:: FANTASTIC
:: PERSONAL
Families can use a standard navigation menu, or simply swipe through the two parks – Disneyland and it’s younger sibling Disney California Adventure - to discover not just the rides, but also the restaurants, nightlife, shopping and hotels. There are 100 “touch points” in the app - that is 100 things to find and tap. Many just describe the associated attraction, but others offer photographs, short videos, and a few toggle some interactive treats kids will enjoy including a chance to choreograph a fireworks show or ride up - and then plummeting down - the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
This “happiest app on earth” is free to download and while its primary purpose is to get us calling our travel agents and packing our bags, as souvenir, wish, or a peek at what’s changed in oh, say, 35 years, it’s admirable as a stand-alone product. As always when Imagineers get behind a project, the presentation is slick, seamless, and will leave tourists past and future wanting more.
Fanhatten already offered TV and Movie fans tons of entertainment by providing ratings, general information and then linking users to popular streaming services from iTunes, Hulu Plus and Netflix to Crackle and PBS.
Now they have updated to incorporate the hottest trend in in online news – discovery. The app is now a one-stop shop for celeb 411, reviews and streaming, but also personalized news feeds and recommendations based on social networks and predictive algorithms.
Fanhatten now boasts over 60 major entertainment publication sources including Billboard, E!, Entertainment Weekly, TMZ, Rolling Stone, and People.
But the new Fan Feed is where to find the action. The app allows users to select favorite shows, actors, even directors and brings up content that is tailored to individual taste. As users spend time with Fanhatten and add more likes, the feed gets progressively “smarter”. If friends use Fanhatten too, the app offers a social component and shared recommendations as well.
Now that the already rich content comes with discovery and social components it should not only please its own existing fans, but create a new market for people who aren’t looking to stream necessarily, but who are looking for what - and whom - to watch no matter how they access the video.
:: TEENAGE DREAM
:: UNDERWHELMINGWell, it's not quite October any more but finally Dolby Digital support has been added to the $2.99 app making it the first iOS app to offer such functionality. As the audio codec used for the vast majority of DVDs, it's the ideal addition to an already solid video playing app.
Besides the AC3 support, AirPlay support has also been added for iPad 2 and Apple TV owners which is bound to make the Dolby Digital support all the more welcome. Integration of DropBox services is also in there for extra ease of use.
Regular travellers will be understandably pretty happy by such news. The CineXPlayer update is available now for existing owners. The app costs $2.99 otherwise and it's well worth the price.
:: ODDITYKind of like an app version of Tivo, Peel - Personal TV Show Guide recommends shows according to what favorites the user adds to the system. The more the app learns about TV tastes and preferences, the better the suggestions become.
An attractive app to look at, it's simple to flip through the colorful thumbnails of each TV show and these thumbnails can lead onto episode descriptions and other details. Perhaps most useful is that of the ability to search for any show and Peel - Personal TV Show Guide lets the user know exactly when it's on and what channel to tune into.
Peel - Personal TV Show Guide is bound to save some time for the avid TV watcher, all the more so with Christmas coming up.
It's out now and it's free to download.
I've got an iPad full to the brim with photos taken over the years, ever since I first dipped into the iOS world. Numbering in the thousands, it's comforting to know they're there, ready to browse through at any time.
It's a new app that automatically syncs music with photos, thus creating attractive showcases of all those memorable moments. With several different themes that can be applied and the ability to manipulate images with a tap of the screen, Jiv3D is a pretty neat app and extremely easy to use.
It's an ideal app for all manners of different situations such as showing holiday snaps to the family or in the conference room to explain a concept to colleagues.
Jiv3D is out now for iPad owners and it's a free download.
Poking people on Facebook is just sooooo 2010. 2011 is all about jabbing friends! Or at least that's what JabMe's developers think.
There's a game element to it, too, with GameCenter Leaderboards helping users keep track of the highest number of jabs they've inflicted on their friends. A Jab Back action means it's pretty easy to up the jab count and fast.
Once bored of the free supply of jab actions, users can then purchase other packs for $0.99 a pack.
It's certainly quirky but hopefully JabMe will make for a fun messaging service for those who like to be in regular virtual contact with friends.
It's out now.
Who's a big film fan, then? I know I certainly am. I've spent years trawling the Apple Trailers site since back when the idea of viewing film trailers on a website was revolutionary. Now I can do it through a new app by the name of iTunes Movie Trailers.
Users can browse trailers, clips and featurettes for all the biggest movies, as well as view spectacular HD photos, view a year long calendar of upcoming movie releases and find showtimes at cinemas near them.
Hundreds of movie trailers are available in all and a quick glance already shows the best of the best are on display such as Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Besides tracking what the networks reckon are the biggest hits, users can also browse the charts to see what other people are downloading the most for inspiration as to what to check out.
iTunes Movie Trailers is out now. It's universal, it's free, it's the ideal app for movie fans.
Southern Californians and music fans alike should instantly recognise the name KCRW. It's a public radio station that's become increasingly popular thanks to its use of modern methods like podcasts and streaming Internet radio broadcasts in its efforts to educate music fans in the latest and greatest new acts. In the past, KCRW hosts have helped showcase the likes of Beck, Adele, Florence & the Machine, Coldplay, Dido and Massive Attack.
KCRW Music Mine - an iPad only app - is dedicated entirely to music exploration using The Echo Nest's music intelligence platform to track down the best new artists. The app offers up to 100 artists at a time with lists updated daily in tandem with the on air playlists for KCRW. Listeners who want to learn more can then find videos, photos, blog posts and more behind each artist as well as discover the musical talent.
The format of KCRW Music Mine lends itself to users who don't have a lot of time on their hands for messing around with configurations. Intead it's an app that's simple to browse and quickly find something of interest.
For fans who just want to kick back and relax, they can jut tap the KCRW's 24 hour, all music stream Eclectic24 and enjoy the music, or they can listen in to full shows by many KCRW DJs.
KCRW Music Mine sounds like the ideal companion for KCRW fans and a fantastic app for music enthusiasts keen to find something new to love. I can certainly see some lazy Sunday afternoons being lost to checking out new music.
It's free to download so why not give it a try today?
According to the app, dogs have different kinds of intelligence just like humans do. These types are: problem solving ability, social intelligence, awareness, sense and the ability to learn and adapt. Dog IQ helps determine how mentally adept the user's dog is by providing a well rounded overview of all of these types.
Each test offered by the app consists of 11 simple and fun questions testing the above abilities. Taken from a pool of 30 questions, there's enough room for trying the test numerous times. Indeed it's encouraged with a history page allowing users to monitor their dog's performance over time.
Dog IQ looks to be a fun entertainment app to finally see if dogs really are smart or not. It's out now priced at $0.99.
Yardsellr has been quite a success story in recent times. Originally set up by three former eBay executives, Daniel Leffel, Jed Clevenger and Rachel Makool, it's essentially eBay for Facebook.
Making Yardsellr a kind of online neighborhood to buy and sell items is a neat touch so it's good to see it spread to the App Store courtesy of the official Yardsellr app.
The app does nearly exactly what any Yardsellr user could want. Currently there's only buying functionality but selling abilities are set to be added in an upcoming update.
For newcomers to the Yardsellr world, it's refreshing to see rather than the impersonal side of selling that eBay offers, Yardsellr has much more of a community spirit with sellers seeming impassioned by the items they're trying to find a new home for. There's also a prevalence of items that will be of great interest to users of selling communities like Etsy with some fantastic hand created bits and pieces being sold alongside more commercially available goods.
Much like the website, it's important to note that Yardsellr is only open to users within the United States. People from other nations had best hope that in the future Yardsellr will be extended further afield. It's great to see something a bit different from the eBay norm flourish so well.
The app is available now for free.
