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.

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.

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.