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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.
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.
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.
Daily App: Disco Zoo lets you rescue animals and throw them a 70s party
Disco Zoo from NimbleBit is a casual puzzle game that challenges you to rescue 8-bit animals while you build out your virtual zoo. It's an interesting puzzler as it has several different objectives that keep you busy and engaged in the game. The first objective is to collect animals that you add to you zoo. To collect animals, you must find their unique pattern in a 5 by 5 grid. Each animal has a three or four-square pattern and you have eight tries to draw the correct pattern. Once you collect an animal, it is placed in a pen with other animals of the same type. In the zoo part of the game, you are challenged to earn money by keeping your animals awake. When animals are awake, they earn you coins with the more common animals earning you less and the rare animals earning your more. As the animals fall asleep, you are alerted to wake them up in order to keep the money flowing. Coins and DiscoBuxs are the currency within the app and are used to pay for animal rescues, unlock new areas for rescue trips and throw disco parties for your animals. The disco parties require DiscoBuxs and are a lot of fun with cheesy disco music, a disco ball and lots of dancing animals that earn you double the amount of coins during the dance. Disco Zoo is a unique casual game that is part puzzle game and part zoo simulation. The music is fun, and the 8-bit animals are adorable. The game is easy enough that it takes little effort to start playing and is engaging enough that you keep playing when you have a few spare minutes. Disco Zoo is available from the iOS App Store for free. There are in-app purchases for DiscoBuxs and coins, but you can earn all the currency that you need to play the game as long as you are patient. You really only need to buy the in-app currency if you want to advance faster.
Daily App: MyScript Calculator solves your hand-written math equations
Typing math problems in calculator can be tedious, especially when you have complex equations to solve. If you want to write out your problems instead, then you need to check out MyScript Calculator from Vision Objects. MyScript Calculator provides a large canvas on which you can write out your equation. When you are done writing, the app automatically will convert your writing into type-written numbers and calculate the answer for you. If you don't like the automatic answer, a new feature recently added to the app allows you to turn off auto-answer and use a "Calculate" button instead. The app supports the standard operations such as multiplication and division as well as a wide array of complex functions used in trigonometry and calculus. One of the useful features of MyScript Calculator is its ability to solve for unknowns. Just insert an "?" into an equation with its answer and the app will fill in the correct value for the unknown. It also supports gestures which allow you to strike-through or scratch out numbers you want to remove from your calculation. MyScript Calculator was recently updated for iOS 7 and includes a new new operators (n-root, hyperbolic functions) and new rounding options that let you choose between rounded and truncated results. It is available for free from the iOS App Store and works on both the iPad and iPhone.
Demolition Crush gives you bombs and plenty of buildings to explode
Building on their earlier demolition games, AppMania is back with its newest title, Demolition Crush. This latest offering has you playing the role of a demolition man who is living out his childhood dream. Each level brings new explosives and new challenges as you help blow up buildings and reduce them to rubble. Demolition Crush has the look and feel of Angry Birds, with complex, cartoon structures made of a variety of materials that are piled on top of each other. As the demolition man, your job is to place explosives to blow up the structure to below the required level. Be careful in your placement as you don't want the debris to fall onto innocent bystanders. You will crush them and lose points in the process. Demolition Crush requires more than just brute force, you have to study each structure and try to find its weak spots before you start slapping on bombs. It's an arcade-y game so expect to be entertained more than mentally challenged. Than being said, the app has a nice balance between logic and explosive fun, allowing you to think just a little bit before you blow things up. At launch, the game ships with 180 levels that cover three locations (US, England, China) and includes five different explosives which are given to you as you unlock levels. Each level is increasingly more complex and challenging to solve. The app has a rewards system, rubies, that you can use to buy premium items within the game. You earn rubies by destroying a structure, not injuring a bystander and collecting coins by hitting them with your debris. If you need more rubies than you've earned, you also can buy them via an in-app purchase. The game also has an energy level that decreases with every level you complete and forces you to take a break when you've expended all your energy while building. Demolition Crush is enjoyable game for those spare moments when you are looking for something quick to play. The levels are quick to play, allowing you to try several different explosive strategies in just a few minutes. The graphics are good and the animation is smooth, which makes for a pleasing experience. There are plenty of sound effects, but no background music. The only critique of the game is that one of the animated characters in the in-apps purchase section may not be suitable for younger kids. She is appropriately dressed but, like a Betty Boop, she may be a bit "buxom" for the younger set. That's only an issue if you plan on handing over the game to your nine-year-old son, who, of course, would love blowing up buildings. Demolition Crush is available for free from the iOS App Store. It includes the occasional advertisement and has in-app purchases. You also can tie it into Facebook and share your scores on the social network.
Daily App: StackMotion lets you create dynamic photos by combining images, video, text and music
StackMotion is a new photo editing tool from Flambe Studios, the makes of PicPlayPost and PopAGraph that allows you to combine photos, videos, text and music. The app uses layers to let you create really unique projects. StackMotion has two main screens -- the playback screen that allows you to view your project as you build it and the editing screen, which is where you swap out your media and tweak it to your satisfaction. The editing screen is where you will spend most of your time, and it is chock full of options for editing your project. The first step in creating a project is choosing the correct media for your background image and your foreground image. The foreground is a static image, but the background can be dynamic with the option to add a panoramic photo, a slide show or a video clip. Once you have the media selected, you can add them to your project by importing them from the camera roll or taking them live using the camera. As you would expect, the background image becomes your canvas, while the foreground image can be masked to overlay neatly on the background. You also can add text to the project and music if you prefer. The building of the project has the feel of the a non-linear editor like iMovie, but it is much more simple with a short timeline and only one media element per type, i.e., one block of text, one track of music, etc. When you are adding each type of media, the StackMotion app has a few editing options that allow you to change the text, flip your photo, apply filters, and so on. You also can set the text timing so it appears in the beginning, end or is always on the screen. An undo button allows you to correct mistakes, while a clear button lets you start over. When you are done editing, you can share your project via social media, upload it to a vide service like YouTube, publish it to Tumblr or export it to your photo roll. Overall, StackMotion was enjoyable to play with as it allows you to do more than just prettify a photo. The ability to use a slideshow, a video clip or a scrolling panorama as your background adds a new dimension to the creation process. My only complaint with the app is a minor one -- when you edit an element like text and hit the "Done" button, the app brings you to the playback screen to review your project and autoplays the clip, which can be annoying when you are trying to edit quietly. I'd rather stay in editing mode and have the option to review by manually pressing play when I am ready. StackMotion is available for US$1.99 from the iOS App Store.
Daily App: Footpath is a routing tool that'll tell you how far and how high you'll travel
Footpath is for outdoor enthusiasts who want an easy-to-use route planning tool that measures how far and how high a route will take you. The iPhone and iPad app allows you to zoom in on a map and draw a route on a road, trail or river so you can plan your next outside adventure. Footpath then analyzes your route and calculates both the distance and the elevation that you will travel. It's handy for the outdoor runner, hiker cyclist or river kayaker. Footpath allows you to toggle between a street view or satellite view when you are drawing your route. The street view is part street and part topographic map, which is hit or miss for the area in which I live. I appreciate the topo maps as they allow you to see elevation and other aspects of the terrain, but the maps in the app are misaligned (see below), which makes it difficult to plan a mountain hiking route based on map details only. Though you lose the elevation details, the satellite maps are much easier to use for planning an off-road hike. If you are keeping to the road, then the street view is just fine for road runs and bike rides as the roads are very easy to follow on the map. The route planning tool has a few useful features that simplifies the route drawing process, including the ability to snap the route to known roads or trails. This feature allows you to draw your route loosely and let the app automatically select the appropriate roads/trails. You also can freehand your route, but this is difficult, especially in those forested areas where a trail or road is not already visible on the map. Besides snapping to a trail, Footpath also allows you to automatically fill in your route by selecting the "Loop" or "Out & Back" options when planning your run or hike. This feature will analyze the existing waypoints on your route and use a trail or road map to choose the best route back home. You should know that Footpath is a planning tool only that is best used before you start your run or ride. It does not include any navigation options that tell you which way to go when you finally make your way outside. Footpath is 99-cents in the iOS App Store, with limits on the number of routes (up to five) that you can save. You can open up both unlimited saves and the ability to export your routes for US$2.99 via an in-app purchase.
Weekend App: Ski Tracks logs your performance when you hit the slopes
Winter is still going strong in most parts of the country, which means there is plenty of time to hit the slopes before the big spring thaw. If you have plans to go skiing in the near future, then you should definitely check out Ski Tracks from Core Coders. Ski Tracks is a tracking app that uses GPS to help you analyze your skiing. Just turn it on while you are skiing, and the app will track your runs in the background using location, speed and elevation information. It supports alpine skiing, cross-country skiing and a handful of other outdoor winter sports. You can view statistics about each run as well as a summary of each day you spend skiing. Stats including altitude, vertical, slope, duration, and speed. Data is presented in a combination of tables and charts that make it easy to analyze a run right from the trails. You also can wait until you are home and take a deep dive into each run, looking at them individually or comparing them throughout the season. Besides stats, Ski Tracks also lets you take photos that you can add to a track/run. This is a great way to remember an extra steep descent with knee-busting moguls or a memorable moment with friends. There's also a music feature that taps into your iTunes library, allowing you to listen to tunes while you ski. The run-by-run statistics that Ski Tracks compiles while you ski are useful for the casual skier who wants to remember the day and indispensable to the competitive skier who wants to improve their times. The app is easy on your battery allowing you put in a full day on the slopes and still have some battery left for the drive home. About the only feature missing from Ski Tracks is a ski resort database that auto-recognizes the location and trail that you are skiing. Ski Tracks is available for the iPhone from the iOS App Store for 99-cents.
Monkey Boots is stealing my minutes and turning them into hours
Even before Flappy Bird turned the App Store on its head, there was a bit of a casual gaming renaissance taking place on iOS. When I say "casual," I mean games that are easy to learn, but not necessarily so easy to master. Monkey Boots fits perfectly into that category, and its single game mechanic can feel both subtly brilliant and frustrating at the same time, which is all the more reason give it a try. In Monkey Boots you play as a cute, cube-shaped monkey on the run from an endless herd of elephants. You auto-run by default, and the simple touch controls let you jump, pounce downward quickly, and slow your speed. As elephants come barreling across the screen it's up to you to dodge them. Getting struck by a scampering pachyderm means instant failure. The longer you last, the more points you gain, and bonus points are rewarded for bouncing on top of the fleeing elephants. Speaking of the elephants, the ponderous beasts come in all shapes and sizes, from ones just barely larger than your primate to massive wooly mammoths that require a huge jump in order to clear. Failing isn't the end of the world, though, and as soon as you find yourself trampled and dead, you can instantly start another round. This softens the blow a bit when you ruin an especially solid run and besting your previous run is always the "carrot on a stick" that keeps you pushing for one more try. If you're looking for a more personal incentive to repeatedly sacrifice your little friend, there's also a leaderboard to check how much better (or worse) you are than your friends. Monkey Boots is free and includes ads that occasionally pop up after a round has ended. They're not invasive and never appear on the screen during gameplay, so it's a totally reasonable trade-off. If you've become addicted to ultra-simple games as of late, Monkey Boots definitely deserves your attention.
Daily App: Numerity is a twist on the paint by numbers game
Numerity from Zedarus Entertainment takes a paint by numbers game and turns it into an entertaining puzzle game that challenges you to find the object hidden in a cluster of numbers. The gameplay is easy, which may be a turn off for folks looking for more than a hidden numbers game. In each round, you are presented with numerals in a series. You must find each numeral and tap on it to highlight it on your screen. It's not easy as it sounds as the numbers are clustered together in a jumbled mess. You must scan and zoom to find the correct numeral hidden on the screen. When you have located all the numerals in the series, the app zooms out on your canvas and reveals the character you have outlined on the screen. You are scored based upon the amount of time it takes you to solve each puzzle. If you do well, you are rewarded with stars and coins, which can be used to purchase hints if needed. Playing Numerity is an interesting experience as you have relaxing music in the background and a timer on the screen that tracks how long you take to solve a puzzle. You want to relax while scanning for numbers, but that timer ticking in the corner reminds you must do it quickly. Numerity is available from the iOS App Store for US$0.99. It is compatible with the iPhone and iPad and requires iOS 6.0 or later. There are no ads, but the game does include in-app purchases for coins.
Daily App: SpeedTracker records your daily drive so you don't have to
SpeedTracker from AppAnnex falls into the navigation category of apps, but the app doesn't help you find your destination. It allows you to see on a map where you've been driving, how long you've been in the car and how fast you drove on your way. The tracker also has a real-time heads-up-display that shows you your current speed and driving direction. When you launch SpeedTracker, you are brought to the speedometer page, which shows the current speed of travel, the direction of driving and the mileage of the current trip. For the app to track your trip, you must tap on the red tracking button in the top left corner. It'll be solid red and say "Tracking Off" until you start the tracking feature. You will know when it is on as the button will flash red and the caption will say "Tracking is ON." When enabled, the tracking uses GPS to record the speed and distance of your trip. It also maps your route and save it for later review. While driving, you can switch between four different screens that show your trip progress. Switching is easily accomplished either by tapping on the bottom of the screen or swiping across the screen. The four screens include a speedometer as described above, a map showing your route, a trip summary and a HUD, which allows you to display the speed and driving direction on your windshield by placing your phone on the dashboard. This HUD feature didn't work so well for me as I don't have a way to secure my phone on my dashboard and it slid every time I took a corner. When you stop, you can turn the tracking off and are given the option of ending your trip or pausing it for a short time. This resume feature allows you to halt the tracking when you have to make a stop that you don't want recorded. When you are done tracking, the log of your trip is saved to your iPhone. The log includes your distance and elapsed time, which is broken down into travel time and stopped time. The app also calculates your average speed and displays your maximum speed. Data fans will appreciate a graph that shows your speed for the trip and a map that displays your route. You can share your trip data via email, Twitter or Facebook. You also can export the data as a CSV, KML or GPX file. SpeedTracker is an easy to use trip tracker for the driver who wants to log their car trips for business purposes or just for fun. Once you turn on the tracking in SpeedTracker, you can forget about it until you arrive and the app will do all the monitoring on your behalf. Besides using it in your car, you also can use SpeedTracker to log trips while snowmobiling, or ATVing. You even can drop your phone into an RC car and use SpeedTracker to measure driving performance. SpeedTracker is available from the iOS App Store for US$3.99. It is compatible with the iPhone and iPad and requires iOS 6.0 or later. There are no ads or in-app purchases.
Daily App: Lovely helps you find a killer apartment and pay for it, too
Looking for a new apartment and an easy way to pay for it? Then you should look at iPhone app Lovely, which was recently overhauled for iOS 7. Lovely launched its iOS app in 2012 and has steadily improved its mobile platform, adding keyword search and a renter card to make it easy to find and secure a new place to live. Lovely pulls in real estate data from a variety of sources, providing a robust list of rental options to the apartment hunter. Though it didn't provide any listings for my very rural area, the app had over a hundred listings for Portland, Maine, which is the closest city to me. Lovely displays the listing for your area using a map and a zoomed-out view that shows the number of rentals in a particular neighborhood using a blue dot. Tapping on the blue icon will zoom you into that cluster of listings and allow you to view them individually. Each listing is represented by a different color allowing you to tell in a glance whether this is a new listing, an old listing or one that you have viewed or favorited. Each individual listing is chock full of details, including images of the property, the price, location, aunties and a description. A map allows you to get directions to the property and handy buttons for email and phone allows your to contact the landlord in just a few taps. You also can sign up for a Lovely account and "Favorite" a listing to save it for later. Other useful features in the app include alerts that notify you when a new apartment meeting your criteria hits the market and a renters card that contains all your pertinent renter information, like income, credit score and contact info. This renter card is an easy way for you to send your information to a prospective landlord so you can get first dibs on a new listing. The latest version of the app adds a new "Pay Rent" feature that lets you setup automatic payments for your monthly rent. To enable payments, you must sign up for the service with your payment account information and then contact your landlord so they can enter their deposit account information. Once both accounts are added to the service, the payments will be sent on time every month with no effort on your part. Lovely is available for iOS for free. It is compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS 7. There are no ads or in-app purchases.
Daily App: 5by picks the best videos based on your personality
Finding compelling videos on sites like YouTube can be a lesson in patience as you slog through video after video of mindless soliloquies, cats on pianos or music videos featuring stills of photos in an endless progression. If you want to avoid this mundane content and find videos more suited for your interests, then you should check out 5by. The video curation service builds a profile based on your interests and sends you videos that you would enjoy. It launched as a web-only service last year and rolled out an iOS app earlier this year. The app launches with a series of categories based on the time of day, your possible mood and common activities, like lying in bed. Tapping on a category such as "Insomniacs" brings you to a sub-category screen that breaks down the videos into distinct groups like "Extreme Sports," "True Story" and others. Tapping on a sub-category will start playing a video curated from services like YouTube or Vimeo. If you don't like the selection, you can swipe to move to the next clip in the queue. Before you advance ahead, remember to "dislike" the video, so 5by will remember this preference when choosing videos in the future. While watching a video, you can comment on it, like it on Facebook or react using one of three emojis. These emojis let other 5by users know whether you laughed at a video, hated a video or loved the video. You also can share the clip via email, messaging, or social networks like Facebook and Twitter. There's even an option to copy the URL of the video to the clipboard. The strong point of 5by is its ability to pull down videos based on the profile questions you answer when you first run the app and your interactions with the videos while you watch them. The app is owned by StumbleUpon, which acquired 5by in September of 2013. 5by's curation worked moderately well for me, with most videos providing entertainment in the categories that I selected in my profile. There were a handful of clunkers that I tagged with the dislike emoji, so I am hoping those videos will disappear from my stream. Just like any curation service, it gets better the more you use it, so you will want to respond to as many videos as possible to get the best possible experience. 5by is perfect for those free moments when you want some entertainment and don't want to play Flappy Bird. Open 5by and let the app serve up a new video that you might enjoy. 5by for the iPhone and iPad is available for free from the iOS App Store.
Daily App: Brian Cox's Wonder of Life provides an awe-inspiring look at nature's complex beauty
Professor Brian Cox is back again with a followup to his popular book, TV mini-series and companion iPad app, Wonders of the Universe. In his latest title, Wonders of Life, Cox, along with BBC Head of Science Andrew Cohen, explore the globe to reveal the secrets of life in the most unusual and stunning locations. The universal iOS app combines high-res images, HD video and 3D models of animals to tell the story of life and how it evolved. You start by picking highlighted locations from a 3D satellite view of the globe and then zoom into the part of world. You then can select from content which includes video documentaries produced by the BBC and stunning images. When viewing the media, you can scroll down to access detailed, written explanations about the topic. A top navigation bar makes it easy to switch between geographic locations and other topics. Topics include the vibration sensing ability of scorpions, the unique hopping of the kangaroo and the complex designs of plankton. This commentary mixes biology with physics as it explains some of the mysteries of life and how they have developed. You can share some of the content within the app by saving select photos to the photo roll, emailing them or sharing them on social networks like Facebook or Twitter. Box's Wonders of Life is a wonderful title for anyone with an interest in science. There is enough content to keep you busy for a while. All content is long enough to be informative, but not so long that it loses your attention. The app launched with over 2 hours of video, 1000 images and 30 locations and creatures that you explore. If you want more, you can access additional videos and information when you sign up for an account using your email or via Facebook. Published by HarperCollins, Brian Cox's Wonders of Life is available from the iOS App Store for US$5.99. It is a universal app and requires iOS 7 or later. There are no ads or in-app purchases.
Daily App: BugDrug is a visual cheat sheet for prescribing antibiotics
BugDrug was created as a cheat sheet for medical students and residents who needed a handy resource on prescribing antibiotics. The app is designed to help physicians-in-training learn which antibiotics are effective against which pathogenic bacteria. BugDrug uses a pie chart to display common bacteria encountered in a clinical setting. Bacteria are grouped by type in the chart -- Gram Positive, Gram Negative, Anaerobes and Atypical -- and are listed individually on the right side of the app. You can tap on this right-side list to select individual or groups of bacteria by disease in the pie chart. The left side of the app has a tappable list of antibiotics. You can select an antibiotic and the app will show which bacteria it covers. Green means it is covered, yellow means it should be used with caution, and grey means the bacteria is resistant to that type of drug. If you had a patient with a urinary tract infection, for example, you could click on urinary tract infection on the right and Amoxicillin on the left to see if that antibiotic would be an effective treatment. BugDrug's pie chart is extremely useful for visualizing antibiotic coverage, but the app could use some polish. The pie chart graphic is a bit pixelated and could use a refresh. The app also could use a longer list of diseases and maybe a few more antibiotics. It also would be handy to be able to tap on a bacteria in the pie chart and see the antibiotics that are effective against it. Nonetheless, BugDrug is still a useful tool both for medical students and patients, who would appreciate the app's ease of use. BugDrug is available for 99-cents from the iOS App Store. It's compatible with the iPhone and iPad. It works better on the iPad, but it supports pinch-to-zoom and has a movable canvas to make it easier to visualize the pie chart on the smaller screen of the iPhone.
Daily App: Photofy lets you express yourself through photos
Photofy is a photo editing app for creative types who want to express themselves through photos, but don't have the time or artistic talent to do everything from scratch. The app allows you to take a memorable moment captured by your camera or a stock photo and add your sentiments through the use of text, borders, stickers and sayings. Photofy is stuffed full of pre-made content including 4,000 stickers, 2,000 backgrounds, and 90+ fonts. A lot of this content, though, is provided by professional designers and is locked behind an in-app purchase. Very much like a stock photo app, Photofy promotes select artists by offering their photos, stickers and other designs for a fee. It's slightly annoying to see all the lock icons on the content, but that is how the developers decided to support the contributing artists. Pricing on the in-app purchases ranges between 99-cents and $2.99 and is very reasonable for the high-quality media that you receive. The app is very easy to use. Just add a photo by snapping it with your camera or importing it from either your photo roll or a third-party service like Dropbox, Flickr and others. Photofy also has its own stock photos that you can use for creations that are meant to convey a message and don't require personal photographs. Once you have selected your photo, you can add stickers, custom text, preset text sayings like "Go For It" and frames to your image. Each item you add to a photo is a distinct layer that can be rotated, edited, and moved to the forefront or back, which is extremely useful for positioning text so it overlays a sticker, for example. When you are done editing, you can save your creation to your photo roll and share it via messaging, social networks or third-party storage services. The list of supported services includes Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Flickr, Google+ and messaging. The app also supports sending an HTML version of the card via email as a passaGram ecard. Be careful when tapping the share button as you cannot go back and edit your creation. The finished prodcut is saved by default to the photo roll for safekeeping, though. Photofy is available as a universal app from the iOS app Store. It is free, but includes in-app purchases to unlock media like stickers and backgrounds within the app.
Unfortunately, Guess The 90s is really, really good
There are already enough (or perhaps too many) trivia games on the iPhone. There are all-encompassing gems like QuizUp but most aren't nearly that well done, and to be honest, I was kind of hoping Guess The 90s would be a dud as well. I was born in the mid 80s, so the vast majority of my childhood memories took place during the decade that brought us Pogs and popularized snap bracelets. But to my chagrin, the trivia puzzler is fantastic, and so I've been reliving my childhood in 2-minute bursts for the past week or so. The puzzles in Guess The 90s simply ask you to name whatever object, musical group, tv show, or other piece of pop culture it displays on the screen. You have rows of letters with which to spell out the answer, and you can use a hint if you get stuck (but a simple Google search is usually a quicker way to find the answer if you truly get stumped). What really makes the game special is the wealth of 90s content on offer. There are some truly obscure items here, and you'll need a pretty robust knowledge of 90s media, with a huge focus on the TV shows that were popular at the time. There's also a ton of toys to name, one-hit-wonder bands, and even some fashion trends that will make you cringe. Guess The 90s is free to play, but includes in-app purchases of "coins" (which are used to gain hints), as well as the occasional pop-up advertisement. The cash-making features shouldn't hinder your experience too much, and if you don't want to drop a few bucks to score some cheap hints, you can always use the web. If you're a 90s kid -- or really anyone who wants to take a brief nostalgia break -- you might find yourself getting sucked into it.
