App Pick of the Week: 3D Gallery
3D Gallery allows you to create your very own virtual art gallery. There are controls on screen that allow you to manuveur through two virtual galleries with photos on the walls. The really great feature here, is that you can customize the photos on the walls with your own art. You can also resize or move the photos on the wall. The application also allows you to save multiple layouts (gallery customizations.) [$2.99 - iTunes Link]
Quick App Review: TweetMic
TweetMic [$0.99 - iTunes link] puts a whole new spin on Tweeting. With TweetMic you are basically able to Twitter small podcasts via this application. What happens when you use TweetMic is you record a message via the iPhone’s built in Mic, you can play it back or post it with a short Twitter message.
Once you “Publish to Twitter” the application uploads the recording to its server and attaches a link to your post, so when your followers receive the tweet, they will see the link and the website it brings up will allow them to play the message via a computer or an iPhone.
Of course having WiFi of 3G will be better than using an EDGE connection when uploading you messages.
If you want to add audio recording to your Tweets, then this is definitely the best option out there. If you check it out, let us know what you think (or record a message for us on Twitter!)
2009 Best & Worst Icons of the Year
I figure is can't be hard to create a decent app icon and for some that make multiple apps, it's nice to change up the icon; otherwise it gets thrown into my worst icon bin. So without further ado, here are the Worst Icon Runner ups:
(Click on Image to Enlarge)
- Text on Icon - even worse, unreadable text
- Generic graphics exe. dollar signs, hearts, etc.
- Clip art as the icon image
- one color
- dark image
- too small graphic to see
- bad resolution of image within icon
- bad placement of graphic (a ball sitting in the corner with a bunch of black around it)
So the third place goes to the less than good resolution icon:
So Congrats to those app icons. Your prize: an opinion telling you to make you icon better...
- 3D graphics (use of the Z-axis)
- Multiple colors used
- No text or clearly defined text
- iPhone themed colors, but not copy cat icons
- Anything with a flame on it (personal favorite...ok this really doesn't count...)
- 3D logo of a company, etc.
Here are the runner ups:
(Click on image to enlarge)
Convertbot
For is unique concept and creative take on the app. It also represents the app itself uniqely.
Birdhouse
For is creative & 3D perspective on using Twitter's bird icon and the z-axis for depth.
Readdledocs
For clearly defining the app as well as using closely themed colors from the standard iPhone apps.
(Yes, I am making an exception to text in the icon - it's readable)
Congrats to those icons that won the TiPAb BEST APP ICON AWARD, you receive praise by myself...and I've purchased the top 3.
If I have not mentioned some of the app names that these icons refer to feel free to tell me in the comments. Also what are some app icon (app names) that you hat or like? Any apps you've purchased just because the icon looked cool? or the other way around? Sound off in the comments!
Review: MYST
Pros:
-Full game, simply a port
-Save up to 4 different instances
-Interacting objects on screen as well as navigating by tapping in the direction you want to go
Cons:
-No in-game browser for hints (feature coming soon)
-Not a “tome-waster” (could be a “pro” as well)
-slide show movement
Video (COMING 5-19-09)
Normal | Mobile
4.5/5
For those of you that do not know what MYST is, it is a port of the old MYST computer game. MYST is an adventure puzzle game in which you are attempting to find your way off the island, or rather attempt to figure out how all the things around you work.
Having played the original MYST, the iPhone version is just like it. It consists of multiple 3D still images that fade from one to another depending on the area of the screen you touch.
Controls
Controls are very simple here. You tap in the direction that you want to go or you tap on objects to interact with them.
Graphics
Like I said before, the game is like a 3D image slide show. However, many of the objects that you will interact with do not act as a slide show, but rather as animations. Also there is video in different parts of the game, such as in the books.
Sound:
I was very impressed by the way the game handled sound. As you continue through your adventures throughout the ages, the audio is constantly changing, not just when you are interacting with objects, but also the ambient noise.
The game is quite large in file size about 720MB, while this is quite a large size, the game is definitely lacking, but rather is in its full scale, just on a smaller screen. This is not a game that you pick up walk around a bit, but down and come back to later, rather it is a game that you will want to sit down with and actually play for a significant amount of time. I suppose you could sit down with it for a short time, but at times the games is very complex in which you might want to take notes, so you might want pen & paper nearby.
Besides all the “usual” game properties, there is also an Options screen. The options screen allows you to “bookmark” or in other words save your game in 4 different slots. You simply drag the current screen (the largest of the boxes to one of the four smaller boxes to save the point in the game you are at. To restore a point, you simply drag in the other direction. There are also sliders that control the speed of the transitions and the volume of the sound. You also have the ability to drop a page if you have one in hand (in order to grab a different one.) Or you you can tap on the Help or Hints buttons. These two buttons will take you out of the game and into the Safari browser. The website it takes you to is formatted for the iPhone, so you should not have any issues viewing the web page. There is also a “back” button which literally takes you right back into the game. I thought the “back” to the game button was a really nice touch to have.
I was curious about what Cyan Worlds had planed for MYST, so I emailed Mark at Cyan Worlds and asked him if there would be any updates for MYST in the future. He replied stating that they would be fixing some minor items, adding an in-game browser for looking up hints “and a few other surprises” Well I can honestly say I'll be looking forward to what is coming from Cyan Worlds.
Overall
I really enjoyed playing this port of MYST. I highly recommend this game to an MYST fan and for anyone that like puzzles or adventure-puzzles for that matter. However if you are the type of person that just wants to quickly play part of this game to kill time, then this is not the game for you.
Apple Is Serious About Gaming: Steals Xbox Senior Director of Strategy
Anybody who said Apple wasn't serious about gaming can swallow their pundit nuggets right now: They just hired Richard Teversham, Xbox Europe's (now former) senior director of business, insights and strategy.
It's especially interesting when you take into consideration Apple's other recent major hire, ATI's former graphics CTO, the guy who designed the GameCube's graphics card.
For the love of all that is holy and Jobsian, however, it doesn't mean they're going to make a MacBoxStationCube 1080—the iPhone (and maybe that tablet/pad thing) is Apple's gaming platform. 15 of the top 20 paid apps of all time are games. There are over 9,000 games in the App Store. And there are 37 million iPod touches and iPhone out there—still below the PSP's 50 million and the DS's 100 million, but consider these are consoles that have been out at least twice as long as the iPhone platform.
It's not just the numbers, either. The argument that the production value of games doesn't match those on on the PSP or DS, is slowly becoming more irrelevant—not simply because extremely short-form gaming, which the iPhone handily beats the PSP and DS at, is becoming more interesting, but because the iPhone is picking up fare like Metal Gear Solid Touch, even if hardcore gamers can't replace their dedicated portable consoles yet. (Bad sign though: I'm a huge gamer, but haven't touched my DS Lite in months. I do play an iPhone game at least a couple minutes every day I'm on the move.)
Apple's got a very real gaming platform, they've got their own chips in place, and now they have a legit gaming strategist. If Nintendo and Sony weren't concerned at all previously, I imagine at least a bead or two of sweat is dripping down their forehead now, even if direct, bloody conflict between their consoles and the iPhone is still a generation or two away. [MCV via 9to5Mac]
Review: Convertbot v1.0
Pros:
-Sleek Interface
-Sounds & animation to go with each “screen” or tap
-Complex conversions
Cons:
-Takes quite long to update currencies at app start up (quicker in airplane mode, due to currencies not updating)
-“Wheel” ‘clicks’ into place rather than smoothly rolling.
4.5/5
$0.99
Overall:
ConvertBot is by Tapbots - the developers of WeightBot and for those of you that love the way the application operates, this one will not let you down.
This is probably the sleekest conversion application I have seen with its cool animations and sounds. However, the only issues I ran into – it takes longer than I thought the program should take to load. At first I believed that it was the app itself checking an Internet connection to update the currency conversions, but when I put my iPhone in Airplane mode, it took just as long. But it is a good thing to note that even though the currencies could not update, the program is still usable.
The sleek interface is what really makes this app so nice. This has to be the coolest working Conversion app for the iPhone. The “wheel” that takes up the main part of the screen can be rotated to set the conversion type:
- Angles: Degree, Radian, & Grad
- Area: Square Meter, Square Centimeter, Square Millimeter, Square Mile, Acre, Square Kilometer, Square Yard, Square Foot, Square Inch
- Currency: Australian Dollar, Brazilian Real, Canadian Dollar, Swiss Franc, Danish Krone, Euro, Pound Sterling (UK), Japanese Yen, Mexican Peso, Swedish Krona, US Dollar
- Length: Foot, Meter, Inch, Centimeter, Mile, Kilometer, Nautical Mile, Yard, Millimeter, Foot+Inch
- Mass: Milligram, Kilogram, Pound, Ounce, Gram, Stone, Stone+Pound, Metric Ton, Pound+Ounce
- Power: Watt, Horsepower, Kilowatt, BTU/Minute, Foot-Pound/Minute, Foot-Pound/Second
- Pressure: Pound/Square Inch, Centimeters of Mercury, Inches of Mercury, Kilogram/Square Meter, Pascal, Atmospheres, Bars, Pounds/Square Foot
- Speed: Miles/Hour, Kilometers/Hour, Knots, Miles/Second, Miles/Minute, Feet/Minute, Feet/Second, Kilometers/Minutes
- Temperature: Celsius, Kelvin, Fahrenheit
- Time: Second, Millisecond, Microsecond, Nanoseconds, Year, Week, Day, Hour, Minute, Hour + Minute
- Volume: Cup, Teaspoon, Tablespoon, Cubic Feet, Gallon (UK), Quart, Pint, Ounce, Cubic Meter, Gallon (US), Liter, Milliliter, Cubic Centimeter
- Work (Energy): Kilogram Calorie, Foot Pound, Newton Meter, Joule, BTU, Erg, Watt Hour, Calorie
- And more...
Once you have rotated the wheel to the type/category, then you tap on the bottom left button and you use the “wheel” to select the specific conversion unit, take the center blue button, “ok” and it locks that unit in. This unit is the unit you are converting from. The other black button is the unit you want to convert to. You repeat the same process of locking in the unit.
By tapping on the top “number screen,” this opens up a keypad so that you can type in the amount you are converting from. The application has a live update, in which the app auto converts as you type the number into the app. Tapping on the “number screen” again brings back the conversion “wheel”
You can tap on the center wheel to switch the units if you need to.
By tapping on the “i” icon you can view the Settings which allows you to turn the sound on or off as well as the choice of viewing the Demo (which is quite a nice feature in the app).
Issues:
-Would like to have the “wheel” spin more smoothly, rather than “clicking” into place.
-Not as common currencies are not available in the app. (exe.: Argentinian Pesos or Chilean Peso)
Review: Readdledocs
-Multiple ways of retrieving documents onto your iPhone
-512MB of server storage
-nice document viewer
-document logos make finding documents easier
-Ability to sync iPhone with server & vice versa
-Book marking in documents
Cons
-In doc viewer, tapping bottom of screen makes doc auto scroll, can be annoying at times
-Has trouble handling large documents (for me, some files over about 8MB crashed the app)
-Viewing *.xls (or of the like) documents doesn’t always format correctly
-Viewing *.ppt (or of the like) format into one long page
$9.99
OVERALL
In my opinion the Pros out weigh the Cons and the price tag of $9.99 is completely worth it. To have the ability of getting my document on my hand held and having them at my finger tips is worth it. I was on a film set when I was asked to operate a Sony F900 camera. Luckily, I was able to go to a website using the browser interface and download the manual on my iPhone and had the ability to quickly skim through it and figure out how to use the camera.
ReaddleDocs is a document viewer that basically covers all the ways of getting the document onto you iPhone – so there is no way that you cannot have your documents on hand.
When you purchase ReaddleDocs, you also receive 512MB of storage space on their server. This allows you to upload any documents to the server via any browser and then sync them with you iPhone via any data connection (EDGE/3G/WIFI).
When you tap on the “Online” tab, you select the server you want to connect to and then you have the ability to sync with the server so that any new documents that you have retrieved via the web (on the server) will backup to your iPhone.
Besides using your Readdle Storage space, you can also connect to your MobileMe iDisk or connect to a WebDAV enabled server.
A second way of getting documents onto your iPhone is by forwarding your attached document in an e-mail to you ReaddleDocs e-mail address (given to you when you create your online account). Then, again, you sync you iPhone with your account.
A third way, is to use the built-in browser and navigate to a document then tap on a button to download the document to your iPhone.
A fourth and final way is to transfer the documents from your computer to your iPhone via WiFi.
When viewing your documents, you can edit them - delete, move, create folders, rename folders, rename documents, mail documents, and add a document to a zip achieve.
All documents that can normally be viewed on the iPhone can be viewed via this application as well.
I really like the icons that it uses to represent the type of file
(red icon for pdf files, blue icon to doc files, etc.)
INTERFACE
Within the app you can view all your documents, view your online documents (through whichever server,) use the browser, view recently opened files and adjust settings for the app.
I think for the most part those screen are self-explanatory.
I also like the document “reader” interface. When viewing files such as *.doc, *.rtf, the viewer is simple – you can scroll through your document like you would in the iPhone document viewer, however, you have and “add” button at the top, which allows you to insert bookmarks for that document. I find this incredibly convenient when reading a large document or e-book. The toolbar at the bottom of the screen allows you to view and edit bookmarks, e-mail the document, scroll through a document quickly using the slider and a full screen button.
If you turn the iPhone to the landscape position, it automatically goes to full-screen and rotates the document accordingly.
When viewing an *.xls document, you have all the same features as above. At the top of the document, you can change between the sheets. You might also notice that when switching between sheets, arrows will appear at the bottom of the screen. These arrows are much like the arrows you would use in the browser.
When viewing images, you can view them much like you would in your photo reel, just tap the arrows to move through the pictures within that folder. You can also mail the documents via this image viewer.
Besides viewing and retrieving documents, you can also view the device photos (which might prove a faster way of delete picture on your iPhone if you have to do it that way.)
SETTINGS
In the setting screen, you have the ability to view or hide the “device photos” folder, setup mail settings – mail from and mail signature; allow WiFi network drive and apply username and password; several different viewing options including “view HTML as book”; you can also enable a passcode lock; and setup the document encoding.
ISSUES ENCOUNTERED
- There is no way to move the images to your iPhone photo reel or set as wallpaper functions, while the picture is on my iPhone in a sense, I cannot actually do anything with it unless I email it to myself and do it that way. I don’t always have a data connection when I am traveling so it would be nice to move the images over to do what I wish with them.
- When viewing the a PowerPoint document, the slides seems to form one large “page” (see screen shot).
Review: Vine2Wine
Pros
-Easy Navigation
-Interesting and quick navigation within terminology lists
Cons
-Not all the grape varieties have pronunciations
-No way to add notes.
$0.99
Overall I think this is a neat little reference guide. While you might find more information about each of the term on the Internet (and I'd like to see the option for more information on the grape varieties). I think this application handles the information very well and it’s quick and easy to use.
Vine2Wine is a wine drinker's reference guide, whether you are a beginner wanted to learn the lingo or even for intermediates.
The app is simple. On the main screen you choose from three categories:
- Grape Varieties
- Wine terminology
- Wine Tastes
In the Grape Varieties list view. The different grape varieties are listed and depending on what type of grape it uses it is represented by a correlating purple of white grapes next to each variety. Also within the list view you have the phonetic pronunciation for the terms for quick reference. If you tap on one of the Varieties it will give you some information about it - such as color, flavors, & history.
As for the Wine terminology and Wine Tastes list views, each term is listed and a small part of the first line can be seen. If you tap on the term, rather than going to a new screen, the list expands to display the full text. I thought this was a really cool feature as it was quick and easy to navigate between the terms within the list.
All the lists are just like your contacts list in that they have the letter scroll bar on the right-hand side of the screen.
Review: Wallpaper Maker
Wallpaper Maker adds your contact info to any picture on your iPhone.
Pros:
-Easy & Simple UI
-Up to 3 lines of information
-Colors of text & bar blend in with standard iPhone theme.
-Choose whether your info is at the top of bottom.
-Ability to customize font color of size
Cons:
-Horizontal photos are cropped and stretched
4.5/5
Overall:
I think this is a handy application to have. I'd really like to see the ability to choose whether you would like to crop horizontal photos or have them centered. I can see this application staying on my iPhone for a little while, then being deleted, only to be resurrected when I want to change my wallpaper.
The application itself is very simple.
When you first starts the app, you enter your contact info (Name, Phone, & e-mail). While it asks you for these things, I suppose you could enter any information you wanted to in the blanks. However, the first line will be a little bigger than the rest of the text. The color and the font of the text can be changed later.
This screen will not appear again, unless you tap the edit button within the app.
In the main part of the app, you select a picture from your photo roll (or take one with your camera). Then you select whether you want your info to appear just below the time (Top) or right above the slide-to-unlock button (bottom.) Next you can set the size of the font and the type of font.
You also have the ability to change the color for each line of information. To view all the different colors, merely scroll through them like you would with your contacts. Then you can either preview your image or save your wallpaper. Photos are saved to the camera roll. The app also provides instructions on how to set your wallpaper in case you're unsure on how to.
That's it! That's all that is to it. It's a very simple app and very
easy to use.
Issues:
The app stretches, centers, & crops horizontal photos to the screen rather than centering them, like they appear in the camera roll
NOTE: You might notice that I have icons in-line with my text on my wallpaper. I used the emoticons-keyboard to get these.
Hulu iPhone App Coming, and It’s “Badass”
Sweet jesus. Alley Insider reports Hulu is developing an iPhone app that'll stream over 3G and Wi-Fi, and it's "badass." It'll hit "within a few months." I've been dreaming of this moment since Joost's app.
30 Rock, Dollhouse, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, Arrested Development, oh yes. Any hope AT&T has of charging people a monthly fee for mobile TV dies with a Hulu app, especially once ABC jumps onboard and it hits other mobile platforms (which it surely will). If it truly delivers the full Hulu experience—every video with a great UI—the potential awesomeness literally blows my mind. Hulu CEO Jason Kilar said one year ago that mobile is "ripe for the Hulu experience" but it "may not be identical" on every platform. I'd hope the iPhone is as close to the real thing as it can get, though that obviously depends on NBC and Fox to allow it, as well. And Apple has to approve it, obviously.
