| |
Posts Tagged week in review
Your App Experts
Need to know the latest and greatest apps each and every week? Look no further than 148Apps. Our reviewers comb through the vast numbers of new apps out there, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we’ve been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.
League of Legends may not have invented the MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) genre, but it certainly had a hand in popularizing it. It’s actually become so popular that there have been more than a few attempts at recreating such an experience on iOS. And I have to admit that while Solstice Arena has a few snags, it’s probably the best mobile iteration I’ve played yet. The basic gist of a MOBA is that two teams of players beef over turf until one has wiped out the others’ base. What makes things a little different than every other team-based multiplayer game out there is that the characters feel more like MMORPG classes than anything; each with specific skills that are meant to pair well with other characters’ and each with their own role to play. In Solstice Arena, players must take down the other team’s towers in order to weaken defenses, while simultaneously battling other player characters who are trying to do the same to them. There’s no major penalty for death except for waiting to respawn, although it’s a good opportunity to spend gold on better gear for the match. –Rob Rich
For several months now I’ve been seeing little Facebook updates about friends and their Avengers Alliance progress. I had about gotten to the point where I was going to see what all the fuss was about when I found out it was coming to iOS, so naturally I decided to check out the more portable version instead. The Earth is in danger (again) from some sort of enigmatic presence. Also super villains. As a new S.H.I.E.L.D. recruit, players must team up with a host of notable Marvel heroes as they try to thwart nefarious plots and figure out just what in the heck is going on. The majority of these missions involve turn-based battles with various baddies, but it’s also possible to send characters off on side missions (over a set period of real time, of course) for extra cash and experience. Players can also train their heroes when they’ve acquired enough experience in order to access new abilities that can make a huge difference in a fight. –Rob Rich
“You have no friends.” This is a tagline for Rando, a photo-sharing app from ustwo. Initially the statement seems hostile, but it reveals the philosophy behind this app: it’s anti-social. It’s not about status or appearance, like Instagram, the service that this app stands in marked contrast to. It’s all about sharing photos to someone, or no one in particular. See, how Rando works is that it lets users take a circular photo, and then launch it into the universe. It’s saved to the camera roll, but there’s no way to share that photo to any social networks from within the app itself. Later on, a push notification may be received that will say that someone in a certain spot will have received one of the user’s Randos, but that’s it. This is about sharing to just one person. One random person out there in the universe. They might like the photo, they might not, the photographer won’t know at all. –Carter Dotson
Other 148Apps Network Sites
If you are looking for the best reviews of kids’ apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:
GiggleApps
Helping My Dad – Little Critter and Just Grandpa and Me – Little Critter are charming apps adapted from the storybooks of the same name, now developed by Oceanhouse Media – great choices for Father’s Day. In these tales, Little Critter tries hard to be helpful to his loved ones although he is unaware of the mess he makes in the wake of his helpfulness. In Helping My Dad, Little Critter tries his best to take care of his father, creating more work for him along the way as kids are known to do, such as waking him up early on dad’s day off or making breakfast, causing terrible disarray in the kitchen. –Amy Solomon
Sago Mini Forest Flyer is a delightful, universal app from Sago Sago, a new developer to be aware of as it is a combination of talents from both Toca Boca as well as the creative minds who developed zinc Roe’s Tickle Tap Apps. As some readers may know, the Tickle Tap Apps are a series of apps that were my son’s first experience with applications, now having been re-developed into new apps. Sago Mini Forest Flyer is a new variation of the earlier app, Field Flyer. Sago Mini Forest Flyer maintains much of what we have enjoyed from Field Flyer as well as adding new elements to have fun with as well. –Amy Solomon
AndroidRundown
Block Story is a quest-based adventure in the same vein as Minecraft that puts an adjusted spin on survival style gaming. Gameplay starts straight away: a mini-tutorial greets you with basics of the action. Players learn movement, collection of items, hunting and the procurement of sustenance, and more. The options give a good idea of what to expect; players get to name a new “world” and “world seed” and select from three modes: Story, Creative and Hardcore. Then you can pick or create a character and push on. –Tre Lawrence
UNO & Friends is a re-polished take on the classic shedding-type card game that tosses in some interesting new features and multiplayer functionality. The standard gameplay applies. Play commences against three other players, each player being dealt seven shuffled and random cards from a deck of four colors (yellow, green, blue and red). The rest of the cards, face down for surprise chance effect, make up the deck and the topmost deck card is turned over and becomes the starter card. The first player then places a card that matches the color or rank of the starter card; each succeeding player then takes a turn in clockwise fashion, also trying to play a card that matches the last card played. If a player does not have a card to play can take it from the bank; if it is playable, it has to be played immediately. The first player to play all his/her cards wins. –Tre Lawrence
Tilt Arena is a classic type of game for a modern type of gamer. If the game brings back memories if the iconic arcade shooter Geometry Wars, don’t feel alarmed; that’s a good thing, and the developer isn’t ashamed of the potential mental connection. The gameplay is fairly simple; the goal is to stay alive. It’s set up in a rectangular grid, with the player in control of a white trapezoid spacecraft. Armed with perpetually shooting guns, I had to avoid the randomly appearing enemy spacecraft that were oh so eager to exhibit their contact-based lethality. Darting around and dodging them helped to a small degree, but directing the guns at them destroys them and earns valuable points. –Tre Lawrence
We Are Your App Review Source
Need to know the latest and greatest apps each and every week? Look no further than 148Apps. Our reviewers comb through the vast numbers of new apps out there, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we’ve been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.
Poker Night 2 brings together Brock Samson from Venture Bros. (which has a season premiere very soon!), Claptrap from Borderlands, Ash Williams from the Evil Dead series (not voiced by Bruce Campbell, unfortunately), and Sam from Telltale’s own Sam and Max to play some high-stakes poker. Oh, and GLaDOS from Portal is the dealer. Moxxxi from Borderlands makes a silent cameo as the bartender. It’s a basic game of poker, with both Texas hold ‘em and Omaha hold ‘em (like Texas hold ‘em but with four dealt cards, two of which can be played with the community cards). However, the fun comes as much from getting to experience the witty banter from these cross-media characters meeting up. Each character has their own playing style and personality that must be considered when playing against them. Ash is rather cocky and willing to bluff a lot. Claptrap really seems to only like to play when he has good hands, being extremely conservative. Brock will go hard when he has a good hand, but will bluff occasionally. Sam…I can’t quite figure him out but he does seem to be a bluffer. Ash scares me the most because he matches my own play style. –Carter Dotson
Long ago, as iOS reckons time, before the 1 billion dollar acquisition of Instagram by Facebook, and before photo filters were ubiquitous, there was Hipstamatic, a digital recreation of an analog camera, complete with changeable lenses and film types. But alas, time passed by and Hipstamatic, while still useful and engaging, lost mindshare to Instagram and the onslaught of photo processing apps. Many fondly remembered it, but used it less and less. Hipstamatic’s developer hopes to change this with the introduction of Oggl, their new social network/camera app hybrid that attempts to link the Hipstamatic name and legacy to a powerful but easy to use photo hub. –Chris Kirby
I have no idea how to pronounce Manuganu, nor do I know what it means. It just looks llike a string of random letters to me. It’s supposed to be the main character’s name, but we all know names usually mean something. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say it must amount something like “gorgeous and fantastic endless runner.” Just a guess. Manuganu is a kid with problems. Specifically he can’t seem to go anywhere without having to leap over chasms, dodge swinging boulders, or avoid all sorts of sharp-toothed nasties. Every single stage is full of them, as well as a number of tokens to collect, and players will have to make good use of the intuitive controls to dodge and collect everything. There are only two buttons (jump/double-jump and halting), and a single gesture (swipe down to slide) to worry about. Halting makes for an interesting addition as there are times when players won’t simply be able to run past something. Instead they’ll have to stop running, wait for an opening, then make like a tree. –Rob Rich
Other 148Apps Network Sites
If you are looking for the best reviews of kids’ apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:
GiggleApps
I have some interesting news that I would like to share with readers. Toca Boca has recently acquired zinc Roe’s series of Tickle Tap apps. As readers may know, Toca Boca is a favorite developer of mine, as are the Tickle Tap apps that were developed by zinc Roe a few years back. These Tickle Tap apps were some of the first apps I shared with my son, and they still are perennial favorites that have kept my son’s attention for all this time. The joining of Toca Boca and the creative minds behind these Tickle Tap Apps has created a true dream team of app developers with the common bonds of highly stylized illustrations, bright and bold colors and whimsical details that produce very high expectations of what is to come from this new developer, Sago Sago. –Amy Solomon
The Trip Little Critter Reading Adventure is a fun, interactive storybook app based on Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter’s The Trip, with versions for both iPad as well as iPhone available through iTunes. This new application, developed by Silver Dolphin, differs greatly from – and should not be confused with – the straightforward adaptation of Little Critter stories developed by another company. It is worth explaining to readers that the original Mercer Mayer title focuses on a car trip to a camp site as told in pictures. Yet the text, although also telling the tale of this long family outing, included a heavy use of alphabet letters, from A to Z, such as B for Bags and C for Car, as well as words adults can relate to, possibly even more than their children can, such as E for the car’s engine overheating, letter M for the mess the Critter kids made in the back of the car, or T for the flat tire they get along the way, creating a witty alphabet book enjoyable for all – children and parents alike. –Amy Solomon
On Beyond Bugs: All About Insects is a thoughtful adaptation of the book of the same name, part of The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library developed by Oceanhouse Media. Here, children will learn about many bug-related topics as they enjoy the Seuss-like illustrations and rhyming text to which this book is fashioned as The Cat in the Hat, along with Thing One and Thing Two, introducing readers to many fun bug facts such as basic anatomy, natural defenses or the strength of insects such as ants. –Amy Solomon
AndroidRundown
Pinball is an interesting state of flux: the genre as a physical form is not in great shape, but it is doing fantastic in virtual form. Fans of the silver ball have series like Pinball Arcade and Zen Pinball which both provide regular amounts of new tables to freshen up the experience regularly. Star Wars Pinball, a standalone release of the Zen Pinball table based off of Empire Strikes Back, is a great way to check in to this series. While the game includes in-app purchases for two other Star Wars tables, the base purchase includes just the one table. That’s hardly a bad thing – there’s a lot going on here. There’s multiple missions to complete by hitting various triggers, lots of targets to go for, and plenty of flashing lights and loud noises. The fanservice is strong with this one – there’s all kinds of art and sounds from the movie. This isn’t a cheap cash-in, a lot of love was put in to this game. –Carter Dotson
Mini Golf Matchup is a pleasant putt putt sim that puts a major emphasis on social interaction. The multiplayer format really encourages playing with friends. I can play with people in my email contacts, or random strangers. Upon finding an opponent, it comes down to turn-by-turn play on the same course. I love the fact that I could have games going against numerous people simultaneously, and at my own pace. For the random games, I simply waited for the game to do the matching, and waited for my turn. The courses had different looks, different levels of difficulty/hazards and different scenery. To get the ball into okay, I simply long-pressed and pulled… sort of like creating the virtual motion that mimics how a pinball machine game is started. In true real-life fashion, the shortest distance between tee and chip was rarely a straight line; thus, using the boundaries as bumpers was almost a needed skill. –Tre Lawrence
Boardtastic Skateboarding 2 from Perblue is a cool game that invokes the Tony Hawk in everybody. As a reboot of Perblue’s original skateboarding game, it has some big shoes to fill. It was a graphical feast, with fine looking 3D graphics. The developer did a good job with shadows and imagery, with realistic animations that mimicked real life skateboarding movements quite well. The skate environments all have realistically gritty feels to them, and frankly, I found it easy to enjoy how the game looked. There are several game modes to enjoy: By myself, I could do Ladder, for personal advancement, or stuff like Freestyle, Survival, Circuit or I could get into a Tournament. There was a multiplayer section as well. –Tre Lawrence
Your Trusted Source for App Reviews
Having trouble making sense out of the overwhelming number of apps released each week? Have no fear! Just look to 148Apps for the best app reviews on the web. Our reviewers sift through the vast numbers of new apps out there, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we’ve been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.
I won’t dawdle with getting this out there: I love Trial of the Clone. It made me laugh numerous times and it made me want to replay it many, many times just so I could see how things could work out differently. Like all of Tin Man Games’s other releases, it won’t be for those who want fast paced gaming, but for those who want to read an entertaining story while interacting with certain elements, it’s fantastic. The story, based upon the book of the same name by Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal’s Zach Weinersmith, follows the tale of a clone in a distant future, as they find themselves having to undertake a special destiny. It all sounds incredibly pious and worthy but it’s merely the backdrop to some great self-referential humor and some playful digs at popular Science Fiction. Consistently tongue in cheek, not only will players find themselves having to decide what to do about the galaxy’s fate, but they’ll also find themselves having to fight angry mothers, outwitting little old ladies and getting drunk with fellow soldiers. –Jennifer Allen
Online games are lucky to maintain a fan base for weeks, let alone for months, or even years. In the case of the interstellar MMO Vendetta Online, the game has managed to feed a thriving fan base since 1998. For those of you keeping track at home, that is a whopping fifteen years! Now that the game has managed to conquer most major platforms including the likes of PC, Mac and Android, the company has now set its sights on iPad. Can this massive experience make the jump to iOS, or will the gigantic scope overwhelm the more mobile-minded gamer? Everyone who has ever complained about the lack of a significant PC-centric MMO experience on iOS now has permission to sit down. Vendetta Online has somehow managed to port its entire online platform to iPad in a way that would seem impossibly succinct given the depth of the experience, yet just as fully featured as its big brother counterparts on Mac and PC. If it sounds too good to be true, rest assured, it isn’t. Just know that depth comes at the cost of a steep learning curve. –Blake Grundman
Fish Out of Water is Halfbrick’s long-awaited next game; it’s hard to believe that their last mega-release, Jetpack Joyride is over a year and a half old at this point. It’s very playable, but may not be something with a lot of longevity. The goal is to launch three different fish across water, trying to maximize the distance they go along with the number of times they skip across the water, to try and impress the five different crab judges who score on various criteria. Most fish should be launched at a low enough angle that they go far, but won’t just fall in to the water. Some fish are wildly different – for example, Finlay the dolphin (yes, the game knows dolphins aren’t actually fish) can jump and dive out of the water, with each dive counting as a skip. However, he shouldn’t touch the bottom of the water, because that will slow him down immensely. The brothers split into multiple fish, so if used properly, they can rack up massive numbers of skips. –Carter Dotson
Might & Magic: Duel Of Champions is a digital card battler, much like Wizards of the Coast’s Magic 2013 or Gameloft’s own Order and Chaos: Duels. There are some subtle differences in the mechanics of the basic ruleset, but the idea is the same: lay out artistically rendered cards on a grid, using warriors, spells, and events to outscore an opponent, dropping hit points of the enemy Hero card to zero. Duel of Champions works similarly. Players get a deck of cards and an initial hand of randomly dealt creatures, events, spells, and fortunes to lay out on the grid. The virtual game space is laid out left vs right, with the player taking the spot on the left. Turns proceed in phases that are less linear than, say, Magic 2013, in that players can increase resources, play cards from their hand, or utilize special cards in any order. Instead of resource cards, here, players increase either Might or Magic via the Hero card, which is chosen for them initially by the specific deck they pick during setup. –Rob LeFebvre
Other 148Apps Network Sites
If you are looking for the best reviews of kids’ apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:
GiggleApps
Mystery Math Town is a wonderful new math app that will engage both children and adults. I am really impressed with this app, as players here guide a friendly ghost who has agreed to help release fireflies that have been caught in jars hidden among rooms and outdoor spaces of wonderfully stylized houses – per the plead of their firefly mom as seen in an introduction to this creative math application. To do so, one will need to gather numbers that are to be used in math problems that one will come across in order to enter or leave any of the rooms of outside spaces connected to the house, be it by simply crossing over a threshold of a door, climbing up or down stairs or a ladder or even levitating outside the house as well as other unique ways of coming and going. –Amy Solomon
Sid the Science Kid – Sid’s Slide to the Side is a fun and educational application which delivers an episode of the terrific PBS kids’ show of the same name, developing into an interactive, animated storybook appisode that reads much like a traditional storybook which includes optional narration as well as illustrations often animated, allowing readers to propel the story with the tap of a finger, bridging the gap between an illustrated storybook and an interactive application, also including two mini-games as well. Parents who do not know of Sid the Science Kid are missing out on a great educational science-based show, bright and colorful, about Sid and his friends from school who learn about science in ways children will find most engaging. –Amy Solomon
Dr. Panda’s Beauty Salon is a charming new app in a series of delightful role-playing applications for children that let them explore different characters such as a doctor, chef in a restaurant, farmer and now a worker at a beauty salon for animals. Fans of these Dr. Panda apps as well as those new to this genre will delight in all that this salon has to offer their animal clients, many of whom have starred in previous applications, as well as a few new faces. –Amy Solomon
AndroidRundown
Simple games will always find a home with me. Blocks Party, come on in. Blocks Party is a game with an easy premise. You guide a rolling ball on a track with plenty of bonuses and obstacles to the end as fast as possible. Now, it’s the type of obstacles — coupled with the breadth of control options — that really made the game such a compelling option for me. The colors were sharp, allowing for the visual separation that made playing a quick-reaction game of this type possible. It was a rich fantasy environment, with beautiful pastels outlining the sky, the ground and everything in between. The green foliage that showed up in most screens evoked memories of the Dorothy prancing down the Yellow Brick Road. –Tre Lawrence
I can speak from personal experience, and I am sure that many of our readers can as well, but there is nothing more nerve-wracking that bringing a smartphone along in a place that can get messy. Be it out in the garden, in the shop, on the lake, or in the kitchen; smartphones take a beating and, for the most part, bounce right back up. I am not talking about falls but more spills and general debris that can accumulate on phones in dirty environments. Picture someone working on a car who has grease and oil on their hands, but still needs to answer their smartphone to answer an important call. Usually they will have to completely clean their hands or bite the bullet and dirty their screen, but now with an incredibly simple and inexpensive KickStarter project that decision will become obsolete. Smart Bags are honestly nothing more than reinforced and fully biodegradable sandwich bags which are tailored to fit around conventional smartphones. People have been doing this for a while but never has their been bags that are disposable and offer the ability to conform to specific brands. Because the plastic is thicker and anti-static the risk of damage is incredibly minimal and any user should feel more than safe bringing their phone with them to the beach or out camping during a misty, muddy afternoon. The plastic still allows use of the phone without the threat of a scratched screen or water damage, and its thickness prevents the bunching and sticking that is common with regular sandwich bags. –Joseph Bertolini
I like simple games, and if there is one nice thing that accelerometer-equipped devices have spawned, it is the proliferation of cool labyrinth games like Crazy Labyrinth 3D, that continually seem to push the envelope. Pleasantly. Crazy Labyrinth 3D is really nice to look at. I loved the graphical three-dimensional representation of the playing area. I could practically smell the wooden surfaces, and liked the glow of the ball and shadows of the barriers. The animations were sharp and responsive; even the slight rebound of the ball looked remarkably real. It looked like the developer spent valuable time and effort on the interface, and I, for one, loved it. –Tre Lawrence
We Are Your App Authority
Having trouble making sense out of the overwhelming number of apps released each week? Have no fear! Just look to 148Apps for the best app reviews on the web. Our reviewers sift through the vast numbers of new apps out there, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we’ve been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.
Kingdoms will always be in peril and brave heroes will always be needed. However the format in which they do their “fighting evil” thing can vary wildly. In Pixel Kingdom they do so by meeting the approaching hordes head-on in a three lane defense. And they look so freaking adorable doing it, too. Pixel Kingdom is a fairly straightforward lane defense game for the most part. Players have a stock of various units they can produce and three lanes to produce them in. They’re all “paid for” by a mana pool that fills up over time, which can also be upgraded to fill faster by using more mana. Units are mostly of the melee/ranged attack varieties but there are a number of variations in-between to unlock and play around with. But what would the heroes be without their monsters? The various hordes of evil contain monsters both big and small. Some can knock heroes back, some weave in and out of lanes, and still others can slow a hero’s movement. Thankfully players have access to a cache of special equipment that can be purchased to make their heroes much more formidable. Assuming they have the coin to pay for it all, of course. –Rob Rich
The future is a very bleak place in indie adventure game, Gemini Rue. Clearly taking inspiration from some sci-fi greats such as Blade Runner, as well as a plethora of film noir, the game tells the story from two different perspectives. One part of the adventure follows a time-travelling assassin, Azriel Odin, as he attempts to find his missing brother, while the other part tracks an amnesiac man called Delta-Six, as he finds himself trapped in a hospital with no clue as to what exactly happened to him. And, of course, their fates overlap in a twisting narrative that will stick in one’s mind for a while to come. At its most basic, Gemini Rue is an adventure game full of the need to tap on items and combine them in some way. Really, though, it’s interactive fiction. The puzzles are hardly taxing, although I did find them interesting. Using more than just a combination of items, players have a communicator that ensures they can contact characters, as well as check their notes and conduct a form of research. It’s a small yet attractive feature, that gives players a sense of control far beyond simply offering up a list of objectives. In typical adventure gaming style, players have a choice of icons to determine how to interact with others, including the ability to look, use, talk or kick. –Jennifer Allen
Touch Press has been publishing astonishing digital books for iPad for as long as the platform has existed. With their earlier apps, like The Elements, The Wasteland, The Barefoot World Atlas and The Sonnets, the company shows a knack for taking a subject many consider dry or academic and turning it a multimedia feast that engages not only students, but anyone with even a passing curiosity in the subject matter. With The Orchestra, the team has raised its own bar, creating much more than a than a digibook. The Orchestra takes users on an exclusive tour of the UK’s Philharmonia and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen’s interpretations of eight classical pieces from composers like Hayden, Mahler, Stravinsky, and Beethoven in unparalleled fashion. The app is a two-part affair. The home screen guides users to the performances first. Each orchestral work is presented with several videos focusing on key musicians/instruments and on Salonen’s baton. These videos can be rearranged with intuitive gestures to focus on whichever appeals at the moment. Below that, users watch the score scroll by in sync. One can view the entire orchestration, a curated score that focuses on key instruments in the piece, and for those who don’t read music, there is a graphical representation using color-coded bars. –Lisa Caplan
![IMG_0393[1]](http://www.148apps.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/IMG_03931-600x400.png)
In an App Store full of countless derivations of the same handful of genres, sometimes all it takes for a game to stand out is to just execute on one of those genres really well. That’s what Black Operations does and that’s why anyone interested in mobile real-time strategy should give it a look. Specifically, Black Operations is a 2D sidescrolling strategy game. The playfield is a linear plane with two bases on each end; to win, players must overcome what is essentially a tug-of-war battle to overthrow the enemy’s HQ. It’s a simplified take on real-time strategy that’s been proven successful on mobile phones, consoles, and pretty much anything without a mouse. However, Black Operations does throw in a few new elements to liven things up. In most games like this once a unit is spawned they march forward and attack until they die. Here, though, players use intuitive multi-touch gestures to tell soldiers to move out, retreat, or stay put. This opens up new tactical possibilities like having units rally around a newly-capture watch tower or drawing enemies out by sacrificing individual soldiers. –Jordan Minor
Other 148Apps Network Sites
If you are looking for the best reviews of kids’ apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:
GiggleApps
In PICME, my son’s likeness is used to create a boy character who delivers a piano to a friendly lion named Juno, who claims to be able to play, yet in reality needs to practice a great deal to be able to make true music with this instrument. There is much that I really appreciate in this interactive storybook. First, two distinct versions of this tale are included – a movie as well as a storybook, and although the plot of this story remains the same, I especially appreciate how the video is not just a straight animated version of the book. It is also a different yet related experience which adds more characters and nuances that work perfectly in this movie. The book, however, is a little more simplistic, making a nice, tight narrative that I equally appreciate. –Amy Solomon
I would like to introduce readers to a trilogy of dinosaur apps from the Ansel and Clair series of educational applications. I am a huge fan of these apps, as Africa and Paul Revere’s Ride, and now the dinosaur time periods have each been visited by Ansel, a travel photographer from the planet Virtoos and Clair, a Virtoosian robot companion in order to gather photos to teach about these moments in history back on their home planet. There are three sections broken up into different times, specifically the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous, that each goes back to explore the world, learning about the unique dinosaurs what differenceates each of these periods seen in the landscapes of each of these apps, such as the Triassic period which was less green and more barren than the other periods of time –Amy Solomon
My son and I loved this first app – a children’s interactive application allowing one to explore five different truck and car-themed activities, as seen here in the review of this app. More Trucks includes four new scenes that children will also have fun with. Nice children’s narration will explain how these sections work, and parents and children alike will enjoy the familiar nursery rhyme-themed classical music that Duck Duck Moose is known for. These sections are uniformly bright and colorful, including the same stylized looks that fans have come to expect from these applications. –Amy Solomon
AndroidRundown
I’m a sucker for retro games. There is just something charming about going into the past with today’s hardware. I get especially teary-eyed when 8-bit graphics appear. Kairosoft’s Ninja Village is that type of tearjerker that I’m talking about. Set in ancient Japan, it it is a city simulation set during the period of feudalism. It’s craftily set as a unification adventure that involves ninja clans, so in one swoop, I was getting some awesome backstory angles to work with.
Yes, the game came with retro looks, down the pleasant (for me) shaky movements and blended color. I liked the detail the developer put into creating a fun-looking environment. The gameplay was a potent mix of civilization simulation and domination principles. Frankly, I really enjoyed the intricate nature of this title. Its game engine was pretty cool, and a lot of thought seemed to have been put into the basic logic. I was responsible for training and upkeep of my ninja warriors. A key component of this was the ability to manage my non-infinite resources. First, I had to do stimulate basic commerce to increase my funds; villagers needed food, and food also brought valuable cash when sold to merchants. I was able to build industry like farms and also able to build infrastructure for my growing clan. –Tre Lawrence
I realize that I am not the only person who misplaces their wallet, but I find it hard to believe that there are people on this earth who lose theirs more consistently than I do. For years I have been casually looking into different ways to help me organize my life, and there are a few products on the market that allow the user to remotely find their missing, tagged items. Obviously, the problem here is that these products, for the most part, are separate items and are just as prone to being forgotten and misplaced as the wallet itself. So why not put the device on the smartphone? Everyone has one and if implemented well enough it can work as a symbiotic relationship. Fortunately for all of humanity there is a project floating around on KickStarter right now that might be the world’s solution to the endless struggle to keep tabs on arguably the two most important items in the average person’s life. Called SmartWallit, this ambitious startup has developed a product that will ingeniously alert its owner if either the wallet or phone gets left behind. –Joseph Bertolini
The Jurassic Park franchise was the quintessential morality tale. It’s what we needed in the 90s: a reminder of the dangers of mankind subverting nature. Dinosaurs are interesting, and having a zoo full of them would be exceptionally cool, but only bad things could happen in the end. Keeping prehistoric beasts as confined pests is rarely a good idea, especially the carnivorous ones. Jurassic Park Builder, a game from Ludia Inc, is just the type of title that can fix melancholy. It put me in charge of developing theme park populated such as the one on the novel and movie it derives it name from. It was a park simulation with a twist. I was tasked with building and expanding space, as well as making sure my livestock flourished. The originating story was close to the original; I found dinosaur DNA fortuitously trapped in amber, and was able to create viable eggs with the DNA. From then on, it became a matter of suave management of resources. I got to pick whether I wanted terrestrial animals or aquatic ones. I also had to feed the creature based on defined diets. –Tre Lawrence
We Are Your App Review Source
Need to know the latest and greatest apps each and every week? Look no further than 148Apps. Our reviewers comb through the vast numbers of new apps out there, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we’ve been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.
Creating an iOS app isn’t just a matter of typing in code and seeing what happens. Well, it can be but it’s not recommended. Instead, it’s far wiser to create mock ups and design the general look of the app, checking it all works and makes sense. This is where AppCooker comes into its own. It’s an app that allows users to work on app mock ups, their app’s icon and even the marketing side of things, all within this one tool. It might appear expensive at first glance, but it should prove hugely helpful to designers. AppCooker could have been intimidating to use but I found it didn’t take too long to figure out. Creating a new project is quite simple with options dictating what format the app will be on (either iPhone or iPad), followed by an easy to use mockup creator. A series of wireframes and widgets make it possible to set up the basics, before linking each screen together to, hopefully, form a fully fledged app design. Being so visual and informative, it’s simple to look through and work out if something is missing or whether everything works ergonomically. –Jennifer Allen
The team over at Zen Studios has made a living taking our favorite characters and worlds, shaking them up a bit, and finding a way to squeeze them onto the player’s platform of choice. Despite their steady support of iOS through DLC for Zen Pinball, the team hasn’t released a new app on the platform in over a year. Can they channel their collective efforts to start off Star Wars Pinball on the right foot, or are they looking a little rusty this time around? Matching up LucasFilm (and now Disney’s) coveted Star Wars universe with pinball seems like a match made in nerd heaven. The lush back story, compelling characters and intriguing locales all seem custom fit for the world of the steel ball. Face it, swapping out flippers with lightsabers in battle just makes sense. Now if only they could find a way to get Yoda to shut the heck up. –Blake Grundman
It’s not often that I can become so enthralled with such a slow paced game that offers very simple techniques with its gameplay. However, NightSky provides beautiful visuals, blissful gameplay and an overall peaceful time while going through each area of the game. NightSky sets a mood and that’s exactly how this title wins with its physics-based puzzle gameplay. It starts with a short story of a boy who finds a glowing sphere on a beach and ends up taking it home with him where he begins having strange dreams of the sphere in many peculiar places. This is where the gameplay takes place, as players control the sphere by easily swiping or tapping the screen throughout many of these unique surroundings that are full of obstacles. The light ambient soundtrack makes for an even more calming experience. –Andrew Stevens
Part of a continuing trend of photography apps that aim to subtly change the appearance of a photo, rather than turn things too garish, Repix is a simple yet useful tool. Repix uses a brush style interface, requiring users to brush their finger along an image to add the desired effect. It immediately empowers the user, ensuring they don’t have to rely upon an entire filter doing what they wish it to do. Nine brushes are available in this free package, with more purchasable via the in-app store. Impressively, these add on brushes can be previewed before purchasing. A useful feature that more artistic apps should offer. The bundled in brushes are a suitable bunch to start out with, too, including tools for adding charcoal coloring, a flare effect as well as adding a cartoon or poster style to the image. Painting with one’s finger means it’s easy to implement, as well as undo through a comprehensive undo button, as well as an eraser brush. –Jennifer Allen
Other 148Apps Network Sites
If you are looking for the best reviews of kids’ apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:
GiggleApps
Tizzy Driving Adventure is a charming universal driving simulator for young app users. I do love role-playing apps in general, as they can foster a great deal of creativity in children. Tizzy Driving Adventure is the digital equivalent to the driving toy that kids love where one can pretend to drive while turning an attached steering wheel. Here, too, after choosing from a boy or girl character, the user while driving and steering has the point-of-view of looking out the front window and onto the street. –Amy Solomon
Dandelion is an interactive universal app with a wonderful sense of style, developed as an app with a message about bullying. There is a lot that I enjoy about this app, recently chosen as an application of special interest in the books category by iTunes. The most striking element of this app is the sense of style, shown not quite in black and white, as more of a sepia-tone look is included, adding the slightly warmer shades of subtle desaturated browns – an interesting choice – which allows areas of the screen to pop softly, adding a vintage, almost timeless look to this app that is also quite modern-looking as seen on the screen of one’s device. –Amy Solomon
I am pleased to see that a new Dr Panda role-playing app is now available, Dr. Panda’s Supermarket, a universal app that allows children to explore ten shopping mini-games from both the point-of-view of the shopper as well as store workers. We love the various role-playing games by Dr. Panda, as they are bright and fun as well as including a cast of re-occurring animals and their families as we have tended to them in a hospital, served the adults in a restaurant app, taken care of these characters’ animal children at daycare, grown fruits and vegetables for them at a farm, and now help these characters shop in a supermarket. –Amy Solomon
AndroidRundown
The Simpsons is a national institution. It embodies everything so wrong — and right — with our family units. Long before South Park, The Simpsons made us gasp in horror and rueful self-recognition. Thus, for anyone who grew up in that era, The Simpsons Tapped Out should be a welcome trip to yesteryear. Homer is definitely Homeric in this game. Inexplicably, he is still the safety inspector at Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, and, as we all came to expect, his incompetence (and apparent love of goofing around on a tablet) finally destroyed Springfield. My job was to manage this construction simulation game and rebuild Springfield, as well as find the other eponymous members of the Simpson clan. –Tre Lawrence
While many of us are not privileged enough to have a smart home that operates with more autonomy than an average car, the future certainly is here as cost decreases and standardization has increased. As costs come down and a newer generation starts purchasing homes for the first time these products will see a large spike in sales, and suddenly there will be a battle for footing in this burgeoning industry. We have seen this in products like the Nest thermostat and different “smart” refrigerators which put the smart home appliance in the collective conscious of the general public. While the idea of a refrigerator or oven with Twitter capabilities is fundamentally absurd, the general idea of having a fridge that communicates with the consumer is not. Security systems have been doing this for a while now; giving their customers the ability to lock and arm their houses by means of a smartphone. I think that it is the dream of many homeowners to be able to monitor their home from anywhere on the globe. The goal is summed up in the image of an exhausted worker leaving a late shift and on the way home he turns on his lights, preheats the oven, turns up the temperature, and even starts playing a favorite album over his stereo system. Theoretically, this is all possible and incredibly desirable…So, enter Prizm… –Joseph Bertolini
A lot of people — the whole wide world, seemingly — are not too happy with Google’s decision to discontinue its popular Reader application. If Google Keep (it’s newly unveiled cloud-supported note taking app) is supposed to be a mea culpa, Google might already be back in our hearts. Maybe. The Android note-taking space is not sparse by any means. There are plenty of note apps, and the competition creates a very high bar. Google’s last offering, Notebook was okay, but lacked oomph. Thus, even Google needs a pretty good offering to stay abreast. Keep, I think, does that. –Tre Lawrence
 This week at 148Apps.com, site editor Rob LeFebvre examined why mobile games just don’t seem to have as much depth as their console brethren. He says, “Should gamers expect the same experience on mobile devices as on console? Probably not–but that may be changing. Michael de Graaf, the producer for the mobile version of Need for Speed Most Wanted, feels that the difference between console and mobile is narrowing. “At the moment, consoles still have an edge when it comes to raw power but that gap is narrowing,” he told us, “and we’ve seen possibilities continue to expand on mobile. The current quality of screens we are seeing and new form factors are increasing the quality and diversity of experiences that gamers can now have on a mobile device.”
Nick Rish, vice president of mobile publishing for EA, believes that comparing the two is futile. “There is something very immersive about holding a device 10 inches from your face,” he said, “putting on headphones and enjoying a game like Need for Speed Most Wanted while on your lunch break … It’s tough to say one platform provides a better consumer experience than the other; gaming is in the eye of the beholder.”
“Mobile gaming grew from very basic flash games we all’ve been playing on web browsers,” said Przemek Marszal, art director at 11 bit studios, the developer behind the Anomaly Warzone series. But that’s changing, he said, noting that even a hard-core indie developer like John Carmac sees the potential of iOS gaming.
Read the full post at 148Apps.
Over at GiggleApps.com, writer Amy Solomon got back to nature with her review of Scholastic First Discovery: The Forest: “Scholastic First Discovery: The Forest for iPhone is an impressive adaptation of the printed non-fiction title “In the Forest” A First Discovery Look and Learn Book from Scholastic. A version of this app is also available for iPad.
The Forest is an impressive application about nature, with wonderfully bright colors and robust details on each page bringing the sights of forests to devices. Instead of text that one would read, this app consists of very good narration that leads children through interactive exercises that will teach them a lot about the forests of North America.
Six chapters are included that cover a lot of ground, such as learning about both deciduous and coniferous trees, tapping leaves or branches to learn about the trees they belong to, also allowing children to drag these realistic bits of foliage around the screen.”
Read Amy’s full review at GiggleApps.
$2.99  iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2012-10-26 :: Category: Education Last up, AndroidRundown.com writer Carter Dotson was happy to announce that one of our favorite games, Punch Quest, is coming to Android: “Android, get ready to start punching. Punch Quest is coming to Android very soon. The culprit? Noodlecake Games, who have made a habit (or a business model) out of releasing and supporting iOS-to-Android ports. Punch Quest combines and endless runner with beat ’em up gameplay, as players run through a dungeon, punching and uppercutting the foes they come across. Coins can be earned to be spent on new skills, power ups, and hats. Sweet, sweet hats.”
FREE! + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-10-25 :: Category: Games Read the full story on AndroidRundown.
And we’ve cleared yet another week in 2012. Join us next weekend for another recap of the latest and greatest news from the week that was – and make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest for the latest info on the hottest apps. Now go get the rest of your holiday shopping done!
 This week at 148Apps.com, we got into the holiday spirit with a review of a gadget that might be on many people’s wish lists this year – the iRig Keyboard. Site editor Rob LeFebvre writes, “IK Multimedia might be trying to take over the music peripheral world. The company has a wide range of apps, instruments, and support items that could, in theory, be used to build a band entirely out of iOS instruments. The latest offering from this prolific manufacturer is titled iRig Keys, a super portable iOS keyboard with 37 velocity-sensitive keys, modulation and pitch wheels, low power consumption, and core MIDI compliance. The iRig is aimed at the portable musician, the composer on the go, the backpack virtuoso, and as such, it succeeds brilliantly.”
Think you might ask Santa for this? Check out Rob’s full review at 148Apps.
The upcoming holidays were also on our minds at GiggleApps.com, as Amy Solomon reviewed Ice is Nice: All About the North and South Poles. Amy says, “As the name may suggest, Ice Is Nice does indeed give a lot of great information about the earth’s North and South Poles, as well as animals found in these areas that children and their adults will enjoy a great deal.
As with the other titles from this series, go on an adventure with The Cat in the Hat, Dick and Sally as well as Thing One and Thing Two, who are all here to learn such topics as the harsh temperatures found at the Poles or why there are six months of darkness or perpetual sun.”
Learn more about the poles in Amy’s review on GiggleApps.
$5.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-06-27 :: Category: Education  Finally, 148Apps.biz writer Carter Dotson explored the improvements made in Tapjoy’s latest SDK: “Mobile advertising service Tapjoy has announced version 9.0 of their SDK for iOS and Android. The purpose of this update is meant to expand out and improve their current set of features to improve user engagement with their ads, and to integrate daily rewards, a popular feature that developers can now easily implement. These are meant to provide advertisers ways to developer targeted ads in a better way, and for developers to generate revenue even from non-paying users through incentivized ad viewing, service signups, and app installs.”
Want more info? Read all about it at 148Apps.biz.
And that sets us up for a week of pre-Thanksgiving hysteria here in the States. Join us on Twitter and Facebook to keep track of holiday app sales, news and reviews across all of our sites…and do yourself a favor and start thawing that turkey now.
This week at 148Apps.com, the crypts went creak and the tombstones shook as we got ready for Halloween. Site editor Rob LeFebvre helped kick the season into gear with his overview of Halloween-related apps: “While Halloween night is actually this coming Wednesday, many of us will be out and about this weekend engaging in some costumed fun, no doubt. What better way to gear up for a weekend full of apple bobbing, costume wearing, or several other activities of horror-themed debauchery than to grab a few Halloween-flavored games for your weekend fun?
To help, we’ve pulled together a list, with the help of the kind folks over at Touch Arcade and Pocket Gamer, of spooky sales, awfully-free apps, and spooktacularly updated apps and games for your viewing and downloading pleasure. Don’t blame us, though, if you binge on too many apps and end up feeling nauseous. Consider yourself warned.”
Get the full list of games and apps at 148Apps.
$0.99 iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-02-15 :: Category: Games $3.99 iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2012-02-27 :: Category: Healthcare & Fitness The Halloween fun continued at GiggleApps.com, where Amy Solomon reviewed Henry’s Spooky Headlamp. She writes, “Henry’s Spooky Headlamp is a nice universal interactive game for toddlers where players drag their finger around a darkened screen, as this movement will move a spotlight around the page as if coming from main character Henry’s flashlight. Use this light to search the page for the items seen at the top right of the screen.
Suspenseful music also included, effective in creating a mood appropriate for Halloween, but it is nice that the items one is looking for, such as a candle, scarecrow or jack-o-lantern are not scary, keeping this app appropriate for the toddlers and early preschoolers who will enjoy this app.”
Read Amy’s full review at GiggleApps.
$0.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2011-10-07 :: Category: Games  And not to be left out of this monster mash, Trevor Dobrygoski at AndroidRundown.com reviewed Stupid Zombies 2, saying, “With Halloween right around the corner, seems like more zombie games are coming out. Stupid Zombies 2 is a fun zombie game that’s not quite a physics-based game and it’s not quite a puzzle game. What I mean is, the zombies are just standing there (in the beginning). To shoot zombies use walls to ricochet off bullets to reach zombies.”
Read Trevor’s fullreview at AndroidRundown.
Scared yet? Just wait till Halloween rolls around! Until then, keep checking in on us through our Twitter posts and Facebook pages. We promise to always give you the latest news, reviews and contests. Until next week, try not to get too many rocks in your trick or treat buckets!
This week at 148Apps.com, Eli Cymet plumbed the depths of difficulty with his interview of Super Hexagon creator Terry Cavanagh: “Talking to Terry Cavanagh (pictured, left), the first thing that jumps out at me is how pleasant he is. How soft-spoken and thoughtful he comes across as. Particularly for somebody who tortures people.
An award-winning independent developer from Ireland, Cavanagh has become known for wonderful, mercilessly difficult games like VVVVVV and Super Hexagon. The latter is Cavanagh’s first iOS game; a low-fi arcade gauntlet that challenges players to move left and right to survive an incoming barrage of lines and shapes for as long as possible. It bent our brains in circles and became a surprise cult-hit on the App Store, moving about 72,000 copies since release, according to Cavanagh’s last look.
Wonderful. Mercilessly difficult. The two don’t quite go together, do they? Against all odds, however, it seems that driving people mad is what’s driven sales for Super Hexagon. It’s a phenomenon that beckons the question: why is a game that’s so hard so very easy to love? What makes difficulty so satisfying?
Read the full conversation at 148Apps.com.
$2.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-08-30 :: Category: Games Meanwhile, over at GiggleApps.com, reviewer Amy Solomon explored Magic Forest HD Pro, a physics-based game for kids: “There are many variations of this style of game in the iTunes store such Cut the Rope, but I enjoy the look of this app, with backgrounds reminiscent of water color or batik artwork and include forest motifs that I find appealing and a little different from what is commonly found in a game such as this. Here, one is looking to help these pets into their basket, breaking glass bricks or other obstacles that prevent these animals from typically falling into where they belong.”
Read Amy’s full review at GiggleApps.
$0.99 iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2012-07-19 :: Category: Games  And at 148Apps.biz, Carter Dotson reported on the growing need for native language support in apps geared for eastern audiences. He writes, “It’s easy to think about the App Store as largely a western, and largely American phenomenon: it’s one of the largest revenue drivers, and success or failure there often means international failure. English is thus the most supported language in apps, particularly as it is such an international language as well now. But Distimo has put out information in their latest report that suggests while English may be the dominant language in the western world, success in the east requires apps to speak the native tongue.”
Want to know more? Read the complete story at 148Apps.biz.
This week at 148Apps.com, we kicked off October by interviewing the developer of iOS horror game Organ Trail. Rob Rich writes, “I make no attempt to hide my adoration for Organ Trail: Director’s Cut. I love this game and I’m proud of it. So having the opportunity to ask The Men Who Wear Many Hats – specifically Ryan Wiemeyer, co-owner and designer – a few questions was quite exciting. From the Flash game with over half a million fans to their new Greenlight venture, it’s all fair game for these enterprising haberdashers. Okay so they don’t necessarily make the hats but you get the idea.”
Want to read the full interview? Head to 148Apps now.
$2.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-08-09 :: Category: Games Nothing nearly as frightening was happening at GiggleApps.com this week. Amy Solomon reviewed Tizzy Seasons, saying, “Tizzy Seasons is a delightful application for young children which teaches about each of the four seasons. Not a word is spoken or seen as text within this application, making this app a very nice selection for children no matter their language background. Start by choosing a boy or girl character and then a season with a tap, each charmingly expressed within four beautifully crafted scenes and each coming together as four corners of a background image, yet showing each season’s differences with the use of color and other details.”
Read Amy’s full review at GiggleApps.com.
$1.99 iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2012-08-22 :: Category: Education And last, but certainly not least, founder Jeff Scott announced across all 148Apps sites, including 148Apps.biz, “We are very excited to announce that 148Apps and our network of sites have been acquired by our friends at Steel Media! 148Apps joins the  amazing network of app related sites such as Pocket Gamer, Pocket Gamer.biz, AppSpy, Padvance, Quality Index, and more.
For more than four years 148Apps has covered the world of iOS apps and games. It started as a passion of mine and has now expanded to include the best writers this side of Mars. Now along with the Steel Media portfolio of sites, we have mobile apps and games covered from every angle.”
Read complete coverage at 148Apps.
From interviews, to reviews, to exciting, game-changing news – this week had it all. Keep track of the latest developments across the mobile app world by following us on Twitter or Liking us on Facebook. See you next week!
This week at 148Apps.com, we geared up for the London Olympics with a Favorite Five list of summer games apps. Site editor Rob LeFebvre writes, “With the 2012 Summer Olympics headed to London starting July 27th, it’s night time we took a look at some great apps to use to watch and keep track of the happenings in the UK this year. Today, we’ll take a gander at five useful apps that will help you do just that.”
Read the full list at 148Apps.
FREE! + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-05-14 :: Category: Sports FREE! + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-07-12 :: Category: Sports Over at GiggleApps.com, Amy Solomon took a closer look at This Book Is About To Explode. She writes, “This Book Is About To Explode is an interesting interactive storybook with fun puzzle elements that children and their adults will enjoy. This fun sci-fi story centers around Tiki-Zin3, a robot whose job is to search for alien life – ironic because mischievous aliens, in the interest of making their existence known, explode bombs which send Tiki-Zin3 to different locations out into space. Although this character expresses displeasure about being blown to different locations, I am glad to see that the enjoyment children experience from pressing the button to explore the scenes from this book is not a set-up to be terribly sadistic as Tiki-Zin3 makes comments such as not having the time to take a vacation within the place he has just landed, keeping this story light and fun without making children feel too bad for causing these explosions.”
Read more of Amy’s review at GiggleApps.
$1.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-05-19 :: Category: Books  Finally, 148Apps.biz writer Carter Dotson reported on AppBot. Dotson says, “Filter Squad has launched a service to help developers keep track of user reviews, called AppBot. Based off of an internal project that has been expanded and released to the public, this can help developers keep track of the popular opinion on their apps.
AppBot sends a daily digest of the latest user reviews for a developer’s app, allowing them to get a feeling for what their users are saying on a regular basis. For example, if a new version of iOS launches, and 1-star reviews are saying that the app is crashing, then the developer has a point of entry to troubleshoot. Or, common complaints or request made in reviews can be more easily tracked in this daily digest format.”
Read more about this new service at 148Apps.biz.
And that just about wraps up this past week! Join us on Twitter and Facebook to keep track of the latest app news as it happens, plus get in on contests, giveaways, promos and more. See you next week!
This week at 148Apps.com, we got into the game with our look at CoachNote. Writer Jennifer Allen says, “CoachNote offers a way of creating sports drills, strategies and tactics, all from an iOS device and it’ll be a real hit for coaches as well as fans. The app makes it easy to create complex plays and strategies with tools for drawing lines in multiple colors to explain what’s going on.”
Read more at 148App.com.
$4.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-01-26 :: Category: Sports Meanwhile, GiggleApps.com took a closer look at Brave: Storybook Deluxe. Reviewer Amy Solomon writes, “As one would expect from this Disney Pixar film, the illustrations, music and narration are quite striking and beautifully crafted – especially the brilliant use of bright and bold colors which was the main detail that caught my eye the first time I saw a trailer for this film.”
Read Amy’s full review at GiggleApps.
$6.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-06-14 :: Category: Entertainment  148Apps.biz presented a guest editorial from Matthew Palmer, founder and CEO of Marketing Your App. Palmer says, “After all the hard work of creating a mobile app, there is one decision that can sink even promising apps more than any other: choosing a price. Knowing what to charge for any product is tough, but the peculiar world of the App Store makes it a top question for even savvy developers.
The rewards are great: Apple has already paid out $4 billion to app creators who have combined a smart app with good marketing. But, too often, sticker shock leads customers to ignore otherwise helpful apps. When developers choose the wrong price, more often than not it seems, they aim too high.”
Read the rest of ‘Why You’re Charging Too Much for Your App’ at 148Apps.biz.
And that, my friends, is the week that was. Don’t miss out on anything in the coming days and weeks. Stay on top of our contests, promos, reviews and news items by following us on Twitter and liking us on Facebook. You’ll be glad you did. Until next week, keep wall crawlin’.
This week at 148Apps.com was all about the red, white, and blue as we celebrated the 4th of July. Writer Lisa Caplan contributed to the festivities with her list of Favorite Four apps for Independence Day. She writes, “It’s July 4th, so we hope most Americans are out celebrating and reading this on an iPhone or iPad or between activities. But if you are still looking for apps to help make the day even better, we’ve rounded up four of our favorties that commemorate everything from US History to the traditional BBQ for you here.”
See Lisa’s complete list at 148Apps.com.
$4.99 iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2009-07-12 :: Category: $0.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2011-06-22 :: Category: Education GiggleApps stayed on a vacation theme with its review of Miny Moe Car. Reviewer Amy Solomon says, “Miny Moe Car is a charming and fun simulated driving app that toddlers and children in preschool will enjoy. I have always been a fan of this type of toy, both as an arcade game as well as a simple children’s plaything. I remember when my son was just a year old, I bought him the most realistic driver I could find – a toy he still enjoys today. A search on iTunes will find a few applications of this type that mostly show a POV from the driver’s seat of a car or other vehicle. This is also the case for this application which does a really nice job of recreating the driving experience for toddlers.”
Read Amy’s complete review on GiggleApps.com.
$1.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-05-09 :: Category: Education  And finally at 148Apps.biz, Carter Dotson reported on a new study revealing the iPad as the number one gaming platform. Dotson writes, “Tablets and phones are vastly different devices. This seems obvious, but in reality, they really aren’t: the difference between the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2 is basically different sized screens. However, the way that users, especially gamers, use the two devices is still dramatically different, according to PlayFirst, via Pocket Gamer. Tablet users are playing more games than phone users are, and they’re spending more on games.”
Read the full report at 148Apps.biz.
That’s the end of this week’s happenings, but there’s always more news, reviews and contests headed your way across the 148Apps network. Just follow us on Twitter or Like us on Facebook to keep track of all the goings-on. Until next week, enjoy the fireworks!
 This week at 148Apps.com, we celebrated the unbelievable 40th birthday of Atari. Writer Lisa Caplan says, “It’s a tiny bit depressing that many of us here are older than Atari. Still as OG’s (original geeks) most of us equate the name with our and their glory years of gaming. Recently the former giant has been reinventing itself, having previously released their VCS catalog and a few arcade hits in a Greatest Hits package for iOS, and with more recent forays into the App Store like Circus Atari and Centipedes Origins. They are also winding up a contest for indie developers who took their original, maybe the original video game, PONG and remade it for iOS. The finalists have been announced and can be found here. The company turns 40 today and much of the recent flurry of activity is to celebrate the occasion.”
Read more about the legacy of Atari at 148Apps.com.
FREE! + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2011-04-07 :: Category: Games GiggleApps.com stayed topical this week with a review of Avengers Origins: Hulk. Amy Solomon writes, “Avengers Origins: Hulk is a new universal interactive storybook apple ication that introduces the classic Marvel character, the Hulk, to children. I really enjoy this re-telling of such a classic story, narrated by Stan Lee who does an outstanding job as one would expect. I enjoy how this story unfolds, especially for children who may be new to this character as this app opens up with a thoughtful introduction, walking readers through Bruce Banner’s difficult childhood, becoming a scientist and the details of the faithful day that Banner becomes mistakenly affected by gamma radiation, developing the uncontrollable ability to turn into the Hulk when he is angered.”
Read more about the Green Goliath’s kiddie adventures at GiggleApps.com.
$2.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-03-14 :: Category: Books  Finally, 148Apps.biz writer Carter Dotson reports that, “A new report by Localytics shows that more users are sticking with their apps, and iOS users are more likely to stick with apps than Android users are. Where in 2010, 26% of users would open up an app once, and the same percentage would use it 11+ times, now only 22% launch an app just once, and 31% will use it 11+ times. This may show that users over time are either starting to find apps that they would show an interest in using long-term, or app quality is starting to increase. The long-term trend will be interesting to see: will users continue to come back to their apps? Or is this a temporary blip?”
Read more about this new research at 148Apps.biz.
And thus ends another exciting week across the 148Apps network. Join our conversation on Facebook or Twitter to learn more about contests, promos, sales and more. See you next week, true believer!
 This week at 148Apps.com, we indulged in a little healthy living with our review of the iHealth Blood Pressure Dock. Site editor Rob LeFebvre writes, “The iHealth Blood Pressure Dock is a fantastic piece of tech that will allow anyone, regardless of experience, ability, or consciousness to have their blood pressure taken and monitored over time.
The free app that works alongside the actual blood pressure dock and arm cuff is simple, easy to use, and can be set up with multiple users. This allows families to keep track of more than one family member who might want or need to do so.
While high blood pressure is no laughing matter and should be monitored by a doctor or licensed health care provider, the iHealth blood pressure dock is ideal for tracking blood pressure in between doctor visits.”
Want to know more? Read our full review at 148Apps.com.
Meanwhile, at GiggleApps.com, writer Amy Solomon took a trip to learn about polar bears via her review of the Smithsonian’s Polar Bear Horizon. She writes, “Polar Bear Horizon – Smithsonian Oceanic Collection is an interactive application based on the book of the same name and now part of a series of Smithsonian applications developed by Oceanhouse Media. Like other apps by Oceanhouse Media, this application includes the choice to listen to narration allowing readers to follow along the included text which becomes highlighted when words are spoken, or to read this book to oneself. Auto-play is also an option.”
Read Amy’s full review at GiggleApps.
$2.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-02-22 :: Category: Books  Finally, 148Apps.biz founder Jeff Scott announced the return of MobileBeat to San Francisco, saying “I think of MobileBeat as the business of mobile conference. The conference is about making connections with the business side of the mobile industry. This year the focus of MobileBeat is on something we see ignored all too often, design.”
Read more about the upcoming MobileBeat conference on 148Apps.biz.
Another week has passed, but there’s still plenty more where that came from. Join us on Twitter and Facebook to track the latest developments, and maybe even score a few free apps along the way. Until next week, stay Brave!
This week at 148Apps.com, writer Carter Dotson explored all things Zombie with his Favorite Four list. He writes, “May is Zombie Awareness Month. While pop culture seems intent on making us aware of zombies on a regular basis, this is the special month for zombies. May is almost over, but that doesn’t mean there’s not just enough time left to celebrate with some zombie-themed apps.”
Read Carter’s full list at 148Apps.com.
$3.99 iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2012-02-27 :: Category: Healthcare & Fitness $0.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2011-10-27 :: Category: Games Meanwhile, everything over at GiggleApps got dotty, as Amy Solomon reviewed Dot Collector, saying, “Dot Collector is a very nice universal app for the youngest children with simple game play, wonderfully bright colors and soothing sounds that babies will enjoy. This app is utterly intuitive to use as players need to simply drag moving dots into a black dot, clearing the board. A new dot is added to each additional level, adding to the game play.”
Read Amy’s review at kid-centric GiggleApps.com.
$1.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-02-28 :: Category: Education  Finally, Kevin Stout on 148Apps.biz reported on the increasing numbers of young children using smartphones. Stout writes, “There’s no such thing as to young when it comes to smartphones and tablets. When keeping in mind the younger audiences when developing apps, even the youngest of children have a high percentage of exposure to mobile devices. An infographic released by Schools.com has reported that 38% of 0-8 year-olds have used tablets or smartphones.”
Read the complete report at 148Apps.biz.
That’t it for this Memorial Day week. Summer’s here, so keep your eyes on 148Apps.com, our Twitter and Facebook feeds to make sure you get the latest app news, reviews and contests. See you next week, tovarish!
 Bienvenidos! This week at 148Apps.com we started our Cinco de Mayo celebrations early with a special “Favorite Four” apps review from Kevin Stout. Along with several foodie apps, Stout writes, “It can’t hurt to brush up on the history of Cinco de Mayo. Cinco de Mayo: The Battle of Puebla provides users with a detailed video on both the Battle of Puebla, the military victory that led to the traditional celebration on May 5th, and the history of the celebration of Cinco de Mayo. The videos include accompanying text for users impatient users that want to read ahead. The app also includes two games, a quiz and a paint game, that can be unlocked for an in-app purchase of $0.99. But the app is free and so are both videos.”
Read about all of Kevin’s picks at 148Apps.com.
FREE! + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2011-06-28 :: Category: Education Amy Solomon, over at GiggleApps, writes in her review of Bean Bag Kids Present Pinocchio that, “This app, as the name implies, is a retelling of the classic story of Pinocchio, about a puppet carved from wood by a lonely wood carver who wishes that one day this puppet could become a real boy. Here each actor is played by a bean bag dressed in costume as this application is styled as a live performance that one is watching, complete with red velvet curtain and other theatre details. The adaptation of this story is very nicely done, including the use of excellent narration, as is the choice to underline the text as the words are being spoken – a very nice touch that will aid young readers in following along as these words are being read.”
Read all of Amy’s review at GiggleApps.com.
$2.99 $4.99
+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-03-28 :: Category: Games Finally, 148Apps.biz site founder Jeff Scott writes about the latest project from OpenFeint founder Jason Citron, saying, “Jason Citron, founder of Aurora Feint / Open Feint, which sold to Japan based social games company GREE recently for $104M, just announced his new mobile games-based startup, Phoenix Guild.
Phoenix Guild will be focused on creating multiplayer games in a post-PC world. Think MMOs on your iPhone and iPad. He plans on focusing on games that would appeal to core gamers. Sounds like just what we need in a world that has nearly reached the saturation point with variations on Farmville.”
Read more about Phoenix Guild on 148Apps.biz.
The week may have ended, but there’s more content to come from 148Apps. Just follow us on Twitter or Like us on Facebook to keep track of the latest news, reviews and contests. Until next week, keep your Avengers assembling!
The last week of March was a busy one across the 148Apps network, beginning with 148Apps.com, where Lisa Caplan reported on the massive windfall Apple has already garnered from the release of iPhoto for iOS. She writes, “According to AllThingsD, iPhoto for iOS passed the one million download mark last week. That’s quite an impressive figure, particularly when it implies Apple has earned more than five million dollars from the app in less than a two week period.
Read the full story at 148Apps.com.
$4.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-03-07 :: Category: Photography GiggleApps.com kept up the pace with a review of Explore Vincent. Writer Amy Solomon says, “Explore Vincent is a wonderful app for iPad exploring the life and times of Vincent van Gogh, the brilliant yet troubled artist from childhood through adulthood, ending with his death in 1890.
This app is a true multimedia delight as many mediums are explored within this app for iPad.”
Read Solomon’s review at GiggleApps.com.
$0.99 iPad Only App - Designed for the iPad
Released: 2011-10-16 :: Category: Education  Finally, 148Apps.biz writer Kevin Stout reported on Apple’s new policy regarding apps that access UDIDs. “As Apple warned the development community in August, it has started rejecting apps submitted to the App Store that access a user’s UDID. This seems to be a response to Congress’ interest in privacy concerns in mobile devices.
Kim-Mai Cutler from TechCrunch reports that while the UDID is used for many mobile ad networks for targeted ads, UDIDs pose real privacy issues.”
Read more at 148Apps.biz.
*Whew!* And that’s just a sample of the amazing amount of content making its way across all of the 148Apps sites this week. Stay on top of the latest in reviews, news and contests by following us on Twitter and liking us on Facebook. And don’t forget to check back here next week for another recap of the week that was. See you then, pilgrim!
 This week at 148Apps.com, site founder Jeff Scott reviewed and recapped the introduction of the New iPad, saying “The iPad 3 looks to be a solid update to the iPad 2. Not only do we get an amazing retina display screen and updated internals for a faster device while maintaining the look of the iPad 2, but we also keep the great battery life and price points. Here’s a quick rundown of the new iPad. Which, by the way is called just “the new iPad.” Or perhaps it will end up being known as just iPad like the Macbook and iMac lines.”
Read our full overview on 148Apps.com.
Meanwhile, at Giggleapps.com, Amy Solomon reviewed the latest in the line of Toca games, Toca House. She writes, “Toca Boca is a very well-regarded developer, possibly best known for its open-ended apps such as Toca Tea Party or Toca Hair Salon. More akin to Toca Doctor, Toca House is a collection of 19 domestically focused mini-games that take place within a wonderfully styled home and yard.
I enjoy the look of this app very much, as does my son, being very bright and colorful. Players will be scrolling up and down through this house that one is visiting, as five floors can be explored from top to bottom – a bathroom, living room, kitchen, laundry room, as well as front door and attached yard space.”
Read the full review on GiggleApps.com.
$2.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-02-23 :: Category: Education  148Apps.biz writer Brad Hilderbrand noted that in a recent report from Spaceport, HTML5 showed top performance on iOS devices. Hilderbrand says, “According to extensive testing, the iPad 2 is far and away the best device to run HTML5, and other iOS machines blow their Android counterparts out of the water, performing roughly three times better than the competition. Though the latest Android devices running Ice Cream Sandwich are beginning to close the gap, the data still shows that Apple devices are the benchmark against which all others will continue to be measured.”
Read the full report on 148Apps.biz.
And that’s the week in review. 148Apps is always bringing you the latest iOS-related content, including contests, reviews and news, so follow us on Twitter or Like us on Facebook to keep up to date from minute to minute. See you next week, appslingers!
This week at 148Apps.com, we checked out the long-awaited release of Readability, via a quick overview and full review from Lisa Caplan. Caplan writes, “The app provides the same service and merges seamlessly with the web versions. Users open to a blank page with just a menu. Filling the app is the the reader’s job. Users can search the web or enter an URL manually. The app pulls the article, pretties it up, and places a lead-in on the home screen.
I found it faster to just surf on my Mac adding articles that appealed as I found them, but how one fills the app is a small matter. What Readability does with the content is the cool bit. I tested the universal build on an iPad and it works wonderfully in both orientations. In landscape the articles fill the main pane and a well-designed and unobtrusive sidebar has the menu. In portrait the sidebar is a tiny top bar.”
Read our full review on 148Apps.
FREE! + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-03-01 :: Category: News Meanwhile, our sister site Giggleapps.com dug deep into the garden of apps and came up with a review of The Giant Turnip: A Kidztory Classic Animated Interactive Storybook. Reviewer Amy Solomon says, “As always, the look of this app is delightful, with wonderful colors and textures and fun use of music incorporated into a style utterly recognizable as a Kidztory storybook. I appreciate the warm browns and green shades seen in the land where the turnip is planted, along with the noticeable brush strokes for a lovely effect. Possibly more so than other apps from this series, nothing is flat-looking within this app as every animal or other detail has its own imperfect texture that layered together on the page really brings a richness to this story that adults may enjoy even more than their children.”
Read the full review on Giggleapps.com.
$0.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2011-12-12 :: Category: Books  Finally, 148Apps.biz updated GameSpy’s progress on its GameSpy Open platform. Brad Hilderbrand writes, “Today GameSpy announced that there are over 600 titles in development for its year-old GameSpy Open platform. The stable of upcoming titles includes games like Warm Gun, Skullgirls and more, with a total of 1200 developers hard at work on new projects.”
Read more on 148Apps.biz.
The old week is done. Bring on the new week, with the promise of the iPad 3 just around the corner. In the meantime, follow us on Twitter or Like us on Facebook to keep abreast of the latest reviews, news items and contests right when they happen. See you next week!
(Abridged – With serious apologies to Clement Moore)
 Twas the week before Christmas, and at 148Apps
All our writers were writing, and no one took naps.
The reviews were written and posted with care,
In hopes that our readers would soon find them there.
The staff were nestled and ready for sleep,
with visions of iPads, and not jumping sheep.
My iMac in sleep mode, my iPhone now mute,
I settled my brain and sighed a large, “w00t.”
When out of my office there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to my iPad I flew like a flash,
And searched for an app I could boot in a dash.
 The light of my iPhone on the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a ping from the app store; new apps are now here.
When a little old email arrived on the spot,
I knew in a moment it must be Jeff Scott.
More rapid than IMs his websites they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!
 “Now GiggleApps! now, 148Apps! both .com and .biz!
On, Android Rundown! On, BestAppEver! That’s all there is!
From the greatest new games, to the best apps of all!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”
He spoke not to me, but to my device,
And Jeff quickly asked Siri if I had been nice.
Her answer was good, so he connected Wi-Fi,
And filled my gadgets with even more apps to try!
His work here now done, he gestured with a wave,
And called for his assistant, the jolly Rob LeFebvre.
But I heard them exclaim, as they logged off for the night,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”
This week at 148Apps, once we were all finished with our Halloween and post-Halloween merriment, writer Lisa Caplan explored the vast landscape of camera replacement apps for the iPhone. Caplan writes, “Apple has done a lot to improve the native camera app with iOS 5 and lucky iPhone 4S owners are already taking the highest quality iPhone images ever. But, even with the tune up, many of the most requested features from manual adjustments to photo bursts, darkroom effects to more sharing options (Facebook anyone?) are still lacking. But, the app store is filled with alternatives so this week we look at our favorite four camera replacement apps.”
Unlock your iPhone’s photo potential by reading the full article on 148Apps.com.
$1.99 iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2010-06-06 :: Category: Photography Over at our kid’s apps headquarters, GiggleApps, Amy Solomon took a closer look at an innovative 3D comic book called The Gwaii. Solomon states, “This app does have some 3D effects as well that are best seen as one moves the device, looking at the additional angles that this provides. The 3D here is effective but somewhat overly sensitive to touch and there have been moments that I wish I would have turned this element off, trying to keep my hand steady to minimize the screen movements. I think this effect may be a distraction for some children, while others may really enjoy this effect.”
Read more about this new interactive storybook on GiggleApps.com.
$1.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2011-07-18 :: Category: Books Finally, AndroidRundown featured an article by Carter Dotson that attempted to address the iOS versus Android ongoing argument head-on. Dotson says, “The thing to remember, though, is that Android and iOS are different in their very natures. iOS is a piece of Apple software, following Apple principles; it is designed to run on specific hardware. That is a big part of why the experience is often smoother. Android is designed to run on many, many forms of hardware, not just what Google has intended for it to run on. Yes, Google has their stock devices that run a pure Android, but Android is meant to be something bigger, and not as something tailored to one set of hardware. That Android is on the caliber of Android is impressive.”
Add your voice to the argument after reading the full article on AndroidRundown.com.
That is the week that was. What started with Halloween ended with the first onslaught of holiday commercials on television, so keep your eye on 148Apps.com and our Facebook and Twitter streams for the latest reviews and helpful hints to get you through the holiday season. See you next week, readers!
This week, July 25-29, the freemium/free to play revolution continued as Carter Dotson explored the recent decrease in premium game revenue on the App Store. Dotson writes, “Not only are free to play games now becoming the biggest source of revenue for games on the App Store, they’re also potentially more open for competition. The top 10 publishers of free games account for 27% of the total downloads of the top 300 free games, versus the top 10 publishers of the top 300 paid games generating 54% of those downloads, and one of those publishers is one-man developer Andreas Illiger of Tiny Wings fame.
Read the full story here.
$0.99 + Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2011-02-18 :: Category: Games Over at 148apps.biz, Sharon L. Cohen explored app developer’s needs for solid, substantive analytics, and suggested Chomp as a good source: “The latest Chomp stats…provide continued insights into the way that users are searching for apps. Previously, 148apps.biz reported that fewer and fewer queries are for specific app names: For every one hundred searches, only nine were for the name of an application. This statistic flopped in May. ‘Compared to April, the ratio of non-app name versus name queries shifted 9% in favor of name searches.’ Ah, the fickleness of users. The moral of this story is continue to place an emphasis on key words and search engine optimization including brand promotion. In other words, cover all your bases.”
Read the full story at 148Apps.biz.
GiggleApps reviewed Creative Genius on the Go, an app designed to stretch kids’ imaginations, even as they are trapped in the back seat during long trips: “This app offers 150 different scenarios for everyone to consider: 50 ‘What Ifs?’ that prompt the players to describe how the impossible may be possible; 50 ‘Imagine That,’ which are mind-stretching challenges for boosting brainpower and relieving boredom and screams from the back seat, and 50 ‘Wack-tivities,’ or silly diversions for when everyone is tired and can’t wait to stop at a hotel and get something to eat.”
Divert yourself to the GiggleApps review for the full story.
$0.99 iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad
Released: 2011-05-13 :: Category: Education That’s it for this week! Be sure to stop by our Top 148 Lists page to view the latest price drops as well as the top free and paid apps and games. See you next Saturday.
| |
]
