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AlphaBattle: Word fun needing GUI tweaks
For just $0.99, AlphaBattle [iTunes link] from Redwind Software offers fun word-based game play. Letter tiles appear on screen, scrolling from the top and from the bottom. It's up to you to make words from those tiles in order to clear rows before the collide against the middle and end the game for you. You can play the game in several modes with 1-, 3-, 5- and unlimited-minute gameplay. Each game offers one or more "save" buttons at the bottom, which can be used to shuffle, stop, or clear rows off the board -- extending the game past the inevitable deadlocks. The idea is clever and the gameplay challenging. All in all, this is a game with an excellent idea and good bones. Unfortunately, the actual execution does not live up to the promise. Let me tell you a few reasons why.
iPhone 3GS review
If it ain't broke, don't fix it -- right? We know countless reviews of the iPhone 3GS may begin with that cliché, but there's little chance you'd find a better way to describe the strategy that Apple has just put into play with its latest smartphone. In many ways, the 3GS is a mirror image of the iPhone 3G; externally there's no difference. It's inside where all the changes have happened, with Apple issuing a beefed-up CPU, new internal compass, larger capacities for storage, and improved optics for its camera. More to the point, the release of the 3GS coincides with the launch of iPhone OS 3.0, a major jump from previous versions of the system software featuring highly sought after features like cut, copy, and paste, stereo Bluetooth, MMS, tethering, video recording, landscape keyboard options for more applications, and an iPhone version of Spotlight. At a glance, what Apple seems to be doing is less a reinvention of the wheel and more like retreading the wheel it's already got (and what a wheel, right?). So, do the iPhone 3GS and OS 3.0 tweak the details in just the right places, or has Apple gone and gotten lazy on us? Read on to find out.
