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Daily iPhone App: Dojo Danger is worth the wait
It's hard to believe it was almost exactly a year ago that I met up with Kihon at last year's Game Developers' Conference to see this game called Dojo Danger. It's now available on the App Store, but it took quite a while. Even though the game was almost finished last year, Kihon chose to focus on a Draw Something-style game called SketchPhrase instead, only bringing Dojo Danger out a little while ago. In my humble opinion, they needn't have waited: Dojo Danger is a great game. Kihon is perhaps best known for the very simple Baby Monkey (Going Backwards on a Pig), but their work has a lot of polish and charm, and Dojo Danger is a very colorful, well-built title. It's a turn-based physics combat title, where you fling little discs (meant to represent ninjas and zombies) around a 2D board, doing and repairing damage and trying to win the battle. There are a few games like this on the App Store (the Squids series is one), but I like Dojo Danger despite its similarities -- it's simple, straightforward, and while the strategy can get interesting (each level has various obstacles and bonuses for you to go after with your attacks), it's never overwhelming. There is one small issue with the game, and it's that with the HD version on the iPhone, the text and controls are a tad too small -- the title's clearly designed for the iPad, and I bet it looks great on an iPad-sized Retina display. I'm also not a big fan of the boost system and its IAP -- it's very powerful, but it adds a lot of complexity that probably shouldn't be there. Those are small issues, however -- Dojo Danger is a lot of fun, and definitely worth the US$0.99. Hopefully the next time Kihon's got a game like this, it won't make us wait a year to play it.
Daily iPhone App: Poker Knight combines poker hands with an RPG
Poker Knight is a game that I was really excited to see coming to the App Store. I'm a big fan of poker, and I'm a big fan of role-playing games, so when that trailer arrived, I was right away looking forward to seeing what this one was like. Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to my expectations. It's not a bad game, but the original premise of combining poker with an RPG isn't exactly what this is. Instead, it's a game that combines poker hands with an RPG. You wander around a fantasy world fighting monsters and earning XP as usual, but instead of actually playing Texas Hold'em, you're just choosing cards and putting them together into the best hands possible. You can see it in action below -- it's not the best card game ever made, but the graphics do look nice, and as you play it more and more, you do start thinking in that poker mindset of seeing how the cards fit together. There's also a magical amulet mechanic later on that mixes up the gameplay a bit more, but basically this is a matching game with that RPG foundation. It's not bad, and if the game still intrigues you, it's worth the US$1.99 to see how it plays, especially on a newer iPhone or iPad. But unfortunately this isn't exactly the most hardcore poker game around. For that you'll still have to stick to one of the many variants already available on the App Store.
Daily iPhone App: Note.S is a simple and impressive daily journal
Yes, there are plenty of notes apps out there, in varying amounts of quality and cost, and odds are that you already have some notes saved up somewhere on your iOS device (for me, it's right there in the official Notes app). But every once in a while, an app comes along that's just so simple and elegant it's worth a look anyway, and that's the strangely named Note.S. This is a really beautiful notes app that's set up as a daily journal, so you can track, from day to day, what you're trying to remember and note on any given day. As you can see above, the interface is simple and clean -- there are just a few icons across the bottom, and then the rest of the screen is yours to fill up however you wish. You can add photos or a map to your notes, change fonts as necessary, or even save or export your notes out to Dropbox, email and a few other options. This isn't the kind of app that demands you to use it in a certain way -- it's the app that you download, use a few times and then create your own usage patterns for it. The "daily journal" element is very interesting -- each note is filed by date and time, so as you enter more and more notes into the app, you can get a nice scope of your life as it goes on. It's not as robust as Day One, but it isn't supposed to be. Anyway, if you've already got a notes solution, this one might not make you look twice -- there are plenty of great notes apps out there that offer more features. But Note.S is a solid app currently available at a launch price of US$1.99.
Daily iPhone App: Cthulu Saves the World arrives from Xbox Live Indie Games
Zeboyd Games is a very impressive up-and-coming indie games company. They just released the third game in the Penny Arcade series on Xbox Live Indie Games to rave reviews. Cthulhu Saves the World is one of their earlier titles, and it did quite well on that same platform. It's a retro RPG in the style of 8-bit games such as Dragon Warrior or the original Final Fantasy games. But it's also a parody of these, in a way: your hero isn't a warrior of the light or a young lad finding his way in the world. It's Cthulhu, the legendary god of chaos from the series of horror stories by author HP Lovecraft. Cthulhu wakes up, and he isn't able to bring destruction to the world as usual. It's your job as a player, through a series of RPG cliches and a well-tuned combat battle system, to get him back those powers so he can be, well, Cthulhu. Cthulhu Saves the World is pretty great. It's a quality game, and a very nice addition to the iOS library. The one caveat I have is that the controls are slightly awkward. You swipe around the screen to move, and that can be kind of annoying if your finger slides in the way (not to mention that it's not very ergonomic). Swiping during menus can be unclear as well, although battles are all turn-based, so there's plenty of time to change a choice if you make the wrong one. At $1.99, however, Cthulhu Saves the World is priced super low, and there's a fair amount of content to enjoy and play through. The script is funny, the combat is solid RPG, and you'll enjoy following along with Cthulhu's story. Just be careful -- hanging around Cthulhu for too long might end up causing a little insanity.
Daily iPhone App: Swordigo hacks and slashes in 2D
Swordigo is a really impressive venture on iOS. It's a 2D-action platformer with a lot of nice RPG elements. In other words, it's a 2D Legend of Zelda title, and it lives up to that comparison quite well. There are a few weak points. The graphics aren't exactly impressive though they do get the job done, and the story is barely there and hamstrung by some translation issues, I think. But neither of those things matters much, because the game is well designed. Every swing of your sword pops up XP into a meter, which feels very rewarding and makes the whole affair a lot of fun. Plus, Swordigo is free today, so you should probably just go download it. It's a quality game anyway, but for zero dollars, it's a must-get.
Daily iPhone App: Off the Leash provides chaotic canine fun
Off the Leash is a game that arrived a little while ago on the iPhone, but it's gotten a few updates since I first played it, and it just so happens to be free on May 10. It's an endless runner, but instead of a side-scroller, it runs from the top down, and it's got a few new elements to this genre. First, it's time-based, so not only do you need to run for as far as possible, but your goal is to hit the next checkpoint within a certain time limit. Second, as your little dog runs along, you can "recruit" other dogs to run with you, which up your speed but also make it harder to maneuver around. Eventually, you hit a boundary (the cops catch your little dog that's been running amuck), and then you start over again from the beginning. Off the Leash is great fun. The graphics are colorful and funny, the game's tilt-to-steer challenge is tough but not overwhelming at all, and especially at the low price, it's a great game to have on your iPhone. Definitely give it a download.
Daily iPhone App: WorldView+
It's no secret I'm fond of webcams from around the world, and I'd forgotten about a little gem I downloaded long ago: WorldView+. As far as these apps go, WorldView+ has possibly the best design of all of them. Also, like many other webcam apps, it has some missing cameras (although it touts 10,000). But I have yet to find one app with the most comprehensive camera lists -- all are a compromise. That said, WorldView+ is one of the more functional and attractive "compromises" out there. Plus, it looks great on the iPad or iPhone. The buttons at the bottom allow easy access to your bookmarks, perform a search, look near your current location for cameras, and discover random or featured cams. These are the basics, really. What distinguishes WorldView+ are little touches like providing a wealth of info around each camera -- Wikipedia articles, weather at that location and even an image taken during daytime (local to that camera), which is nice when you happen upon a camera that shows nothing but darkness. There are a number of streaming cameras set up, and a few that will provide a time-lapse view. For some reason WorldView+ missed a few cameras I found otherwise, and it seems to focus primarily on landscape cameras. World Live Cams had a few cameras I didn't find in WorldView+, but overall WorldView+ is a better app as it is more complete and packed with useful features. As with any properly-designed app, bookmarking cameras, finding info and basic searches are all done with a minimum of fuss. Map view is a joy to use, and it looks great. Zooming around the map, then into an image, then zooming into that image makes you feel a bit like transporting around -- or at least like you have access to a vast array of surveillance cameras. While there's always more that could be done with any interface (Tapbots apps do this well), the core functionality of most cam viewers is encapsulated within WorldView+ and all for a reasonable $2.99. If you like webcams, you'll really enjoy WorldView's features and design.
Daily iPad App: deck
The iPad's built-in iPod app used to be my favorite way to interact with music on any device. It struck a good compromise between the heavy, sidebar-driven UI of iTunes on the Mac and the simple text-only music browsing on the iPhone. Then iOS 5 came along and ruined everything; the old iPod app got replaced with a UI catastrophe called "Music" that convinced me to switch to my iPhone as my primary music player. Although I'd occasionally use a visualizer app like Planetary to play music on my iPad, I still longed for a music player on the iPad that was as easy to use as the old iPod app was. Szello, Inc. contacted me about their music player, deck, and after just five minutes of using it I was in love with it. deck is about as simple as a touchscreen music player gets, and its interface reminds me of either a big 8-track player or one of those touch tone phones with giant buttons marketed toward the elderly. That might sound like I'm knocking deck, but in reality that kind of interface is exactly what I was looking for. The iPad's built-in Music app is an unnecessarily complex beast with inexplicably tiny controls, terribly inconsistent user interface colors, and an album-art-driven music browser that's a chore to navigate for all but the tiniest music libraries. deck strips out all that UI cruft and instead presents a decidedly superior alternative: big, unmistakeable buttons that tell you at a glance what's going on with your music. The default Music app's UI, or What Not to Do. deck: Your music, streamlined. That's more like it. Unlike the flashy but frustrating art-driven UI of the iPad's default Music app, deck takes a page from the iPhone's Music app and presents a simple, text-driven interface. No more hunting through a grid of album covers to find playlists or a specific artist -- deck simplifies browsing music on the iPad even for my 8000+ song library, and it supports playback of songs uploaded to iTunes Match, too. deck is close to perfect as a music player for the iPad, but there's still room for improvement. The app doesn't have built-in controls for AirPlay and requires that you enable/disable AirPlay streaming via the iPad's multitasking bar. Since the app is basically a UI "wrapper" for the iPad's music library (AirPlay streaming technically occurs via the built-in Music app in the background), I don't know if this is necessarily something the developers can work around. deck also doesn't have lyrics support, but since the built-in Music app doesn't either, I'm willing to give deck's developers a pass on this one. Three changes I would like to see in future versions of deck: deck doesn't appear to support playlist nesting at present. All playlists appear in one long, unbroken list, with no nested folders. Not everyone uses nested playlist folders in their music library, but I've found it a necessary feature to keep my playlists organized. Artists and Songs have the little alphabet slider on the right side for ease of navigation, letting you jump around the music library quite quickly, but the Albums view doesn't. For someone like me, with over 1000 albums in my library, this makes navigating albums harder than it has to be. Controls for Shuffle and Repeat show a little green light when active -- a definite improvement over the inconsistent color scheme in the Music app -- but the light might still be too subtle for some users. I'd suggest instead changing the control color on the button to a blue glow, similar to the Music app on the iPhone. With those three minor changes, deck will be pretty close to flawless. For US$1.99, deck provides a more than capable alternative to the bloated mass of UI inconsistencies and feature creep that Apple's Music app became in iOS 5. If you've found the default Music app frustrating or confusing to use, deck is a great replacement and worth every bit the developers are charging. At the same time, those of you at Apple who bollixed up the Music app in iOS 5 had best download deck and take some detailed notes.
Daily iPad App: Fuze Meeting HD connects to telepresence systems
The flexible Fuze Meeting web conferencing platform already had a very solid iOS story, with the ability to schedule and start meetings from the iPad (including multiparty HD videoconferencing). Now, with the recently released version 4.0 of the app, the company is building a bridge to corporate high-end conferencing gear. The new app is compatible with Fuze's Hosted Telepresence Connect service, which allows iPad users to join in videoconference sessions with high-end installed systems from Cisco, Polycom, LifeSize and other vendors. These enterprise conferencing room systems don't come cheap, but adding the iPad clients into the mix expands their flexibility and may increase their utilization. (If you have to ask: the Telepresence Connect service starts at US$2,000 a month for connection to three endpoint systems.) In addition to the big-ticket feature, the new app version also includes the ability to start a meeting recording from the iPad, touch annotation of shared documents, and more. The free app paired with a trial Fuze account allows you to test out the meeting functionality; monthly plans start at $29.
Daily iPhone App: WorldCard Mobile scans your business card collection
The paper business card may go away someday if innovative apps like Bump and Evernote Hello take over, but for now we're still dealing with these little chunks of cardboard. Of course, in almost all cases it's not the physical object we care about, but rather the data printed on the card. (Some exceptions are inevitable.) Getting those inky bits converted to actual bits is easy enough with your iPhone and the right app. My default tool for business card scanning has been CardMunch, which has a number of advantages: fast, ties in easily to parent company LinkedIn, accurate (using actual humans to do the card transcription) and free. Unfortunately, CardMunch's cloud dependency means that sometimes it can get backed up, and when you're sitting on an airplane with a stack of post-conference business cards to go through, it's quite likely useless. That's where the Penpower family of contact management apps comes into play. The flagship iPhone app is the US$6.99 WorldCard Mobile, and it picks up nicely where CardMunch leaves off. You can scan your cards neatly without any network connection, and all the OCR processing is handled locally on the phone. Additional features include the ability to copy an email signature and parse it into a contact record, which is a lot more useful than I thought it would be. How good is the OCR function? Well, you can test it yourself with the app's lite version (allowing three scans the first week, and one scan per week after that). In my evaluation, I'd give it a B+ compared to the intelligent transcription of CardMunch -- keeping in mind that CardMunch also makes mistakes on some cards. Given that it's working in disconnected mode, the slight loss in accuracy seems to be a reasonable tradeoff. What's a little harder to take is WorldCard Mobile's UI, which has the same weird aesthetic and hinky buttons as a lot of other utilitarian apps on the App Store. It compares unfavorably to CardMunch's clean look, and it's most reminiscent of the early versions of Readdle's apps (which have come a long way since v1, in fairness). The lite version will let you know pretty quickly whether the look will make you nuts or not. Penpower also has a WorldCard Contacts app, which lets you keep the card images alongside your contact records but omits the OCR tool; it's $2.99. There is an iPad version, too, which costs $14.99 and doesn't quite work as advertised with the iPad 2's onboard camera, per reviewers -- it's apparently not quite high-res enough for accurate recognition. If you're a frequent business card recipient and you'd like to be mobile-enabled, check out WorldCard Mobile; start with the lite version, and if it's useful you can fork over the $7 for the full build.
Daily iPad App: Final Fantasy Tactics
Final Fantasy Tactics first came out for the original PlayStation in 1997 as a more strategic take on the famous roleplaying game franchise. I didn't get around to playing it until 2001, but when I did, it turned out to be a peerless game that still ranks among my all-time favorites. Between a deep combat and character growth system that satisfied the stat nerd in me and an extremely well-crafted, almost Shakespearean story, the original PlayStation version consumed a solid two months of my free time 11 years ago. In 2007 I was excited to hear it was being re-released with an updated translation and some other tweaks, but I was then disappointed to hear that it would be exclusive to the PSP, a system I never had any interest in owning. Final Fantasy Tactics was announced for iOS not long after the original iPad's debut, and right away I imagined the game fitting the then-new tablet like a glove. But a series of delays meant the port kept getting pushed back, and it wasn't until over a year after its initial announcement that Final Fantasy Tactics came to the iPhone... but not the iPad. Square Enix promised an iPad version within a month of the iPhone version's release, but Square Enix is definitely a company where you have to take release dates with a very large grain of salt. Six months after the iPhone version launched, Final Fantasy Tactics has arrived at long last on the iPad, but at US$17.99 it may well be one of the most expensive games on the App Store. Any review of Final Fantasy Tactics for iPad has to answer two questions at minimum. First, how well does this extremely complex game translate to the iPad's simple, touch-driven interface? Second, is this game worth almost twenty bucks in a market dominated by an overwhelming majority of games that hover between $0.99 and $2.99? First, I'll address the interface. Final Fantasy Tactics is a very deep game, one whose user interface was always fairly obtuse to begin with: menus within menus within menus, like the designers were predicting the film Inception years in advance. That complex and highly layered interface carries over from the earlier versions onto the iPad; in fact, as far as I can tell Square Enix essentially ported the PSP version to iOS while barely revisiting the interface at all. Without having re-optimized the game's controls for a touchscreen (aside from a welcome tweak that lets you rotate battlefields to any angle), Final Fantasy Tactics' interface can often be a chore to wade through. Even at nearly twenty hours into the game, I still find myself struggling to target units on the battlefield correctly on a first attempt. The game's veritable explosion of menus will prove daunting for novice players to navigate on the iPad's screen; this is not a game an eight-year-old is going to enjoy unless his/her I.Q. and patience are both off the charts. None of this should imply that the game is unplayably confusing, but as I navigate through the mostly menu-driven UI I'm silently thankful that Apple didn't simply shove OS X onto the iPad and instead went with a more simplistic approach in iOS. If Final Fantasy Tactics' interface is anything to go by, using a full port of OS X on a touchscreen would be maddening if I had to do it every day. It's worth noting that the iPad port doesn't suffer from the infamous slowdowns that plagued the PSP version of the game and earlier versions of the iPhone port. Final Fantasy Tactics runs extremely smoothly on my iPad 2, and the app fully launches within only a few seconds, much faster than I expected it to. The second big question: Is Final Fantasy Tactics worth eighteen bucks? It depends. Final Fantasy Tactics on iPad is definitely worth $17.99 if: You played the original on PlayStation, but never the PSP remake You played the PSP remake but don't have a PSP anymore You're a fan of tabletop-style or strategic RPGs and looking for a challenge You don't already own the iPhone version For me, Final Fantasy Tactics on iPad was a guaranteed launch-day purchase regardless of the price, and the relatively high cost of the iPhone version actually makes the iPad version look like a bargain by comparison. Final Fantasy Tactics costs just two dollars more on the iPad than on the iPhone, and the game's interface is unquestionably better-suited to the iPad's much larger screen. The game has an epic play length, too, especially compared to the more disposable "pick up and play" titles that litter the App Store's $0.99 price tier. Though $17.99 sounds like a big outlay in the App Store economy, by the time you've played all the way through Final Fantasy Tactics that may well turn out to be fifty cents or less for every hour of gameplay. I don't remember exactly how much time I spent on the original PlayStation version, but it was probably in excess of a hundred hours. Whether that $18 is well spent is harder to answer if you're new to the game or the genre. Final Fantasy Tactics is difficult to master; the game's difficulty is punishing, especially in the earliest chapters of the game. If you're more used to the "press X to not die" gameplay that Final Fantasy XIII offered, you may find Final Fantasy Tactics' learning curve unforgivably harsh. On the other hand, if you're looking for a game that has one of the most well-crafted stories ever written for a video game combined with gameplay that has almost limitless options, that may well be worth the $18 all by itself.
Daily iPhone App: World Live Cams
An app for webcams for our Daily iPhone App? I have to admit, I'm a webcam junkie. There's something about being able to peek in on places around the world that seems like the future to me. Slothcam has always had a spot on my Dashboard (and I bought the app), but World Live Cams caught my attention recently. Perhaps because every time I boot it up I see Kernersville, NC -- the place where I spent summers on my granparents' farm. But aside from nostalgia and my own personal interests, World Live Cams is a pretty good app if you're into webcams at all. When you start it up, the app will give you a pre-populated list of about a dozen cams from around the world. If you keep scrolling, this list just goes until forever. Search is capable and fast, so typing "England" instantly brought up a massive list of cams from the UK. You can also search for things (like "dogs"). There's a map view, which enables you to pinch, zoom and scroll your way around an iOS map, spotting live cams at locations and zooming into those. The map is cool, but not quite perfect yet. Social tools for "liking" a camera are there, but I warned the developer they need some work as well. Now to be fair, World Live Cams lacks features of some other cam apps. I spoke to the developers, who are keen on adding more features over time. However, their first task was to build their own server infrastructure. What this means is that they can do things like monitor cams for uptime, and if a camera ceases working, they can remove it (and add it later if it starts up). Plus, many features are tied to their servers, which means they can push some updates to the app without waiting for the usual approval process. Most importantly, the team behind World Live Cams is dedicated to improving the app. Some features coming soon include a universal version (with higher resolution for the iPad) and allowing private IP's for security cameras. These guys are thinking about what features people want and implementing them. So yes, World Live Cams is a bare bones product right now. Even so, I think it's worth a buck. Considering the plans for future updates, it's worth the initial investment if you like cams or plan to use them yourself.
Daily Mac App: Gemini finds and removes duplicate files
After years of buying hard drives and moving files around, digital hoarders like myself eventually wind up with duplicate files all over the place. A few gigabytes here and there can add up, so Gemini aims to help you find and delete duplicate files across devices. It's a beautifully designed app, and if you're doing basic directory comparisons, is fast as lightning. To start, you just drag a few folders onto Gemini. It'll start scanning with a big circular progress bar moving around. One of the awesome features I've not seen elsewhere is the ability to see the results of a scan and do something about them while the app continues to scour your folders. Gemini is fast even though you can be impatient, which is a plus if you scan a really large set of folders. One issue I did run into was scanning a nearly-full 500 GB drive that had my Time Machine backups on it. The machine using Gemini only had about 5 GB of space available on its drive, and after about an hour of Gemini checking the external drive, my system locked up as it ran out of drive space! This is an oddball issue, according to MacPaw, and they are looking into it. That said, all the other scans of large folders I attempted worked great and went quickly without eating up HD space. Gemini's speed is really impressive. As a bonus, Gemini offers a delightfully designed interface. When you are shown duplicates, you can easily see where they are located, pick the ones you want to delete, then view a receipt of what you want to remove before you delete it. Then, when you are sure, Gemini "shreds" the receipt (and files) before your eyes. Taking something rather tedious (file management) and making it fun turns Gemini into a must-have app if you have years of files stored on external drives around your home.
Daily iPad App: Fathead
There's something intriguing about Fathead, but honestly, I don't really know what it is. The game is pretty standard -- similar to other titles like Jelly Car or Epic Truck, the goal is to drive a physics-based vehicle across a 2D world, landing jumps and flips as you can. And Fathead has the same issues that those games have: The physics can be a little sticky, and the gameplay is a little simple, given that you really only have one button to control. But Fathead remains fascinating anyway -- maybe it's the well-rendered little motorcyclist, but I found myself trying again and again to get to the next checkpoint and beat my previous score. I do wish there was a little more to the gameplay -- maybe there could be items to collect as you played along, some more tricks to do, or a little something else to mix up the gameplay just a little bit more. But I can't argue that what's there is still well-done, spare and simple as it may be. There is Game Center integration for leaderboards and achievements, and I can only guess that updates are on the way as well. But for 99 cents for the universal version there's a solid chunk of entertainment to be had here.
Daily Mac App: FlashMount quickly mounts disk images
DMG files are often used when distributing Mac software outside the Mac App Store. While DMGs can be confusing to new users, I like them because they allow me to keep an original, unmodified version of whatever program I have downloaded. About the only drawback for me is that some DMGs come with an EULA which has to be accepted before the DMG will be mounted. If the EULA window gets covered up, it can be frustrating to try to figure out why it has not mounted. EULAs can also make DMGs unreliable to mount in shell scripts. While looking for a solution, I came across references to an application called "FlashMount" which was designed to do exactly what its name implies: mounts disk images (dmg, iso, etc) in a "flash." It also automatically accepts any EULA which is presented. OK, sure, we all know we are supposed to read them first. If you do, feel free to skip this app. FlashMount also skips the verification of disk images before mounting. That sounds bad, but in reality, if the disk image is corrupted or incomplete, it probably won't mount anyway. The only time I have ever seen a corrupted DMG, it was an incomplete download. Some disk images don't even have a checksum to verify against, but depending on the size of the DMG, verification can take a long time. On a 1.2 GB DMG, verification takes almost 3 minutes on my MacBook Air. Without verification, I can mount that same disk image in two seconds. Still, if that's not a risk you're comfortable with, this probably isn't the app for you. Otherwise, FlashMount is fast, handy, and free. Download After reading about FlashMount, I was sold on the potential usefulness of this app, but there was one problem: all the download links I found were broken. The articles which talked about FlashMount linked to "www.liquidnexus.com" which was the original site where the app was hosted by its developer. However, sometime in the past few years, the domain registration must have lapsed and been re-registered by a domain squatter (which is why I have not actually linked to it here). Eventually I found a site which had mirrored the download on their own server. Warning: linked website is fairly awful. If you'd rather avoid that, you can download FlashMount 1.5.2 (188K, MD5 sum = 43522f417ae5ccf4f883fc049c8fd0c1) from my personal website. A one page PDF overview is also available. The good news is that the app seems to work perfectly under Lion. I've made FlashMount the default app for opening DMG and ISO files on my Mac, and if I run into any trouble with a particular file, then I open it with DiskImageMounter. However, I found an even better solution if your goal (like mine) is mounting DMGs in Terminal, even if the DMG has a EULA and needs to be mounted by a non-interactive script. Here's where things get nerdy While I was investigating the app, I realized that the whole thing was basically a wrapper around a simple shell script: #!/bin/sh -f echo "Y" | /usr/bin/hdid "$1" #if ($status != 0) exit% I was not familiar with hdid (I had always used hdiutil for mounting DMGs on the command line) but it worked. Sending echo "Y" tells hdid to accept the EULA. (It's important to note that you are not subverting, bypassing, or avoiding the EULA, you are doing on the command line what most people do with the mouse: accepting it without reading it.) I started building on that and made my own script, which I called flashmount.sh. It uses the same echo "Y" trick as the original, but it adds some extra error checking. It also adds an option to verify disk images if you use the '-v' flag, like this: flashmount.sh -v foo.dmg which is handy for those times when you do want to verify an image before you mount it. If the disk image successfully mounts, the script will output the mounted path, which will be something like "/Volumes/Flashmount/" or similar. You can download my flashmount.sh if you want. You could even wrap it up as an app with Platypus if you don't trust the FlashMount.app. FlashMount isn't going to change your life, but it can make one part a little easier and a little faster.
Daily iPad App: Air Harp
The Air Harp is an interesting stringed instrument. It produces breath-taking sounds, yet it's relatively easy to play. It's so easy that many elementary schools use the instrument to teach children music. If you enjoy the sound of a harp and don't want to worry about tuning the strings, you should check out Air Harp, an iPad and iPhone version of the stringed instrument. You'll never replace the feel of the instrument with an iPad, but the Air Harp app does an excellent job reproducing the sound of a harp. The virtual harp has 15 strings representing two octaves of notes in G Major. You can tap the strings to create your own tune, or use sheet music to play a well-known song. The app includes several pieces of sheet music, and you can buy additional collections for 99-cents each. Playing the harp is easy, even for the musically-challenged individual. All you have to do is follow the notes on the sheet music. It helps if you have a basic understanding of music, but even if you don't know the difference between an eighth note and a quarter note, you can still play the harp. You just have to know the tune well enough to tap along. If you want to get a little crazy with the harp, the app lets you pluck or strum the strings without changing any settings. This tap-and-strum mode was a much-requested feature missing in previous versions of the app. Overall, Air Harp is enjoyable and relaxing for the music-oriented adult. Unlike other music apps which require you to tap falling dots on a screen, the app uses real notes and strings which makes it an excellent learning tool for children. Air Harp is a universal app and available from the App Store for $0.99.
Daily iPad App: Sonic CD
Honestly, I can't really profess to be that big a Sonic fan. I like and have played most of the 2D iterations of Sega's headline platformer series on the Genesis, the Game Gear, and most recently, iOS. But I'm not a superfan by any means, and if I've ever played Sonic CD before, I don't remember. I certainly never owned it (though I do remember renting a Sega CD with a friend and playing Night Trap and Sewer Shark over a few weekends). All that said, Sonic CD, release just recently as a universal app for iOS, seems to me to be an exceptionally faithful port of what I do remember about Sonic, offering up colorful graphics, strong controls (performed with a virtual pad and jump button, and all of the standard complaints that come with virtual controls), and a great Sonic soundtrack. I do know that Sonic CD is heralded as one of the best Sonic 2D games, and this version of it comes off as a loving recreation of the original title. Especially on the iPad, these varied and well-designed worlds are big, bright, and beautiful to behold. And Sonic CD for iOS also offers a nice mix of old-school spareness with modern features. There are achievements and online leaderboards, but they're buried in very old-school style menus and are out of the way as you play the old games. I recently said that the Grand Theft Auto port was the best console recreation I'd seen on the iPad, but Sonic CD definitely gives that title a run for its money. It's very well done. Plus, the game's only $2.99 for the universal app, which makes this one a no-brainer. You do have to enjoy Sonic's frenzied platformer gameplay, but whether you're a Sonic CD veteran or never got a chance to play this version of the running hedgehog, this one's worth a look.
Daily iPhone App: Postcard on the Run
I've traveled to over 30 countries since 2009, and today I wish I had brought Postcard on the Run with me. I've been using the app for the last few weeks and have become infinitely fond of it. Postcard on the Run lets you take a picture on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and turn it into a postcard that can be instantly snail-mailed to anyone in the world. I know, I know; that sounds suspiciously like an app by a certain company in Cupertino. But Postcard on the Run succeeds where Apple's Cards app consistently falls short. It's fun, it's uncomplicated, and it's even kinda kooky. When you launch the app, you're asked to select a photo to use as your postcard image. You can choose to either take a new photo, use an existing photo from your camera roll, or choose any photo you've posted to Facebook. That Facebook integration alone makes the app more useful than its closest competitor. Once you've chosen a photograph, you can zoom in or out of it and position it as you please. From there, write a short message of up to 200 characters, and choose your font and color. The next screen is particularly cool, as it lets you sign your name with your finger (or even draw little doodles on the card itself), which adds a level of personalization that you don't find in other apps. What's really nice about the app is it offers you some unique tools and lets you apply some unique features to your postcards to make them more memorable. The most handy tool is called "Postal Gopher." If you choose a recipient from your address book whose address you don't have, the Postal Gopher feature will send a text or email to that individual requesting their address. When they reply, their address will instantly be added to your saved postcard order, which will then be automatically processed and sent. Another nice feature is the ability to add a GPS photo map right onto the back of the postcard, particularly handy if you take pictures of lots of things you see when out and about. For instance, I can snap a picture of a cool, old bookstore in Germany to use as the postcard and the recipient can see right where I took the photo. But perhaps the most fun element is the ability to add smells to your postcard. Using the appropriately-named "Smell Mail" feature, users can choose to add one of eleven scratch and sniff scents to their postcards. It's an old throwback to the time when scratch and sniff was "high-tech." But that's really the point of Postcard on the Run: With the digital world moving so fast, receiving another quickly written email isn't that meaningful anymore. If you don't agree, just ask your mother (or mine). She'd much rather get a letter or postcard from me while I'm on my travels than an email. And even in this instant-everything, living-behind-a-touchscreen world, it's still really nice to have a physical memory that you can thumbtack onto your wall or hang on your 'fridge. The quality of the postcards is also top notch, with the same glossy goodness that you'd expect from any you'd find in a souvenir shop. I've already sent several holiday greetings to friends around the country using them. Each postcard costs between US$0.99 and $1.69, including postage. It's only another 50 cents if you add a Smell Mail scent to it as well. Check out the gallery below, where you'll find more samples of the postcards plus also screenshots of the app. Finally, those of you with keen eyes might notice that some of the postcards in the gallery are addressed to singer and actress Selena Gomez. That's because she's involved with the creative direction of the app, and those are some duplicates of postcards she liked that were sent to her from fans, which she was kind enough to share with me. If you're among the millions of her fans be sure to check back Friday for my exclusive interview with Selena about her involvement with the app, and keep an eye out for a sweet promotion and giveaway from Selena, Postcard on the Run, and TUAW in the very near future. Postcard on the Run is a free download and the perfect app for sending a little holiday love. %Gallery-142245%
Daily iPad App: Grand Theft Auto 3
I'm not quite willing to call Grand Theft Auto 3 old school -- I spent so much time on the original top-down versions of the series that those are still more retro to me than the fully 3D graphics and living, open-world city that GTA3 made famous on the consoles (a tradition that continues right up into Saints Row: The Third, which I recently played on my Xbox, and next year's Grand Theft Auto 5). But it's been ten years since we first saw the streets of Liberty City from the ground up, and Rockstar Games has now brought this classic to iOS as a universal version. And especially on my iPad 2, I'm willing to call it the best console port I've ever seen. The graphics look and run terrific, and the virtual controls, while still a little creaky, actually work really great despite all of the various things you can do. Newcomers to this one used to modern console games will probably notice all of the polygons, but as a reproduction of the original game, it really does look and play very well. And though it's only been ten years, it's really awesome to drive around the streets of Liberty City once again, and listen in to Lazlo's Chatterbox and all of the other great radio stations, checking out all of the open world city conventions (from grabbing any car to escaping the cops) that originated right here. If you've never played this game, you might find it a little aged. The missions are a little unclear compared to today's more simplistic fare, and there's no line to follow on your minimap: All you get is a little dot to go after. But for those of us who really enjoyed the heck out of this one all those years ago, this is great to see, and it's clear that Rockstar has brought it over to this platform with great care. This is an excellent version of this great game, and playing it on my iPad 2 took my right back to those days in my parent's basement when my friends and I would just drive around trying to get four stars and try to escape the cops. One note of warning: The game says it's built for all current iOS devices, including the iPad 1, but a lot of the iTunes reviews say it doesn't run great on those older machines. If you have an iPad 2 or an iPhone 4S, however, it should run quite well. I had one audio glitch while playing, but it definitely wasn't gamebreaking. Grand Theft Auto 3's anniversary iOS edition is available for $4.99 right now.
Daily iPhone App: IM+ with Beep
IM+ is one of the top-rated Instant messaging clients in the iOS app store. It has universal device support, and a list of features that'll suit any messaging fan. Shape Services, the company behind IM +, is constantly improving its iOS app. The latest update landed today and includes Beep, a new IM+-specific messaging service. Beep will let you send instant messages to other friends and family who are running IM +. You can compare it to RIM's BlackBerry Messenger service, which lets Blackberry users message each other. The IM+ version is better than BBM because it has more features and is available on Android, iOS, BlackBerry and Windows Phone. I was able to evaluate the latest version of the IM+ app and check out Beep on both an iPhone 4S and a Galaxy Nexus. The Beep service exists side-by-side with your usual messaging services like AIM and Google Talk. While you're chatting on AIM, it's easy to switch to Beep and use IM+ to send your buddy a quick note. Beep is easy to set up within IM+, all you need is a phone number. Once you confirm your number, you're ready to start adding contacts to your Beep network. IM+ has millions of users, so you probably don't have to look to hard to find friends for your Beep contact list. The fun begins when you've added a few friends and start messaging. The interface makes it seem like you're using an IM service to communicate, but you're not. There's no login or any connection to a third-party server. All messages are sent through IM+, so you don't have to worry about racking up text messaging fees. Messages are delivered promptly, and the app notifies you when a new message is received. It supports push notifications, so you do don't have to leave the app running to receive these SMS-like messages. Each back and forth is saved in a threaded conversation which is available in your history. If you want to share a conversation, you can find it in your history and send the details via email. Besides messaging, the new Beep feature for iOS lets you send a photo, a video, or a voice note to a Beep contact. The app records the audio or video file, uploads it to a server and sends a link to the recipient who can download the file. You can also share your location with your Beep friends. I tested these location, video and audio options and found they all worked well, with the exception of the video message. The iPhone 4S recorded the video clip and uploaded it without a hitch. Within a minute, I received a download link on my Android device. No problem, except the iPhone recorded the clip as a .MOV and the Android device had no idea what to do with it. I originally thought Beep was a gimmick, but these additional messaging options make Beep much more than a novelty. After using it for a few days, I realized how nice it is to have a rock solid IM client and a rich multimedia, multi-platform messaging tool all in one app. It may not become my replacement for SMS, but it will be an app I use regularly for sending a video or audio message to someone. The biggest hindrance to using Beep is finding friends who use IM+. For me, it's easier to fire off an SMS than to identify IM+ users, add them to Beep and make sure they are online when I want to chat. Shape Services has to make it easier to find friends who use IM+ and encourage them to use the app before the service can become a usable SMS replacement. Besides Beep, the new version of IM+also includes a Rovio Angry Birds theme that you can download and install. It has a lovely wallpaper, lots of sounds and all your favorite Angry Birds characters from the game. Beep will be available in both IM+ free and paid versions for iOS, BlackBerry, Android and Windows Phone starting today. You can grab the free version of IM+ from the iOS app store. The paid version costs $1.99 and, among other things, gets rid of those pesky ads. %Gallery-142081%
