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Daily App: Jump and Chump your way to leaderboard stardom in Jump! Chump!
Jump! Chump! is a simple game with challenging yet addictive mechanics a la Flappy Bird. As listed in its app description, the game has three features which are Jumping, Chumping and online leaderboards. You play the game with two block characters with one seated at the top half of the screen and the other placed on the bottom half. The characters remains stationary while enemies come at them from both directions. You must jump the character on top by tapping on the top of the screen to avoid the enemies above the line, and tap the bottom of the screen to make your character chump to avoid the enemies below the line. Sometimes enemies come at the same time in both directions forcing you to jump and chump at the same time. Once you get hit by an enemy, the game is over and the time you stayed alive is recorded as your score. An online leaderboard through GameCenter keeps track of your achievements. Jump! Chump! is easy enough that you can learn how to play in 30 seconds, but challenging enough that you will keep coming back for more Jump! Chump! is available for free in the iOS App Store. The game is compatible with the iPad and iPad and requires iOS 7.0 or later. There are small ads at the top that don't interfere with game play and there are no in-app purchases.
Daily App: Word Forward mixes Scrabble-like gameplay with brain-busting strategy
Word Forward is a clever word puzzle game developed by Shane McCafferty and published by AppyNation. The app has a hint of Scrabble, but adds new twist to the word spelling game. Word Forward challenges you to clear a 5 x 5 board of letter tiles by spelling words. Each letter is worth a specific value and these amounts are combined when you spell a word. Depending on the level, you start with a specific number of points, say 500. As you spell words, their value is subtracted from these points. In this example, the game is done when you reduce the points to 200. You get extra bonus points if you clear the entire board and reach zero points. The game is more than a simple speller. There are modifiers that allow you to change your tiles on the gameboard. Modifiers include the following: SWAP any two letters on the grid by using a SWAP TOKEN, earned during gameplay. REPLACE a letter on the grid with a SPARE from your inventory to make longer words. JUMBLE the tiles on the grid to replace all the letters with new ones when all else fails. CHANGE the letter on a tile to any other letter you choose using the SWAP MODIFIER. ELIMINATE stubborn tiles with BOMBS when you can't make any more words and need to nudge your score over the line. You have a limited number of modifiers per round and can buy additional ones using the coin rewards system in the game. You earn coins for playing and can purchase more via an in-app purchase. The challenge comes in removing the letters in a way that you are not left with standalone titles that are orphaned and no longer usable. Modifiers cane be used sparingly in your strategy and may be enough to push your score below the winning mark. WordForward is a thinking man's game that is challenging, but not difficult. You can play individual rounds or play online against other GameCenter members. The app is available for free with ads that appear after each round. There are in-app purchases for coins, but you don't need to buy any coins to win the game.
Runtime makes it easy to track where you run, walk or hike
Runtime from Conrad Stoll is a simple fitness app that does one thing and does it well -- it tracks your most important statistics while you run, walk, or hike. I'm using it to track my cross-country skiing and snowshoeing this winter and have been exceptionally pleased with the app's performance. The best feature of Runtime, and the reason why I still use it five months later, is the way it organizes your activities according to "Places" that you define. Instead of a scrollable log of your different exercise sessions, Runtime allows me to organize my sessions by trail loop, making it easy for me to see how many times I skied the Stephens trail or went snowshoeing on the Noyes trail. Runtime is easy to use, which is major advantage when you want just get running and don't want to fumble around with an app. Just fire up Runtime when you are ready to head out and select the "Place" you are going to run. Add a new session and then click the "Start" button to start the timer. The app supports interval training and has the ability to pause if you need to take a break for any reason. When you are done, you can save the run to your "Places" log and then call it up for future review. Runtime provides detailed statistics on each run, including distance, pace and steps, which are from the iPhone 5s M7 motion co-processor. The app displays your run on a map and color codes it so you can see where you were walking and where you were running. Several different map options allow you to see your run in a satellite view or a moving 3D view that takes you along the path of your run. The GPS tracking was accurate for picking up my path through the woods, and the app did a decent job detecting when I was running and when I was walking. The step count was consistent when I was snowshoeing, but struggled to pick up my movement when skiing. This a limitation of the M7, which only detects certain activities as step-based movement. You also can view information on the pace and altitude of each run, which are displayed in chart format. If you want to add personal details not captured by GPS, you can add a note to each stored run. You can share your runs via AirDrop, KML/GPX export or on social networks like Twitter or Facebook. Support for Dropbox import and export ensures you won't lose your history when you upgrade or change devices. Runtime has a basic feature set that is balanced perfectly by the app's usability. Runtime is so easy to use, taking me less than a minute to open the app and fire up the tracker before I hit the trail. When I am done, Runtime stores only the critical statistics that I need to measure my performance. Runtime is available for $2.99 from the iOS App Store. It is compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS 7. There are no in-app purchases, no ads and no required logins to use the fitness tracking part of the app.
Daily App: RepeaterBook is a repeater guide for amateur radio enthusiasts
Little known fact about me -- I am an amateur radio operator and have been dabbling in radio technology for about a decade now. I picked up the hobby when I lived in a rural part of Vermont with no cellular service. The only way to communicate over any distance was via ham radio using the local repeater network. Repeaters are the lifeline of the ham radio operator. They are the towers that relay messages between ham radios, accepting the weak incoming signal and then transmitting it at a higher power, so it can cover a greater distance with minimal loss in quality. Depending on the location and power of the repeater transmitter, you can talk to someone a hundred miles away. And if that repeater is connected to a network, you can extend that distance even further. One handy tool for the ham radio operator is an iPhone app, RepeaterBook from ZBM2 Software. The basic app takes the community repeater database of RepeaterBook.com and packages it into an iPhone-friendly format. You can either browse through all the repeater entries for the US and Canada or enable location services and let RepeaterBook display a list of nearby repeaters. Each entry contains detailed information on the repeater so you can key in those details into your ham radio. The app stores its data on your phone, so you don't need an active Internet connection to browse through the repeater entries. A handy filter allows you to show only those repeaters that meet your license class, radio type or preferred connections. For example, I have a basic handheld radio and set my filters to show only repeaters in the 2M and 70cm band. When you find a mistake with the repeater information, you can edit an entry and submit those details to the database administration. The database is thorough for the area in which I live, but not perfect. It lists almost all the repeaters in my vicinity, missing only one less known repeater a few miles away. The best part about RepeaterBook is not what it does, but what I don't have to do now that I have it installed on my iPhone. Thanks to the RepeaterBook app, I no longer have to carry around my paperback repeater resource, which is bulky and comparatively inconvenient to thumb through. RepeaterBook is available for free from the iOS App Store. It's compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS 5.1.
Crazy Taxi is fast, fun and, for a limited time, free
Crazy Taxi is one of those games that almost every gamer has taken for a spin at one point in their lives, be it on the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, or even the arcade original. The game sped onto iOS in 2012 and although I've always been meaning to give it a joy ride, I just never got around to it. Until now, that is. If you're not familiar, Crazy Taxi puts you behind the wheel of one of a handful of stylish taxi cabs on the roads of a bustling city. It's up to you to find fares, deliver the passengers to their destination, and do it all in the quickest manner possible -- and you needn't worry about the law too much, as driving on the wrong side of the road, cruising on the sidewalk, and taking shortcuts through pedestrian parks is encouraged. You can play the game in a variety of modes including the original arcade mode where you race against the clock and gain time for completing fares. You can also play more leisurely, by picking a set time limit and doing your best to collect as much cash as possible before the bell rings. Fans of the console versions of Crazy Taxi will be happy to hear that the original Offspring-heavy soundtrack remains intact on iOS, but for those who aren't fans, you can also use a custom playlist from your iOS music library. Unfortunately, no MFi controller support has been added yet, but thankfully the on-screen touch controls (with optional tilt steering) works fine on its own. Crazy Taxi is free for a limited time, while a new title in the series, Crazy Taxi: City Rush, makes its way to the App Store where it will debut in the coming days.
Daily App: Image Resize easily scales down your iPhone photos
Image Resize from Jason Pan is a useful iOS utility that allows you to quickly and easily resize an image captured with your iPhone's camera. I use the app to prepare images for blog posts on my family blog. Instead of relying on Wordpress to resize the images to correct dimensions, I prefer to do it myself using this tool. Resize Image has all the major features required in an image resizing tool. You can import an image from your photo library or capture one directly using the camera interface within the app. The camera is barebones with options limited to flash on/off/auto and front/rear camera. Once you have an image, you can resize it down to standard sizes measured in megapixels or percentages. You can choose which standard you want to use by default and change the default sizes to suit your needs. You also can adjust the width and the height of a photo manually with the option to maintain the aspect ratio if you want to scale the image down. There is an undo button if you need to roll back your changes. When you are done resizing, you can export the image to your camera roll, share the image on a social network, send it via email or messaging or pass it on to another app. Resize Image is available in the iOS App Store for free. It is compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS 6. The app includes ads, but they are subtle and do not interfere with the usage of the app. The ads can be removed via in-app purchase of US$1.99.
Defend yourself in the wild skies of Luftrausers
You're a fighter pilot with a plane that can be customized to fire devastating lasers, equip heavy armor, and spin elegantly in all directions. Oh, and it can repair itself while in mid-flight and survive a dive straight into the ocean, too. Your life is constantly in danger as rival pilots, warships, and other hazards flood your path at every turn, and a flight can end in tragedy within seconds of takeoff. This is Luftrausers. This odd little indie title from developer Vlambeer -- available today on Steam for Mac -- is a unique, modern twist on the classic old-school fighter pilot arcade games of yore. With ultra-simple controls consisting of a single button to fire your weapon and basic navigation controls, it takes just seconds to learn, but its steep difficulty curve means you won't be mastering the skies any time soon. As soon as you launch your plane into the air you will be inundated with enemies to take out. Small, quick enemy planes zip by at every angle and don't seem to care if they plow right into your aircraft, while massive hostile ships patrol the ocean below. It's up to you to find a way to spin your plane in a manner that allows you to fire upon them, and then cross your fingers that you achieve a hit. The game is presented in a four-color palette that makes it feel more like old war footage than a game, but the retro-futuristic weapons like lasers and massive missiles remind you that it's all very much tongue-in-cheek. The gritty, bass-filled soundtrack keeps pace with your flying and feels totally on point with the kind of experience the game offers. The more you learn about how to fly efficiently, the more progress you'll make on the various goals laid before you -- which range from taking out certain numbers of enemies to scoring a large number of points. As you gain ranks you'll be given access to new plane modifications like various body types, propulsion systems, and weapons. Luftrausers is currently on sale on Steam for US$8.99, a 10% discount over the regular price of $9.99, and it's definitely worth the price of admission.
Checkmark 2 for iPhone is a slick reminders app
I have a mind like a sieve. Checkmark 2 plugs the holes. The developers at Snowman have released Checkmark 2 (US$2.99 launch price; regular $5.99), a major update to its predecessor, Checkmark. This handy reminders app looks great, improves on old features and adds some new stuff. After a week of use I've promoted Checkmark 2 to my iPhone's home screen. Here's my look at Checkmark 2. New Look Checkmark has been redesigned to feel at home on iOS 7. Minimal icons have replaced the old ones, and the iOS 7 keyboard is in place as is the date selector. Overall, that "heaviness" is gone and the app looks more in line with iOS 7.1's design aesthetic. It's funny how a redesign can make an app feel "lighter," and that's the case with Checkmark 2. I did find one instance where I was wishing to go back to the previous version. The "date selection wheel," for lack of a better term, is smaller in this version and therefore a little harder to use. Not a deal breaker, of course. Scheduling reminders Checkmark 2 lets you schedule a reminder by date or location. This update adds lists to the mix, which is great for to-dos, shopping lists and what have you. Depending on how you use it, its almost like Checkmark 2 has a project manager built-in. First, a look at where and when. Where By far, my favorite function is to schedule a reminder to pop up as I approach or depart a certain area. Checkmark 2 makes this easy by letting you pre-load favorite locations. To begin, tap Where and then hit the "+" in the upper right-hand corner. Enter the name of your new spot ("post office") and then tap Next. From there you've got three options: identify your location from a map, import an address or, easiest of all, simply grab your current location. Adding from the map is fun. The map pops up (normal or satellite view are available) with a text field. You can either enter the name or address, or simply drop a pin if you're super confident. There's an option to expand or contract a location's geofence, too. It starts at 100 meters (good for something specific like a house) and expands all the way out to 30km. I used a radius of 200 meters to define the complex of athletic fields where my kids play soccer in the spring. Once you've found it, tap done and assign a representative icon as the final step (I was wishing for a ballet slipper to use for my daughter's dance studio -- hint, hint -- but the comedy/tragedy masks worked just as well). There are 36 icons to choose from, so you'll likely find something to work. Including The One Who Knocks. Once things are set up, it's a breeze. Just tap the desired location, make a new task and you're good. I'm pleased to report that Checkmark 2 has solved a big issue for me. Typically, a calendar or other reminder app will sound an alarm as an event starts or is about to start. That's all fine and good, but I've been wanting a second prompt to sound as an event is about to conclude. For example: I drop my daughter at dance for 4:00 and need to pick her up at 5:00. Checkmark 2 will let me schedule an alarm for up to an hour after the start of an event. Super! I'd like to be able to do this at two- or three-hour intervals, too. Maybe after an update. Still, that's a huge help. Here's another trick. For fun I set up "cascading reminders." I had to drive to the post office, the grocery store and the bank. So, I told Checkmark 2 to remind me to hit the grocery store as I left the post office, and the bank as I left the grocery store. Fun! That way I don't have to pull out my "Errands" list and see what's next. Checkmark 2 also lets you group similar locations. For example, you can put the drug store, grocery store and post office into a single collection called "Errands." When This is simple and requires no setup. To create a reminder for a certain time, simply tap the "+", give it a title and a date. You can also add some notes and set repeating options. By default, your repeat options are daily, weekly, monthly or bi-weekly. A custom schedule is also available. List Lists view is a new addition. Rather than being an endless strip of bullet points that scrolls forever, Checkmark 2 lets you create headings to keep things sorted. You can also re-arrange the lot at will. It feels more purposeful than tacked-on, which is nice. I've been using it for grocery lists. Overall this is a really nice update. iCloud sync is in place (only an iPhone version exists for now) and there are several notification sounds to choose from. Once you've got your places set up -- which, I do admit take some time -- Checkmark 2 is a pleasure to use.
Daily App: Dudeski is an arcade skiing adventure that you can't put down
Dudeski from Static Oceans is an 8-bit, arcade-style skiing game that captures the essence of other skiing games, but offers its own unique visual style and engaging gameplay. Dudeski is a barrel of fun that'll keep you pounding the slopes well into the summer months. In the game, you play as a skier who is hurtling down Shred Lord Mountain as an avalanche follows him. Your goal is make it to the bottom before the pile of snow overtakes you. As you fly down the slope, you must ski through gates and avoid any obstacles in your path. It's critical that you hit each gate and avoid each obstacle because if you miss, you will slow down and the avalanche will threaten to overtake you. The app measures the distance you travel down the slope on each run. When you hit the end of the slope, you've completed that region and can move onto the next. The game includes four mountain regions, and each run is different. You never ski the exact same slope twice, which makes the game challenging, since you can't memorize the track you need to ski. There are no in-app purchases, but there is an in-game currency of pinecones that you collect as you ski. These pinecones then can be used to unlock shortcuts and purchase gear to make your mountain runs easier. The terrain also is dotted with some friendly penguins, secret trails and trophies. Unlike most games in this genre, Dudeski uses one-finger tap controls to point your skier left or right and two-finger taps to jump obstacles. This makes it easy to control your skier regardless of your position or movement. The app has plenty of content to keep you coming back and has a nice balance of difficulty. The gameplay is easy to understand, which means there is no learning curve to playing. The skiing, though, progressively gets harder, so you really have to work at mastering the game. Dudeski is available for US$1.99 from the iOS App Store. It's a universal app and requires iOS 7.
Daily App: Cook with Grazia helps you prepare Italian meals with ease
As an Irish gal who grew up in a small Italian neighborhood in Westerly, Rhode Island, I'll never forget the sights and smells of the wonderful Italian food being cooked in my friend's houses. To help recapture some of that authentic Italian cooking, I've been exploring the Cook With Grazia app from food journalist and home cook Grazia Solazzi. Cook with Grazia focuses on recipes that are quick and easy to prepare with common household ingredients. All the Italian ingredients are found in the US, making the recipes accessible to almost everyone. Most of the recipes take 20 minutes or less to prepare and include step-by-step picture instructions. The app ships with 80 total recipes that span dish types such as desserts, sides, salads and more. You also can browse by category such as vegetarian, gluten-free, kids and others. If you want to customize your recipes search, you can use the handy finder wheel to dial in different categories and ingredients to find recipes that meet specific criteria, like a kid's dinner with chicken. Besides recipes, Cook with Grazia also includes how-to guides that helps you pick the freshest ingredients, improve your cooking technique and pair the proper wine with your meal. The ability to add notes to a recipe, save favorite recipes and create a shopping list from recipe ingredients rounds out the app. Overall, Cook with Grazia is an excellent cookbook utility for the busy person who enjoys Italian-American cuisine. Cook with Grazia is available in the iOS App Store for $0.99. It's compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS 6 or greater.
Weekend App: viaProtect will give you some strong hints about your iPhone's security status
viaProtect is a free app that will take a look at where your iPhone data is going, and where it is coming from. The app also says it can point you to apps that tend to leak data or are otherwise insecure. The app will look at what is being encrypted from your device, and finally, it will provide a risk profile for your iPhone. You can register your device with viaForensics, the developer of the app, or use it without registration. If you register, you can have web access to some of your device statistics. The main screen of the app is called the dashboard. After a minute or so of analysis you'll get a risk score for your phone. I got a minimal at risk rating (thankfully) and I could see that my data was going to the continental U.S. The app also runs some background processes to give reports on SSL certificates, any processes that are running, a DNS resolver, and a report on network connections. The app uses GPS for some of its analysis, so it may impact battery life. viaProtect won't solve your security problems, but it will certainly give you a heads up about what is going on with your iPhone and let you take steps to stop any potential security or privacy problems. The company behind the app, viaForensics has been providing mobile security apps and assessing risks for many large companies and providing best practices to keep company information secure. viaProtect is not a universal app. It's designed for the iPhone, although it will run on any iDevice that has iOS 6 or later. It is optimized for the iPhone 5.
Daily App: Crossfader lets you try your hand at being a DJ
Crossfader is a fun tool for music lovers who want an easy way to mix tracks. The app uses the gyroscope in your iPhone as your mixing tool, allowing you to get creative as you move. The main screen of the app provides access to your DJ profile, your activity history, a stream of the top crosses and access to the mixing tool. The mixing tool loads up two song that you can play together as a cross or mashup. You then can tilt your phone to mix them by using the tilt to bring one track to the forefront and the other to the back. The app comes stocked with a variety of tracks from different music genres that lend themselves to mixing. You can easily select two tracks by swiping and then mix them by tilting your phone. If you don't like the music in the app, you can buy additional music tracks or use the Crossfader website to import in your own songs. Crossfader has an optional social component that allows you to create a DJ profile, share your crosses with other users and follow other users. You can browse through a stream of new crosses and both like and share those you enjoy. The stream, though, only shares the cross (the two songs you select to play together) and not the mix portion that uses the tilting motion to switch between the two songs. If you use Crossfader for long-from mashups or mixes, be warned that the app has a tendency to crash after a longer period (more than 10 mins) of usage. It also heats up your phone even after just a few minutes of usage. Crossfader is available for free from the iOS App Store. It's compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS 7.
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Surgeon Simulator retains its grotesque hilarity in iPad debut
Surgeon Simulator was one of my favorite PC games of 2013 thanks in large part to its ridiculous premise and intentionally horrible control scheme. The game just debuted on iPad, throwing out the overly complex keyboard commands for overly complex touch controls, and amazingly the formula still works. Surgeon Simulator is a bit of a parody of the hundreds of "simulator" games that flood the PC, and it's anything but realistic. You're given the freedom to perform complicated medical procedures with little in the way of hand-holding or direction. The patient's body is presented before you with organs exposed, and it's up to you to use the tools on your table to complete the operation. On PC, the game assigned a key to each finger on your hand, which resulted in hilarious fumbling of surgical instruments, random objects, and even human organs. On the iPad, things are somewhat streamlined, and grabbing items -- which was a challenge on its own in the original iteration -- is much easier this time around. That being said, actually using medical tools is just as difficult as it's ever been. You can tap on an area you want to direct your instrument, but angling your hammer, saw, or scalpel is still a crapshoot. The patient's death results in a "game over," but just about everything else is totally fine -- including yanking and discarding entire organs. If you find your patient losing blood you can calm the flow by administering a syringe of mysterious green fluid, but as with all the tools, using it isn't as easy as it sounds. There are a few definite drawbacks to the iPad version, including a tendency for your equipment to get stuck inside the patient's body or on your tablet or other equipment. This wasn't as big of a problem in the PC version, but it's extremely common on the tablet. It doesn't ruin the experience, and it's oftentimes hilarious when you see your hammer somehow stuck behind a patient's ribcage, but it's occasionally frustrating as well. Despite that minor complaint, the game is still a fantastic, one-of-a-kind experience. I'm really glad the developer, Bossa Studios, decided to bring the game to iOS, and at US$5.99 it's still a bargain. Pick it up and saw some bones.
Tipbit relaunches with smart search and Evernote integration to help make your digital life simpler
Juggling multiple email accounts can be hassle, but Tipbit aims to make it a manageable one. Founded by Gordon Mangione, the former Microsoft exec who oversaw the development of Exchange, Tipbit combines your various email accounts into one manageable feed on your iOS device. However that's just the beginning of its impressive number of features. Where Tipbit shines is the way it integrates various web services directly into your email, allowing you to check data from LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook without having to switch apps. Swiping left on a message brings up a menu that allows you to sort messages, find mutual contacts, make appointments in your calendar, and other tasks. With its latest update Tipbit is adding a new contextual, instant search function to the app. To ensure searching is as fast as possible the app indexes your information securely off the phone, allowing you to utilize their server for search rather than having your phone do the computing. It gives Tipbit a remarkably powerful leg up in sorting and organizing information. You can even search messages that haven't been downloaded to your phone yet. In addition to improved searching the update adds support for Evernote clipping directly from the app, allowing you to save an email as a pdf for later viewing. If you're worried that Tipbit might be tempted to try and monetize all this information you're sharing with them, put your fears to rest. I was able to speak with Mangione last week about the app, and specifically asked about their planes for monetizing the app. The company is taking a similar approach to Evernote, with the basic services they've made available since launch remaining free as long as the app is active. In the future they'll be offering paid premium services, but the app you download today is the app you'll always use. However they know that to get to that level of success, they have to respect their users' privacy. Mangione promised they would not be using any information connected to their servers for data mining purposes. Given how powerful the app currently is, it's easy to imagine a future where Tipbit finally makes it easy to manage a private secure enterprise email account and your personal email all from one app. We're looking forward to seeing how the app continues to develop over the coming months. You can watch Tipbit's launch video for version 2.0 below.
Daily App: Jenga brings a piece of the puzzle game to your iOS device
If you don't have time at home for a quick game of Jenga, don't worry -- you can bring the game along with you and play against others on your iPhone. Natural Motion, the team behind the Apple-showcased Clumsy Ninja, created a version of the Jenga game along with the help of game inventor Leslie Scott. The iOS version of Jenga keeps the same gameplay as the original puzzle block game. You have a traditional tower of blocks that you must carefully disassemble and rebuild without causing the structure to collapse. The controls make it easy to remove and replace blocks and the physics that control the collapse of the structure are realistic. The game features several modes of play including a single person challenge and multiplayer mode where you play against another person online. There's also an pass and play mode for playing in a group and an arcade mode that challenges you to move fast and match colors as your earn coins. The biggest issue with Jenga is the game itself -- it's a virtual game and cannot capture the tactile cues that are critical to the gameplay. When you pull out a block on the iPhone, the experience is fluid and smooth, which is much different from the real-life game. What is missing are the subtle tactile cues like the the resistance when you remove a block and the wobbling of the structure that tell you whether you've made the right choice or a costly mistake. Also, the app is not updated for the iPhone 5/5s, which is a mixed blessing. Those with a newer iPhone might be annoyed by the borders around the game, while those with an iPhone 4/4s may appreciate an older game that runs well on their device. Diehard fans of the Jenga game will enjoy the casual gameplay and the multi-player modes. Jenga is available for free from the iOS App Store so you don't have to pay anything to play it.
Daily App: Astro Golf is a game of miniature golf disguised as a sci-fi adventure
Astro Golf from Bolder Games takes a challenging miniature golf game and adds in a sci-fi storyline to create a delightfully challenging puzzle-style game. In the game, you are tasked with the job of helping your robot "Orbit" and his robot friends escape from an abandoned cargo ship. The game has a sci-fi look and feel with 3D art that is impressive for a casual golf game. Astro Golf is a miniature golf game first and foremost. Each level kicks off with a virtual tour of the hole and the path you must follow in order to sink your ball. Instead of a traditional golf ball, the ball in Astro Golf is a robot. You must tap, hold and pull back on the robot to aim him and adjust the speed of your shot. A red arrow and dots along the side of the round robot help you gauge the direction and speed of each shot. The dots are convenient, but they sometimes are obscured by your finger. You start off with a basic robot, but can purchase "power ups" that add abilities like a hole magnet and a door opener. You earn in-game currency by completing levels quickly and keeping your strokes under par. There also are "coins" in your path to the hole that you can hit. The more you hit, the more points you earn, which are converted into money that is added to your in-game treasure chest. The app starts out with the basic bank shots and quickly progresses to ramps and other obstacles like black holes and flames. Replay-ability is very high as the game has 50 levels. Each level has a recommended path to the hole, but you can deviate from the recommended path and make up your own. The more creative you are, the more points you will earn. You also can obtain three different robots with support for plugins that provide extra abilities like the ability to move through walls and to move at warp speed. Astro Golf provides an almost unlimited amount of gameplay with challenging mini-golf puzzles that'll keep you on your toes. Astro Golf is available for US$1.99 from the iOS App Store and is compatible with the iPad and iPhone. There are no ads, but there are in-app purchases that you can use to supplement the money you earn within the game. You earn plenty of money from playing and only need to purchase extra if you want to move faster through the game.
Orderly: To do lists with lots of gestures
Orderly (US$0.99) is exactly the kind of app that I normally don't write about in posts. It's a good example of a somewhat okay app that was released too early without proper testing and development, and lacking in any number of killer features. Despite my reservations, I was encouraged to write this post to give a sense about apps that really don't fall into the "must buy" or "exquisitely awful" categories that you normally read about. The developer's pitch letter says, This has great 5 star ratings so far. This app is unique in the sense, it purely uses iPhone gestures in the most comfortable and natural way to create and manage TODOs on your iPhone. Sadly it does not deliver on this promise. Orderly is a to do list. It's pretty enough (despite an unoriginal icon) and was built to leverage gesture-based interaction. It starts with 11 pages of tutorial overviews before you jump into the app itself. Once in, the app is pretty easy to figure out despite those 11 pages. For example, you tap + to create a new to do list. There's even a pretty animated transition from the overviews to the detail screen. Here's an example of where the app disappoints. In the following video, I attempt to navigate between the detail and overview screen. Keep in mind the principal of least astonishment as you watch this. First, I end up tapping somewhere by accident and the screen flips on me. Then I use the un-pinch-to-zoom feature to go from overview to detail. That gesture is non-reciprocal. I cannot use similar gestures to move back to the previous state. Instead, I must tap the "<" button which, for iOS users, has a very specific meaning in navigation terms. That meaning is slightly distorted here. Finally, the actual animation back shows artifacts. None of this is damning -- the accidental touch at the start is entirely my fault -- but as reviewers we do notice the rest. We're looking for a slick interactive experience and this isn't it. When I pulled out a hardware keyboard to test text entry, I received another surprise. The app doesn't take that hardware into account. The text remains "indented" into the portion of the screen normally usable when the on-screen keyboard is shown. If you ask why this video is "on its side," that's because the app was apparently never tested on an iPad, let alone with hardware text entry -- a natural accessory for entering large quantities of text in an app that revolves around text. It's about at this point, where I normally make the review/don't review decision. There were enough quirks to prompt me to move onto the next item in my inbox. Only Dave's request that I showcase the exploration process brought this post to life. Had everything else worked properly, I would have tested the app over a few days in real life scenarios and then written up my overview. An app as pretty as this deserves better. Despite really good intentions, the developer failed to deliver the kind of product that earns a TUAW recommendation.
Daily App: Shady allows you to dim your Mac's overly bright display
Shady is a handy OS X utility that sits in your menu bar and allows you to dim your Mac's screen beyond what is available is OS X. It's useful for Mac owners whose eyes are sensitive to light or for nighttime use when you don't want to light up the entire room with your Mac's overly bright screen. Shady doesn't modify the dim settings in OS X, it works by overlaying a virtual shade over your entire screen. This overlay can be darkened to the point where the entire screen is almost black (90% opacity) or lightened so it has no effect (0% opacity). The default setting is 40% opacity and you can adjust the darkening in 5 percent increments. You can change the darkness level of Shady by clicking on the menu bar icon and adjusting the slider. You also can drop the application icon into the Dock and then click on Shady to bring it to the forefront. When it is the frontmost application, you can use the Up/Down keys to adjust the shade or click "Q" to quit. Shady is available for free from Instinctive Code. It is compatible with Mac OS X Leopard (10.5), and Snow Leopard (10.6) or later.
If you have lots of rubbing alcohol, Lick app may just improve your love life
Sometimes people lack certain skills in life, skills that may affect their love life. The question is: how far would you go to gain those skills? Would you lick your iPhone to improve them? Even knowing where your phone has been? Lick is an important app that forces you to answer that frankly disgusting question. Love is a battlefield after all, and everyone knows war is hell. Lick is a web app that wants you to get busy with your phone. You can view the site here, but the true meat of its content is only available via touch screen devices. After you pull it up on your iOS device, navigation is controlled via licking your screen. Once inside, Lick offers up three separate levels of "tongue training." Level 1 is flicking a light switch up and down as many times as you can, level 2 requires you to turn the crank of a pencil sharpener in a circle, while level 3 is sort of a freestyle session where you aim to keep a ball in the air. Again, all using your tongue. On your iPhone. Which -- let's be honest -- you probably also use in relatively unsanitary places. We're trying to be classy about this, so think about where you clear most of your Instapaper queue. Yeah, that place. So in the interest of promoting public health, here's how to practice safe licking: Method 1: Place saran wrap over your screen. Get to business. Method 2: Rubbing alcohol. Lots and lots and lots of rubbing alcohol. Get the 90% isopropyl alcohol from your local pharmacy. Put some on a paper towel. Clean your screen. Repeat until the voice in your head stops screaming "what are you doing?" Get to business. Then clean your screen again with alcohol. Then probably consider contacting a priest or a therapist. If all this sounds absolutely insane to you, perhaps you should watch this trailer. Maybe we're slowly licking our way to the future. Either way, please for the love of God clean your phone first if you try this. Or at least use protection.
Waterlogue: Creating beautiful "watercolors" of your photographs
Since the App Store launched, one of the more busy categories has been Photo & Video apps. Many apps have provided filters to enhance or destroy our photographs, and some of those filters have tried to turn photos into what look like paintings or drawings. I say "tried" because most of those have failed to do a good job. Waterlogue (US$2.99) is a universal iOS app from Tinrocket, LLC's John Balestrieri and Robert Clair that does one thing -- transforming your photos into watercolor-like images -- very well. Waterlogue is very simple to use: just launch the app, take a photo or select one from your photo library by tapping a camera button, and then let Waterlogue work its magic. If you like what Waterlogue has done with your photo -- which will happen most of the time -- a tap on a heart icon lets you share your painting with Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr or have it printed on a 4 x 6 inch postcard by Sincerely and shipped "anywhere in the world." Your artworks can also be saved to your Photo Library, opened in another app, or emailed. As a user, you could just stop there as your results are usually fantastic, but Waterlogue lets you tweak your images. All of the tools are available in a single sliding row at the bottom of the app. First, you have your choice of a dozen slightly different painting types: Natural, Bold, Luminous, "It's Technical", Travelogue, Rainy, Illustration, Soaked, Shallow, Color Bloom, Fashionable, and Blotted. But wait, there's more! You can also select the size of brush you're using, change the image brightness, and add a border -- which for the sake of realism even has some "paint" that has run off of the side of your image and onto the border. All of the images you see in this post were taken with my iPhone camera at some point in the last two months and then run through Waterlogue to give them that soft, hand-painted look. One thing I always wanted to do but never had the talent for is to create trip journals that are illustrated with paintings. With Waterlogue able to magically create beautiful watercolors of my photos in seconds, I can see using it and a travel journal app (perhaps Trip Journal or AOL's MapQuest Travel Blogs) to capture my memories. At this point, there's nothing more that I can say about Waterlogue other than "buy it". The app is universal, requires iOS 7.0 or better, and is optimized for iPhone 5.
