Zombie Ace

Let’s begin with zombies, shall we? Zombie Ace is a thrilling action title from the fellows responsible for DeathSpank, Hothead Games.

You’ll be piloting a plane as one of five zombie aces, and your goal is to collect coins and battle enemies while avoiding obstacles and doing what you can to spread the zombie infection across the USA. Not unlike JetPack Joyride, the game is controlled via a simple touch-to-lift mechanic that keeps you on your toes as you try to be nimble and precise with your movements. Meanwhile, you’ll have to worry about tossing zombies at enemy aircraft to subdue them, and working your way through increasingly tough missions to earn loot for upgrading your plane — remarkably enough, these upgrades are not IAP based at all.

With strong visuals and a straight-forward, challenging gameplay feel, Zombie Ace is a worthy and highly entertaining diversion for zombie lovers.

Price: $0.99
Developer: Hothead Games Inc.
Download: App Store

Extinction Squad

As you would expect from an [adult swim] title, Extinction Squad is irreverent, hilarious, and wildly entertaining.

Working alongside famous scientist Chuck Darwin, you and your fellow animal rescuers traverse the globe saving endangered species from extinction. How? With a trampoline, obviously. They fall from the sky and you must bounce them to safety. The controls are as basic as can be, and the presentation conveys the gleeful humour of the story very effectively.

There are animals to unlock and a “Wild Wheel” to spin for a chance at winning extra bonuses including coins and power-ups, and either one of the two game modes will test your skills. If you love animals and have a sense of humour, you won’t want to miss Extinction Squad.

Price: $0.99
Developer: [adult swim]
Download: App Store

Non Flying Soldiers

When it comes to quality publishing, you can always trust Chillingo to provide a good time. Among their latest releases is Non Flying Soldiers, developed by Blue Shadow Games.

Budgies and other small birds may not seem like the stoutest of warriors, but they’re tough little critters and in this game they’re so adorable that you’re going to want to do your best to get them through each level. The relatively difficult gameplay consists of arranging various environmental elements and objects on each level and then letting the birds loose and making sure as many of them traverse the level within the timeline as possible. You’ll be able to collect coins as you go, which you can then use to play a funny arcade minigame called Space Destructors.

The obstacle course style levels get tricky fast, but they’re incredibly well designed and beautifully displayed, especially on the crisp Retina display. With enough variety and charm to last you for hours, Non Flying Soldiers is a peculiar and endearing little puzzler.

Price: $0.99
Developer: Blue Shadow Games
Download: App Store

Webbies

Bringing a fresh mechanic to the App Store is a rare achievement, but Nano Titans has managed it with their wonderful new game, Webbies, which also manages to be a flat-out brilliant game.

Deep in the woods, a bitter old wizard has stolen all the animals’ food and hung it up on his spider companion’s web. In order to free the food, you’ll have to fling bits around within the web to clump together big chunks that you then toss off to the hungry animals on the sidelines. The web physics are extraordinary, and that is only one of the aspects of the game that has been polished to utter perfection. The animations, the art, the audio — it’s all impeccably done.

Things get more complicated, of course, with you having to first unlock the animals from cages in later levels, and deal with other obstacles, but the learning curve is kind and you may as well set some time aside for this one because you won’t be putting it down any time soon.

Price: $0.99
Developer: Nano Titans Co.
Download: App Store

Boomlings

Boomlings is a recent entry into the well populate match-three genre of games (well, technically it’s match four in this case).

Though it does little to set itself apart from the crowd in terms of individual elements, the game is greater than the sum of its parts. The basic mechanics are extended through interesting power-ups and challenging obstacle blocks including freezing ones and the very cool pipes that transport blocks around the playing field. Though the game is free, you’ll find some IAP available to expedite your progress — mostly very reasonable.

Spending some time with the game reveals its true colours; it shines in subtle details (the way combos work, blobs, etc.) and tweaks that improve upon the tired and familiar core mechanic in ways that make it feel fresh again, and that is a notable achievement.

Price: Free
Developer: Robert Topala
Download: App Store

What Have You Been Playing?

We hope you enjoyed this week’s picks. Don’t forget to go enjoy the sunshine a bit!

Take for example, the one that I am reviewing today, named Cardmon, their version is somewhat similar to Apple’s, but definitely has some different options. I am not going to go into detail on comparing and contrasting them, and instead will show you what Cardmon is all about. Who knows, this could be a viable option to Cards.

Creating Your Card

When you first open up the app, there really isn’t much in the way of setting it up. Really, the only things you want to probably do is connect to Facebook and Twitter, if you use those services. After that, you can basically start choosing the card that you want to use. At the moment, Cardmon offers six different categories to choose from, with roughly 8-10 different cards in each one.

Selection of Cards

Once you have selected the type of card you want to use, it is now time to put your personal touches on it. Most cards have a place holder for a picture that you can insert into it. You can either use one that you have already have on your iPhone or take one at that moment.

Adding a picture

Next, you can start to work on your greeting or letter that you are going to write. Before you start to write, you can choose from a variety of different fonts, character size, and colors. You are given a generic template for your wording, but you are more than welcome to change it to whatever you want it to say.

Editing your card

Sending Your Card

What makes Cardmon different than Apple’s Cards, is that you don’t have the option to send a physical card to someone, you are only given the option to send it digitally, just like an e-card. With that being said, it gives you the option of distributing your card through Facebook, Twitter, emailing, or MMS. Your card can also be saved to the photo album and a variety of other apps if you have them loaded on your iPhone. For example, I could save the card to Dropbox, Evernote, Camera+, and Readdle Docs to name a few.

Sending your card

Designing Your Own Template

Let’s say you don’t particularlly like any of the designs that are on Cardmon, and you want to design your own. They give you the opportunity to do this by letting you create your own template that you can actually sell through the app. Cardmon gives you some pretty detailed guidelines on how to create your own card template and they share the revenue with you 50/50. Not sure how many people will actually take them up on this, but it would be interesting to see.

Designing your own card template

My Thoughts

The app as a whole is very intuitive and simple to use, but I am not sure that it will satisfy the masses. I say that because, unlike Apple’s Cards app, where you can send physical cards to people, you don’t have that option here. When it comes to sending someone a card, as much as we are moving toward a digital age, there is still something to be said about getting an actual card in the mail. In my opinion, nothing really says “Thank You,” like a card in the mail. Although an email or e-card would suffice, there is just something about getting it because you know the person went through the trouble to write in the card and then mail it off to you.

I can see where Cardmon is trying to fill a niche here where if someone wanted to send off a simple card from their iPhone they could. To that extent, they did a good job with the app and made it so that if someone wanted to do this, they could do it quickly and efficiently. That being said, it would have been nice if they could have incorporated what Apple did, where you have the option of actually sending a physical card in the mail for a small fee. I think if they added that option, it would really make the app a whole lot better and more useful for the masses. But, if their direction is to keep it the way it is, it would be good to add some interactive features to the card to make it stand out more. Maybe give the user the opportunity to add a video instead of just a picture or have some kind of animation that the user can choose from.

Conclusion

To put this all into perspective, we need to keep in mind that although I don’t agree with their strategy, I do like how they executed the app itself. There are really no complaints about it, other than I wish there were more cards to choose from and to make it more interactive. Bottom line, if you are looking for an easy and quick way to send someone an e-card, Cardmon can provide that for you. It is free on the App Store, so if you are even remotely curious about this app, go and download it and see if it will work for you.

Ski Safari, from Defiant Development, is an endless runner (“endless skier” would be more appropriate), with a very straightforward premise. You are rudely awakened from your sleep by being flung out of your cabin and forced to outrun the avalanche that is following you. What happens next is where the fun begins. 

The Basics

Ski Safari shares many similarities with Jetpack Joyride, a very popular game released last year. You won’t ever “win” as the side-scrolling layout never ends. Instead, you have to navigate down the mountain and keep your speed up to avoid being engulfed by the avalanche.

The welcome screen for Ski Safari.

You will, inevitably, lose. However, what makes the game fun are the goals that you try to complete in each run. As you complete more of these missions you are promoted to higher ranks. Integration with Game Center lets you see how you stack up with your friends.

Gameplay

The controls are extremely simple in this game, and it doesn’t use the iPhone’s accelerometer or any complex finger combos. The first time you fire up the game you’ll see a few slides that help orient you with the controls. You simply need one finger to tap anywhere on the screen. You tap to jump, hold while in the air to perform a flip, tap quickly while in the air to glide or on the ground to speed up.

A short tutorial runs the first time you play the game to explain the simple controls.

Many of the challenges that you’re given involve interacting with the other stuff that you’ll find along your route. These include creatures like penguins and yetis, and items like rocks and cabins. You can ride the animals, such as the penguins (it sounds cruel, I know, but they don’t seem to mind) to help you go faster, and the challenges often ask you to ride a certain number of them in a given run. Like Jetpack Joyride, the challenges all vary widely, and you are given a crack at three at any given time.

Hitting a rock doesn't mean the end of the game, and I liked that.

Rocks are the most prominent obstacle that you’ll have to maneuver around, but hitting one doesn’t necessarily spell the end of your run. You’ll get knocked down and the avalanche will get closer to you. Hit enough rocks and that snow will catch up and end your game. In this sense, Ski Safari is a bit like Temple Run with those creatures that are chasing you, but only catch you if you get slowed down enough times.

As you complete challenges, you'll be promoted to higher ranks.

The most satisfying part of the game are the jumps. It’s tempting to try and do backflips each time you catch air, but you need to be careful not to crash and slow yourself down.

Graphics

I’ve mentioned the similarities between Ski Safari and Jetpack Joyride, but one area where the games differ is in their speeds. Jetpack Joyride starts slow and accelerates as you progress. Ski Safari seems to be much faster throughout each entire run. I mention this because the speed at which the whole game scrolls past makes it difficult to really notice the graphics.

The graphics on Ski Safari are average, but you'll be moving too fast to notice.

While you are playing, the backgrounds are all flying by, but the general impact of the visuals is alright. After taking screenshots of the game and looking at them, its clear that the developers paid close attention to detail on the main character, as well as the penguins and yetis, but skimmed over most of the backgrounds. Again, due to the speed of the game, you won’t really notice that.

iOS games typically don’t blow you away with their music, and Ski Safari is no different. However, unlike many other games, it isn’t so annoying that I ever felt compelled to mute it.

Criticisms

What I always found frustrating with Jetpack Joyride was having to start off each run moving way too slowly. Ski Safari definitely moves faster, thus eliminating that boring period. However, the speed also takes away from some of the fun. It becomes more a matter of just reacting to what you are seeing than it is to thinking about what your challenge is and actively seeking to accomplish it.

You can combine those penguins and yetis with other items, such as snowmobiles.

There are all kinds of combos that you can get along the way, such as riding a penguin and a yeti while at the same time driving a snowmobile. Its certainly funny to look at, but all of the bonus stuff seems to happen accidentally rather than as the result of your brilliant moves.

The Verdict

Nothing about Ski Safari is radically different from other endless runner games available for the iPhone. This game takes a proven forumla — an endless runner with challenges that accrue to earn you higher ranks — and builds it into a new setting. Ski Safari can get pretty repetitive after a few plays once you’ve discovered all that there is to find, but that can be said of any game of this genre. However, the simplistic nature of the controls also make it slightly less engaging than Jetpack Joyride, because in that game you are flying up and down rather than just hopping over obstacles.

What I think sets Ski Safari apart from similar games is the longer playing time for each run. In Ski Safari, you can hit a rock, and it slows you down but doesn’t mean you’re done with that run. You are going fast right out of the gate, which means when you do start a new run, you don’t have to sit through an unchallenging minute or two. At $0.99 cents, Ski Safari is definitely worth a download. It might not be a game that you’ll spend months playing, but it is a satisfying game while it’s new.

Google search alternatives such as DuckDuckGo are growing in popularity, but users of services such as Google Reader have few other choices. Shaun Inman’s Fever is a self-hosted feed reader that offers several improvements over Google Reader, but unfortunately, Fever’s mobile experience is limited to web clips. Sunstroke is the first native iPhone application built for Fever, and today we’ll see if this app can maintain Fever’s personality while offering all of the features that make it a superior alternative to Google Reader.

Feed A Fever

Fever is Shaun Inman’s self-hosted alternative to Google Reader. Some may know Shaun from his Mint analytics program, or The Last Rocket, his 8-bit iOS platformer. Fever offers some notable improvements over the Google Reader experience, including story aggregation and a cleaner user experience.

It’s important to note that Sunstroke is solely a reader for the self-hosted Fever service and requires a Fever installation. Self-hosted means that a user must install Fever on his/her own server. A Fever license can be purchased for $30 and interested readers should visit the official Fever site for more information.

Design

Sunstroke takes inspiration from Fever’s fiery design and tweaks it to create a beautiful native experience on the iPhone. The Sunstroke icon sears the iPhone’s screen and makes a strong first impression. Fortunately, the slick icon is only the first in a series of awesome design choices.

The developer dumps the drab iOS login screen in favor of a custom creation.

The app’s simple design combines with subtle animations to form an experience that is both responsive and polished. An example of this impeccable attention to detail occurs when enabling all of the Sunstroke sharing services. Once the number of services passes a certain point the app reformats the action menu, presenting a compressed menu that makes it easier to navigate through the slew of services. It’s the small touches in Sunstroke that make it such a joy to use.

The share action menu even displays the link, just in case.

Functionality

Sunstroke syncs to an existing Fever installation with a simple tap, or it can be set to auto sync. There’s a difference between syncing and refreshing in that syncing only grabs the feed information from the user’s server, while refreshing actually tells the server to check for new articles. To sum it up, Sunstroke will sync but won’t actually tell the server to check for new articles. This is more of a Fever limitation, but savvy users can create a Cron rule to tell their server to refresh automatically or leave Fever opened on their desktop browser.

The home screen in Sunstroke presents the four basic views: Hot Links, Kindling, Saved, and Sparks. Unlike Google Reader, Fever divides feeds between Sparks and Kindling. Sparks contain the high-volume feeds that don’t need to be read to completion, while Kindling houses the more important must-reads.

The red dot next to the list name indicates that the list has unread articles. This dot can be changed to an unread count in the app's settings menu.

Tap on the list title to view the complete list or tap the circled arrows to access the feed view.

The Sparks and Kindling lists feed Hot Links, where articles on the same subject are grouped and subjects are given a temperature based on the level of discussion. This comes in handy with events such as new product releases, where many articles repeat the same information and the reader may want a simple snapshot of the event.

Set the time for the Hot Links window by tapping on the white text in the lower menubar.

Reading Experience

Fever is perfect for readers who deal with a high number of feeds, but Sunstroke takes this a step further with useful gestures and a well-design menubar that offers quick access to useful features and sharing. The list view menu contains a read/unread toggle that allows the user to easily access read articles, and lists can be sorted by feed name or date. There’s also a button for marking all feeds in a list as read.

Tap the feed icon to switch between date and feed view.

Sunstroke’s article view removes the fluff and presents the reader with a beautiful version of an article’s text. The article heading and metadata are contained in a grey box that can be tapped to access the original article. Users can switch between articles by tapping the up/down arrows or by scrolling to the top or bottom of the article. Articles can be saved for later by tapping the infinity loop.

Sunstroke provides an elegant mobilized view and gestures that make it a snap to switch to the next article.

Swipe to the right on an article to mark read/unread or to the left for saved/unsaved.

Fever’s sharing features require a bit of finesse to setup, and the overall sharing experience is unpolished. Sunstroke simplifies the experience and offers the standard sharing features as well as some notable additions. Sunstroke users merely need to log into their favorite accounts to share, and users aren’t forced to deal with the sharing urls present in the Fever web client.

Sunstroke supports the most common sharing options, as well as experimental sharing to Sparrow.

Conclusion

Sunstroke is the best way to access Fever on an iPhone, but not just because it’s the only alternative to the Fever web clip. The developers stick with the Fever theme but make some awesome design choices that improve the overall usability of the service. Sunstroke makes sharing easier and builds a better reading experience while making it possible to blaze through article backlogs without becoming bogged down. This app is a no-brainer for anyone looking for a better Fever experience on their iPhone.

The folks over at OneReceipt stepped in to help us out with all that paper. OneReceipt aims to make it simple to document and track online and offline purchases and keep them close at hand. By allowing you to photograph your receipts and manage them right from your phone, this app is looking to replace your pocketful of paper.

A Complement to the Webapp

OneReceipt’s webapp came out of private beta in November, but it really found its legs with the iOS release back in April. Until then, the webapp would manage any receipts for online purchases that were emailed to you, such as a Groupon for a body massage or gummy bears on Amazon, automatically. To manage paper receipts, you had to email a scan or a picture of the receipt.

With the release of the iOS app, you can now manage all of your receipts, right from your phone. Taking a picture of your receipt, uploading, tagging, and managing are an all-in-one function. They appear right along your online purchases and are even itemized for you.

OneReceipt's title and account creation screens.

You’ll need to create a username and password linked to your email address to use the app. This opens all the features of the webapp to you and allows for syncing with your Gmail or Yahoo! Mail account. If you don’t have a compatible email address, you can forward your email receipts to OneReceipt or use a OneReceipt email address to make online purchases.

Receipt Keeper

The real reason I found the app useful is that it allows you to capture paper receipts right in the app. You’re then given the option to add a note to your receipts, such as information you’ll want for taxes or to organize receipts for a project. OneReceipt allows you to choose a category for your receipt and tag it as business or personal.

Your receipt will go into the “processing” stage, and after about twenty-four hours, it will be available as more than just a picture on your phone. All of your purchases will be itemized, and OneReceipt will have now included bonus info, such as the store’s customer service number.

A list of my online and in person purchases and the manual entry screen.

But if you don’t have a paper receipt, and it wasn’t an online purchase, you can still record whatever you’re buying right in the app. By manually entering the receipt, you record the amount and the merchant, and you can add a description of the purchase. There’s not really an option to list each item you bought, but the service is being updated to meet users’ needs, so it may be added in a future release.

At this time, OneReceipt only allows for automatic syncing of online purchases with Gmail and Yahoo! Mail, which can be a huge issue for users of other email services. They’ve just added Yahoo! in the last few weeks though, which means they’re likely still working to include more features. The iOS app was only released last month, so users can look forward to improvements as popularity grows.

Are Your Purchases Private?

My biggest reservation with OneReceipt is one of privacy. OneReceipt’s terms of service, available on their website, state that they analyze your purchase patterns to offer you targeted promotions and advertisements. Their privacy policy states that they’ll periodically send you marketing emails, but you can opt-out if you choose. The ability to opt-out is great, and it’s up to you if the convenience of receipt management is worth having all of your purchase information stored by a third party.

I reached out to OneReceipt, because I was curious just how my receipt went from being a crumpled wad in my pocket to a legible, itemized list of purchases that I can download from their webapp as a CSV. Co-founder Michael Altman refused to comment when I asked if people or computers were sifting through my purchases, but when the overly stylized logo for a local grocer was correctly identified by OneReceipt, I began to suspect there’s some human oversight.

A scanned paper receipt and the itemized receipt after it's been processed.

I don’t know if humans potentially rifling through my purchases is any more or less creepy than a computer parsing my purchases, but it’s certainly something to think about. OneReceipt asks for real names and an email address at signup, so at the risk of pulling out my tinfoil hat, there could be a guy in a cubicle in OneReceipt HQ who knows what brand of underwear John Smith likes to buy at the MegaMart in Quincy. I want to stress that this is speculation of course, as OneReceipt chose not to comment on how paper receipts are processed, but their ability to translate grainy receipt images from an iPhone photo into text was really almost too good to believe.

Conclusion

OneReceipt does what it says on the tin. It’s a free app that allows you to track your online and offline purchases while helping to rid you of paper receipts. If you want some bonus features, you can use the webapp to download CSV files of your purchases and more finely tune your account, but the iOS app really stands on its own. However, anyone concerned with online privacy should check into the terms of service and privacy policy to make sure they’re comfortable with OneReceipt before handing over too much information.

Magisto, in a nutshell, does the work for you when it comes to creating those home videos. As much as I love iMovie on my Mac, it takes time and patience, two things which I don’t always have. Magisto makes the creating of the home movie process fun and very easy to do. Let me show you what I am talking about after the jump.

Getting Started

The first thing you need to do when you start with the app is to either sign up for a free account or log in using your Facebook account. Then you are going to want to connect your social networks, as I’m sure you are going to want to share your project when you are done. Magisto includes the main social networks to connect to in Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Adding your social networks to Magisto

Making Your Movie

After you have set everything up, you are now ready to start gathering your media so that you can create your movie. You can do this in one of two ways: either through selecting your videos through the Camera Roll on your iPhone or by shooting your own videos straight from within the app itself.

Selecting videos (left) Capture videos (right)

Once you have selected or shot the videos that you want, you are now ready to pick the music you are going to use in the background. You can either choose between the collection that Magisto provides or you can select something off of your iPhone. When you have your favorite song queued up and ready to go, you can now enter a title for the movie and then let Magisto work its magic.

Selecting your music

What exactly is this magic that I am talking about? Well, what Magisto does is that it takes all of the videos that you have selected, compresses and analyzes them for you. Once that is done, they automatically create a video for you using all of the clips and your music, but they trim out what they think is unnecessary for the video and present you with a collage of your videos in a single movie so that you can easily get an overview of the event that you were documenting in the first place.

Magisto doing its magic

Watching and Sharing

Once Magisto does its magic and creates your video, now you are ready to watch and share it. The app is able to recognize faces and lets you tag them based upon your Facebook friends. I wish there was an option to tag people without having to use Facebook because there will be times when you video someone that is not necessarily on it. You can then share your video on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as well as email a link to the video for others to view.

The finished product

Is It Magic?

Well, I’m not sure if it is magic, but it is definitely cool to see what this app can do with your videos. I like that you can select videos that you want and then let it do the work for you to create a good looking movie. But, at the same time, this app is not for everyone because you’re not able to control specifically how the video looks. You are not able to adjust the length or what exactly is shown. There are no editing features whatsoever and that is what makes this app great for some and bad for others. It really all depends on what you want in a video making application and how much control you want in the creation process.

Overall, I really like the app and it is convenient to use and works very well. The one feature that I wish we could see would be the ability to add pictures to your video as well. Magisto can also be used on the web, where you can create and watch your videos there. It is free to use so go and download it from the App Store and start making some great home movies that can be watched over and over for a very long time.

So we’ve got just a few weeks until WWDC 2012, a big event in the Apple universe. Last year, WWDC showed us Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud — what’s on the plate for this year? Guesses are running the gamut, from the new iPhone, to a smaller iPad and even Mountain Lion being put out into the wild.

But iTunes? Well it needs an overhaul, that’s for sure, and there’s been a lot of scuttlebutt around the water cooler that iTunes 11 will be a completely new interface and design, maybe even breaking up the App Store and iTunes Store. Will it come out at WWDC?

You tell us! Let us know in the poll to the right.

Except the new release of Bosquet really turns things around. This is a much more simple application compared to others that access Forrst or Dribbble. It provides all the default features you would expect with a third-party API connection. Plus, the app is fun to use and only comes with a $0.99 price tag! Let’s get into it after the jump.

Getting Started

After first launching the app you’ll be presented with a gorgeous splash startup image. The whole theme for Bosquet fits perfectly with the tones of Forrst — wood, trees, leaves, mulch, nature.

Bosquet splash screen and login form

The first view you’re dropped into will load all of the most recently popular posts. To get your own custom feed based on users you’re following, you need to log into an account. If you have one, tap the gear icon in the top right corner to bring up the settings menu. Then the second link in the list should open the login page.

Notice that you do not need to have an account to browse posts on Bosquet. You won’t be able to check notifications or follower profiles, but this is a very limited scope out of all the user activity.

Once you’re in, the app should automatically redirect you onto the main posts view, except now you have a tab bar accessible at the bottom of the screen with three options. The center tab, Posts, is displayed by default. If you’re logged into an account the posts will filter from your followers list, otherwise it will just pull from all recently popular submissions.

Newest Forrst posts feed

The left tab will load recent account activity such as new followers, mentions, comments, or likes on your posts. The right profile tab displays some basic info about your account, along with some external links if applicable.

Going Through the Media

From the posts screen you should notice four wooden buttons near the top title bar. This is a simple navigation menu where you can sort out different post types. These include external links, photos (or shots), source code, or member questions.

Snap photo and post details view

Each media type will have a similar display view with some slight adjustments. For example, shots are displayed inline with the option of bringing them into fullscreen. Code is not fully displayed until you tap on the post details.

Listing source code and syntax highlighting

One feature about the code I really enjoy is how Bosquet will color-code the syntax. Regardless of language, from HTML to Ruby or Objective-C, it all looks wonderful. And on posts with responses, you can load the comment threads directly inline within the same view. This makes browsing for a solution much easier.

Pretty Profiles

Another wonderful feature is the access to user profiles. You can view your own from the profile tab button, however you also have the option of tapping on a user’s avatar to access their own Forrst profile. This will include general user statistics, as well as links to their website and twitter account.

My Forrst profile view and latest posts

From the menu select screen you can only open up more information on the user’s previous posts. It is strange how you can’t display a list of other followers/following, or even post comments, but this is a quick way of checking a user’s history to see which topics they are knowledgeable about.

These profile pages should not change whether you are logged in or not. The Design is impeccable; I love the paper textures and the use of icon-specific links. It goes to show how Bosquet is a rich and fully detailed Forrst app.

Gathering Additional Details

From any of the post listings you can tap on a block to open up the details view. This provides much more information about the submitter and custom metadata. You can still work with every section in the post details, even as a non-member.

Most all links should contain a “copy URL” button in the right corner. Some posts are private per the author’s user settings, and these cannot be shared. But for public posts it’s very simple to tap and paste links into Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, wherever.

More post details, about the app

There are some other details you can find based on the type of post media. Links will display a large external URL button to open up in Mobile Safari. On similar grounds, you can tap any snap thumbnail image to bring up the fullscreen view. This lets you pan around and zoom closer into areas on the screen.

No User Interaction

The only big downside I have with this app is how you cannot do anything from the mobile interface. Even when logged into an account you cannot vote on posts or post comments, or even follow/unfollow users. I’m not sure if this is a limitation with the Forrst API or if Bosquet just doesn’t include these options.

However, I am optimistic we could see this functionality at some point in the future. Many of the Dribbble apps for iPhone and iPad do not allow for users to post comments, either. It just feels like a tease that you can read through discussions yet have no ability to respond from your device. Although admittedly, users will still browse the app even without an account, so this issue should not be a dealbreaker!

Conclusion

I have enjoyed my time playing around in Bosquet. The name is peculiar, but don’t judge this app by its title alone. Anybody who loves Forrst will feel very comfortable with Bosquet — and even more for its cheaper price tag.

The team behind the app is small, consisting of  designer Anthony Aubertin and developer Maxime Bornemann, who are both based out of France. But ultimately, Bosquet is usable, looks visually pleasing, and comes at the cheapest price tag currently in the App Store.

Read later apps are no different, since the original iOS apps were released by Read It Later (now Pocket) and Instapaper in 2008, competition to be the de facto standard has been fierce. Cue the release of Readability in March, another competitor and another piece of the pie to fight for. Want to know which app is best? How do their features compare? Stick around to find out.

What’s the Deal?

Instapaper is currently the only paid app of the three contenders, costing $4.99. At first glance, this may seem expensive but after using the app it soon becomes clear that it is a relative steal. The fact the app is almost completely managed by one man, developer Marco Arment, is impressive and is becoming a rarity in today’s iOS App Store.

Pocket, the reincarnation of Read It Later, is the result of a major top-down revamp signaling a move away from the traditional text-based article. In dropping many of it’s predecessors features, Pocket has streamlined it’s service and now focuses upon video and imagery — hence the name change. The app is also now free to use.

Being the proverbial “new kid on the block,” Readability has caused quite a stir after it’s release in March. Introducing itself as a free download, it undoubtedly influenced Pocket’s decision to re-release for free. Given the quality of the app overall and the quality features offered, Readability is worth trying.

Interface and Design

After logging into all of the apps, you are presented with the list of previously saved content and articles, in chronological order, ready to be consumed. Sorting the list is possible from both Instapaper and Pocket, though Readability doesn’t yet support the action. Instapaper’s sorting options are very rudimentary, sorting content by “newest” and “oldest” is the best the app offers.

Left: Instapaper — Centre: Pocket — Right: Readability

Pocket excels at sorting content and features a button on it’s menu bar that allows to sort by content type, Articles, Video or Images thus allowing easy sifting through the list. The app also features neat thumbnail images for all of the saved items allowing for easier identification, a unique feature that works very well with video content.

Pocket and Readability employ similar navigation capabilities by providing a simple menu bar on top of their respective reading lists. Access to archives and favourites items is from the menu’s as is Pocket’s sorting system. However, Readability’s menu extends by tapping the “…” button, which reveals the above menu options including the in-app web browser and settings.

Left: Instapaper — Centre: Pocket — Right: Readability

Instapaper, on the other hand, is more feature-rich than it’s rivals and requires a dedicated page to list it’s navigation options. By tapping Browse above the reading list you are presented with the above screen enabling access to the standard archives etc, and also unique options such as The Feature.

Reading Experience and Style Options

Despite Pocket’s decision to move away from the common article, read later apps are still dominated by text-based content, and as a result, the way in which apps present words is a key issue. All of the apps have customisation options (some more extensive than others) and the ability to read in “Full-Screen Mode” without the presence of menus.

Left: Instapaper — Centre: Pocket — Right: Readability

The best Full-Screen mode is presented by Instapaper; any distractions are removed by the absence of the iOS status bar at the top and this allows for the reader’s full attention to be on the text. To navigate back to the reading list or to toggle the app’s options is possible by simply tapping the screen to reveal a minimalistic menu.

Pocket also removes the status bar from the top but leaves behind the option to read in Web View which can be distracting even though this disappears as you scroll down the page. The presentation of an article’s primary image is also well done compared to it’s rivals, though personally I prefer a clean, text-only page.

Readability on the other hand, is not bad per se, but the fact the status bar remains throughout the article is slightly annoying whilst reading. Where Readability excels in the reading experience is when put into Dark Mode.

Left: Instapaper — Centre: Pocket — Right: Readability

Despite the promise of Pocket, when it comes to style variation and customisable content it falls flat — really flat. Only two font variations and text-resizing are available and hopefully, in an update, this will be remedied. In the meantime, Pocket struggles to keep up with it’s rivals with regard to the basic expectations of a user, which will hinder the uptake of the app.

Instapaper’s 4.0 update brought with it an extensive array of fonts and is now the top dog in this regard. Coupled with the fact that every aspect of an article can be moulded and re-sized to your own specifications, it is hard to look anywhere else but Instapaper for quality. Readability however, given it’s free price-point, is not far behind. The app features five custom fonts and re-sizable text and once again is a tempting, cheaper alternative.

Welcome to the Dark Side

Like to read at night? Struggle with a bright LCD display? Scared of waking up your partner? If so, dark mode reading is built with you in mind. By flipping the standard white background to a shade of grey, not only is the ambient light reduced, the impact on your eyes is minimized making reading that much more comfortable.

Left: Instapaper — Centre: Pocket — Right: Readability

Instapaper offers a disappointing dark mode option that is just as bad to use when reading at night, as compared to the normal white background mode. The contrast of the straight black background and white text is off putting and makes reading that little bit less enjoyable. However, a “twilight sepia” tint is also available (pictured below) and is magnificent to use.

Reading in the sepia tint is almost akin to an old library book, stained and tanned over time which gives a real authentic reading experience. Speaking of authentic, Instapaper’s 4.2 update brought with it iBooks-esque pagination animation (see below), allowing you to flip pages naturally. Swiping to change pages is quick and intuitive, though it is possible to change page without the animations.

Readability was the first app to offer such a refined dark mode experience and offers a masterclass in presenting the feature. The white text is presented against a subtle grayscale background that is a joy to use when reading at night, reducing the fatigue an LCD screen can cause.

Left: Instapaper Pagination — Centre: Instapaper Sepia — Right: Pocket Sepia

Pocket, courtesy of a recent update, has caught up with the opposition and actually improves upon Readability’s offering. Featuring a true full screen and a grayscale background, Pocket’s developers have raised the bar and the feature is genuinely a pleasure to use. Another feature in Pocket, inspired by Instapaper, is the sepia tint background option which is almost identical in implementation as Instapaper, and is the default background for me in both apps.

Finding and Adding New Content

The traditional means of saving content are still in use and for any of the apps a bookmarklet is available for your computer’s browser allowing you to save directly to your reading list. However, as the differences between computers and mobile devices become increasingly nuanced, read later apps must find new ways of adding content.

Left: Instapaper — Centre: Pocket — Right: Readability

Pocket, again, lacks compared to it’s competitors and is sorely behind the time. It has no way of actually finding new content from within the app itself. The web-view reading mode is shown above but is not an actual browser — quite the disappointment. Readability and Instapaper on the other hand boast built in web browsers allowing you to search your favourite websites and save them for later without the need for a computer.

There is huge third-party support for all of the apps, and it is possible to add content to your content lists directly from other apps such as Twitter, Reeder, Zite and hundreds more. However, Instapaper once again steals the show with some great unique features for adding new content.

Unique Features

Sharing content is possible in all of three of the apps, detailed in the next section, but Instapaper takes this one step further. By linking your account with Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, the “Friends” page in Instapaper acts in an RSS-like fashion and collects all links in one place for you to read. Nifty.

Left: Instapaper "Friends" — Centre: Instapaper "The Feature" — Left: Pocket Video

The Feature is another great presence within Instapaper and offers handpicked articles from around the web and those that are most popular amongst users, then presents them in a list ready to be read. A dedicated editor curates the content, thus guaranteeing reliable and quality pieces.

Despite its many flaws, Pocket is truly at home when handling video content; videos are played from within the app rather than re-routing to the source through Safari like Instapaper does. Though video cannot be saved for offline viewing, it is still a great feature and, as of yet, unsurpassed.

Sharing

After reading a great article it is useful to share the piece with others and/or take snippets from it for other use. Instapaper and Pocket have great sharing functionality and allow for sharing articles across a multitude of other apps on your iPhone. Readability, rather disappointingly, is restricted to using Facebook, Twitter and email to share articles.

Left: Instapaper "Friends" — Centre: Instapaper "The Feature" — Left: Pocket Video

Pocket is actually the most generous app in this sense and allows for sharing to sites such as Reddit, Pinboard and Evernote whilst also linking to apps such as Things and OmniFocus natively on your iPhone — access to these options is possible by tapping More. Instapaper acts in a similar manner and by tapping Accounts on the above screen you can link up to Tumblr, Evernote and the standard social networks.

And the Winner is …

Instapaper is, without doubt, the best read later app there is. It currently sits proudly in both my iPhone and iPad’s dock and I have recommended it to every friend looking for a read later app. However, for those who think $4.99 is too steep a price to pay, Readability is not a bad substitute and provides a great service. It may be a surprise, but Pocket is also present, rather than Readability, on my devices by virtue of it’s tremendous video handling capabilities so if you save a lot of video it could be the app for you.

Combining photos isn’t something new. You’ve probably seen your friends doing it on Facebook and Instagram for ages but with so many different apps out there to choose from, how do you know which one is best for you? In this post we’ll take a look at three of the more well-known photo combiners (PicFrame, Diptic and Frametastic), investigating the pros and cons of each, so that you can easily see which is the best one for your needs.

PicFrame

As photo combiners go, PicFrame is pretty complete. You can select your frame of choice from five pages of layouts. You also have the option of changing the ratio (1:1, 3:2, 4:3, 2:3 and 3:4). Photo labels are possible but at an additional add-on price. One of the pros of PicFrame is that you can adjust the frame areas simply by dragging the borders that separate them, something that is often forgotten about or costs extra in other apps.

Once you have picked your frame and slotted your photos in, you still have the ability to adjust the colour, corners and shadows of your overall image. However, it is there that your photo editing controls end, so if you were expecting (or wanting) to spend a decent amount of time on photo editing, you will be disappointed with that aspect of PicFrame.

Sharing is simple and includes export paths to email, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter amongst a few others. The instructions are simple yet complete and easily accessible whenever you have forgotten how to do something.

Some of the PicFrame layouts and one of the help screens

Pros: PicFrame has great instructions and a wide variety of frame choices. It is also the only app of the three in this post that allows you to adjust the frames without having to pay more.

Cons:  Processing and sharing can sometimes be a bit slow when using PicFrame.

Details: PicFrame in the App Store ($0.99)

Diptic

At first glance, Diptic looks promising. Nine pages of layouts give you plenty of opportunity to find a combination that suits your purpose and if you really can’t choose, you can also let the app select for you by pressing the “random” button at the top right of the screen. Once you have found your layout, you can select your photos from not only your camera roll but also from your Facebook and Flickr albums — a clear bonus if you store a lot of your photos on either.

Adjusting the frame borders to fit your photos better is possible, but it is going to cost you extra in the form of an add-on purchase. The transform button is not as transforming as it might initially sound, only providing the chance to mirror your image or rotate it 90 degrees. The effects tab lets you adjust the photo’s brightness, contrast and  saturation via three sliders and the boarder button at the top right gives you some flexibility when it comes to the colour shape and roundness of your frame and the photos inside.

Exporting pathways mainly include Facebook, Flickr, Posterous, tumblr, Twitter and Instagram. If you are one of those people that likes to throw out the instructions and jump right into a product, then you and Diptic are going to gel well as the help button almost takes up more space than the help that it displays. You can glimpse a bit more info in the FAQ accessible from the front page, but not too much.

Colour adjustments and help in Diptic

Pros: Diptic allows you to select photos not only from your camera roll but also from your Facebook and/or Flickr albums. Diptic also has the cool “random” button, meaning no more hard decisions on which frame and/or photos to use.

Cons: Diptic comes with only a very basic set of instructions, plus you’ll pay extra if you want to be able to adjust the frames

Details: Diptic in the App Store ($0.99)

Frametastic

Finally we come to Frametastic. With only two pages of free layouts (you can purchase more) you might be ready to close the app before you even get started but hang on in there. Not only is Frametastic currently free, it has a secret weapon that makes it a bit more useful.

After selecting your layout, make sure you pay attention to the theme at the bottom of the screen. These themes show up in your exports, so while the grass background might look cool when you are selecting your photos, it may seriously affect your street cred when you export it to Facebook (you’ve been warned).

Frametastic lets you adjust the format (again you can unlock more options for a fee) but the secret weapon I mentioned comes in the form of the “apply effects” option when you tap one of your photos. From here you have a nice selection of colour effects (from bright to lemonade) that help to add a little creativeness to your photos in an easy and quick way.

Like the other two apps you have the ability to adjust corners, change the frame colour and the instructions screen, while not as complete as PicFrame, it provides the essentials. Export options are in the form of email, Twitter, Facebook, tumblr and Instagram.

Frametastic might not have many free layouts but it has colour effects

Pros: Frametastic comes with a nice selection of “effects” that you can easily apply to your photos. Whether you want to convert your photos to black and white or just add a sepia tone, you can unleash your inner artist.

Cons: Of the three apps, Frametastic has the fewest frames to choose from. You can always unlock more, but you’ll pay extra for that privilege.

Details: Frametastic in the App Store (Free)

In Conclusion

No longer is it good enough to just display your photos one by one. Luckily, the wide range of apps in the App Store, which let you effortlessly combine multiple photos into one, makes the job easy. If only selecting which app to use was as simple!  We’ve taken a look at three of those apps in this post and which one is the best? That depends on what you are looking for.

With a good selection of creative effects and a price tag of free, Frametastic is well worth downloading. However, the rather small free selection of frames isn’t going to keep you entertained for long. But instead of splurging on an additional set, you’d probably be better to take your hard earned cash and turn it in for one of the more extensive apps and if you really want to know, my choice would be PicFrame.

Then an iPhone app called Signatures came along a little while back and it intrigued me because it gave you the capability to create your own signature right on your iPhone. Once I saw the app, I knew I had to try it out and see if it could actually help me solve my problem of customizing my email signature. Did it? Let’s find out after the break.

Adding Content

When you first open up Signatures, you are going to want to fill out some details about yourself. You can choose to add as much or as little as you want, it really all depends on what you are comfortable with people seeing. There are five different categories that you can fill out and add to your signature.

Signatures' Homepage (left) Adding Content (right)

The first one is called Contact Details and this is where you fill out all of the personal information about yourself, your name, address, phone number, etc. Secondly, you can put in a digital signature by actually signing your name on the iPhone like you would a letter. If you don’t like signing your name on the small screen, you can also scan in your signature and import to the app as well.

Filling out your personal information and digital signature

Next, you can add your social networks and instant messaging services to your customized signature. The app provides you with a good amount of services to connect to and to be honest, a handful of them are really not necessary, in my opinion. Then lastly, you have the option of adding a note which can be used for those of you that like to write famous quotes on your signature or something to that effect.

List of social networks and instant messaging apps to connect to

Creating Your Signature

When you first start to build your signature card, you are given two options to either create a custom one or using a template that is provided. When you choose to create your own, you basically select what information you want people to see based upon what you filled in earlier. This is a great option if you want something simple, but if you want to spice it up a little, you are going to want to go with using one of the templates.

Creating a New Signature

There are ten different types of templates that are broken up into four different categories (General, Social, Basic, and Work) for you to choose from. Each one has it’s own subtle differences and they are all really clean looking templates to use. Depending on the one you choose will decide what information you need to show.

Templates for your signature

Using Your Signature

Once you are done tinkering and creating your own template, you can now use it for your emails. Signatures has an option where you can create an email from within the app with your new template. It uses your address book so you don’t have to necessarily remember who you need to email, you can just look them up. You can also copy your template and paste it into another email application that you may be using, like Sparrow or the Mail app for example.

Creating an email with your customized signature

Thoughts

I am still undecided if I really like this app or not because although it fills a need, there are some limitations to it. For one, you are limited to using it just on your iPhone, which for some people may be okay, but I would like to use it when I sending email on my computer or iPad as well. Secondly, although the templates I create look really good on the app, when I use them in an email, they don’t look as good. For example, for one of the templates I used a picture of myself, but when I tried to use it in an email, it wouldn’t work.

Outside of these limitations, I really like the design of Signatures and how easy they make it to create your own template. I think it can be useful for people that tend to use their iPhone a lot for email on the go, but I am not sure that the masses will use this on a regular basis. The app itself costs $2.99, which is an okay price. Unfortunately, Signatures has left me wanting more; they have a good foundation for an app and if they could fix some things I think there might be great promise for it.

Would you use something like this? If not, do you have any other recommendations for an app that is similar to this?

Come on in and get ready to give your thumbs a workout!

The Sandbox

We’re going to start strong with an incredible open world creation tool called, obviously enough, The Sandbox. It’s something like Minecraft meets Sim City, except you’re building an entire world and basically sets you free.

Needless to say, it’s one of those games that offers creative players a gigantic dose of happiness as they collect new materials and learn to grow, build, and develop their own unique worlds. Destruction balances things out and gives you the power to undo what you’ve created, or re-shape the landscape, or just play wrathful deity — no matter what your goals, The Sandbox offers a way to satisfy them in the context of pixel-perfect world building.

For now, you can share your levels with others and browse a gallery of their creations, but you can’t yet leave comments — that’s coming in an update, along with some more interactivity. There are missions, but they’re really only a guide track to help you master the powers at your disposal. The Sandbox is a fresh and exhilarating love letter to creativity, and it will be exciting to watch it grow as development progresses and people master the tools. It’s free, so grab it and be your own deity!

Price: Free
Developer: Pixowl Games
Download: App Store

N.O.V.A 3 — Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance

The App Store has seen a few stand-out titles that nearly everyone recognizes. Infinity Blade was the third-person fantasy masterpiece, Angry Birds was the physics puzzler, and in the realm of first-person shooters, the title to beat has always been N.O.V.A. Now that the third game in the series is out, we can safely say that there’s a reason it keeps its throne: this game is incredible.

Pushing the limits of what you’d expect to be able to see on your phone, N.O.V.A. 3 — Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance is a tremendously attractive shooter with sophisticated physics, gorgeous lighting, detailed models, and a well developed plot that propels you through its ten varied and large levels. The presence of vehicles that you can pilot adds another dimension of play, and now your allies can join you in the vehicles in the same kind of multi-seat destruction we know and love from console FPS games.

Be aware that this is one of the largest games you’re likely to be putting on your phone — it takes a monstrous 1.57GB to install — but the result is worth it, and you’ll forget about things like space when you’re immersed in one of the iPhone’s greatest showcase titles. It may not revolutionize the gameplay from previous titles in the series, but N.O.V.A. 3 is way ahead of the game even still.

Price: $6.99
Developer: Gameloft
Download: App Store

LostWinds 2: Winter of the Melodias

As the well-received LostWinds series continues to make its re-appearance on the App Store (after making a splash on WiiWare initially), a new chapter is available: Winter of the Melodias.

In the sequel, you not only have power over the wind, but can switch between summer and winter at will to help you navigate through the stunningly rendered world of Mistralis. Forming clouds, diving into formerly-frozen pools, and crafting snowballs are just a few of the techniques you’ll find yourself using this time around as you search for the protagonist Toku’s mother.

If you enjoyed LostWinds, then you’ll clearly enjoy the sequel, but you’ll also notice that the controls have been refined and are more comfortable, and that the newly opened areas of the world offer a huge variety of enchanting environments in which to explore your powers. It’s a very rewarding game to progress through, and is among the most charming and colourful titles we’ve seen since the original. Don’t miss it!

Price: $3.99
Developer: Frontier Developments Ltd.
Download: App Store

Snabbit

Remember that little game you used to play on your phone (your ancient dumbphone)? The snake game that was all over the place? As simple as it was, it was incredibly popular and addictive, and TapCat has brought the same style of play to your iPhone with all the polish and visual glitz that today’s technology allows for.

In Snabbit, you’ll control the Snabbit itself: a mysterious intergalactic creature that eats stars and loves hidden treasure. The straight-forward one-tap gameplay lends itself well to the fast pacing of the many levels, and alongside those you’ll find an infinite mode that features auto-generated levels that change after every 6 hours.

The best part is the level editor, though. We have a lot of love for games that allow you to make your own content, and in the case of Snabbit, the editor is simple and rewarding and allows you to extend your time with the game and share your creations with friends, which is always a good thing. If you’re after something lighter than the previous titles we’ve mentioned this week, then have a look at Snabbit and munch some stars!

Price: $0.99
Developer: TapCat
Download: App Store

Gene Effect

Gene Effect is quite possibly one of the finest games we’ve reviewed in a while. This glorious space exploration game, like a cross between Waking Mars and the upcoming Prometheus film, is stunningly crafted (mostly by one man!) and technically ambitious.

In the not too distant future, mankind explores space and encounters an ancient race of aliens. The story spans several episodes and is well told, interspersed between extensively varied gameplay that ranges from combat, to exploring secret areas, to puzzles, to mining, to object hunting, and more. It’s enough to keep you busy for hours and, more importantly, impressed throughout. Lighting is moody, colours are well chosen and subtle, the physics feel true to life and keep the controls from getting too floaty, and the environments are detailed and alive, with many animated elements and layers of activity.

For fans of sci-fi, Gene Effect offers an experience unlike any other on your iPhone, and with more and more content and tweaks arriving via updates, it’s a good time to grab this game and start exploring its intriguing world. You won’t want to leave.

Price: $4.99
Developer: Lightstorm3D
Download: App Store

What Have You Been Playing?

That’s going to do it for this week, but don’t be a stranger — leave us your comments and let us know what you’ve been playing, what you enjoyed from this list, and what we might have missed!

There are are a number of apps that can help you navigate public transit in a specific city. For example, New Yorkers have a number of great options for understanding the subway routes. But I’ve been looking for a solid, well-rounded public transit mapping app for the iPhone that can work anywhere. I recently came across HopStop, and have been using it for a couple weeks. My thoughts after the jump.

The Basics

HopStop is a navigation app that is catered to public transit riders. The app offers you the choice of selecting directions based on a specific mode of transportation, including subways, busses, and taxis, as well as walking directions. Once you enter your starting point and your final destination, HopStop will give you step-by-step directions on how to get there.

Getting Started

You begin by entering your starting location. You can enter a specific address, choose from your list of contacts, or just use your current location. Likewise, you select your destination.

After the load screen, you'll be presented with a place to enter your starting and ending points.

You get a few options for mode of transportation, as I mentioned earlier. Additionally, you can let the app know how much you feel like walking. This choice is simply broken down as “More walking” or “Less walking,” with no sliding scale. Your choice here will impact the number of transfers that the given route will have. Lastly, these settings allow you turn regional rail on and off, as well as indicate whether or not you can use private vehicles.

Next you will tell the app when you want to leave. Since it gets schedule info for when the next bus or train will be leaving, it uses this information to plot your route and give you estimates on how long the trip will take. By default this is set to “Now.”

Interface

Now that you have entered your route information, HopStop will give you some directions. At the top of the screen you are given some basic details about the route, including the distance, the trip duration, and estimated arrival. Plus, you’ll see some information to help keep you motivated to continue taking advantage of public transit. HopStop shows you how many calories you’ll burn walking to the and from stops, as well as how much CO2 you saved. The calories burned figures seemed accurate, (although that is highly variable based on speed, terrain, etc.). The CO2 figure is likely going to be more controversial, because of varying fuel economies of different car models.

The directions are laid out with careful attention to detail, perhaps to an superfluous degree. I say this because on a roughly one mile stretch of one bus route, it listed every single stop that my bus would pass. It would be nice to be able to ignore stops you don’t need and just give the one where you get off, because it leads to unnecessary clutter.

Left: Selecting modes of transportation. Right: Directions window.

Scrolling past the end of the directions gives you maps for the walking portions of your trip. That means it shows you how to walk to your bus stop or train station where the trip begins, and then again from where you get off to your final destination. Unfortunately, touching these maps does not let you zoom in or out, nor does it let you open the maps in another app.

There are banner ads at the bottom of most screens that generally don’t get in the way. However, there are also sponsored ads built into the app that are a bit more intrusive. These are listed as businesses that are “nearby,” but these tend to be useless. It would be nice to see a feature that lets you see user-selected searches about what’s nearby, such as a place to get something to eat along the way.

Other Features

You can share routes by either text or email. Sharing by email will cut and paste all of the directions into the body of your message. The text message sharing sends a link to the HopStop’s mobile-optimized site with the directions as you see them on your iPhone. I found both of these sharing options to work well.

Left: Sharing your route via email or text message is very easy. Right: You can save your routes for future use.

HopStop also lets you save your routes for later viewing. Opening these routes is easy, as there is a dedicated button to bring them up at the bottom of the app.

Speaking of the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen, you will also find a button labeled “Transit Map.” Sadly, HopStop only has a New York City map, so if you live elsewhere, you’re out of luck as far as transit maps are concerned.

Left: A transit map for a whole city is only available for NYC. Right: The maps for your directions aren't pinch and zoom. Instead, they use arrows, (which is frustrating).

Lastly, there is a button labeled “Street Map” that lets you jump to an address on the app’s map. Again, you can manually enter the address, bring up your contacts, or choose your current location. This feature would be great if it could give you some context, in the same way that local discovery apps show you businesses nearby based on your search criteria, rather that just show sponsored ads.

Conclusion

I used this app for about a week, and was generally underwhelmed by its features. It is really appealing to see an app that promotes its ability to give you detailed navigation using only public transportation, but HopStop doesn’t execute the concept very well. The directions it gives include too much unnecessary information and in a visually unappealing format. For a free app, I was willing to put up with banner ads, but the amount that HopStop throws at you ruins the experience.

Keep in mind that your stock iPhone Maps app gives you car directions by default, but that you can also get bus and walking directions from it. I will be sticking to that app for now because of the easier, ad-free navigation and the clearer directions. I wouldn’t recommend HopStop unless you are desperate to try a new navigation app. At this point, I’ve found plenty of great apps that are city-specific, but am still searching for the perfect public transportation navigation app with nation-wide flexibility.

What About You?

What are some of your favorite navigation apps for using public transit?

Read on to find out what is so special about Super Mega Worm and why I love it so much.

What is Super Mega Worm?

The plot of Super Mega Worm is *very* nerdy to say the least. It is your job as Wojira the Death Worm to save Mother Nature from destruction. Ironically, you do this by ridding the Earth of its human “parasites.”

Wreak havoc to humans in order to save the world

As if this wasn’t enough to win you over, the gameplay is absolutely insane. Throughout the 24-level campaign (plus the extra 15-level Christmas themed campaign) you will pummel through not only humans but horses, buffalo, pickup trucks, tanks, and much more. The farther you move along, the bigger and more menacing you will get.

The Blood & Guts

Now is the time that we are going to flesh out the game itself: what about it just makes it so darn fun? I have found that one of the core things that makes this game so freaking awesome is that it doesn’t have a real “point” while still maintaining a storyline. This allows the player to deviate from their games without having to worry about losing lots of hard-earned progress.

Super Mega Worm features many objects and enemies that you need to destroy

This game is a retro arcade game more than anything else. The idea is simple enough that anyone can understand how to play just by picking up the game: eat everything in your path to stay fueled and try to avoid being hit by guns, tanks, bombs, or whatever else that may possibly hurt you. The worst that can happen is you die, in which case you can pick up right from the level you leave off.

Super Mega Worm features two different game modes: Adventure and Time Attack. Time Attack is the classic example of a free for all as the goal is to amass as many points as possible within a constrained timeframe. The levels are loaded with things to destroy and insane combos are achievable through this level.

Super Mega Worm includes the Super Mega Worm vs. Santa pack for some snowy fun

Adventure is the 24-level — or 15-level if you are playing the North Pole pack — campaign mode. In this game mode, you will progress by killing the target amount of humans displayed on the top right of the screen. The further you get in the game, the more humans you will have to kill to move on. Wojira the Worm will also grow and earn power-ups like “spit” or “emp” as you go on, making the challenge not so hard

Ultimately, the campaign mode is super short and relatively easy — nothing that can’t be beat in a span of 20 minutes or so. While this is disappointing, it isn’t too bad because the nature of the game is more of a quick-fix and offers loads of replay value. Plus, each level is randomly spawned and you will never have the exact same experience twice.

Keeping Control

Deceased Pixel has really went out of their way to accommodate everyone when it comes down to controls. Super Mega Worm doesn’t have one, not two, but three different control configurations to choose from — D-pad, Slider, or Tilt.

Three different control configurations are available to use (From top to bottom: D-pad, Tilt, and Slider)

Personally, I find playing with the D-pad, the default controller, is the easiest as it allows you to control all directions of the worm’s movement. The tilt and slider options really only allow you to control two directions of the worm’s movements at once and are quite hard to get used to. Nevertheless, each option can be quite finicky at times, and the controllers can be kind of sticky.

16-Bit Epicness

If you have read any of my past reviews, you would already know that I love the retro 16-bit style in iOS apps. Super Mega Worm boasts this really classic arcade-style look. The fact that it looks like it came right out of an arcade helps soften the immense amount of blood and gore in the game.

What can be better than a gory 16-bit game with a comedic edge?

Which brings us to our next point: this game is extremely gory. As you ravage the earth, you will see limbs and heads flying, blood squirting everywhere, and, of course, explosions. The fun graphics give a much needed “this-isn’t-real” nuance to what could be an extremely disgusting game. Plus, some of the things that the terrified humans say as their running away add an extra comical edge which the game definitely benefitted from.

The Verdict

Super Mega Worm is by far one of the best games I have ever played on the iPhone. Fast-paced and addicting gameplay make it a go-to application for any time you need a gaming fix. Additionally, the awesome retro graphics make this game seem as if it had came straight out of an ’80s arcade.

Despite how amazing the game is, it does have its flaws. The campaign is too short and very easy; if levels weren’t randomly spawned it would not have any replay value whatsoever. Controls also seem to be quite finicky, and I have only found one of the three different configurations to be truly usable. Because of these flaws, I am unable to rate Super Mega Worm higher than a 9/10. Still, Super Mega Worm is perhaps the best $1.99 I have ever spent on an iOS app.

By this point I know some of you may be asking, “who cares?” I know time tracking isn’t a hobby or activity that is particularly exciting or useful to everyone, but if it is, BeginIt may become your new favorite app.

Getting Started

After you get past BeginIt’s gorgeous splash screen, you’ll be shown a few examples of logged ctivities. To add a new Activity (or as the app says, “to BeginIt”), swipe down on your screen. A new overlapping page will appear on screen with a list of time tracking activities, which Xynyn uses for a brief tutorial if read from top to bottom. Unfortunately, you’ll need to delete each activity, which is done by swiping the color block to the right and then swiping it back to the left.

Your introduction to BeginIt.

Tracking Time

When you’re ready to begin timing, tap on the text box at the top of the screen (to the left of the Cancel button) and type your Activity description; when you’re finished, tap Done. From here you’ll be driven back to the main page and your timing will begin.

Enter your Activity description in the text box, hit Done and it will appear on the main page.

One annoyance that’s rather irksome about BeginIt is that there’s no method of stopping your timing. It’s clear that Xynyn created BeginIt with the notion that users would always want to track their timing, but that certainly won’t always be the case (perhaps you need to track time for business purposes or just want to track certain events). A work around that Xynyn proposes in the App Store description is to create a “not logged” Activity, which works, but I’m hoping the ability to stop timing will be added in a future update.

Create a "Not Logged" Activity (or simply kill the app) if you don't want to track a specific activity.

Editing Activities

BeginIt offers a few minor editing capabilities for activities, as well as the ability to set goals (discussed further in the next section); to do either, tap on an Activity from the main page. The first area of the Edit page is the Event, which includes the same time information displayed on the main page. If you need to edit the time you logged, tap the Edit Event button and change the time using the scroll wheel (you can also change the Activity using the text box provided).

The Edit and Edit Event pages.

The second area of the Edit page displays a line graph the shows all the time you’ve tracked under that Activity. BeginIt keeps tabs of all the time you’ve tracked so you can swipe the graph to the right to view previous entries. If you tap on the graph, you’ll be transitioned to a full page graph that allows you to view your progress a bit easier.

The line graph shows your progress for an individual Activity over time.

Setting Goals

The last area of the Edit page displays Goals (referred to as a Constant Goal in BeginIt), which must be set up for each new Activity (if desired). To set up a goal, tap the Edit Activity button above the graph (you can also change the Activity color from the Edit Activity page). Start by selecting how much time you want to spend doing said Activity (you can change the default one hour by tapping on it and then using the scroll wheel to change the time), then select how often the goal should be accomplished (e.g. daily, weekly or monthly). Tap the Add A Goal button when you’re finished.

Setting up a goal.

You’ll notice that your goal has been entered and that it’s tracking your goal for only a week. This is a rather curious standard set by Xynyn, but it can be changed with some ease by tapping on the goal, tapping the Due Date, and then changing the date on the scroll wheel (at the moment you can’t go further than a year).

Changing a goal's due date.

When an Activity doesn’t have a set goal the text located next to the Activity on the main page will read “No Set Goal.” However, when an activity is set BeginIt will show the date the activity was logged, how much time was logged and remains to meet the goal, and the percentage the goal was achieved.

BeginIt makes it easy to determine if you're hitting your goals.

Creating Graphs

One of the reasons to bother with time tracking is to study your activities, and as a visual person I really enjoy BeginIt’s ability to create graphs from my logged time. To create a graph, swipe down on screen from the main page and tap the graph button in the top right corner. Next, choose the type of graph you’d like to make (pie, line or bar), then tap on the activities you’d like to include in the graph.

Graphing options.

Next, choose the time range and tap the Create Graph button. BeginIt allows you to save an image of the graph to your Camera Roll, or share it via Twitter, Facebook or Email.

Examples of completed graphs.

Final Thoughts

BeginIt is the type of app that won’t appeal or be useful to everyone, which is a real shame. Xynyn has done an amazing job with creating an incredibly stunning app that is just a joy to use. The overall simplicity of BeginIt makes it easy for anyone to pick up and use right away, though I’m still holding out for the ability to stop a timing manually.

If time tracking plays a part of your life, or you’re just interesting in tracking your daily habits, I really cannot recommend BeginIt enough.

Developer Hexage has been blasting out shiny, addicting games for iOS and other platforms for a few years now, and the release of Radiant Defense shows they haven’t been slacking. But in a genre flooded with apps, what makes this tower defense game the one to download?

Tower Defense Basics

The story of Radiant Defense begins when the Commander of an Earth defense force arrives on the scene. He and scientist “Doc” are charged with protecting the vortex between the aliens’ world and Earth. If too many aliens flood the vortex and the defenses are overrun, Earth’s coil that closes the vortex will be destroyed and Earth is destined for certain destruction. Heavy stuff.

The Commander reports in.

If you’re familiar with tower defense mechanics, then you’re well-prepared for Radiant Defense. With the money you’re given at the beginning of a turn, or “wave,” you purchase turrets with different abilities, upgrading your turrets and adding to them as you progress. Occasionally the Commander or Doc will give you a hint between waves so you can prep for enemies with specialized defense systems. And they’re giving hints to those who’ve never played a tower defense before, too, advising on turret placement and when to upgrade weapons.

DIY Space Maze

Where Radiant Defense differs from many tower defense games is that it lets you plot the map. Using construction modules, the player designs the path the enemies take to the end point. The base map in a Radiant Defense level will usually offer the aliens a beeline to Earth’s coil. By strategically placing construction modules, you can force the aliens to take the longest route possible while setting up some great choke points when you start placing turrets.

A little nook has been built around the coil goal. Meanwhile, blue jelly aliens attack.

The tutorial level takes you through all of these nuts and bolts, and you can return to the tutorial at any time if you didn’t quite get it or you just want to brush up on your skills. You’re also introduced to the three turrets that make up the core of your fighting force, at least for the first several levels. Clicking on the laser, the cannon, and the gun (or any weapon, for that matter) will give you more info on each turret’s strengths and weaknesses and a clue as to when to use each.

Pros and Cons of Freemium

Radiant Defense is a freemium game, so Hexage is making their money off of in-app turret upgrade purchases. Some of the most useful turrets are only available as packs that run $0.99. While Radiant Defense is 100-percent playable out of the box, some of the most entertaining armaments and absurd explosions are only available with upgraded weapons packs.

I found that as the enemies got increasingly harder and would flood my little outpost in greater numbers, my base weapons just weren’t as effective anymore. While I could have ground through those onslaughts of fluorescent jelly without upgrading, I found the game much more enjoyable with my $0.99 purchases.

A mission boss, surrounded by fluorescent weaponry.

The only flaw with Radiant Defense is the in-app purchasing system, though. The Commander and Doc will hint that a particular turret would be a great idea on the next wave, but they don’t let you know it’s a purchasable upgrade. I got slaughtered through several waves of enemies, thinking I just didn’t have enough game currency for the special weapon, when the reason it wasn’t appearing was because I hadn’t spent any real currency. Once I figured out what was missing, I had to pause in the middle of getting slammed by day-glo, cupcake-shaped aliens, choose the upgrade I wanted, and make the purchase. Usually by the time I’d figured out what I needed and how to get it, I was so far gone, I had to restart the entire mission.

Conclusion

While losing progress seems like a huge annoyance when it happens and may cause the occasional rage quit, when I finally came back to my iPhone after my little tantrum, the game was just as good, if not better for my upgrade purchases, and it took almost no time at all for me to get back to where I had been.

Radiant Defense’s technicolor graphics and pulsating enemies create a tiny, caricatured alien apocalypse future. The design of this game is integral to the enjoyment of the play, and it’s obvious the developers understood that and took it into account. Down to the slurping way the aliens move around the player-created maze, this is a well-executed app with all attention paid to making it fun to play and fun to look at.

This is a solid tower defense, with inventive game play, smashing graphics, and a terrific soundtrack. With the recent addition of Radiant Defense to their catalog of beautiful games, Hexage is looking to remain an indie developer at the forefront of iOS playables.

News.me is an iPhone app that filters and processes your Twitter and/or Facebook streams to pick out the links your friends and followees have posted that will interest you. While not being recommended as a replacement Twitter app (simply because it uses Twitter as a source, but doesn’t let you actually interact with it), it does offer you a quick way to access crowdsourced news without all the commentary and more social-oriented posts. Let’s take a look at it after the jump. 

Getting Started

Being completely driven by the world’s two major social networks, Twitter and Facebook, News.me has an incredibly simple setup. You simply tap the social network you want to login to in order to get setup (and, if it’s Twitter you’re logging in to, News.me will tap into iOS 5′s integration so you don’t even have to type in any credentials). Fortunately, unlike many similar types of app, News.me doesn’t require you to hold an account with them in order to use the app; that’s one less thing to manage.

The main views you'll be using News.me in: the timeline-based feed and the individual article view.

Once you’ve signed up, you’re pretty much ready to go and News.me will use your social connection to start pulling in, sorting and presenting news stories to you. It’s literally that simple, and its integration into a service you likely already use is highly appreciated, especially convenient as you probably don’t have to enter credentials anyway.

The central feed in News.me pulls in stories from your connected social networks.

You can go further by heading to the app’s settings, where you can add the other social network you didn’t before (ie Facebook or Twitter). You can also follow (and, in return, be followed) by people on News.me itself, by using the Find Friends feature within your profile. This doesn’t seem to be necessary, nor offer much benefit if you already follow the people on Twitter, so it’s nothing to worry about if you don’t want to use it.

Your Daily Digest

News.me is ultimately a pretty minimalist app where you’ll primarily reside in a single column view of all the posts in your stream. Posts are pulled in from your social networks, and the list can be easily refreshed by the now famous swipe-down-to-refresh gesture.

When you come to actually read a post, you’re presented with it’s title and an image from the post if applicable. Underneath it, you’ll also be shown the reason that it’s in your stream since it lists the Twitter, Facebook or News.me user that the link originated from. If they added commentary to the link, that will be shown too so you’re not completely independent from the social network itself.

News.me activity is shown in a feed (left) while you're able to find fellow users through social networks (right).

When you click through onto an article, it’s presented in a Readability-style view that takes away the clutter of the regular web to give you an enhanced reading experience that i’m a big fan of, here and elsewhere. You’ll also be able add a reaction from a list of presets (such as “Ha!”, “Awesome” and “Really?”) for your fellow News.me users to view, as well as being able to view links from the same website (but not necessarily the same user).

Naturally, you can also share articles through the action button to your social network of choice or via email.

Social options within News.me.

If you do invest in the social aspect of News.me, you can use the top-left button to view the reactions your friends have made to content. That way, you can further reduce the clutter of your Twitter feed to just the content that is actually interested, based on your friends. Additionally, through that same button, you can access your “Reading List”, a list of articles you’ve saved from your primary feed.

A Breath of Fresh Air

I’ve used apps like this before, such as Flipboard. That app got a lot of hype but I hated it; it always seemed pretty haphazard and random. News.me is the complete opposite, and actually presents socially generated links in an organised, chronological stream. Like Readability does for the web, News.me clears off all the clutter of a social network to just get the juicy stories to you.

News.me’s execution of the concept is top notch, and definitely works. It has a strong user interface and is a stable app that you won’t find issue with. It’s minimalist, so you’re not likely to get confused with layers of navigation either. The settings panel is slightly hidden, but that’s hardly a major criticism considering you probably won’t frequently use it.

If you’ve got an iPad, check out the separate [non-universal] iPad version of News.me, also available for free in the App Store.

I was bouncing between options on my Apple TV the other day, and I stopped for a moment on iTunes Match. I remember when I first heard about the concept how I thought it had its ups and its downs, but it could still be pretty neat. I never bought a subscription because right now I don’t really see the need — but what about you? Do you have an iTunes Match subscription? Let us know in the poll to the right.

In it you take on the role of a settler of Catan, a newly discovered island rich with natural resources. You compete with the other settlers by building settlements, roads and cities in order to cover enough of the island with your influence to proclaim yourself the Lord of Catan. Stake your claim after the break.

The Basics

The game board is made of numbered, hexagonal tiles that each represent a different kind of resource, lumber, ore, grain, wool and brick, and are laid out randomly at the start to form the island. Each turn, two die are rolled and the number represents the tile, or tiles, that produce their goods that turn. If you have a settlement or city next to such a tile, you collect that resource.

The main interface of a game well underway.

Each player starts with two settlements and two roads, which are placed by each player before the first dice are rolled. Your initial settlement placements determine a lot about how well you will do in the game, including your initial resources, so you have to scrutinize the possible placements based on the types of resources they will get and the odds of their numbers being rolled more often.

Gameplay

The final goal of the game is to be the first to reach the number of agreed upon victory points, usually earned by building settlements and cities. But watch out, for when a seven is rolled the Robber takes action and will steal from the richest players. The player who rolled the seven then moves the Robber to a new tile, a tile which will not produce resources until the Robber moves on.

The trade interface is set up for quick-swipe deal making.

Resource trading is my favorite part of playing Catan with live people. During your turn you can offer up resources you possess to trade for those you want. In person, this creates a fun atmosphere of wheeling and dealing, but against the AI it is nowhere near as engaging. I give them credit though, because the AI seems to adjust well to their needs and can drive a hard bargain.

Strategy

Each thing you can build will take a different combination of resources: a lumber and a brick for a road; one of each resource for a settlement; three ore and two grain for a city; plus a city can only be built on top of a settlement. As you start to try and expand from your initial placements you will often find your development blocked by the moves of the other players, and you will want to look to doing the same to them.

Purchasing development cards offer another route for opportunity.

In addition to the building, you can also spend resources (one ore, one grain and one wool) to purchase development cards. These are drawn randomly from a limited central deck and will each grant you special options for how to proceed. For instance, knights let you move the Robber, and build the largest army (extra points). Other cards let you build additional roads, collect extra resources and so on.

Implementation

Overall, I am impressed with the implementation of Catan for the iPhone. The screen automatically zooms and pans about as the AI players take their turns, helping you to see quickly what they are doing and where. This, combined with the well built pop-out menu system, make for a flowing feel to things as they play out.

The pop-out menu is slick, zooming in and out easy.

One area of the interface that I think needs some help is in the text messages that appear at the top to describe what is happening. Often they do not update quickly enough, which can leave you wondering exactly what is happening. In particular, during trades I often see the message window vanish completely instead of telling me if my trade was accepted or not. Once you have played a few times this glitch will not trip you up, but when I was just learning the game I was totally confused by this.

Game Options

You can play with up to four players, each being either an AI or a real person (for pass and play), and set some minor alterations like adjusting the victory point total needed to win. In addition, there are a few different rule variations you can play with that restrict certain resources or grant extra points for building harbors.

The Seafarers Lite map that comes with the basic game shows you what you can expect in the full expansion.

The board game version of Catan has released numerous expansions that take the game to new levels of complexity and fun. The iPhone version is following suit with the first in-app purchase being the Seafarers expansion, which brings in pirates, ship building and playing on maps with multiple islands. The basic game gives you a teaser for this, called Seafarers Lite, that allows you to get a taste of what the game is like with the expansion added in.

Limitations

As much as I like the game of Catan, I think this version has a number of striking limitations that hold it back from truly shining. First and foremost is the price. $4.99 for the basic game is on the high side of fair for the quality and fun the app has, but the Seafarers expansion will run you another $4.99 on top of that. Plus, this is not an iOS universal app, so if you like to play on your iPad too you are looking at buying everything twice.

The other major problem with this game is the lack of online multiplayer. They make it clear that this feature is on its way, but without it this does feel like an overpriced app, offering more a sort of pre-release experience. So unless one has others around for pass and play, for the time we are stuck with playing against the AI — which is decent enough, but do not provide the level of fun that is had by playing real opponents.

Conclusions

If you really enjoy a good strategy game then Catan will definitely satisfy in that way. It has just the right amount of subtle complexity that makes it both easy to learn and interesting to play again and again. But without multiplayer you may not get the kind of replay-ability that playing with friends will definitely bring. Even the Seafarers expansion “campaign” mode felt like more of the same, though the new island maps definitely bring in a fun variation on things.

Once the multiplayer arrives I would probably bring my rating up to a seven. But honestly the price of the game and the in app expansion (which I presume is reflective of what future expansions will cost too) bring the value of the game down some for me, compared with all the amazing cheap and free games that are available these days. If you happen to grab this game when it is on sale, and it has multiplayer by then, I would say it is a strong eight.

Let’s say that you’ve got a report due for your history class about Charlemagne, and you need to figure out how to organize the article so it not only makes sense but also flows really well. One easy way to do that is to use a mind map, which is a way of plotting out your ideas and keeping them organized around a central subject. This is not only simple for pretty much anyone to pick up, but also can help you really determine out how to work out your problem.

But what makes MindNode better than the competition? It features a minimal and yet easy-to-use interface that allows you to expand your ideas infinitely or start a new one quickly. Then, once you’re done with planning everything out, you can also export your design in multiple formats including PNG, Text, PDF and more.

Buy a Copy Today!

If you’re ready to take your brainstorming sessions to the next level, buy a copy of MindNode today for just $9.99 in the App Store. Then take your thoughts above and beyond and start creating your own node maps.

Don’t think you’re being left out in the cold if you’re an iPad user, either. That’s because MindNode is a universal app, so you can use it on both your iPhone and iPad with no worries. And if you find that the touchscreen interface isn’t your style, check out the Mac version of the app, MindNode Pro. It’s just $19.99, and has all the same features as MindNode for the iPhone and iPad and then some.