Tag: Free apps »

MochiBits' SwipeTapTap is a surprisingly engrossing game despite its utter simplicity. Following on-screen prompts involving (what else?) swipes, taps and various combinations as quickly and accurately as possible is one of those things I'd never have expected to keep me entertained for very long, but it does just that. Not only that, it keeps things from getting stale by including a total of four game modes. And it's free at the moment, did I forget to mention that? Nah, I'm pretty sure I did.

Each of the four modes uses the same basic mechanics in different ways. Classic is all about inputting the correct gestures as they scroll across the screen in a timely manner. Take too long or screw up too often and they'll fill the screen and it's Game Over. Memory is more like a classic game of Simon, only with a touch screen interface. Speed is a race against time, requiring almost super-human-like reflexes at the higher difficulties. Finally, Endurance is one big continuous level with no end in sight and steadily increasing speed. Losing isn't so much a question of "if" but of "when."

And yes, for a limited time (in conjunction with "OpenFeint's Free Game of the Day") this finger-flexing homage to Simon is completely and totally free. All of the games modes. No money down. Zero dollars. There's absolutely no legitimate reason not to check it out.

This week saw lots of free apps with a heavy emphasis on consumerism and one we've been waiting for for a long time. We collected our favorite five freebies from the past week for our readers here.

Skype for iPad

The most anticipated free app that was released this week was Skype for iPad. The video chat service, that doubles as a VOIP long distance carrier for some, has had an iPhone app for a while, but now Skype is iPad native and the contacts area is redesigned. The app looks sweet and the video calls look great on iPad 2

Domino’s Pizza LLC

Like we said, it was a consumer’s bonanza week of apps, and leading the pack in popularity is Domino’s Pizza free iPhone app. We don’t really have to tell you what do right? Find the nearest location using GPS or a zip code, place an order - or get a Google map to lead the pizza-starved to the nearest store for takeout.

eBay Instant Sale

eBay, the famous online auction site, has a streamlined service for both buyers and sellers called in Instant Sale and now that service has an app. It’s a simple and easy way to sell items via eBay’s vast network or pick up a bargain, right from your device – without waiting for an auction to end or last minute snipers to outbid you.

Editions by AOL

In part we want to cry shenanigans, in part we want to settle in for a read. While it’s painfully obvious that AOL took not just it’s inspiration, but parts of its GUI from ZITE, this personalized news and lifestyle magazine for iPad is stylish and allows readers to customize everything from the magazine cover's color to the contents inside. Don’t be put off by the small selection of categories, many popular sources can be added once you get into the section settings. The magazine looks sharp and is easy to read and has lots of social media sharing built in.

Ikea Catalog

Shoppers and folks like us who just like to see what the Swedish design company has to offer, will enjoy having the 2012 Ikeaccatalog not just on IPhone, but finally in crisp display on iPad as well. There have been previous iOS Ikea catalogues, but this update has a store finders that unlike most of the free choices on this list, while the new iPad version is US only, the iPhone app works all over the world.

Chuck's Challenge is a game about a guy (Chuck) who's been kidnapped by a purple alien monkey-thing (Woop) and forced to create "games" for it to "play" because it's bored. I think. It's essentially a follow-up to Chip's Challenge, with the original game's creator, Chuck Sommerville, acting as both the designer and main character.

Niffler may have carried over a good deal of concepts from the older title, but the most significant aspect is the community integration. Sure, Chuck's Challenge features 100 levels, about a quarter of which are free (the rest can be bought through in-app purchases), but the real draw is the ability for users to create and share their own. In a way the concept's not all that dissimilar from Media Molecule and their community-centric platformer, LittleBigPlanet.

Level editors and sharing aren't new ideas, even on iOS, but they're very rarely incorporated as lovingly as they are with Chuck's Challenge. Heck, the entire game is essentially designed and built around the concept of creating and sharing levels among the community. I kind of wish more games, both on the App Store and just in general, would think about doing things like this more often.

Chuck's Challenge is available right now for absolutely nothing. Check it out, maybe?

If you're a fan of our weekly FREEday posts, or a subscriber to the Price Drops list here on 148apps then you'll definitely want to read ahead as I rundown the best apps that will help you stay on top of current and limited time free promotions on the App Store.

AppAllStar

The newest app on the Daily Free app scene, AppAllStar focuses mainly on game apps and promises to give a daily list of non-lite, full versions of apps away on promotion for a limited time. I really enjoy the user interface within this app, offering a calendar so you can see upcoming releases as well. It's a free app, so you've got nothing to loose by downloading and trying it out - except maybe some personal information. The iTunes rankings show a bit of discontent about the disclaimer that comes along with this app. Lets just hope they're using the info about what games get downloaded most often to bring us better options in the future.

Free App A Day

This is the big-daddy, the most popular Daily Free app site and app. While ad supported, you'll get a daily recommendation for free apps. I personally find the layout a bit more trying, but the paid version is slightly better. Also in the paid version you'll find an entire section devoted to non-game apps (for those of us that don't exclusively use our iOS device for games). Whichever version you get, some of the top-name apps have used FreeAppADay.com to promote their games, so it's pretty well known you're going to get quality recommendations and downloads with FAAD.

Game Channel by OpenFeint

Before Apple decided to built their own in-house Game Center, OpenFeint reined supreme as the best leaderboard/multiplayer in-app addition to make makes more interactive and personal. While it's still very popular it also launched it's own Free Daily App service early in the year, and has become one of the most popular in the App Store. What's more is they also promotes 'Fire Sale's so that you'll find that games that are on sale as well. The app is one of the best designed in this category, easy and fun to use. You've got to try this one out.

App Shopper

For those who might not be as interested in simply downloading whatever is free each day, but want to spend some time comparing their options, I highly suggest App Shopper. Offering a list of what's on sale, the ability search by category (brilliant - simply my favorite part), compiling a wish list, and many more useful features, this is by far more useful and functional that the others. While it is free, it's also ad supported with the option to upgrade to the non-ad version for only $0.99 as an in-app purchase. For the slightly more discriminating app-aholics this is a great tool to have in your pocket.

Don't forget to check with our RSS Feeds for fantastic info about Free Games and Price Drops or if you're serious, and want to get info as quick as possible, definitely follow @148apps_pdrops on Twitter! Have a fantastic and fun week with all your new free apps!

Yobongo is the name of a new social networking app that launched for iPhone and iPad on Thursday. The app is developed by Yobongo Inc., a venture between Caleb Elston and David Kasper, formerly of Justin.tv.

The goal of the app is to connect similar-minded users with one another in city-based chat rooms. The app monitors what kind of subjects you chat about and then connects you to others who like to discuss those same topics. The idea here is to introduce you to others in your city who share similar interests to you. From here, Yobongo Inc hopes a meaningful relationship will be born.

“We analyze every pair of messages sent through the system and use that to build up an understanding of who you like talking with,” co-founder Caleb Elston told Mashable, “Then when you open Yobongo, we place you with people you have the strongest affinity for. All of these simple signals lead to a very powerful signal."

Yobongo is quite easy to use. You simply start up the app, and it connects you to a chat room. You're able to chat with everyone or branch off into private conversations.

The app was privately beta tested in January, letting 150 users test a version of it. Elston says that beta testers of the application described it as "addicting." He claims that the average user participated in around 10 sessions per day. He also says that around 90% of users returned to the app each day. Sounds impressive. Of course, all these statistics are provided by the company's own internal metrics.

Currently, Yobongo is only available in a limited number of cities, including San Francisco, Austin, New York and Long Beach. If you're not in one of these cities, when you boot up the app you're greeted with a screen telling you that Yobongo is not available in your area, but that you can vote on Facebook or Twitter to bring it to your city.

If you're in one of the select cities where Yobongo is available, though, you can check it out on the iTunes App Store for free right now.

If there is one thing that everyone loves, it is paying nothing still receiving something awesome in return.  Here and there we have seen scattered sales pop up across the App Store, but the problem has always been trying to pinpoint when and where such sales would occur.  Luckily for all of us, the Daily App Dream has now opened its doors and is at your service.

Both a website and an app itself, the Daily App Dream is your new source of everything free in the App Store.  The developers have already committed to promoting up to three free releases every single day, with at least one freebie scheduled for every approaching number on the calendar.  Here are a few of the key features of the app itself:

• 

  Get access to new free games and apps every day!


• Jump straight to the "Write a review" page of any of the apps and quickly give developers feedback!


• Where possible, read critics reviews of the App's within the App itself from major review sites.


• Link to facebook and let your friends know about the free games on offer each day so that they don't miss out!


• Let us know about the Apps you Dream of being FREE so we can see if we can make your dream come true!


• Opt-In to push notifications so we can let you know about any major games going free that you cant afford to miss out on getting!

Everything about this idea just seems like a brilliant plan for everyone involved.  First off, it costs developers absolutely nothing to use the service, and it will help provide them with some much needed exposure.  Secondly, the people running the site get the chance to give back to iOS consumers everywhere.

If you are not on the bandwagon already, what are you waiting for?  When it comes to free apps, you have literally NOTHING to lose.

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After the success of our last contest, we decided to look through our email and sort out all of the promo codes that developers had sent us to give away to our readers. Apparently our last competition caught the attention of quite a few developers and we have a hefty pile of codes to give out! While the last contest took place on the site itself, due to the sheer number of codes that we have to give out, we've decided to use our Twitter account to distribute them.

We know that not all of you have Twitter accounts, but considering the fact that it's so easy to set up and some of the best iPhone apps released to date are Twitter apps, there's really no reason why you shouldn't jump onboard.

DEVELOPERS:
If you'd like to join the give-a-way, go to our promo code page to submit your app and we'll add them to our list.

READERS:
Register a Twitter account or login in to your existing one then make sure you're following @148Apps! You can check our timeline out here to see what we're giving away and how.

Best of luck to everyone!

As the number of applications in the iTunes App Store continues to grow, so does the demand for high quality reviews of the applications. Developers are always looking for sites to review their applications and 148apps.com is definitely high on their list. Each day we get dozens of emails from developers looking to have their application reviewed. While not all of them fit with what we're trying to do at 148apps.com, the amount of worthwhile applications that we get has grown to the point where we need to expand our writer base to make sure that we can handle all of them. That's where you come in.

Whether you're new to the site or have been coming here for quite some time, we'd like you to consider writing for us. All you need is a love of iPhone applications and some free time to write reviews, we'll take care of the rest. We supply all of our writers with promo codes for the applications that they review and the ability to pick which applications they review, allowing for those most interested in a particular application to be the one who reviews it.

To apply for a writing position with 148apps.com, simply email Bryan (at) 148apps (dot) com with your name, a little bit of information about yourself, and a writing sample. If you don't have a writing sample prepared, grab your favorite application and do a review of it! No need to include pictures or anything, we're just looking to see if your style fits in with our site.

With that said, I hope to hear from all of you soon and I look forward to possibly working with you in the near future!

Our first website based contest has finally finished up and we had a pretty decent turn out too!

The Challenge
If we changed our name to 180apps.com, what would our new slogan be?

The iPhone App Developers have a particularly awesome tool at their disposal: Promo Codes. Not only do these promo codes allow sites like 148apps to review all the apps we do, but they're often used for contests as well. Primarily, we've been using Twitter as a way to give out promo codes for contests, but I'll be honest with you, the response isn't always that great. So in an attempt to include everyone who visits our site, we're going to be expanding our giveaways onto the blog.