The Free App Store Review XIII: Beauty is In the Eye of the Beer Holder

by Eric March on August 16, 2008 at 1:56 am

Break out your galoshes, because we’re about to wade through another flood of freebies.  Yeah, I know I’m a little late, but your mom just would not let me get dressed.  (Badda-BING!)  Anyway, there are a few pretty choice apps in today’s issue, which is cool, because I like it when I get to enjoy new stuff — like when I first met your mom.  (Badda-BANG, badda-BOOM!)  There are some stinkers hereabouts, too (like your — oh, forget it), but it can’t all be sunshine and rainbows and puppy dogs and your mom.  (HEY-oh!  Okay, I’ll stop now)  I’m just going to go ahead and kick things off, because there’s a lot of ground to cover and I’m wearing a hole in my hip waders.  (…you thought there was going to be a Your Mom joke here, didn’t you?)

Those of you with Freemanic Paracusia should particularly enjoy this edition.

App Name: Flying Rider
Developer: FlyingTom
Category: Games
I’m only including this here (dead link and all) to say this to inXile: With regards to games on the iPhone/Touch that take their cues from your precious IP, put up or shut up, and if you’re not going to bring the original to Apple’s handhelds, then for the love of all things fruity and Darwinian, leave the poor sods trying to give the public what they want for free alone, because right now, you’re just looking like a whiny yob who doesn’t want to share his toys.  That is all.

 

App Name: myColorWave
Developer: doapp, inc.
Category: Unentertainment
Here’s a perfect example of a product not even trying to match the box shot.  You’d think, based on the colourful, swirly “screenshot” on the left that you’d have some kind of funky, miniature Colourspace/Trip-a-Tron/Virtual Light Machine (Jeff Minter is an underappreciated programming God, amen) on the go, wouldn’t you? Of course you would. You’d also be in for a hideous let-down, because all this thing does is cycle through solid colours whenever you tap or shake your device.  This wouldn’t even be entertaining after a whole bag of shrooms.  (Not that I’d know or anything)  I’m not going to waste any more time on this pile, so I’m going to take this opportunity to say: Jeff Minter, we need you!  Please write VLM or Hover Bovver or Llamatron or Tempest 3000 or ANYTHING.  Forget that Xbox 360 thing. UPDATE: Oh, look. They changed the “screenshot” before I had a chance to capture it. (It was all swirly colourful wavy lines ‘n stuff) Now it’s more representative of its true nature: A solid colour. Well, thanks for ruining a perfectly good rant and removing any excuse for me to mention Jeff Minter. Just for that, I’m going to leave all of the original text in there.

 

App Name: myLighter
Developer: doapp, inc.
Category: Utilities
Boy, doapp are masters of the useless, aren’t they?  This one was even posted in utilities.  It displays your average Bic lighter and an animated flame.  That is all.  The screenshot pretty much gives you the beginning, middle and end of what you should expect from it — which is refreshing after the misleading screenie in the previous entry.  What was also refreshing was deleting this from my iPhone after 20 seconds of trying to get it to do something interesting and failing.

 

App Name: WhitePages Mobile
Developer: WhitePages.com
Category: Reference
A native front-end for WhitePages.com that enables you to easily search for anyone in the United States.  Search for businesses, people, or do a reverse phone number lookup to see who owns a particular number.  It can detect your current location, search nearby places, give you maps and directions, save listings to your contacts, tap to call from listings, autocomplete city/state, and more.  It’s actually pretty handy if you live in the US.

 

App Name: Tris
Developer: Noah Witherspoon
Category: Games
The parade of former jailbreak apps making themselves all official-like continues with the release of Noah Witherspoon’s Tris.  It’s your classic Tetris with a touchscreen interface; drag left, right and down to move the pieces and tap the screen to rotate.  This official App Store version also features state saving, so you can quit the app to answer the phone or pick some new tunes and then resume where you left off whenever you feel like it.

 

App Name: Teleport Lite
Developer: Jugaari
Category: Utilities
Figure this one out: Teleport, a very nice but rather expensive VNC client for the iPhone and Touch, is available in the App Store and, at the very least, is available to both Americans and Canadians alike, if not the rest of the world.  Teleport Lite, on the other hand, which is ostensibly a scaled down demo of the full app, is not available to Canadians.  Hey, Jugaari, what’s the dealio?  You’ll take our money but you won’t let us play in your sandbox?  I’m going to be charitable here and assume that this is a submission error on their part. Meanwhile, please enjoy a lovely image of OH MY GOD KILL IT WITH FIRE.

 

App Name: TanZen Lite
Developer: Little White Bear Studios
Category: Games
I remember way back in the earlier part of the 90s when a cool game came out for the Atari ST called Tangram, based on the old wooden puzzle of the same name.  It was deviously addictive, rotating predefined shapes into place to form a larger design.  TanZen Lite is an iPhone version of that same tangram puzzle game, and it features some very nice and intuitive multitouch controls, soothing graphics, and smooth gameplay.

 

App Name: Latest Chatty
Developer: Alex Wayne
Category: Social Networking
Well, that’s a little different.  This isn’t quite a full-blown social networking app.  Instead, it’s a browser and comment submission app for what amounts to a shoutbox on Shacknews.com.  It’s a pretty specific kind of social networking I suppose.  Meh.

 

 

App Name: Kazoo
Developer: Chudigi Software
Category: Music
“Music?”  That’s stretching the category so far that if it were a facelift, you’d have nipples on your cheeks.  Okay, so, remember that scene in “Dumb & Dumber” where Jim Carey says, “Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?”  Combine that noise with the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard, pieces of styrofoam rubbing together, and Fran Drescher’s laugh, play them all simultaneously on repeat, and you’d have something that still isn’t as annoying as “Kazoo.”

 

App Name: iTip
Developer: Uncouth Software
Category: Finance
Since when to uncouth people tip?  Well, no matter.  It’s another basic tip calculator for those of you who feel that the built-in calculator app is too complicated.  In other news, it’s 0.0MB, so apparently this will take up no room on your device — which is good, because it isn’t worth any. (I kid…)

 

App Name: Pop Quiz!
Developer: Sina Mobasser
Category: Games
A simple multiple choice trivia game featuring 6 categories (Movie Trivia, Music, Celebrities, Television, Movie Quotes, Fill In the Blanks) and online high score tables.  Fairly average stuff as these things go with a clean if unremarkable UI.  Sina pimps a future release of Pop Quiz! Round 2, with more questions and the chance to win a new iPod.

 

App Name: Free Tic Tac Knoe
Developer: Rob Rightmyer
Category: Games
Knoe, I don’t knoe why this is named the way it is, but Rob’s got a solid handle on how to spin one of the simplest paper games into then next great RTS.  So it’s Tic Tac Toe.  What’s the hook?  For one, each and every level is given its own graphical theme chosen from a bowler hat containing an old copy of ULead Cool 3D and six hundred random textures and lighting presets.  Second, the computer AI increases with each passing level.  Third, if you fail to win a level you’re forced to go back one and complete it again.  Third and a half, it’s a demo, and the full game — which promises 33 levels and new ones downloadable as they become available — costs a buck.  Does it make Tic Tac Toe fun again?  Absolutely — in the same way that the advent of laproscopy made gall bladder surgery fun again; it’s all tarted up, but it’s still Tic Tac Toe, and when it’s over, you’re a little emptier inside.  (Okay, maybe that was excessively harsh.  It’s not terrible.  It’s just … Tic Tac Toe, dude.  Lipstick on a pig.  The kids will probably like it though, kids like colours and variety — just as long as they stay off my damn lawn.)

 

App Name: Beer Counter
Developer: Tim Knape Softwaretechnik
Category: Entertainment
The description is in German, and I said I wasn’t going to review apps that weren’t described in English, but this one is pretty obvious and uncomplicated: It’s an app that keeps track of how many beers you’ve had.  My high score is 23.  Did I ever tell you you’re the best pal I’ve ever had?  ‘Cos you’re the best pal I’ve ever had.  You’re my mate.  Oh crap, where’s the bathroom? 

 

App Name: Chimps Ahoy! Lite
Developer: Griptonite Games
Category: Games
More demos of commercial games, this time for Chimps Ahoy!  It’s got Pong, it’s got Arkanoid, and it’s got monkey pirates all rolled into one game.  What’s not to like?  I mean, monkey pirates.  With powerups and treasure.  And for the record, they’re flinging coconuts, okay?  Coconuts.

 

App Name: Crossy
Developer: Vayen
Category: Entertainment
Another one from the jailbreak scene.  Crossy is a simple snow globe with crosses instead of snowflakes to give it a Swiss flag motif.  Not much more to say about it, really; other than a bit of a graphical facelift, it hasn’t really changed any.

 

 

App Name: Freebird
Developer: Dru Nelson
Category: Lifestyle
Oh, for Pete’s sake.  Another (poorly) animated lighter that doesn’t do anything.  But!  But!  This one has a candle, too!  It’s just a picture though.  It doesn’t even animate.  Oh!  And a glo-stick.  It flickers faintly. And don’t think invoking Lynyrd Skynyrd makes it any more entertaining.

 

 

App Name: iHourglass Free
Developer: Headlight Software, Inc.
Category: Utilities
Being yet another title with a misused “i”, iHourglass with diagnose any rash you take a picture of.  What, did you think I was going to do something lame like state the obvious?  Fine.  It’s an hourglass.  A virtual representation of a mechanical timer.  Happy?  It features little pellets of virtual silica sand that trickle down, and the demo version lets you choose from several preset timers.  The full version also features multiple different hourglass images.  It would probably have been cooler if the movement of the “grains” wasn’t tile-based, used some simple particle physics, and accumulated at the bottom, but I’m just nitpicking because I like neat things.

 

App Name: iMaracas
Developer: ObjectGraph LLC
Category: Music
Continuing on with the nonsensical “i’ convention (yes, I am going to keep harping on that.  I’m a curmudgeon.  Deal) is iMaracas. You shake, it goes shika.  You shake shake shake, it goes shika shika shika.  You shake shake shake shake shake, and Charro appears in a puff of smoke and tropical fruit.  It’s a one trick pony, but this is about the only virtual instrument that makes any sense.

 

App Name: Flipbook Lite
Developer: Josh Anon
Category: Entertainment
Now this one’s fun — or it would be if the limitations of this “lite” version weren’t so extreme.  This is, as you have surmised, a virtual flipbook app that lets you create frames of finger-drawn images and animate them just like those old pads of paper you used to create little walking stick figures or morphing geometric shapes with.  It works like classical animation, providing a virtual “onion skin” effect to let you see the last frame underneath and draw your new frame accordingly.  You can choose your brush size and animation frame rate for your movies, create layers for static backdrops and independently animated images, and even upload them to flipbook.tv to share with others.  This “lite” version is really just a teaser; you are limited to a maximum of 2 movies, 10 frames of animation, only two image layers, and you can only upload one movie to flipbook.tv — not that you’re likely to do so given that you can’t create anything entertaining in 10 frames.  The full version is a bit spendy at $10, so maybe you’re better off buying Kineo (formerly Flickbook) for half the price (even though you don’t get to share your animations and you don’t have frame layers.)

 

App Name: ParveOMeter
Developer: The Jewish Learning Group
Category: Education
Are you keeping kosher?  Are you sure?  Remember, meat and dairy products can’t be eaten together according kosher dietary law, so to make sure you’re properly observing the Torah, don’t be meshuga and download ParveOMeter.  Simply press either the “meat” or the “dairy” button when you’re eating one or the other, and press again when you’re done.  ParveOMeter will keep track of how long it’s been since you’ve eaten and tell you when it’s OK to eat the other.  Never worry about getting the urge to wash down that burger with a shake again so long as you’ve got ParveOMeter in your pocket, so eat up, and mazel tov!

 

App Name: Rubberduck
Developer: AAApplications
Category: Entertainment
The alphabetically astute AAApplications is back, and apparently they’ve had either the Boomtang Boys or Sesame Street on repeat and decided to create their own virtual squeaky toy. A duck, specifically — what else?  Yeah, it’s exactly what you think.  You press, it emits a wheezy squeak.  You press press press, and Charro appears, asking for her maracas back.

 

App Name: TwitterFon
Developer: Kazuho Okui
Category: Social Networking
Another Twitter client.  This one is pared down to its barest essentials, focusing on viewing friends and replies, message timeline, and sending/responding to tweets.  If you’re looking for more than that, look elsewhere.  If all you want is a tiny Twitter app for the most essential of features, then maybe this is your ticket.

 

App Name: Weight Converter
Developer: Gregory P. Moore, MD
Category: Utilities
Who needs apps with dozens of convertable units, anyway?  Why hunt through pages and pages of menus to find the unit you want to convert when all you’re really interested in is how many damn pounds are in a kilogram?  (2.2, or close enough, in case you were wondering)  Weight Converter to the rescue!  All it does is convert weights.  Grams/Kilos to and from Pounds/Ounces, to be specific.  Now, whenever an emergency arises where you’re given a weight in one unit of weight measure and you don’t know what the hell that is the unit of weight measure you actually understand, you can whip this out and translate in a proper hurry.  Like, for example, if you’re an American doctor who’s found himself in Canada and is suddenly called upon to do an autopsy in a rush and all you have are those incomprehensible metric scales, you can weigh the heart, the liver, the stomach — hey, any organ you like with just a few quick taps and no hunting!  Or, like when … you’re … OK, no, I’ve run out of examples.

 

App Name: Baloonacy (Adwrap)
Developer: Mobile Amusements
Category: Games
Remember games like Bubble Ghost?  No?  Didn’t I tell you to get off my lawn? Anyway, Baloonacy brings that style of game back to the iPhone and Touch in a way arcades and game consoles never could.  The object of the game is to guide your bubble around each level and avoid obstacle, lest you bump into something and pop.  Collect keys to open pathways and make it to the goal.  Movement is accomplished by tilting your device gently to let gravity take its course.  The game is played on a flat surface (or anyway with the device parallel to the ground) and is pretty sensitive, so it takes a steady, gentle hand to get around the maze.  The graphics are colourful and cartoony, which is nice if you like that sort of thing.  This particular version of the game is identical to the paid version — in other words it is not crippled in any way — but to play the free version, you’ll have to put up with interstitial ads between games (just like Cookie Bonus Solitaire).  If you don’t want the ads, the paid version is only a couple of bucks and will give you the uninterrupted gameplay you desire.  At the time of this writing, there aren’t any real ads, as I don’t think the Adwrap network is fully up and running yet.  However, be aware that if you’re playing this on an iPhone outside of an accessible WiFi network, you may incur data charges from the ads.

 

App Name: Beijing2008 Helper
Developer: NaughtyNuts
Category: Travel
NaughtyNuts.  *snerk*  Anyway, not that this is going to be relevant for much longer, it’s a travel guide for your happpy fun spending time in Beijing attending the 2008 Summer Olympics.   It provides a visitor’s map to locate the competition venues, a wee bit of language assistance giving you the Chinese pronounciation of said venues so you can ask the cabbie to take you there, GPS support in case you get lost, and more.

 

App Name: Bookmarks
Developer: DeliciousSafari
Category: Utilities
Well, that certainly makes my job easier.  A developer/application name combination that pretty much tells you all you need to know about what this is and what it does: A browser for your del.icio.us bookmarks.  About all I can add is that it has landscape support.

 

 

App Name: Domanier
Developer: Muthu Arumugam
Category: Utilities
A simple app that will display your website (or any website) alongside its Google page rank.  It can even keep track of rankings as they change.  Um … other than that, I got nothin’, so I’m just going to sit here and have a beer in lieu of something interesting, amusing or snarky to say.  Yup.  (Yup.)  (Yup.)  (Listenmanthatdangol’Ericmanhejustbein’borinlikewatchin’dangol’paintdryinman Dangol’.)

 

App Name: How Fast
Developer: Leapingfrogs.com
Category: Travel
#3 in the Spedometer series, and another Ameri-centric “kilowhaters?” app, Spedometer pretty much does what the other spedometers do, which is measure speed.  It’s fairly attractive, with a simulated analog needle to tell you how fast you’re going.  Maybe Dr. Gregory P. Moore, MD can write a distance converter to help out those who don’t live in one of the three countries that still use imperial measurements, because if there’s anywhere you need to be able to convert from one unit to another really quickly, this would be it.  On the other hand, you’ll have an excuse to give the cop when he pulls you over for doing 150 in a school zone.

 

App Name: HTML E-mail
Developer: Western ITS Limited
Category: Utilities
This isn’t an E-Mail client in and of itself, but it is a composer that gives you easy access to HTML codes so you can compose HTMLized E-Mails and pass them on to the built-in E-Mail client to be sent.  Unfamiliar with HTML?  It has a built-in reference guide for HTML codes to bring you up to speed.  (They’re external, so you’ll need a net connection to access them.)  It can also save files for use later in case you’re interrupted.

 

App Name: iOweYou
Developer: Ryan Rowe
Category: Utilities
Hey, y’know, I don’t mean to be a pest, but remember that $20 I loaned you last month?  What do you mean “no”?  Remember?  When you were tapped out and really needed to go buy some, uh … y’know … personal hygeine cream?  Still nothing?  Dude, you need iOweYou so you don’t forget this stuff.  What?  What do you mean that $40 you loaned me?  I remember no such thing.

 

App Name: Thunder & Lightning
Developer: Tactical Logic
Category: Utilities
Remember when you were taught how to determine how far a storm was from you?  Watch for the flash of lightning, and then one mississippi, two mississippi, three mississ CRASH.  There’s the thunder.  Two and a half seconds.  About half a mile away.  Well, here’s a (marginally) more accurate way to determine that.  Press the “lightning” button when you see the flash, then the “thunder” button when you hear the crash.  The app will take care of determining the storm’s distance.  It works for any event where a flash of light preceeds an audio event. (Fireworks, for example, or propane filling stations exploding.  What?  Too soon?)  To increase the accuracy, you can even enter the current temperature to more accurately determine the speed of sound.  (Sound travels faster in warm weather, dontchaknow.  Only click the link if you’re a total physics nerd.)  The author helpfully states that this app could also be used as an accurate odometer if you happen to be travelling at precisely mach 1, though he recommends against taking your eyes off the skies to pay attention to his app if you’re operating a supersonic aircraft.

 

App Name: LA Traffic Cam
Developer: 3rd Dimension Inc.
Category: Travel
Your portal to hundreds of live traffic cams around the Los Angeles area.  Handy if you’re tooling around the city and want to know which routes are bumper to bumper — or if you just happen to like watching traffic cams.

 

 

App Name: SalesBuilder Pro
Developer: AV Integration
Category: Business
Get instant access to current projects on your SalesBuilder Pro Enterprise Server.  Check out projects, view contacts, directions, project reports, Microsoft Sharepoint data, or submit project notes and images to Sharepoint wherever you are.  Obviously, you’ll need to be running or have access to a server running SalesBuilder Pro Enterprise.  And, I suppose, you’ll need to be in sales.

 

App Name: H@me
Developer: DigitalDan
Category: Utilities
Hatme?  Hame?  Oh, I get it.  ‘Cos it looks like an O, even though it’s not.  No, still not doin’ it for me.  Nevertheless, this is a remote controller for HAI Omni or Lumina home automation systems.  Control your lights, thermostat, audio systems, security system, view your web cameras or your temperature and humidity sensors, control and see what music is playing in your audio zones, and more.  In other words, freak the hell out of whoever is still home while you’re away at work by making them think that maybe your house was built over an old Indian burial ground that was moved to erect housing subdivisions.

 

App Name: Tilt Me Lite
Developer: oeFun, Inc.
Category: Games
Okay. I admit it. I kinda like this one.  It’s a bit of your average maze game — guide the ball to the circular floor tile that serves as the exit.  But this one does it up all fancy.  It’s done up in 3D in such a way that your overhead perspective of the maze walls shifts as you tilt to move the ball such that it’s a little like the maze is a physical thing you can tilt to see the various walls.  Kind of hologramatic, really.  It’s the same sort of effect employed in Stress Toy, though I think that one did it a bit more convincingly than Tilt Me. Perhaps it’s the level of depth involved, or the smoothness with which it was done, I don’t know.  Still, the effect here isn’t half bad even if it doesn’t really manage to suspend disbelief, and it does add a level of visual fun to the gameplay.  Another thing of note here is that the maze floor is divided up into tile sections, and each one lights up and plays a note as you pass over it.  The effect is quite musical, but not in a cacaphonous way.  Furthermore, as you progress in levels, you will be tasked with controlling more than one ball, and will have to position them on the exit tiles simultaneously to advance.  Note however that Tilt Me Lite does not pay attention to the mute switch on the iPhone like a good app should, and there are no settings to adjust volume, so don’t play this if you don’t want everyone else in the vicinity noticing. However, all in all, it’s quite a fun little maze game, and if I had to lodge any complaints, it’s that the mazes are a bit short and simplistic.  However, the addition of more balls to control as you progress makes up for any lack of difficulty curve.  The full version, which can be had for a scanty $2, features thousands of more colourful levels, 3 balls, more gameplay features, and customizable difficulty.  Well worth it, if you ask me — and I know you did.

 

Wow.  That was a hell of a ride, but we’ve finally come to the end.  (That’s what your mom said!)  Join us again next time when we explore the mysteries of what lies within my refridgerator’s crisper drawer.

Wait … what do you mean your mom’s dead?

Oh, crap.

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Posted in Application Related, Entertaining, Free App Store Review, Gaming Related, app store, iPhone 3G