The Free App Store Review for Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

by Eric March on July 23, 2008 at 1:20 am

We’re now well into the second week of the App Store, and things certainly aren’t slowing down. Apps keep pouring in — and some of them are even good! And since I’m a Canadian, bereft of a credit card, it’s not like there’s a simple way for me to go buy any of the pay ones, is there? Canadian tax and commerce laws being what they are and all. But I digress. We’re here to talk about the stuff that wants you to keep your wallet (and assorted other things) in your pants, because your dirty, dirty lucre is no good to them.

This week, please imagine each entry being read by James Earl Jones. It’s much cooler that way.

App name: Quitter
Developer: Paze
Category: Health & Fitness
Are you a smoker? A filthy, smelly smoker? Cool, me, too. Want to quit? Yeah, me too. Want an app that will help you quit? Yeah, me too. Instead there’s this. Quitter doesn’t actually help you quit. It’s actually a kind of post-cessation reminder tool that will tell you how long it’s been since your last puff and inform you of how much money you’ve saved since quitting (by way of you telling it how much a pack of smokes cost). Additionally, it will remind you how long it’s been since your last puff … on a cigarette … a sweet, smoky cigarette. Remind you of what it was like, that sensation in your lungs when you inhale, that first, sweet drag, the smell of burning tobacco … damn, I need a smoke.

 

App name: Score Counter
Developer: VandG Software
Category: Sports
Speaking of highly targeted apps, here’s one for all you fencing afficionados out there. Yeah, you. The guy in the back with the mesh face guard brandishing your épée. Here’s a relatively simple scoring app that lets you time each bout and tally your score. It is intended to be carried in your disused hand as you fence, and the interface is designed with multiple redundant buttons in various locations to accomodate a variety of grips and gestures to make it easy to access its functions. Scores are remembered between sessions. Just don’t drop your device during a particularly heated exchange. If you break it, you’ll probably be piste. (Terribly sorry. Wretched pun.)

 

App name: Geohash
Developer: Casey Cady
Category: Navigation
I love xkcd. Geek humour is awesome. But even I’ll admit that I don’t really get Geohashing, which was dreamed up by xkcd’s creator Randall Munroe. It is apparently a bit like Geocaching, only instead of hunting for hidden “treasures” that you don’t actually take, you … um, well, you meet other people who are geohashing. And then go on a random adventure. Or just sit around and drink, I guess. I don’t know. In any event, every day, a new random set of geographical coordinates are generated based on the md5 hash value of the day’s date and the opening value of the day’s Dow Jones industrial average combined with your current GPS coordinates. (I’m not even kidding.) But I guess its generally random purpose is part of its charm — kind of like xkcd itself. Anyway, this app will calculate the day’s Geohash coordinates, should you be up for an xkcd meetup. Obviously this is an iPhone 3G app.

 

App name: Chicago Tribune Mobile Zodiac
Developer: 360mind
Category: Entertianment
View the Chicago Tribune’s horroscope via a rather attractive interactive interface. Spin the Wheel of Cheese Zodiac, pick your sign, and see your future with “completely visualized photo” images and text. Aw, hell. I’ll tell you your future right now: You will be bombarded with ads when you run this app. Damn, I’m good.

 

App name: Aftonbladet
Developer: Aftonbladet Nya Medier AB
Category: News
A rather simplistic iPhone-esque iconic portal to Sweden’s largest newspaper, Aftonbladet. News, sports, entertainment, buxom blondes. Maybe. I can’t read swedish, but “hitta” could be short for “hittable.” Or not.

 

 

App name: Ad Hoc Helper
Developer: Erica Sadun
Category: Utilities
I was wondering when we’d see Erica turn up in the App Store, and here she is, our favourite iPhone hacktress. Ad Hoc helper is admittedly just about the simplest app there is next to one of the many flashlight apps. All this does is retrieve your device’s UDID (Unique Device ID) and forward it to your mail app so you can E-Mail it to your IT admin or whomever so they can distribute their application to your device via Apple’s Ad Hoc provisioning method. (You can retrieve it yourself in iTunes by clicking on your device and then clicking on the “Serial number” label, but since you can’t copy and paste that horrendously long hex number, you have to type it by hand. This method is much, much easier.) Unfortunately I can say with some certainty that Apple hasn’t fully cooked the Ad Hoc method yet. Milo of Phantom Fish tried repeatedly to send me a copy of Byline for review, complete with a provisioning profile, but unfortunately iTunes won’t sync it. It throws the dreaded “unknown error.” I guess we will have to wait for an update before it works properly.

 

App name: WordPress
Developer: Automattic, Inc.
Category: Utilities
Oh, you know I’m going to like this. I mean, this is a blog. It runs WordPress. So how awesome will it be for me to be able to blog on the go? Buckets of awesome, that’s how. That being said, WordPress is pretty simplistic, though it supports all most basic fundamentals. Basic editing, support for tags and categories, publishing to drafts, password protection, publish for later review, support for adding images stored in your photo album and/or camera roll, even embedded Safari for live previews. It also features autosave and recovery in case you get interrupted by a phone call or need to quit the app in the middle of writing a post. There’s no WYSIWYG editor yet — it’s strictly HTML, but if you know your way around the tags, you should be fine. And believe me, when I get my 3G next month, this going to help tremendously.

 

App name: Labyrinth LE
Developer: Codify AB
Category: Games
Alright, all you jailbroken apps-should-be-free whiners. Carl’s made it to the App Store so now he can charge whatever the hell he wants for his damn Labyrinth game. Fortunately, he’s also posted a free playable demo that features 10 levels. For those that don’t know and mercifully weren’t around for the whole Labyrinth fiasco early this year, be thankful, and know that this is your basic accelerometer-controlled labyrinth puzzle. Tilt the device around to guide the steel ball to the goal without falling into any of the holes. Not the first in the App Store, but it’s got a special place for being the first on the iPhone, long before anyone even heard the words App Store.

 

App name: What’s Open
Developer: Roger Ly
Category: Navigation
Taking the location-aware mobile service locator one small step further, What’s Open doesn’t simply show you what services are in your area, but will tell you what services are currently open in your area. Need an all-night burger joint? An after-hours club? A 24-hour pharmacy? Fire up What’s Open and check your map. It hooks into the whatsopen.com service for its results, which unfortunately means it is limited to the United States — and then only to the cities in the 12 states that it currently tracks. (Cities in CA, CO, FL, IL, MA, NJ, NV, NY, PA, TX and WA.) I’m sure it will expand over time, but for now, if you’re in one of those states you’re probably cool. Otherwise, it’s back to the yellow pages and a phone for you.

 

Alright, that’s all I can cram in for tonight. It’s too damn late and I ought to be sleeping, so that’s an oversight I’m about to correct. You can just go ahead and download some free digital swag while I dream of wrapping my mitts around a glossy black iPhone 3G and wondering why oh why shiny shiny things can tempt me even to give into the Evil Rogers Empire but consoling myself with the knowledge that soon enough, Ted Rogers will be soiling his starchy drawers as the spectre of competition looms over his balding pate. Ahh, sweet, sweet dreams.

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Posted in Application Related, Free App Store Review, Gaming Related, Round Ups, app store, iPhone 2.0, iPhone 3G