Countdown™ ($0.99) by Bas du Pre

Available on iPhone & iPod Touch

Countdown™ is a new app that … counts down to things. Why confuse prospective consumers with punny names that do nothing more than mislead and force a reading of the app description? It’s great that the developer mentioned further features are in the woodworks for next month. As for now, Countdown is a fairly adequate 1.0, but perhaps not yet worth the 99 cents.

After downloading the app, you open Countdown to find a streamlined UI consisting of two buttons and a blank space where countdowns will eventually end up. The “+” button adds countdowns and selecting “Edit” updates preexisting ones. The best feature includes the ability to add a photo to the countdown item – either extracted from the internet as you input text or uploaded from the device. Once the photo-customized item is created the option of sharing on Facebook appears, which is great. However, there is no option for Twitter, Tumblr or any other social media application. Interactive features such as photo customization and sharing online show potential that will hopefully be actualized for Countdown’s next version.

From Bas du Pre:

Leave a comment below and you could get this app for FREE… preference will be given to those who *promise* to post an honest review in iTunes! If you are selected to get a free code, we will send it to you via Facebook.

Available on iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad

Somewhere in the deep recesses of this thing I call a brain, I like to imagine a world where I’m surrounded by adoring women who ooooh and aaaah as I wow them with amazing magic tricks peppered with bits of irresistable charisma… and then I wake up and realize that I’m about as charismatic as a canker sore.. but for whatever reason I still want to learn how to do magic!

Magic101 is a collection of videos that teach you how to pull off 12 beginner-level magic tricks. Each trick comes with a written explanation, a video that shows the trick being performed, and another video that explains how the trick is done. More magic tricks can be bought through the “magic store” where most tricks cost $.99.

Most people are smart enough to realize that you can learn plenty of magic tricks by watching other people’s videos at this crazy website… what’s it called… oh yeah, YOUTUBE. But if you’re serious about mastering certain tricks, and if repetition is the key to mastery, then it might really be beneficial to have a magic teacher in your pocket (and hopefully a deck of cards) so you can work on perfecting your craft whenever, wherever.

Magic101 does a pretty good job of explaining the tricks, but in the sales department I’m pretty disappointed that there isn’t a video demo of each trick being performed. How am I supposed to know if I want to buy a trick if I can’t see it being done first? The absence of this see-how-it’s-done video will almost certainly drive me to look up the trick on Youtube where not only will I learn from someone else, but I’ll have no more reason to buy the trick from Magic101.

Available on iPhone & iPod Touch

Every new year I make a promise to myself to drink more, but not being a big drinker I never know what to drink.   I’m always asking people what to drink and trying new drinks in order to find “My drink”.   This app might just be the app to help.  Oh yeah, I also like having lots of booze in the house.  So, this is an App that can take what you already have laying around, waiting to be drunk, and help you make a nice cocktail.   Or tell you what you should get to make the cocktail that you want.  It’s really very handy with a built in shopping list and some nice visual ads.

It’s laid out like a virtual liquor cabinet with bottles on shelves etc.   It keeps track of the booze, the mixes, the other stuff like bar fruit.   I used to live on bar fruit.  Okay so the only pain part is the initial adding all your stuff into the app.  Then I guess if you drink a lot you need to add and subtract all the stuff.   If you have a big bar where things get lost in the back or your have lots a parties this could be the app for you.   They have an extensive list of brand name booze in the data base but could add some more.  There were a few big name brands that I had that the app didn’t support.  In that case I just put in the generic “Vodka” and that worked fine.  Cheers! I’m off to make an “Old Fashion.”

From Lavacado Studios:

Available on iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad

For all you folks in the U.S. of A., Turkey Day is about a week away! I seriously didn’t try to make that rhyme on purpose, but it totally did.

So you think you can cook up a Thanksgiving feast? No? But your family expects you to do it anyway? Chow Thanksgiving Dinner Coach might save your holiday! Most “recipe” apps do nothing but regurgitate what you’d find in two seconds of Googling, but Chow goes much further by attempting to hold your hand through the entire process of cooking up a predetermined yet very “traditional” Thanksgiving menu that includes turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and they also throw in some brandy-apple punch!

If you have no intention of cooking ALL of that food, fear not. The first step is crossing off the foods that you don’t plan to make and Chow will magically adjust your shopping list, equipment list, and cooking steps. After your menu is set, you can take Chow shopping with you and you can cross things off the shopping and equipment lists as you get them.

Next, of course, is cooking, and your handy little Dinner Coach will instruct you to prepare some stuff on Wednesday and the rest on Thursday. The cooking instructions seem pretty clear and there are a few illustrations, but for the most part it’s all text so you’ll need to read things carefully and do exactly what the app tells you or THANKSGIVING WILL BE RUINED! I typed that in all caps just for dramatic effect but, as with all recipes, you need to do it right ‘cuz blaming a crappy dinner on your iPhone or iPad probably won’t sit too well with your dinner guests.

My favorite way to serve Thanksgiving dinner is to take everyone to a fancy restaurant and then sneak off to the bathroom when the bill comes, but if you’re a rank amateur cooking at home you might want to give Chow Thanksgiving Dinner Coach a look!

Here’s an app you might not have known you needed until just this moment. 

I’m referring to Next Episode by Nikolay Nachev.  What does this app do?  Let me ask you a question:

Have you ever rushed to get home from work or school or wherever to watch what you thought was going to be a new episode of Chuck or House only to find that the episode was a repeat? 

(…And what about this new thing with the mid-season finales followed by months-long hiatuses?  I started watching both V and FlashForward last fall only to see the first parts of season one end in November with no plans to return until March. 

March??? 

What- you prime time networks think you’re HBO or Showtime?  It’s not like we’re talking Dexter, Weeds, True Blood, or Entourage-level shows.  These are new shows I’m still trying to decide whether I want to watch.  Three- and four-month hiatuses aren’t such a good idea when you’re a newbie and don’t even have a season under your belt yet.  I used to think Lost was bad about the big hiatuses, but at least this is its last season.  And don’t even get me started on The Sopranos.  Three things to say about that show: Lamest.  Ending.  Ever.

Ok. Taking a deep breath and getting off my soapbox.  I went to a dark and scary place for a little while, but I’m back now…)

Next Episode is an app I would think everyone with an iPod Touch, iPhone and TV should have.  Simply speaking, it will track and monitor all your favorite shows and tell you when a new episode is scheduled to air.  So, I now know that the next new episode of Chuck will air in 53 (!) days. 

(…I’m still a little ticked about that, though I’ll deal…)

But wait…there’s more.  Next Episode will show you what’s just aired, what’s on deck for the next day, and will even make recommendations for new shows you might like based on the shows you already like.  That’s nifty.

And if you’re in the process of recording an entire season of 24 on your DVR, yet refuse to watch a single episode until the season’s either over or almost over (so you can watch them all over a weekend and get caught up), Next Episode will also track your unwatched episodes and provide episode summaries.  (What?  I can’t be the only one who does that….)

I really like this application.  The UI is slick, everything is broken down into nice little categories that show me exactly what I want to see, and I was able to just jump right in and start using it.  Couldn’t ask for anything more.  Except maybe a link to iMDB within the app so I can check out all those geeky things I like to check out on that site…

Oh, and one big incentive if you’re thinking about buying this app: Next Episode is currently having a 75% off launch sale.  Pick it up for just .99 cents while you can and make sure that you always know when new episodes of your favorite shows will air.

(Provided they haven’t been cancelled…)

Man, I’m in a negative mood right now.

iTunes Link – Next Episode

Version 1.0

Tested on an iPod Touch 3.1.3

Warning: Skip the text part of the greeting card!

Luck O the Irish is on sale for free – normally $.99

If you’re Irish… or just looking for an excuse to get out and party… chances are you’ll be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day sometime within the next week, or at the very least you’ll be updating your Facebook status with a very clever “Happy St. Pat’s!” or something to that effect.

If your Irish-ness only goes as far as Facebook, Luck O the Irish will help you take it one step further by walking you through its Irish greeting card maker. The seven templates it includes look fairly slick and professional, and as long as you’re just sticking a picture in there you’ll be just fine. Photo handling is pretty bad (but repositioning is pretty easy), and forget about inputting any text because it’ll look ridiculous. Once you’re done putting photo in frame the image gets saved to your camera roll so you can post it to your profile via a Facebook-friendly app (which this one isn’t), or you can just email it.

For hardcore revelers, Sync Studios also included Irish-themed drink recipes and drinking games, plus there are links to info on a whole lotta St. Patrick’s Day parades worldwide.

Luck O the Irish has plenty of flaws that are mainly in the greeting card department, but it does enough things well that it’s worth picking up for free if you see shamrocks and green beer in your very near future.

iTunes Link – Luck O the Irish
Version 1.2

You Are Rich is on sale for free – normally a complete ripoff!

When the iTunes App Store first opened up in the summer of 2008, some jackass named Armin Heinrich released an app called I Am Rich which was basically a jpeg image of a red jewel that included some kind of “secret mantra” intended to make you believe you hadn’t just flushed $999.99 down the drain. Fast forward to… uh… today… and now you can get the very same app for free! Well, not exactly the same app, but pretty damn close.

I never saw the inner workings of the original “rich” app because (a) I was never quite drunk – or rich – enough to buy it, and (b) it got squashed by Apple within a few days after being released. But hey! Now you can see what that app *probably* looked like on the inside for free… red gem, idiotic self-affirmations, and all. And then you can say holy crap I’m glad I didn’t just waste $99.99! Yes, that’s what You Are Rich costs on a normal day, $99.99… more recently it was $.99, but that’s still $.99 too much.

So if I think this app is such a waste of time, why am I announcing the sale? Consider it a public service! If you get this app right now while it’s free, you’ll never have to wonder what it would be like to drop a single dime on an app designed specifically for morons with money to burn. Ok, to be fair, a lot of apps seem like they’re designed for morons but this one, like the 2008 ripoff it’s copy-catting, is in a league of its own.

iTunes Link – You Are Rich

Benjamin Franklin is widely regarded as one of America’s wisest and most innovative men.  He is credited with any number of inventions, is generally acknowledged as one of the nation’s Founding Fathers, and was a witty and insightful writer. 

In 1726, while Franklin was taking part in an 80-day ocean voyage, he developed a system of conduct focused on 13 virtuous qualities.  Ben believed that exemplifying these virtues in one’s everyday life would lead to a life of enviable conduct.  He even created a matrix that would help him to focus on one virtue each week for a period of 13 weeks. 

Ben’s Virtues is an app designed to help you benefit from Franklin’s 13 virtues.  I’d read about Franklin’s system a few years ago and was very excited to come across an app that incorporated them into a simple, easy-to-use format.  

If you’re interested in learning more, pick it up for FREE in the AppStore.  And who knows?  In 13 weeks, your life could be significantly better. 

iTunes Link – Ben’s Virtues 

Version 1.0.3 

Tested on an iPod Touch 3.1.3

Ben's chart of virtues

History is made one moment at a time, day by day.  And for every person born, there is a unique history surrounding their birthdate.  I believe that we are all curious to learn more about our birthdates.  We want to see how many other cool people were born the same day we were and whether anything notable happened that day.  Ruslan Morozov’s The Day I Was Born answers that question by unlocking and allowing us to remember that history.

Here’s how it works: the application requests a birthdate: day, month, and year.  Once it has that information, The Day I Was Born generates even more information associated with the supplied date of birth.

What kind of information?  How about Western Zodiac, Chinese Zodiac, Earth elements and stones associated with your birthdate?  Not enough, you say?  Add in numerological elements including life path and destiny, historical accounts of your birthdate across time, births and deaths, and any holidays coinciding with the supplied date.  That’s a lot of stuff, right?

I thought so.

The Day I Was Born also allows you to share the information with friend via SMS (iPhone users only), email, or Twitter. 

The Day I Was Born is an entertaining app, but once you’ve read through everything associated with your date of birth, it’s usefulness to you is probably going to be fairly limited.  But you can use it to look up your friends’ dates of birth, your boy- or girlfriend’s, as well as other family members’ info, too. 

It will keep you entertained for a while and probably tell you some things you may not have known about yourself and others.  It’ll definitely increase your awareness of history.  And if you’re into astrology or numerology, there’s a lot of stuff that you’ll probably appreciate knowing about yourself and others.

There’s not much I could suggest to add to this app, but I think it would be cool see or link to the front page of a major newspaper on a given birthdate.  I once went tooling around in my university library’s microfiche and -film section because I wanted the see the front page of the New York Times on my birthdate.  I do, however, recognize that the Times certainly wouldn’t be the best paper for everyone depending on their homeland.

iTunes Link- The Day I Was Born

Version 2.1

Tested on iPod Touch 3.1.3

 

 

If you’ve ever thought about starting a journal or diary, but failed to because you just didn’t have the time, I have got the perfect app for you:  d3i’s Momento.  Do you have a FaceBook account?  Do you tweet?  Listen to Last.fm?  Upload pictures to Flickr?  Even better!  Momento will import your FaceBook and Twitter updates, any Last.fm tracks you choose to favorite (I know I violated a grammar rule or two just then), and Flickr pics into its daily logs so that you have a nice, on-the-go mobile journal or diary without doing anything more than what you’re probably already doing.

Of course, if you’re feeling a little more wordy, your journal or diary does not have to be limited to online status updates or tweets.  You can write more lengthy entries with Momento.  And you can rate your entries, create tags and mark moments, people and places as memorable so that you can quickly search and browse through them later.

Momento is an ingenious app and you can clearly tell that the developers put a great deal of time and thought into its details.  It looks great and works beautifully.  If you don’t want to import one or more of your online personas into the app, you do not have to.  For example, though I have a Flickr account, I’m not much of a photo guy.  If I were, the ability to import my pics through Flickr would be a valuable ability, one that would bring color and variety to my entries. 

d3i says that there will be some exciting updates in the near future.  I can’t wait to see what they are and begin using them.  There isn’t much I could think to add to this brilliant app, but a few enhancements do come to mind.  For example, the ability to write entries in landscape mode, ability to choose font size, or to import either links to or full texts of personal blogs would make this an even more outstanding app.

2010 is a brand new year and the beginning of a whole new decade.  Why not begin to record those special moments as they unfold with Momento?

Momento

Version 1.0.2

Reviewed on iPod Touch 3.1.2

As I sat in an Italian restaurant eating some fettuccine alfredo, I silently tapped on my iPhone. Within seconds, I had donated help to the Red Cross for the Haiti relief. How did I do it? I was using the ShopKick app called Cause World.

Cause World is similar to apps like My Town and Four Square where you “check-in” to various places around your town to gain points called karma. You get 10 karma per check-in. There are some differences between Cause World and My Town or Four Square. One is the time rules. You can’t just check into a place and check into another place; you have to wait five minutes between each check-in. Also, you can only check-in 10 times per day.

Now you are probably wondering what these karma points can be used for. Well, when you click the donate button, you get a list of everything your karma points can get you. You can donate your points to things ranging from offsetting your carbon footpring to feeding a chimp! Plus, you can also donate your karma to help the Red Cross help with the Haiti Relief.

 So if you want a cool app where you can help a charity without using your time/money/resources, check out Cause World.

iTunes Link – CauseWorld
Reviewed on iPhone 3GS OS 3.1.2
Version 1.01

Have you ever had that strange craving for your favorite comic, but not had a newspaper nearby? Or have you been stuck in a plane/train/car with nothing to do? Well if you love comics, then iToons is the app for you! At only $.99, this app developed by Brite systems Inc is a steal considering it has a library of 34 different comics ranging from Adam At Home to Ziggy. Although some of my favorite comics like Pearls Before Swine and Dilbert were missing from the list, there were many great ones like BC, Garfield, and Cathy.

The set up of the app is very simple and easy to use. You go into settings, and just flip the on/off switch next to the desired comics you want to read. I did have some problems with the app. Some of the comics were longer than the iPhone screen, so you had to scroll back and forth. It would have been better if the app could have made it so that you can view the comic panel by panel. That way you could slide to each panel as if viewing photos.

Also at the end of the comic, have a button where you can go back to the home page (the current version has the button at the starting of the comic, so you have to scroll all the way back to view another comic. Another problem was that I could only view one comic of each title per day. For people who only like a few of the selected titles could easily get bored. It would be better if access to an archive of previous comics was available. On the flip side of that, the app doesn’t present you with just any random comic strip from that title. iToons updates the title with that day’s comic, so you are always reading the most recent one. So if you are a comic-holic, look into investing $.99 to buy iToons. Trust me, your $.99 was worth spent.

iTunes Link – iToons
Version 1.1
Review on iPhone 3G OS 3.1.2