App Review: iColorQ
Your iPhone + a toddler. Together, these are not necessarily a good combination. But, if you can get over handing your precious iPhone or iPod to a child, then it can keep them entertained for a while, and hopefully educate them a little as well.
iColorQ is a good example of this in action.
App Review: Pocket God
Having a set of minions to dominate and control has been a staple in gameplay since kids first got pets, dolls and younger siblings to knock around. Indeed, the Sims has become probably the most lucrative video game in the world by expanding on this simple premise until it burst.
The iPhone is an excellent platform for this type of game. It provides the user with a touch screen to manipulate their subjects in a pocketable device that allows users to indulge in a spot of torture whenever they have a few minutes to spare.
Pocket God from Bolt Creative gives you a couple of tropical islands to paddle around in and half a dozen or so villagers to torment with your godly powers. It’s just a shame the developers forget to include a rather vital component.
(more…)
App Review: PhotoForge
Some apps seem ripe for the iPhone: games, Twitter clients, podcast players and many others. Who though, would think to create an application that contains several of the essential photo manipulation tools found in more grown up software like Photoshop? GhostBird would… and did.
With PhotoForge, you effectively get two apps in one. It’s an image manipulation utility and also a painting app. Although I suspect the developers see the image manipulation side as the main selling point, for me, it’s the painting aspect that’s of most interest. I’m not suggesting its bad at twiddling with your photos, it’s actually very good at it and includes an impressive range of tools. It’s just, for me, it suffers from an inherent problem regarding photo editing on the iPhone. But I’ll come to that later.
(more…)
Will this adult app be seen on the App Store?
Since the App Store opened on July 10th 2008, Apple has earned plenty of justified criticism over its approval policies. There’s still a lack of transparency over what may or may not be allowed. But Apple has always been clear in its role as the gatekeeper that it will not allow “adult” applications.
But I’ve just received an email from a developer letting me know about his adult iPhone app, which will be approved after iPhone OS 3.0 is released. Is Apple about to relax its grip on the App Store?
Barcode scanning and shopping with the iPhone
Back in March, I read about Torrent Droid. This was the winner of a competition to develop an application for Android phones, the application being “A simple app to scan UPCs [barcodes] and match them with torrent files.”
Think about that for a second. This app uses the phone’s camera to capture a barcode, matches that with torrents from major trackers, then uploads the torrent file to the user’s server. So you’re strolling around, see a DVD, scan the barcode, and by the time you get home, you have a copy ready for watching. It’s pirate magic!
App Review: Pocket Informant
As an old Psion Organiser user, I’ve been looking for a good mobile calendar application for many years. You’ll hear Psion user’s wistfully describe their old organiser with the same level of dedication and reverence an Apple fan boy has over the output of Cupertino. The Psion devices contained a level of functionality that was years ahead of its time. Even today, you’d be hard pressed to find devices that come close to their levels of quality. But, for me, it’s the Psion’s Agenda application that I miss most. Superficially, it was just the native calendaring app but it had a level of sophistication that puts today’s offerings to shame.
What was so great about Agenda? A thousand little things but, mostly, it was hugely customisable allowing each user to configure a version that suited them perfectly.
App Review: Flight Control
Flight Control from the Australian developer, Firemint is a game with a very simple concept – land aircraft while keeping them from crashing into each other.
A quick look at almost any screenshot will tell you pretty much all you need to know about the game mechanics. You’re presented with an aerial view of an airport and different aircraft appear from off screen (slow jets, fast jets, light aircraft and helicopters) which you direct by simply dragging your finger from the plane, around the screen to their respective landing spot. If any planes bumps into each other it’s game over. Easy eh? You’d be surprised.
(more…)
App Review: Sheepstacker
Tiny Tim Games‘ Sheepstacker takes the traditional baa-lance game and introduces sheep. Is this combination good or baa-d? Hopefully after reading this review ewe will have a better idea if you want to spend your hard earned £1.19 on this title from Tiny Tim. Oh and I promise, no more baa-d sheep comments.
(more…)
App Review: Doc2email
Doc2email has one very simple purpose: convert an image taken by the iPhone camera into a fax document. This can then be sent via email to another person, or to a fax service for delivery to a standard fax machine.
After installation, setup is simple enough as all you need is your outgoing SMTP email settings. From there, it’s really a question of starting the application, using the camera to take the image and then emailing.
(more…)
App Review: iEscape
Even the most hard nosed business type appreciates a good iPhone game to help while away a spare five minutes. Car journeys, plane trips and even tedious meetings can all be made more bearable with the right type of entertainment. iEscape is a puzzler from developer Yves Bresson that, while impressive in most ways, has a couple of small niggles that takes the edge off the fun.
