The Free App Store Review X: Trials and Tribulations
by Eric March on August 7, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Do you know what time it is? Do you know what time it is?? Seriously, my watch broke. Well, never mind that, because we’ve got a piping hot batch of new freebies right from the compiler for your perusal, and this edition’s theme seems to be trials — as in, playable demos, or as authors are fond of saying, “lite” versions. These seem to be making more and more appearances in the freebies section lately. This is a good thing. Many have complained of the fact that there’s no way to try apps before you buy them, so developers seem to be responding in greater numbers by providing scaled down versions of their apps for people to have a go at free of charge. No fewer than 7 of today’s entries are demos, some of which are for pre-existing pay apps that never had trial versions before, so those of you who just aren’t feeling those screenshots can get your download on and try ‘em for yourself.
Today’s reviews are brought to you by the letters Q and 4, and by the number ham.
Developer: Sergey Ostrowski
Category: Utilities
Heh heh heh. Heh. Heh heh. He said “retard.” He’s a “codes retard.” Okay, okay, I know it’s French, and it means “delay codes.” I just had to let my inner Butthead out for a minute. Anyway, it’s unlikely the vast majority of you are going to have any interest in this. It’s an app intended for Air France employees, and is a small app designed to be a quick lookup reference for Air France’s flight delay codes, so employees (pilots, flight attendants, etc.) can quickly translate the codes into the reason the flight is delayed. The author helpfully points out that despite the app’s store description, this app is entirely in French.
Developer: GGT Enterprises
Category: Utilities
Essentially a front-end dialer app for GrandCentral users. For those unfamiliar, GrandCentral is kind of a phone unification service where you can connect all of your phone numbers (cell, land line, work, etc.) to one central phone number. It does this by acting as an intermediary between you and the party you are calling; you dial the number through GrandCentral, then it will call you back, and then connect you to the dialed party. The thing about it is though, if you dial out normally with your iPhone, your actual cell number will appear on thier Caller ID. GrandCentral is designed to allow you to dial out to people through GrandCentral instead and have your GrandCentral number appear on their Caller ID. It is not VoIP, it simply connects two real phones through its own service. It even has a familiar interface.
Developer: Mx3.ch
Category: Music
Your portal to the Swiss indie music scene. Mx3.ch Mobile contains various channels playing hand-picked tunes by DRS 3, Couleur 3, Rete 3, DRS, Radio Rumantsch, and Virus where you can discover loads of new music. I’m not even going to pretend to know who or what these people/things are; I assume they’re radio stations. Obviously, my deep knowledge of the Swiss music scene is second only to my intimate knowledge of the contents of Jessica Alba’s pants.
Developer: CreActive
Category: Games
No, this isn’t a diet bullion cube. Rather, Oxxo Lite is a twist on the classic Tic-Tac-Toe. “But this isn’t your grandmother’s Tic-Tac-Toe,” author Luca Infante points out. Indeed, my grandmother would have taken one look at this and then beat me about the head with a muffin tray, declaring victory by default. (She wasn’t much for sport.) The object of Oxxo is still the same as its progenitor, but the play changes significantly. It is played on a 4×4 grid, and players take turns placing their tokens — X or O. So far, so good. Except each token has two attributes: Form (X or O) and colour (blue or yellow — the colour of the X or O, not of the token itself.) When you begin a new game, you have to choose whether you want to play form or colour. This is important, because how you win depends on which side you play. If you play form, then you win a game by placing 4 of the same symbols in a row, regardless of colour — so four X’s in a row win even if the X’s are a mixture of blue and yellow. If you choose colour, then you win by placing four tokens of the same colour in a row, regardless of form. So, four yellow pieces in a row win regardless of whether they’re X’s or O’s. The game is played by placing tokens of the attribute you want: Playing form, a single tap places an orange token with a blue O, while a double-tap places an orange token with a yellow X. Playing colour, a single-tap places a green token with a yellow O, while a double-tap places a green token with a blue X. Stay with me here, because yes, you do in fact play both sides, technically. But wait, there’s more! During any play, you can flip one of your own tokens to swap its attributes. Okay, you know what? This is way too long and confusing to try and make any sense of in words. Download it and give it a try yourself. It really does take a while to wrap your head around and get a feel for the strategy. This “lite” version features 5 difficulty levels; the full version features an additional 5 levels, plus can keep track of your statistics.
Developer: Jirbo, Inc.
Category: Games
Another playable demo, this time from those sneaky Jirbo fellows. Paper Football takes the old physical lunchroom table game and gives it a digital makeover. The object of the game is to flick a piece of paper folded into a triangle across a table and try and get it to hang over the edge without falling off. This is considered a touchdown. If you manage that, you can attempt to convert with a field goal by having someone stand at the end of the table and hold up their hands like a set of uprights and then trying to flick the triangle through them. The graphics here are actually rather fun and well presented, and the gameplay is effective, featuring a realistic (but simple) physics model to plot the trajectory and calculate (very basic) friction coefficients. Look, I’m no fan of Jirbo since that whole alphabetical listing trickery, and cutesy mascots make Hulk wanna SMASH, but I kinda like this. It’s simple, good-looking, and a fun little diversion that you can quickly whip out and while away a few moments at a time. It boils the whole “casual gaming” concept down to its essence rather elegantly.
Developer: gandreas software
Category: Games
Yep. It’s your standard sliding tile puzzle from the days of yore. I hated them. Mostly becuase I sucked at them. This one’s got some nice features though. You can choose to play on any size of puzzle from 4×4 to 6×6 square, or 4×6 to 6×9 rectangular. Play with the standard numbers, abstract images, or choose images from your own photo library. You can even get a hint to see which tiles are in their correct places — which you’ll probably need to use frequently if you’re playing with abstract images or pictures from your library that would make very difficult jigsaw puzzles.
Developer: Chris Haynes
Category: Games
Anybody remember the classic game Hexxagon? (There’s a very faithful Flash version here if you don’t.) Squares is a lot like that, except it’s played on a square grid instead of a field of hexagons. The ovbject of Squares (and so too of Hexxagon) is to propage the playfield with as many of your pieces as possible. You can either move up, down, or to either side, which will replicate your piece in the space you’ve moved to, or you can move diagonally, which will only move your piece, not replicate it. (This differs from Hexxagon which replicates on a one-space move or jumps on a two-space move.) When you come into contact with one of your opponents piece, all of the pieces in your immediate vicinity will change to your colour, much like capturing pieces in Othello. (In Hexxagon, all opposing pieces in adjacent cells change colour; in Squares, only the opposing pieces above, below, or to either side are changed to your colour, rather than in all 8 directions.) The winner is the one with the most of his colour on the board once all spaces are filled. Squares presents pretty sparsely, with very simple graphics. It’s pretty easy to get the hang of, and it’s a nice little game, but I’d love to see a real conversioon of Hexxagon for the iPhone.
Developer: JamSoft
Category: Games
This, however, is your grandmother’s Tic-Tac-Toe. Muffin tray and all. Two-player only; the developer is working on computer AI. I understand he will call it “Joshua.”
Developer: Next Mobile Web
Category: Reference
Welcome to Touch Podium. For service in English, please press 1. Pour le service en français, appuyez sur deux. Dial Zero to bypass this annoying computerized menuing system and talk to a real human being, s’il vous plait. Dial Zero contains over 600 company phone numbers that will connect you with an actual live human being (or a reasonable facsimile of one if you’re calling AOL, Comcast, Rogers — heck, most big companies, really) and bypass those frustrating computerized systems that take forever to navigate. Especially those voice recognition systems. I hate those. “So, tell me what you’re calling about today!” “Customer service.” “I think you’re asking about Belgian waffles. Is that correct?” “No.” “I’m sorry, please try again. Tell me what you’re calling about today!” “Customer service!” “I think you’re asking about breeding capuchin monkeys in captivity. Is that correct?” “NO! Customer Service!” “I’m sorry, please try again. Tell me what you’re calling about today!” “CUSTOMER BLOODY SERVICE!” “I think you’re asking about where to buy kwanset huts…”
Developer: two Enterprises
Category: Health & Fitness
Did … did they just call me fat? Did you just call me fat, two Enterprises? I’ll have you know that’s not fat. I’m incubating the next Destroyer of Worlds. But for the rest of you whose body weight is not partially occupied by the distilled embodiment of pure evil, 2Fat is a simple application that will calculate your body-mass index and estimate your percentage of body fat. Oh! I think I just felt it kick. Wait, wait … no. It’s just gnawing on my liver.
Developer: MoZapp Creations
Category: Entertainment
It’s way too early for the white stuff, and as far as I’m concerned it can stay the hell away from be until somewhere around December 24th. This little app though is at least harmless. It’s on the order of a screen saver, and simply displays falling asterisks snowflakes. It’s peaceful. All it needs is to respond to the acceleromter and have the Big Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen singing in four-part harmony in the background. And maybe make the snow look a little more like, well, snow. Oh, and it’d be cool if it would accumulate. But now I’m just pushing it.
Developer: Kai Kunze
Category: Education
Here’s a simple but good-looking little education word game. The player is presented with a definition and four choices of words that fit that definition. The object is to rewrite the definition in the style of Ambrose Bierce. No, wait, that’s just my version. The object, obviously, is to pick the word that correctly fits the given definition and drag it over the hole in the paper. Incorrect answers will be be crossed out and you get to try again. It’s a good way for the young’uns to build their vocabulary so they can grow up to be bitingly sarcastic bloggers. By the way, ♦dictionary.com’s word of the day for today is “Spoony.”
Developer: Manta Research
Category: Games
I have a soft spot for SameGame. It’s such a simple concept, yet when done right it’s devilishly addictive. The fact that it can be played in a spare minute or two makes it a perfect casual game. Cube Lite, another playable demo, takes the concept of SameGame and gives it an extra dimension of difficulty. The third dimension, to be specific. You are presented with a cube of blocks that looks like nothing so much as a Rubik’s Cube on steroids. Rotate the cube vertically or horizontally and try and make pairs of two or more colours, bringing the blocks above cascading down. It’s a solid cube, with coloured blocks all the way through, so you can’t see what’s beneath the first layer ’til you’ve eliminated some blocks. There is a score goal to reach on each level, so make sure you gather a lot of like-coloured blocks together for big scoring matches. This playable demo features only four levels of the full game, but since the full game is only a buck, this one is a no-brainer. Forget the demo, buy the game.
Developer: IVRealms, Inc.
Category: Games
KuGon is is a logic game that takes more than a few cues from Sudoku. The ultimate goal of the game is to reveal the “MoZaic” image. To do that you must solve six puzzles. Each puzzle is made up of a “Sku” (Stockkeeping unit?), which consists of a “Su” (a “square unit”) and a “Ku” (an octagonal unit). A Sku is a Ku surrounded by 4 Kus. (Don’t you love games that make you learn a new vocabulary?) Each Sku is given some values in either the Sus and/or the Kus, and some blanks. Your job is to consider the numbers given for each Sku and fill in the blanks such that each Ku evaluates to the sum of the four Sus without repeating any numbers in any of the 4 Sus. Confused? You really have to play to fully understand. At the end of 6 puzzles you will be given a trivia question that you must answer in order to finally unlock the MoZaic. KuGon Lite features the first 6 puzzles of the full version with a pretty good interactive tutorial to bring you up to speed. The full game sells for $5.99, and it’s actually fairly decent; the graphics are nice, and the animations are decent, though choppy and sluggish.
Developer: gWhiz, LLC
Category: Education
gFlash+ is an educational multiple-choice flash card app for learning all sorts of subjects. Designed to be used on the go in the spare moments you’re waiting for your latte or commuting on the bus. It supports freely downloadable sets of flashcards on a variety of subjects, and even gives you the ability to create your own, which is pretty cool. Be warned however that it is ad-supported, so expect to see little banner ads up top. Not a bad price to pay for a self-learning tool that’s actually useful, though.
Developer: Liip AG/Codesofa
Category: Navigation
While you’re in Switzerland soaking up the culture of Swiss internet radio, you might find that you need to take public transportation to get somewhere. (I don’t know, maybe your rental car broke down or the authorities found that body in the trunk. Of course, it’s handy if you live there, too.) GottaGo is your guide to Switzerland’s public transit system. It uses the iPhone 3G’s AGPS to locate the nearest public transit station to you, and will even give you up-to-the-minute schedules thanks to its connection to SBB.ch, Switzerland’s transit website. If you get lost, for Og’s sake don’t yell Riiiiiccola! thinking it’s some sort of Swiss distress call. Punch up GottaGo and get going.
Developer: Thomas Hempel
Category: Utilities
A random password generator. This one lets you select the character sets to include generation. Choose whether to include upper-case and/or lower-case letters, numbers, and/or special characters. You can also choose a set password length and the number of passwords to generate, and PwGen will go to town.
Developer: AnaySoft
Category: Utilities
A small unit converter that’ll separate your megabytes from your petabytes. Punch a number into any of the fields and it will automatically calculate the bytes and megs and such. It tops out at terabytes though, so I kinda lied when I said petabytes. There are no petabytes. There are also no exobytes, zettabytes or zottabytes. (Useless trivia of the day: One gram of DNA can store 1.8×1022 bytes, or 2.25 zettabytes of data. That’s 2,250 terabytes, dude.)
Developer: Stand Alone, Inc.
Category: Games
I remember Stand Alone’s crossword game from the Palm days. It was pretty cool then, once it evolved past 1.0. It’s way cooler now. This is a playable demo of the good ol’ newspaper pastime, and it’s quite well done, I must admit. It can be played in landscape or portrait mode; in portrait mode, you can tap on a line to get the clue for that line at the bottom, and navigate backwards or forwards sequentially through the clues, or tap the Clues button to bring up the list. (Use a two-finger tap to swap between across and down). In landscape mode, the scrollable list of clues is displayed on the right while the puzzle is on the left, though you lose the menu bar across the top in landscape mode. You can zoom in and out using the usual methods (double-tap or pinch). There’s even a hints button that can show any errors in your current line, show all errors, reveal the answer to the current clue, or reveal the entire puzzle. This is a very well put-together crossword game and well worth checking out. The demo comes with a very respectable 31 puzzles. The full game (called simply “Crosswords” — note the plural) will hit you up for $9.99, which is a wee bit on the dear side, but you get a virtually unlimited number of puzzles from numerous sources for your trouble.
Developer: TeemSoft, Inc.
Category: Games
When CubicMan turned up on the jailbreak scene, I was duly impressed. It was pretty simplistic in its implenentation — no texture mapping, straight shading and some transparency for the block, but full 3D and a very fun version of the popular Flash puzzler Bloxorz. Now it has made its appearance in the App Store, and TeemSoft have totally tarted it up with beautiful backdrops, nice effects, and lovely texture maps all wrapped up in an ancient Egyptian flavour. The result is a fantastic puzzler that manages to surpass even the original in almost every way. The demo version contains only 10 levels, but I want you ignore that, because CubicMan Deluxe is a thrifty $2.99 and contains no fewer than 80 levels, and it’s worth every last penny. If you like puzzlers, go buy it. You won’t regret it — and if you do, come here so I can smack some sense into you.
Developer: 40cozy.com
Category: Entertianment
You’re right. I did do this last time. But last time it was yanked from the App Store, presumably on the grounds that it stank. Somehow it snuck back in, and it still stinks, but now it stinks with beer cozies. Nuff said.
Developer: TunnelsApp.com
Category: Games
Navigate your ship through winding tunnels and try not to crash. Meh. Oddly, it doesn’t use the accelerometer, opting for soft buttons at the sides instead. Ordinarily I hate it when developers try to shoehorn accelerometer control into games it has no business being in just for the gimmick factor, but this is one game that could probably benefit from it, and it isn’t there.
Developer: Thomas Herzog
Category: Utilities
I’m not going to spend much describing this here, because it is essentially the same app as Zapper, which I reviewed earlier, but Thomas has updated the interface and it’s an order of magnitude nicer-looking now (though a few of the buttons still have that canvas texture). For some reason he wanted keep both versions in the App Store “for people who like the old design beter.” I’ve got news for you. People who liked the old design better have the fashion sense of Don Cherry.
Developer: Seahorse Software
Category: Games
What’s with people telling me their games are nothing to do with the ones my grandmother used to play today? Just leave my grandmother out of this. She’s dead. Let her clutch that muffin tray to her desiccated corpse in peace. Anyway, BlackJck Run Lite is another playable demo, and maybe it’s not like the sort of blackjack my grandmother used to play — but that’s only because she never played an entire table by herself. She was busy pummeling the dealer. But that’s essentially what this is: Five-handed blackjack. The object is to score the highest points with five hands of blackjack within the given time limit and without busting. If you score over 95 points in a round, you’ll be awarded bonus points for remaining time, natural blackjacks, scores of 21, and/or scoring nothing but 21s in each hand. The full version, which will hit you for $4.99, features customizable time limits, number rounds per game, number of starting cards in each row, or to disable the row totals.
Developer: Tom Weber
Category: Entertainment
I’m not sure why this is listed in the Entertainment category, but whatever. DipSwitch is a tool for lighting technicians to help set up lighting fixtures quickly. Enter the DMX address of a particular fixture and DipSwitch will give you the correct dip switch settings. I have no idea what that means, either. My lighting doesn’t get any more complicated than screw-in bulbs, which occationally break at the cap and need to be removed with a potato.
Developer: JDub Studios, LLC
Category: Entertainment
A front-end for the Mobility Today streaming podcast. I really can’t expand on it any more than that, so I’m going to vamp for a few minutes with a clever soft-shoe routine.
Developer: Tears for Fears Javalava
Category: Entertainment
It’s social networking at its most elementary. No signup, no login, no avatars, no apps, no names. Just an anonymous global chalkboard upon which to read and write words of wisdom, random musings, deep thoughts, or bathroom poetry. Read other’s comments as they happen from around the world and add your own two cents. Now taking bets on what percentage of the scrawlings read like they were written by a fourteen-year-old chav who still laughs uproariously at his own farts. The over/under is 90/10 in favour of fart-level intelligence. (It is a rule of nature on the internet: The ease with which people can talk to other people, level of anonymity afforded them when they do it, and the likelyhood of being personally effected by the consequences of their actions are inversely proportional to the IQ of those that will inevitably be attracted to it.)
Developer: Artsiness
Category: Entertainment
You’ve swished around Light Saber. You’ve cracked your Whip. Now you can swish around your carving knife. Rather than make a nice “whoosh” sound, however, this one plays a “horror sound” when you make a stabbing motion. Ten bucks says it’s from the shower scene in the original Psycho. (No, I am not going to download it to find out.)
Jebus, I thought it would never end. But end it has. I’m far too spent to deliver a clever witticism to close this one out, so here’s Drew Carey.
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Posted in Application Related, Entertaining, Free App Store Review, Gaming Related, Hardware Related, Productivity Apps, Round Ups, app store, iPhone 2.0
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August 8th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Swiss pop music is WEIRD.