iSo Kingdom ($0.99) by Zleepy Ztudios

Available on iPhone & iPod Touch

Solve puzzles! Battle monsters! Solve more puzzles! I hope you like solving puzzles, because there’s a lot of them. A clever mix of a puzzler and an action/adventure game, iSoKingdom makes some advances in uncharted territory.

iSoKingdom is based around the concept of an isometric puzzle. You get a complex 3D shape and must deduce the 2D images of different sides. It requires a fair amount of spatial reasoning and patience, and is something you’d expect to find on IQ tests and brain teaser books.

Since I have the reasoning skills of a plant, I didn’t plan on doing so hot. Thankfully, the app foresaw my incompetence, and provided a thorough tutorial. Needless to say, after completing a few puzzles, I was hooked. After a few hours, I wouldn’t be surprised if my IQ doubled.

In iSo Kingdom, you are a brave block-warrior sent to fight monsters and complete some forgettable storyline. But that’s not what the game is about. Whenever you battle an enemy, you are sent to complete a sequence of isometric puzzles. All the while, you have to contend with a time limit and a set number of lives. Fail the puzzle too many times, then bye bye block-warrior, hope you bought life insurance. This puzzle-action combination is addictive and surprisingly enjoyable. Most puzzle games either fly over my head or fail to catch my attention, but iSo Kingdom is a novel concept. I like it.

The controls aren’t flawless, but get the job done. The quirky, cartoony graphics are endearing. The storyline follows a somewhat cliched rpg story arc, making battling sea monsters with the ‘power of puzzles’ even more entertaining. iSo Kingdom has a fun, indie charm, but is polished and well-executed.

Available on iPhone & iPod Touch

Before downloading any app I like to take a look at the reviews already associated with it. In this case the reviews I found were fairly poor. Normally this would put me off downloading the app, but instead I decided to go for it anyway, and I am glad that I did, because when I downloaded it and first played around with it I was pleasantly surprised.

This app is designed to be a inventory management tool for small businesses and warehouses. It allows you to record product information (things such as number in stock, a description, photo for easy reference and the prices it cost you and will sell for), in a manner that is easy to find items. It includes a search function that allows you to easily find the items you have put into the database. One nice function is that any stock that is low will be flagged for your attention.

One thing I’ve seen from other reviews, is that they had problems with the bar-code scanner. I had no such problems, I found that the scanner was both quick and accurate providing you where you were scanning was well lit up. In low light levels it had a bit of problems, but then so do other bar-code apps. If you put the bar-codes in, there is a nifty feature that allows you to quickly bring up the product by simply rescanning the bar-code. Quite useful when you need to quickly update stock levels.

The only bad thing about this app is that it lacks some of the functionality that other similar apps do, (there are over one thousand other inventory apps, so its going to be hard pushed to beat all of them) and I would suggest the addition of a couple of extra features to put this app along side some of the others. The main addition would be to change the way the stock levels are changed. Because in my opinion I think it would be better to have a form you fill in when you are adding stocks. This would essentially allow you to process orders easier.

Overall I like this app and think it has a lot of potential. It certainly isn’t there yet, but I think if the developer keeps working at it then it could be a really nice app. Its designed well and work well, so all it takes is to have a few more extra features.

Probably one of the most unique apps I’ve came across in a while, Descent is a freefall calculator able to offer “the most accurate possible representation of the time it would take to freefall to the earth’s surface and the speed you would be traveling upon impact”. Sweet.

Well, here are the codes! Make sure you PLAY NICE and leave a comment saying which code you took.

If you manage to snag a code, I’m sure the developer would appreciate an honest App Store review!

1. PM9F7XAEPF4T
2. PMRM47NTETE
3. XHTJ4WX7K4H
4. YAXXEF7MXRLP
5. PL77APHXE77F

iTunes Link – Descent

For the low, low price of free, this can all be yours!

Being too lazy to find my iPod Touch’s UDID* by manually plugging it into iTunes, I stumbled upon Ad Hoc Helper, by Erica Sadun. This no-frills utility basically snatches up some info about your device, such as your device name, model, system version, memory, free space and UDID and automatically pops open Mail so you can get that info where it needs to be.  While this not be necessary for everybody, Ad Hoc Helper an awesome way for you to quickly get info about your device, and I recommend you scoop this app in case you’re ever in a pinch.

*A 40 digit serial code unique to your iDevice. Useful for app developers who are beta testing, debugging or adjusting their app. More info here, at TUAW.

iTunes Link – Ad Hoc Helper

I’m always on the lookout for affordable (read FREE) and feature-rich Bible applications for my iPod Touch and over the past several months, I’ve tried at least a handful of them.  Many are simply adequate, allowing me to access the verses I need to find when I need to find them.  Some are entirely dependent on a wireless connection, while others can access it both on and offline.  I may even have the choice of downloading a translation or two that I can use to compare verses.  None has truly contained everything I’ve really needed, however.

The Wave Study Bible is a visually appealing app that appears to have some very good potential.  It’s colorful, provides you with four free translations (Greek New Testament, King James, New English, and God’s Word) that can be stacked side by side for easy comparison.  Additional translations are available for a fee that seems a bit pricey to me: $14.99, but even if you opt not to purchase any, you’ve still got a pretty solid foundation of translations to work with. 

It’s a  fairly intuitive app, having been designed not for the Biblical scholar but the average, everyday Christian.  Verses can be shared through email, words in the Greek translation can be quickly defined, there are four distinct ways in which verses can be located, and there are a number of short tutorial articles covering everything from the application itself to how to read the Bible.  You’ve got nothing to lose with this app, so give it a gander when you’ve got some time.

Multiple translations side by side in landscape mode

iTunes Link – Wave Study Bible

Version 1.0.1

Tested on an iPod Touch 3.1.3

Next I loaded one of my sons animated movies and the They Might Be Giants Video podcast (all 28 Episodes) to check the video playback. The animated movie will be used to show off the ooo and aaa factor when I show people the iPad. I sat my son down on the couch and turned on the podcast for him to which he fell in love instantly. He was able to choose a new episode as soon as the previous one ended. So when it comes to usability even a two year old can figure it out.

Next on the list to load up were apps. Being that I just dropped close to 550 on the iPad itself my options will be free apps for a while. I was pleased to see a lot of the iPhone apps I was planing on loading up had updates to optimize to the iPad or separate free apps built for the iPad. The new apps I picked up were

iBooks: it comes pre loaded with a whinny the pooh book. The interaction with the pages is another great show off tool.

ABC Player: which is for catching up on ABC shows and the streaming quality is great.

Aurora Feint 3: beautiful graphics, fun little time waster.

Labyrinth 2 HD Light: perfect for showing off the accelerometer.

Toy Story Read Along : Disney hit it out of the park with this one.

We Rule for iPad : The ultimate wife winner-over.

I could go on and on about each one but this is about the iPad.

Next on my list was music and surprisingly enough I still had room for the 1000+ songs I wanted to put on the device.

My wife was not impressed in the least with the iPhone, she hated how often I would go on it or look at something so the thought of a bigger iPhone like device was not her idea of a great purchase. That was before she held it and played with it, now she thinks it’s one of the coolest devices we own.

I am glad I got my iPad on day one and I do think it’s the revolutionary device it has been hyped up to be.

Here is her story

With the kids loaded up my wife heads over to pick up the iPad. She asked an employee where she could pick up the held iPad and was sent to two places before ending up at that wonderful nerd patrol counter where they were being held. At this point the nerd asks my wife “You do know what this is right?” at which my wife replied ” No I usually spend 500 dollars on things without having any idea what it is.”  and since the nerd in question doesn’t understand sarcasm he goes on to tell my wife that she NEEDS to buy the extended warranty and blah blah blah. So finally she gets it payed for sans warranty and tells my two year old he can hold daddies toy when they get into the car. This obviously infuriated said nerd to no end because he got real stern with my wife and said ” No No he cant play with that, don’t you know its GLASS.

So when I got home I was greated with an iPad and no my son didn’t break it as a matter of fact he has had more screen time with the iPad than I have.

I don’t consider myself a newshound, but I do like to be in the know.  I keep an eye on Wiki trends, Twitter trends and get weather and breaking news updates by SMS.   

Anytime a story about the iPhone or BlackBerry comes out, I want to know.  Plus, there are artists, authors, and actors I’m a little ashamed to say I know more about than I probably should. 

RSS feeds are a good way to stay on top of those tidbits and I have three such apps that I rotate among depending on the features included in their latest updates.  But as good as RSS is, it’s a pain to have to mine through 1000+ articles to find that small handful of gems worth my time to read.  

That’s where NewsAlert can be a handy app to have.

If an RSS app is a scalpel, cutting away extraneous stories of little interest to you, then NewsAlert is a high-powered laser allowing you to hone in on what truly matters. With it, you can specify by keyword (choose up to 10 keywords with the initial purchase cost, with the option to buy more) the news issues and topics you want to read about.  Once a keyword is chosen, whenever a story with that keyword is released on the web, you’ll receive a notification. 

The degree of customization is impressive.  You can specify the news sources you don’t want to hear from, the times you want to receive push notifications as well as the total number you wish to receive in a day.  

The app is simple to set up, does what it’s designed to do and quickly became a valuable resource.  It allowed me to keep tabs on issues that don’t often break through the typical news cycle.  

NewsAlert is currently on sale for $.99, so if you’re even slightly interested, snap it up now before the price returns to $2.99.

iTunes Link – NewsAlert

Version 1.3

Tested on an iPod Touch 3.1.3

UPDATE: This is now $.99, not free

Have you ever wanted to be a penguin? Have you ever wanted to bounce on snowflakes up to outer space? Have you ever wanted to be a penguin that bounces on snowflakes to outer space? If you answered, “Yes,” to any of those questions, read on! And if you didn’t, you should still read this review.

In Penguin Bounce, an app designed by screensmudge, you are a cute penguin who lives on an ice berg. You try to bounce on snowflakes higher and higher to obtain the best high score before falling safely to your cozy little ice berg. This game seems like a spin off of the game Doodle Jump, but in this game you control your penguin by swiping your finger to the left or right.

Being free, I would recommend this game for any penguin lover, snowflake lover, or Nutcracker lover (the background music is from the Nutcracker). So check out this game in the App store today.

iTunes Link – Penguin Bounce

Version 1.0

Reviewed on iPhone 3GS OS 3.1.2

I once read that in the lobby of Google’s Corporate Headquarters (the so-called Googleplex) are a series of projector screens that show real time aggregated data on active Google searches around the world.  That struck me as an interesting concept, one I thought- for the briefest of moments- would be kind of cool to see in person.

Although the average person may never set eyes on the Googleplex (beyond those exaggerated pics we’ve all gotten via email), we do have resources available that will allow us to see what people all over the world are reading and searching for on the web.

That’s where WikiTrend, from Oooo Software, comes in.  WikiTrend is an app that will allow you to track trend information on Wikipedia.  It will provide a listing of the top recent Wiki hits as well as the top recent Wiki movers. 

If you’re the kind of person who finds him- or herself constantly checking your trend page on Twitter to see what people are talking about, this is the app for you.  If you’re someone who likes to follow the news or wants to go deeper and explore the details behind the headlines, this is the app for you. WikiTrend updates every hour, so you can be reasonably sure that the information you have before you is current and not yesterday’s trends.  And if there’s a topic that you want to gather more information about or explore in more depth, simply click the arrow beside the topic and the app will open the Wikipedia page that addresses the topic in question. 

I was intrigued by this app, if only for the fact that I do try to stay connected with the news of the day via text messages and email from a variety of news agencies.  

I think there are a few things that might be added to further enhance this app.    There aren’t a lot of layers to WikiTrend, meaning that it’s pretty much a what you see is what you get kind of app.  That’s ok, but it does leave a lot to the user to determine and conclude without a lot of data.  For example, this weekend, most of the trending topics have to do with the Olympics or Valentine’s Day.  But determining exactly why can be a challenge.  It would be good to incorporate a brief summary statement for each listed topic so that the user wouldn’t have to guess why an item is trending.  In addition, it would be nice to see this app incorporate trend information from other social networking or bookmarking sites.  Trend information from Twitter, Google, or Yahoo, for example, would be great.  It would be interesting to see the degree to which trends across sites are in agreement. 

But that might be too far outside the scope of an app called WikiTrend that focuses on Wikipedia data. 

Also, it would be good to have fresher trend information.  Hourly updates aren’t a bad start, but a lot can change over the course of an hour.  Stock data is generally down to a 20 minute delay and I think that 20 or 30 minute updates in trend info would be great. 

The bottom line is that if you’re interested in following Wikipedia trends and being aware of what everyone’s talking about, WikiTrend is the app for you.  At .99 cents, it’s not a bad investment at all. 

iTunes Link-  WikiTrend

Version 1.0.0 

Tested on iPod Touch 3.1.2 

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

 

 

Day 1: Well, I’ve always liked destroying buildings. So when Mommy told me about an opening at a local building destruction business ran by iauns (the foreman is part of her book club, and they meet on the third Tuesday of every month for discussion and scones), I reasoned that I was the person for the job. And I don’t think I had any plans for my life, anyways.

Day 2: I did not know a stick of TNT cost only one dollar. Must be that blasted economy.

Day 3: I was given a few tutorial levels to start with, but I ended up making the intern do them while I supervised. Apparently, the buildings I’m knocking down are just pieces of wood stacked on top of each other. I think I could have taken them down with a good shove.

Day 4: Foreman gave me a stack of one dollar bills and told me to go blow out building number four. I used one stick of TNT to do the deed, and then hid the rest in my truck. You can’t get one dollar TNT anywhere, you know.

Day 5: I found out I could rig TNT to explode at a later or earlier time. I guess that’s useful, if I ever came across a building that took more than one stick of explosive to bring down.

Day 6: Given a new type explosive to use. My foreman is impressed with my work, and I’ve been making sure to give that intern plenty of field experience. The kid’s rather sharp, you know. I haven’t heard from him in a while though. I hope he’s finished my dry cleaning.

Day 7: Buildings are getting kind of challenging, especially after the intern left. But it’s not like I needed him anyways. I’m starting to rethink wasting my extraordinary talents on a job as mundane as this.

Day 8: I slid my resignation under foreman’s door, and then went home, retreating back into the recesses of my parents’ basement. I still think I have that car full of TNT, though.

-

I’ve spent nearly a week (that just tells you how much I’ve procrastinated in getting this review out) constantly playing this game, and I’ve barely made a dent in it.

The ability to control the falling blocks (to an extent) with the accelerometer is clever, and I enjoy being able to rig bombs to explode at different times. The strategy of buying bombs is also present, as bigger bombs cost more and become less efficient, but are sometimes necessary. And it’s just fun to fill up a building with 60 sticks of $1 dollar TNT and compare it to a building with a single mother-hen bomb.

The campaign of the game is gigantic, filled with several pages of structures to demolish. Progressively harder buildings are made out of some sturdier stuff and are much more difficult, requiring increasingly clever tactics in order to meet your status quo.

I’m always a fan of being able to generate your own game content, and iDemolished has a neat feature that allows the creation of your own to-be-obliterated buildings. The building creation interface is slightly intimidating and confusing at first, but after sifting through all the stuff, it’s pretty intuitive. And it’s a lot of fun making things and blowing them up.

iDemolished is a fantastic game, having the unique ability to keep a gamer enthralled for hours (which is good for the game, but not so great for my sleeping habits, or battery life). The game is streamlined and high quality, and I haven’t had any problem with the crashing or bugs that plagues other promising apps.

For those looking for a pyrotechnic fix, iDemolished is a great way to spend that dollar (well, other than on $1 TNT, of course. But where can you find that, these days?)