Tag: Rss »

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone! Make sure you keep your teenagers locked in tonight, and don't let them talk to anyone named Jason. With that warning out of the way, here's your weekly dose of what's new and interesting in the App Store.

The Incident - A severely polished and classy take on the sky is falling genre. Dodge wave after crazy wave of falling cars and major appliances, only to use those same items to climb ever upward to your destination, the stars.

Ninjump - Jump like a ninja (because that's what you are) up through the levels, between buildings and over laundry. Attack various creatures in match three stealthiness for stupidly awesome score and height boosts. Brag to all your friends.

Ghosts N Goblins Gold Knights II - Capcom brings the sequel to its hardest game ever from the 1980s direct to your iPhone. You think you have what it takes? Well, do ya?

Times for iPad - Takes your RSS feeds and turns them into a lovely newspaper-style layout. If you long for the simpler days of flimsy newsprint paper and fingers stained with ink, this may be the app for you.

Slate Magazine - In a world of iPad apps that continually ask you to pay more for their content (I'm looking at YOU, Wired), Slate asks you to read their magazine, for free, on your iPad. What more can you ask for from their asking of you? Wait, what?

Dang, it's August already. Time for Back To School Specials and the slow waning of summertime, at least in the northern hemisphere. Here's another weekly dose of new releases onto the App store from the past week. Enjoy!

Osmos - Apple's App of the week. Our first look here.
The #1 hit iPad game, now available for the iPhone, with full Retina display support! Enter the ambient world that GameAndPlayer called "a work of genius," and IGN called "a beautiful, absorbing experience." Osmos features elegant, physics-based gameplay, dreamlike visuals, and a beautiful electronic soundtrack. Your objective is to grow by absorbing other motes; propel yourself by ejecting matter behind you; but be wise: ejecting matter also shrinks you. Progress from serenely ambient levels into varied and challenging worlds.

Yertle The Turtle and The Big Brag - If you're like me, you've grown up on Dr. Seuss books. They're a cultural touchstone for many of us, reaching deep into our consciousness, ethics, and worldview. Now that I have kids of my own, it's become important to me to pass along these treasures. I can do so, now, right on my iPad or iPhone. These apps will read to your child, either with a tap on each page to advance the story, or auto advancing through the whole book. They'll also allow a more traditional book experience, with the "Read It Myself" option, for those big boys and girls in your life that are reading on their own.

Feeddler RSS Reader Pro for iPhone - Big Google Reader user? RSS fan? Feedler has quickly become the cream of the crop with their Universal App for the iPhone and iPad. They've just released an iPhone-only version, which comes in at 2.8 Mb, as compared to the 5.0 Mb of the Universal App. They're also selling it for $.99 as a launch special, so if you want just an iPhone version to help your device save a bit of space, this is the one to grab. The devs continue to add great features to the app, like unread list filters, mark as read synchronization and the like.

Loopseque for iPad - As a musician, I'm always having fun with music in some way. This new app looks to be a cross between a music beat creator and a rhythm game. The developers have tried to make it as simple and intuitive as possible, which could lend itself to some great experiences for kids as well as adults. Two modes provide the interface for pattern creation, Big Wheel mode (for easy pattern creation) and Wheel Matrix mode for switching quickly between patterns. There's even two team play modes, Tap and Sync. Save your patterns and load them for further editing or just listening.

LIFE Wonders of the World Photography Book - Retailing for $22 in the dead tree edition, this truly breathtaking photography coffee table book from the amazing photojournalists at LIFE magazine is priced for launch at a much lower $4.99. It's for your iPad, and wow won't you love paging through this. Wait, I mean wow won't you love showing your iPad off with a total of 100 images of 50 wonders of the world. While it doesn't look like you can set it up as a slideshow (yet), there is a clickable Table of Contents and a filmstrip tool for easier navigation.

Joining the swathe of apps updated for iPhone 4, Phantom Fish has enhanced its Byline newsreader app to make use of the iPhone 4’s Retina display. The app also takes advantage of multitasking in iOS4.

Byline takes news from sites listed in your Google Reader account and makes them available on your iPhone using their RSS feeds. The app allows users to view pages without an internet connection with its offline browsing feature and syncs with your Google Reader account so that your news is always up-to-date. The app is also compatible with Twitter, Instapaper and Read It Later.

Version 3.2 is available now on the App Store and brings high-resolution graphics for optimum viewing on the iPhone 4’s Retina Display and uses multitasking to complete syncing and caching of feeds in the background.

Byline is available for free with advertising or at $4.99 for the advertising-free version.

Aaaand...we're back! Phew. Is it Friday already? Well, here are our weekly five app selections, culled from recent App Store releases. We've got plenty of new stuff this week, from feed readers to music games, so let's get started!

Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero was demo'd at the WWDC keynote earlier this week, and made its official App Store debut shortly afterwards. Talk about big-name apps. The game costs $2.99 and comes with six songs, allowing you to unlock others via in-app purchase. (The included songs include hits like "We Are the Champions" by Queen and "Say It Ain't So" by Weezer.) It looks a lot like the Tap Tap Revenge and Rock Band games on the surface, but Guitar Hero introduces some new "swipe" and "strum" mechanics that add some new spice to the somewhat-stale tapping games. To put it succinctly, the game looks awesome—we'll have a full review up later, of course.

Camera+
Camera+ comes from TapTapTap, makers of excellent, succinctly named apps like Convert and Voices. It includes tons of tools, ranging from digital zoom to an image stabilizer to a grid that helps you avoid crooked pictures. There are also plenty of scene modes (Beach, Night, Sunset, Backlit, etc) and filters (from a dirty Grunge effect to the more humorous So Emo). Toss in a digital flash effect, borders, and the ability to share photos across a variety of social networks, and Camera+ has just about every feature covered. The app itself is elegantly designed, and on the whole, Camera+ seems to be another worthy addition to the ranks of photo apps in the App Store.

HECTOR: Badge of Carnage
This is not your typical adventure game, folks. HECTOR proudly declares itself to be "half-decent," but don't let that fool you. This point-and-click adventure game stars Detective Inspector Hector and is cheekily irreverent. The dialogue is crude (not for the young'ins) and witty, and the game features genre mainstays like interactive locations and an expansive inventory. HECTOR certainly takes a different tack than most App Store games. Point-and-click fans should check it out.

Sudoku 2 Pro
Sudoku 2 Pro is (you guessed it!) the pro version of the popular Sudoku port. This version strips out the ads, tracks your "runs" (uninterrupted win streaks), auto-deletes solved notes, and allows you to hide the timer if you so wish...among other things, of course. Naturally, the features that make Sudoku 2 loved by so many App Store customers are still intact: ease-of-use, graphics, etc. If you're looking for a good Sudoku game and don't want your screen cluttered with ads, check out Sudoku 2 Pro.

Pulse News Reader
And finally, one for your iPad owners. Pulse News Reader was also demoed by Steve Jobs at the WWDC. Pulse is a clean and visual news reader for iPad. It imports up to 20 news sources and then creates an elegant mosaic of your news stories. Tapping on a block brings up the article in full. Just take a look at the picture...the app looks gorgeous, and even supports both landscape and portrait. Yum!

Reeder is one of the better looking and functioning Google Reader enabled RSS readers for the iPhone. We got word last week that the currently in-development iPad version is getting closer to release. In addition, the developer posted a few screen shots for us to take a look at.

From the looks of the preview screens, Reeder is going to be as gorgeous and innovative on the iPad as it is on the iPhone. We don't know if Reeder for the iPad will be released as a separate app or as an Universal update to the iPhone version yet. Definitely one to keep an eye out for though.

Hit the jump for more screen shots from the upcoming Reeder for iPad.