame accordingly. You can choose your brush size and animation frame rate for your movies, create layers for static backdrops and independently animated images, and even upload them to flipbook.tv to share with others. This “lite” version is really just a teaser; you are limited to a maximum of 2 movies, 10 frames of animation, only two image layers, and you can only upload one movie to flipbook.tv — not that you’re likely to do so given that you can’t create anything entertaining in 10 frames. The full version is a bit spendy at $10, so maybe you’re better off buying
Kineo (formerly Flickbook) for half the price (even though you don’t get to share your animations and you don’t have frame layers.)
App Name: ParveOMeter
Developer: The Jewish Learning Group
Category: Education
Are you keeping kosher? Are you
sure? Remember, meat and dairy products can’t be eaten together according kosher dietary law, so to make sure you’re properly observing the Torah, don’t be meshuga and download ParveOMeter. Simply press either the “meat” or the “dairy” button when you’re eating one or the other, and press again when you’re done. ParveOMeter will keep track of how long it’s been since you’ve eaten and tell you when it’s OK to eat the other. Never worry about getting the urge to wash down that burger with a shake again so long as you’ve got ParveOMeter in your pocket, so eat up, and mazel tov!
App Name: Rubberduck
Developer: AAApplications
Category: Entertainment
The alphabetically astute AAApplications is back, and apparently they’ve had either the
Boomtang Boys or
Sesame Street on repeat and decided to create their own virtual squeaky toy. A duck, specifically — what else? Yeah, it’s exactly what you think. You press, it emits a wheezy squeak. You press press press, and Charro appears, asking for her maracas back.
App Name: TwitterFon
Developer: Kazuho Okui
Category: Social Networking
Another Twitter client. This one is pared down to its barest essentials, focusing on viewing friends and replies, message timeline, and sending/responding to tweets. If you’re looking for more than that, look elsewhere. If all you want is a tiny Twitter app for the most essential of features, then maybe this is your ticket.
App Name: Weight Converter
Developer: Gregory P. Moore, MD
Category: Utilities
Who needs apps with dozens of convertable units, anyway? Why hunt through pages and pages of menus to find the unit you want to convert when all you’re really interested in is how many damn pounds are in a kilogram? (2.2, or close enough, in case you were wondering) Weight Converter to the rescue! All it does is convert weights. Grams/Kilos to and from Pounds/Ounces, to be specific. Now, whenever an emergency arises where you’re given a weight in one unit of weight measure and you don’t know what the hell that is the unit of weight measure you actually understand, you can whip this out and translate in a proper hurry. Like, for example, if you’re an American doctor who’s found himself in Canada and is suddenly called upon to do an autopsy in a rush and all you have are those incomprehensible metric scales, you can weigh the heart, the liver, the stomach — hey, any organ you like with just a few quick taps and no hunting! Or, like when … you’re … OK, no, I’ve run out of examples.
Mobile Amusements
Category: Games
Remember games like Bubble Ghost? No? Didn’t I tell you to get off my lawn? Anyway, Baloonacy brings that style of game back to the iPhone and Touch in a way arcades and game consoles never could. The object of the game is to guide your bubble around each level and avoid obstacle, lest you bump into something and pop. Collect keys to open pathways and make it to the goal. Movement is accomplished by tilting your device gently to let gravity take its course. The game is played on a flat surface (or anyway with the device parallel to the ground) and is pretty sensitive, so it takes a steady, gentle hand to get around the maze. The graphics are colourful and cartoony, which is nice if you like that sort of thing. This particular version of the game is identical to the paid version — in other words it is not crippled in any way — but to play the free version, you’ll have to put up with interstitial ads between games (just like Cookie Bonus Solitaire). If you don’t want the ads, the paid version is only a couple of bucks and will give you the uninterrupted gameplay you desire. At the time of this writing, there aren’t any real ads, as I don’t think the Adwrap network is fully up and running yet. However, be aware that if you’re playing this on an iPhone outside of an accessible WiFi network, you may incur data charges from the ads.
NaughtyNuts
Category: Travel
NaughtyNuts.
*snerk* Anyway, not that this is going to be relevant for much longer, it’s a travel guide for your happpy fun spending time in Beijing attending the 2008 Summer Olympics. It provides a visitor’s map to locate the competition venues, a wee bit of language assistance giving you the Chinese pronounciation of said venues so you can ask the cabbie to take you there, GPS support in case you get lost, and more.
App Name: Bookmarks
Developer: DeliciousSafari
Category: Utilities
Well, that certainly makes my job easier. A developer/application name combination that pretty much tells you all you need to know about what this is and what it does: A browser for your del.icio.us bookmarks. About all I can add is that it has landscape support.
App Name: Domanier
Developer: Muthu Arumugam
Category: Utilities
A simple app that will display your website (or any website) alongside its Google page rank. It can even keep track of rankings as they change. Um … other than that, I got nothin’, so I’m just going to sit here and have a beer in lieu of something interesting, amusing or snarky to say. Yup. (Yup.) (Yup.) (Listenmanthatdangol’Ericmanhejustbein’borinlikewatchin’dangol’paintdryinman Dangol’.)
App Name: How Fast
Developer: Leapingfrogs.com
Category: Travel
#3 in the Spedometer series, and another Ameri-centric “kilo
whaters?” app, Spedometer pretty much does what the other spedometers do, which is measure speed. It’s fairly attractive, with a simulated analog needle to tell you how fast you’re going. Maybe Dr. Gregory P. Moore, MD can write a distance converter to help out those who don’t live in one of the three countries that still use imperial measurements, because if there’s anywhere you need to be able to convert from one unit to another really quickly, this would be it. On the other hand, you’ll have an excuse to give the cop when he pulls you over for doing 150 in a school zone.
App Name: HTML E-mail
Developer: Western ITS Limited
Category: Utilities
This isn’t an E-Mail client in and of itself, but it is a composer that gives you easy access to HTML codes so you can compose HTMLized E-Mails and pass them on to the built-in E-Mail client to be sent. Unfamiliar with HTML? It has a built-in reference guide for HTML codes to bring you up to speed. (They’re external, so you’ll need a net connection to access them.) It can also save files for use later in case you’re interrupted.
App Name: iOweYou
Developer: Ryan Rowe
Category: Utilities
Hey, y’know, I don’t mean to be a pest, but remember that $20 I loaned you last month? What do you mean “no”? Remember? When you were tapped out and really needed to go buy some, uh … y’know …
personal hygeine cream? Still nothing? Dude, you need iOweYou so you don’t forget this stuff. What? What do you mean that $40 you loaned me? I remember no such thing.
App Name: Thunder & Lightning
Developer: Tactical Logic
Category: Utilities
Remember when you were taught how to determine how far a storm was from you? Watch for the flash of lightning, and then
one mississippi, two mississippi, three mississ CRASH. There’s the thunder. Two and a half seconds. About half a mile away. Well, here’s a (marginally) more accurate way to determine that. Press the “lightning” button when you see the flash, then the “thunder” button when you hear the crash. The app will take care of determining the storm’s distance. It works for any event where a flash of light preceeds an audio event. (Fireworks, for example, or propane filling stations exploding. What? Too soon?) To increase the accuracy, you can even enter the current temperature to more accurately determine the speed of sound. (
Sound travels faster in warm weather, dontchaknow. Only click the link if you’re a total physics nerd.) The author helpfully states that this app could also be used as an accurate odometer if you happen to be travelling at precisely mach 1, though he recommends against taking your eyes off the skies to pay attention to his app if you’re operating a supersonic aircraft.
App Name: LA Traffic Cam
Developer: 3rd Dimension Inc.
Category: Travel
Your portal to hundreds of live traffic cams around the Los Angeles area. Handy if you’re tooling around the city and want to know which routes are bumper to bumper — or if you just happen to like watching traffic cams.
App Name: SalesBuilder Pro
Developer: AV Integration
Category: Business
Get instant access to current projects on your SalesBuilder Pro Enterprise Server. Check out projects, view contacts, directions, project reports, Microsoft Sharepoint data, or submit project notes and images to Sharepoint wherever you are. Obviously, you’ll need to be running or have access to a server running SalesBuilder Pro Enterprise. And, I suppose, you’ll need to be in sales.
App Name: H@me
Developer: DigitalDan
Category: Utilities
Hatme? Hame? Oh, I get it. ‘Cos it looks like an O, even though it’s not. No, still not doin’ it for me. Nevertheless, this is a remote controller for
HAI Omni or Lumina home automation systems. Control your lights, thermostat, audio systems, security system, view your web cameras or your temperature and humidity sensors, control and see what music is playing in your audio zones, and more. In other words, freak the hell out of whoever is still home while you’re away at work by making them think that maybe your house was built over an old Indian burial ground that was moved to erect housing subdivisions.
App Name: Tilt Me Lite
Developer: oeFun, Inc.
Category: Games
Okay. I admit it. I kinda like this one. It’s a bit of your average maze game — guide the ball to the circular floor tile that serves as the exit. But this one does it up all fancy. It’s done up in 3D in such a way that your overhead perspective of the maze walls shifts as you tilt to move the ball such that it’s a little like the maze is a physical thing you can tilt to see the various walls. Kind of hologramatic, really. It’s the same sort of effect employed in
Stress Toy, though I think that one did it a bit more convincingly than Tilt Me. Perhaps it’s the level of depth involved, or the smoothness with which it was done, I don’t know. Still, the effect here isn’t half bad even if it doesn’t really manage to suspend disbelief, and it does add a level of visual fun to the gameplay. Another thing of note here is that the maze floor is divided up into tile sections, and each one lights up and plays a note as you pass over it. The effect is quite musical, but not in a cacaphonous way. Furthermore, as you progress in levels, you will be tasked with controlling more than one ball, and will have to position them on the exit tiles simultaneously to advance. All in all, it’s quite a fun little maze game, and if I had to lodge any complaints, it’s that the mazes are a bit short and simplistic. However, the addition of more balls to control as you progress makes up for any lack of difficulty curve. The full version, which can be had for a scanty $2, features thousands of more colourful levels, 3 balls, more gameplay features, and customizable difficulty. Well worth it, if you ask me — and I know you did.
Wow. That was a hell of a ride, but we’ve finally come to the end. (That’s what your mom said!) Join us again next time when we explore the mysteries of what lies within my refridgerator’s crisper drawer.
Wait … what do you mean your mom’s dead?
Oh, crap.
Written by Eric March on August 16th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on App Store and Application Related and Entertaining and Free App Store Review and Gaming Related and iphone 3g.
Well now, that’s more like it. I was beginning to worry that the tide of freebies had slowed to a trickle, but it seems it was merely a temporary lull, because we’re back in full force with another chunky vat of fresh freebie slurry cascading down the sluice for y’all. (And the award for for WORST. METAPHOR. EVER. goes to… hey, I should enter that in next year’s Bulwer-Lytton contest.) Be mindful when reading this edition of the Free App Store Review though, and for Pete’s sake stop playing with that, because God is watching. Oh yes, he is — hey, even supreme beings love freebies, you know, and I think it’s pretty obvious that he has an iPhone.
And now, let us pray … for more freebies.
App Name: Pyramid Solitaire Lite
Developer: Seahorse Software
Category: Games
If you just can’t get enough solitaire in your life, Seahorse is here to give you more, this time with an ancient Egyptian flavour. This variant of the single-player card game requires that you remove cards from the pile by matching up any number of cards that add up to 13. It’s a lot harder than it sounds. The visuals here are quite nice, even if the card symbology, adhering to the ancient Egyptian theme as they do, seem a little gratuitous. The black score box over the sarcophagus seems out of place, too. Minor nitpicks to be sure for what is otherwise a decent solitaire variant.
App Name: The Scriptures
Developer: Lee Falin
Category: Reference
A bible reference for the Mormons. Contains the entire standard LDS works, including the KJV bible, the Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price. It features the ability to search words or phrases across all scriptures, and future versions will feature footnotes, study aids, bookmarking, and language localization.
App Name: MotionX Dice
Developer: MotionX
Category: Entertainment
You asked for it, and now MotionX is giving it to you — for free, even! MotionX Dice is a dice rolling app based on their wildly successful pay app MotionX Poker — but there’s no game here other than perhaps what you make of it. It just rolls dice, but if you just need (or want) to roll the bones, this is as good as it gets. It features full MotionX technology for realistic 3D dice rolling action, 9 sets of dice styles to choose from, each with their own sounds, 3 different table colours, sound effects — even force feedback. For you tabletop RPGers however, I have some bad news: It only contains D6’s.
App Name: StreetEasy Real Estate Search
Developer: StreetEasy
Category: Business
You you dwellers of the Big Apple who need a place to hang your fedora (or those from elsewhere who want to find such a place), StreetEasy provides you with a simple and effective means to search real estate listings in New York City. The app provides comprehensive, detailed information on available locations, details on buildings, pictures of the residences, find other listings in the same building, and more. For New Yawkers, it will even utilize the 3G’s AGPS to find listings close to you. If you’re interested in laying down some roots in the city that never sleeps, here’s your guide.
App Name: MPoD
Developer: Katoemba
Category: Music
Here’s one for those of you rocking a Mac or Linux box. MPoD is a client designed to connect to a
Music Player Daemon server running on a remote Mac or Linux machine. Using MPoD, you can stream your music library wirelessly over your iPhone or iPod Touch’s WiFi connection. (You could also conceivably use your iPhone’s EDGE or 3G connection, too.) Get access to all of your music, and not just the stuff you managed to fit into your device.
App Name: MiGhtyDocs
Developer: V1ru8
Category: Ut1l!tiEs
MiGhtyDocs is a simple Google Docs viewer for the iPhone and Touch. It doesn’t store anything — it’s strictly a remote viewer — and there are no editing capabilities, so this is useful only when you want access to some important document while you’re on the go and don’t have access to a PC and your Google Docs account. It seems to work well enough for what it does though, so … there’s that.
App Name: Diceshaker
Developer: Infinite Labs
Category: Utilities
Now, since you got the weapon of the year, come and get the award/Here’s a hint, it’s like a long chop sword/Flip town, so let me see you shake it up like dice/The way you shake your iPhone makes me fear for the device/But A+ got a surprise that’s a back breaker/Now let me see you shake your dice with your Diceshaker. Yeah, that was fairly terrible. But this app isn’t too bad if you’re looking for a dice roller. You can pick an arbitrary number of dice and the type of die you want to roll, then shake or touch to throw the virtual bones. It’s fairly no-frills, so don’t expect pretty graphics or anything. It’s just a simple, small, effective app.
App Name: CubeWorld
Developer: Marco Giorgini
Category: Photography
Here we go. The first, the original panorama app for the iPhone and Touch, first introduced to the jailbreak scene
last March. All of the same features of the original are here, with the addition of the ability to add new panorama sources and download new panoramas. It doesn’t seem to have access to the same plethora of panoramas as PangeaVR does, but one feature CubeWorld has that Pangea’s app doesn’t is the ability to tool around the various panoramas using the accelerometer, which is rather nice. Another unique feature is that it is capable of downloading and storing panoramas for offline viewing, so you don’t need a network connection to view panoramas you have previously downloaded. Very nice, and it’s good to see that Marco manage to get this up on the App Store.
App Name: Cocktails
Developer: Swiss-Development
Category: Reference
A bartender’s guide to whipping up a heap o’ cocktails, complete with pictures and recipes. Unfortunately, it’s entirely in German (despite its apparent Swedish origins) so hopeful bartenders who aren’t fluent in Deutsch are out of luck.
App Name: BibleReader
Developer: Olive Tree Bible Software, Inc.
Category: Reference
One bible not enough for you? How about 9? BibleReader features a grand total of 9 different translations of the Good Book, including the New English Translation, Modern King James Version, American Standard, Darby’s Translation, Young’s Literal Translation, Weymouth New Testament, Spanish, French and German. It features a colourful Verse Chooser grid, search ability, and a simple but colourful translation selection menu.
App Name: Alcohol Aware
Developer: iPips Limited
Category: Lifestyle
If you have any concerns about your drinking habits, or are just curious about just how much you’re really imbibing, Alcohol Aware can help. It gives you a quick and handy reference to the number of units of alcohol (I presume this is a UK measurement) in a given drink and can keep track of how much you’re drinking over a given period of time. You can even calculate custom drinks by entering the percentage of alcohol by volume and the quantity of the drink. If you want to manage your drinking with an eye towards improving your healthy lifestyle, Alcohol Aware is a handy companion. They also offer a Plus version that can keep track of your expenditures on alcohol, so you can also see the financial impact on your lifestyle.
App Name: Vexed
Developer: Gandreas Software
Category: Games
I’m sure most of you are familiar with this type of game. It’s a version of the old
Gem’X game originally from the Atari ST and Amiga world at the beginning of the 90s, where the object is to match up threesomes, foursomes or fivesomes of like blocks by sliding them into place. The problem is that there are often other blocks in your way, or immovable obstacles you must overcome, and of course, you have gravity to deal with, so you have to solve each level logically. Vexed is a pretty nice version of that style of game, with decent graphics, adequate sound, and standard touch and slide gameplay. It also features 5 different themes to choose from and contains over 1,100(!) levels across 19 puzzle packs, so this one is guaranteed to keep you busy for quite some time.
App Name: Stylem Greetings
Developer: Stylem Media
Category: Entertainment
Remember when greeting card websites were all the rage, like, a decade ago? And how most of them now are just excuses to collect E-Mail addresses with which to spam you and everyone you send cards to, or require some proprietary plugin designed ostensibly to play back your greetings but in fact really just flash adware at you? Well, Stylem Greetings wants to bring those heady days back in a big way with an online catalog of over 15,000 greetings cards across more than a dozen categories to choose from. The app doesn’t include any ads or require you to register, but I’ve no idea what they do with the E-Mails addresses, so caveat emptor.
App Name: StitchMinder
Developer: Quilt2Go
Category: Lifestyle
Come on, I know there’s at least one knitter out there. You! Yes, you with the alpaca hat! You look like someone who would appreciate a stictch counting app. Fess up, I know you’ve got a half-completed floral quilt sitting in your wool chest, and you know exactly what “knit one, pearl two” means. How ’bout StitchMinder for your next project? It features customizable counters that track rows completed, pattern rows, pattern repeats, and increases/decreases. They can count up or down, and it even remembers your counts between sessions.
App Name: Spend Lite
Developer: Adamcode.com
Category: Finance
Here’s a simple, scaled down version of the more full-featured (and more expensive) Spend app. It’s a basic finance tracker that lets you keep tabs on your spending. You can crate up to 5 weekly budgets with this app, allowing you to distribute your funds to where they need to go quickly and easily, and it can all be done on the go. The full version of spend features an unlimited number of daily, weekly, monthly and yearly budgets, so you can plan much more ambitious budgets, which is good, because you’re going to need to save up for that fiber optic hat and robot dog you’ve got penciled into this year’s budget.
App Name: Shinydoku Lite Edition
Developer: Shinysoft
Category: Games
Can’t get enough of the half dozen other Sudoku apps out there? Need yet another one as you strive to fill an entire page with nothing but Sudoku games? Shinysoft’s got your number! Actually, they have a whole lot of numbers. This demo version of the full game has 25 hand-crafted puzzles (5 in each of 5 difficulty levels), pencil notes, swipe cell movement, unlimited undo history, and … oh hell, it’s bloody Sudoku.
App Name: Sudoku Loaded Free
Developer: Timothy Braun
Category: Games
Sudoku, anyone? More sudoku? Would you like another helping of sudoku? Surely you have room for another sudoku. It’s wafer thin. It’s also haunting my deepest Machiavellian nightmares. However, pressing on, this one, being a demo is limited to 50 puzzles, and doesn’t include the techniques guide that the full verison does. Otherwise it features state saving, 5 difficulty methods, 3 methods of input, bookmarking, statistics and performance tracking, complete play history, illustrated sudoku guide, in-game help, and more. In other words, it’s sudoku for people who take their sudoku very seriously.
App Name: Scoreboard
Developer: BP Software
Category: Productivity(?)
You know, I like the idea that playing darts is a productive use of one’s time. My boss could walk in and ask, “Just what do you think you’re doing?” and I could say, “I’m playing darts,” and he’d be all like, “Oh, well. As long as you’re keeping productive, carry on,” and then I could throw a dart at his head, and we’d laugh and laugh. But this is not a darts game. It is, however, a scoring app for the real gentleman’s game of draughts. It’s simple, but clean and effective and just the thing for when you’ve had six too many at the local pub and don’t know how to score it when you skewer the waitress’s left buttock.
App Name: QuickPoints
Developer: Acacia Software
Category: Health & Fitness
A quick ‘n simple app to calculate Weight Watchers point values based on calorie, fat and fiber content. The app is free, but it’s ad-supported, so you’ll get a plug taking up the top quarter of the screen.
App Name: MtG Score Keeper
Developer: JG Creations
Category: Entertainment
I’m kind of surprised Magic: The Gathering is still around, but around it is, and this here is an iPhone/Touch app to keep track of your current life total and games played. Yeah, that’s about it, really. Sooooo … you wanna see my famous potato chip collection? I’ve got one that looks
exactly like former New York mayor Ed Koch.
App Name: Lenovo Summer Olympics 2008
Developer: Zumobi
Category: Sports
Another sponsored app, this time it’s Thinkpad maker Lenovo. This one will connect you to the 2008 summer olympics by providing you with photos from the olympics, news, athelete profiles, and links to olympic blogs. Images of amusing Chinglish restaurant menu items are sadly absent. Also, I like how the screenshot of the news section featuers news about western Chinese attackers killing 16 border officers. Such cheerful events happening outside that bird’s nest.
App Name: iView
Developer: Dunno.
Category: Utilities
Dunno. It’s not available in Canada. Seriously, what’s up with that? Region locking in the App Store? I can understand eBay doing it because they probably don’t have the Canada-centric version ready for prime time yet, but this is silly. It’s not iView specifically, but there have been others. It just irritates me and makes me want to strangle budgies. (I’m what you’d call an animal lover. I like North Korean sherry. ‘Ere, didn’t you kill my brother?)
App Name: GeoPedia
Developer: Trivialware
Category: Education
GeoPedia makes use of the iPhone 3G’s AGPS to identify landmarks around you and let you read up on Wikipedia articles pertaining them. There seems to be a extra section to browse geotagged Flickr photos from around your general vicinity, too. Very basic layout, but for what amounts to a geo-aware reference app, it doesn’t really need to be particularly flashy.
App Name: eircom WiFi
Developer: Bluedog
Category: Utilities
A wee app that will store your login and password to allow you to login to eircom WiFi hotspots around Ireland quickly and easily. Um … I guess I could talk about how orange it is. It’s very orange. And white, too, lots of white. Kind of a creamcicle motif, really. Bit of grey, too. Yes. It’s quite lovely, actually, if you like orange. And white. Bit of grey. More tea?
App Name: Crusher Lite
Developer: Bournesoft
Category: Games
A Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move clone with relatively amateurish graphics and sound — but it’s free, so who am I to complain? Besides, there hasn’t been a Bust-a-Move-style game turn up in the freebies section yet, so, this is as good as we’ve got — so far, anyway.
App Name: Counter
Developer: Iswhereiam
Category: Utilities
A little app that lets you increase or decrease a counter while you’ve got a timer going. Is it me, or is it becoming more and more necessary for me to pad these descriptions with fluff, non-sequiturs, feeble attempts at humour, and complaints about having to pad descriptions with fluff, non-sequiturs and feeble attempts at humour? I’m just trying to make these descriptions long enough so that I don’t have a foot of whitespace because I had to insert half a dozen non-breaking spaces wrapped in paragraph tags so the screenshots don’t bump into each other, okay? Don’t make me get all Chris Crocker on your ass. I don’t have nearly enough mascara. Or angst.
Actually, on second thought, maybe it didn’t matter, because it seems we’ve come to the end of this edition of The Free App Store Review. Isn’t that something? You just get going and then BAM! You’re still going. And then you’re going a little bit more, and then you have a beer, watch a little TV, play a few new free games, laquer your neighbour’s cat — OH, hey, now we’re done.
Oh, and by the way. The cake was a lie. Amen.
Written by Eric March on August 12th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on App Store and Application Related and Entertaining and Gaming Related and Productivity Apps and Round Ups and iphone 3g.
It’s only been a few days since we profiled Resolution Interactive’s rather quite awesome Clusterball 2 for iPhone and Touch and its attendant and also quite awesome preview video. If I had to lodge a formal complaint about that video however, it’s that it was taken at an unfortunate angle which allowed all the tilting and twisting to yank the action away from the camera at times.
You read that correctly.
