Free App Store Review VII: The Epic Edition (Part 2: The Quickening)
by Eric March on August 1, 2008 at 12:16 am
When we last left the Free App Store Review two articles down, we were well on our way to developing carpal tunnel syndrome from all the typing. Tonight we hope to complete that goal with the back half of the 36 apps we were running down, which should bring us current to yesterday’s releases. Uh, actually, it’s more than half, because Apple’s release dating seems to be screwed up, and now there are even more releases listed from yesterday. Apple really knows how to make a grown man cry. And wouldn’t you know it? I’ve already got 31 more in the queue, which I will probably have to do tomorrow and the next day. But that’s okay. I like freebies. I like talking about freebies. I welcome a future riddled with arthritis. I am just thankful Apple take the weekend off.
And now, the epic conclusion.
Developer: Amanuel Tewolde
Category: Music
So there you are, right up front in the mosh pit, rapidly headbanging yourself insensate, but before you lose consciousness and become an unwilling crowd surfer, you want to snap some shots of the band. You whip out your iPhone and take a few blurry, grainy, incorrectly white-balanced photos. You just can’t want to share them with your buds who couldn’t make the gig! Well, now you don’t have to. Concerts lets you share your photos live right from your iPhone. Just create a free account with BlueHaze so you have somewhere to send them, and share away! Or maybe you’re one of those unfortunate buds who couldn’t make the gig yourself. You can browse other people’s concert photos and live vicariously through them.
Developer: PosiMotion
Category: Games
Apache Lander is a simple Lunar Lander style of game where the object is to use the accelerometer in your device to land your Apache helicopter safely. Unfortunately, all my Apache would do is run out of fuel in about 3 seconds and come crashing unceremoniously down without responding to up or down movements of my device, only left and right. If the object of the game were to see how spectacularly you could crash your Apache helicopter, I would rock so hard at this. But since the game is broken, I just suck, and so does Apache Lander.
Developer: Alexander Clauss
Category: Productivity
TouchCalc is a rather ambitious calculator app that features several operation modes. Scientific mode presents an array of mathematical operations for logarithms, trigonometry, roots, powers and all that other hard math stuff. Bit/integer mode is the programmer’s helper, offering logical boolean operations (AND/OR/XOR/NOT, etc.) at the bitwise level, supports display in binary, octal, decimal, or hexidecimal, and can calculate in 8, 16, 32 or 64-bits. Statistics mode lets you enter a series of values and then give you options to calculate the mean, median, quantil values, variance, standard deviation, range, and so on. Like I said: Ambitious, especially for a free app. The only problem here is that the display is quite crowded, looking a lot like the calculator equivalent of trying to cram as many people into a Volkswagen Beetle as humanly possible. I suppose it’s rather unavoidable given the number of operators each mode gives you to work with, but since the other side effect is much smaller keys than the standard calculator apps, those who are meaty of digit might find it a bit difficult to poke at. Outside of that though, you can’t beat being able to get an übercalculator like this for free.
Developer: Tomizone Ltd.
Category: Utilities
I don’t know who Tomizone is or where they’re located, but this is apparently an app that will let you connect to their WiFi hotspots. It can save your login and password securely so you don’t have to keep entering it when you connect via the web. If you’re in Tomizone’s coverage area then this will probably be of interest to you. If not, please enjoy this delicious cookie instead.
Developer: Ryan Rowe
Category: Utilities
Perhaps the most common cause of confusion when you’re at a restaurant with some friends is why no one will admit to ordering three strawberry daquiris when you’re divvying up the bill. Second only to that is how much you’re supposed to tip the wait staff at the end of the meal. TipStar comes to the rescue by allowing you to enter the size of your party, the total of the bill, and the tip rate based on the quality of the service, valued from “acceptable” (15%) to “excellent” (20%). Unfortunately, I didn’t see any option for “Terrible” (punch to the crotch) — maybe in a future update. Nevertheless, TipStar will then add your tip percentage to the bill and give you a grand total including tip, which you can then divvy up amongst your dinner mates — assuming you can get that drunk chick to stop trying to stuff the leftover garlic rolls into her purse.
Developer: osXwerk.de
Category: Utilities
Es ist geschrieben in Deutsch, but I think I can figure this one out. It’s a gas and mileage tracker that will let you keep track of your fuel expenses. It seems pretty detailed, but since the description and the application are entirely and exclusively in German, I’ll just have to leave it at that. Did I mention there’s a cookie up there?
Developer: Ayefon.com
Category: Reference
Unfortunately this isn’t a rollicking good swashbuckler. However, if you enjoyed yesterday’s Mantis Bible Study you’ll probably like this. It’s essentially a web front-end for “a popular online bible” who would apparently prefer to remain anonymous. (Pride goeth before the fall and all that.) It derives its name from the “sword drill” bible verse lookup competitions that were evidently a common part of Sunday school. Sword Drill is a plain-jane, no frills verse lookup based on those drills.
Developer: Aubrey’s Puzzles
Category: Games
Here’s a simple but fairly well put together puzzle game, even if it’s a “lite” version with only 10 levels from the full version. Nevertheless, this is a subway-themed puzzler (duh) where the object is to get your red train (represented by a dot on a subway map-style board) to the destination. To do that, you must shuffle other trains that are blocking the path out of the way. The catch is that the different coloured trains can only travel along a path of the same colour (as depicted in the screenshot here), so it makes for an interesting challenge. Graphically it’s relatively simple — but then it doesn’t really need to be dressed up given the type and style of the game. A fun little brain twister.
Developer: Steve Polyak
Category: Utilities
SimpleRSS does pretty much what it says on the tin. It’s a very basic RSS reader — and I mean basic. This current pre-release version only allows you to subscribe to one (1) (une) (eine) (bupkis) feed — but you can filter that feed with keywords. Evidently a future release of SimpleRSS+ will support more filtering options and support multiple feeds. Yeah, not really much to whet the appetite here — but the author offers the source code for free, just in case you want to monkey around with it in your own SDK. Otherwise, stick with Byline.
Developer: Radio Javan
Category: Radio Javan– er, Music
Got a hankering for some Persian music? Well why not, you uncultured philistine? Hie thee quick to the App Store and download Radio Javan for a 24/7 Internet radio station that’s all about the dulcet tones of pulchritudinous Persian pop princesses (and princes). It will even show you the artist photo and list song information as you listen. Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t know the first thing about Persian music. Everything I know about Persia I learned from the movie 300 and a certain 90s video game, and those are probably not entirely up-to-date.
Developer: SCB
Category: Utilities
PassGen’s sole purpose in life is to create the most cryptic passwords imaginable. Set your password length, choose whether to make it standard ASCII characters (upper+lower case and shifted symbols) or make a hexicecimal password, then generate. You can even E-Mail it to yourself — probably because no one’s going to want to write out “xT^#,*6b32$^[d0rk):$%" on a piece of paper.
Developer: Jason Merchant
Category: Productivity
Yes, as a matter of fact it is another password storage app. This one only appears to use a master password to access your data though. That’s … uh … that’s about it, really. Not much more I can say. Nosiree. That’s all she wrote. Hey, look! A cookie!
Developer: Neil Daniels
Category: Games
Another memory/matching game, this one played on a 4×4 grid. I actually kinda like this one. It’s small, simple, presented in a clean duotone that makes this app both lightweight and easy on the eyes in a no frills kinda way. The card flipping and removal animation is smooth and simple, and perhaps more interestingly, the game doesn’t wait for cards to flip or be removed before letting you tap another card. Each card flip seems to be given its own thread, so you can tap pairs as quickly as you like and not have to wait ’til it’s finished its current operation to keep playing. It’s a tiny little thing, but it’s one of those things you’d never even notice or miss until you use it. Respect for the little notions.
Developer: Chris Hanson
Category: Health & Fitness
Are you expecting? A baby, I mean, not the pizza delivery guy. OBWheel will help to determine your due date. Simply enter the date of your last menstrual period (helpfully abbreviated “LMP” — I had to look that up) OBWheel will tell you the current gestation age of the fetus and your expected delivery date. Sorry, it’s not free if it’s late.
Developer: Chase Douglas
Category: Entertainment
Here’s another remote for the open-source MythTV media center front end … thingy. This one features multiple configurable layouts, an interactive program guide, and more. The author helpfully notes that not only is a MythTV box required, getting MythTV to work with MyMote will take a considerable amount of configuration, help for which you can find on his support page.
Developer: Mundue.net
Category: Games
Windows Mobile users should recognize this. It’s been bundled in with every Windows Mobile version since 2003 — possibly before. It’s the age-old SameGame, though this version has shinier … balls. For the benefit of the one and a half of you who don’t know what this is, Jawbreaker/SameGame is piece matching game. Tap on a colour that is connected to at least one other of the same colour in any of the four cardinal directions to remove it from the board and have the tiles above it shift down. The more connected tiles you clear at once, the higher you score. This version is about as simple as it gets: No goals other than clear as many as possible with the highest score possible. It doesn’t continue if you clear a board, either, just ends like when you run out of moves. It doesn’t save scores, either. But for a quick 30 seconds while you stand in line, it’s a classic time waster.
Developer: e-Agent
Category: Finance
Envirian(r) 3in1 Mortgage Calculator(tm) is a simple iPhone application(c) designed to make quick mortgage calculations(p) based on the amount to be borrowed(sm), your monthly income(pat. pend.), and “expenses additional mortgage expenses”(sic). Dude, if your expenses have expenses, you have more serious issues than figuring out a mortgage. Me, I have to see if I can find a lotion to get rid of this parenthesis problem(fnord).
Developer: Silverstreak Software
Category: Games
And over here we have a character generator designed around the Tremorworks character generation process, which takes the math out of figuring out stats like speed and health, which are generated from the values of other stats. Tremorworks is evidently some sort of new fangled RPG system that is entirely unlike Dungeons and Dragons, so I will thank it very much for getting the hell off my lawn. And take that damn elf with you.
Developer: Jeffrey Grossman
Category: Utilities
You know what I’ve always hated about currency conversion apps? Exchange rates change daily, so any local currency converter’s results will be an approximation at best, and a cruel joke if you’re Zimbabwe. Or the United States. (ZING!) This here app, cleverly titled Currency, will retrieve the latest exchange rates over whatever network connection you’ve got handy, so any conversion you make will be guaranteed accurate. Again, unless you’re Zimbabwe. (Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Try the veal.)
Developer: Amplified Games, Inc.
Category: Games
FREE BONUS COOKIES! Didn’t I tell you we had delicious, free chocolate chip cookies? And here you get a delightful side of solitaire to go with them. It’s like a tall, refreshing glass of ice cold milk … made of cardboard. Anyway, this is the standard Klondike solitaire game with some extra bonuses, such as special bonuses (cookies! No, really, they’re cookies) and built-in cheats for you dirty, dirty cheaters who don’t deserve a cookie. Furthermore, CookieBonus Solitaire is all connected to the Fat-Free Games community, where you can chat with other players, earn badges for high scores and in-game achievements, set up a personal profile, create a friends list, and more. It’s social networking meets a single-player card game. Kind of like knitting circles or something. I just love the age warning here. “Rated 12+ for the following: Infrequent/mild alcohol, tobacco, or drug use or references; infrequent/mild profanity or crude humor; infrequent/mild mature/suggestive themes.” Kids grow up so fast these days…
Developer: bootant.com
Category: Games
This, I like. It’s the classic Breakout style of game, done in 3D OpenGL with some rather nice graphics and classic gameplay. Naturally, the object is to destroy all of the bricks on a level by bouncing the ball around with your paddle (accomplished by dragging your finger). The levels and backgrounds get colourful as different configurations present themselves. Bonus stars can be hiding in or around bricks for bonus points as you knock them out and catch them with your paddle. It’s graphically quite pleasing, the action is just as expected, and movement is smooth — the paddle moves on a 1:1 basis with your finger, so you don’t have to get used to any quasi-acceleration.
Developer: Pi-Soft Consulting, LLC
Category: Games
Ready to take a trip in the Wayback machine? I mean [I]way[/I] back? Back to the very first ever text adventure game? Known as Advent, Adventure, or Colossal Cave by Crowther & Woods, this is the ultimate, the grandaddy, the progenitor of all text adventure games, now lovingly converted and preserved on the iPhone. Is accepts simple commands (”look” “use sword” etc.), so don’t expect Infocom-class sentence parsing here, just a good old fashioned adventure where imagination were the graphics and sound — like taking part in a book. You remember those, right? Thick wads of bound paper with lots of words on them. Damn kids.
And that’s a wrap, folks. For today, anyway. Tune in tomorrow when OH GOD MY HANDS, MY HANDS ARE CRAMPING, CALL AN AMBs fbnxcers
[CAT-LIKE TYPING DETECTED]
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Posted in Application Related, Entertaining, Free App Store Review, Gaming Related, Round Ups, app store, iPhone 3G
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