These traditional types of shareable content are cornered markets, though, and as a result, developers and startups are looking for new ways to engage our creative side. Flipboard, for example, has recently launched a network of curated-content digital magazines, and Vine‘s six-second videos are already popular with Twitter users. Meanwhile, audio sharing apps like Dubbler are seen as the rising stars of content-based social networking.

Stampsy is hoping that the next medium to go viral is a digital, magazine-book hybrid, filled with text and images. The description may sound unlikely, but Stampsy already has a solid user base, and the opportunity to share Stampsy-made publications online is proving popular. But is this new form of media just a gimmick, or the next major revolution in social creativity?

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Building a Publication

Whilst it is Stampsy‘s network of published content that greets you when the app is started, the design suite is the obvious first port of call.

Stampsy-built virtual booklets are up to 10 pages long, and can include various types of text, images, backgrounds and shapes. It’s not a large range of content to choose from — a significant downgrade from iBooks Author, for instance — but for writers and photographers, these are all of the elements required.

You add content to the pages of your Stampsy publication by dragging and dropping widgets across from the left-hand menu. Excluding the background, the editable area of content covers the central two-thirds of the iPad’s overall screen size, and it includes a grid for the sake of accurate element alignment.

The drag-and-drop style of Stampsy makes creation easy

Adding Content

Text is the theme for the first group of widgets. Headline, Subtitle, Lead (i.e. the big letter at the start of an article), Insertion and Text are your options, and each can be placed and resized however you see fit. Text can be whatever colour you like, although Stampsy helpfully provides some pre-made colour swatches. Equally, there is a tastefully stylish, if not massive, selection of fonts available. One strange omission in Stampsy‘s text toolkit is the inability to alter text size, which is irritating for those of us looking for true artistic freedom.

There’s a nice selection of fonts in Stampsy – but no font sizes

Images are the other main form of unique content you can use in your Stampsy creations. You essentially have two options here. Images can be displayed as content, meaning they are resizable, but restricted to the central content area. Alternatively, images can be used as a page background, opening up the opportunity for full-screen photos, with captions placed, magazine-style, on top.

Finally, it is also worth mentioning the shapes which can be added to Stampsy-built creations. Squares and circles — sorry, triangle fans — can be placed, resized and coloured in any way you like. Shapes tend to be most useful as text backgrounds, although, obviously, the option is there to use them in any creative way you see fit.

Squares and circles only, I’m afraid!

As an overall feeling, though, I really wish there were a few more content options available in Stampsy. I realize that video, for example, would only slow down the app (and fill up your iPad) but the addition of text links and a few more shapes — maybe even a slideshow — would elevate Stampsy publications to the next level.

The Network

The Stampsy network, known within the app as the Kiosk, can be thought of as your Stampsy timeline – a side-scrolling shelf of creations from publishers you follow.

Stampsy’s network is relatively small, but is growing

Stampsy gets you started by pre-populating your Kiosk with works from the most prolific and popular Stampsy authors, but you can also follow other publishers whose creations you find engaging. Also offered is the opportunity to follow your Stampsy-using Facebook friends.

The quality on display is impressive, and as the Kiosk automatically displays whenever you open Stampsy, you can’t help but be drawn in by the maelstrom of pretty typography and stunning imagery. I certainly found myself being sidetracked into browsing.

Many of the browsable publications on Stampsy are gorgeous.

Many early Stampsy adopters seem to be preferring to create photo essays or digital photo albums, mirroring the kind of text-and-pictures articles to be found in National Geographic or Time. This is probably what Stampsy is best suited to, although you could create a text-only work should you wish.

Conclusion

Whether or not Stampsy takes off as a network, it is certainly a fine app. The drag-and-drop editor is smooth, and the restrictions on content – 10 pages of text, images and shapes – seem to strike a reasonable balance between creative freedom and compactness of file size.

The limited content options, however, do have an effect on the creativity possible with Stampsy, and I wonder how many folks, other than keen photographers or journalists, will find ongoing content to fill their Stampsy-made creations. Additionally, Stampsy‘s network is still in its infancy, and as such, it is not as engaging as some of the more established networks.

Primarily, though, it must be said that Stampsy is enjoyable to use, and the option to share your creations online with non-iPad-owning friends gives the app on-going value, regardless of whether its in-built network gains lasting popularity.

Therefore, I can only recommend that if you’re feeling creative, you should try using Stampsy as your blank canvas.

I’m aware, of course, that most people are using Netbot these days: it’s free and it’s admittedly awesome. But it’s wearing Tweetbot‘s clothes, and I want my ADN experience to feel visually unique from Twitter without losing the power of Tapbot’s app. In the past, I’ve tried Rivr (for iPhone), which was full of features and pleasant to look at, but after several weeks of use, it didn’t capture my attention anymore and I was back to Netbot (which also has an iPad app).

Zephyr is the closest I’ve come to the Netbot experience. In colloquial terms, I’m really stoked about this app. Read on to find out why.

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The Interface

Zephyr‘s interface is, in some ways, similar to Netbot’s. Both interfaces rely on darker colour schemes and tabs along the left of the screen. That being said, there are some significant differences. Typography is an obvious difference to anybody who has used both apps, and to my pleasant surprise, the font is adjustable. I like the Medium font that the app uses as its default; it allows you to fit more posts on the screen than you can in almost any other client that I’ve tried.

Welcome to Zephyr’s take on ADN.

Beyond that, the tabs are broken up into your Stream, the Global Stream, your Profile, Search, and Settings. Tabs are sadly not adjustable. Admittedly, I’d prefer to have a Mentions tab and lose the Settings tab (my personal motto is “set it and forget it”), but Mentions and Starred Posts are available in the Profile tab.

The only place Mentions and Starred Posts are accessible from is the Profile tab.

The interface itself is incredibly fast, which Zephyr states twice in the App Store’s description. In fact, it’s so fast that if your WiFi or cellular network is slower than it normally is — your Stream or users’ avatars could have a hard time keeping up! I don’t think that’s much of a problem, but if Zephyr‘s developer is able to speed up the caching process while keeping the speed of the interface this quick, they could have the fastest social networking app on the App Store.

Getting Pretty

Visually, the app is simple and responsive. All the visual elements behave exactly as you’d expect, which makes the app feel incredibly polished (and it’s more than I can say for most of the competition). Other apps will stretch Cover Images on profiles, but Zephyr wisely leaves them alone. Reposts are indicated with elegant grey text and a bold user name for the reposter. It’s really well done and it’s incredibly pleasant to look at.

The app looks great in landscape mode too.

The colour scheme is dark without becoming overly robotic. Some elements, like the blue light that illuminates the Stream tab when there are new posts, are almost playfully beautiful. (In a nice touch, that same blue light is visible in the app icon. Smart move.)

There are some elements I miss from Netbot: I like having the avatar appear on the right instead of the left for your own posts. It helps differentiate what you’ve said and what everybody else has said. If I star a post, the Star symbol for the post becomes hollow. I feel like it should be the opposite (that being said, a starred post will always have a grey star beneath the avatar, and maybe that’s enough of an indicator in and of itself.)

The Feature Show

Zephyr supports almost every major ADN feature, mostly in grand fashion with subdued visual flair. Most of this stuff runs in the background and Zephyr doesn’t make a big deal out of it — things like synchronized posts aren’t even mentioned in the app description.

I love the pop-up window for composing a post.

Zephyr also supports multiple accounts and is a universal app, which is big for me. In my experience, using different clients across multiple devices seems to prevent proper syncing with ADN, so it’s nice to jump between the same client on two different devices and always find them in sync.

There are a couple oddities, though. Zephyr will use yfrog or CloudApp for photos, but it doesn’t use ADN’s storage (also, I wish somebody else would adopt Rivr’s Instagram-like photo filters). Zephyr supports Instapaper and Pocket, but not Readability (you’ll still need to use Netbot or Felix if you want that feature). And although Zephyr supports notifications, it doesn’t support them granularly, which means that you can’t choose to receive notifications for a mention but not a repost.

There isn’t as much access to the features as I would like in the Settings; I’d prefer a more granular set of controls for notifications especially.

That being said, who knows what you’ll receive notifications for anyway. Zephyr doesn’t tell you, but I can tell you that Netbot tells me every time I get a new follower and Zephyr does not.

My Wish List

The first item on my wish list is better notification support, preferably to the point that it’s granular. I’d also like to see photo filters, not unlike what Rivr supports, and a Night Mode. Minor visual enhancements, like adjusting where your avatar shows up in your Stream, would be nice as well.

I love the conversation thread views. Elegant and simple, but attractive.

I’d like to see more features. Zephyr should be competing with Netbot and Felix instead of Rhino and Rivr. It’s as beautiful as any app out there, but it’s missing some functionality for advanced users. And arguably, $4.99 is a lot to pay for an app that doesn’t cater to advanced users.

Beyond that, I’m not even sure development is still active. The last time the app was updated was December 2012 (and that update had some essential bug fixes), but beyond that, it’s hard to say if it will ever be updated again.

The Bottom Line

Zephyr is expensive, and it’s hard to justify the cost without assurances that development is ongoing. But it holds a lot of potential, and if the developer is working on it, we’re looking at an ADN client that could be the go-to in six months’ time. As it stands, the most feature-packed options are Netbot (which is still too similar to Tweetbot for my own liking) or Felix (which is only for iPhone).

App.net is still in its early stages, and seeing as Zephyr is currently a 1.01 app, so is it. I want to see where development goes with it and I’m really excited about the possibilities. My breakdown right now is that Zephyr is my preferred iPad client and Felix is my preferred iPhone client, but Zephyr makes me feel the way I do after a few dates with a promising woman: I like what I see, but now I want to see more of what I like. Hopefully the developer keeps updates coming.

A few weeks back, Paula DuPont took a good look at Codex – a new approach to notetaking on the iPad. The app, according to the developers, is designed to replace your trusty Moleskine (it costs about the same as a standard notebook) and there’s plenty of flexibility and notetaking tools within, allowing you to add colour, diagrams and text to your notes.

Codex on the iPad

Thanks to the kindness of the developers Logic Colony, we’ve managed to get our hands on five promotional codes (worth $12.99 each) for this great app which we are giving away to our readers!

Entering is really nice and simple:

1. First of all, follow us on Twitter. We’re at @ipadappstorm.
2. Tweet the following (in bold, including the link!): Win a free copy of Codex from @codexapp and @ipadappstorm! http://enva.to/11sqDSg
3. Post a link to your tweet in the Comments section below!

Don’t worry if your comment doesn’t show up straight away – any comments by new users have to be manually approved before they appear!

The competition will end at 13:00 (1:00 pm) GMT on Saturday, May 18th and winners will be contacted on Twitter a couple of days afterwards. You must be able to provide an e-mail address so we can send you the promotional code when the competition is over. As always, Envato staff or those who have contributed more than two articles or tutorials to any AppStorm site are ineligible to apply.

Good luck!

When the opportunity came to review the new Hangouts app for iPad, I jumped at it. I don’t need another way to communicate — in fact, I think we all communicate with each other way too much — but I wanted to give it a shot and see what all the hoopla was about. I’m always looking for a better way to communicate. Let’s find out if Google Hangouts is, in fact, a better way to chat with friends.

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Getting Smart

There’s a truckload of features that simply no other messaging platform has right now in Google Hangouts. The first question I asked was “Why is this better for me than iMessage?” There’s a lot of answers to that question, but let’s start with the obvious: everybody can use this on any platform. Google has got cross-platform down with almost all of their core products now, and that’s great.

Just chilling.

But otherwise, Hangouts supports a lot of things that iMessage simply don’t. Group chat isn’t new to iMessage, but it’s not that well implemented there. Here, you can choose to group video chat. It’s easy to leave a conversation or turn off notifications for a conversation so you’re not bothered by it. It’s also really easy to start one, and all you need to get going is Google Plus. (Yes, a Google Plus account is required to use Hangouts. Frankly, deal with it.)

The only other cross-platform chat communicator with this many features is Skype, but even with Skype, you still have to pay for group video chat. And not everybody uses Skype, while almost everybody I personally know uses Google.

Adding an image is really easy, as is starting up a video call.

The group chat is really the magic of Google Hangouts. You can chat with people on an individual basis too, of course, but it’s simply not as cool or meaningful. In fact, why should I chat with somebody on Google Hangouts? In all honesty, if people are really important to me, they probably have my phone number and I have theirs. We can text or FaceTime (if they use Apple products as well), and that might be faster and more reasonable for most people.

Getting iPad Specific

We’ve covered the basics: I love it for group chat, but I’m not sure I personally see the point in using it to chat with people on a one-on-one level. But what makes the iPad app itself worth getting? Why bother taking up the space on your device with yet another app?

Simply put? It’s extremely functional and highly usable on the iPad (and iPhone as well); in fact, I’d argue the experience is better on iPad than it is on a desktop with Chrome. For the most part, the interface is easy to understand, the font is readable, and it seamlessly syncs with whatever other devices you’re working with.

You can check out people’s Google Plus profiles from within the app and then add them to your Circles from there.

And I mean seamlessly. I walked my dog earlier and was chatting on my iPhone. When I got in the house, I continued the chat on my iPad mini whilst pouring a cup of coffee, and when I got back to my iMac, everything was there and conversations were perfectly synced, down to the millisecond. That would never happen with iMessage.

Even starting a Hangout is very Google-esque in design: Flat, mostly monochrome and Android-like.

The design is undoubtedly Google. Chrome is everywhere. The font is sans serif. It carries all the hallmark UI touches that people are used to and expect from Google, especially after the Google Plus app. My sole complaint is that some people are going to find the font way too small. My parents would never want to make this their sole way of communicating with me, for instance, just because they’d never be able to read this without putting on their glasses.

The Flaws

There’s a couple huge flaws with the service and the app though, in my opinion. The first is quite simple: you can’t leave a conversation and join it again later without an invite. You can see how this could get annoying. We have a group chat for writers here at iPad.AppStorm, and if I decide I want to take a couple days away from work (yeah, right), I should be able to leave the conversation and rejoin again later. But I can’t.

There’s a handy ability to archive conversations as well.

This leads to the other problem. If I want to simply avoid notifications, fine, I can turn off notifications. That’s done right within the conversation settings. However, within the global app settings, I can choose to snooze notifications for a set period of time. I can’t snooze individual threads though; they’re either pushing notifications to me or they’re not.

The only thing this really needs is more granular notification settings.

Granted, despite these flaws, the ability to turn off notifications or leave chats or even snooze the app’s constant pocket buzzing for an hour two are still leagues ahead of everybody else’s chat offerings. So take this with a grain of salt. But if you ask me, if you’re going to attempt something a little new or innovative, make sure it’s perfect.

The Bugs

Speaking of imperfect, the app does have a couple bugs that we’re sure Google must be ironing out double-time. One that was reported by a colleague (which I can’t seem to duplicate) is that rotating the iPad to landscape from portrait, or vice versa, causes you to lose your place in the thread. Again, I couldn’t make this happen on my iPad mini, but if you’re using a different iPad model, you may be affected.

Notifications are a different issues. Sometimes I got a notification banner, and sometimes I didn’t. Some people are getting badge icons and others are not. My badge icon was still active even when I had notifications off (but banners weren’t coming through). These are very minor things, but the app does lack the unmistakeable Google polish most of us are used to. With Google being Google, we’re sure these things will be fixed quickly in a future update, and I don’t think it’s necessarily worth passing up on the app because of a couple tiny glitches.

The Final Word

For group communication, Google Hangouts is far and away the best option I’ve experienced. It’s not perfect (what is?), but it has perfect cross-platform performance, the app is functional and it’s mostly beautiful.

I don’t have Google Plus on any of my devices because I hardly use it. But Google Hangouts instantly earned a place on them and I can’t see myself getting rid of it any time soon. I don’t see the need to communicate with people as constantly as we do, but I think if you need to reach somebody or want to have a quick group meeting with friends or colleagues, you could choose a far worse way to do so than Google Hangouts.

Think it sounds too good to be true? These guys have street cred, recognized by Saveur magazine this year as a “Best Food Blog” in the special diets category and having just released their first cookbook this past April, Vegetarian Everyday. If you’re looking for dessert recipes worthy of entertaining or something special for the weekend breakfast table, Healthy Desserts offers a wide array of cakes, cookies, muffins, bars, buns, smoothies and frozen treats.

Keep reading to learn more about making more wholesome desserts at home.

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Getting Started

Launch the app and you’re transported to the Scandinavian kitchen of David and Luise, the creative duo behind the recipes and mouth-watering food photography. Fresh berries, ripe cherries, nuts and a smattering of baking ingredients are scattered over a beautifully worn wooden table. It’s fresh and bright and inviting. Tap the arrow to immerse yourself in their lifestyle.

Launching the app reveals a refreshing Scandinavian aesthetic shown by the simple, modern style showcasing the beauty of fresh, healthy ingredients.

This app is simply a collection of recipes, each represented by photograph tiles on the home screen. Swipe up and down to view all the tiles, or just sit back and wait for something to jump out at you — literally. Watch the screen and you’ll notice occasionally a photo enlarges slightly, displaying the recipe name. This unique design feature draws you into the content, encouraging random exploration rather than working through the app in a linear fashion. It’s a fresh approach to design and a signature of the Green Kitchen apps.

The home screen is a collection of photo tiles representing each recipe. Occasionally a recipe literally jumps out at you, calling “cook me!”

Recipe tiles are just large enough to tempt you with a luscious photo of the dessert, and all the tiles together creates a strikingly beautiful ensemble of dishes. Browsing the app is an immersive experience, as there are no dead ends and you can seamlessly swipe from one recipe to another. You can read recipes in depth or flip casually through the gorgeous food photos. All content is available offline, which is great for reading during your morning commute or sitting in a waiting room. The app is beautifully designed in such a way that it’s easy to get lost in the experience, daydreaming of your next dessert.

The Recipes

Where to start? Each tile features a tempting recipe, from a healthier version of the classic lemon bar to a raw, gluten free and vegan brownie to a pomegranate and raspberry jam sweetened only with maple syrup. If you’re just getting started changing your lifestyle due to dietary issues, you’ll be delighted to find a gluten free baked crumble, vegan gingerbread cookies and a dairy-free coconut shake. Tap a tile to view the recipe title and intro, along with cooking time and portions. Each recipe is accompanied by several large photos of the dish to make you hungry.

Tap a photo tile to view the recipe title and intro, along with cooking time, portions, and several large photographs of the dish.

Tap the Read Recipe icon to view the ingredients list and steps. You’ll notice a handy little key on the upper right side of the screen detailing whether the dessert is Raw, Gluten Free, Vegan Whole Grain or Naturally Sweetened. This is a great feature for those on special diets, allowing users to quickly ascertain whether or not the recipe meets their standards. It might be more beneficial to include this key on the intro page. Note that you can select preferences in the settings to “Hide Non-Vegan Recipes” or “Hide Gluten Recipes,” as well as enable metric measurements.

The recipe cards contain clear, easy to follow instructions and a key to show whether the dessert is Raw, Gluten Free, Vegan, Whole Grain or Naturally Sweetened. Tap a highlighted ingredient for a description.

The recipes contain several useful features. For example, you can cross through each step as you cook by tapping it. The heart icon in the top left corner allows you to add recipes to your favorites list, while the grid takes you to the home screen. The recipe box icon features a scrollable list of All Recipes, with your favorites at the top. Tap the box and arrow icon at the bottom of the screen to email a shopping list for the recipe. Also, you can tap highlighted ingredients to view a description. As I criticized in their Green Kitchen app, almost every ingredient has an available definition, but often times the most unique ingredients don’t. This is disappointing because it’s the unusual ingredients that might keep someone from trying a recipe. It would be nice to see a little attention given to this area.

Conclusion

Healthy Desserts – By Green Kitchen is a beautifully designed recipe app with gorgeous food photography and 58 wholesome sweet treats. If you enjoy cooking with the seasons and working with natural ingredients, you’ll find tons of inspiration from this unique collection of recipes. From cookies to cakes to smoothies and other breakfast treats like muffins and pancakes, the app has a sweet treat for every time of day. The sleek, modern design and seamless navigation set the bar high for other apps to aspire to.

With Healthy Desserts, the easygoing style of Green Kitchen makes gluten and dairy free cooking seem approachable and, well, natural. Their tactic for taking traditional desserts and adding exotic ingredients (chai, coconut, goji berries, saffron, dates) gently encourages users to try new things without completely overwhelming them. This app is a steal at $2.99, and you’ll refer to it again and again throughout the seasons for dessert recipes that are healthy and delicious.

That’s a lot to master! Hop to it by clicking “more.”

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Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy

Maybe you’ve dreamed of commanding your own starship, but this game will have you thinking even bigger. Here, you’re in charge of an expansive interstellar civilization and everything that goes along with it.

Make treaties with alliances, wage war upon your foes, explore new star systems, research technologies and build better and faster spaceships, all for the sake of becoming master of the universe.

This is the strategy board game you know and love, but it’s been amped-up for iOS. The developers went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure the technology enhances, rather than detracts from the gameplay. Enjoy encounters with seven different species (each with its own strengths and weaknesses), three AI difficulty levels, an in-game tutorial and manual, customizable star systems and ship designs and more.

Price: $6.99
Developer: Big Daddy’s Creations
Download: iTunes

Stick Stunt Biker 2

Here we have the sequel to Stick Stunt Biker, and that means you can look forward to even more tracks, environments, obstacles and, of course, stunts. Choose your bike, or unlock new ones, like the chopper, speed bike, police bike or hovering “future” bike.

Master everything from wheelies to flips in order to avoid hazards like carnivorous plants, oil barrels, glass and more while racing against your friends in real time. Score achievements for pulling off special stunts and enjoy realistic physics that make for incredible crashes. You also have the ability to race against your ghost, share your gameplay videos with others and compete globally.

Choose from button or tilt controls, whichever you like best. There are more than 50 tracks — challenge yourself to earn up to three stars on each one. In-app purchases are purely optional, and players can unlock everything in the game just by “sticking” with it.

Price: $0.99
Developer: Robert Szeleney
Download: iTunes

Storm the Train

This sidescroller from Chillingo has you sending three little agents onto a train that has been overtaken with zombies, vampires, robots, ninjas and other demons. Meet Graham (the soldier), Carrera (the medic) and Mason (the heavy).

But don’t worry — they’re not going in empty-handed. No, they’ve got a full arsenal of guns, drones, bombs, jetpacks and other gadgets, and are prepared to do some damage. Weapons can be upgraded, and as you complete mission objectives you’ll also acquire new outfits and other perks.

All it takes to switch from one agent to the next is a swipe of your finger. Use each of their abilities to the best advantage to successfully rescue hostages and take down baddies.

Price: Free
Developer: Chillingo
Download: iTunes

Zoombies: Animales de la Muerte!

How do you say “catastrophe” en espanol? Don Eduardo in “Little Mexico” has a Big Problem — many of the animals in his zoo have come down with a case of the Undeath, effectively turning them into Zoombies!

Help main characters Marco and Maria put an end to this Zoombie-pocalypse using whatever means necessary — Aztec hatchets, roman candles, a chupacabra (yes, a chupacabra) and evil crows. Simply trace a path on the screen and watch your weapon hurtle toward the Zoombie target, but you’ll have to master the timing and precision to become efficient.

Collect gold pesos as you progress to get new “weapons” and complete Sugar Skull Missions to save the animals as you play the nearly four dozen different levels.

Price: $2.99
Developer: High Voltage Software
Download: iTunes

What Are You Playing?

Which games are you hooked on right now? Let your fellow gamers and iPad enthusiasts know in the comments section below!

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Get Going Down the Rabbit Trail

Usagi Yojimbo’s mission is to retrieve a mirror that is being held onto by priests. Somehow, obtaining this mirror will free the Old Ones, who are currently in a cave. Once they’re freed, they’re capable of ridding the world of evil, so what valiant hero wouldn’t take up arms to help out?

Start Usagi’s journey and follow this map through forests, mountains and various villages.

Usagi will engage in dialogue with the rogues he runs into. After waxing poetic grunt speak about how they plan to hurt the hero, battles ensue. Some opponents will simply be muscle, while others may carry a weapon or fire off arrows with their bows. Regardless, keep track of who’s on the screen and who has Usagi in their crosshairs, because once the rabbit’s life gauge is empty, that’s it for this hare.

The Bunny Battles Back

Of course a good offense can be a great defense against bad guys. The red and blue buttons on the bottom-right portion of the screen represent strong and not-as-strong attacks, respectively. Use them at their most simple to fend off the thugs trying to take Usagi down.

Get slicing against the variety of foes that are ready to rip Usagi Yojimbo apart.

As Usagi progresses from one stage to the next, he’ll unlock attack combos that will make short work of his enemies. Make a note of the order of which red-blue-button combination will complete the fierce techniques.

For example, double tapping an attack button may get the long-eared hero to strike someone twice or perhaps cause him to jab his sword with more force to take out the enemies. One of the more fun power-ups earned is a technique that allows Usagi to jump and spin in the air, wielding his sword to thrash enemies standing on either side. That move is helpful during fierce fights where the odds aren’t in the ronin warrior’s favor.

Learn new attack combos as Usagi progresses through fierce battles.

Friends and Other Benefits

Since a two-player game isn’t an option, Usagi Yojimbo gives players the next best thing. Throughout the anthromorphic adventure, Usagi will meet up with allies, and it usually isn’t long before a gang of toughs follows. Like some role-playing online and video games, Usagi’s allies will join the fray, controlled by the app’s internal computer, and help him slice and dice his way to the next part of the stage. This is no small advantage, so let them get in a few hits or tackle tough guys that may be more difficult to conquer. Be warned: their help is only temporary and the cast of sidekicks changes throughout the game.

Don’t worry, the rhino in the purple kimono is on Usagi’s side when the app helps out our hero.

Once an enemy has been exterminated, he’ll fall flat on his back, exhale a skull and crossbones, and may leave behind a goodie such as a coin or even a heart, which can revitalize Usagi’s health meter. Coins can purchase Health, Damage and Armor upgrades, each of which will improve how strong our hero becomes and improves how long he will hold up during the vicious battles that come his way.

Get chatty with friends and enemies.

Keep track of how much progress Usagi has made by giving the map a glance every now and then. Downward pointing arrows will indicate which stages have been completed and players can get an idea of the terrains they will battle in during future fights. During gameplay, what look like movie reels show up on the screen that ends each stage. These will rank players as to how well they have completed a level. They’ll also transition players into an educational session, where they will be schooled on a new ninja technique or weapon that they can use to Usagi’s advantage during battles. Pay special attention to these tips!

Grab the Rabbit by the Ears

Usagi Yojimbo: Way of the Ronin is a treat among iOS games. The graphics are impressive — characters are nicely drawn and have detailed facial expressions. It’s almost always easy to identify which creature they are a caricature of and it’s fun to have some underused members of the animal kingdom (walruses!) present and accounted for. The background scenery is also well done, be it the intricate design of the forest or the obvious thought put into the distinctive look of the rooms of home and buildings in village.

The action gets intense, so keep your hand close to your sword.

Gameplay is simple enough, but players bored with button mashing can use finessed techniques to add some style to their fighting. Usagi is also very responsive to the controls given to him, executing moves fluidly and efficiently during the violent confrontations.

Some of the conversations that take place between Usagi and his friends and enemies within the game can be too frequent and too long. Players who love a good story might enjoy the interludes, while those looking to beat up Noah’s Ark may get annoyed at the delay.

But overall, the intensity of the battles is challenging, as are the opponents. This is an app that will draw in and keep entertained the casual gaming fans as well as those who take the craft seriously.

As someone who is always interested in coming up with new ideas I decided to give Gini a try to see if it could really live up to that promise. Would it really help me discover new and better ideas? I was intrigued by the concept of an interface that maps ideas. Read on to see what I thought after using Gini.

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Starting A Project

Upon opening the app you can choose to start or walk through a tutorial. I suggest viewing the tutorial first, but if you’re someone who can’t stand to read directions you can always tap the question mark button at any time to view the tutorial later. Basically, there are 3 easy steps to getting using Gini: start a new project, lay down the objectives for your project, and then start working with ideas.

Create markers or use a template to determine the objectives for your project.

You can create a new project or work off of one of the included templates. There are a number of templates included that cover a variety of sectors (restaurants, business management, marketing, mobile media, etc). Once you start a project you see the unique interface that the developers of Gini touted. Essentially it’s a circle divided into different sections. In some ways it reminded me of a mind map, but put together in a way that’s easier to look at and easily digest.

Each area of the circle represents an objective that needs to be achieved. Objective sections can change sizes to rank them in order of importance. Each idea gets categorized under one of your objectives. In order to keep your project organized you can switch between the objectives and ideas screens using the tabs at the top. The best thing to do is input the objective descriptions first, then go to the ideas tab to input and rank your ideas within each objective category.

You can learn from examples of previous business models to see what made them successful by looking at templates in the case studies section.

Using Templates

Within 5 minutes I was up and running on my first project. I decided to start working on an idea for an ebook using the included template. On the objectives screen you tap the plus button to add more objective markers and then touch the marker to define the objectives and challenges. The ideas screen works similarly to the objectives screen except you can add text, symbols or pictures that go along with your idea.

Working off of templates and looking at case studies of successful businesses like this restaurant, The Melt, can help you set up your project.

The predetermined markers in the template were helpful by including things like central concept, marketing, audience, and design. Each marker had a description inside it to get you thinking of what information you should put in and what things you’ll need to consider when creating an ebook. It was helpful that it basically taught me what to do.

For example, under marketing it said, “Your product needs to make an immediate impression. Come up with a title and cover that has big impact. Create a website for the publication. Do you cater to a specific audience? Use blogs and book forums to find these readers and push awareness.”

Rank ideas by moving the best ones towards the center. This will help you compare and narrow them down.

There are a number of symbols you can use to delineate between the different ideas inputted.

You don’t have to work from a template and obviously if Gini doesn’t have one for your sector then it wouldn’t even make sense. However, for me it seemed pretty useful to have something to work off of, so I would suggest using a template when possible. Though, if this process is similar to things you’re accustomed to doing you probably will be more comfortable starting from scratch.

There are a number of icons you can use to delineate between your ideas like a bulb for a bright idea or an exclamation point for one that needs attention. There are 8 icons in all, but I wasn’t sure what all of them meant or how they would be used.

Where It Needs Improvement

While I was pretty impressed with the simplicity and usefulness of Gini, there are a couple things that need to be addressed in updates. The most glaring was the touch controls which were unresponsive at times. Eventually the app would respond but it got frustrating after having to tap a button 3 or 4 times.

Another simple issue I found was that the keyboard covers the done button in many features. So, you have to fold down the keyboard in order to exit out of many different areas. This seems like it could be easily corrected by just placing the done button in a different location that’s not covered by the keyboard.

Where did the done button go? It’s hidden below the keyboard.

These are the two things that frustrated me the most, but thankfully they didn’t make the app completely unusable. There were a few other minor issues like not being able to change a project’s template after starting and the inability to remove an image after uploading it to an idea marker.

Summing Things Up

In the end, I felt like it did help me brainstorm ideas better as I began to survey what I had come up with and decide if it was good enough or I could do better. It challenged me to be more creative. You can also export projects as a PDF, Gini project, or through email to collaborate with others.

As mentioned above, Gini is a new app that still has some kinks to work out. Being that this is the first version of the app, if this is resolved soon in an update I would definitely recommend Gini. Sometimes I review apps and even if I think they’re great, I don’t always see myself using them again. This isn’t one of those apps. I will definitely continue to use this.

Hit the jump to discover ten iPad essentials that every photographer should own.

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Have Your Say

Are you a photographer who feels an iPad is integral to your work? Can an iPad ever replace a computer for serious photo editing? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

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Step 1. Find The Perfect Recipe

Before starting to cook anything, you’ll have to find the right dish to prepare. Epicurious has an impressive catalog of recipes to choose from, and even lets you browse them the way you want, so you can easily find something interesting to cook. If you already have an idea of what you’d like to prepare, you can run a manual search. Otherwise, have a look at the wide range of featured recipes and you’ll definitely find the yummy dish you didn’t even know you’d be craving for!

Featured Dishes

When you first open Epicurious, you’re taken to the Featured page, which presents a selection of recipes organized by categories. Some of them take the time of the year into account and will suggest seasonal recipes, such as Thanksgiving dinners, spring desserts and graduation parties. Others are more generic and geared towards an audience, such as kids, vegetarians, easy recipes and professional ones.

The Featured list displays various recipe categories

After you’ve selected a category, Epicurious will display a countless number of dishes that correspond on the right. These can be sorted by relevance, rating, photos (some don’t have any, though) or in alphabetical or chronological order. Unfortunately, there is no option to filter the content within a category, which prevents you from hiding recipes that may contain ingredients you’re allergic to. Similarly, when browsing a category, it’s impossible to display recipes that would match the criteria you define, in case you wanted to cook those tomatoes before they go bad!

Manual Search

Thankfully, there is still an option to search for content and filter recipes based on ingredients and other elements you define. Recipes can be filtered by main ingredients (you can pick as many as you like), meal or course, type of cuisine, dietary considerations, dish type and season or occasion. The way of selecting these options is somehow counterproductive, as you have to scroll through images to pick what you want, instead of entering text that could be recognized. However, you can always use the search box at the top to enter keywords, which will be added you the criteria you select.

The Search feature is very handy when you’re looking for specific recipes

In addition to searching for food, you can find great cocktail recipes the same way. All you have to do is tell Epicurious what alcohol and other ingredients you’d like in there, and it’ll suggest recipes for you to try. You can also filter by cuisine, drink type and season, even though these options are less appropriate in this section. As with the Featured categories, recipes can always be sorted by relevance, rating, photos and either alphabetically and chronological order.

Step 2. Mark Your Recipes And Prepare Your Shopping List

Once you’ve spotted interesting items you’d like to try, you can easily favorite them for quick access and even share the recipe. Epicurious can share content via email, Facebook, Instapaper, Pinboard, Pocket, Tumblr and Twitter. The app can also sync your favorite recipes with your iPhone and Epicurious.com, provided you pay a $1.99 premium.

The Combined Shopping List is a useful way of getting all the ingredients you need for your recipe

Another great feature is the Shopping List, which lets you seamlessly add a recipe to a list you can access from anywhere in the app. The list itself is organized into various sections, such as fresh produce, nuts and spices and dairy, so it’s easier for you to find the items you’re looking for. It can be set to either display ingredients from a specific recipe or a combined view of all the recipes in your shopping list. Nevertheless, the Combined view will simply show all ingredients in a unique list without merging the same items in a single line. For instance, if one of your recipe requires 6 large eggs and another one require 2 large eggs, Epicurious will show the items separately, instead of telling you to buy 8 eggs…

Step 3. Start Cooking!

Now that you’ve been to the store to get all the ingredients you needed, let’s start cooking. Simply go back to the recipe, either by searching for it again or by digging through your Favorites. In landscape mode, the list of ingredients will be shown on the left while the actual recipe will occupy most of the screen space. Epicurious makes it easy to follow along thanks to an on scren marker that points to the line or step you’re at. This way, you don’t have to keep track of what you’re doing, as the application does it for you.

A sample Recipe — Note the orange marker on the left

Because you’re meant to use the app while cooking, the font size is relatively big, but can be changed to a smaller or even bigger setting, depending on your needs. The smaller setting makes sense for long recipes, as you can see more of the steps without having to scroll down. At the bottom of the screen, three tabs give you direct access to additional information, such as user reviews for the recipe, details on the author and dish, and nutritional information. However, depending on the recipe, the last tab may not appear if no nutrition information is available.

Shortcomings

Epicurious is meant to be used the most when cooking and therefore needs to be adapted to the environment. Although the text is relatively big so it’s easier to read, the application still requires you to touch your screen to scroll through content. This is definitely not convenient when your hands are full of flour, and an option to recognize a gesture via the front-facing camera or even speech would have been much more useful.

Recipes are also not organized the same way: some have the entire recipe in a bulky paragraph, while others clearly detail the steps with numbers. The first layout makes it harder to follow the steps and renders the on screen marker useless. This inconsistency is also annoying when cooking different recipes for a party, as they are not organized the same way, even though they’re in the same app.

Lastly, Epicurious requires an internet connection to work and doesn’t have an in-app function to download recipes into your iPad. However, thanks to its sharing features, it’s very easy to save a recipe to Pocket or Instapaper so you can cook at your summer cottage that has no connectivity.

Conclusion

Despite its shortcomings, Epicurious is a great way of finding inspiration, getting new ideas and discovering great recipes. The application should be adapted for users not to have to manipulate their iPads during the cooking process, by recognizing gestures through the camera or integrating with Siri, for instance. These drawbacks aside, the app is definitely worth a try and can truly be a great companion for your next dinner party!