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This Week At 148Apps: February 11 - 15, 2013

Posted by Rob LeFebvre on February 17th, 2013


We Do Reviews


Every week, the experts here at 148Apps take on the hundreds of apps released weekly and take the time to sort through them, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. Isn't that spectacular? A few lucky ones become Editor's Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Here are a few excerpted notable reviews from this past Valentine's Day week; for all of them, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.

Versu is an ambitious first step into what could be an immensely compelling new medium of literature. It is well worth the download if for no other reason than to get in on the ground floor of what could genuinely be something special down the road. --Blake Grundman

At its core, Rock Runners is simply about level completion, but there are many other goals built in to the game to add replay value and challenge. Each level in Rock Runners has three additional goals built into it, with most of them concerning completion time, gem collection proficiency, and the ability to avoid damaging obstacles. --Campbell Bird

Continuing the trend that its predecessor set, Cordy 2 is a rather glorious platformer. While many of its ideas will remind players of great platformers gone by, especially the Sonic the Hedgehog series, none of it really matters when there’s so much fun to be had. --Jennifer Allen

Every now and then a game comes along that offers a real breath of fresh air: something truly unique. JOOL is that game. It’s a 2D arcade platformer with basic controls, but puts forth a very unique style. Whether starting with the good bird or his evil alter ego, players will need to use both characters to survive the infinite level design in order to earn the highest possible score. --Michael Carattini

...Ease of use is what makes Qwiki stand out so significantly. It’s actually fun to use as well as view the creations, much like Instagram. Filtering and basic editing completes the package, making Qwiki a very tempting proposition for those who want to show off a form of photo slideshow to their friends and family. --Jennifer Allen

Roar Rampage is loud, full of things to smash, and has a giant dinosaur wearing boxing gloves. With controls that improve on the Flash original and the ability to smash the Eiffel Tower, what’s not to love about Roar Rampage? --Carter Dotson

Other 148Apps Network Sites


Partner sites GiggleApps and Android Rundown publish some of the best reviews and news on the 'net about kids apps and Android apps, respectively. Be sure to head over to each site to read them fully. For now, though, check out some of the great content they served up this past week.

GiggleApps

Endless Alphabet is a charming and surprisingly sophisticated letters app for iPad that teaches words in a wonderfully unique way for a letters app. From the opening of this application, it is easy to tell that it is something special with the cast of colorful and creative monster characters parading across the screen, playing different instruments in ways that are quite captivating. --Amy Solomon

The Adventures of Captain Underpants is a cheeky story about two friends who love to pull pranks at school as well as writing comic books, especially The Adventures of Captain Underpants, about a super hero who actually flies around in his underwear. Things become complicated for the boys when they are caught pulling pranks at their school by their principal, who blackmails them until they are able to hypnotize their principal, yet things take a turn for the worse as the principal takes on the persona of Captain Underpants. --Amy Solomon

Snow Queen by the developers at Timecode is a very nice adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story of the same name – a lengthy tale traditionally told over seven stories. I am impressed by how this app also is broken into seven stories to create a thorough version of this classic story – nice to see as many times the Snow Queen is abridged, and oftentimes without the back story of how the magic mirror, which makes all things beautiful look ugly, is produced here by a goblin. It is this mirror, when broken, also negatively affects the people who get imbedded by these shards, making them see and feel as though everything around them is ugly as well. --Amy Solomon

Android Rundown

[img id="140x140xTransformers-Memory-Game-3-banner-140x140.jpg.pagespeed.ic.8Kb0yJHfs1.jpg"]Friday Free App Rundown - When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to wake up on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons. There was an awesome lineup back then. In this week’s Free App Rundown we are going to talk about games based on Saturday morning cartoons. While there are paid games out there like The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man, the games in this list are free. Let’s take a look. --Trevor Dobrygoski

[img id="140x140xPokemonTV-140x140.png.pagespeed.ic.WL20b7A_oB.png"]Pokemon TV App Now Available, Gotta Watch ‘Em All - The world’s favorite way to collect and fight exotic monsters, Pokemon, is still Nintendo-exclusive as far as the actual games go. But with The Pokemon Company International, the company rsponsible for licensing the franchise, being only affiliated with Nintendo, they are free to release some content to other platforms. In this case, this includes episodes of the long-running TV show, which can now be watched in the Pokemon TV App. Selected episodes from each “Region” that comprises each new generation of the game can be watched. The original Red & Blue games are Kanto region, for those wondering. Those are the ones with Misty and Brock. Go be nostalgic, children of the late 90’s and early 2000’s! --Carter Dotson

[img id="300x168xirt1-300x168.jpg.pagespeed.ic.TSeTZArS4V.jpg"]Ice Road Truckers is an infinite driving game that pitted ever-increasingly treacherous roads against mental reaction and physical dexterity. My job? Keep the big rig moving. Avoid obstacles. Collect coins. One button on the left or right pulled the truck in either direction, and tapping both buttons at the same time caused a boost of speed that revved the truck up, and was perfect for the ramps that appeared on either side of the world. There were also rock formations and huge trees that did their part to increase difficulty in the game. --Tre Lawrence

[img id="300x187xstop1-300x187.jpg.pagespeed.ic.dz_GI7Q5VM.jpg"]Looks like 2013 might be the year of the renegade robot. Zombies and menacing pizza will always be in our hearts, but robots are in. Stop The Robot is a cleverly-imagined tower defense game that pits roughneck kids against robots attempting to breach their backyard lawn fences. I started out at the bottom of the totem pole. There were three levels of difficulty, easy (Iron), medium (Steel) and hard (Titanium). Iron was opened by default, and I started off as Frank, The Slingshot King. Armed with my wooden weapom, I aimed and fired upon oncoming robots that were intent upon destroying the fence I was protecting. It started off easily enough, and, predictably got tougher, with more marching robots in spread-out clusters. --Tre Lawrence

[img id="ant-raid-5-300x187.png"]I wasnt really sure what to expect when I downloaded Ant Raid. I thought it might be another bug smasher game. There is a little of that in there, but there is also some other strategies needed to beat the levels. The overall plot of the game is to keep the ant’s home save from the other insects. The insects have been infected and are pretty much zombies. Okay, that right there grabbed my attention. --Trevor Dobrygoski

Qwiki Review

iPhone App - Designed for iPhone, compatible with iPad
By Jennifer Allen on February 13th, 2013
Our rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar :: SMOOTH MONTAGE MAKING
Qwiki is a new photography app for those that want to create videos from their still images. It's quick and easy to use, with some fun results.
Read The Full Review »

Favorite Four: Reference Apps

Posted by Kevin Stout on June 29th, 2011

Using the iPhone and iPad as a tool to quickly lookup something (often to settle a bet!) is an often under-appreciated and useful feature (it's even the biggest folder on our homescreen for some of us!). While one can argue that a Wikipedia app or just using the browser is sufficient for looking up everything, a dedicated and specific reference app can't be beat in its category. So this week lists our favorite four reference apps.

iBartender
This app (which is surprisingly the #7 top paid iPhone reference app) is the ultimate companion for a bartender. iBartender is a simple enough app to explain, it’s one of those books that can be found behind a bar listing all kinds of alcoholic drinks no one knew existed. iBartender trumps all of those bar books with an easily browsable encyclopedia of drinks, a search feature, and the ability to save specific drinks as favorites. This app is a must-have for anyone, not just bartenders, looking to find and try out new drinks.

Wikipanion
It would be a horrible list of reference apps without a good Wikipedia app. While some of the best reference apps are dedicated to specific topics, Wikipanion is the goto app for all other topics and therefore a must-have for anyone who frequently uses Wikipedia. While it’s nothing complicated, Wikipanion provides a clean, quick-loading interface for Wikipedia on the iPhone and iPad.


Qwiki (iPad only)
Qwiki is definitely the most unique reference app in the App Store. Qwiki pulls information, pictures, and videos from various sources to create a multimedia experience for almost any topic imaginable. Qwiki might not be optimal to quickly look anything up, but it's definitely fun to browse the popular and daily Qwikis. It’s an awesome app to play around with and learn something in the process.

IMDB
The IMDB app is a clean and well-made app that provides an iOS experience for the popular movie database, IMDB.com. Get into an argument about a specific actor/actress in a specific movie or TV show? Whip out the iPhone and look it up on IMDB. The IMDB app is a great companion app to play around with while watching TV.

Qwiki Shows Up on the iPad

Posted by Kevin Stout on May 4th, 2011
iPad App - Designed for iPad

Last year I watched a video of a startup called Qwiki that was presented at TechCrunch Disrupt. They won the $50,000 price. Three months ago, Qwiki released it’s public alpha at Qwiki.com (give it a try). And recently, Qwiki released it’s iPad app.

Qwiki is an information gathering app. It takes researching a topic from just text to a visual, audio, and text experience. Don’t know what to look up? Qwiki updates “featured Qwikis” on it’s home page and iPad app. Qwiki scours the internet for the information needed and presents it with a robotic female voice, text, videos, and pictures.

After the presentation, the ability to improve the Qwiki becomes available where it’s possible to suggest more pictures, videos, or critique the voice (pronunciation or speed). Related Qwikis show up at the bottom and links to more information on sites like Wikipedia and YouTube pop up as well. The option to share the Qwiki on various sites also becomes available (Facebook, Twitter, email, or embed on a website). Watch their presentation at TechCrunch Disrupt below or just visit the site and try it out!