The Free App Store Review for Saturday, July 19th, 2008
Posted by Eric March on July 19, 2008 at 7:40 pm
We’re back. Did you miss us? Don’t answer that, it was rhetorical. I am continually surprised at how much software is flowing for Firmware 2.0 — free and otherwise — despite the fact that it’s only been a week since it went live. On the other hand, with devs beaming about how great the iPhone is to develop for and with and what a great platform it is, perhaps I shouldn’t be. I also have to admit there are quite a few of the freebies that are — well, let’s just say that even without a price tag there’s not much reason for them. Just how many flashlight apps do we need, anyway? I suppose the fact that they’re only a wee bit more complicated to design than Hello World makes them popular first attempts, but still. By and large though the quality of the apps has been pretty good, and there have been enough real gems amongst the rough to bring the grade curve up considerably.
So why don’t we go have a gander at the latest collection of wallet-friendly apps?
Developer: Rudrajit Samanta Software
Category: Navigation
iWant is a location-aware, one-stop service locator. Using Location Services, iWant will let you search for any particular service in your area — or any area of your choosing — whether it’s restaurants, movie theaters, clothing stores, lodging, banks, and more. Set your preferred radius to display services in, and iWant will update what’s in the area as you move around. When you find something you’re interested in, you can view the details of the business and even tap to call them. Need to find something in another area? Drag your location icon elsewhere and it’ll show you what’s there. For restaurants, you can even choose what sort of food you’re hankerin’ for. It’s a simple and cleanly designed app that should be a hit if he can get his Yelp quota issues resolved.
Developer: Hongtau Guo
Category: Games
Yet another jailbreak crossover, and the second free Othello game (the first being Morocco, reviewed earlier). Jailbreakers will remember this one via the WeiPhone team. It’s your standard game of Othello, with the main differences here being nicer, Chinese-inspired graphics and the inability to choose whether you’re black or white. (If Michael Jackson is to be believed however, this doesn’t matter.) This version also allows you to pass at any time, undo moves (just in case you made some boneheaded blunder that gave the computer an advantage) and features as a hint button that will ostensibly find the most strategically useful move. The standard three levels of difficulty are here, and as with Morocco, any halfway capable Othello player should be able to beat the hard one without any difficulty. Between Morocco and this however, this one’s got a nicer presentation.
Developer: Tapulous
Category: Social Networking
Yeah, the big jailbreakers all seem to be hitting the app store these days, and Twinkle is yet another example. This is yet another Twitter app with a location-aware twist that lets you converse with people nearby. Nothing amazingly spectacular here, but nice if you’re interested in seeing other Tweetheads in your general vicinity.
Developer: Volger Funke
Category: Utilities
It’s yet another flashlight app, but this one can blink a morse code SOS signal on demand! Of course, if you find yourself in a situation where you need to issue an SOS, you’d better hope some passing good samaritan still remembers what it means.
Developer: Andreas Schwelling
Category: Productivity
A handy local app (no Internet required) that lets you search for zip/postal codes in a variety of countries. Except Canada. Because everyone forgets about Canada. Bastards. Just for that, I’m not going to mention that Germany is included in this app.
Damn!
Developer: Absolute Apps
Category: Utilities
Those of you who have come over from the Treo camp will probably remember those canned quick messages you could select in the SMS app to say you’re on your way, you’re running late, you’ll be there in a few minutes, etc. Well, this is that — only it sends messages through E-Mail rather than SMS. Just pick an E-Mail address and a canned message and send away.
Developer: SourceForge, Inc.
Category: News
Everyone’s favourite repository for open-source development now has its own news app for the iPhone and Touch. This app includes the latest news from the top five sites in their network: Slashdot, FreshMeat, Thinkgeek, Linux.com and, of course, SourceForge. That’s a lot of geek packed into one dedicated feed reader.
Developer: Phanfare
Category: Photography
This one’s kinda neat. Phanfare’s entire purpose is to effectively turn your iPhone’s camera into a wireless camera by allowing you to snap off shots and have them immediately uploaded (in the background no less — no waiting to snap your next shot) to your Phanfare account for immediate sharing. You can view your albums within the app, sort them into other albums, delete photos you don’t want, add captions, even share them on Facebook. Not a bad little app, this — though if you’re in a country that limits your data usage, you might want to give this one a pass.
Developer: Shimira
Category: Games
Another “lite” demo featuring 10 levels from the full-blown game. This is a very simple game: Guide your ball to the goal (a pentagon) while solving small puzzles, gathering prizes or extra time, and keeping an eye on the time clock. This is another game that shoehorns accelerometer control in, and it’s not very sensitive, which makes gameplay frustrating, especially since movement, while smooth, is not physics-based; you move at a constant pace. Fortunately, there’s an option to use touch controls instead, which make this game much easier to play; just touch where you want the ball to go and hold until it gets there. (Note that you should touch an area directly in the ball’s path or it will think you’re trying to make it go through a wall or something.) Not a bad little game, but pretty elementary, with simple 3D-style graphics that look like they were rendered in Cool3D or something. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
Developer: Guided Ways Technologies Ltd.
Category: Reference
Here’s one for all the devout muslims in the house: iQuran puts the holy book in the palm of your hand. But this is far more than just a simple eBook reader attached to a text; iQuran features a beautiful layout with middle-eastern designs and earthy colour schemes to make your reading experience that much nicer. You can search for, highlight, and bookmark passages as you like, and a handy navigation pane gives you easy access to Surah titles, Hezb portion shortcuts, and Juz shortcuts. Perhaps most interesting of all is the app’s ability to stream passage recitations over the internet, allowing you to listen to passages being recited by “your favourite reciter” picked from a list of available. Note however that this free app is a scaled down version of its bigger brother, which features more language translations, more famous recitations, and unlimited bookmarks. (This limited version allows only up to 3.)
Developer: Clickwheel Ltd.
Category: Entertainment
A sponsored app from perfume purveyor Chanel. High fashion information from the world of Chanel and its 2008/9 show. Um … yay?
Developer: Clickwheel Ltd.
Category: Entertainment
Like comic books? You’ll love this. Clickwheel’s Comic Reader is effetively an eBook reader, but for comics. Download and read Judge Dredd, 2000AD, and many others directly from Clickwheel’s extensive catalog of graphic novels. Of course, you have to pay for the comics — not everything is free here.
And there’s another edition in the can. Some of you might notice that some of the most recent releases in the App Store aren’t covered here. This is because many of the latest releases have been updates to existing apps (AirMe, WritingPad, Facebook, etc.) so I have decided not to cover those, instead focusing on new releases only, so this list is shorter than the number of new apps in the App Store may otherwise suggest it should be. Just thought you might like to know that.
In the mean time, we’ll just go ahead and call this one dinner while we work on the next installment.
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Posted in Application Related, Free App Store Review, Gaming Related, Source Related, app store, iPhone 2.0, iPhone 3G
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