iPhone App: Designed for iPhone, compatible with iPad
July 28th, 2010 by Chris Hall
Our rating: :: VERY FRUSTRATING
DungeonCore is a maddening experience that will make you want to drop your iPhone off a tall building. I can't stop playing it though. I think there's something wrong with me. Read More »
July 28th, 2010 by Ryan Wood
Our rating: :: PROCEDURAL ART
OmniSketch is a powerful procedural art tool that provides a lot of bang for the $1.99 price tag. Even the untrained artist can find some enjoyable features in OmniSketch. Read More »
July 28th, 2010 by Ryan Wood
Our rating: :: CARD BLAH
Set Pro HD, while being good in theory, executes poorly in this overly simplistic card game. A multi-player mode that's sure to put your iPad in danger only helps to increase the disinterest I have in this game. Read More »
Campfire, the project collaboration application with real time chat designed for private groups where members can share files, text, code and more (think of it as a more powerful IRC client), can now be found on the App Store as an official application by 37signals due to a takeover of Ember, the third-party application developer of Campfire. Ember, as it was then known, was originally priced at $9.99, but developers 37signals saw an opportunity which allowed them to “work out a deal [with Ember and make] a few changes to the app” according to the official blog. As of July 26th, the application has rebranded and re-released with a new price tag: rather, no price tag at all. It’s free to download from the iTunes App Store.
Although the application itself is free, a Campfire account is not. The basic package allows up to 12 chatters and 1GB of storage for $12 a month, and for $24 a month you can upgrade that to 25 chatters, 3GB of storage as well as 500 conference call minutes and enhanced security over the Basic package. A free 30-day trial is available on all accounts.
37signals continues to become a prominent player in the business network, having released other popular applications and clients that allow more professional social networking to take place. Basecamp, Highrise and Backpack all have one thing in common: their developer is Campfire creator 37signals. You can download the free Campfire application by clicking the link below, which will redirect you to iTunes.
Ever since the start of the World Cup, we have seen a slew of soccer apps come out. Unfortunately, the majority of the apps are soccer simulations, leading to obvious limitations on the small iPhone screen. There’s just no good way to pack all of the complexities that soccer offers, from the moves to the different types of passes to the great shots… there just isn’t enough screen real estate for the needed buttons.
Instead of a traditional soccer game, Gamerizon has made a soccer game that looks like the iPhone version of Mario Strikers, just with simpler controls.
“There are no virtual pads or buttons. All that’s needed is one finger to control all offensive and defensive actions. To move, you just slide your finger on the screen. To pass, shoot or tackle, you just flick your finger in the direction you want your player or ball to go. That’s it! Those commands make Chop Chop Soccer™ the most intuitive soccer game ever created.”
Be sure to check out the video below, the game looks like a ton of fun.
Being a US based website, many of you probably have no idea what The Score is. The Score Television Network is a fairly large sports network that goes out to “6.8 million homes across Canada”, covering all sports from US Football to Association Football (soccer). While obviously lagging behind the readership/viewership of the likes of SI and ESPN, The Score is trying to pick up the pace by really hitting the mobile app audience.
With an iPhone app already doing quite well in the sports category, the iPad edition is looking to take the content a step further by adding original video content, video content from the network, and a slick new interface to pull it all together.
“theScore iPad Edition takes advantage of all the great features the iPad has to offer and leverages its native performance and flexible web views,” says Jeff Brenner, Co-Founder, NuLayer. “It’s an awesome app that provides a socially-integrated way to explore the sports world. Fans are going to love it.”
The best part about the app is that it’s free to all users, so pick it up and soak in the glory.
There are some people who just like to casually watch the Star Trek movies, and then there are those who film their own fan movies and travel far and wide to go to conventions. These costumed crusaders can now use the iPhone 4 as their very own Starfleet communicator.
“Using the Captain’s Log communicator, users can capture voice recordings, text entries, take photos and map GPS locations of their voyages as they travel planet Earth. Officers can select their preferred Enterprise class level, whether taking the role of Captain, Engineering, Science/Medical, Enterprise, or assuming the identity an enemy Romulan or Klingon officer.”
Now you can track your perilous mission to the vast reaches of the galaxy shopping mall with GPS precision, and leave behind voice memo’s for your fellow captains to aid their own journeys. Share your findings on the vast networks of Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, or just send the data along to other users of the app.
Pick the app up today for $1.99… and don’t hurt yourself.
The Moron Test has been an astounding success in the App Store since its launch. It has been in the top 100 for over 450 days, and is trying to continue that trend with great new updates.
The latest update is called “Food Fight” and according to Berkeley Malagon, President and CEO of DistinctDev, it is “by far the hardest section we’ve ever created.”
Food Fight offers 45 new questions with more than 100 steps, while also introducing new characters and question types into the series. It doesn’t stop there though. “Our biggest requests from fans are for new sections, leaderboards and randomized tests. We’ve added them all!” says Mike Monaco, Co-Founder and COO of DistinctDev. The iPhone version now includes all new global leaderboards, achievements, and an “Extra Credit” series of mini-games that generate random questions to test speed, memory, and reflex.
Be sure to grab the newest version of Moron Test today… like all updates, it’s free!
“Once I saw that the iPhone 4 was going to have an LED flash on it…a light bulb turned on in my head….how’s that for cheesy?”
Mike D’Ulisse and his brother Matt have a knack for creating gold out of the most simple ideas. They’ve done fairly well with other strong apps such as Pocket Labeler, Ransom Letters, and Star Blaster (previously called iPhaser), but their new Flashlight app has turned out to be the biggest app yet.
My question was, how do you hit it big with an app that anyone and everyone can/will recreate?
“I figured that every developer out there was thinking the same thing…it almost didn’t seem worth the time, so I brought it up to my brother and business partner, but he wasn’t exactly on board because we are in the middle of a different project and we don’t like putting things aside to work on new ideas til the current idea (app) is on the store. So as the release of iPhone 4 approached I started pushing to do it, and we finally decided we would make the app.”
Being the Chief Marketing Officer of the company, Mike knew that he had to get the ball rolling if the app were to have a chance with publicity. It’s not exactly the easiest thing in the world to get a flashlight app publicized, so timing is everything. He had already gotten press coverage from some prominent app news sites, something that is almost necessary for a successful app, but it was what happened after the submission of the app is what separates Mike of More Blu Sky from the typical flashlight developer.
Aside from guzzling a pot of coffee a day and only sleeping 4 hours a night, Mike works two other jobs and somehow fits in a (very understanding) girlfriend. I asked him how he did it, and he replied with one word, “passion”. Apparently it’s this passion that gets things done, and getting things done is what he did.
“After submitting, I was told that flashlight apps were being turned away. I’m not one to accept no as no, so I decided to email Phil Shiller because I had seen that he helped developers out before.” “He assured me that the would take it up with the review team… but of course that wasn’t good enough for me, so I bugged Apple a bit with a few phone calls, a few emails. I even sent them a video from WWDC that told developers to get creative with the LED flash. Suffice to say…I was a real pain in the butt”
Because of all the hellraising, MacRumors.com wrote up an article that got some attention… while also making him out to be the hero of the flashlight app developers. In Mike’s own form of modesty, he said, “Well, when someone makes some noise, people tend to listen. And when they listen, sometimes they reevaluate stances on things. Can I take all the credit? No, it would have been discussed internally at Apple.”
With all the publicity generated from various sources, the app was in the top 30 of utilities in the first 30 minutes and “within 45 minutes it was in the top 100 in the whole store.”
Again though, how does a person decide to buy one flashlight app over another? Flashlight – For iPhone 4 was the top flashlight app at launch even though another flashlight app was being featured by Apple. It just didn’t make sense to me.
“I suspect that might have something to do with the fact that the (competitors) icon doesn’t scream LED Flashlight to customers.” “It’s not just another flashlight app and the icon had to say that.”
The icon?
He went on, quite possibly driven by the end of a days worth of caffeine. “Duplicating the camera icon is very popular with camera apps so I didn’t want to focus on the camera lens ..but I wanted to show it. The main focus is the LED, but is still has to look like the back of an iPhone. I spent maybe an hour on it. I’m a bit obsessive when it comes to icons but we didn’t have time for 10 revisions of he icon so it had to be a winner the first round.”
“I think we did good.”
Was there any other reason for the apps success, other than the icon?
“It’s built how I feel Apple would have built it if they were in the flashlight app making business.” “The graphics just feel right on the app. it’s almost like holding a real flashlight in your hand, and the UI is very clean”
It became very clear to me that More Blu Sky is successful because the team slaves over the most minute details. It’s a common trait that is found in successful development teams, from the team at tap tap tap all the way to Bolt Creative, creators of the meticulous Pocket God. Get the details right and people tend to notice.
“Look at things from the users perspective and build apps around their perception of an average user. That’s how Apple does it.”
When asked about the future of Flashlight – For iPhone 4, Mike went on and said “we are working on SOS right now and we are looking at Morse Code…but we are also in the middle a development cycle for another app, so we are going to try and finish that app and continue to support Flashlight – For iPhone 4 for as long as people are still interested in buying it. I get emails all the time about features that people want. I would love for it to turn into a flashlight app with 10-15 different features. I have ideas in my head and I even have a rework of the UI that I would love to execute if the feature list grew.”
He never stops. It must be the passion… or the coffee.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Flashlight Giveaway
If you want to get your hands on Flashlight – For iPhone 4, Michael is giving out promo codes to the first 60 people that send him a request. Send the emails to mbskypromo at gmail dot com. Let him know of any new features you’d like to see too… he’d probably appreciate the input.
As the one billionth app sold in the app store, Bump got a whole bunch of publicity for being a really cool app that really didn’t do a whole lot. With Bump 2.0, the app takes sharing to a whole new level by letting you share the equivalent of your entire digital life.
Instead of simple contact sharing, Bump 2.0 lets you share photos and calendars, as well as instant “friending” on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. No more waiting for people to accept friend invitations, now just “bump” your way into people’s lives. With the new “chat view” feature, you can even even “keep sharing after the bump”.
Go grab the Bump 2.0 update as soon as you can and let us know what you think.
Exanded Apps have just released “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, an “interactive book and audiobook app recounting the memoirs of The Rolling Stone’s and The Grateful Dead’s manager, Sam Cutler.” It includes Cutler’s time with the Stones and the Grateful Dead in the late 60’s and early 70’s, and covers “the infamous concert at Altamont Speedway, where a young man named Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death by a Hells Angel in front of the stage.”
The app includes the complete book and audiobook, three 40 minute interviews with the author, and a 20 page photo gallery with “never before published photos of the Stones and the Dead”.
The Rolling Stone said of the book, “”[Cutler's] memoir of his time with first the Stones and then the Grateful Dad brings to life hippie-era delights (lots of acid) and an encroaching darkness . . . he unleashes one killer road tale after another.”
Be sure to pick “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” up if you are a Stones or a Dead fan. And if you can wait til August, it’ll be on sale for $5.99 to celebrate Jerry Garcia’s birthday.
If you’ve ever been to an Apple Store and seen a group of little girls sitting in front of PhotoBooth making faces, you can see the need for an app that does the same thing.
Camera Sutra “is the first app to do live PhotoBooth-style effects for the iPhone 4 or 3GS. Unlike other effects apps, which require the user to manually apply effects after a standard photo has been taken, Camera Sutra uses the new iOS 4.0 APIs to provide live previewing. We have over a dozen effects, including PhotoBooth favorites such as stretch and thermal camera.”
With a simple one-touch interface and 13 effects to play with, Camera Sutra is a great way to play with something like PhotoBooth on the go. Give it to your kids and they’ll be busy for hours.
Be sure to check out the additional screenshots after the jump. Enjoy!
It seems that everyone theses days is checking into every location that they go near, whether they enter or not. While I understand that getting people into stores is a store owners dream, the real goal, which is what MyTown would like to exploit, is to have them pick up and buy products.
“Location is just a way to drive them to the store, but ultimately people want to actually be able to sell products, so this is one step away, getting closer to the finish line to point of sale.” Booyah’s founder Keith Lee says. “And that’s really where we want to go in terms of validating activities that you do in the real world.”
To validate products, the new update makes MyTown the first location based check-in app that includes a barcode scanner like the one that you see in RedLaser. Using the iPhone’s camera, users can scan codes and instantly unlock any points or promotions that the item has stored.
Ultimately, Keith Lee wants users to be able to walk into places like Wal-Mart and see various coupons that the store offers. The company doesn’t have a full set of retail partners involved yet, but a few have jumped on, as well as a “very large mystery consumer products company” that will be announced in August.
Someday, Lee envisions companies starting scavenger hunts and treasure finds to drive the MyTown gameplay even further. With 2.5 million users, there probably won’t be any shortage of companies that will be looking to MyTown to drive their products of the future.
There is no release date set for this update, but I’m hoping that it comes out fairly soon. The release is out now, so go get it, it’s free!
Nuance Dragon Dictation 2.0 is now live in the App Store, and it leaves no reason for people to complain about the keyboard buttons being too small.
The free app now has “a fun-yet-convenient pop-up toolbar with app icons that allow people to speak a status update and send it directly to Facebook or Twitter, or speak any text and send it directly to the text messaging client or clipboard – all without leaving the Dragon Dictation app client.”
Also included in the app is a save feature that prevents you from losing your data when you get a phone call, iOS4 compatibility, and multilingual support (so far just US and UK English, with German coming this month).
“Millions of people have downloaded Dragon Dictation for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, and this latest version is a direct result of the features our user community has voiced would make the ‘must-have’ app even better,” said Michael Thompson, senior vice president and general manager, Nuance Mobile. “And with support for more languages, we’re answering the call from our Dragon fans around the world.”
In a surprising finding, given the insane amount of media negativity towards AT&T, the Yankee Group reports that 73% of iPhone users are “very satisfied with AT&T’s service”, a higher number than any smartphone group feels about their various wireless carriers.
Despite the fact that the tethering feature was MIA for a good year despite being offered on other worldwide carriers, people suffered (and still are suffering) through periods where it was easier to drop a call then make one, and the fact that “iPhone owners pay AT&T nearly $12 a month more for service than the average smartphone user”, people still seem to love their service.
According to Carl Howe of the Yankee Group, “Consumers transfer the high gloss of their Apple iPhone experience to AT&T. The iPhone creates a halo effect that rubs off.”
AT&T obviously doesn’t believe in “reality distortion fields”, and instead says that “There’s a gap between what people hear about us and what their experience is with us. We think that gap is beginning to close. It doesn’t mean we’re perfect; we still have work to do. But that’s no surprise to us, because we have a great network.”
Whatever the reason is, it’ll be interesting to see how many people abandon AT&T when/if the iPhone moves to multiple networks. “Drake Johnstone, an analyst with Davenport & Co., forecasted that poor experiences with AT&T would drive as many as 40% of iPhone customers to Verizon once that network gets the iPhone.” After this finding, I’m not so sure.
Every once in awhile you see something that is just so epic, it isn’t able to be contained in a single image. You could be at a concert and want to capture the stage and the crowd with one shot or you could be walking around New York and see the most massive alien spaceship that you’ve ever seen (wait, that was Independence Day). These moments need something better than a normal picture.
If you’re in this situation, You Gotta See This! is the app for you. Instead of just taking a simple panoramic shot, the app uses the iPhone 4’s gyroscope to determine the proximity of the shots to the original, creating a single large picture that can be extremely wide and tall at the same time. Because of the sensitivity of the gyro, it also lets you take pictures that are diagonal, letting you blend pictures together from any angle that you want.
Check out the tutorial video on the uses of the app, as well as some examples of what the app can do, here. Pick it up in the App Store today for “less than a tall Cappuccino at your local cafe” (reason #4 for buying the app, according to the iTunes page).
In less than 24 hours after its release, the BBC News application has shot up to #1 in the News category. It was a story about bureaucracy at its worst whenever the BBC Trust, BBC’s governing body, told their development team to shelve the iPhone application launch in the UK due to “uncertainty about the potential significance of whether [the BBC's plans] constitutes a change of service.” Now, five months later, its passed the test and can be downloaded free of charge to all UK iPhone – and iPad – users.
The universal application provides the latest news from around the globe, offering a live broadcast of the BBC News channel to UK residents. The channel runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but sadly does not work over 3G – despite a network charge warning appearing the first time you tap “Live”. The application’s design for iPhone is discerningly similar to Pulse News Mini, with its articles presented in boxes rather than in a list; the iPad edition resembling the widely successful Financial Times application with its category navigation. The pull down to refresh feature first seen in Tweetie is also in there. Rotating the application into landscape mode on the iPhone presents a uniquely designed news scroller.
The application also features a rolling news ticker and the ability to send a snapshot from your iPhone straight to the BBC team, but is missing a much-needed search feature. In addition, there’s no weather section to the application.
There is a certain amount of irony in the late launch of the British Broadcasting Company application, which has been available to download (with live radio instead of TV) in the US App Store since April. No word yet on whether BBC Sports and BBC iPlayer will be launched, both of which were discussed at the same time as the News application. The Sports application was planned to be released one month after the News application in mid-May.
Instead of making people go into Apple Stores, or even worse, submit mail-in rebates, for their free iPhone 4 bumpers or cases (if you don’t know why you’re getting a case, click here), Apple has created an app for the process.
The app tracks your phone by its IMEA, so you can’t get a duplicate case or a second case with someones 3G.
Also, be sure to read the policy on the iTunes page so you get the process done in the correct time frame. Don’t expect to hold off til October and get a case, Apple won’t have it.
It’s a shame that every company isn’t so crafty with its rebates.
:: VERY FRUSTRATING
Being a US based website, many of you probably have no idea what The Score is. The Score Television Network is a fairly large sports network that goes out to “6.8 million homes across Canada”, covering all sports from US Football to Association Football (soccer). While obviously lagging behind the readership/viewership of the likes of SI and ESPN, The Score is trying to pick up the pace by really hitting the mobile app audience.
There are some people who just like to casually watch the Star Trek movies, and then there are those who film their own fan movies and travel far and wide to go to conventions. These costumed crusaders can now use the iPhone 4 as their very own Starfleet communicator. 
The Moron Test has been an astounding success in the App Store since its launch. It has been in the top 100 for over 450 days, and is trying to continue that trend with great new updates.
Mike D’Ulisse and his brother Matt have a knack for creating gold out of the most simple ideas. They’ve done fairly well with other strong apps such as 
“After submitting, I was told that flashlight apps were being turned away. I’m not one to accept no as no, so I decided to email Phil Shiller because I had seen that he helped developers out before.” “He assured me that the would take it up with the review team… but of course that wasn’t good enough for me, so I bugged Apple a bit with a few phone calls, a few emails. I even sent them a video from WWDC that told developers to get creative with the LED flash. Suffice to say…I was a real pain in the butt”
Was there any other reason for the apps success, other than the icon?
Exanded Apps have just released “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, an “interactive book and audiobook app recounting the memoirs of The Rolling Stone’s and The Grateful Dead’s manager, Sam Cutler.” It includes Cutler’s time with the Stones and the Grateful Dead in the late 60’s and early 70’s, and covers “the infamous concert at Altamont Speedway, where a young man named Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death by a Hells Angel in front of the stage.”
If you’ve ever been to an Apple Store and seen a group of little girls sitting in front of PhotoBooth making faces, you can see the need for an app that does the same thing. 
It seems that everyone theses days is checking into every location that they go near, whether they enter or not. While I understand that getting people into stores is a store owners dream, the real goal, which is what MyTown would like to exploit, is to have them pick up and buy products.
Nuance Dragon Dictation 2.0 is now live in the App Store, and it leaves no reason for people to complain about the keyboard buttons being too small.
In a surprising finding, given the insane amount of media negativity towards AT&T, the Yankee Group reports that 73% of iPhone users are “very satisfied with AT&T’s service”, a higher number than any smartphone group feels about their various wireless carriers.
Every once in awhile you see something that is just so epic, it isn’t able to be contained in a single image. You could be at a concert and want to capture the stage and the crowd with one shot or you could be walking around New York and see the most massive alien spaceship that you’ve ever seen (wait, that was Independence Day). These moments need something better than a normal picture.
