Of all the things that define the high school experience, high-stakes romantic drama is near the top of the list. With hormones pumping rapidly, being a teenager and finding one’s first love is an unforgettable emotional experience. DR Studios is attempting to capture that same feeling in iSchool Dreams: My Valentine.

In this “role-playing interactive story,” players create their avatar and take control of the new girl in Charm Springs. From there, they can choose to spend their time shopping, walking around the park, gossiping and playing matching and dancing games. However, with the Valentine’s Day Ball quickly approaching, players should be doing all they can to get ready. Are they going to help Petey win the DJ battle? Are they popular enough and most importantly, who is going to be their date to the dance?

iSchool Dreams: My Valentine is available now on the App Store. It’s everything a preteen girl could want for this Valentine’s Day.

$0.99

iSchool Dreams: My Valentine

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2012-02-09 :: Category: Games

When it comes to 2012, it’s hard to know what to think. Some people are certain that the world is due to end by the end of the year. Others think is a load of bull. Then there are a few folks who just seem to be caught in the middle, unsure of what to make of the whole thing. I don’t claim to know who’s right in all this, but at least now there’s an app that can appease anyone who wants to know more.

2012 Doomsday is an app specifically designed to inform. It’s got info on what’s theorized to happen on the big day, lots of videos about 2012, details about the Mayans, what kinds of supplies to stock up on and other general survival tips. Depending on an individual’s take on this business it could be their go-to guide or simply something to consider a fascinating “what if” scenario.

2012 Doomsday is currently available for everyone, skeptic or not, on the App Store for $0.99. I’m not claiming that it’ll make a difference in the grand scheme of things, but I suppose there’s nothing wrong with being prepared. Just in case.

$0.99

2012 Doomsday

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-02-06 :: Category: Education

Love is in the air and so is block-busting retro fun thanks to Breakout: Boost‘s Valentine’s Day level pack that’s just been released.

Priced at $0.99, the Valentine’s Day pack adds 50 new romance-themed levels to the existing package, along with candy heart sayings and cute pictures to add that sweet touch. Alongside that is the addition of a Cupid’s Arrow power up. This sets out to make breaking up bricks much quicker. For the competitive gamer, new leaderboards and an original set of achievements continues the romantic theme.

Here at 148apps, we rated Breakout: Boost and Breakout: Boost+ quite highly at launch so this themed pack is bound to extend the fun for fans. After all, what better way to celebrate the time of romance than through this arcade classic? Couples can compete via the leaderboards and singletons can focus on the achievements.

The Valentine’s Day themed pack is available through Breakout: Boost and Breakout: Boost+, priced at $0.99.

FREE!

Breakout®: Boost

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad

Our Rating: :: NEEDS A BOOST
Read Our Full Review >>

Released: 2011-12-15 :: Category: Games

$0.99

Breakout®: Boost+

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad

Our Rating: :: BLOCK BUSTER
Read Our Full Review >>

Released: 2012-01-24 :: Category: Games

Pocket God is still going strong, blasting right through update number forty-three (43!). The newest episode, “Killing Time,” deals with the kind of stuff that turned Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Deloreans and use of the word “paradox” into national phenomena. In other words, it has to do with futzing around with time. Like time, time. Not wasting a few minutes at the bus stop, time. Players will be able to visit the new Apocalypse Island, home of a multi-roomed temple that includes a time-shifting chamber. It also houses a creepy Aztec calendar that’s counting down to 11:11am, December 21st, 2012.

This is just the first of many apocalypse-themed updates, according to Bolt. Each of the temple’s many rooms features some sort of Armageddon-like power, each to be opened with future updates, but at the moment no other specifics have been revealed. Bolt will be continuing to release more doomsday content over the course of the next 10 months. Hopefully they’ll be able to move on to a new theme after that, assuming the world still exists.

Pocket God in all its dark-humored glory can, as usual, be downloaded from the App Store for $0.99. The other 95% of iOS users who already own it can simply update it like they normally would to get the new stuff.

[Via VerticalWire]

$0.99

Pocket God

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad

Our Rating: :: A GOD AMONG APPS
Read Our Full Review >>

Released: 2009-01-09 :: Category: Entertainment

Launch Center has gotten a major new update that brings new automatic app detection. While the app launched with support for built-in notifications, now the app supports launching third-party apps with specific commands, that can be scheduled to appear as notifications on iPhone and iPod touch.

The way it launches third-party apps is that iOS lets apps register with the device a specific URL scheme. Like how websites begin with http://, apps can register as tweetbot:// or facebook://, for example. Thus, when the device prompts to open up one of these URLs, the app will open. As well, special commands can be added after the // that will perform actions in those apps. Launch Center has commands for a selection of apps with registered URL schemes that it can launch. Those apps that are installed are displayed at the top of Launch Center‘s list, and then the specific control options are given. Then, the command can either be just displayed in the Launch Center main list, or scheduled to be appear at a certain date and time.

The uses for this are many. Want to be reminded to post a tweet with Tweetbot, with the specific text automatically entered in, at a certain time? That can be done with this app. As well, an app like Camera+ that supports launching from external apps can be queued up, reminding users to launch it at a certain time. These notifications can also be customized with particular titles in Notification Center for greater convenience.

Note that the feature is not perfect: apps sometimes crash, or work better if they’ve been closed from the multitasking bar, instead of being loaded into an app currently in memory. These are more the fault of the apps in question, rather than anything Launch Center does, as it is just using the app URL schemes that apps have baked in to them. This update to Launch Center is available now as a free update.

$1.99

Launch Center - Schedule tasks and apps like Facebook, Twitter, etc.

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2011-12-21 :: Category: Productivity

Following a familiar yet addictive path, EA Mobile’s latest release Fly With Me! is an endless runner – or should I say flyer – title.

Players take the role of a bird as they avoid hurdles like trees, geysers and Venus fly trap, while they also chomp their way through the many bees in their path. It’s easy to get the hang of with regular taps to the screen keeping the bird buoyant.

The challenge truly lies in the chance to gain up to 3 stars throughout each level, representing a perfect score. There are also gears to collect, leading to the unlocking of an impressive robot bird.

45 levels in all are on offer to players, plus there’s the inclusion of a Kid mode which comes with 30 additional levels, all focused on a friendlier difficulty level and with no need to eat bees to maintain altitude. It’s an ideal mode for the younger or novice player.

Fly With Me! is out now priced at $0.99. New enemy characters and birds are promised in a future update.

$0.99

Fly With Me

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2012-02-02 :: Category: Games

Microcraft is something of an oddity. It’s a fan-made “remake” of a port of a Notch-made knockoff of one of the most popular indie games of all time. Wow, that was intense.

The game itself functions much like a top-down Minecraft, with a few other key differences. While surviving assaults by vicious monsters and crafting items from wood and stone are still a major factor, there’s not much in the way of building. So while players can (and should) explore the world and create helpful tools and weapons for themselves, they can’t construct a fortress to live in. Kind of a shame, but making something like that from this perspective would undoubtedly be tough to pull off.

With several “mobs” to fight, a number of different environments to explore and a day/night cycle (not to mention all the crafting), I think Microcraft should make for a good time. Whether or not it stays on the App Store for very long is up in the air at this point since it does share many a similarity to Mojang’s runaway train of a game, as well as Notch’s Ludum Dare spin-off, but I’d like to think that it’s different enough to earn a permanent place among the other hundreds of thousands of titles up there.

$0.99

Microcraft

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2012-01-30 :: Category: Games

We’ve all been there: that brand new white shirt that had a terrible meeting with a glass of red wine, the chocolate on the new carpet, the great hot coffee spillage of 2011. Where there’s a substance, there’s a way of throwing it across something thus staining it forever more. Enter iStain, an app that sets out to explain how to remove over 100 different types of stain.

iStain suggests what kind of agents to use to remove the stain, and adjusts accordingly whether the item is a white item of clothing or colored. It doesn’t just cater for the easy stains either with the persistent and problematic stains covered, too.

The app is straight forward to use with it easy to browse stains according to whether they’re food based, biological, chemical, glue or greasy based.

iStain has to be worth a download for the clumsy iOS device owner. It’s out now priced at $0.99.

$0.99

iStain

iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2012-01-22 :: Category: Lifestyle