PixPo Dogs App Forum Review by llofte. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

Do you like matching games and adorable dogs? If so, then PixPop Dogs [$0.99 - iTunes link] may be the game for you. This is jigsaw puzzle type game that is fun, addicting, competitive, and just plain cute!

Game Play

The objective of PixPop is simple – pop the tokens on the right by matching them with the big picture. Tapping on the big picture will place a green square around your contact point. If it matches a token, just tap the token and it pops away. Once all the tokens are popped, you are given a new picture. Pop as many tokens as possible before time runs out. What makes PixPop challenging is when there are patterned objects or backgrounds such as blankets, fences, and grass. When playing in competition mode, you can submit your name and score to the Worldwide Scoreboard, otherwise, your score is only submitted locally.

During game play, the tokens may temporarily change colors, representing different point values. A blue token is worth 25 points, orange is 100 points, and a glowing token adds an extra 300 points.

Tapping hints on the lower left corner will move the green token to the spot that matches the bottom token. Use hints wisely, as you are only given 5 per game.

On the upper right of the screen next to your score, there is a brightness button. Tapping this will brighten the photo which helps with the darker areas of the picture where it’s hard to see details.

Menu/Options

Setup – There are two modes of play, Competition and Zen. In Competition Mode, everything is fixed and you can submit your score to the Worldwide Scoreboard. In Zen Mode, you can adjust the time (10s-eternity), matches per picture (3-20), hints per game (1-20), and square size (50-80).

Tips – This is where you learn how to play and are provided with contact information.

Credits – Here is where Spinapse gives credit to those who provided the images for PixPop Dogs.

Scores – There are 3 scoreboards, Latest Wordwide (today’s scores), All Time Wordwide (I’m #21 =D), and Local.

More – This is where you can find more apps from Spinapse with links to the App Store.

Conclusion

PixPop Dogs is a great game for kids and adults alike. If cute and adorable doggies isn’t your cup of tea, Spinapse also offers PixPop Extreme Sports, PixPop Around the World, PixPop Art, and PixPop Cats. So pick your favorite category, get to poppin’, and let us know what you think!

Pros

• Fun and addicting
• Great photos
• Good for both kids and adults
• Developers periodically update the app with more photos

Cons

• Can’t think of any!

TiPb Review Ranking

IM+ Forum Review by llofte. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

IM+ is an IM client with push notification support for 10 networks, including Twitter. I use AIM, Facebook, and Twitter, so these are the only networks that influence this review.

Design and Use

The design of IM+ is nice and intuitive. The bottom toolbar has tabs for contacts, inbox, favorites, status, and more. Under the contacts tab you will find find a list of your contacts organized by account, group name, or no group (selected in settings). If no group organization is chosen, then your contact list will by organized alphabetically based on availability. So, the top of your list will show available contacts, then idle or away contacts. At the bottom, offline contacts are treated as a separate group. There is an option to have offline contacts hidden.

Tapping a contact will open a chat window with that contact. If there is a previous conversation stored on IM+, then the window will include that conversation.

To the right of of every contact, there is an “i” to find more information. Tapping this will display the status of the contact, their user ID, as well as the ability to add to favorites, rename, and delete (provided that the IM service associated with the contact allows).

The inbox contains all current and past conversations. If a twitter account is enabled, then @replies and direct messages are treated as their own separate conversations. It is not possible to have twitter conversations treated as a conversation in IM+; only incoming messages are shown in the @reply and DM threads. Conversations can be easily deleted from the inbox with a tap of the edit button.

When writing a message, there is a smiley face on the left and a keyboard on the right of the text field. Tapping the smiley gives a list of symbols (mostly smileys) that you can insert into the message. Be careful with these though, if the receiving client doesn’t recognize a symbol, it will be displayed in text form, or worse, a smiley face with some symbols attached.

Tapping the keyboard symbol collapses the keyboard and the smiley face converts to an upload symbol. From here you can send your location, a picture, or voice message. You have to be careful with this too because once you make a choice, it sends without confirmation. This is a major problem, in my opinion. I attempted to send a DM tweet with my location and IM+ ignored the text and sent my location as a public tweet! I’m just glad I was at Starbucks and not my house! This also means that text cannot be included with any media type. All media gets sent as a link. Pictures and voice memos are hosted by IM+ and GPS locations send a link to GPSed.com. It would be nice if the link launched Google maps on an iPhone so the recipient could quickly get directions, but it doesn’t.

All links are opened in the built-in browser of IM+. This browser is very cool as it not only allows for reading and navigating through websites provided by links, but you can use it to visit any site by typing the web address into the text field at the top. This is very convenient for those times someone starts an IM conversation when browsing Safari. Just copy the URL before exiting Safari, launch IM+, paste the URL into the browser and quickly tab between conversation and browser. When your conversation is over, just tap the globe at the upper right of the browser to open the current page in Safari. Awesome.

Next is the favorites tab. This is simply a list of contacts that have been marked as favorites. You can add or delete contacts from this list and see more information about them, just as in the contact list.

The status tab is where you can choose your status message (for supporting networks). There are 6 options, Online, On iPhone with IM+, I am here (with link to GPS location), Away, Invisible, and Offline. To add a custom status message or edit the pre-existing ones, just tap edit.

The more tab gives access to your accounts, settings, and in-app web browser.

Twitter

IM+ is not intended to be used as a primary Twitter client, but makes for a great secondary client. It’s convenient to be able to access twitter while holding an IM conversation without having to go back and forth between two apps. Reading tweets on IM+ goes against the conventional style of most recent on top, but this doesn’t bother me because I find uniformity within an app to be important and it doesn’t make sense for normal IM to read like Twitter.

What makes Twitter so great on IM+ is of course push notification. All DMs and @mentions get pushed within 4 minutes of being sent. Ideally, they would arrive faster, but 4 minutes isn’t too bad. The problem with Twitter push on IM+ is that there is no way to choose what you want pushed. It is also a little glitchy and randomly pushes tweets from your timeline that aren’t directed at you. It’s not horribly intrusive as I’ve probably only had at most 5 in a day get through, but it needs to be fixed.

Conclusion

IM+ is very well designed. Although the implemenation of Twitter push is not perfect, it’s a decent first attempt and I trust it will only get better with updates. The advantage of using IM+ is that you can use twitter, hold multiple IM conversations, and browse the web all within one application. At $9.99, IM+ is not cheap, but competive with Beejive. Version 3.2 has been submitted and is in review with Apple, so SHAPE Services has decided to lower the price to $4.99 until release; so if IM+ is something you’re interested in, snatch it up quick and let us know what you think!

Pros

• Push notification for Twitter
• Support for 10 networks
• Basic IM push is flawless
• In-app web browser
• Favorites

Cons

• Twitter push
• Cannot name accounts
• Not all avatars show
• Only one twitter account is supported
• GPS links don’t launch google maps

TiPb Review Rating

IM+ is available for $4.99 from the iTunes App Store.

(Peggle Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!)

With all the talk recently about Peggle, I was surprised that it hasn’t been reviewed (although it did get a “quick app” and a pick of the week) so I thought I would download and give it a try. And, well, Peggle has managed to crack my “regular game rotation” that currently consists of only a few other games.

Let me start by saying that as Peggle loads, they took a page from The Sims and actually make you want to read the loading messages.

Peggle is a game based on skill and luck, similar to Pachinko. Your goal is to shoot balls into a pachinko-style board with “pegs”, trying to remove all the orange pegs and blocks within a certain number of shots. You can have various power up abilities, lucky shots or skill shots increase your score, and you can earn extra balls by “saving” your ball as it falls or by scoring a certain number of points within a shot. The enjoyment on Peggle comes from two main factors in my mind – the various power up abilities and the variety of boards.

If you start playing in adventure mode, you are led through the game by ten “masters”, each of whom has a different power up ability. As they guide you through the game, they teach you the details and the best ways to use their abilities. Once you finish with them, you go back through the same levels with the option of choosing the power up ability you want for each board.

The second biggest positive from the game is the variety of boards. You start off with a simple pachinko style board, but they gradually become more and more complex – with bumpers, with moving parts, with time warps, etc. Each level has specific characteristics that make it challenging, so no two levels will be played the same way. As your progress through the adventure mode, you get various trophies to add to your collection (I am currently running through them the second time in “Master” mode).

There are other game modes as well. Quick play lets you choose a level to play by itself. Challenge mode lets you play a specific levle with a specific challenge (beat a certain number of points, more orange pegs than normal, etc). And dual mode is a two play battle where you play on the same board against either the computer or a friend. Unfortunately, the dual mode is a “pass the iPhone” multiplayer so you can’t play via wifi. I was also hoping to see a direct battle where you are both shooting balls at the same time (and can interfere with each other) but that doesn’t happen.

Let me just add, when you finish a level, they play Ode to Joy. There nothing quite like having that blast from your iPhone to actually make you feel like you have accomplished something! The game can be replayed multiple time because the placement of the orange pegs (as well as the various power-up and other pegs) are randomized so your strategy can vary even when replaying the same level!

Conclusion

All in all, this is really a great game. Aside from the few minor wishes I had for multiplayer, I could find nothing wrong with this game, and it has “earned” a spot on my permanent rotation of games. At $4.99, the price isn’t cheap, but it is well worth it for a game that can be played over and over.

Pros:

• Good puzzle/arcade game
• Involves strategy and luck
• Lots of replay-ability
• Has a two player mode
• Multiple play modes

Cons

• Two player mode is only “pass the iPhone”, no wifi

TiPb Review Rating

[Peggle is available for $4.99 via the iTunes App Store]

Zen Jar looks like an interesting experiment in social networking. You write something, send it off into the iPhone inter-ether, and see what karma — good or bad — other users ascribe to it. Personally, I prefer the direct bludgeoning I take for ill-conceived comments on Twitter, but for those tiring of the same-old micro-blogging, status-updating experience, Zen Jar is certainly an alternative. It comes in Lite (Free – iTunes link) and Paid ($0.99 – iTunes link), and you can check out Bela’s review in our iPhone Apps & Games forum for more.

If you give it a whirl, let us know how your karma turns out — mellow harshened, or child-like sense of wonder restored?

Namaste!

Twittelator Pro Forum Review by llofte. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

Twittelator Pro is a twitter client with support for multiple accounts. It is beautifully designed and feature packed to make your mobile twitter experience quick and enjoyable. It would take a book to review each and every feature of Twittelator Pro, so I will pick what I consider the highlights and direct you to Twittelator’s full feature list for more.

General Interface

Twittelator Pro has 3 different themes to chose from: Gradient, Dove, and Raven. Here are some screenshots demonstrating all three.

Big Stone Phone claims that each theme is ideal for different lighting conditions: Gradient for indoors, Dove for outdoors, and Raven for night.

The Tab Bar at the bottom has what you’d expect from any Twitter application: Friends, Mentions, Messages, Settings, and More. However, Twittelator distinguishes itself by making it customizable. When in the More tab, hit edit and you can now drag any item to any of the four locations next to “More”.

Reading Tweets

I absolutely adore the experience of reading tweets with Twittelator Pro. The above photo (stolen from Twittelator’s website) shows how much info is included with each tweet. Not shown in the picture, however, is that you can have both the username and real name of the tweeter displayed (as seen in my screenshots). This is great for people like me who want to see real names but are terrible at remembering usernames.

Tapping a user’s avatar brings you to their profile. If there were any other users mentioned in the tweet, then you will be asked who’s profile you want to view. The profile interface includes the typical info, including the option to follow or stop following. There is also a magnifying glass to quickly search for other screen names and what looks like a price tag to bookmark the user.

Tapping a username brings up a list of options for that tweet: reply, private, re-tweet, email tweet, copy tweet, favorite tweet, or copy link to tweet (more on copying later). You can save a tweet by tapping and holding for 2 seconds.

If there is a #hashtag or hyperlink included in a tweet, tapping the paperclip will take you to the the hash feed or website. When viewing a website, you can copy the link (again, more on this later). If there is a photo attached (with yFrog, Pikchur, TwitPic, MobyPicture, or twitgoo) there will be a thumbnail of it to the right. Tapping it will allow you to view it. When viewing an image, there is a little two-way arrow icon at the upper right which toggles between filling your screen vertically or horizontally. It’s nice to be able to view photos in full screen even if the photo wasn’t taken with an iPhone. Tapping on the photo will give an option to save it to your camera roll.

If there is a bubble around the time since the tweet was tweeted, then this indicates a conversation. Tapping the bubble will allow you to read the chain of replies. If there is not a bubble, then tapping the time opens a new @ reply to the tweeter.

Writing Tweets

Writing a tweet is an experience of its own with Twittelator Pro. There are many options, characters, and features that make writing tweets fast, easy, and fun. Twittelator does support landscape keyboard (and can be disabled from settings).

If you had previously copied a link or tweet, you can paste it into your tweet by tapping the bottle of glue. Even if you’ve exited the application, Twittelator Pro will remember what you have copied. To add a photo, tap the camera. Tapping the drop pin will add link to Google maps of your current location. Unfortunately, opening such a link will not launch the native Google maps application on the iPhone.

Underneath the current character count, you can tap on the icons to bring up 8 pages of characters. The characters are viewable with other twitter clients as well as on the web. Very cool.

At the upper right of the New Tweet screen, there is a button called “@friends”. Here you find a scrolling list of who you are following. Scroll to who you want to @mention, tap +, and Twittelator adds them to your tweet. I think this is a great feature, but feel as though it can be better. I only follow 93 people, and it can take awhile to scroll through the list. I can’t imagine if I was following 300+ users. I think something like Contacts with the alphabet on the side would be better. Ideally, I’d like to see an autofill feature.

Inside the tweet bubble, there is a # on the bottom right and two arrows facing each other on the bottom left. Tapping # will provide a scrolling list of all the #hashtags you have used before. Tapping the arrows will shrink your tweet (including URLS) with common abbreviations. This is nice for those situations when your tweet is 10 characters or so over the limit.

One of the coolest things I found about Twittelator Pro is the ability to tweet from Safari. First you must go into Twittelator’s settings and tap “Add Safari Bookmarklet”. This leads you to a website with the instructions for setting up this feature. It’s very simple – just save the page as a bookmark, then edit it by deleting the beginning of the URL. Once set up, just open the bookmark with Safari and it will launch Twittelator Pro with the URL of the website you were viewing added to a new tweet. Awesome!

Pressing Send does not immediately send your tweet. You are given the option to send, or save as draft. I do not like this, but luckily there is an option to disable it! If disabled, you must hit cancel to get the option to save the tweet. Twittelator Pro allows you to save as many drafts as you want. This is awesome for those times you don’t have reception, want to log a quick thought, or for iPod Touch users. If you have any saved drafts, you will see “tap for drafts” under “New Tweet”, so tapping here gives access to your drafts.

More

There is much more you can do with Twittelator Pro. Some of the highlights are:

• create subgroups
• view tweets of users you have bookmarked
• access saved tweets
• see just your tweets
• delete your tweets/messages
• play mp3 and video within Twittelator Pro
• search nearby tweets
• switch between accounts while creating a new tweet

Conclusion

Twittelator Pro is the best iPhone twitter client I have used. It is clear that the the developers put a lot of thought and effort into this app with its nice interface and many features. At $4.99, Twittelator Pro isn’t the cheapest client available, but it is worth every penny.

Pros

• Multiple accounts
• Auto-refresh
• Full-featured
• View conversations
• Link a page from Safari directly as a tweet (via bookmarklet)
• Copy/paste tweets and links

Cons

• GPS links do not launch Google maps

TiPb Review Rating

Twittelator Pro is available for $4.99 from the iTunes App Store.

Math Ref Forum Review by llofte. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

Math Ref is what its name implies – a math reference app. It includes formulas, tips, and examples from many areas of mathematics. Math Ref has the potential to be a very helpful tool once some errors are fixed and the organization becomes more intuitive.

General

Upon launching Math Ref, you are given a list of topics (described in more detail later). Tapping on a topic will give a list of sub-topics. Choosing one of these sub-topics will provide a page of definitions, formulas, figures, and equations relevant to the chosen topic. Tapping a definition, formula, figure, or equation will usually give more information about it. Many times this information is some historical background about the topic, which I think is great. The following screenshots show the sequence of Topics > Algebra > Exponential & Logs > Special Element 1.

This brings me to my first “complaint”. The description should technically say: “It is also important to note that any nonzero number raised to the power 0 is equal to 1.” However, I’m willing to agree that I’m just being picky.

Under each topic, there is also an option to view examples. These examples are generally written very well and do a good job of describing the steps that are taken. Just as with formulas, you can tap an example to find out more about it. Here’s the screenshots of a derivative example and it’s description.

Topics and Organization

Math Ref covers the following areas of mathematics:

• Algebra - addition & multiplication, exponential & logs, formulas, quadratic equation
• Geometry - lines, shapes (2D/3D), surfaces
• Trigonometry - functions, Pythagorean & ratio identity, laws of sines & cosines, double angle identities, half angle identities, sum & difference identities, composite identities, unit circle
• Linear Algebra - definition, addition & multiplication, properties, determinant, 2D transforms, eigenvectors
• Series & Sequences - definitions, properties, sums of powers, geometric, harmonic, alternating, telescoping, power, binomial, binomial coefficients, functions, taylor, Laurent
• Differentiation - definitions, methods, table of derivatives
• Integration - definition, properties, methods, numerical
• Table of Integrals - polynomial, trigonometric, inverse trigonometric, hyperbolic trigonometric, exponential & logarithmic
• Vector Calculus - definitions, dot product, cross product, coordinate conversions, differentials, gradient, divergence, curl
• Differential Equations - linear, separable, homogeneous, inhomogeneous, exact, Bernoulli, real repeated & complex, undermined coefficients, reduction of order
• Discrete - propositions, quantifiers, gates, sets, relations, permutations & combinations, induction

The next organization style that I don’t like is that lines are grouped under Geometry. I have not heard of a single geometry course that teaches how to find equations of lines. This is taught in algebra classes, and so lines should be in the Algebra topic.

The last thing about the layout I find disappointing is the fact that landscape mode generally doesn’t make a difference. It would be nice if landscape mode took advantage of the wider screen and increased the text size. Here’s a screenshot to show what I mean.

Errors/Confusion

I found a couple errors in MathRef and consider this terribly inexcusable. Users need to be able to trust that apps like this are actually providing them with accurate information. I’m concerned that there may be other errors that I did not notice.

• Under Discrete > Relations, you can find the definitions to surjective and injective. They are reversed! The definition they provide for surjective is actually the definition for injective. However, when you tap on surjective for more information, you are given the correct definition. The situation is similar for injective. Very confusing!
• Under Linear Algebra > Addition & Multiplication, the definition of matrix multiplication is technically correct, but incredibly vague and incomplete. When tapping for more information, it tells you that the size of the matrices are crucial, but never teaches what size matrices need to be when multiplying them. Matrix multiplication is defined by Math Ref as multiplying the columns of the first matrix with the rows of the second – but how does one multiply rows and columns and where does the answer go in the resulting matrix? All of this needs to be explained.
• Under Differentiation > Table of Derivates, the notation is confusing and simply incorrect. (d/dx) should be used instead of (dy/dx).
• Under Geometry > Shapes (2D/3D) the definitions and figures for the areas of regular polygons do not label what a is. Likely a student will remember that a represents the distance to the center, but there are two different distances with regular polygons – which one do we use?

Conclusion

Although my review has been primarily negative, I DO think this is a wonderful app. The things that are correct are done very well and the examples are helpful. I think after a few updates, Math Ref will be awesome. However, because of the errors and unintuitive & inefficient organization, I give Math Ref 3 out of 5 stars. (Fixing the errors alone will bring the score up to 4).

Pros

• Many examples with well written explanations
• Covers many areas of mathematics
• Lots of information

Cons

• Several errors or confusing definitions
• Landscape is generally the same format as portrait
• Some unintuitive and inefficient organization

TiPb Review Rating

Math Ref is available for $0.99 from the iTunes App Store.

(Photogene Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!)

Photogene is an iPhone “touch up” utlity that can be used to touch up or enhance photos you take with your iPhone.

First, what Photogene isn’t. It isn’t simply a series of filters that you can apply to photos. There are lots of apps out there that can apply a huge range of filters (oil painting, cartoon, black and white, sepia, posterize, etc). I have reviewed a couple of them. This app does have a few filters, but it is more about touching up photos (fine-tuning them, if you will) rather than simply applying a filter to make it “art”.

When you start the app, you can choose to take a new photo, edit an existing phot, or continue a previous session. This last option is particularly nice, it means the app “remembers” where you were and what you were doing. If you get interrupted, you don’t need to start over. One cool little thing is when you start the app, a “tip of the week” appears about taking photos with the iPhone. Normally I don’t like tips that appear like this, but I like it here because the tip is specific to using the iPhone camera (not just a general photography tip).

I was using a general photo of some mosquito cages when testing this app. The touch up features include a crop option, rotate option, three filters, color adjust, symbols, and frames. When you finish with your editing, you can save the photo or start over (take a new photo or edit a new photo). There is an undo button to undo the last edit, but there isn’t a complete “reset” button to undo all adjustments. I would like to see that in a future release. So let’s talk about the touch up features.

With the crop feature, you can choose to crop it with a specific ratio (3:4, 9:16, etc). The area that will be cropped appears highlighted on the picture, and you can resize it or move it around. One nice thing is that as your resizing the crop, you can see the pixel size that the new image will be – very useful. You can’t do a free-form crop however.

The rotate allows you to rotate the picture by 90% or flip the picture on an axis. If your image is at an angle, you can also do some slight angle adjustments to make it level.

The app comes with three filters – sharpen, pencil, and effect (which includes sepia, night vision, or infrared (heat vision). With sharpen and pencil, you can adjust the level of effect as well. Pencil is sort of cool, making your picture look like a pencil drawing. But as I said, this app isn’t about having 30 filters – it is mostly about touching up photos to make them as nice as possible.

Next we move onto color adjustment. Here, you can see the color histogram and either adjust it manually or automatically for the best color image. You can also adjust the exposure, contrast, saturation, color temperature, as the actual RGB levels. These are, in my opinion, the best features of this app because this is the area that really helps you touch up a picture to optimal quality.

You can add symbols like stars, word ballons (with text), arrows – about 13 symbols in all. These aren’t anything really that help the picture, but they can make a picture a little more entertaining.

Lastly, you can add a frame – ranging from a “blurred” frame that doesn’t have a distinct edge to more tradition picture frames to a stamp border or photo album “taped on the corners” frame. There are about 15 frames in all to choose from.

Working on a couple sample pictures, I was able to make some nice adjustments and really make some of the pictures shine. You are still working within the limitation of the iPhone camera, so pictures that are outdoors or in bright light are going to be the best, but you can really enhance some pictures that you might have throught were lost. The features like frames and symbols aren’t really that necessary, and I would have preferred more filters instead of having those, but they can be fun to add to some pictures.

Pros:

• Touch up iPhone pictures to make them shine

Cons:

• Some features don’t really add anything,
• no ability to completely reset a picture

All in all, this is a good, all around photo touch up tool for the iPhone. Rather than just rely on applying filters, you can make some manual adjustments to thingsl ike saturation and exposure to try to bring out the best in your pictures. Some of the effects don’t really add anything to the picture quality, but they might be fun to include in some pictures. There is no way to remove all the touchups at one, however – you have to reset each feature individually. But the color adjust can really make a picture shine. The app is $2.99, so the price is great if you use the iPhone camera a lot. Four and a half out of five stars.

TiPb Forum Review Rating

[http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=309327900&mt=8">Photogene is available for $2.99 via the iTunes App Store]

(MLB At Bat 2009 Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!)

Okay, I admit it, I am a die hard baseball fan. One of the first apps I bought last year was MLB At Bat, and when I heard it was coming out again, after a brief period of annoyance, I decided to purchase it again.

On a side note, I expect to see many more subscription based or “partial” purchase based apps with the new pricing methods in the app store. I don’t think it bodes well.

But anyway, I decided to get the app when I saw that this year it included the MLB Audio – radio broadcasts of the games. As a bonus, you get to choose the stream to listen to!

So how does it stack up?

I must say, very well.

When you start the app, you are presented with a screen showing the days games. The current score and inning are listed, and if you click on a game, you get a short highlight summary at the bottom of the screen (how many outs, who is pitching and batting, on base, etc). You can scroll through the various games. When a game is highlighted, you can click on “audio” and choose from either of the teams radio stream to listen to the game. Unfortunately, you can’t have it in the background (curse you iPhone) so you need to stay in the application in order to listen to the stream. If you click the blue arrow, you are taken to what I call the “game” menu.

The game menu is broken down into a variety of screens. The first one, gameday, shows you the current batter, pitch by pitch (with location) action of what is going on. You can also see the fielding situation (including dimensions for each stadium), the box score, the game summary, and of course video highlights (just like last year) by selecting the various tabs at the bottom. The video highlights are supposed to be better quality this year, but I always look at them when I am connected via wifi, so I have no problem with the quality. I wish they had more highlights to choose from (it seems that they are moslty focused on big hits). The video is not HD quality or like watching a movie, but it certainly is okay to watch for a ten-second highlight.

Back on the main screen, there is an additional button for “extras”. With Extras, you can look at additional MLB videos (like “A look at the ballparks of the last decade” and fantasy updates”). You can also look at the up to date standings, legal information, or be taken to the MLB.com website in safari. I wish they have other information like leaderboards, player stats, matchup information. It is all available at MLB.com, but I would think it would be easy to have it in the app itself (especially since if you leave the app, the audio stream is lost).

Out of curiosity, I tried watching the game-day play by play, watching a game on TV, and listening on the radio, just to see how it synced up. The radio had the longest lab, the TV was the fastest, but evne then it was only about one pitch behind.

Pros:

• Audio!
• Gameday effects are nice,
• lots of options for “in game” status

Cons:

• Lacking some basic statistical information,
• some video highlights seem to be sparse (for some teams)

Conclusion

All in all, for baseball fans on the road, this is almost a must-have app. The price ($9.99) is not cheap, but it is very reasonable compared to what they charge for Gameday audio online. I wish they have video highlights for every half inning or so, rather than just having (at times) one or two per game. I also wish they have more reference and statistical information. But this is a great app for following a team when you are on the road – just make sure you have your car charger! Most of the stuff I found lacking were things that don’t really detract from the app, but rather things that would put the app over the top.

TiPb Forum Review Rating

[MLB At Bat 2009 is available via the iTunes App Store]

ReaddleDocs Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!)

ReaddleDocs is a document viewer that basically covers all the ways of getting the document onto you iPhone – so there is no way that you cannot have your documents on hand.

When you purchase ReaddleDocs, you also receive 512MB of storage space on their server. This allows you to upload any documents to the server via any browser and then sync them with you iPhone via any data connection (EDGE/3G/WIFI).

When you tap on the “Online” tab, you select the server you want to connect to and then you have the ability to sync with the server so that any new documents that you have retrieved via the iPhone will backup to your server and vice versa.

Besides using your Readdle Storage space, you can also connect to your MobileMe iDisk or connect to a WebDAV enabled server.

A second way of getting documents onto your iPhone is by forwarding your attached document in an e-mail to you ReaddleDocs e-mail address (given to you when you create your online account). Then, again, you sync you iPhone with your account.

A third way, is to use the built-in browser and navigate to a document then tap on a button to download the document to your iPhone.

A fourth and final way is to transfer the documents from your computer to your iPhone via WiFi.

When viewing your documents, you can edit them – delete, move, create folders, rename folders, rename documents, mail documents, and add a document to a zip achieve.

All documents that can normally be viewed on the iPhone can be viewed via this application as well.

I really like the icons that it uses to represent the type of file (red icon for pdf files, blue icon to doc files, etc.)

Interface

Within the app you can view all your documents, view your online documents (through whichever server,) use the browser, view recently opened files and adjust settings for the app.

I think for the most part those screen are self-explanatory.

I also like the document “reader” interface. When viewing files such as *.doc, *.rtf, the viewer is simple – you can scroll through your document like you would in the iPhone document viewer, however, you have and “add” button at the top, which allows you to insert bookmarks for that document. I find this incredibly convenient when reading a large document or e-book. The toolbar at the bottom of the screen allows you to view and edit bookmarks, e-mail the document, scroll through a document quickly using the slider and a full screen button.

If you turn the iPhone to the landscape position, it automatically goes to full-screen and rotates the document accordingly.

When viewing an *.xls document, you have all the same features as above. At the top of the document, you can change between the sheets. You might also notice that when switching between sheets, arrows will appear at the bottom of the screen. These arrows are much like the arrows you would use in the browser.

When viewing images, you can view them much like you would in your photo reel, just tap the arrows to move through the pictures within that folder. You can also mail the documents via this image viewer.

Besides viewing and retrieving documents, you can also view the device photos (which might prove a faster way of delete picture on your iPhone if you have to do it that way.)

Settings

In the setting screen, you have the ability to view or hide the “device photos” folder, setup mail settings – mail from and mail signature; allow WiFi network drive and apply username and password; several different viewing options including “view HTML as book”; you can also enable a passcode lock; and setup the document encoding.

Issues Encountered

There is no way to move the images to your iPhone photo reel or set as wallpaper functions, while the picture is on my iPhone in a sense, I cannot actually do anything with it unless I email it to myself and do it that way. I don’t always have a data connection when I am traveling so it would be nice to move the images over to do what I wish with them. When viewing the a PowerPoint document, the slides seems to form one large “page” (see screen shot).

Conclusion

In my opinion the Pros out weigh the Cons and the price tag of $9.99 is completely worth it. To have the ability of getting my document on my hand held and having them at my finger tips is worth it. I was on a film set when I was asked to operate a Sony F900 camera. Luckily, I was able to go to a website using the browser interface and download the manual on my iPhone and had the ability to quickly skim through it and figure out how to use the camera.

Pros

• Multiple ways of retrieving documents onto your iPhone
• 512MB of server storage
• nice document viewer
• document logos make finding documents easier
• Ability to sync iPhone with server & vice versa
• Book marking in documents

Cons

• In doc viewer, tapping bottom of screen makes doc auto scroll, can be annoying at times
• Can’t handle large documents (over about 8MB)
• Viewing *.xls (or of the like) documents doesn’t always format correctly
• Viewing *.ppt (or of the like) format into one long page

TiPb Review Rating

[ReaddleDocs is available for $9.99 from the iTunes App Store.]

Nintaii Forum Review by llofte. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

The Japanese term ‘nintai’ means “patience,” “perseverance,” or “endurance” – all three of these attributes will be needed to play the puzzle game Nintaii. The objective of Nintaii is simple: roll a rectangular block through the board activating switches and going around obstacles in order to deposit the block through the square hole at the end.

Game Play

The Nintaii game board is a maze-like structure built from squares tiles. Your block can be rolled along it’s rectangular sides or to a standing position on its square sides. The challenge is to strategically manipulate the block through the board. There are obstacles, switches, and arrows to hinder and/or help you along the way. In order to activate a switch or arrow, the block must be standing on a square side, as if to be putting down all of it’s weight.

Obstacles/Switches – Throughout each level, you will encounter red blocks in the middle of the course. Activating a switch will move these obstacles up or down. Any given switch may control one or more obstacles, causing some obstacles to go up and others down. As the levels become more difficult, the switches become more complicated.

Arrows – Some squares on the board have an arrow. Standing the block on one will immediately push it to the tile that the arrow is pointing to. Sometimes this helps you position the block to your advantage, other times it makes positioning more difficult.

To complete a level, you must drop the block into the hole. The iPhone vibrates when you do. (There is an option to turn off vibration).

Controls

The controls of Nintaii are simple. Just swipe your finger up, down, left, or right to move the block accordingly. There is also an option to use tilt controls, which are intuitive. If you use tilt controls, you can set them to be continuous or to reset after each move. When set on continuous, if you tilt (for example) left, the block will keep rolling left until you stop tilting. Otherwise, you must tilt left each time you want to roll left. The tilt angle can be changed from settings.

To survey the level, swipe with two fingers or select “Scroll Mode” from the menu. In scroll mode, you only need to use one finger to move around. “Scroll Mode” scrolls through the level much faster than with two fingers. I find two fingers to be too slow; It reminds me of using a mouse set on a very slow speed (i.e., annoying). Another thing I find slightly frustrating is that your block must always be in the center of the screen. You cannot scroll to a different view and move your block while in that view. Many times I have changed my view so I could watch the obstacles move when I landed on a switch, only to have the view change when I moved the block.

Menu/Settings

The choices from the main menu are: Play, Settings, Select Level, Instructions, and About. Play, Instructions, and About are self explanatory. Within Settings you can disable/enable vibration, tilt controls, background music, and tutorials as well as set your background theme to Retro or Modern and set the tilt angle. The attached files compare the two themes.

I played with tutorials enabled but never saw anything other than the following message at the beginning of each level:

The Select Level option allows you to jump to any of the 100 levels regardless if you have beaten it or not. Levels you have completed will have a green check mark, and levels you haven’t will have a red minus sign. HOWEVER, it isn’t initially correct. This screenshot shows what it looked like for me before I engaged in any game play.

As I progressed through levels, check marks appropriately appeared, but it still shows that I’ve completed many more levels than I have.

Conclusion

If you love puzzle games, Nintaii is a must have! Other than the minor issues I mentioned, this game is well polished and will provide hours of fun. Even the background music is calm and relaxing. The concept is simple, the controls are easy, and there are 100 levels of block rolling fun. Nintaii is currently at an introductory price of $0.99, so go snatch it up!

PROS

• Simple Concept
• Easy controls
• 100 levels

CONS

• Two-finger scrolling is slow
• Level completion info is incorrect
• Cannot move block from any view

TiPb Review Rating

Nintaii is available for $0.99 from the iTunes App Store.

Vine2Wine Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Overall I think this is a neat little reference guide. While you might find more information about each of the term on the Internet (and I’d like to see the option for more information on the grape varieties). I think this application handles the information very well and it’s quick and easy to use.

Vine2Wine is a wine drinker’s reference guide, whether you are a beginner wanted to learn the lingo or even for intermediates.

The app is simple. On the main screen you choose from three categories:

• Grape Varieties
• Wine terminology
• Wine Tastes

In the Grape Varieties list view. The different grape varieties are listed and depending on what type of grape it uses it is represented by a correlating purple of white grapes next to each variety. Also within the list view you have the phonetic pronunciation for the terms for quick reference. If you tap on one of the Varieties it will give you some information about it – such as color, flavors, & history.

Vine2Wine Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

As for the Wine terminology and Wine Tastes list views, each term is listed and a small part of the first line can be seen. If you tap on the term, rather than going to a new screen, the list expands to display the full text. I thought this was a really cool feature as it was quick and easy to navigate between the terms within the list.

All the lists are just like your contacts list in that they have the letter scroll bar on the right-hand side of the screen.

Pros

• Easy Navigation
• Interesting and quick navigation within terminology lists

Cons

• Not all the grape varieties have pronunciations
• No way to add notes.

TiPb Rating

Vine2Wine is available for $0.99 from the iTunes App Store.

Pre-School Pals and My Beagle Kiddies’ Corner Forum Reviews by cjvitek. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

Pre-School Pals

You remember those old flip books where you could mix and match the head, body, and legs from various animals and such? Well, preschool pals with Henry and Hailey takes this idea and turns it in to an app for kids on the iPhone.

When playing this app, the first thing you can do is go through and look at the various “preschool pals” as they are supposed to appear. They include things like a fireman, policeman, robot, ballerina, etc. You can look at each image, and hit the play button to have each one say something (just a sentence or two). Keep reading Pre-School Pals Forum Review…

My Beagle

My Beagle is a “create a dog” app aimed at young kids. The concept of this app is simple – you can create a picture of a dog with various…accessories (for lack of a better word) from a wide list of options. Starting the app is simple – you simply click on the play button and get brought to a blank slate with a generic beagle image. From there, using the dial on the left, you can choose various accessories or attributes – collars, food bowls, background, eye shape, etc. You get to design a beagle to your liking.

When creating your masterpiece, you choose each of the categories of accessory, and then can choose from different images by sliding a button left or right to show the options. For example, with background images, you can choose from some butterflies, some birds, some trees, etc. The wide variety of options means that there are plenty of ways to create a unique masterpiece on your iPhone. Keep reading My Beagle Forum Review…

Meditate Now 2 Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Meditate Now 2 is an application that contains a series of audio clips that capable of helping you alleviate stress and allow you to relax. The audio is narrated by Stin Hansen, whom is an extremely experienced speaker and an award wining meditation expert. Her voice is absolutely perfect for this type of application. Most of audios range from about nine minutes long to about 15 minutes long (with two exceptions being at three & five minutes)

The audios include (paraphrased from the iTunes description):

• Be Grateful – Relax and feel more gratitude in your life
• Anchor your Spirit – bring substance to your life
• Breathe It Out – breath meditation that is perfect for anxiety and feelings of panic
• End Pain – bring relief to arthritis, labor, chronic, and surgery pains
• Your Best Self – Connect with your full potential and move beyond daily concerns with the meditation
• Serenity Prayer Meditation – recited at a time of trouble. Used in recovering alcoholics and addicts.
• Center Your Chakras – Center and align your energy centers
• Emotional Acupuncture – for emotional emergencies (also utilities a picture to show you how)

I also found that Stin offers a free podcast through the iTunes store. So if you are hesitant to get his application, you can always check out her podcast. I definitely recommend this app to anyone that listens to audios for meditation. While the ‘Emotional Acupuncture’ audio displays a picture, it is a little hard to understand what it is exactly saying to do. To alleviate this, it would be nice to have only certain parts of the picture visible that relate and change with the audio.

Pros:

• Professional voice & audio
• Easy interface to switch between audios

Cons:

• Photo in audio is hard to discern, if unfamiliar with technique.
• The info icon leaves the app unexpectedly

Forum Review Rating:

[http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=299295151&mt=8">Meditate Now 2 is available for $1.99 from the iTunes App Store.]

[Ed: iProRecorder is Currently on sale for $1.99 in the iTunes App Store - Rene]

iProRecorder Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

Recorder apps are a popular sub-group of apps, and each of them seems to offer a slight variation on the same overall theme. Depending on what you are looking for in a recording apps (ease of use, a large number of features, online synching, etc) different recording apps are going to be good or bad. iProRecorder is an app the focuses more on features that speed of use, but the features is has are quite nice.

When you first start the app, you are presented with the recording page. To record a memo, you hit the small red record button in the middle of the page. For people (like myself) who want to have an large, easy to hit button, the relative small size of this button may be difficult to get used to.

iProRecorder offers a large array of features when recording a memo – including timed recording, appending on to the end of a recording, different playback speeds, different recording qualities, volume boosting for low volume recordings, categorizing recordings, etc. In fact, there are really too many features to go into detail in this review – suffice to say there are lots of options to customize any recording you make.

Once you make a recording, you can classify it in a category, edit the title, add a photo to the description, and sending the recording via email. In addition, there is a wifi sync option to download recordings to your computer. One interesting thing that is available – you can hide specific memos from web sharing. This means you can select a specific memo, have someone else access it on their computer, and hide all your other memos so the person can’t download them. I couldn’t find any option to automatically “hide all” or “reveal all” so you need to go through memo by memo to access this feature.

The voice quality of the recorder is very nice. I like the option of choosing between different recording qualities. Bad quality for just a short quick memo, good quality for something I may want to post for my students to listen to. I also really like the timed recording option – you can set the timer to record for a specific length of time. I find this particularly useful for long recordings (like a lecture), because I will often forget to stop the recording once the lecture is over. You can also enable a quick 3 second countdown to recording so that you can start a memo and thant put the iPhone down (without getting a big “clunk” on the recording).

The app comes with a detailed guide that goes over each of the various settings, which is useful because some of them may not be that intuitive. I wish more apps came with instructions like this. One thing you can do from every screen in the app is access the recording button (the microphone) to start a new recording. This is especially nice, because I have found it is easy to “get lost” in the screens on many apps, something that this apps tries to avoid.

The features this recorder offers are very nice, and they allow you to adjust a wide range of settings. You can’t edit a recording once it is made (it would be nice to be able to cut out or crop a recording) but that might be asking too much. If you are looking for a full featured recording app with good sound quality, this app may fit the bill. On the other hand, if you just want something to be able to record a quick memo – this app may not be focused on ease or speed of use.

Pros:

• Good quality,
• lots of features,
• wifi sync

Cons:

• Record button is a little small

Conclusion

All in all, this is a great recording app for managing your recordings, and has some nifty features for sharing recording, as well as modification when you initially make your recording. However, for people who just want to record a quick note, it might be too much. For people that are looking for a more detailed, “business” type recorder, this fits the bill pretty well. At $1.99, the price isn’t bad (although it may be going back up to $4.99)

Forum Review Rating

[iPodRecorder is available via the iTunes App Store]

School of Rock Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

School of Rock (hypothetically based on the movie of the same name) is an app that tries to teach you the ins and outs of music. You progress through a series of “schools” – school of drums, school of guitar, school of keyboard, etc.

Overview

Each of the schools tries to teach you about the specifics of that type of instrument. In each school you progress through a series of excercises, first testing you ability to recognize various cords or note combinations, then testing your ability to play back a series of notes or music (or timing of your playing). Eventually you move on to answer some trivia questions. Going through these trials, you gather points based on your performance. As you accumulate enough points, you unlock the various other schools (you starts with drums, school of bass is the most advanced).

The program also features a “jam” session in the playground, where you can play along with songs inlcluded in the app, or songs from your iTunes library. Unfortunately, you can only play percussion instruments in the jam session – I would have liked to see the ability to play strings, keyboard, or the bass with them. One cool feature is that you can record your jam session, and then listen to it in playback.

I really liked the tutorial features in this game. Rather than just giving you instructions, each help section (for each school and for the playground) provides a short video detailing how to play in each category. I like the video tutorials, it really helps to clarify some things. However, the game assumes a lot of knowledge already. It throws you in the deep in when it comes to trying to recognize cords, for example. There is no information on how to recognize cords or distinguish them from one another, so it was mostly guess work. The trivia also seems rather random, without some knowledge of music and the music industry, I found myself guessing at most of the trivia questions.

It would be nice if you could have difficulty settings, allowing you to choose what difficulty or background you have in music. That way, you could really tailor the program to your ability.

Pros:

Nice inclusion of the jam session, some of the instruments can be fun to play

Cons:

Doesn’t “teach” you enough, limited instruments in the jam session

Conclusion

All in all, I have mixed feelings about this app. I think it is well designed and can be fun, but it wasn’t really what I was looking for. I was looking for something that would both teach me about music as well as enable me to play along and “jam” to some music. The app offers a little of both of those, but not to the degree that I was looking for. In addition, it seems to assume that you have a lot of prior knowledge about music, instruments, and the music industry. It was fun, but the best feature was the jam session (playing percussion along with my iTunes songs). It is currently only $.99, so it could be worth picking up if it sounds interesting. I give it three and a half out of five stars, mostly because I felt it was a little too difficult for my music background and I was guessing a lot during the various schools.

TiPb Forum Review Rating:

[School of Rock is available via the iTunes App Store]

Over the last few weeks, one of our all-star forum reviewers, msbaylor, has been putting a massive amount of iPhone To-Do apps through their paces: Things, Appigo’s ToDo, Toodledo, Done, Zenbe Lists, Ultimate ToDos, and Firetask. Well now he’s to-done, and you can check out his colossal review roundup on our forums (along with screenshots and videos aplenty!)

On behalf of everyone seeking that holy grail of To-Do nirvana, we can’t thank Matt enough for going to all this trouble. Here’s what he wanted, but read it quick so you can get to the good stuff!

• Sync (not at additional cost)
• Sleek/non-confusing interface
• sub-tasks
• due-date
• priority

eMees Avatar Creator Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

I have a Wii, and one of the most enjoyable things (surprisingly) that I do with the system is created the Miis. And now, Mii creation comes to the iPhone!

eMees is a tool to create avatars for the iPhone. Once you create an avatar, you can save it to your photo roll, and you can even assign it to one of your contacts as their photo! As someone who doesn’t have any photos associated with contacts, this is a nice feature to have!

The concept behind eMees is the same idea as creating a Mii on the Wii. You choose various features – like head shape, hair pattern, eyes, lips, eyebrows, etc) to combine into a face. You can also adjust the color, and for some items (like nose, eyes, eyebrows) you can adjust the size, orientation, and horizontal or vertical position. Combine these features and you have a lot of flexability in creating an avatar, and as you practice and get more talented, you can get quite good at creating avatars that start to look like the intended target!

One additional feature this program has is called the pose option. You can take you avatar and put them into one of three pre-determined posed (sledding, skateboarding, or typing). Unfortunately those are the only poses that are offered – hopefully more will be included in future updated.

I had one major issue with this program. The primary issue was the speed. The interface is very slow….very veryslow. It takes a while to load, and then it takes a long time to flip between the various avatar options as well. In fact, the delay almost makes the program unusable in my opinion. The delay is especially pronounced when you are flipping between the various options for each facial feature – the different hair styles for example, or the different eye glass options.

The only other concerns I had with this app is a minor one – the difficulty of using an avatar outside of the app. I would have thought that when you save an avatar, you would have the option of saving it as a contact photo, or in your photo roll. But when you save it, it enters the eMees gallery. From there, you then need to select it again tothen save it as a contact photo. It seems like the additional step of requiring you to save it first in the eMees gallery is not needed.

You also don’t have any option within the app to email an avatar to anything – you need to save it as a photo, then go out, look at the photo, and then email it to someone.

Pros:

• Fun way to design avatars for your contacts

Cons:

• Limited poses,
• program is much too slow,
• using avatars in contacts is needlessly convoluted

Conclusion

All in all, this is a pretty well designed program. The options to create the avatars are rather full featured, and the ability to use the avatars as a contact ID is great. However, the program is much, much to slow and I got frustrated many times while trying to use it because of the lag. The price is currently $.99, down from $2.99, so you may want to jump on it now, and hope future updates improve the speed problems. As the lag really impacts the usability of the program, I am giving the app only three out of five stars. If future updates improve the speed issues, than it will really be worthwhile application.

Forum Review Rating

[Monopoly is available from the iTunes App Store.]

Illuminations Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Illuminations is developed by Killer Robots and is an interesting shoot-em-up type game. It is based around the idea of a firework show. You have to shoot rockets that come up from the bottom of the screen in order to make them explode, if you miss too many, then the show is over for you. You also might find enemies that might spawn at random to keep you from “giving a good show,” these also must be eliminated (and added to the show).

Layout:

Layout is simple. The main menu allows you to begin a new game, view high scores, view options and instructions. In the options menu you can turn on and off sound and/or the music. When you tap the screen around the actual buttons, fireworks are seen exploding – nice touch.

Within the game itself you have your “show meter” in the top left corner if you miss too many rockets the meter will drop, it is drop too far then it’s game over. In essence, it’s a life meter. In the upper right hand corner on the screen, the blue meter displays the amount of ammo you have left, the better the weapon the faster it falls, but if you pause, the ammo will regenerate. To the right of the blue bar displays one of five ammos that you can obtain. The pink bar is your bomb reload timer is essence. When you set off a bomb, the bar has to reload before you can use another. The number at the end of the bar is how many bombs you have left. Both ammo, lives, and bombs can be obtained from shooting the enemies.

Controls:

The game utilizes the tilt controls in the Phone and by tapping on the left-side of the screen you shoot your normal ammo, double tap the right-side of the screen. To pause the game and view a menu, double tap the pause button in the upper left-hand corner.

Graphics:

The graphics in the game are fairly simple your “aircraft,” enemies, rockets and ammo all appear 2D. When explosions occur – thus the fireworks, the particle graphics are very nice for the game. The background is a 3D basic cityscape the moves around at random. While many of the graphics are very basic, I think it adds to the overall user experience of the game.

Issues:

I didn’t like the fact that the neutral position for the tilt controls was when the iPhone was lying flat on its back. I’d like to see a a neutral reset button whether manual or automatically set when the game begins.

When firing you letting off a bomb, I noticed that in my mind I would switch the controls around meaning I’d shoot using the right side of the screen instead of the left side. It would be nice if there was an option to switch this.

Overall:

I find this game pretty cool and oddly addicting. At only $3.99 this game will keep you occupied for hours. Some might find the price a little steep, but if you are into asteroid-like games with much better graphics and weapon upgrades, then this game is going to be for you.

Pros:

• Good particle graphics
• Asteroid-like game play but much more colorful
• Tilt-controls are accurate (not too sensitive, but just right)
• 5 weapon upgrades to use

Cons:

• No way to reset the neutral position for tilt controls
• After dying (show meter falls too far) you must start over from level 1

TiPb Forum Review Rating

[Illuminations is available from the iTunes App Store.]

Monopoly – Here and Now Edition Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Monopoly is a classic game, and it was just a matter of time until it appeared on the iPhone. I remember playing this in the summers with my sister when we were out of school. We would get games that lasted months as we would finally run out of money in the bank!

So finally Monopoly comes to the iPhone! The game is visually appealing, and is based on the Monopoly: Here and Now version with updated locations, dollars amount, and random cards. There is a lot of animation in the game, including rolling the dice, moving the pieces, and various cut scenes while running the app. That graphics are nicely done, and there was only a little stutter now and then with the animation sequences.

The game can be played over wifi, but internet play is not yet available. You can, however, play with multiplayer on the same iPhone. When creating a new game, you can set various game options, including some standard variations on the rules like landing on Go gives you a double paycheck, or all tax money goes to free parking. You choose a token for yourself (new, updated tokens), the difficulty level, and the number of players, and go ahead and start.

The in-game controls are fairly easy to use, but they can get a little cumbersome. I prefer that the controls are easily laid out, however, instead of being hidden or confusing. It is relatively easy to scan the board, scroll through the various title deeds to see who owns what. You are presented with action “tiles” at the bottom of the screen that enable all your actions – including purchase property, manage properties, buy houses, and trade.

I was pleased to see that setting up a trade is pretty straighforward, as is building houses and hotels. You can also change the house rules during the game if you like.

The AI seemed pretty good, I was mostly testing it at the medium difficulty setting. When you start a game, there is a nice help section that leads you through the game the first few times you try something. I couldn’t find any way to turn off the help, so I got the help tutorial each time I played a game. This got a little annoying. It would also be nice to be able to turn off animations in order to speed the game up a little bit.

One thing I wish they had was the ability to choose your game board. With all the variations of Monopoly out there (Simpsons, Star Wars, Classic, etc) it would be nice to have various “skins” that you could apply.

Also, the “auction” rules seem a little odd. You are presented with a turn by turn auction, with each player taking turns to place bids. I don’t know why they didn’t implement a real auction for unpurchased properties (or even better, have an potential in-house rule to disable the auction).

Pros:

• Nice customization options with the “house rules”,
• easy to play

Cons:

-Only one “skin”, - no ability to turn off help or animation

Conclusion

All in all, this is a nicely designed game, that is pretty straightforward and easy to play. The various options and settings are nice. It’s fun to play as well, and is currently on sale for $4.99.

Forum Review Rating

[Monopoly is available from the iTunes App Store.]

Peeps by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Peeps is a new and interesting way to view your contacts- by their pictures!

When you first open the application, all you contact are loaded into the app. For me it only took about 5 second to import all 150 or so contacts.

After that you’ll see a screen that has about 9 of your contacts pictures and their names are listed below them. You can scroll up and down to see your contact via their pictures. If you tap on a picture you will be able to see your contact’s info. Also within the multi-contact screen, you can create a new contact via the app by tapping on the “+” in the upper-right corner.

By tapping the “Peeps” button in the upper-left-hand corner you will be able to view your groups and to create them as well.

In the screen shot below I created “Mi Peeps.” Since I don’t have a whole lot of contacts with pictures, I began to create a list of contacts that do have pictures. I also accidentally added someone that didn’t have a picture, If you need to remove a contact from a group, tap and hold on the contact’s picture and you will have the option to delete the contact, remove contact from group or cancel.

In creating the group of your choice, you can either select contacts from your existing Address book or create a new one.

While viewing you contacts, if you turn you iPhone on it’s side, then you can view you contacts in an “cover-flow” format as your would on you iPhone’s iPod.app. Just like in the iPod.app when you tap on the abum cover, you receive a playlist of that album, well in Peeps, when you tap the photo, you get all there contact information. This is a neat adaptation from the iPod.app.

I however, found that the screen turned back from the cover-flow with the slightest tilt out of “landscape” view.

[Editor's note: Since Apple has not made the CoverFlow API public, Peeps built a home-made version to emulate the functionality, which caused some confusion and delayed the release of the app]

Overall

I think this an interesting app especially if you have a lot of contacts with pictures, if you are like me and only 5% or so of your contacts have pictures, then this application is probably not for you. For people that do have a lot of contact pictures, I think this will be a “cool” way to casually flip trough your contact and show your friends, but, I don’t think it will be of great use in the event you need to call one of your contacts, especially if you are in a hurry.

I’d really like to see adjustments made to the accelerometers in viewing contacts in “cover-flow.” After writing this review once and then speaking with the Peeps support, I found out a little more about the app than before. So and information screen explaining how to display and edit contact would be a nice feature to have. At $1.99 I recommend this app for people with lots of photos in their address book. It also seems to be a nice way to update the photos of a contact a bit quicker than going through the contacts one-by-one in the Address book.

Pros:

• Cover-flow viewing of contacts
• Easy and quick setup
• Create your own groups.

Cons:

• Viewing in Cover-flow is fickle

TiPb Forum Review Rating

[Peeps is available from the iTunes App Store.]

Topple Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Game time! Topple is a quick, tower building game that is theoretically simple yet surprisingly addictive.

The goal of Topple is simple – build a tower to a goal line without having it fall down.

Sounds simple enough…especially in the first few levels when you have pieces that look like they belong in Tetris. However, as the levels progress, the pieces get more and more complex – including small octagonal pieces, pieces that have triangular sides, etc. Added is the fact that as your progress, the “base” upon which you build your tower is no longer flat, and the goal line is farther away.

Well, suffice to say, I found myself yelling at my iPhone a few times…”No, no, lean this way, no, don’t fall!!……$%@#$”. I got a few strange looks.

The game’s graphics are nice, nothing too complex. The different pieces have faces on them, and respond to being moves and rotated. The sound is a simple background music which fits nicely, along with popping sounds when placing the pieces. It would have been fun to hear the pieces grunt or groan when they are being moved or are in the tower, but it doesn’t detract from that game itself.

The controls are simple. You tap and slide a piece to move it. To rotate, you tap and hold, using another finger to “spin” the piece into the correct orientation. One thing I found out the hard way is that it does make use of the accelerometer – tilting the iPhone will tilt the tower (which can help, or hinder your cause).

The game play itself is one of two modes. There is a “levels” mode, where you progress through levels that get more and more difficult (I have yet to make it past level 6, although I have a new strategy I am going to try tonight.) There are nine levels listed – I am not sure if there are more levels, since as I said, I am currently stuck on level 6.

There is also a free play mode, where you just try to build a tower as tall as you can. There is a training tutorial mode as well, to help cover the basics of game play. The tutorial mode is nice because it is interactive; you aren’t just reading or watching a video.

On the main menu, there is an option to “challenge” someone – basically send them an email with your high score and challenging them to beat it. I am not sure how I feel about this. Basically, they are trying to get you to be a commercial – tell others about the game. But there is no real reason to tell others – you can’t directly compare scores, you can’t go head to head, so what’s the point?

A multiplayer mode is something that would push this game over the top. I can imagine going head to head against someone, watching their tower go up as your tower starts to fall. Or playing a turn based game, with each person putting one block on and then letting the other person go. Unfortunately there is no multiplayer option – something that I think is far too common in many of the games. Common – with 10 million iPhones in the US alone, surely multiplayer games are the way to go!!

You can keep track of your various achievements, such as the “Barely Award” or the “Flat Trick”. Other achievements are hidden until you can unlock them – just a little incentive to try to play more and more.

Pros:

• Fun,
• addictive,
• easy to learn and play

Cons:

• No multiplayer

Conclusion

All in all, this is a fun game, which is now free (why does that always seem to happen to apps I buy?!?). It is easy to learn, easy to play, and hard to put down – a great combination. If it had a multiplayer mode, I would give it 5 stars, but instead I am giving it four and a half out of five (plus the attempt to get you to advertise for them annoyed me a little bit).

Forum Review Rating

[Topple is available from the iTunes App Store.]

AllRecipes.com DinnerSpinner by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Hey, let’s use Urban Spoon to pick a restaurant to go to.

Nah, I want to cook tonight. Let’s use DinnerSpinner!

DinnerSpinner is an app based on the same idea as Urban Spoon. It let’s you spin (or shake the iPhone) to choose various criteria to match recipes. You can match recipes based on three categories: dish type (main course, bread, cookies, dessert, etc), ingredients (beef, chocolate, fruit, legumes, etc), and preparation time (less than 20 minutes, slow cooker, over an hour, etc). Based on the criteria you “spin” (or select manually) you will get a variety of matching recipes to look through.

Now, before I go any further, yes, sometimes you may get something like “slow cooking cookies made with beef” – and you won’t get any matches.

So once you get your matches (in my example, I am using desserts with fruit in 45 minutes or less) you then hit the button to see your recipe matches. In my example, I got 45 matching recipes. You are taken to a page that shows the recipe name, the reviews (presumably from Allrecipes.com), who submitted the recipe, and a quick, two or three sentence description of the recipe. It also shows a picture of the recipe, which can be nice. To go to the next option, just swipe the screen.

Note, recipes are not exclusive. In my example, I got many recipes that were cookies, even though I had chosen dessert (not cookies) as the dish type. I also got recipes that included chocolate as a ingredient – so recipes are cross listed, which is nice to know.

If you see a recipe you like, you can choose to send it to someone via email (with the share button). You can also click on the “view recipe/reviews” to see the recipe or read the reviews. I like the fact they have various reviews of the recipe – you can read what other people thought about it.

The recipe itself includes a list of ingredients, the “summary” you read when scanning the recipes, how many servings and how long it takes, and the directions for cooking. Since the recipes are submitted by people, my guess is that the quality of directions may vary somewhat. You also get the nutritional information, and the “file” ends with some of the reviews of the recipe. If you want to read more that the first ten reviews, or you want to browse more recipes, there is a button at the bottom of the page to go to Allrecipes.com directly.

Please note, you are accessing the internet when using this app, so you need to have a data connection – the recipes are not downloaded onto your phone until you look at it. I am not sure how many recipes are found at AllRecipes.com, but in what I thought was an obscure category (bread made with veggies in 45 minutes or less) I found 20 recipes, so my guess is there are a fair number of options.

Some problems with the app. First of all, you can’t “lock in” a category. If you want to cook dinner, for example, you might want to lock in “main course” as the dish type. Or if you have a pound of ground beef, you might want to lock in “beef” as an ingredient.

Also, you can’t choose multiple items within a category. For example, you can’t look at main courses made with fish or pork, it is only one or the other. Lastly, there is no way to simply browse through all the recipes (either in all groups, or within a category – browsing all pork recipes, for example). IMO, these are pretty important things for a cook book or recipe bank to allow. The concept of “spinning” is fun to play with, but a really useful cookbook should allow these various changes.

Pros:

• Fun way to approach a cookbook,
• lots of recipes available

Cons:

• No ability to limit options or to choose multiple options

All in all, I think this is sort of a fun app to use. It adds a little variety and fun to choosing a recipe to use, although I really think being able to “lock” a category is essential. There are a wide range of choices for the categories, so you can be very specific (if you want) about what you want to cook. This app is free, so if it is something you think you might want to try, give it a shot!

Forum Review Rating

[AllRecipes.com DinnerSpinner is available from the iTunes App Store.]

Bugz by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Bugz has to be one of the most entertaining games I’ve played (and really the only one I’ve completed all the levels on).

The game play here is simple – you create an explosion, for lack of a better tem, which if the bugs hit it, they in turn explode creating a chain reaction. From level-to-level, you must “clear” a certain amount of bugs off the screen via the chain reaction you create using only that one initial tap.

For your first time through, the game will walk you through on how to play it.

Levels:

I found the early stages harder than the later stages, as there were more bugs to hit. Well except maybe for the last few, where you had to clear all of them or all but a couple. There are 102 levels, which are really segmented off into 4 different sections (if you will.) The first section only deals with clearing a certain amount of bugs from the screen. The second section is the same, but you have to also include the one or two of the silver-colored bugs in the chain reaction. In the third section, small flowers are introduced, where they move around the screen. If the bugs get to close to them, they will slow down or even stop, which might throw off your chain reaction. And in the fourth section, you are given a time limit in which you have complete the level.

If you have a Wifi connection, you can view the leader board and/or submit your score to the leader board.

Overall I found the game play quite addicting. I beat the game within 3 or 4 sittings (within about 3 hours). So for me it was a quite quick, but even though the game play was quick, the game grabbed my attention and submerged me into the game (which all great games should do). I’d really like to see more levels added as well and some increased difficulty in the upper levels.

Pros:

• Entertaining and colorful game play.

Cons:

• Only 102 levels
• Early levels seem harder than higher levels.

Forum Review Rating

[Bugz is available from the iTunes App Store.]

App Sniper Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Okay, I have never used a sniping service on Ebay, but I hear they are very popular. So when I saw this AppSniper program, I thought I would give it a look see.

And my first impression was…interesting.

The AppSniper program is designed to track prices of applications that you are interested in, but that cost too much. You get to input a “desired” price, and if/when the app reaches that price, you are notified.

First things first, this does NOT run in the background, so you will not received a notification that the app has reached the snipe price unless you run the program and allow it to sync with the servers. Repeat, you won’t be notified while going about your normal iPhone activities.

That is a serious limitation, but it is not unique to AppSniper. No programs are allowed to run in the background, so there is no point in crying over spilled milk.

When you start the app sniper program, it syncrhonizes any updates (on apps or prices) with your iPhone from it’s servers. That way you are guaranteed to have the most recent prices and apps listed.

The AppSniper program has 4 screens – an “on sale” screen”, a “new programs” screen, your appsnipe list, and the configuration screen. You select a screen by tapping an icon at the bottom of the screen. The icons at the bottom of the screen also display a notification of how many apps are either newly on sale, new, or meet your snipe criteria.

The on-sale screen let’s you see the various apps that have gone down in price over the last 2 days (divided up by 24 hours, 1 day ago, and 2 days ago). When you see an app of interest on the list, you can click on it to read the app summary. You can choose to purchase the app right away, or you can choose to add it to your app snipe list (more on the list later).

The second screen is a “new apps” screen – or apps that have appeared within the last 24 hours. Just like the sale apps, you can choose to purchase the new apps right away, or add them to your snipe list.

The third screen is the snipe list, and this is where it gets interesting. When a program is added to the snipe list, you can set a price at which you would purchase the program – the snipe price. It can be any incremental value all the way down to free. If an app meets your target price on the snipe list, the price and “buy” button is highlighted green. If the current price is still to high, it is red.

When you click on the “buy” button, it takes you to the appstore page with that program. You can then choose to purchase or not. To add an app directly to the snipe list, you simply click the “+” button, then start typing the app name. This will go through the entire app list linking any apps that match the name you are typing. Once you find the app, you can select it, add it to the list (selecting your snipe price).

The last screen is options/configuration screen. It allows you to turn on/off the use of 3G/Edge (the default is off, so it only uses wifi). You can also turn off the icons in the app lists (faster loading), change your currency, and filter through the various genre of apps (for example, turning off books if you never want to download an ebook).

This program is great, however there are some problems with it (both big and small). The first problem is that you can only have 32 apps on your snipe list. Maybe 32 is plenty for most people, but there are many more apps that I am interested in purchasing. If there is some sort of system limit of 32 apps, it would be nice to be able just to create a “list of interest” (not actual sniping list) that includes apps you might be interested in purchasing at some future date – maybe with an indication as to the most recent price change (down or up). Some sort of log of the apps purchased and downloaded would also be great.

The second issue is that if you click on the buy button within the snipe list, the app is not removed from your snipe list. After you purchase the app, you still have to go back and manually delete it from your list! Some sort of automatic deletion (or at least asking you the next time you start the app if you want to remove app XXXX) would be beneficial.

The third issue I have with this app is that there is no ability to manually sync with the server. This is a minor issue, since the chance are that syncing when you start the program is sufficient, but it would be nice to have the option of syncing manually.

The biggest problem I had, however, was the method of searching for apps. It is great that the apps with reduced prices and any new apps are listed separately, but there is no further way to refine searches. It would be great to include the top ten downloads or the top ten apps in each category. The filters to exclude apps does not work when searching the app store. I turned on various filters, and still had apps within those categories listed. I even went so far as to turn on ALL the filters (excluding all apps)…but my search list still included all apps in the app store. The filters DID exclude various apps from the “on sale” and “new app” lists, but that was it. Without a better way to refine or organize searches for apps, this program is not as beneficial as I would have hoped. I would love to be able to simply browse the various categories without looking for a specific app, in case I see something that interests me (and thus want to purchase it or add it to my snipe list). Right now, that is not an option.

Another problem with the snipe list – if a program is on your snipe list at a certain price, you don’t have the option of buying it even if it goes does in price (but doesn’t reach your snipe). In fact, you can’t even see if it has decreased from the original price offering at all!

Lastly, it would be nice to have a notification number on the App icon on the iPhone home screen. True, it isn’t going to change since the program doesn’t run in the background, but it would be nice to be reminded that I have 3 (or 4, 5, or however many) apps that currently meet my snipe criteria.

Pros:

• Good idea,
• nice interface to monitor app prices

Cons:

• Search methods need lots of work,
• only can list 32 apps,
• many minor tweaks to the application needed

Conclusion

All in all, I think this is a great idea for a program, and as it currently stands, it certainly has its strong points. As the app points out, it could easily save you the purchase price if you are able to purchase one or two apps cheaper than they are currently priced. Given the limitation of the iPhone (no background services) which is no fault of the app, this app does it’s job reasonably well. However, it is lacking in some areas which prevent it from getting a very high rating. The search mechanism is limiting, and there is no automatical removal of apps when you purchase them. At $1.99, the app is certainly not overpriced, and I think it could be useful to many people. But the flaws it has (some of which are rather major, IMO) prevent it from getting a very high rating.

Forum Review Rating

[Pocket Tunes Radio is available from the iTunes App Store.]

Update

Some of my issues have been addressed in an update to the app (like the limit of 32 apps on the snipe list, and the inability to purcahse apps even if they don’t meet your snipe price).

Wanted by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Wanted is a simple picture editing application that turns a picture of a person into a wanted poster. The poster can then be printed out onto a piece of paper for the office. Don’t worry the output file is much larger than a normal iPhone picture.

The app begins with a menu and “wild-west” type music. You have the option to turn the music on and off as you wish. I found listening to the music relevant to the app, but turned it off after awhile.

In the menu you can select whether you want to use the camera to take a picture or if you want pick a picture from the camera roll. Here I picked a random image from Google…

The next screen you’ll see will have places to edit the title, in other words it doesn’t have to say “Wanted” also you can edit the reward, the status and the name in the poster. You can also edit the picture by tapping on the items next to the picture you have picked/taken.

You can then add pieces to the picture such as a hat, a revolver, a mustache, and/or a sheriff’s badge by tapping on it, it places is it on the picture. You can resize the objects by using two fingers to rotate and resize the objects. I noticed that after placing one object, then placing another that the 2nd objects was not automatically selected and threw my previous placement off until I realized I needed to select the second object, I also found that one of the hats, that has a curve to it on the bottom of it.

The below photo is the final picture. You can click on it to see the actual resolution of the photo itself. The developer claims that it is a printable photo, however, I have yet to do this, but when I do, I will say so below.

Overall this is an intresting app and I can see a fit for this app. I would like to see more objects added or more so more options of each object. While I like the final photo, I am not sure I quite like the wood background behind the “poster” within the final pic. I would like to see a default selection tool when placing the objects in the photo also a list of ideas for what to put in the title to make different posters. I really like the large file it exports to (noted above). Overall for the price tag of $0.99, this is a functional app for whatever purpose you plan on using it for…

Pros:

• Large resolution final pic
• Intresting Concept
• Music goes good with the teme of the app (a new one for costuming)

Cons:

• Sometimes placement of objects is hard
• “wood” behind the “poster” I feel, shouldn’t be there.
• Only a few objects available

Forum Review Rating

[Wanted is available from the iTunes App Store. "Dead or Alive" Dieter? Priceless!]

Hero of Sparta by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

While this app came out some time ago, I have been meaning to write a review for this app, but I always end up getting distracted playing the game, then running out of time. So finally I have distanced myself from my iPhone to bring you this review.

This is easily one of the most addicting games I have come across. ngmoco:), the developer of this game has undoubtedly created a unique gem of a game.

The point of Rolando is to roll the Rolandos (characters) around the screen and move them from one point to another while avoiding deadly monsters, fire pits, etc. In order to get them through you might find that you have to push things around, climb across boulder, drop bombs, build bridges, etc. The easiest way to describe the app is to say that it is a cross between Touch Physics for the iPhone and the old Lemmings game.

Controls:

The game utilizes the accelerometers to maneuver the Rolandos on the screen – you tilt in the direction you want to move,. You can also make your Rolando jump by swiping your finger from the bottom to the top of the screen. When selecting your Rolando, you can tap on one of them to select it or draw a box around several Rolandos to select multiple ones. While tilting the iPhone in a certain direction controls the Rolandos, you might also find yourself using your fingers to pull back catapult, flip switches, dropping bombs, drawing bridges and other awesome little things.

Layout:

The game begins with a segmented screen- 9boxes that are black and then “unlocked” when you beat certain levels, within this main screen you can basically just play around with the different Rolando characters. I thought this was a neat little touch as its not really part of the game, but great way to get the user involved in the game – before the game. After tapping on the menu item to begin the game, you will be taken to a “story-book” map that basically lists the levels along you way to the Rolando City. You select the level you wish by tapping on a white circle and then again when the white balloon appears. The map is separated into 4 quadrant, or to say, 4 worlds. Each one having its own theme. Within the levels themselves you have to get the Rolando(s) from point A to point B winding your way around beast trap doors and catapults. While all levels require that you exit through the magic door at the end, you might also find that you must save the sleeping-prince-Rolando, in which, he is bigger than the other Rolandos and also uncontrollable, making the level quite difficult to an extent, but very addicting.

In the game screen, in the top left-hand corner, your are given a time limit and given extra points if you complete the level in the allotted amount of time, if not, then you don’t get any extra points. Underneath the times is a counter #/# meaning, the first number is how many Rolandos you have gotten through the door and the second number is how many you must get though the level to complete it. If you tap on either of these icons a menu will appear to allow you to restart the level, continue, or quit.

If you decide to quit, don’t worry, your game will be saved (iSave). Some levels have “checkpoint-balloons” so that you begin from the point of the balloon in case you are to die. If you push the home key in the middle of a game (without dying) you will resume from that position.

Sound:

There is music playing in the background and in games I tend to reduce the music over the sound effects to reduce noise confusion, in doing that, I enjoyed the music within the game and did not feel that it ever annoyed me. There are multiple sound effects that each animation gives off in the game and makes the game all the more interactive. The Rolandos themselves will “talk” to you via text bubbles and making a unique sound (reminiscing of the old Nintendo 64).

Overall:

I found this game extremely addicting. It is one of those games, if you just happen to have a couple of minutes to kill, then you can play this game then save your progress and continue later or if you have a bunch of time to kill, then by all means, play longer. I have played about halfway through the game and have found it very enjoyable and one of the best games I have purchased. I go though so many apps that I barely have time to complete each game before I move onto the next, but this one just has me coming back no matter what my time limit is.

Replay-ability I am not quite sure of. Once I complete the game, I am not sure I’ll go back to play the levels again. However in having that timer, you can go back and attempt to complete the level with that time slot. If you are one of those people that like to get every little point, then the replay ability is high, otherwise, it going to be low.

This is probably the only game I haven’t found anything negative to say about it and that in itself is outstanding.

One of the other games that ngmoco:) has made, Topple, I found in that game, that the blocks facial expressions reacted to each other and I found that so cool, and Rolando is no exception. Rolando is sure to please any puzzle-lover or adventure-game lover of any type! At $9.99, this game is a must and easily one of the best.

If you happen to find yourself near the “credits” button, under the options menu, you might want to take a look at it. It’s probably the most creative and well-done credit sequence I have seen i an iPhone app.

Pros:

• Unique game play
• Characters faces interact with each other
• Addicting game play
• A combo of Touch Physics & Lemmings = addictive

Cons:

• I can’t really think of any.

Forum Review Rating

[Rolando is available from the iTunes App Store]

Hero of Sparta by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Hero of Sparta came out a few weeks ago around the time of Brothers In Arms and it is also done by gameloft. I’ve come to realize that gameloft has really been putting out some awesome games and this is no exception.

Hero of Sparta brings the “Hack n’ Slash” genre to the iPhone.

Note: I showed this game to one of my non-iPhone friends while at his apartment and throughout the day he played it. So his input is also included in this review. He actually ended up beating the game on Easy and then began playing on Heroic difficulty level.

Controls:

The direction you move is controlled by the “directional pad” in the bottom left-hand corner and you attack methods are controlled by “2 attack pads” in the bottom right-hand corner – shield & attack. In the top right-hand corner you can change your weapon as you progress through the levels.

The controls I found very easy to adapt to. The only problem I ran into (as well as my friend did) that after playing the game for about 30 minutes or so, the “directional pad” doesn’t pickup your finger movements very well. I sometimes stopped to wipe my hands dry (as my hands began to sweat due to the heat these iPhones produce.) and began to ply again, it seemed to be fine after that, however I again seem to happen quicker into game play the longer time-ago that I restarted my iPhone. In other words I think that it has to do with the iPhone’s RAM.

The different attacks and blocks are mostly dependent on the two buttons and the “directional pad” But for certain special moves, you’ll have to tap buttons on the main part of the screen, if you take too long, well, you won’t last much longer…

After my friend completed the Easy level and he began playing the Heroic level and he said that he didn’t find any difficulty difference, however, I found it much more difficult; although, I didn’t play all of the Easy level.

Throughout the game you won’t just be hacking away at mythical beasts, but you will be also be dodging arrows, jumping from rock to rock, and collecting crystals. Collect 5 green crystals and you increase you life bar, collect 5 blue crystals and increase your energy bar.

Graphics/Animations:

Um, wow… at first I didn’t think much of it, but after I began playing I found myself more interested in the cinematic cut-ins and the cinematic special attacks. I’ll talk more on cinematics later. The graphics themselves are pretty good, not superior, but very good, as the special moves and the 3D animations make up for the lacking of “superior” effects (in my opinion). Frankly I assume that if the graphics were better, the iPhone would have troble rending the animations and eventually crash. So I guess that is just how it has to be.

In the top left-hand corner the green-bar is your health, while the blue-bar is your energy. Your energy drops as you do special attacks or moves.

Sound/Music:

Music works well for the game, I never got annoyed nor tired of it, depending on the level of difficulty, you’ll have a different soundtrack. The actual sound f/x I didn’t find as impressive and somewhat of a let down. They seem to be somewhat cheesy and very repetitive. It was really the only thing that bothered me in the game. The soundtrack will stop during certain parts on the game such as cinematic cut-ins or special attacks.

Cinematics:

Cinematics is a big thing to me. And I was very impressed with the cinematics to say the least at what this iPhone game could do.

The above screen shot isn’t really in the game, it’s the trailer before the movie, but still, the lighting in the trailer is pretty awesome. Okay so back to the actual game…

The above image was taken shortly after I was supposed to tap certain buttons to do a special move, but failed to do so, so hence – it’s me getting my butt kicked.

Again like I said, the special moves are pretty much like 3D cut-ins, but you have to do certain things in order to have them progress, I think it’s one of the best things within the game.

Overall:

I highly recommend this game; it provides game play unlike any other game does in the app store – namely the cinematics. While the controls can be tricky at time, it may take some time getting used to, but it’s worth it. Game play is about 5 or 6 hours for easy, and possibly a little longer on heroic (not sure haven’t finished playing through it. The replay ability is high due to the fact that all the weapons you gain on Easy or Normal difficulty level, you can use in heroic level.

Pros:

• Great game play
• Awesome Cinematics
• Good Cut-ins
• Multiple weapons

Cons:

• Control Touch screen can become fickle over time.
• Sound f/x are repetative

Forum Review Rating

[Hero of Sparta is available from the iTunes App Store]

Touch Physics Forum Review by cjvitek (For msbaylor’s take on it, check the link. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Touch Physics is a strategy/puzzle game, where the goal is to get the purple circle to touch the yellow star. As the game progresses, you are presented with an increasing array and diversity of obstacles in your path that you need to navigate the purple circle around. The circle is moved by forces of gravity, friction, and elasticity. For example, if a large object falls on the circle on the left side, the circle will move/roll/bounce to the right.

So how do you get the large object (or planks, or whatever you want)? Simple – you draw them. You get to add the objects that interact with the circle (and the rest of the obstacles, for that matter). You can draw straight lines, you can draw cirlces or polygons, just about any shape you have in mind (with a few exceptions – see below). These object are subject to the same laws of gravity, friction, and elasticity as the rest of the object in the game.

One especially cool feature of this game is that you can also adjust the various physical interactions. Increasing or decreasing gravity will influence both your objects and the movement of the circle, for example. Because of the various ability to actually adjust the physical parameters of the world, this becomes a much more interesting game – you can replay the same game multiple times with various changes to the physical constants.

This is an interesting concept for the game, and I like the interface. It looks like you are working on a simple paper background, and the images you “draw” look like they were drawn with a crayon. Settings can be changed in the settings menu (not within the game itself, one minor complaint), and there is a nice musical background that is playing as well.

My main problem with this game is the interaction – specifically, dawing shapes. Unfortunately, the game engine does not allow for the drawing of any sort of complex shapes (with multiple obtuse or acute angles, for example). If you try to draw one of those, the game “simplifies” it for you, often times negating the strategy you might have had when drawing the shape.

Other than that, however, the game is fun, and can be quite challenging. I like the interaction between what you draw and the obstacles in the way of the purple circle. I do wish you could save you progress within a level, instead of simply starting the level over, but that is a minor flaw. Shaking the iPhone to start a level over is a fun way to vent frustrations and begin anew.

Pros:

• Nice interface, good game concepts

Cons:

• Complex shapes not allowed

Conclusion

All in all, this is a cool game for the money, and if you like strategy puzzle games, this might be worth your money. The interface is clean and simple, the controls are easy to learn, and the game play can be radically alterred by adjusting the physical parameters of the “universe”. For $1.99 (on sale now for $.99) it is worth the money.

Forum Review Rating

[Touch Physics is available from the iTunes App Store.]

Frenzic Forum Review by cjvitek (For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

A new game….just what the iPhone needs!

Actually, a little side note. I approach my iPhone as mostly an entertainment device. So while I will find, use (and review) useful productivity, utility, or lifestyle apps (or other categories) by far the category I am most interested in is games. I would guess that at least 70% of my downloads are games. Anyway, on to the review.

Frenzic is a frantic, fast paced strategy game, simple in concept, but one that can provide lots of enjoyment (frantic + frenzy = frenzic!). In Frenzic, your goal is to put little pie-shaped wedges into various circles, filling the circles. For anyone who has played Trivial Pursuit (where is that game for the iPhone?) the shapes look just like the pie pieces from there!

Anyway, the pie pieces come in three colors – orange, green/yellow, and purple. As you move along, you can try to organize the pieces by color, but you aren’t required to (Thank GOD!). If you do fill a circle with pie pieces that are the same color, you get more points, an extra life, and a power-up (more on that later). If you fill a circle with mixed colors, you just get some points.

The game starts off slow – presenting you with one piece of a pie, and 6 empty circles to fill. A timer (around the center) indicates how much time you have left to move that piece. If you run out of time, you lose a life. Lose all your lives and the game is over.

As you progress, you have less and less time to use a piece (at least it felt that way, I didn’t actually time it). Eventually (trust me, it will happen) you will get to frazzled to find a place to put the piece, and you will lose your last life.

As I said, when you fill a circle with pie-pieces that are the same color, you get a bonus life, more points, and a power-up. The power ups have to be manually activated, and come in three varieties – double points, slow down, or nuke. Double points give you, as you might expect, double points for a limited time. Slow down simply slows the timer down for a while. And nuke simply clears some the board. Unfortunately you are not given the choice of which power up you get, nor can you stockpile them to save up (I know, I tried). Although you can’t stockpile them, you can pick up a powerup while you are currently using one.

In the settings, you can control the various aspects of the game – sound, music, vibration, etc. You can also activate “advance piece” which allows you to move to the next piece costing you a life (but not having to wait for the time to run out).

You also have the option of uploading scores, which I didn’t participate in, but some people may enjoy. It would be nice to see a head-to-head match ability via wifi, giving people the same pieces and seeing how they do with them (or people using the same board, filling each other’s spaces to foil their moves!). There are lots of options for a multiplayer, and I would hope to see something in that vein in the future. There is also no difficulty setting – it would be nice to be able to choose easier (with only two colors) or harder (with four colors).

This is a fun game. The graphics are simple but crisp and clean, and the background sounds and music work well with the game. The responsiveness is great, and while it is not a game to play to relax, it certainly is one the shows a high level of replay-ability.

Pros:

• Nice graphics,
• simple concept,
• addicting

Cons:

• No multiplayer

Conclusion

All in all, this is a fun game, and may very well make its way onto the first three pages of my iPhone (where I keep “my apps” as opposed to apps I am reviewing). It is fun, fast paced, and easy to pick up. It is currently on sale for $1.99 (during the “holiday season”) but it is normally $4.99. My rating is based on the current price – for the “normal” price, people may consider it overpriced.

Forum Review Rating

[Frenzic is available from the iTunes App Store.]

The Weather Channel Forum Review by cjvitek (For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Okay, I am sort of a weather junkie. I didn’t used to be, but when I moved to Florida (with hurricanes), and the weather was directly related to my research activities, I became a little but of a junkie. Not as bad as some, but definitely more than most.

That’s why I was a little disappointed with the iPhone default weather application. Sure, it gave you temperatures…but what if I wanted more! I tried the Weatherbug program, and that was okay…but I still found myself going to the Weather Underground site often. Then I found The Weather Channel program.

Read on for the review, after the jump!

The Weather Channel program has just about most types of weather information you could want. So let’s go through what it offers.

First, you can customize your locations. I don’t know if there is a limit to how many locations you can include, but I added five with no problem.

When you access the weather data, the screens are divided into “weather”, “explore map”, “video”, “severe”, and “more”. They are navigated by hitting tabs at the bottom of the screen. The weather tab is the first you see, and you can get current conditions, hourly, 36 hour, and 10 day reports. The current conditions data includes temperature, cloud cover, “feels like” temperature, wind, humidity, UV index, and visibility. The only thing lacking are the sunrise and sunset times.

The hourly screen reports the anticipated changes on an hour by hour basis. Rather than just settle for a 60% chance of rain, you can determine when it is supposed to rain, and plan your activities accordingly. The 36 hour forecast if just that – what it will be like for the next day and a half. And the 10 day forecast is a long term look at the weather (temperature and precipitation).

The Explore map tab allows you to look at a radar map of the area. However, you are not limited to just radar – you can also look at cloud cover, radar AND clouds, temperature, “feel like” temperature, 24 hour rainfall/snowfall, and UV index. You can include cities, schools, parks, golf courses, or lakes on the map.

The video tab gives you a short (about 2 to 3 minutes) local video forecast – basically what is played on The Weather Channel station on TV. The severe tab gives you any severe weather forecasts, and the “more” tab is a help screen, an about screen, and links you to more videos (worldwide weather).

All in all, a pretty full featured weather program.

I am not sure how it would do with out of the ordinary weather items – hurricane tracking, for example. Presumably a hurricane warning would show up, but I don’t know if you would have detailed access to the prediction cones, anticipated landfall, strength data, etc. I am don’t know if it shows you the cycle of the moon (I looked last night, but I was tired and now I can’t remember). But for a casual weather junkie, or people who just are really looking for detailed information for event planning, this application covers most of the bases. It would also be nice to be able to customize a screen to show the information you want specifically.

Of course, you are still relying on the report of the weather man, but that is another issue entirely.

Pros:

• Very complete data set,
• easy interface

Cons:

• Information can almost be TOO much

Conclusion

All in all, if you want a complete weather program, this is one of the best I have seen. And to top it off, it is free.

Forum Rating

[The Weather Channel is available from the iTunes App Store, though some may need to search for the "international" version. iSigh.]

[Confession: I've been a little slow in getting the usual twice-weekly Forum Reviews up, and cjvitek and msbaylor, as if sensing my slacktivity level, put their production into turbo mode. So what's an editor to do? Come up with an angle, of course! So, from now until we catch up -- or I mess up again -- we'll be presenting lots more Forum Reviews. How many more? Well, we're calling it our Holidaily Double, so howzat for a clue? - Rene]

SimCity Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

My main concern before getting this application was – would it be able to handle all the animations on the screen, or would it just be an expensive crashing app? After a brief setup and I selected the tutorial, I got a white screen. I thought this was a glitch (First thought – “NO, Not the white-screen-of-death!”), but after about 15 or 20 seconds, the main Sim-screen came up and walked me through the controls and what everything meant. That alone was very nice to have – major kudos for the help explanations.

Read on for the review, after the jump!

Issues:

The first thing it caught me was – how to add roads. I immediately had problems with this, laying it exactly where it wanted me to. I felt that an offset feature would be nice, so that I could see exactly where I was laying the road instead of covering it up with my finger. I later realized I could zoom in to be more accurate, however, this might prove difficult if you want to lay down a long line of road – pave > pan > pave > pan, etc. Also if you are off when you place something, you have the ability to move it around before confirming its location (a type of “post-offset.”)

Another issue I noticed was under the help menu (not the in game help,) that the buttons are very short and a bit hard to hit if you have fat fingers.

Animations:

Other than that, the game seemed to run just fine. I like how it adjusted some of the imagery to keep from eating up too much RAM without taking away from the game play. For instance – as you zoom out, animations will stop on the structures and just become static images. If you zoom in, all the way – in, you can see you Sims in transit (vehicular movement), however the images become fuzzy and less-sharp in detail as you zoom it. This was a bit of a let down, but I guess it has to happen to keep your handy-dandy iPhone from crashing… After all if viewing one or two structures on the screen, the structures animate, i.e., smoke stack on the oil factory puffs smoke.)

Controls:

The controls are fairly intuitive, incorporating the pinch/zoom, double-tap to zoom, and other features that you would normally use in the Maps.app are implemented into the application when viewing the map.

Tutorial/Help:

If you have question regarding anything on screen, just tap the question mark in the bottom left-hand corner, then tap the area/item that you have a question about and you will be given an explanation. This app has very helpful feature if you are new to this type of game.

Display:

There is a news ticker at the bottom of the screen that alerts you to things that are going on in your Sim’s world. If it is green text, then it usually means something good or something that needs to be fixed soon. This leads me to Advisors – depending on the “news stories” that show up, you have different “advisors” That will advise you on what to do in order to make your city better.

Conclusion:

This game exceeded my expectations in how the game handles and the depth of play, however, I was a bit dismayed on how hard it has to simply lay road down and how the images deteriorated when you zoomed in (I expected more from EA on image quality). If you’re a fan of SimCity or other God-view Sim games, then you should love this game.

Pros:

• Intuitive & Familiar controls
• Numerous features
• In-depth game play
• Great help menu
• Numerous map views to help you during the game.
• Several difficulties of play.

Cons:

• Some of the menu buttons are hard to tap on.
• Laying road or other narrow landscaping accurately can be difficult & frustrating.
• Images aren’t as detailed (noticeably when zoomed into the region).

Forum Review Rating

[SimCity is available from the iTunes App Store, though some may need to search for the "international" version. iSigh.]

Brother’s In Arms: Hour of Heroes Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

This new game from Gameloft has raised the bar yet again on their games. After finding out that this game has in the App Store I immediately downloaded it and started to play it. The graphics are that of Nintendo64, but the detection, Audio and AI are better than that of the N64. For those of you that remember the ‘ol N64, do you remember shooting the wall and the bullet holes didn’t show up? Or when you would attempt to run over someone with a tank and they wouldn’t die? Well unlike the N64, you can do that in this game, as well as get run over, bombed, shot, or punched in the face.

After having played Brother In Arms I found that this game really sets it own standard. There is nothing like it in the app store.

There are 4 operations from which there are 5 missions in each. I think there is a fair amount of game play, not necessarily a great amount, but a fair amount. Now to leverage that, I found that if I replayed a mission, I played a different soldier in that mission. I’ve also found that the outcome in not always played out the same way each time. So on that note, the game play can seen as quite significant (the video does not explain this)

The controls in this game are my main complaint. But let’s face it, these controls are for the most part the best and really the only way to control the type of game.

First to control your direction, you place your thumb on the yellow dot in the bottom right corner and slide your thumb in the direction that you want to go. This is basically the same as ASDWZ on a keyboard for a PC game.

To face a certain direction and ultimately where you aim, you use your right thumb, and move your line of sight around on the screen. To shoot, you press the button in the bottom right corner.

To throw a grenade, you press the grenade image in the upper right-hand corner, then you tilt you iPhone in the direction that you want to toss the grenade. Finally you press the “shoot” button to throw the grenade.

To operate one of the guns on the ground, you press the usual fire button, but you use the control in the bottom-left corner to control your aim. This control I’ve found ultimately difficult to operate.

To control a tank, you use the same controls as if you were walking. The direction you go and the direction you fire can be controlled independently.

Finally to drive a jeep, a steering wheel will appear in the bottom left corner and a forward and reverse buttons in the bottom right corner. I found driving the jeep extremely difficult. Having bought Asphalt 4 from Gameloft, I am hoping they can implement the same controls for the jeep as are effective in Asphalt 4.

This game uses more methods of control than I have ever seen in any app. While at first you might find it hard to control the game, but as you continue to play, you’ll get used to the controls.

Like Asphalt 4, there are a few (3) control schemes – the one mentioned above, another that is like using two “virtual” joysticks, and another in which the direction you move is the same but to control your sight, you tap in the direction that you want to view. I recommend control scheme 1 or 2.

As for shooting the enemy, your gun sight will turn red when you get near an enemy. The gun-sight utilizes snapping so that it is easier to hit your targets. However this is not true (snapping) if you are using a sniper rifle.

You have the ability to hold up to 3 weapons (from what I’ve done so far) and by tapping on the current gun icon in the top left-hand corner you can change your weapon as well as numerous other options.

Price: This game only came out a few days ago and if you love FPS shooters or a fan of the Brothers In Arms series, then you shouldn’t wait to buy this game. However, if you are a little hesitant in buying this game, then wait a week or two as the price tends to drop on Gameloft games after about two weeks

Pros:

• Awesome graphics
• Unique controls offer unique game play
• First-person shooter
• Multiple mission roles
• Audio is awesome (including the ringing-ear effect when a bomb explodes nearby)

Cons:

• Controls can seem awkward or hindering during game play as it might block your line of sight.
• Small amount of missions.

Conclusion

Overall I definitely recommend this application. I would like to see some better handling of some of the vehicle controls and like some of the other popular Gameloft games, Wifi connectivity…maybe a co-op or a death-match of some sort…. well maybe not a death-match, that would make another good game altogether… I’d also like to see some more missions added (or the multi-player)

Forum Review Rating

[Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes is available from the iTunes App Store]

Lie Detector Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

The Lie Detector App claims that it can detect when a person is lying, 100% of the time I was unsuccessful in getting the app to work. When you open the app it tells you to input a few things about the person that is being questioned. And in the last blank, you enter the question you want to see if the person is lying about.

Once you hit “Save,” the app will ask the person that they should be truthful about, as it is supposed to calibrate the application for the one final question being asked.

I must say I do like the graphics in the application, and the sound meter seems to move adequately when speaking into the mic. However, every time I told the truth, I got this screen:

…and every time I was lying, I got:

Needless to say I haven’t got this app to work at all. I tried it on a friend and it worked 1 in 5 tries…after all I would have expected more…it’s a 50/50 chance…

I give it 1 star for graphics.

For $2.99 this is CrApp

Pros:

• Um…graphics?

Cons:

• Doesn’t work

Forum Review Rating

[Lie Detector is available from the iTunes App Store]

Aurora Feint Forum Review by cjvitek (For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

[Ed- Aurora Feint 1: The Beginning, is FREE in the iTunes store. Aurora Feint 2: The Arena is now available for $7.99 and if you head on over to the forum, and ask Chris and Matt, we might just get a review up for that soon too! Meanwhile, here's Chris' review of the original to whet everyone's appetite!]

This is an extremely interesting game that tries to combine elements of a puzzle game with elements of an RPG game.

You start with a map screen. From there, you can go to the mine (the puzzle game), the store (to use your tiles for skills or tools), the smith (to actually obtain the tools), and the tower (to actually learn the skills). You need to start with the puzzle game, and once you start to gain levels and tile,s you can move to the other areas.

As a puzzle game, it is a pretty standard “match multiple tiles” type of game. You move peices horizontally to try to match at least three tiles together. One twist is that by holding your iPhone at different angles, “horizontally” changes, so in reality you can also move tiles vertically. Depending on the orientation, “gravity” is always down, so the tiles may fall differently as well. The graphics are pretty nice (there are five types of tiles) and the sound during the game is nice as well. There are a few powerups (more on this later) that add to the game play, destorying additional tiles or various other effects.

As you destroy tiles (or “resources”, consisting of water, fire, earth, moon, and wind), you are actually “collecting” them, and this is used in the RPG side of the game. As you complete levels of the game, you gain experience, and can choose to “level up” in various areas. These additional levels allow you to either learn new skills, or gain new tools. This is all based on the number of tiles you have collected. To learn a skill or gain a tool requires various combinations of the five tiles – if you don’t have enough of a specific type that you have collected, you can’t learn the skill or gain the tool.

Learning skills or gaining tools requires you to complete a different puzzle. For skills, you are required to solve a specific puzzle (matching similar globes this time, making them all vanish) in a limited amount of moves. As the skill levels progress, these puzzles become harder. To learn new tools (by building blueprints), you have a time limited tile-removal puzzle, where you have to collect a specific number of tiles in various combinations (these are different from the tiles that are collected to try to gain the tool). If you fail at these puzzles, you have to try again at a later date.

All said, this is a complex game with an intriguing concept – combining a puzzle and RPG game. However, there are some problems that I have had. There are some features of the game that I can’t figure out. There seem to be scrolls you can buy, but I haven’t found out how to di that. In addition, it appears like you can have multiple members in you “party”, but I can only really get one player going.

My biggest problem is with the RPG aspect of the game, however. The first problem is that many of the skills and tools are confusing. Once you get a tool, it can appear during the puzle side of the game (the power ups I mentioned previously). It also appears that you are supposed to be able ot “merge” tools, or use them when you are building blueprints, but I can’t figure that aspect of the game out as well. This all dovetails into my biggest issue – the lack of clear instructions. There is no help screen or anything the clearly describes the gameplay, the features, or the RPG side of the game. With a game this complex, I think some sort of help screen is essential.

The last problem I had was with the RPG side of the game. Allowing a player to “level up” and learn different skills is great, but it doesn’t appear that there is any real specialization going on. That is, if you don’t learn a skill or a tool at one point, you can try to do so at the next “level up”. Rather than allow people to really choose a path for their characters, it just appears that you can only choose the order in which you gain new skills and abilities – but eventually all character would be the same.

I applaud this game and the developers for trying a new approach to a puzzle game. And I think it has a lot of potential. Heck, even with the game as it currently stand I probably play it more than almost any other game. But it seems like they took a great concept, and stopped 10 yards short of the goal line. A little more development could have made this an incredible game, instead of a merely “very good” game. It is free, so I strongly recommend trying it. As I said, even with my concerns and issues, it is one of my top three games on my iPhone.

Pros

• Great graphics and sound,
• interesting game play,
• a great new concept for a standard puzzle game

Cons

• Lack of help screen or instructions,
• lack of a “real” RPG type of mode

Forum Rating

SushiTime Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

So you go to a new sushi restaurant in town, you think, “man I bet they have an awesome yellow tail roll here”. You are seated at a table by the beautiful waitress, you open the menu, and low and hold…the menu uses terms that you know nothing about. You think to yourself, “I could ask the waitress, but then she’ll think I’m stupid!” That’s when it hits you, only the night before, you downloaded Sushi Time to your iPhone. With Sushi Time, you realize, “I don’t have to be a sushi pro to eat like one! Sushi Time will demystify many common terms found in sushi restaurant menus as well as fill in gaps for sushi connoisseurs.”

So you whip out your iPhone and startup Sushi Time, you scroll down the list to lookup up the word “fugu” your finger shakes with excitement as you realize you are so close to revealing the secrets of the name…You tap it and the app reveals a tile with a picture, hey you “realize that looks like yellow-tail”…

…you then flip over the tile with a swipe of your finger and it reads:

Toxic! “O sheesh”, you think to yourself, “good thing I didn’t get that…”

You realize Sushi Time might have just saved your life…

Sushi Time is a simple app. Its used to look up terms that may be used in a sushi restaurant, and it you are daring enough to try a random dish, you might want to check to see what you are actually getting.

Terms are sorted in alphabetical order or you can view them by type.

Within the list view, navigation is simple, it’s like scrolling through your contacts. Upon clicking on a term a tile will appear with the name and a picture. You can swipe over the tile to reveal information about the term by using the swiping motion. Besides the description you also gave the option of adding to your favorites.

Therefore you can pull up those terms next time you want to order them in a resturant and impress the waitress…

Overall I was expecting more. I thought it would geve me a little more information about each item. I also don’t like the – see picture then swipe to see description. I am not quizing myself over terms, I just want the facts, so It would be nice if they made it just one page instead of a flip screen. $1.99 is asking too much for this app at the moment.

Pros:

• Simple UI
• items listed by Name & by Type.
• has photo of each item.

Cons:

• Takes to long to get info (even it is just that one extra swiping motion).
• Larger database would be nice
• Lack of description

Pricing

$1.99

Forum Review Rating

[SushiTime is available from the iTunes App Store]

Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Note: This review was requested on the review request thread.

Search Dial is just that…a searching program for numbers to dial. But it adds a little more functionality into just looking through your contact list.

The Search Dial interface is very straightfoward. When you start the program, you are presented with a screen to select “call”, “SMS”, or “Email”. You then start to type a persons name (first or last) and as your type, contacts that match the description start to appear. The more you type, the more specific you are, and the more it narrows down the contact options. Let’s look at each of the options one at a time.

When searching phone number (call), you are given an individual listing for each phone number that a person has. To dial the number, you simply tap the persons name. This is a nice feature that differs from the normal contact book lookup, when you have to go into the contact the choose the phone number you want to dial. If you use the SearchDial program to dial the phone number, that number is stored in a “frequently dialed” cache, to act as your…well…frequently dialed list.

For the SMS message, when you start typing in a contact name, the mobile number appears. I tried to trick it by typing in a name of someone who didn’t have a mobile number, and no phone number appeared. So it is smart! When you tap a person’s name, you then can send them an SMS.

Lastly, the email button. Again, type in the name, and the person (and their email address) appear. I tried to type in a name of someone who had multiple email addresses, and they were all listed individually.

One nice feature with this is that you can actually type part of the email address, or part of their phone number (not just the person’s name) and the contact will still appear. You can also search with intials, company name, etc. The normal contact book doesn’t do this – there you need to use the persons name.

In all cases, when you hit a name to call, SMS, or email, the default program opens for the appropriate contact method.

When you first start the program, you have to refresh the information by syncing your contact list. If you make any changes in the contact book, you need to manually sync those changes in this program. It would be nice if you could schedule a sync when you start the program (say, making sure it has been updated once a week or so), but I am not sure how useful that would be since it can’t sync in the background (nothing can, Apple doesn’t allow programs to run in the background).

This is a pretty nice little application, if you want to use something other than the default contact list. And in my opinion, that is the biggest question. If you find the default contact book isn’t meeting your needs (and for people with HUGE numbers of contacts, it may not), or if you have contacts with lots of multiple information (multiple phone numbers, email, etc) then you may benefit from this program. On the other hand, if you have 50 contact, each with one email and only a few with multiple phone numbers, this program doesn’t seem like it would be that much benefit for you. Basically, this program is designed to cut down on time to find a contact…and the time only takes a while if you have a lot of contacts.

I will say that the search features are especially nice, and splitting up the contacts for each phone number or email address is nice as well. But with my measly 150 contacts (give or take), most of whom I only have addresses for, I don’t think it would be worthwhile.

Some improvements I would like to see would include that ability to have an entire contact list, and edit contacts in this program (and sync them back). Then it could completely take over for the existing contact book (although Apple may not like that, so they may not allow it…and it may not even be possible!). Also, it would be nice if it could import the recent dialed and recent received call lists from the phone app, rather than rely on using SearchDial to make its own frequent call list.

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Delivers the results

Cons:

• Real benefit is when you have lots of contacts, or multiple information for each contact.

Conclusion

All in all, this is a nice app, that does exactly what it says it will do. And for some people, I could see a real benefit to using this. At $.99, if you think it might be helpful (if you spend too much time looking through your contacts to find the right name, phone number, email address, etc) it is worth giving a shot.

Forum Rating

[SearchDial is available from the iTunes App Store]

Forum Review by msbaylor (Visit the thread for video, more pics, and a bonus Forum Review by cjvitek!) For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Camera bag is a simple and creative application.

It allows you to apply several different filters to a picture you have already taken our one that you can take within the application itself.

Besides the filters themselves, you have the option to choose which resolution you wish to use. The higher the resolution the longer the app will take in saving your new photo, but the better the quality the picture will be. Personally I want the highest quality possible and it didn’t seem to take an unnecessary amount of time to save (the save time is shown in there video below.)

The app has 8 filters total that you can apply to a photo:

1. Helga: this desaturates and adds a vignett border as well as crops the photo.
2. Lolo: crops the photo to a square, adds a white border and increases situation and contrast.
3. Cinema: desaturates photo and adds a blue tone to the photo.
4. Ansel: Adds white border and converts picture to Black & White (grayscale).
5. 1962: converts to black & white (grayscale) and increases contrast.
6. 1974s: adds sepia tone to photo, adds white border and crops photo.
7. Fisheye: Creates a bubble type of effect with your photo. (not really fisheye).
8. Infrared: Converts the photo to black & white (grayscale) then Inverts the colors.

To get started, you just have to tap the camera icon to take a photo of tap the “group” icon – right-most icon of the 3-group of icons, to select a previously taken photo. The photo will load with the first filter applied (Helga). You can then select from the list at the top by tapping the name of the filter to drop down the list and selecting another filter. You can also “flip” through the filters, as you would do in your photo album. Once you find the filter you like, you just click the save button (middle of the 3 keys) and it automatically saves to you camera roll.

This application only applies coloration filter, in other words there is not mosaic or of-the-like-type filter, which for me, I enjoy. I tend not to like the mosaic and “fun” filters, but more of the black & white, color variation filters. The app developer says they will include more filters in the following updates. I’d like to see a variable filter of some type (contrast for example), in which you can control the variables (sliders) of the filter. I’d also like to see the ability to apply multiple filters before saving.

At first I was a bit hesitant on purchasing this application as I didn’t want to pay $2.99 for applying filters on my iphone (I thought “that’s something I can do on my computer”) but it is a nice application to have and it creates nice photos overall. The application is currently on sale for $3. Its orginal price is $5. Personally I am not sure I don’t recommend paying $5 for this app until they add more filters, maybe $4, and I defiantly recommend buying it for $3.

Recommendations & Tips: although you have the ability to take the photo in the application, I’d recommend taking the photo with the standard camera application then apply the filter in the app. You can also add multiple filters by applying a filter, then saving it, then reopening your newly created photo and apply another filter. You may encounter small artifacts in the photo due to multiple conversions/savings in doing this though.

Pros:

• Simple & easy to use
• Application of filters to taken photos within the app or previous ones.
• Good quality filters

Cons:

• Only 8 filters
• Can’t apply multiple filters before saving.
• Filters are arbitrary (you can’t change the variables in the filter)

Forum Review Rating

[Camera Bag is available from the iTunes App Store for $2.99]

Smarttime Forum Review by msbaylor (see forum post for video highlight!) For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

The SmartTime application is a simple yet complex to-do application.

When creating a task/event, you have multiple options, including color category (6 choices), duration, deadline.

By tapping on the blue circles next to title, duration & deadline, you will be given more options for each correlating section. In the title/description section details (pic above), you have several shortcuts that enable quicker entry. You also have the ability to insert a location (Where), if you do this, when viewing the event, you can send it to the Maps App, and it will route you to your event, etc.

There are 3 different views – Smart, Calendar, & Focus.

The smart focus view (my favorite) basically shows all your upcoming events & tasks in one view. The tasks are represented by a bar that is half the width of the screen, and events are the whole width of the screen. The color indicates a certain category that you can change to suite you. The circles indicate a deadline – if there is a red dot with an exclamation point, it means it is overdue. If there is a an orange circle with a ’0′ in it, it means it is due that day. If the circle is green and has a number in it, that means the task is due in that number of days.

The Calendar view shows your events & tasks (if it has a deadline) in the corresponding day and time. The Calendar is quite easy to navigate. By swiping your singer across the screen you go from day-to-day, by moving your finger up and down you move through time (dun dun duuun… ). One of the two problems I found is located in this view, it you have a large event that covers a large amount of time and you are trying to move the calendar around, if you antecedently touch the event and drag you finger around, the event will also drag (see example in the long video.) The other issue is, if you tap an item, you cannot change views. You have to tap ‘defer’ then cancel before you can change the view.

The focus view basically displays what you have due today and what you have already completed today. You also have the option in this view, to view the history of completed tasks.

The small magnify glass in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen in any of the 3 views, by tapping on it, it allows you to apply a filter in order to find a certain task or event. This is fantastic if you have a bunch of to-dos and your looking only your urgent to-dos (I have mine color-coded red).

In the Smart & Calendar view, when you click on en event/task, you are given the option to mark it done, defer, copy the task/event, share event/task, or show in map app.

This is a very well done, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be a paid application. The only reason I don’t give this app a perfect 5 is because of the two issues I had that are explained above.

Pros:

• Complex, yet simple
• Color-coding categories
• Option of task or event
• Nice and easy UI
• FREE

Cons:

• Home & Work schedules can make things confusing when scheduling events/tasks (view video)
• Easy to accidentally move items around in calendar view.
• Can’t change views once you have selected an item, unless you cancel out of a screen correlating to the event (see video)

Forum Review Rating

[Smartime is available from the iTunes App Store]

Easy Relax (Free Version) Forum Review by cjvitek. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Ahh….relaxtion. The often unachievable goal of most adults (especially during the weekend). With the increasing stress of our lives, is it any surprise that huge numbers of “relaxation aides” have appeared on the market. Massagers, aroma therapy, ambient noise generators – all trying to help us relax.

Well, now the iPhone has gotten into the game.

Easy Relax is an ambient noise generation program that has a huge number of features. In addition to come with a set of pre-programmed noise features, you can have the option of creating your own. This features sets it apart from most other similar programs.

The difference is that with the Easy Relax program, the ambient noises are a combination of sounds to create a more robust “mood”. So instead of hearing just a cricket chirping (for example), you might hear a cricket chirping, with an occasional wolf howl in the distance, and a low melody playing in the background.

The program comes with 7 preset “themes”, including “Into the West”, “Hawaii Vacation”, and “Rainy Day”. With any theme, you can change any of the sub-features (background music, or any of the up to three ambient noises). And with the ambient noises, you can control the individual volume, as well as the individual repeat time (make the waves softer or louder, make the howls repeat every 2 seconds or 10 seconds, etc.)

Add to the the ability to create your own ambient themes – each theme can have one background music, and up to three ambient noises included.

It’s a buffet of ambient noise! How can you relax with all these fun and exciting choices!

Added to all of this is a timer feature, so you can run any theme for a pre-set length of time, after which it will stop. Perfect to help you relax or fall asleep.

If you want the more traditional ambient noises, you can create a theme that just consists of that noise by itselt. The program comes with 30 different ambient noises, and 11 different background “soundtracks”.

One annoying thing is everytime you start the program, it “suggests” that you upgrade to the ultimate version, and you have to hit a button to use this version.

For people who take their relaxation seriously, this might just be the ultimate ambient noise generator. The ultimate version is said to have more sounds and programs. It also has icons for the preset themes, playback speeds, alarm modes, and a randomization function. Truthfully, as good as the free version is, I am sort of thinking about getting the ultimate version.

Both the free and ultimate versions are listed as a “temporary promotion”, so I don’t know if those prices will change in the near future.

Pros:

• Incredible customization options for ambient noise

Cons:

• Annoying pop-up when starting the program.

All in all, this seems to be one of the most full featured ambient noise generators around. Even the free version has more than you could ever use.

Forum Review Rating

[Easy Relax is available from the iTunes App Store]

[The Lightning Reviews are over, but from their ashes rise... the Forum Reviews! TiPb has assembled a crack team of App-aficionados, and every week we'll be bringing you a few of their very best reviews right here on the blog. And be sure to check out TiPb's iPhone App Store Forum for even more!]

Living Social Forum Review by msbaylor

Living Social is a very interesting app.

The LivingSocial app allows you to keep track of movies you’ve watched, want to see, didn’t like, etc. and the ratings you give them. It also does this with books, restaurants, beer, video games, & music. It will also give you recommendations in each category (provided you have entered a few entries). I personally like this because I can keep track of videos I’ve liked, what I want to see, books I want to read, places I want to eat at, etc. It is also somewhat of an inventory application because you can mark each entry as owned, want it, etc.

In the image above you cannot see it, but there is a button at the bottom that when touched, will give you recommendations for that category.

In each category you can search for a particular item – movie, book, restaurant in your city/town, etc.

I like the application UrbanSpoon, but it does not list my location within the application, however using this application, I can do somewhat the same thing. Unlike Urbanspoon, LivingSocial relies upon users to catalog information rather than the developers doing it.

You will have to create an account at LivingSocial before you can begin using the application.

You can also edit your entries online, and it seems to be faster to get started with. Within the actual website you can also lookup TV Shows, which is not in the app for some reason.

There is a feed button, which I am not real sure what this is. My guess is, that it is the latest things that users are doing in that particular category. You have the option to add friends and then check to see what you friends have been watching/reading/etc. somewhat like the Facebook feed.

Conclusion

I would like to see the addition of the TVShows category and a Wine category would be nice (as I am not a beer drinker).

Also you cannot search through your favorites or what you’ve done. However if you use the search function, when it lists the results it will say if you’ve watched it or whatever (see screen shot above).

Pros:

• FREE
• Great social app, especially if there is an app that doesn’t include the categories you like or doesn’t support you city.
• Syncs with you account very quickly.
• Wide range of items.

Cons:

• UI is a bit clunky – it’s hard to get from one category to another
• It’s somewhat hard to get started on the application itself,should use a computer’s browser to add first entries.
• Cannot search created lists directly.
• No instructions for app found…yet

Forum Review Rating:

[Living Social is available from the iTunes App Store]

[The Lightning Reviews are over, but from their ashes rise... the Forum Reviews! TiPb has assembled a crack team of App-aficionados, and every week we'll be bringing you a few of their very best reviews right here on the blog. And be sure to check out TiPb's iPhone App Store Forum for even more!]

Line Rider Forum Review by cjvitek

The Line Rider concept game is a simple one. You draw a line. A sled travel down the line as if it is a hill.

That’s it. Nothing more too it.

The iPhone Line Rider game has some nice features to it, not limited to just the simple “drawing a downward line”. You can have acceleration slopes, you can use different tools to draw the lines (free hand, straight lines, etc), and you can save any noteworthy tracks you create.

Having said that, this application got a little old pretty quickly. I mean, there are just so many times you can watch a sled go down a little hill. Maybe I simply wasn’t being creative enough with the various tools, but after three or four attempts, I found my attention wandering.

The graphics are simple, but that is the point of this program (not really a game). The animation is smooth. The hardest thing I found was simply drawing the slope. You have a hand tool to move around, and you can zoom in and out. Most of the time I found when I switched the tools, and then went back to draw, I created a cliff drop, where the sled guy would then all off his sled. Maybe my fingers are just too big for this.

It would be nice if it came preprogrammed with some “interesting” designs – either as a saved ride, or as something you could insert into your own creation. It would be nice it there was some sort of automatic “smooth” function – if your hill is too choppy, have some way to smooth it out so the guy won’t fall off his sled.

Pros:

• Good concept, simple interface

Cons:

• Too difficult to create a “smooth” hill (at least with my fat fingers).
• Limited ability to retain interest over the long haul.

All in all, for $2.99, this application seems overpriced. I would have thought for $.99 or even $1.99, it might be reasonable, but at the $2.99 I start to expect a little more. If you are a big fan of the line rider type entertainment, go ahead and get it, but otherwise I suggest you save your money.

Forum Review Rating

[Available via the iTunes App Store]

[The Lightning Reviews are over, but from their ashes rise... the Forum Reviews! TiPb has assembled a crack team of App-aficionados, and every week we'll be bringing you a few of their very best reviews right here on the blog. And be sure to check out TiPb's iPhone App Store Forum for even more!]

Kooaba Forum Review by msbaylor

Kooaba allow you to take a picture of a movie poster, then looks up the info about the movie.

You just push the camera icon on the main screen, snap a picture and it load (takes a long time – 30 secs+), then it opens safari and displays the movie details.

You can also view the history of your searches (if you ended up wasting that much time)

Conclusion:

This app takes WAY to long to load results. It, however, is a nice concept, but needs updating and it would be nice to see the results loaded in the app itself.

Pros:

• Cool concept
• Easy to use

Cons:

• Take too long to load results
• Shows results in Safari browser

Price:

FREE

Forum Review Rating

[Available via the iTunes App Store]

[The Lightning Reviews are over, but from their ashes rise... the Forum Reviews! TiPb has assembled a crack team of App-aficionados, and every week we'll be bringing you a few of their very best reviews right here on the blog. And be sure to check out TiPb's iPhone App Store Forum for even more!]

iFXMagic Forum Review by cjvitek

Given the lack of iPhone tools for camera or picture editing (you don’t even have some basic filters on the camera!), I saw this program and was pretty excited. It is advertised as a way to add filters to your pictures, including many filters that are commonly found on major software editing packages. So I decided to pick this up and take a look to see what it offered.

The program is easy to use. After you get by the splash screen, you can select a picture on your phone (either from the camera roll, or some other picture folder you have). When you choose a picture, you can choose one of four buttons at the buttom. The camera button allows you to take another picture. The save button allows you to save the modified picture. The book icon lets you choose another picture from your library. And the “FX” button allows you to apply an image effect.

Simple, huh.

So I jumped right in, choose a picture (one of the spin art pictures my daughter made), and started to look at the filter.

Some of the filters are really cool, the kind you would expect to see in a graphics editing program: mosiac, cubism, cartoon, emboss, oilify, etc. But some of the filters were not simply static things you could do the the picture – they involved a changing image. Like the “matrix” filter changed you picture into the cascading green numbers from the matrix movie.

These “action” filters (as I called them) don’t really make a lot of sense to me. You can’t save them, so the only real purpose they serve is to allow you to look at them within the program. If you could save it as an animated gif or something, well, that would be cool. But saving it only saves the current ‘snapshot’ regardless of what the action scene is doing.

The actual image filters are nice, and you can save those. However, there were three problems with those. First, unless you apply a filter, save the picture, load the picture, then apply another filter, there is no way to combine multiple filters. Second, you couldn’t change any of the settings on the filter. For example, the pixelize filter – you can’t control the size of the pixels. There are no settings for anything. Lastly, some obvious filters (black and white, sepia) aren’t included.

The filters they did include are nice, and can certainly make pictures more interesting, but it seemed to me that the problems listed above are a serious short coming in this program.

Just to note, a lot of people have complained about the program crashing. I haven’t experienced that, but who knows.

Pros:

• Nice filters to enhance or add creative flair to your pictures

Cons:

• The motion filters don’t seem to serve much of a purpose,
• some basic filter options are missing.

Conclusion

All in all, for $2.99, this program can serve up some fun. But if they added a few more filters and options, you could really have a kick ass program on your hands.

TiPb Forum Review Rating

Chris

[iFXMagic is available from the iTunes App Store in Full ($2.99), Lite ($0.99), and Free versions]