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Six fun and useful iPhone apps
Some iPhone apps are fun, some are useful (and some are neither). In this set of iPhone app reviews, we've got a mixture of each. In this batch of mini-reviews: iShred, Quik, Pro Basketball, Silly Songz, Wordology, and Silver Revolver. iShred ($4.99US)If you like playing the guitar or other musical instruments, then you might want to consider this app -- it could be one of the most full-featured guitar apps on the iPhone. From the ability to create and record your own songs, to the ability to listen to others play songs around the world -- iShred [iTunes link] has it all. There are over 2,000 built-in chords, scales, and fret positions that get assigned to the two fret rows at the top of the screen. When you tap a fret and strum the strings, a sound will be played. When you set up the frets for a certain song, you have the ability to save this setup for later. You can also save your songs or transfer them to another iPhone anytime you have a wireless connection. The application includes other effects including several virtual stomp boxes, like: Adrenaline: A treble booster HK-2000 Delay: Echo Hot Fuzz: Distortion Kömpressör: Power chords Sybil: Dual chorus pedal Trembler: Tremolo Wahsabi: Tilt control for wah pedal You can use up to four of these effects on a song. Getting to play your own songs is a cool feature of this app, but something just as cool is the ability to listen to others playing their iPhone guitars. AirPlay, a built-in feature, allows you to do this. Just open the AirPlay feature and watch as other users from around the world rock out. Overall, this application is great for guitar aficionados or people who just want to be able to play guitar anywhere. You can pick up iShred in the iTunes App Store for just $4.99US. %Gallery-47746%Quik Search (free, pro version available)Searching different sites on the iPhone can be a kludge, especially if you don't like having only two search engines available natively with Mobile Safari. Quik Search [iTunes link] hopes to solve this by adding different sites and engines. Quik allows you to customize your search experience by adding a list of sites that you wish to search to the main screen of the application. You can choose from over 50 pre-designed search engines/sites (including Google, Amazon, Twitter, and of course, TUAW). Just enter your search term in the application and press the blue arrow ... your search query will be sent away to the site of your choice and you can view your results in the Safari-like browser built into Quik Search. You might ask "What if they don't have my favorite site/search engine?" Well in that case, you can create your own "search plugin" by entering the name, adding an icon, and entering the template search string. The application helps you to understand what a template search string is, and how to format it for Quik. You can also enable/disable "Launch Safari" when searching (if you don't like the built-in browser). If you are looking for a better search solution on the iPhone, then this application could definitely save you some time and energy. You can get Quik search for free on the App Store, although it is ad supported. If you wish to get rid of the ads, you can purchase a pro version [iTunes link] for $1.99US.%Gallery-47748%
Zumobi inks Windows Mobile distro deal with Microsoft
Hot on the heels of a freshly minted public beta, Zumobi has paired up with former parent Microsoft to distribute its tiled content browsing client with Windows Mobile. Zumobi's press release is extraordinarily vague (see the full text after the break) and we can't really make out how far-reaching the distro deal is, but even if only a modest percentage of future WinMo handsets feature Zumobi's client built in, you've gotta figure that it's a huge win for the start-up -- if you can really call a Microsoft spinoff a "start-up" -- that's definitely looking for all the publicity it can get right now. Anyone have a chance to fiddle around with the beta yet?
ZenZui becomes Zumobi in preparation for December public beta
Remember Microsoft spinoff ZenZui and its crazy, patented "Zooming User Interface" concept back at CTIA earlier this year? The company's still kicking around, and they've got a fresh name (apparently to better reflect its product, though we're not sure it's any better than the old) and a fresh beta to show for it. Beginning December 14, the newly-christened Zumobi will be releasing Windows Mobile 5 and 6 flavors of its client to intrepid users looking to check out, create, and trade the content "tiles" that make Zumobi what it is. Even cooler, though, might be the news that the company is prepping both BlackBerry and generic J2ME versions of its client for release in the second quarter of next year. Hop on over to the Zumobi site to register for the beta in the meanwhile.
