The main focus of this site is (hopefully) informed commentary, and news we’ve unearthed ourselves. We also like to provide you with in-depth reviews. But, being a mostly volunteer-run site, there’s not enough time to review everything that comes through the door, and personally, I have quite a backlog of apps to look at.
So in a series of posts, I’m going to have a quick look at apps that I’ve promised developers I’ll review – ones that I’m reviewing because I thought they are interesting, and either highlighted how powerful the iPhone platform is, or just made me smile.
In this first round up of review apps, I’m looking at Pixi, Orbital and CalenGoo.
Pixi
I find myself coming back to this app every now and again, because it’s fascinating. Pixi is a way of creating digital moving art pieces on your iPhone. I’m not sure it has any practical applications apart form killing time, but practicality is not the point of art. The point is to create something that’s stimulating.
I’m not sure how to describe what Pixi is without showing you a video. Here’s one from Frapstr.com:
You control the app using several gestures: 1, 2 or 3 finger touch, pinch and spread. Shake to reset. A tap at the bottom of the screen brings up menu mode, which has several modes: stroke, stroke colour, background color, web painter, flare painter and brush painter. You can save and view designs from the Gallery, and see what other people have created on PixiNet.
I don’t know what to say about this app other than I like it. It has produced some amazing images when I’ve played with it.
Pixi
Version reviewed: 1.0.2
Category: Entertainment
Developer: Tiny Wonder Studios
Current Price: £1.19
Platforms: iPhone (version reviewed), iPod Touch
Orbital
A little while ago I came across a Flash-based game called “Gimme Friction Baby“. I played it for ages, and longed for an iPhone version. Orbital = my prayers answered.
This game is like crack. So simple, and yet so addictive. It’s easily my favourite game on the iPhone.
All you have to do is fire your ball – it can bounce off a wall if you like – and wherever it ends up, it grows until it touches a wall or another ball. Each of the balls created in this way has to be hit 3 times to be destroyed (5 in Supernova mode), and you score one point for each ball destroyed. If your ball crosses the line at the bottom of the screen, game over. That’s it.
It has three modes now: Pure (bounce off walls), Gravity (the size of the balls makes a difference), and Supernova, which gives you more control over the direction of the ball. You can also play against an opponent on the same iPhone, and connect with friends on Facebook to share high scores.
I wish this game had a multi-iPhone option, especially for online play. But that takes nothing away from its addictiveness. I’ve lost hours of my life to this game. It’s superb. And there’s an iPad version in development.
Highly, highly recommended.
Orbital
Version reviewed: 1.2.1
Category: Games
Developer: bitForge Ltd
Current Price: £1.19
Platforms: iPhone (version reviewed), iPod Touch, iPad (in development)
CalenGoo
I’m a heavy Google user, including Google Calendar, and I have everything synced over-the-air with my iPhone. But I find the iPhone’s built-in calendar app to be a little limited. For example, there’s no week view. Enter CalenGoo.
This app syncs and allows editing of your Google Calendars. By default it syncs on startup, which can be a bit slow, but you can turn this off. It has all but one of t, and a lot more.
In addition to all of the features that the built-in calendar app has, it has:
- Week view
- A full month view that uses the whole screen, with tiny but readable text
- Landscape viewing
- Pick a date to go to – no more having to page through months, as with the built-in calendar
- ISO Week numbers
- Badging of the app’s icon
- Set working time in day view
- Don’t show empty days
- Search in descriptions and locations
Clearly, this is an app for people who like a *lot* of control over their calendars. It also looks just like Google Calendar. And there’s no faffing around having to try workarounds to get the correct calendar colour.
The kicker for me is alarms. I like the native reminder system on the iPhone, but because of limitations of the iPhone SDK, these cannot be used by 3rd party apps such as CalenGoo. The replacements are either SMS from Google or Push Notifications. I don’t like those solutions, so I haven’t switched from using the built-in app.
The next version of this app is likely to add support for Google Tasks. That could be a killer feature for a lot of people.
CalenGoo highlights for me one of the reasons why apps are so important – in this case, taking something that Apple has started, and polishing it to a high degree.
CalenGoo
Version reviewed: 1.3.1
Category: Productivity
Developer: Dominique Andr Gunia
Current Price: £3.99
Platforms: iPhone (version reviewed), iPod Touch