I'm an incoming Princeton freshman and a lifelong fan of gaming. I'm also a huge book nerd—which is probably why I love writing so much! I'm also addicted to Scrabble and its variants...hit me up in Words With Friends. My name is bonniee.
RISK is an epic, sprawling strategy game with a diehard following. But while this app delivers the core of what makes Risk fun, it’s also lacking in important areas. No global multiplayer, house rules, or extra maps make this port one of dubious value.
Cat Run is a brilliantly illustrated line-drawing game that relies on obstacles to make things difficult instead of complicated, tangled paths. But while helping cats cross the road is still fun, it’s not quite challenging enough for my tastes.
If you need to send long chunks of text or photos from your computer to your iPhone, consider using myPhoneDesktop. Just be aware that its uses are narrow.
What are we supposed to call it, anyway? “Spill” sounds inadequate. I always thought of a “spill” as a ship being struck, or a pipe; in our current crisis, oil is gushing from a seemingly endless well deep beneath the ocean. Our oil “spill” is a catastrophe.
Regardless of what we call it, though, the oil spill’s effects are wreaking havoc on human and animal life alike in the Gulf of Mexico. The environmental impact will be felt for years, if not decades.
Inspired by the tragedy of the spill, the developers at GoGo-Robot Games have designed a game to call attention to the environmental crisis. Dubbed “Oil Slick,” the game challenges players to out-swim the spreading oil from the viewpoint of an animal. “Most” of the proceeds will be donated to Defenders of Wildlife, a nonprofit working to save animals affected by the disaster.
The game’s only $0.99, and any charity money it generates is likely to be small. Still, we like to see developers conscious of the world and community around them.
Craneball Studios released Blimp about a year ago. As airship (er, blimp) captain “Zed Pelin,” Blimp tasks you with ferrying passengers, collecting war supplies, and bombing enemy tanks and airships. Most notable, perhaps, were the graphics; Blimp is a gorgeous game with a great steampunk vibe.
One nice thing about that lovely art? It translates splendidly to the iPad’s larger screen. Blimp HD, a reworked version for iPad, isn’t out quite yet, but the enlarged art looks just as great as the iPhone version. Scheduled to be released in August, Blimp HD doesn’t bring many new elements, though certain aspects (enemy blimp movements, radar, menus, etc) have been tweaked to better fit the larger screen.
Though Blimp HD won’t be a reinvention of the original game, Blimp is still great without any additions. The art and music are both great, and who doesn’t enjoy piloting a steampunk-ish blimp? Look for the iPad version in August, and stay tuned via Craneball Studios’ blog. In the meantime, the new screenshots for Blimp HD are available in our gallery below.
I’ll be honest: I’ve never had to fill out an expense report. Still, the name alone conjures up horrific promises of tedium, hassle, and frustration; who wants to manually keep track of receipts and the like?
ProOnGo’s latest app, ProOnGo Expense, aims to bring time-saving smartphone goodness to expense reports. The app’s main feature is a “receipt reader”—take pictures of your receipts, send them to ProOnGo’s servers, and they’ll convert the images into text and send that data back to your app. Instead of manually punching in numbers, you can just take pictures of the receipts. ProOnGo Expense can also calculate mileage on a trip, using the iPhone’s GPS functionality.
Once you have all your expenses documented, you can finish off your expense report. ProOnGo Expense can export in a variety of data types, including .XLXS (Excel 2007), XML, and QuickBooks Online.
Though the app is listed as free, you’ll need a subscription after using your first 10 Receipt Reads. Subscriptions range from $0.99 to $4.99 per month. For three bucks a month you get 30 Receipt Reads and unlimited Expense Reports. ProOnGo also has another app, ProOnGo Business Card Reader, which utilizes the same general process…take a photo, have the company’s servers analyze it, and then receive the text. If you have unused Receipt Reads from your subscription, you can use them with the Business Card Reader, too.
Oh, and if you’re not completely dedicated to the iPhone? ProOnGO Expense is available on Android, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile phones, too. Be sure to watch the video to see ProOnGo in action!
Where is the summer going? My apologies for last week’s lack of a Friday Five. We’re back this week, though, with five interesting apps from the past week, just like always. Enjoy!
Hellsing’s Fire
Hellsing’s Fire is a beautifully illustrated puzzle-adventure game from Clickgamer (Angry Birds, anyone?). Dr. Hellsing’s illuminating torch and his assistant Raffton’s tonics are both necessary to defeat the undead hordes. The puzzles are trumpeted as being “quick but rewarding”…sounds great for pick-up-and-play or, you know, losing hours of your life. With 90 monster-packed levels, Crystal integration for leaderboards and achievements, and wry dialogue, Hellsing’s Fire looks to be a great new App Store game.
Released: 2010-07-10 :: Category: Games / Strategy
Audible
Audible.com is one of the biggest audiobook sites on the web. Subscribers to the website enjoy a market of digital audiobooks that’s hard to beat, and now with the Audible app, said users can download their Audible.com libraries to their iPhones. The Audible app runs in the background with iOS 4 on multitasking-enabled devices. It also support chapter navigation, Play as You Download, bookmarking, Button Free Mode, and Sleep Mode. It’s a great app if you want to listen to your Audible.com audiobooks, but unfortunately this app doesn’t yet allow you to buy them in-app.
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-07-10 :: Category: Books
Wheel of Fortune Platinum Edition
This app brings the famous TV game show to the iPhone…finally! Test your wordly wit against the app or with others via multiplayer mode. The wheel and the sound effects are true to the show, and the puzzles are written by the producers themselves. You can customize your characters, too. Multiplayer comes in the form of pass-and-play, local multiplayer (Bluetooth / WiFi), or network mode (yes! online multiplayer!). “Theme Weeks” featuring custom puzzles and wedges will be introduced, too. The app itself looks pretty good, though some players have apparently experienced crashing…so proceed with caution. As famous as Wheel of Fortune is, though, I’d expect a bug-fixing update soon.
Mapquest 4 Mobile
Remember when MaqQuest was practically the king of online mapping? It’s no longer the undisputed champ, but MapQuest is still as solid a service as ever. MapQuest 4 Mobile finally brings it to the iOS platform, with awesome features such as turn-by-turn spoken directions, quick re-routing, backgrounding support on iOS 4, and even pedestrian directions. Best of all, however? It’s free! It might not be brand-new, but the latest version of Mapquest 4 Mobile is such a step forward that I felt justified in including it here.
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2009-06-11 :: Category: Navigation
Fly Vs. Car
On the surface, Fly Vs. Car is simple. Playing as a small fly, you must tilt your iPhone to avoid being hit by oncoming traffic. Simple, simple, simple…even OpenFeint and Facebook / Twitter score posting can only add so much to such a basic premise. But what makes Fly Vs. Car unique is that the developers at Snow Day Games have pledged to donate half of all profits to Child’s Play Charity, a not-for-profit group that donates toys and games to sick children. Now that’s a mission we can get behind.
Omino wants to be Mario…but despite great controls and good retro graphics, the levels are too simple. And besides, it crashes, which is simply aggravating.
I reviewed Rafter for iPhone / iPod Touch back in February. I loved it then, and I still do…it’s a great physics game, and a unique one at that, with a great visual style. The game’s objective is to precisely drop blocks in order to strike a little red mine. You draw blocks in the narrow space above a level, and then they fall; it’s up to you to figure out where to place them and how big they need to be. (Watch the video to see it in action.) Almost every level has multiple solutions, but the game rewards you for efficiency.
In February, Rafter only had 31 levels; now, it has 71. But even better than the newly-updated Rafter for iPhone is the brand-new Rafter HD…for iPad.
Rafter HD’s big-screen debut is more than a simple repackaging of the physics puzzle. Yes, the screen’s bigger; yes, the old levels are still there. But Rafter HD also comes with 30 extra levels, for a grand total of 101.The iPad version also features exclusive gravity and fan controls, as well as high-definition graphics. A level editor is also promised for the future.
I loved Rafter for the iPhone, and Rafter HD looks just as great, if not better.
Forget Apple’s expensive Find My iPhone program. iHound is the way to go.
iHound is an iPhone / iPod Touch / iPad tracking app that incorporates many of the iOS’s unique features. Now, with an update for iOS 4, it’s better than ever, and I’d argue that it’s the best iPhone tracking service out there. Here’s how it works. You go to ihoundsoftware.com, make an account, and then download the free app. The service is free for a month; after that, you can purchase a longer term at $10.99/yr. Compare that to MobileMe’s $99/yr requirement for Find My iPhone. Yikes!
Once launched, iHound functions in the background, transmitting your device’s location every 10 minutes. You can opt for always-on tracking, too, as long as you don’t mind the battery drain. Now, if you lose your iPhone, you log on at the iHound website. From there, you can view your device’s current location and / or send a push notification to your device (“Hi there, I’ve lost my iPhone–please call 555-555-5555!”). Better yet, you can force your device to emit a loud, wailing siren noise. That’s sure to catch someone’s attention. And if someone turns your phone off, iHound will launch and transmit its location once the phone is turned back on.
What makes this even sweeter is that with iHound, you can have as many devices as you want on the same plan for no additional cost. (Take that, AT&T…your FamilyMap plan just got crushed.)
I’ve just installed iHound on my second-generation iPod Touch, and I was quite impressed. Not only did iHound pinpoint my location, but the push-notification and siren options work extremely well. It’s true that with an iPod’s dependence on WiFi, iHound isn’t foolproof, but at least I won’t lose my iPod in my own house any more. Furthermore, for iPhone and 3G-enabled iPad owners, this is a no-brainer. iHound is a fantastic, affordable, and highly functional tracking system, and with iOS 4’s background capabilities it’s finally a complete app. Forget MobileMe and Find My iPhone; get iHound!
iBooks is a gorgeous app, but it’s driving me crazy.
There. I’ve said it.
When the iPad launched, iBooks was trumpeted as a gorgeous, easy, seamless app that would mix digital books with Apple’s typical ease-of-use. Sounds dreamy, right? And I suppose iBooks on the iPad must be good, because everyone raves about it.
But iBooks has been out on the iPhone for a little while now, and while I was initially excited to use it, it’s frankly frustrating. iBooks doesn’t act like an Apple app should; it crashes; and while it does lots of things well, other parts feels unfinished. Here, then, is a list of my complaints—things that Apple really ought to have fixed prior to release.
It Crashes.
Please tell me I’m not the only one with this problem. Do I read too quickly for the poor app or something? About once every ten minutes, a page turn for me results in the app crashing—and it also forgets where I left off. Ugh!
Furthermore, when I attempt to open a downloaded book, I sometimes get the error message, “The requested resource is unavailable,” and iBooks will refuse to open said book until I restart the app, or even my iPod. These two errors are far too common, considering that they interfere with the most basic function of iBooks: reading!
Where Are the Books?
What’s the point of convenient, digital books if…you know…you can’t buy them in the first place? For me, the iBookStore is simply too small right now. “Tens of thousands” of books versus Amazon’s 600,000 for Kindle…hmm. As an avid reader, I was disappointed to find that many of the books I wanted simply weren’t available in iBooks. I’m not looking for the impossible, either. (Say, the 1980s Dragonlance books, or Harry Potter, which isn’t available anywhere; I’m talking modern, fairly successful authors like Naomi Novik!)
Screen Lock.
For those of us whose devices don’t allow for orientation-lock, this is immensely painful. When reading in bed, it’s easy to accidentally trigger a switch from landscape to portrait or vice-versa. Unfortunately, at least on an iPod Touch 2G, iBooks takes forever to make the switch—and while it’s struggling to rotate your book, it also freezes, preventing you from reading further. Fantastic.
No Inversion?
Why can’t I switch the text to light-on-dark for nighttime reading? Dimming the screen works, but it still strains my eyes more to read dark-on-light text at night. The screen-lock problem already makes reading in bed hard enough!
The Bookstore.
First, selection is horrid. Secondly, prices are high—I can often order a real-life paperback for less from Amazon.
Third, and just as aggravating, is the store itself. There is no way to buy iBooks from your computer; and the iPhone screen is terribly small for browsing for books. Furthermore, the store is riddled with issues. When you go to “browse,” an alphabetical list of authors is displayed, split between “Top Paid” and “Top Free.” Now tap on “Categories,” chose one, and look. Now it shows you the top paid authors in that category…but if you click on “Top Free,” it’ll boot you back to the Top Free authors overall. What the heck?
Additionally, the store has no landscape view, and suffers from numerous other design issues. Not to mention the download errors.
In Summary.
iBooks isn’t a bad app. In fact, it’s got plenty of strong points—being able to browse for books right on the device is something I’ve wanted for a long time, and it’s a very robust reader. Bookmarks, highlighting, annotation…there are some really nice features baked into iBooks.
And that’s why the above issues make me so irritated. Apple is perfectly capable of making a fantastic eBook reader app. Regretfully, however, this version of iBooks isn’t it, at least not for iPhone / iPod Touch users. There are too many bugs, too many design flaws, and not enough books. It’s easy to tell that iBooks was crammed onto the smaller screen. And that’s a shame.
For now? I’ll be juggling Stanza and Kindle for iPhone as my two eBook apps of choice. Sorry, iBooks; I’m waiting for your next update.
Writeroom is a minimalistic writing app that syncs beautifully with SimpleText.ws. If distraction-free and simple are what you need, this one’s for you.
Doodle God is a unique, bizarrely addictive game in which you combine different stuff to make more stuff: water and air into steam, or humans and blood into vampires. It’s weird, funny, and, in short, awesome.
VNC Viewer is an excellent app that lets you remotely access and control a computer running VNC Server. It works beautifully, the app is universal, and the service as a whole is simply superb.
Look, if you can actually use these apps, you’ve already spent a few hundred dollars (at least) on the required hardware: an iPhone and an iPad. Buying a real dartboard would definitely be cheaper. But that does nothing to offset the fact that the KL Dartboard looks really, really cool.
The KL Dartboard app for iPad transforms your device into a giant, glossy-screened dartboard; meanwhile, the KL Darts app for iPhone “holds” your darts. The two apps connect using Bluetooth—no internet connection requires—and then you aim your iPhone at your new dartboard, give it a quick shake, and watch as your dart is “thrown” from your iPhone and onto your iPad. The apps use accelerometer data from the iPhone to determine where you’re aiming. KL Dartboard is designed for two players.
We haven’t seen too many iPhone/iPad combo apps, though EA’s Scrabble Tile Rack for iPhone, which works with the Scrabble app for iPad, remains a good example. It’s a shame, really—though obviously the audience is limited, there are still some really nifty concepts that can work with unique combination. There’s something bizarrely futuristic about tossing darts from one device to another…only with the iOS, right?
KL Dartboard is available on the App Store for $3.99; KL Darts comes in both free and pro ($0.99) flavors.
Oddy Smog’s Misadventure is a beautiful, tremendously fun journey through a smog-choked chute. In Oddy’s quest to escape the System, you fly upward using the cogs of the machine.
Tapulous has long reigned as king of the App Store music games. Back in the App Store’s early days, they released a humble, free music game…one of the first. Since then, they’ve expanded, partnering with major artists and raking in the cash thanks to in-app purchases and a plethora of music-related apps. And now, it looks like the original developers have scored again—only this time, they’ve been acquired by Disney.
While Disney doesn’t immediately come to mind when it comes to the App Store, they actually have 30+ apps released. It’s not the first time they’ve acquired an iPhone game, either; Jelly Car 2 is also now a Disney property. As for Tapulous, well, who could blame anyone for being interested? Though the purchase price hasn’t been announced, we know that Tapulous is very valuable indeed. The Tap Tap Revenge series has already racked up 1 billion song plays and 35 million downloads.
Moving forward, don’t fret about Tap Tap Revenge suddenly disappearing from the App Store. Tapulous founder Bart Decrem and COO Andrew Lacy will be joining Disney as senior VPs, but they certainly aren’t abandoning their company. Rather, Tapulous will be “spearheading [Disney's] drive to be the leader in mobile entertainment.” Translation: Disney plans on putting the Tapulous team’s knack for mobile success to good use.
We Americans celebrate July 4th as Independence Day. Usually it involves fireworks, glow-sticks, barbecues, and patriotic parades. But quite a few developers have decided to celebrate in yet another way—by putting their apps on sale. Yay, cheap apps! Yay, developers selling lots of apps! Yay, fireworks!
So far we’ve got sales from EA Games, Glu, Gameloft, and Namco, as well as a few bonus apps.
Hit the break for a full listing of on-sale apps and games.
Namco
Namco is the developer behind lots of games, not just the Pac-man titles, and they’d like us all to remember that with this crazy sale. Many games are $0.99; others are still significantly cheaper than their already-low App Store prices. From retro greats like Galaga to brand-new concepts like Isaac Newton’s Gravity, Namco’s sale should have something for everyone. Indeed, for sheer quantity of games on sale, I think they take the cake…
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-03-18 :: Category: Games / Family
Gameloft
Five Gameloft games are on sale for $0.99, which is a drop from their early $0.99-extravaganza but still provides some nice deals. Gameloft is calling it a “Rerun” of their first sale. Check out Oregon Trail, Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X., and more. The list of games might be small, but the price drops are rather significant.
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2009-12-09 :: Category: Games / Simulation
Glu
Glu’s portfolio of iPhone games has been steadily growing. From the original Glyder to more recent hits like Beat It!, they have a number of impressive titles to their name. Now, in celebration of the 4th of July, Glu is running a $0.99-sale on many of their games. The sale lasts from July 1st to July 6th.
EA Games
Well, you should definitely be able to find something in this sale! EA has placed top hits including Tetris, Scrabble, Mass Effect Galaxy, Battleship, and more on sale. Maybe now the official Scrabble app can finally catch up to Words With Friends on the Top 100 charts…
Wow, is it July already? Fancy that. In just a couple of days (literally!) we’ll be celebrating July 4th…not that the App Store hasn’t already released a slew of sales in the name of Independence Day.
Here, though, we’re concerned with new releases from the past week. Without further ado, I present…our weekly Friday Five! Hope you find them interesting!
Diptic
Diptic is a simple little photo app that lets you combine two or three images, creating a diptych or triptych, respectively. It also includes brightness, saturation, and contrast tweaks, as well as custom border controls and five different layouts. The function is simple, but then, sometimes simple is what you need. Diptych and triptych creation is a rather popular means of making photos more “meaningful,” especially among teens, so I expect that Diptic will see some use.
+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-06-23 :: Category: Photography
Cineast
Cineast is a “movie companion app” that allows you to search for movies or people, watch trailers, find release date or cast info, and more. You can also mark movies and people as “Favorites,” to easily return to them later. It relies on the website themoviedb.org. Cineast is a universal app, so iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch users alike can get in on the movie-info action.
+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-06-29 :: Category: Reference
The Twilight Saga – Memory Quest
Love it or hate it, the Twilight series is a hit. (Just look at the performance of Eclipse, which released this weekend.) The Twilight Saga – Memory Quest is a tile-flipping memory-match game featuring the stars of the series. You can play as Bella, Edward, or Jacob. Presumably this game is relying heavily on rabid fans…still, it looks like a decent tile-matching game.
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-06-24 :: Category: Games / Strategy
The Elements for iPhone 4
The Elements was one of the highlight apps for the iPad at launch, and now it’s got an iPhone incarnation..though only for the iPhone 4. Phooey. Still, if you’re the lucky owner of a brand-new iPhone, you can take advantage of The Elements and its highly visual, comprehensive periodic table. You can examine each pictorial representation of each element, and extensive information is pulled from Wolfram Alpha’s database.
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-06-23 :: Category: Books
Tap Tap Revolution HD
…and this has nothing to do with Tapulous, or the other Tap Tap Revolution games, or even music games in general. Tap Tap Revolution HD is a rather amateurish-looking app for the iPad which features a large, red button. And guess what? The “game” is all about how quickly you can tap that button. Kudos to them for grabbing the Tap Tap Revolution HD moniker, though…looks like Tapulous missed the boat – for now.
We already knew that Obama liked tech—reportedly he suffered from Blackberry addiction, and besides that his ‘08 campaign made good use of tools like Twitter and the web and soared to success. The Democratic party apparently paid attention, and now the Democratic National Committee has released a brand-new, universal app titled simply, The Democratic Party. Additionally, Barack’s Organizing for America app is back on the scene, again with a universal update to make it iPad-friendly.
Both apps are obviously trying to keep their constituencies involved and up-to-date on the party’s latest news; both, therefore, are free. Both Organize for America and The Democratic Party give you access to news, photos, videos, and “talking points” (basically, the President’s and the DNC’s stances) on key issues. Another option points you towards local events. There’s also a handy “Call Congress!” button. (Oh, and a Donate button, too, but you already assumed that, right?)
Neither app is revolutionary. The White House already released its own app months ago; besides, a fancy, updated news feed isn’t radically different from, er, the Internet. But it is significant that the Democratic Party is starting to pay more and more attention to current technology. I mean, really, with what other medium can you push out thousands of messages to your constituents on election day? Obama made excellent use of technology in the 2008 election, and it paid off. Now the Dems plan on doing the same for 2010.
Pushing crates off a cliff and dodging cannonballs…that’s all there is to Shaolin Training, but it’s a decent game. I just wish the controls were tighter.
The vuvuzela horn, unknown before this year’s World Cup, has quickly gained global recognition. And how could it not? The horn’s singular call—persistent, loud, and ever-present—is unmistakable, though annoyingly enough it sounds a lot like a swarm of buzzing bees.
The developers at moblio.nl obviously heard something very different in the vuvuzela’s call, though: they rushed to create a free app, Vuvuzela 2010, that mimicked the horn’s now-legendary sound. Add in a choice of country to support, and Vuvuzela 2010 had everything it needed to rocket to the top of App Store charts worldwide.
Needing to monetize their success, moblio.nl quickly integrated AdMob ads. Vuvuzela 2010 has been downloaded 3.5 million times, and that adds up. The developers claim that they’re “earning several tens of thousands dollars per week” via the advertising in Vuvuzela 2010. Wow! Now that the app has iPad support, too, I suspect that Vuvuzela will continue to rake in the dough at least until the World Cup’s conclusion.
Of course, Vuvuzela 2010’s success isn’t just due to its timely arrival. The app itself is well made, if basic; and besides, it’s free. If you want to join the World Cup revels with your own pocketable, obnoxious vuvuzela—or if you just want to see what the fuss is about—go ahead and download it. We’re not responsible for the resulting torment of younger siblings / pets / significant others / etc, okay?
Readdle, creators of ReaddleDocs, an excellent file viewer/manager for iPhone, are dipping into the calender app arena with the simply-named Calendars.
Calendars is powered by Google Calendar and features a slew of features and a lovely interface. You can drag-and-drop events just like in Google Calendar, set SMS reminders, and add events with a single tap. List, month, and day view are all available; you can invite others to your calendar; a handy undo button lets your reverse accidental drag-and-drops.
Perhaps most importantly, however, Calendars downloads your data to the app itself, so you can access and edit your data offline or online. For WiFi-bound iPod Touch users like me, this one is particularly important.
Calendars is available for $6.99 in the App Store and will run on any device with iOS 3.0 or later.
Fare City is a line-drawing game with a taxi twist. It’s a lot of fun and offers tons of options. Just be aware that you need to sink some time into this one; it’s not for quick sessions!
Vito Technology has wowed us before with their beautiful Star Walk stargazing app. Now they’re trying their hands at another educational project. This time, it’s a world factbook, but with a twist. Geo Walk is a concise, limited encyclopedia that focuses on a global view—literally. The app presents you with an icon-dotted globe, and you can tap any of the markers to read about that particular area and its points of interest.
This is great for putting articles into geographical perspective. The pyramids hover over Egypt, while spinning over to Antarctica might show you penguins. Don’t know where something is? No problem; you can switch to an object list.
The application features three main categories: Place, Flora & Fauna, and People. Each entry boasts a colorful picture and a small article about the object. (Willis Tower is the fifth-largest tower in the world!)
While Geo Walk is in no way a complete encyclopedia, it’s not trying to be. Instead, it’s about exploring the globe digitally, and putting things into perspective. Similarly to Star Walk, it’s not meant to be a comprehensive reference, but to ignite your curiosity and teach you a few things in the process. That’s something that kids and adults alike should be able to enjoy.
With the iPhone 4 out in the wild along with its super-powerful Retina display, not to mention iOS4, updates to pre-existing apps are almost always necessary. Happily, Pangea Software is keeping up—they’ve updated all of their apps to support the new iPhone 4.
The updates take advantage of the iPhone 4’s display by adding higher-resolution graphics. Brian Greenstone, President of Pangea Software, says that “the retina display is truly astounding, and the games all look like nothing you’ve ever seen before.” All the games have been tweaked to accommodate the new OS as well.
If you’ve just nabbed an iPhone 4 and own some Pangea apps, make sure to download the updated versions and put that gorgeous display to good use!
When the iPad first launched, there was some muddle on the App Store about how to distinguish regular iPhone-sized apps from iPad apps. After some experimentation (XL was floated for a while), most developers settled on using “HD” to denote iPad-specific apps. For example, “Angry Birds HD” is Angry Birds…for iPad.
Now EA Games has to go and mess things up with NCAA® Football by EA SPORTS HD. Guess what? It’s an iPhone 4-exclusive title.
Does your head hurt yet?
Look, EA, we get it. Your football game has fancy graphics that take advantage (nay, require!) the iPhone 4’s Retina display. And I know that you’re a gigantic company, but big companies have to follow the rules, too. And the rules of the App Store, informal though they are, state that the “HD” moniker is reserved for iPad titles.
This does bring up an interesting point, though—how do we differentiate between all of these platforms? We have apps for iPad, for all iPhones, for iPhone 4’s; and then we have universal apps, some of which are optimized for the iPhone 4’s Retina display and some which aren’t. And what about the next iPhone and iPad? My guess: other than “HD” for iPad, we’ll have to rely on app descriptions, unless Apple steps in.
Still, EA, as it stands now “HD” signifies an iPad release. You’re doing it wrong!
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.
- BARE-BONES
What are we supposed to call it, anyway? “Spill” sounds inadequate. I always thought of a “spill” as a ship being struck, or a pipe; in our current crisis, oil is gushing from a seemingly endless well deep beneath the ocean. Our oil “spill” is a catastrophe.
Craneball Studios released Blimp about a year ago. As airship (er, blimp) captain “Zed Pelin,” Blimp tasks you with ferrying passengers, collecting war supplies, and bombing enemy tanks and airships. Most notable, perhaps, were the graphics; Blimp is a gorgeous game with a great steampunk vibe.
I’ll be honest: I’ve never had to fill out an expense report. Still, the name alone conjures up horrific promises of tedium, hassle, and frustration; who wants to manually keep track of receipts and the like?
Hellsing’s Fire
Audible
Wheel of Fortune Platinum Edition
Mapquest 4 Mobile
Fly Vs. Car
I reviewed 
Forget Apple’s expensive Find My iPhone program. iHound is the way to go.
iBooks is a gorgeous app, but it’s driving me crazy.
Tapulous has long reigned as king of the App Store music games. Back in the App Store’s early days, they released a humble, free music game…one of the first. Since then, they’ve expanded, partnering with major artists and raking in the cash thanks to in-app purchases and a plethora of music-related apps. And now, it looks like the original developers have scored again—only this time, they’ve been acquired by Disney.
We Americans celebrate July 4th as Independence Day. Usually it involves fireworks, glow-sticks, barbecues, and patriotic parades. But quite a few developers have decided to celebrate in yet another way—by putting their apps on sale. Yay, cheap apps! Yay, developers selling lots of apps! Yay, fireworks!
Diptic
Cineast
The Twilight Saga – Memory Quest
The Elements for iPhone 4
Tap Tap Revolution HD
We already knew that Obama liked tech—reportedly he suffered from Blackberry addiction, and besides that his ‘08 campaign made good use of tools like Twitter and the web and soared to success. The Democratic party apparently paid attention, and now the Democratic National Committee has released a brand-new, universal app titled simply, The Democratic Party. Additionally, Barack’s Organizing for America app is back on the scene, again with a universal update to make it iPad-friendly.
The vuvuzela horn, unknown before this year’s World Cup, has quickly gained global recognition. And how could it not? The horn’s singular call—persistent, loud, and ever-present—is unmistakable, though annoyingly enough it sounds a lot like a swarm of buzzing bees.
Readdle, creators of 
Vito Technology has wowed us before with their beautiful 
With the iPhone 4 out in the wild along with its super-powerful Retina display, not to mention iOS4, updates to pre-existing apps are almost always necessary. Happily, Pangea Software is keeping up—they’ve updated all of their apps to support the new iPhone 4.
When the iPad first launched, there was some muddle on the App Store about how to distinguish regular iPhone-sized apps from iPad apps. After some experimentation (XL was floated for a while), most developers settled on using “HD” to denote iPad-specific apps. For example, “Angry Birds HD” is Angry Birds…for iPad.
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