iPhone App Reviews

iBombSquad

Jay | Aug 24, 2009 Games

User rating: (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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It’s an all too cliché scene: Our hero is in front of an explosive device furiously ticking down in that soulless “beep, beep, beep.” It’s almost been disarmed, averting total disaster, but as the timer gets closer and closer to zero, only one choice remains: Cut the red wire or the blue wire? Whoa, calm down. This isn’t some 90’s action film, it’s iBombSquad, a new gaming app that allows players to do their best Keanu Reeves impression (The first one that came to mind because I watched “Speed” last weekend) as they remove wires without setting off the ticking time bomb on their screen.

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Tags: $.99, Entertainment, Games

Funtoxication

Jay | Aug 19, 2009 Games

User rating: (5 votes, average: 4.20 out of 5)

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Alcohol and monkeys. Need I say more? For those of us that have ever been drinking and thought, “I drunk how wonder I am?” (thank you) now there’s an app for that. Enter: Funtoxication. A great new app that helps measure a person’s BAC (blood alcohol content) through tracking drink consumption, offers fun monkey themed games to measure sobriety and even finds you a taxi in case you need a ride home or better yet, the next bar.

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Tags: $.99, drinking, Entertainment, Games

FingerBeat

T.J. Brumfield | Jul 19, 2009 Music

User rating: (3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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I have the music talent of William Hung. And frankly I might be insulting William Hung with that comparison. But the Elionze Group have put together a music app simple enough for even me to make music, yet powerful enough to put together some great loops, exactly how you want them.

I’m talking about FingerBeat. At first I was expecting a fairly simple finger drum app. With some apps I download and play with from the App Store, I have to lower my expectations when it comes to features. I have to remind myself that this is a cheap app often made by a single developer, or a small team in a short period of time. FingerBeat is one of the rare apps I’ve downloaded over the past few weeks that really exceeded my expectations when it came to features.

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Tags: $3.99, Entertainment, Music, T. J. Brumfield

Paint Studio

T.J. Brumfield | Jul 17, 2009 Entertainment

User rating: (2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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There are some amazing iPhone artists out there. Some were even featured in the New York Times. I’m not one of them. In fact I butcher and do great disservice to stick figures. That being said, Marie wanted a review on Paint Studio. So Marie is getting a review of Paint Studio.

Impetus has put together a simple paint program that is very easy to use. It doesn’t have complex brush types such as Brushes (the app that was featured in New York times, and used to draw a cover for The New Yorker) but it does have a few unique features. It also costs 40% of what Brushes costs.

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Tags: $1.99, Entertainment, paint, T. J. Brumfield

July 4th – Independence Day

Chrisa | Jul 1, 2009 Entertainment, Reference

User rating: (2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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This coming Sunday, we will celebrate the third anniversary of my 39th birthday – please, no gifts, unless they come in small blue boxes tied with white ribbon.  But more importantly to most, on Saturday we will celebrate the 233rd anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 

In honor of this occasion, the gang at Core Coders Ltd. have created July 4th – Independence Day, a patriotic little application that entertains and informs us on this most American of holidays.

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Tags: $0.99, Entertainment, Reference

Pub Trivia

Chrisa | Jun 23, 2009 Entertainment, Games

User rating: (4 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)

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I’m back!  D’ya miss me?  I missed you!  No, really – I did, I’m not just saying it. 

I would have been back sooner if it wasn’t for the completely mindless waste of time that I’ve been sucked in to – yeah, ok, Mafia Wars (shout out to my amazing and ever-expanding crew) – but also, Pub Trivia by GeoTeam Games. 

My mind is a vast wasteland of useless trivia, thanks to my 11th grade history teacher, who started each day with a trivia question.  It stuck with me, and I have been a fan of random bits of information ever since.  For example, did you know that Nepal is the only country in the world whose flag is NOT rectangular?  Why do I need to know that?

Pub Trivia is an outlet for the flotsam and jetsam running around in my brain.   It works just like Buzztime, the bar trivia game you may have played at your local drinking establishment.  Log in with a user name and location and join in the fun, answering trivia questions.  Each question has four possible answers and, as times ticks by, possible answers are eliminated.  But so are points.  Score 150 if you get the answer right before an option is eliminated, 100 if one possible is eliminated, 50 if two, and zero if three.  Of course, if you guess wrong, you lose points. 

Pub Trivia will even assign you to a team, based on your geographical location, to compete against other trivia buffs online at the same time.  Teams, obviously, fare better than individuals in overall scoring domination.  Once a game of 10 trivia questions is concluded, the app shows you the score board, where you place as an individual player, where your team places, and where you placed as a team contributor. 

Overall, a fun little app for a tiny little price.  Plunk down your cash and watch your time get sucked into a vortex.  Enjoy!

Tags: $0.99, Entertainment, trivia

Monsters Vs. Aliens

Chrisa | Apr 10, 2009 Games

User rating: (2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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I have kids, but they are all teenagers now, so I’m spared having to see every kids movie that comes out – finally.  I have nothing against really good animated movies, but, thank jeebus, I was spared Beverly Hills Chihuahua.  I have been intrigued with Dreamworks new Monsters vs. Aliens, out in theaters now, so I thought I’d get a little preview by trying out AvatarLabs application based on the film.

It’s actually a load of fun.  There are lots of things to do.  My favorite is to play with B.O.B., the big blue blob of goo voiced in the film and the app by Seth Rogen.  Load up B.O.B. and perform some common iPhone moves, like shaking him, swiping over him, and poking  him, and see him react.  The reactions and what he says changes each time, so it’s not like you do each thing once and then  get bored because he says the same thing every time.

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Tags: $0.99, Entertainment, Games

Dog Thoughts

Chrisa | Mar 20, 2009 App Sale Alert, Entertainment

User rating: (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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I am a huge dog person – you know this, if you’ve read my reviews.  I don’t just prefer them to cats, I would feed a cat to a dog rather than have a cat live in my home.  I have a bumper sticker that says, “Cat – the other white meat.”  Cats suck.  That being said,  I will gravitate towards anything that has anything even remotely to do with dogs.  So no wonder I gravitated towards Dog Thoughts, by Smooth Edge Design. 

It’s a cute little app, that lets you either take a photo of your pooch, or use a photo in your album (of which I have several).  Then you can resize the photo to your liking, shake your iPod, and a thought that may be what was in your slobbering pup’s head at the time the photo was taken is displayed at the bottom.  Don’t like that thought?  Shake again – there are over 100 different thoughts that rotate.  You can even edit thoughts to add your own phrases. 

Once you’ve found the thought that goes with the photo, you can save it to the gallery, and use it as wallpaper, email attachment, whatever.  I played with this application for about an hour straight with a pooch on my lap, and it was fun, but, honestly, I lost interest after about an hour.  My 13-year-old daughter, on the other hand, thought this was the greatest thing since sliced bread.  She emailed photos of her pups to everyone she knows, with different, cute little phrases on the bottom.   I think the tweener market is probably spot-on for this kind of dalliance.  If I had one criticism, it would be that you can’t save a photo in the app – you must take or select a photo every time you use it, but it’s easy to select a photo from the gallery, so that’s only a minor beef.

The graphics in the app are not only adorable, the quality and design is fabulous.  You can tell this developer’s primary business is web site design.  Dog Thoughts is on sale right now, too, just a mere $0.99, but the developer was nice enough to share some free codes so you can try it for yourself – or your tweener. 

Tags: $0.99, Entertainment

20 Questions

Chrisa | Mar 5, 2009 Games

User rating: (6 votes, average: 2.83 out of 5)

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Here’s a snapshot of a day in my life:

“Mom, where’s my coat?”

“Honey, am I supposed to pick up the dry cleaning?”

“Have you read my memo on search engine optimization?”

“Mom, why do I have to shower EVERY day?”

So you might wonder if I’m insane or just conditioned to play a game of 20 Questions.  I like to think it’s the latter, but several friends, at least one family member, and a licensed member of the state medical board say it’s the former.   And not just for playing 20 questions.  But, as usual, I digress.

20 Questions is a cute little game from inZania, the same folks that brought us Study Arcade and Mad Libs, both of which I find a ton of fun.  And 20 Questions is fun too.  I don’t have to explain how the game is played…do I?  Really?  Fine – it’s the same game you’ve played in the car with your parents on road trips, and the little electronic version that you may have seen.  You think of something, and the game tries to read your mind, and has 20 questions to ask before guessing the answer.

This game asks all the questions you’d expect (like, is it animal, vegetable, or mineral as question 1), and continues to ask questions until it has to guess.  If the game guesses at question 20 and gets it wrong, it gives the player the option to continue for another 5-10 questions to try and guess and learn.  If the game guesses wrong, it asks you to type in the correct answer so it can learn from its mistakes.  The game needs an internet connection because it uses a “brain” on the ‘net to not only figure out what the next question should be, but also to learn what the right answer should have been.

The graphics of the little Magic 8 Ball (that’s what I call him) are clever, and change expression along with his guesses and the game results.  For a simple game, it is engaging, and I think the Magic 8 Ball guy they created helped to draw me in and keep me entertained.  I played for 30 minutes straight yesterday while waiting for and appointment with the vet, and my kids played it last night and thought it was a fun way to pass the time. 

I will say that it only guessed right about 40% of the time, but this is a new game, and if it is truly learning, then I expect the accuracy rating to go up.  The $2.99 pricetag may be a little steep for a game that is so simplistic, but it’s a game that doesn’t have levels that you conquer and then get bored with, and it’s a different game every time you play it, assuming you don’t always think of the same object.  With as much time as I spend waiting for delayed airplanes, I think 20 Questions will help make that time more bearable.

Tags: $2.99, Entertainment, Games

IQ Test

Chrisa | Mar 2, 2009 Entertainment, Lifestyle, Uncategorized

User rating: (6 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)

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I like to think of myself as intelligent.  I can read and write in more than one language, and my checkbook is balanced, after all.   I’m pretty sure I’m smarter than a 5th grader, but I don’t know if I’m as smart as Geena Davis.   So IQ Test by Max Voloshin gave me the opportunity to gauge just how smart I really am, versus just how smart I think I am. 

This IQ test is different from others I’ve seen, in that it is based mainly on patterns, and the user’s ability to pick the next logical item to continue the pattern from a list of choices.  According to the developer, it is based on Professor Hans Eysenck’s work and, since I’m not familiar with Prof. Eysenck, I looked him up on Wikipedia.  After I read up, I realized anyone who’s taken Psych 101 is at least somewhat familiar with his work.  Prof. Eysenck was a British psychologist who argued the genetics of intelligence and personality – and got famously punched in the nose debating this point.  Gotta love a guy who’ll take it on the schnozz for his beliefs. 

Whether this IQ test conforms to the good professor’s test or not, I can’t say.  I can say that this test is timed – you get 40 minutes to complete the test, and I suggest you be sure you have 40 minutes to do it before you start, because you can’t start and stop and start from where you left off.   I can also say that the graphics are well done, and you can have more than one person take the test and compare your scores. 

If you’re interested in an IQ test, for $0.99, this isn’t a bad one.  And I’m not just saying that because it pegged my IQ at 137.  After all, according to the scoring scale, that makes me not as smart as Sharon Stone.  At least I’m smarter than Mike Tyson.

Tags: $0.99, Entertainment, Lifestyle

Lip Service

Chrisa | Feb 5, 2009 Entertainment

User rating: (No Ratings Yet)

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Being the lippy broad that I am, I have been known on occasion to tell folks, “When I want you’re opinion, I’ll give it to you.”  And finally, there’s an iPhone application that lets me do just that – insert my opinion into the mouths of those who should obey it, as if they were my own personal Charley McCarthy.  If you don’t know who Charley McCarthy was, you’re either under 30 or under heavy sedation. 

Lip Service by Deepwell Software lets you either take a photo or use an existing photo of some unsuspecting sap, put cartoony lips on them, and record something they should have been smart enough to say on their own.  There are lots of goofy lips to choose from, and once you create your schtick, you can even email it to your victim and everyone he or she has ever met, for their own personal amusement. 

It’s easy to use, and for $0.99, it’s cheap fun.  Just be careful who you make fun of – at this price, they’ll buy it and get you right back.

Tags: $0.99, Entertainment, fun

iAmbigram Lite

Chrisa | Jan 30, 2009 Entertainment, Utilities, Wallpapers

User rating: (3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)

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Ambigram.  Noun.  A design that may be read as the same word or phrase – or sometimes as two different words or phrases – oriented in two different ways.  That is, more or less, the definition of an ambigram, according to Webster’s Dictionary.

I like ambigrams, always have.  I have an ambigram as a tattoo.  So when I found iAmbigram Lite, I was pretty happy to give it a spin, pun intended.  It’s an inexpensive little application, and, I am told, a lighter version of a full iAmbigram to come.  The lite version lacks the ability to upload the ambigram you create and purchase it on clothing or other items.  And I can live without that.

It works pretty easily – enter two words, and it will create an ambigram of them.  If you want just one word that rotates on itself, enter the same word on both lines.  They app then uploads to the “ambigram server,” or so it says, and returns your ambigram for you to rotate and spin over and over and over.  If you don’t know what words to use, there are suggestions in several categories, like opposites, family, etc.   Once you create your ambigram, you can try spinning it and inverting it to see how it looks.  When you’re happy, click “accept” and see your ambigram on one of three different backgrounds.   The “i’nformation icon in the upper corner brings up a menu that lets you save your ambigram in the photo gallery, change the background, or start over.

But – there’s a catch.  iAmbigram Lite only allows you to create two ambigrams for your $0.99.  That’s all.  So if you’re someone like me, you’ll have used up the app after about three minutes of playing around with it.  A suggestion for the developer – make it free while it has its limitations, then charge for it when it’s the full version.  Hook ‘em, THEN charge ‘em, man, like heroin. 

So, iAmbigram Lite was fun, but short-lived fun.  I’d suggest you save your dollar and wait for the full version.

Tags: $0.99, Entertainment, Utilities, Wallpapers