I had never heard about Swordigo before I saw it rising the charts as a free app. Usually I check everything that could catch my attention, so this was pretty odd: Swordigo can easily catch my attention. Since it was free there was no reason holding me back from trying… So I downloaded Swordigo to my iPod Touch just before I had to take the train. Swordigo is a universal app, so when I came back home, I had it in my iPad as well.

Swordigo is a classic platformer, with a slight twist of RPG. You are a young apprentice… With the burden of finding the mighty weapon that will free your world. I guess you’ve already heard a story like this!

Well, the game is catchy. There are spells, there are powerups for your weapons, smooth animations and clear and sharp graphics. A beautiful atmosphere and a challenging gameplay. All in all this is probably one of the best games I’ve seen free lately. Download it, play it, let us know if you disagree and why.

This is for the ones who need to take out some stress in life. The game involves an ex-cleaner, who after getting fired from his actual job, decides to turn to a life of crime by becoming a hired assassin. Armed with a sniper rifle, he takes down target after target. One shot, one kill.

To control and position the scope, players simply drag their fingers around the screen. Two buttons are located at the bottom left area of the screen allow players to either fire or reload the gun.

Clear Vision (17+) reminds me of one of those Grand Theft Auto sniping mini-games, except turned into a full-fledged game. One nice addition to Clear Vision, however, is the introduction of special cut scenes that pepper the game. Each cut scene tells a story, with stick figure animation that brings a childish twist to what was intended to be an extremely gory game.

My only gripe about this game would be that the storyline is way too short. The game can be finished rather quickly and gets boringly repetitive over time.

For $0.99, Clear Vision is not quite worth the dollar. While indeed engaging at the start, it quickly bores and many other free apps will provide much higher entertainment value than this one.

If you carry around a lot of those store bar code discount codes, or have them on your keychain, and like myself you desperately want to get rid of them, then 1Card may be the app for you. At the very least, it’s free to try so you can decide for yourself whether the virtual substitute to the card is just as good.

Of course, to use the app you have to register with Tracknose, but the information requested is minimal and standard (inputting further information is optional). 1Card also takes the current area you’re in and lets you know about local discounts at certain stores. It also has a map section so you can see where in the area those particular stores are located. There is also a filter so you can remove certain categories of shops from your search.

The app allows you to manually input the ID numbers for your card and take a photo of the barcode for a store to use during the checkout process. You can arrange the virtual cards in your virtual wallet so the one you want would be at your disposal with the tap of a finger.

1Card does still need some work, particularly in terms of languages. Offering more of other languages would be a step in the right direction.

Overall, it’s a handy app that could become one of those that are mandatory for any iPhone owner.

It was only a matter of time before something epic like the Mass Effect franchise would hit the iOS decks. With Mass Effect Infiltrator now on iOS, players can now experience the thrills and adrenaline rushes from the critically acclaimed series on the go.

Unlike many other mobile ports of successfully franchises though, Mass Effect Infiltrator does not disappoint and is indeed one of the best games on iOS to get at this point in time. With its own unique storyline, Mass Effect Infiltrator will keep you hooked for hours on end.

In terms of gameplay and controls, Mass Effect Infiltrator is by no means easy to master. Controls take a while to get used to, but they will grow on you. The plot is thick and it is honestly very difficult to stop playing this game.

As far as graphics are concerned, Mass Effect Infiltrator is simply stunning. The 3D landscapes are beautifully rendered, and characters are extremely lifelike. For a mobile platform, there is nothing to complain about and Mass Effect Infiltrator is definitely one of the most beautiful games out there right now.

For $4.99, this game might seem a little steep as far as the price scale is concerned. However, it is definitely worth every penny and this is one must have game to download.

It’s understandable that developers want to cash in on the success of App Store hits like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope, but surely calling a game Cut the Birds 3D is a distastefully unsubtle way of doing it, isn’t it?

Blatant sponging off other games’ fames aside, Cut the Birds is actually quite an enjoyable game in itself. Birds fly up from the bottom of the screen and it’s your job to slash them using your finger. The longer they stay on-screen, the closer they get to you, before eventually smashing themselves on the inside of your iPhone screen, losing you a life (that’s the ’3D’ effect, you see).

The downfall of this fundamentally sound game is that there is never any sense that you’re really progressing through the game. There are two basic modes, one of which involves bombs flying across the screen which instantly kill you if you slash them, but no level variety or rating systems.

The poor value for money here when compared with some other similarly priced games means that you’re better off spending it elsewhere. The gameplay is fun and frantic, but killing the same birds on the same screen means that your eyes – soon followed by the brain – will quickly get bored. Shame.

Noteledge for iPad. Yet another writing app? No! Noteledge is not just another fancy writing app, but more like a free-form sketchbook. After seeing the “emptyness” of the much-hyped Paper by Fifty-Three, Noteledge is a real wonder. Because it is so full featured that you are unlikely to miss anything from it.

Noteledge comes from the same developers as Animation Desk, an app we have reviewed twice (the second review was done because they had such an awesome update it deserved a new review!,) and it shows. I can imagine Noteledge developers looking at their iPads and thinking Well, Animation Desk is way too cool, let’s pick the same tools and turn it into a sketch app. And they did, the result is here with Noteledge.

What can you do with the app? Noteledge is a “memories book” sort-off app. You have several notebooks, and you can do lots of things to their empty pages… Like drawing or writing freehand with the provided tools (waterbrush, widebrush, pencil, crayon, chinese brush) choosing a color from the palette, and setting any opacity or size you’d fancy. But you can also type with your keyboard, placing post-it look-alike notes anywhere in the page, or just filling it with your prose (or whatever). Aaand here comes the cool stuff, you can add audio clips to the page, video and photos. If you are the happy owner of an iPad 2 (or New iPad) I’m sure this sounds awesome, for now I have to be happy with audio recording only!

Files are sorted chronollogically, so you can create your own personal diary and can be exported as PDF, saved to the photo gallery, shared in Facebook or sent as email. And Noteledge also has a wide array of cloud-superpowers, letting you save to Dropbox, iDisk, box.net, GoogleDocs, as FTP or setting a local WebDAV server.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the user interface. How could I forget? Well, because Noteledge user interface is so natural you forget about it. Its goal is to look like old leatherbound stationery, much like Animation Desk aims to look like an old animation studio. I love the user interface of these two apps, although I’m sure there are users who prefer more minimal setups. I do not. Noteledge looks gorgeous.

Sometimes, apps are of such a horrendous quality that you have to wonder if the developers behind them are doing serious sexual favours for the Apple moderators to get them on there (I’m pretty sure that gas masks, bondage swings and whips are involved). With quality control on the App Store seemingly so tight, how does something like Celebalike get on there?

Celebalike is another one of those cash-in apps where you take a photo, and it does some apparently advanced scanning thing to show you your celebrity likeness. The problem is, it doesn’t work. It’s not even close to working.

After taking several photos of myself (I’m fairly dark-skinned, green-eyed, dark brown hair), the app couldn’t resist comparing me to various blonde celebrities; namely Jamie Oliver, Macaulay Culkin and – this is the deal-breaker – Edward Jedward.

I have no idea how this app makes its calculations, but I don’t like it. In fact, I feel like it’s intentionally winding me up by saying I look like an untalented, pineapple-haired wanker. But putting aside the app’s personal insult to me, it’s grossly inaccurate and seems to makes its calculations using fairy dust and bull-shit. Worst of all, it’s a big hit on the App Store. Please show your solidarity in the fight for quality control and don’t waste your money on this!

Essentially a stalking app of sorts, Circle allows users to find out not only their friends who are nearby, but also people connected through the same group of networks.

When granted access to your Facebook account, Circle is able to pinpoint your current location and match it with users on your friends and network lists that have checked into a location near you. A nifty feature is that the distance threshold of Circle’s searches can be altered, so you can always choose to widen the physical radius of where your friends are.

With an app like Circle, one can theoretically avoid the so-called “forever alone” moments. As Circle allows users to find out who is located near to them, users can just walk across the street to meet their friends.

In terms of graphic presentation and visual appeal, Circle scores top marks in this category. With a futuristic-themed design layout, Circle makes navigation a breeze. Strangely though, the way items are presented on Circle reminds me of the Windows 7 Mobile platform, possibly due to the light colored background with big buttons and smooth scrolling experience.

Not only does Circle allow users to find the locations of the people located physically closest to them, they can also browse through their previous check-ins. This means that when viewing another person’s profile, users are able to scroll through a comprehensive list of past check-ins. Creepy?

For a free app, I would recommend that Circle be downloaded. It is a great concept, and it also makes it easier to locate friends rather than using the default Facebook app to manually browse through the locations of friends.

SayHi is one of those apps that should be mandatory to own. I only wish I got in sometime last year when it was offered for free.

The use of the app could not be simpler. You choose between one of the 23 languages stored in the app on each side of the conversation. You tap either the large green or blue button on the bottom, speak into the microphone in that language, and the app translates to the other. I had a great deal of fun translating from American English to British English.

If you live in any multicultural hub, this app could be nothing but useful. Imagine speaking with a proprietor of an establishment that doesn’t know your native language very well. Simply whip out your iPhone, pick your two languages and start talking. The app both speaks the other language back and puts the text on the screen. The text of conversations can also be saved, e-mailed, tweeted or put on Facebook.

Since I didn’t have the opportunity to work with someone who spoke a different language, I cannot speak of the accuracy of any language other than English. It is necessary to enunciate your words for the translation to work properly and also keep your device’s volume set up high. Also, keep in mind that to make up for the low size of the app, the translation actually takes place on remote servers so a WiFi or data connection is necessary to make it work.

The app comes with a simple Settings menu and Introduction. No real bells and whistles. Honestly, it doesn’t need them. I cannot recommend this app enough and based on the low price and incredible utility of it, it earns five stars from me.

Red Bull Kart Fighter World Tour, a very long name for a game. But a good one, reminds me of the good old online flash games of the past. Extremely addictive, Red Bull Kart Fighter World Tour is one of those games that will leave your battery completely drained without you even noticing.

Red Bull Kart Fighter World Tour comes in two modes for players to choose from. A classic World Tour mode with its campaign system, as well as a challenge mode where up to 6 players can pit their skills against one another on the same device by taking turns.

As far as controls go, Red Bull Kart Fighter World Tour lets players choose from two different systems to play their game. An old school arrow system may suit some players, but others might find using the accelerometer to steer their karts much more exciting.

In terms of content, Red Bull Kart Fighter World Tour comes with one set of maps for players to race on. However, as per the game title suggests, players are competing in a world tour series, and so other levels are available for downloading in-app. Expansion levels are free for download to sync onto your device.

Red Bull Kart Fighter World Tour gameplay is simplistic, where players navigate their karts across the race tracks within the shortest time possible. However, one exciting feature would be that power ups are scattered across the track. These provide a quick boost to your kart, allowing for short bursts of added speed to either overtake your nearest opponent or widen up your lead. While the graphics are nothing to swoon over, they still do the job well.

For a free app, Red Bull Kart Fighter World Tour is one app that is highly recommended to download. For a free app, it can easily rival the dozens of paid apps out there and promises hours of fun.

LinkedIn. There is really not much to introduce about this app. A social networking app brought to the iOS platform, LinkedIn gives users access to one of the biggest professional social networks in the world.

In terms of content, the LinkedIn app does not differ much from the actual site that can be browsed on computers. The app is but a compressed, mini version of the desktop site optimized for use on a touch screen device, just updated for iPad support. Of course, please do not expect to have access to every function like on the desktop site. However, in comparison to the Twitter and Facebook apps, LinkedIn does its job just fine.

The one thing I always look out for when reviewing social network apps would be the presentation of information on the app. Fortunately, LinkedIn scores well in the aesthetics department. Not only does the color scheme compliment itself, data is also arranged neatly making navigation extremely easy. LinkedIn comes with the standard tap and scroll navigation format common in many social networking apps. I like how important buttons such as the reply or compose buttons for instance, are big, making tapping on them easy but yet they do not clutter the screen.

For a free app, LinkedIn is something you might want to download. At the end of the day, it all boils down onto personal preference on whether you want to use the app (for iPad or iPhone) to access the social network. This is because LinkedIn also has a mobile friendly site accessible via mobile Safari on your device, so it is up to you on whether you need a dedicated app to access this network.

Marvel Vs Capcom 2 has an extremely retro feel to the iOS game, and has a  very good reason for it.  It’s a near-perfect port of the 90′s arcade game of the same name, but with the modern hardware available in iPad and iPhone

Marvel Vs Capcom 2′s graphics and style are very loud and boisterous.  It’s a simple one-on-one combat game in the style of Mortal Kombat although you can switch between three pre-chosen characters as you play.  I’m not familiar with the Capcom characters, but the Marvel designs are straight from a decade or more ago.  Although in Marvel Vs Capcom 2 they do have a bit of an anime look to them.

I did say that Marvel Vs Capcom 2 was near-perfect, but it’s not quite perfect.  The on-screen controls are awkward to use (after all, the game was originally designed for a joystick) and the initial setup can be confusing if you don’t know ahead of time that you’re supposed to pick three characters and not just one. Of course, after reading this review you are prepared for it.

Another beef I have with Marvel Vs Capcom 2 is the inability of the screen to rotate, which is quite a problem in an iPhone and worse in an iPad, because holding it “wrong” when having a case can be a pain in the wrists.  It’s stuck in landscape mode and won’t even automatically rotate 180 degrees unless you change the orientation in the options menu.

Marvel Vs Capcom 2 comes with a hyper-stylized set of graphical instructions in case the myriad of on-screen controls confuses or scares you (they can be customized in the options menu).  Also, you can play against someone else if they have a nearby iDevice with Bluetooth.

As of this writing, Marvel Vs Capcom 2 is on sale for $3 to celebrate the upcoming Avengers movie and works for both iPhone and iPad.  For that price, if you were ever a fan of the Marvel characters or the original video game, I would say that it’s worth it.

This one goes out to the artistry buffs out there. A short and meaningful video a day provided by T-All in One can definitely set the mood for the rest of day. Be it a comedy, tragedy, or even a tale of crime, these videos get you on your feet thinking and are perfect for viewing first thing in the morning or over a lunch break.

All of the videos, with the exception of one, contain no dialogue. However, much emotion is conveyed through the aptly chosen background music. Despite the movies being animated shorts, much can be derived from the visual expressions of characters.

Each short story featured in the app conveys a deep message involving morals and personal values. However, the contents of the videos may not be suitable for everyone so please exercise discretion before viewing. The films are no run of the mill homemade amateur projects though. Many of them have been submitted to International Film Festivals and bagged several accolades such as the Oscars awards.

In terms of presentation, T-All in One presents itself fairly neatly. There is no need to navigate through some complex series of menus. Instead, simply scroll up and down to choose the video of your choice. The simplicity of the app is nothing to rave about, but likewise there isn’t anything to complain about either.

All in all, T-All in One is a great app to download. With 12 videos bundled in free, that makes 1 new video a day. Let it reach out to you and see if it makes a difference to your day!

While the whole ‘Boothing’ your face to make it look old, zombified or fat trend has faded somewhat, the plucky guys at Apptly have developed the most impressive facial disfiguring app yet: Oldify. There’s not much to this app: it just let’s you tweak how you will look… In a few years, and with an interesting twist.

Oldify (and the accompanying Fatify, which can be downloaded for free) lets you manually indicate to the app where your eyes, mouth and chin are in relation to each other, making it particularly accurate at morphing the right parts of your face. Furthermore, the final effect looks more realistic than similar apps until this point.

What makes Oldify particularly realistic – and a bit creepy – is the fact that your transformed faces actually move here. Using surprisingly convincing 3D animations, the faces blink at you, yawn, and pull a hilariously anguished expression if you poke them in the forehead (you wouldn’t do that in real life, would you?). Dragging your finger around the screen makes the picture’s eyes follow it. It’s a very impressive feature, and it’s genuinely a bit unsettling seeing your Oldify – ed or Fatify – ed face blinking and yawning right at you, even more when looking at your head-poking finger.

If you obtain both face-disfiguring apps (namely, Oldify and Fatify), you can even combine the effects of the two, creating a monstrous old and fat version of yourself that you can subsequently toy with. There are several extras you can purchase too, such as Ancient Oldify effect, which makes the poor victim in the pic look even more haggard, and also an extra bunch of vulgar animations, letting your creation fart and burp. It’s all completely ridiculous, but it’s so well-designed that you’ll get a hell of a lot of fun out of Oldify.

We have reviewed a lot of writing apps in whatsoniphone so far. And Textastic is not just one of them, no. Textastic is indeed a fantastic text and code editor, for several reasons. What are the points that bought me? Textastic has builtin Dropbox integration, a must. Textastic also has a decent array of monospaced fonts: Inconsolata, DejaVu Mono, Courier New (meh), Luxi Mono and Monofur. I just love having Inconsolata for writing both text and code, having it in an iPad is great. Finally, it has more than 20 color themes, including the famous Solarized (dark and clear) themes. I’m using a Zenburn based theme, Zenburnesque.

But Textastic has much more than this. It has built-in support for many, many languages… And can be enhanced by adding your own support with TextMate style files. So don’t worry about it not supporting 0x10C programming in the iPad now (I assume you have heard of Notch’s new game?), you can add it in a moment. I’m always using Textastic with my external, bluetooth keyboard, which works wonders, but sometimes I don’t have it with me (as light as it is, sometimes it’s cumbersome to carry my Macbook and my iPad together with a keyboard). Textastic has an incredibly amazing on-screen keyboard. It has an extra row, with 10 new keys: each key has 5 options. For example, a key has 01234 and another has 56789. How do you access so many options with just a key? Well, it’s awesome! You slide when pressing. This gives you 4 directions (4 diagonals) and a tap for the 5th. Nihilo has a similar on-screen keyboard, but Textastic moves it to a whole new level.

To round an incredible set of features, Textastic includes variable space tabs (including soft tabs,) word-wrapping of long lines, line numbering (of course it also has word, character and line counts) and code completion (for PHP, Javascript and HTML)! It also uses Text Expander for snippet expansion, and includes a surprising movement wheel. Tap with two keys and a floating (you can put it wherever you want) circle with 6 keys will appear. It has arrows for up-down-left-right and two buttons to select which side of selection you want to change in selection mode. Oh, and it has a WebDAV server. What else is missing!? Oh yeah, it has search and replace. As you read it.

And one more thing… HTML and Markdown preview.

Even if Textastic is a code editor, it is also one of the more full-featured text editors in the App Store, offering an amazing range of features that no other code or text editor in the App Store can match.

An attempt at setting up an alternative to Apple’s SIRI system native to the iPhone 4S, Voice Assistant aims to make voice control a much easier affair. However, Voice Assistant is not quite the capable assistant SIRI is. While it is able to do things the SIRI cannot do, it is still limited in a sense that controlling certain functions and features of an iPhone or iPod Touch is not possible through this app.

To begin with, Voice Assistant does not offer users the ability to set up system services such as alarm clocks or schedule meetings and appointments. What Voice Assistant can do however, is take down everything you say verbally and help you post them through your social networks or as emails and text messages. This sets it completely apart from SIRI.

Voice Assistant can be used to send messages to social feeds such as Twitter and Facebook, or to contacts through text message exchanges or emails. The whole process of sending text is extremely simple. Just boot up the app, tap the microphone button and say what  you have to say into your device’s microphone. After that, the app will convert your audio input into written text, where you will be given the option to edit the translated text. Upon completion of this step, Voice Assistant gives you a list of networks to post the text to.

While a novel idea, Voice Assistant is not something that you will use after the novelty dies off. While the concept of using dictation to send messages across sounds productive as it is definitely much faster, it is not exactly a very wise idea to start dictating your texts while on the bus or something along those lines.

For $0.99, Voice Assistant is not worth the money. While it does get it’s promised job done, it is not efficient as an app geared towards boosting productivity for that one dollar.

Lock ‘n’ Load. The name itself suggested an afternoon of mindless iPhone and iPad fun involving blasting enemies to smithereens. Fortunately, I was not disappointed by this game, I hope this shows in my review. While the plotline does not serve much significance in Lock ‘n’ Load, the game basically involves players controlling a man in a hockey mask destroying the evil minions of an insane magic infused girl so as to stop her from achieving her evil plans.

Lock ‘n’ Load is a Chillingo game, like so many blockbusters before it (have you checked our review of The Fancy Pants Adventures, Cut The Rope or Contre Jour?) They are usually looking for the best combination of addicting game and in-app purchasing, Lock ‘n Load being no different from other games from the company in this regard.

Lock ‘n’ Load features twin-stick shooter control system. This means two joysticks are given to players to control their character. One controls the movements of the character, whereas the other stick allows players control over where to point and shoot their weapon. This twin-stick shooting system is not unique to Lock ‘n’ Load, (has been used in countless iPhone and iPad shooters already, meaning iPad and iPhone gamers are used to it) but nevertheless is a refreshing experience compared to the classic d-pad and buttons from games of the same genre.

Lock ‘n’ Load is available in two different modes: Campaign and Mission mode. As previously mentioned, the plot of Lock ‘n’ Load hardly matters, as the whole idea of the game is just to destroy all the enemies that stand in your way as well as complete any assigned task by collecting items scattered across levels.

Upgrades are also made available as added incentives to play the game. Character upgrades and customization are some of the little perks the game has installed for players.

For $0.99, Lock ‘n’ Load is an awesome game that is worth a download. Easy fun for an endless stream of shooting.

Remember the late nineties/early noughties when Tamagotchi’s were actually cool? Everyone (underneath the age of 15) would be going around with them on their key-chain, comparing how long they’ve kept ‘em alive for, and routinely cleaning up their pixellated little turds. It was Tamageddon in playgrounds all over the world!

Since my last tamagotchi died in a puddle of its own filth over 10 years ago, I haven’t looked back, but seeing Hatchi pop up on the App Store made me feel strangely nostalgic. I purchased it without a second thought and got to work on the little bugger.

As is often the case with such things, the Hatchi is not nearly as fun as I remember it being. While the intentionally crap pixellated graphics and 1-bit sound FX do pluck at nostalgic strings, I’ve forgotten how pointless the whole exercise is.

The top of the screen has all the various bars – food, hygiene, energy etc. – you need to keep full for your Hatchi, while the bottom of the screen has all the corresponding activities. Sadly, there are no mini-games for you to play with your Hatchi, so while his ‘Active’ or ‘Smarts’ attributes may be improving, your job is merely to tap , tap and tap some more until he’s satisfied. It just feels like an unbalanced relationship; why keep it alive if it doesn’t provide you with any fun or happiness?

You can set up the Hatchi to send you push notifications, so the useless creature can literally be waking you up in the middle of the night because it needs a shower or shit! This may be staying true to its Tamagotchi roots, but technology and ideas of handheld fun have come a long way since then. Now, excuse me as I intentionally neglect my Hatchi and gleefully watch it wither away and die, never to be used again.

A long, long time ago I was the happy purchaser of Shogun Total War, the first title (although back then it was the only title on sight) of the Total War series. A strategy series spanning 2000 years of history and offering one of the best strategic warfare simulations of all time. Total War Battles is the Total War trojan horse into the iOS world.

I loved Shogun back then: it had an strategy view (turn based) where you decide which structures and units to build, and how to organize warfare development and a tactical view, where you would manage the units, split in sections of 20 or 30 individual units, all set in a wonderful 3D environment. The thrill of leading a cavalry charge going down a mountain against an unsuspecting army of enemy recruits was impressive. And it was back around 2002… In a computer with less processing power and memory than an iPad. I had to download Total War Battles as soon as it came out, and now here I am writing a review of it to clarify some points. Should you download it, if you are a fan of the Total War series?

Total War Battles does not share almost anything with that game. The name, the setting, the unit names. Total War Battles is real time, but has a turn-based feeling, almost like a tower defense game. You advance through a series of battles and levels, while gaining experience and improving the abilities of your army. Each level has a goal, like “build 8 shrines” or “defeat the enemy general”. Total War Battles offers a truly original strategic gameplay for iPad and iPhone.

If you forget about how Shogun Total War was, Total War Battles is a very good game, furthermore it is a universal app. Fluid animations and a very interesting gameplay. Maybe too expensive for what it is, but a solid, well-crafted game. The problem comes when you compare it with what Shogun Total War was… And pair it with what computers were back then: an iPad would outperform them any day. Why don’t they create a true port of Shogun Total War to iPad? Total War Battles is not up to that.

In summary, Total War Battles is a truly good game, if you forget about the rest of the series. This (like Monty Python say) is something completely different. I hope this review clarifies what Total War Battles is, what is not and why you should download the app now.

More often than not, when you want to save and share photos online, you turn to nowhere else but Facebook. It’s where your friends are, too, so you’re assured to some extent that your photos are seen, liked, and commented on by people you know. And so when it’s time again to upload your photos, say, from your recent trip to Hawaii or even from a party you attended last night, you’d want to upload pretty much all of them. Such photos are usually taken with your trusty iPhone, and it’s only natural that you upload them straight from it, right? Unfortunately, the Facebook app for iPhone doesn’t make for easy uploading of photos in one go. It does let you attach a number of photos to a post before they’re uploaded, but the process is repetitive, to say the least. Fortunately, there’s PixUploader.

PixUploader is a new app that performs what the official Facebook app should’ve been able to do from the get-go. It lets you upload a series of up to eight photos to an existing or new album with minimal repetition of steps. When you open PixUploader, the eight most recent photos in your photo library are automatically preselected, but you can always toggle this option if you wish. You can rearrange or remove these photos simply by dragging them around or flicking them away. To add more photos, just tap the “Add Photos” button, which, by the way, you can customize to directly launch your iPhone’s camera or open your photo library. Now here’s where PixUploader clearly gains the upper hand over the Facebook app: rather than having you pick photos one a time from your photo library, PixUploader enables you to choose up to eight photos in one fell swoop.

You can, of course, add captions and tags to your photos before uploading them. Note that any rearrangement you do with your photos is not for nothing, as the app uploads them in whatever sequence you specify. PixUploader also supports background uploading, meaning the upload process won’t be interrupted when you exit the app. You also have the option to disable sleep mode while uploading is in progress and even to enable auto upload so that the app automatically retries uploading in the event of network errors. Surely, only a well-thought-out photo uploading app could have included these extra features.

PixUploader is available in the App Store for only $0.99. If you’d like to give the app’s functionality a whirl first before purchasing it, you can download the free lite version of PixUploader, which lets you upload up to four photos at a time but has no tagging capability. Even so, it should be enough to convince you of PixUploader‘s full photo uploading functionality, with a feature set that the Facebook app obviously lacks.

Love. She’s a funny old mistress. How can we count the many ways in which to define her? It’s pretty much impossible. However, with the latest relationship-assisting app, Am I in Love?, all your questions and self-doubts about whether you’re in love will be answered… kind of.

Granted, this app is not one that takes itself too seriously. It even contains a disclaimer saying that it’s an entertainment app and that if you really want to get a better insight into love then go read a book on it, you lazy bastards. Yet even as an entertainment app, its value is pretty limited.

Essentially what this incomprehensibly popular app is is a list of ten ultra-formulaic questions. Each has 3 answers you can pick from, and each is followed by an equally formulaic statement saying something like ‘If you’re really in love then you always think about him/her’ or ‘If you’re really in love then you want to go through the good and bad times together’ or some other equally cliched drivel.

Admittedly, some of the answers you can give are fairly anecdotal. A personal favourite is the option to say that you can picture having a conjoined grave with your loved one; what better way to make a girl feel uncomfortable? Sadly, once you’ve used this app once there is literally no point doing it again. The statements that follow the questions don’t adapt to your answers, and there just isn’t much sense of fun here. The cringe-worthy Steps To Love app is a much better mock-relationship guide if you want to get a shot of entertainment at love’s expense.

MotoHeroz combines the childhood loves of every boy: Sonic the Hedgehog, and gas guzzling monster trucks.

MotoHeroz involves players taking control of a monster truck, as per the title suggests, and navigating it through a myriad of obstacles while collecting bonuses Sonic style. As a time-trial based game, the objective of the game is to of course complete the obstacle course in the shortest time possible. However, the little additions here and there by Ubisoft add to the excitement and enjoyment of the game.

For starters, while MotoHeroz is a single-player game, players are able to compete against “ghost players” where two appear in each stage. One car represents the qualifying time for that level, whereas the second car represents the closest player on the leader boards for that stage. This is a nice touch to the game as players will then be able to know if they are lagging behind or how close they are to setting a new record.

Another small but appreciated addition to take note of would be the visual and sound effects of the game. While not quite eye candy, MotoHeroz provides decent graphics for a mobile game with cute and cartoonish details in the background while still preserving the masculinity of monster trucks. As far as sound is concerned, the distinctive whirring sound of monster trucks can be heard on all stages, fuel for adrenaline junkies.

Control wise, MotoHeroz is played with 4 simple buttons. Two of them control the acceleration and reversal of the vehicle, while the other two control the spin of the monster truck. Easy to understand and grasp, this game is definitely friendly towards first timers.

For $0.99, MotoHeroz is one app that is worth the purchase. Expect to spend many an hour slogging it out on the dirt tracks.

It’s pretty hard to create a game for the small iPhone screen that genuinely absorbs you into it. With the format tending towards cartoon or somehow tongue-in-cheek graphics styles i.e. Angry Birds or Stick Cliff Diving, there just hasn’t been much of a tendency for truly pretty games.

Well behold the Amazing Breaker game; a beautifully designed ice-breaking game that can be described as a more explosive version of the bubble popping classic, Bust-a-Move 2. In Amazing Breaker, you control a slingshot-like device and fire various projectiles at pretty ice sculptures with the intention of smashing them.

Aside from your basic spiked bombs, you also have special projectiles types such as the dividing bomb (which splits into three, allowing you to cause chain reactions) or the ghost bomb, which you can control as it glides through the ice sculptures. This can make for some pretty spectacular explosive gameplay.

Amazing Breaker wouldn’t be the same if it wasn’t for its unique and gorgeous design. The crystalline graphics make you feel like you’re smashing ice on some distant frozen planet, while a lot of time clearly went into the hypnotic ambient soundtrack. The wonderful aesthetic really complements the familiar, but still brilliant, gameplay.

Breaker features a hundred levels across 5 different ‘stages’, with each level having a star-based ranking system out of three. This, along with Game Center rankings and achievements means that you’ll remain entranced in this game for light years to come.

Generator Rex – Enemy Alliance doesn’t offer anything that you haven’t seen in other games before. Rex is a shape-changing superhero that has to team up with his arch-enemy Van Kleiss to stop an evil computer from destroying the world.

Usually the left side of the screen, you move Rex around the universe of the game and using various gestures on the right side, you can jump or attack at the evil animated rock creatures that your nemesis throws at you. I feel as if I’ve seen this sort of game before, particularly with other television-spawned iOS games such as the Simpsons.

On the plus side, the graphics are quite good, particularly for 2D. At this stage, the iPad and iPhone are excellent gaming alternatives so the games geared at kids have long since become formulaic. It’s a bit like those old arcade games where you move the character around with a joystick and have two buttons to jump and attack. While there is a touchscreen instead of buttons, the fundamentals are still the same.

I do wish that developers would become a little more imaginative with their television franchise games. However, the truth is that I’m not the target audience for this game and the boys that are probably have more tolerance for such things than I do.

Generator Rex – Enemy Alliance is a universal (iPhone and iPad) app that is available for $.99.  If you or your child is a fan of the show, then it’s a pretty reasonable investment.

This one’s for the little one at home. Something to keep your young one distracted and occupied as you finish that report your boss needs by tomorrow in peace.

Little Fox Music Box is basically an interactive musical box that brings to life, somewhat, different nursery rhymes by allowing your child to interact with the elements of each rhyme. With 3 old school favorites, “London Bridge”, “Old McDonald Had a Farm”, and the “Evening Song”, your child will be kept enthralled by Little Fox Music Box.

The artistic department behind Little Fox Music Box deserves a mention, as the main drawing factor of this app seems to be the well thought out graphics. While not quite the 3D realistic graphics expected from games and whatnot, Little Fox Music Box appeals with cutesy but yet clearly drawn pictures and animations that totally seemed well designed.

The downside to Little Fox Music Box would be how there are only 3 songs available at the moment, which does not quite justify the $2.99 price tag. Although Little Fox Music Box does turn each song into an interactive story of its own, I would still have expected to pay perhaps only $0.99 at the most for an app like this.

For an app targeting children aged 2 to 6, Little Fox Music Box might be a tad overpriced but it does its job well. Kids will love this app, but the price tag might make you reconsider your purchase.

I was intrigued when I saw this game being featured by Apple in the Spanish App Store. Since it was not expensive and had raving reviews by almost all users, I decided to give it a go: usually Apple only promotes high quality apps. And I was expecting, Crow did not disappoint me at all.

In Crow you play the role of, well, a crow, flying around a far away land. You will collect “trinkets” that will enhance your magical powers. This is probably one of the few apps I’ve seen that make the customary “truly unique app, no analogs in the App Store” true. I can’t really describe what the Crow gameplay feels like.

The 3D scenery in Crow is very well drawn, and animations are incredibly smooth. Cut scenes are long and detailed (and you can’t skip them: this is not a pick-and-play game when exploring the adventure for the first time,) and “boss battles” are always unique and different.

If I had to draw a comparison, I’d say this is almost like a Shadow of the Colossus (a Playstation game) inspired game, but for mobile devices like iPad and iPhone (I forgot to mention that the app is universal, working both in iPads and iPhones). In Crow you will wander around the lands without much trouble, until you decide it is time to fight the big foe, much like in Shadow of the Colossus. Only the story of Crow is far, far more convoluted (if possible).

We can definitely recommend Crow to everyone who loves to push their gameplay experiences as far as possible. Crow is one of those bizarre games you find every once in a while (World of Goo, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus…) that after many years are the subject of talks over a beer about how good the old times were.

I have always been a fan of stick figure games, and Fancy Pants Adventures does not fail to disappoint this fan. A popular animated flash game originally created by Brad Borne, it has now been ported to iOS devices for mobile users to enjoy on the go.

A simple 2D side scrolling platform game, the objective of Fancy Pants Adventures is to simply get to the other end of the level while decimating anything that stands in your way.

Controls are made extremely simple. Up, down, left, and right buttons call for movement controls and are very easy to master. In later stages, players gain access to weapons such as a pencil which can be wielded and used to attack enemies that show up everywhere.

The main drawing factor for Fancy Pants Adventures would be that the overly simplistic 2D graphics provides much needed respite from the games of today. Much of the games out there are 3D and highly intensive on the eyes, with distinctively sharp and realistic rendering of the game landscapes. Fancy Pants Adventures does away with all that, instead opting for a style that makes the animations look to be simple doodles. Of course, that would be because you are after all taking control of a stick figure.

For $0.99, Fancy Pants Adventures definitely gets my approval for that one dollar. This is one game you will find yourself instinctively starting while on the bus, or when waiting for a late friend to show up.

It didn’t take long for developers to see the iPhone’s potential as a platform to bring back good old-fashioned pointy-clicky adventure games. The Monkey Island series and Broken Sword have had great ports, but until now there hasn’t been a quality game in this genre made just for the iPhone. With The Lost City, this has now changed.

In this game, the vague plot sees you travel to the jungle after you Grandma gave you a mysterious artefact which suggests that there is some kind of lost city there; hence the title, Lost City. After the brief back-story, you’re thrown into the jungle, where the puzzles begin.

The game has a mock-1st-person view in which you get a single perspective on each location you move through. It’s your job to look for things in these locations that can be interacted with or picked up. Bits of broken tile, levers, puzzles, slots for you to stuff things into, it’s all there. While the game starts off easy, it soon becomes an engrossing challenge as you’ll be racking your brain to find out what fits where in this pretty jungle world.

And it is a pretty world. Combining old-fashioned, photo-realistic static scenery with beautifully-rendered water effects and  other subtle movements, The Lost City is an aesthetic treat to move through. The soundtrack is equally mesmerising, and adds to the mysterious atmosphere of the game.

Inevitably, the game can get confusing at times, what with all the locations and odds and ends you’ll be picking up, but the dev’s have clearly considered this by including a journal and map for you to reference; both essential tools in avoiding getting hopelessly lost in the game.

The Lost City is a beautiful, iPhone-exclusive hark back to the classics of point-and-click adventure. Its visuals are unique and appealing, and its puzzles are challenging and oh-so-satisfying to solve. Naturally, you’ll have moments of feeling a little lost in it all, but that’s part of the fun.

Max Payne Mobile. Really…? I still remember the day some friends and me rented the original Max Payne game in our local game store. We were the first to do so, and we could get the included poster in the game box. Playing the game was far better. When Max Payne was released for PC, it was a top shooter game. It introduced the (then novel) bullet time effect. Much like in The Matrix, press the bullet time button and time will move slowly for a few moments while you shoot at enemies.

The game story is good too: while working as an undercover cop, Max’s best friend and fellow officer Alex is shot. All proofs pointed to Max, and he is set to clear its name, using any means he needs. Between each chapter you get stylish noir-themed comic books detailing the story, all while being narrated by Max’s voice.

How does Max Payne Mobile compare to the PC original? Well, it looks exactly the same. Completely. A total port of the game, from old PC to modern iPad and iPhone. How does the game stand in the current iPad world? Graphically and in gameplay it is probably below some other blockbuster games. But this is a “real” game. With a solid plot, both in gameplay and as side stories go. I don’t think there is another game today in the App Store fulfilling these premises, making Max Payne Mobile the best shooter around.

Controls are very customizable, a huge bonus, since this game can be hard, tricky and frustrating at moments. Don’t forget to play through the tutorial just to make sure you really know how to use them!

Of course, it could be more polished with hardware you can find in an iPad or iPhone. Shot-down animations were good back in 2001, but currently with the awesome physics engine available for developers, they feel a little… lousy. But of course this is just a minor complaint. Max Payne Mobile is the shooter you should be buying today.

The recent arrival of Netflix in Europe has meant that the film/TV streaming market has just got a hell of a lot more competitive. LoveFilm, which until now has dominated this market in the UK, is trembling in its boots as the US-born giant has hit the ground running over here.

As well as offering streaming on your PCs and games consoles, Netflix have wasted no time in bringing their app to the UK app store. This is essentially the same app as the one that’s been available state-side for a while now.

As a film fan, I think it’s worth owning both Lovefilm and Netflix as their libraries differ quite heavily from each other. While Netflix is more focused on quality TV shows such as Dexter, 24, South Park, and also a surprising amount of British comedy in the form of Peep Show, The Thick of It and Saxondale, among others, it doesn’t have as up-to-date a film collection as Lovefilm. With few exceptions, the films on Netflix are more nostalgia-oriented, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The Netflix app remembers your viewing habits, giving you recommendations on what to watch based on what you’ve been watching until now. If you’re a bit of a channel-hopper (does that apply to film streaming?) then you can always return to what you were watching before at the exact point that you left it.

The catch with the app is that it’s not as free as the App Store makes it out to be. After a one-month free trial, you’ll be charged the modest sum of £5.99 if you don’t cancel your account. However, considering that this account’s accessible from just about any piece of hardware with a screen, this is a very reasonable price. A must for film and TV addicts.

You have restaurant reviews, park reviews, mall reviews and whatnot so why not toilet reviews? While it may sound somewhat perverse, Pottys involves users checking into their favorite lavatory Foursquare style and rating them, sharing their findings with a large community of Pottys users.

By default, Pottys showcases the best toilets ranked in the world. Each tab shows the name of the place, the exact address, the ratings (Yes, even toilets deserve ratings), as well as how far you are from said toilet. Upon tapping of any tab, greater details are shown. These include the exact rating for features like lighting, as well as amenities such as condoms! For some reviews, photos are also included though they can be quite disturbing and not for the faint hearted.

I liked the simplistic presentation style of the app. Pottys presents details in an easy to navigate list where users can just scroll through and selected whatever catches their eye.

There is even a tab for social networking, whereby feeds from registered friends and other users worldwide appear with their latest check ins which can at times be quite disturbing.

Much like Foursqure, users are rewarded for uploading reviews of toilets they come across. These include badges and points, complete with a leaderboard of top scorers. Of course, the more reviews one makes, the more points and badges he or she will earn. User profiles are even customizable, downright to profile pictures.

However, uploading of reviews through is something that needs to be worked on. The app automatically produces a list based on the current location of the user, however not all loos have been documented so it can really be a real pain at times.

Privacy fanatics will abhor this app, for checking into toilets is something that is really not very often heard of.

However, for a free app, Pottys is worth the download. Though it may not be extremely addictive, it will still provide some form of mild entertainment for really bored people.

Back in the old sport game days in PCs, FIFA Soccer was the standard for soccer games. Then the Pro Evolution Soccer saga entered the PC fray, after its long success in console systems, and most would agree and say that they won that battle. But of course, the iOS (iPad and iPhone) era set a new stage, where we meet FIFA Soccer 2012.

Previous editions of the FIFA franchise were, to put it clearly, very disappointing. Bad animations, hard controls and a lousy experience. The X Soccer franchise won the iOS battle for a while, but Electronic Arts wanted this piece of the iPad cake, and FIFA Soccer 2012 is the answer fresh from the oven, straight to your iPhone.

FIFA Soccer 2012 is a very solid game. Smooth animations and a good control scheme make for an awesome game, spiced up with the complete league licenses. You won’t be playing with any Rolando or Nessi in FIFA Soccer 2012. In addition to the standard match after match playing, you can also play in “manager mode”, where your goal is to take your team to the top, while managing also the resources.

Anything I’m missing in FIFA Soccer 2012? Well, not really. I’m disappointed with the slow menus: getting from one game to the next is very slow, not in loading screens but from menu to menu. And when changing lineups I have to needlessly press 3 or 4 menu screens. Why? Also, the game feels like an advertising: every time I open it, EA decides to spam me with some stupid discount or offer I’m not interested in. Or trying to get me to rate FIFA Soccer 2012. If I want to rate the app, I’ll do it when I want.

Overall, FIFA Soccer 2012 is an awesome game for any soccer (or football) aficionado, if only you can stand the not-so-subtle advertising of other EA titles. This may sound like a minor complaint, but since the game is not free, advertisement should be limited to… well, no ads. If you can stand this, FIFA Soccer 2012 is the best there is.

A handy addition to the default Calendar application, Voice Calendar what Siri can do to calendars on iPhone 4S phones to other iOS devices. Although not half as user friendly as Siri, Voice Calendar does a great job integrating itself with the built-in calendar of your Apple device.

At first glance, Voice Calendar appears virtually identical to that of the default calendar in Apple devices. However, upon close inspection many buttons have moved or shifted. For example, the “Today” button has been moved to a top corner where an “+” button previously. Everything other button has been removed, replaced by an “Option” button.

Voice Calendar allows you to organize events using vocal commands, by tapping the microphone icon and speaking into the device. Functionality wise, Voice Calender is by far inferior to Siri. This is shown when it was unable to tell the difference from jotting down exact memos and scheduling events. For example, saying “I have a meeting at 5pm tomorrow” had the app scheduling an event named “I have a meeting at 5pm tomorrow” on 9^th March 2012 while the same command had Siri making an event titled “Meeting” scheduled on the same date at 5pm. Voice Calendar had a longer processing time for the commands I spoke into my iPhone 4S.

While Voice Calendar integrates itself with the default calendar through syncing previously entered events and such, it has to be accessed through a separate application rather than being embedded into the default calendar app as I would have preferred. There is also no option to key in events manually with the keyboard, so users will have to toggle between two separate apps that access the same calendar depending on their choices.

For $1.99, Voice Calendar is not worth the money. Novelty aside, in terms of practicality actually keying your events manually is way more efficient. Moreover, Voice Calendar lacks the ability to differentiate from instructions, taking everything  literally unlike Siri found on iPhone 4S devices. This is a handy app to have, but not a necessity to own.

Have you ever wondered if your child was the next Van Gogh? Or maybe you just want to unleash the hidden artist within the kid? Well, though no expert art teacher, Drawing Master teaches the basics of doodling with a plethora of templates to choose from.

The app is very simple to use. Not much explanation is needed on what to do and how to go about doing it. A blackboard is presented in the middle of the screen and users simply select a sketch of their choice from the many pinned up around the board. Each pinned up piece of paper symbolizes a category, and users can toggle between the drawings in each category by tapping on the papers. They can then open up a small window showing the sketch in greater detail. Users then have to try and emulate the sketch on the blackboard, drawing as accurately to the original as they possibly can.

A nice added feature involves the option to select different colored chalks to draw your sketch. Users can opt for the conventional white to pink, green, orange and blue. To make things easier, Drawing Master also comes with a zoom function, to enlarge the blackboard so as to make the entire drawing process much easier. The erase function comes with two options. Users can choose whether they want to clear the entire screen, or use it like a regular rubber to rub bits of their sketch away. I personally would have liked it better if they app allowed for the deletion of lines as well, because rubbing at the sketch with your fingers can cause your drawing to look rather unsightly.

As previously mentioned, the app comes with a huge array of drawing options. However, even more sketches can be made available with an in-app purchase. You are also given the option to share your finished sketch on Facebook or Twitter. You can also choose to have it saved to your camera roll.

Drawing Master is definitely worth the download. Although targeted at young children, older kids will have an enjoyable time with the sketches too. I strongly recommend Drawing Master to parents, or people with younger siblings alike.

Ever wanted to create your own step by step guide but was turned off by the hassle of compiling all the information? With Snapguide, creating your own guide is suddenly not such a herculean task after all. Simply sign up for an account and you’re ready to go. Just follow the instructions on the app to start making your own guides! Yes, a guide within a guide!

With Snapguide, simply make use of the template given by the app to begin. You are given complete control over the designing of each and every basic step of your guide, and the app allows you to further customize each individual step by embedding videos and photos. Each guide you create even comes, by default, with a ‘supplies’ list. Or rather, a checklist of ingredients or materials your readers need to prepare before proceeding with whatever you are teaching them to do.

A downside to Snapguide would be that guides are only published to the app’s servers. While you can share the guides on your social networks, you are still confined to the restraints of Snapguide’s templates, and despite all the customization options given, there is hardly much freedom for creativity.

However, much like eHow and other guide sites, you can browse through a huge variety of guides by other users at random, ranging from food recipes to the different ways of wearing a scarf.

For a free app, Snapguide is something I would recommend you download. It does not take up much space on your device, and even if you do not intend to make guides, you are still granted access to a wide array of tutorials that may come in handy one day.

I really wanted to like Taposé more than I actually did. I like the idea of using the iPad to take notes during a class or a meeting. However, the app wasn’t quite up to snuff in that regard.

First, the good: you can do a lot with this app. You can draw or write freehand or type with text. You can highlight selected pieces. You can insert sticky notes and other types of multimedia such as audio, photos or video. Naturally, you can erase.  You can even share whatever journal you create on the cloud through services such as DropBox and Evernote or just send it in an e-mail.

The bad: the app is poorly designed on some levels. It is simply not instinctive to have to use two fingers to turn a page as the app does. Also, if you want to change the page design from the default to another, you have to do it a page at a time and can’t set any sort of default background for the journal.

Other issues include the lack of an “undo” button if you accidentally make a mark on the page. Also, there was at least one incident where I was using the lasso tool to create an object in which the app crashed on me.

In short, Taposé is a hearty meal that hasn’t quite been given enough time to cook. An existing app with the same concept and a better interface would be Notes Plus (if you’re willing to pay the $8).

I’ve been playing Go (a board game also known as weiqi or baduk) on and off for almost 10 years. In case you don’t know, Go is a board game with very old roots, that can be traced back to at least 3500 years ago, probably a lot more. Very popular in Japan (known as Go or Igo), Korea (baduk) and China (weiqi), it has been slowly spreading among the west during the last 30 years.

It is a very hard game for a computer: harder than chess. In chess, the top computer program is close to beating the world champion, but the top computer program in Go is easily defeated by amateurs. And it’s not for lack of encouragement: there used to be a 1.400.000$ prize for a Go program that can beat a professional player with ease.

EasyGo is another must-have app for intensive go players. Although at first sight EasyGo looks like a close-cousin to SmartGo Kifu, it is not. They share a goal though: analyzing games, exploring variations and solving problems. But they focus on different sets of features, and work very different.

For one, EasyGo allows for seamless importing of problem collections and multiple SGF files, by uncompressing ZIP files. With it you can also create your own problem sets, by typesetting your problem files (for example, from a book you own). It also keeps statistics of problem solving, by the way. Since you can import your own problem collections, you can have a wealth of problems at your fingertips, since the net is full of problem collections to download. And typesetting your own books is faster than it looks, and with a little time investment you will have thousands of go problems in your pocket/purse.

The other strong point of EasyGo is following variations of a game review. As good as SmartGo Kifu is, EasyGo beats it completely in this section, since it offers a line graph to follow variations, like the SGF editor CGoban. For example, EasyGo allows you to use the freely available Kogo’s Joseki dictionary with its miriad variations, and doing the same with SmartGo is not as simple. This makes going forward and backward a breeze, also knowing when and where a deep variation occurs.

This is a universal app, meaning that for the same price you get the iPhone and iPad version: a nice bonus. This app is still in its starting steps, and the developer has a huge list of suggestions in his to-do list, and since its launch some have been already developed. As all these start rolling this will undoubtedly be one of the best Go apps in the App store. For now, it’s “only” a must-have for game analysis and problem collections, which is no small feat in itself. After all, if you play go you have to buy this app.

A refreshing alternative to your typical alien trying to take over the world game, Fibble has you try to save the alien instead. In Fibble, players take control of a bite-sized chubby little alien who has crashed his ship into an earthly household. Armed with the blueprints of the humble abode, he tries to navigate himself through the various locations in the house and get back home.

The gameplay mechanism of Fibble is much like that of mini golf, where the objective of each stage is to get Fibble from one end to the other alongside the now common physics mechanism that makes the game realistic. However, it is the design ideas put in place for the game that sets it apart from the rest.

For starters, Fibble boasts of graphics that are comparable to a 3D animated film. Cute and easy on the eyes, Fibble appeals not only to casual gamers, but to those who want a break from visually intensive games.  Fibble renders places commonly seen in a regular home, like a kitchen, into a somewhat fantasy abode where anything can happen while not overly exaggerating what is shown to players.

In the sound department, Fibble scores for complimenting its cutesy graphics with equally cute sounds effects. This includes cheerful and catchy music that easily brightens up one’s mood, as well as random squeals that are just so cute.

For $1.99, Fibble is an app that is worth the download. With an decent amount of levels to plough through, expect to spend many an hour navigating the house to get a stranded Fibble back home.

Yet another masterpiece by Square Enix, the brains behind the critically acclaimed Final Fantasy series of games, Chaos Rings II serve as their latest entry into the mobile gaming fraternity. As I have not played the original Chaos Rings, no comparisons will be made between the two games and this review will be strictly on the title game only.

Of course, given the steep price, the burning question on every mind would be if Chaos Rings II is worth the $17.99. We’ll get to that later.

Storyline wise, as per most games by Square Enix, the plot for Chaos Rings II is somewhat ludicrous and cliché, but yet enthralling at the same time. This, I leave you to unravel for yourself. As far as gameplay is concerned, players will find themselves locked into their task of defeating The Destroyer in this extremely addictive role-playing game.

When it comes to graphics, Square Enix fails to disappoint. Dragons, knights and whatnot are rendered beautifully even for a mobile device. Be it navigating through the in game scenery or fighting scenes during combat, every frame is extremely pleasant to the eyes. Attacks in battles are accented with glittery effects, with each move executed being smooth and not grainy at all.

As for controls, there really is not much to complain about. Movements are controlled via an on-screen joystick, and battles are turn-based much like the Final Fantasy series, simplistic enough for everyone to understand.

The other thing worth mentioning is that games like Chaos Rings II drains your device’s battery really quickly. However, this is no fault of the developer but players should still be careful nonetheless.

Now for the big question: is Chaos Rings II worth $17.99? This is indeed a great game, easily one of the best RPGs in the app store. However, the $17.99 price tag is much of a put off, and similar games are priced at significantly less. On the bright side, it is worth noting that Chaos Rings II has no ridiculous in-app purchases unlike many RPGs, so this might justify the hefty price tag for some. Thus, if you have an extra twenty bucks to spare, this is one game you will want to get.

Spring is upon us and Easter is just around the corner. A twofold celebration is in order, don’t you think? It’s as good a time as any, then, to spread the joy by sending greeting cards to friends and loved ones. But in this day and age when the route preferred by most is the e-route, buying some Hallmark cards, scribbling notes on each of them, and going to the post office to mail them is an exercise in counterproductivity (if not a literal exercise, which, come to think of it, may not not be so bad after all). Nowadays, most get by with e-mails and e-cards in letting others that they are fondly remembered.

The latter, in particular, opens up a wellspring of creativity for you and other senders of sweet nothings and whatnot via the automagical Internet superhighway. Especially when paired with the ultra-versatile iOS platform, e-cards take on the form of canvases that invite you to bring out your charming side on your magical device. An app that’s built to such an end is Appygraph.

Appygraph is an app that lets you compose and send delightful e-cards right from your iPhone. It’s free to download in the App Store, and it comes with five free cards. Among these free cards, two are fit for springtime and Easter while the remaining three are for general occasions. I’m particularly fond of the first card that’s shown upon launching the app, which has a cluster of fluffy clouds with the inscription, “Life is wonderful.”

Apart from the five free cards, 50 more cards are available from the app’s four premium collections: Birthday, Love, Christmas, and New Year’s. For a limited time only, the Birthday pack can be purchased in-app at 50% off, that is, $0.99. The other packs cost $1.99 each. I should also point out that the cards in all packs, whether free or premium, are invariably original and visually appealing. All of them look so crisp and lively that it would be a shame not to share them with others.

Another great thing about Appygraph is that you can customize any card you want to make it more personal before sending it. The cards in Appygraph have editable text blocks, in which you can include thoughtful messages. Some cards also support photo insertion via camera or library import, with further support for moving and scaling for precise placement inside the predetermined areas for photos within cards.

You can send any of the cards as many times as you want. You can share them via e-mail and iMessage and even post them on your Facebook Wall or on a friend’s. Of course, you can also save your personalized cards on your device’s library, so you can subsequently share them on Twitter or Instagram, although it would’ve been better if at least these two third-party services were already integrated in the app.

As mentioned, Appygraph is available in the App Store for free. Featuring great greeting card designs and a range of customization and sharing options to boot, Appygraph is something to write home about.

Brain teaser games have become something of a trademark for the iPhone. Maybe it’s the easy way in which you can dip in and out of them, or maybe it’s because we like to feel like we’re actually giving our brains a work-out when using our iPhones, rather than always mind-numbingly throwing poultry at collapsible structures a la Angry Birds.

Craziness is very much ‘yet another’ of these brain teaser games. In fairness to it, it’s not as cryptic and unfairly frustrating as the last one of these games I reviewed, Stupidness 3. Its questions are nicely varied, ranging from memory tests to pure logic.

Sometimes it’s not even just a matter of tapping at the right answer. The game forces you outside the box a bit by sometimes demanding that you shake the screen, turn it upside down, or slide the answers around using your finger to get the right one. It’s nice to see what’s basically a logic came utilise the iPhone format in this way.

There are several different test difficulties for you to go through on Craziness, ranging from ‘Simple’ to ‘Crazy’, and there is also a bonus speed test for those needing an extra something. Craziness is an enjoyable brain teaser that offers some interesting questions, but it’s so similar to other such games that there’s nothing to distinguish it from the crowd. Hell, it’s free for a limited time though.

If you don’t have an AdSense account, this app is not for you. Move on, read another review, we have plenty. But if you do have an AdSense account (or 20 AdSense accounts), beAdsense by Beecubu is the app you are looking for. How do I know? Because I have checked all AdSense apps in the app store and this is the only one I’m using. You can save the trying and just pick the best.

First good point: beAdsense is available as a universal app for iPad and iPhone (and if you don’t have an iPad, there’s a cheaper version only for iPhone, with some minor limitations). Second and related good point: they are actively developing the app. A month ago when I got it, there was only iPhone support, with only one AdSense account. Now we have iPad and…

Multiple account support. Yes, you can have as many AdSense accounts as you wish. One for your personal blog, one for your work account, another for a client maybe? All in one app, just a few swipes away. The standard, iPhone only version of beAdsense does not have this option, after all, this is only needed by a handful of AdSense users. But if you are one of them, you can have it. How cool is that?

All numbers at a glance. You can check this month, last month, view graphs, select specific times to check, all just in one or two taps. A beautiful and well designed UI makes it as simple as possible to find anything.

And in case you don’t have a lot of data to check how the app works, the app comes with a demo account you can test to see how good the graphs and numbers look. If I were to have a complaint, is the current lack of URL channels (if you link more than one website to an AdSense account these come into play)… which they are currently working on. Thus it’s not that big of a deal: I’m sure we’ll have them. And so far I’m just enjoying checking all my stats in a moment. Without cumbersome multi-logins in Safari, just this gorgeous app.

I’m an avid RSS reader. Even if I have cut down my subscriptions, I have something like 60 feeds, and some of them are aggregators that can rack up to 20 posts each day. In practical terms, I can easily get more than 200 new RSS stories each days. With my previous RSS reader it was also a great problem: if I stopped reading RSS for two or three days, the looming 600 in red type in my home screen was a terrible sight. After all, I’m not interested in all these posts, only a handful. Passing them quickly and reading a snippet is often good enough for me, but no pure RSS reader complied.

Flipboard and Persona/ were very close, their RSS readers offered a snippet and image. But Flipboard lacked offline support, and Persona/ is too broad: it does a wonderful work with RSS+twitter+Facebook, but used for only RSS is just adequte. The Early Edition 2 on the other hand is the perfect tool for the job. A very beautiful tool, too, giving one of the best reading experiences in my iPad, ever.

The Early Edition 2 is an RSS reader (it can tie to your Google Reader account, by the way), as it should be clear by now. It’s aim is to create a newspaper from your RSS feeds, as simple as that. To get most of it, you should classify your feeds by categories, for example I have programming, writing, drawing, go and news among many more. This generates “sections” within your personal newspaper. You can sort them as you wish, and just read as you would expect: by flipping pages. The flipping animation is also very smooth, following your finger elastically like a real paper sheet would.

Okay, so it does the work it promises… But there’s more. TEE2 also fetches images and posts for offline reading. In the newspaper you find images and part of a text snippet for the post. If the post catches your attention, you tap it to read in full. If it doesn’t… Just pass the page! As easy as that, clearing 200+ RSS feeds is a matter of minutes, unless you are committed to reading them all. And if you are, TEE2 is as good as any other reader would be.

Also of note are the sharing options: in addition to starring in Google Reader and sharing by email, you can send to instapaper, twitter, facebook, delicious, read it later, readibility, pinboard and evernote. Try saying this last phrase without breathing! Even if the app is not any close to free, it is so good I can’t even think of anything I have not liked about it. Okay, one thing: the share button and the share by email button are hard to tell one from the other. Okay, one small thing!

Interesting fact: While The Early Edition 2 is collecting data to prepare the newspaper, and also while it is loading, it shows the image of a folded newspaper (like those you could get delivered by a paperboy,) this newspaper shows the text of the iconic Apple advertisement The Crazy Ones.

At first glance Tiny Bee draws many similarities to another game, Tiny Wings. The two games even share a strangely similar name too. The objective of Tiny Bee involves bringing a bee across islands, aptly termed as levels, to collect honey before the dark and stormy rain clouds arrive. This is mirrored in Tiny Wings, where you have to bring a bird across as many islands as possible before the sun sets.

Traveling in the game involves tapping the screen at well timed intervals so that the bee can slide through the many grooves that litter the ground. This enables the bee to pick up momentum and thrust itself in mid air for a moment, before returning to the ground for another slide. This process repeats itself as long as you possibly can, until the rain clouds catch up with the bee and the game ends.

The first question that came into my mind was why the bee had to rely on sliding across trenches instead of flying. I’ve seen species of birds that don’t fly, but a bee?

Game play itself is far from perfect. I would have liked it better if the game was smoother. It is difficult to time your slides and the momentum of the game changes quite rapidly. This makes it hard to get used to, again adding to the difficulty level but at the same time making it much less enjoyable.

However, I loved the cute sound effects added to the game, although it seems almost exactly like that of Tiny Wings. For each successful slide, the bee mumbles a cute indiscernible phrase that is bound to melt your heart. Moreover, cheerful music plays in the background, a great solution to a bad day.

For $0.99, Tiny Bee is worth the dollar to purchase. Although on a personal note, I’d prefer Tiny Wings which also costs barely a dollar and comes with slightly more features.

Puzzlejuice is a fairly new universal iOS game that’s a really smart synthesis of concepts inspired by Tetris, Boggle, and match-three games. In Puzzlejuice, the player controls a succession of blocks made up of multicolored tiles dropping from the top of the screen. As in the ultra-popular game Tetris, the blocks must have been moved, rotated, and neatly arranged the moment they fall so that eventually at least one horizontal line is fully occupied by tiles. But unlike in Tetris, where tiles disappear, the tiles in Puzzlejuice turn into letters as soon as they make a complete line. That explains the Tetris part of Puzzlejuice’s DNA, but what of Boggle and match-three?

The Boggle part lies in the player’s objective to clear tiles from the screen by forming words out of the letters so far revealed. Adjacent letters—be they adjoined horizontally, vertically, or diagonally—are swiped according to their sequence in the word being formed, and if the resultant word is indeed a real word the letter tiles disappear, yielding more space to drop blocks into and prolonging the game.

But it’s not only through forming complete lines that letters can be produced. The basic mechanics of match-three games are invoked in the player’s option to make more letters appear on the screen by tapping three or more adjacent tiles of the same color. Given this choice, the player doesn’t need to repeatedly stand by for the correct blocks to fit into whatever void there is on the screen. So long as tiles of the same color are adjoined on the screen, the game is safe.

Puzzlejuice has two game modes. The mechanics heretofore  discussed are applied in Core mode. The other mode is Zen mode, and is so called because in this mode blocks don’t fall at all. Each new block remains stationary at the top of the screen until it is swiped downwards. Another point of departure of Zen mode from the Core mode is that each game is played with the aim of getting a high score within only 90 seconds, as opposed to the functional infinity of Core mode.

After each game, formed words are recapped, and the player can double-tap on any of the words to see the definition provided the iOS system dictionary. The developer has also clearly anticipated the trouble in spelling words on the iPhone, whose relatively small screen makes it difficult to see what letters are underneath the player’s big finger, and this has been remedied with the game’s Picture-in-Picture loupe feature. On the iPad this feature is unnecessary and is thefore absent.

Evidently, Puzzlejuice is born out of an idea so clever that the player might end up slightly resenting the developer for being the one who thought of it first. As soon as the resentment is over, though, full appreciation and addiction would definitely come into play.

The iPhone is slowly finding its feet when it comes to extremely satisfying fighting games involving feudal weaponry. Infinity Blade 2 set new standards when it came to both graphics and intuitive gameplay, and now Blood and Glory is following in its tracks.

Blood and Glory is brutally honest about what kind of game it is. There is no plot here, as you guide a generic gladiator through a series of duels against increasingly big and tough enemies. As you progress through the game, you’ll earn money depending on how well you fight, which you can spend on fancy weapon and armour upgrades.

Since the game is all about fighting, it’s just as well that the gameplay is very satisfying and visceral. Much of it depends on anticipating your enemy’s attacks, blocking or dodging them, then countering with your own combos. There are plenty of different combos to learn, and all are done by intuitive swiping of your iPhone screen.

The game looks great, but that being said there is very little to feast your eyes upon other than the battles themselves. In this sense, Blood & Glory is derivative of the brilliant Infinity Blade, which had an impressive-looking element of exploration to it alongside the raw gameplay.

With the amount of stuff to unlock, Blood & Glory should keep the savages among iPhone gamers hooked for a while. Though it should be mentioned that unlocking some of the Elite tournaments and weapons will take a long time unless you go for the easy option and pay real money for them (which the game cheekily encourages you to do). Nevertheless, most of the game can be enjoyed for free, so unless you don’t have the stomach for brutal gameplay, you should give it a go.

Noise is everywhere. From your office mate clicking away in joyous programming ecstasy to your neighbours listening to Greatest KISS. These are mild, noise sources, you can get away. But did you know that with an ambient noise above 40 dB your learning and ability are severely impaired? And that above 85 dB you are likely to end with ear damage if exposed for more than 40h/week? Well, we didn’t. Now we do and can check whenever we want, because we now have Noise Hunter.

Noise Hunter is a top notch app to detect ambient noise. Almost as good as top of the line sound devices, it only needs an iDevice with an internal microphone (iPhone, latest iPod Touches, iPads) or even an external microphone compatible with the iPhone mic jack. We are now addicted at checking what the sound levels are everywhere. Train, office, home. When listening music, when sleeping.

As a sample of what noise means for you, the German ministry of environment claims that noise is one of the worse problems they are facing. New research is telling that ear damage comes more easily than what was thought, when being exposed to 85 dB(A)! (We bet you don’t know what a dB(A) is… keep reading!) Even 65 db(A) can lead to long term illnesses, like heart attacks or strokes. Even some research suggests it can ultimately generate cancer. Just by noise. You have to learn how to gauge it.

Noise Hunter comes with so many features it is hard to list them. The first that comes to mind is the avatar. If you tap the sound graph once, you’ll see a human silhouette telling you if learning is possible with the current level of sound and if there are any health hazards with the current levels. Simple, no need to learn anything else. But if you do know… You can choose between decibels in sound pressure level (what an electronic device can hear) or A-weighted decibels: what a standard human ear can feel. Just in case: all safety levels are always in db(A), like in this wikipedia table.

The program also records maxima and minima, and the standard deviation around the average. This is of course to be expected from such a good program… But it also offers “record programs”. The main one is sound level recording, the app will automatically record for a given time and then either store the data or mail it to you (in the always handy CSV format). Another interesting indicator is the continuous sound pressure level: if sound varies a lot, the maximum noise may not be a good indicator of what is going around you (in noise levels).

Noise Hunter is not a cheap app for everyone, but for people needing a sound meter is awesome. We just tested a set of no-power iPhone speakers to check their claims, without Noise Hunter the job would have been a nightmare. With it it was a breeze!

We all love emoticons. Even those of us who hate them for their stupidification of good old-fashioned language (like myself) will admit that sometimes, an emoticon is the best way to express yourself. Just don’t overdo it! Now, most people probably haven’t wondered what they’d look like if they actually were an emoticon. But let’s face it, now that I’ve mentioned it, it sounds like quite an amusing concept doesn’t it?

That’s precisely the purpose of MEmoticon; an app in which a photo of your face gets morphed into all the most familiar exaggerated emoticon expressions. For the initial app, you can convert your face into a happy smiley, a sad one, or an angry one. Obviously they all look completely ridiculous and mildly disturbing, but they’re amusing nevertheless. The angry one even turns your face pink for added realism (if you can call it that).

The app auto-crops your face, and uses face detection, which you can also manually adjust. This means that the app does a convincing job in tweaking all the right bits – including making your face perfectly circular, of course – to make you truly look like the scariest emoticon in the world.

You can share your memoticons on Facebook, and even copy them into SMS chats. Though due to their freakish nature, you should send them as more of a novelty gesture than a serious one. If you’ve just started seeing a girl/guy and want to send them a cheeky winking smiley, then using this app is probably not recommended; on the contrary, it’ll probably freak them out. Still, this app is good light amusement, and a promise of more smiley varieties in future updates makes it fine value for money.

The Gangstar series has become something of an iPhone gimmick, releasing a virtually identical game every year or so albeit set in a different city. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, as they provide some of the best ultra-violent sandbox fun available for the format.

Gangstar Rio: City of Saints is, as the title suggests, set in a pseudo-Rio de Janeiro. The city is sunny, pretty, and populated by minimally clothed guys and gals strolling its long stretches of beach. The city is reasonably diverse, offering a range of indoor and outdoor areas, and you won’t get bored too quickly of wreaking havoc in it.

The main problem with Rio is its unintelligent plot, dialogue, and general sense of thuggishness. Part of what makes the Grand Theft Auto games so great is their wit, humour, and likeable characters. In Rio, you control a thuggish scumbag who is dislikeable in just about every single way. This makes the single-player story feel like a bit of a slog.

The various missions and side-missions in Rio are good, simple fun. Since there is no human interest in the story or characters of this game, you can have plenty of fun by just going on rampages using a plethora of heavy-duty weaponry and vehicles.

There are several different options to choose from when it comes to the game’s driving mechanics; just as well since the default ’tilt’ controls are abysmal. Once you set it up right, driving feels relatively stable. The combat and shooting mechanics of the game feel like a poor man’s GTAIII, a bad sign seeing as that game’s recently celebrated its tenth birthday.

Gangstar Rio doesn’t move the series forward, but it’s still a blast to roam around in. The distasteful characters are made up for by plenty of mindless fun to be had on the mean – but pretty – streets of the city. That being said, the series could pick up a few pointers from GTA III, which has recently been re-released on the iPhone and iPad, and even now remains head and shoulders above this game.

After the original Angry Birds came Angry Birds Seasons. After that came Angry Birds Rio. Now, after that comes Angry Birds Space. Just when you think Rovio Entertainment has exhausted their cache of ideas for the extremely popular video game that was originally an iOS title but went on to make the leap towards other gaming platforms, here comes Angry Birds Space, reinventing the world of Angry Birds itself by going out of this world and into deep space.

So, what’s new with Angry Birds Space? Not a lot, but the few novelties it has are so significantly different that it might be the Angry Birds title that bears the most difference from the original game. As its title indicates, Angry Birds Space relocates the perturbed birdies and their enemy pigs to outer space. Although the Angry Birds franchise’s trademark slingshot and fortress setup is retained in the new game, the consideration of space physics makes the proceedings far more interesting.

Often the birds vs. pigs matches in Angry Birds Space are played on asteroids and other celestial bodies whose gravitational fields affect the flight path of the vengeful avian characters. Gone is the straightforward and ordinary planes of the previous titles in the series. Now, when you prepare to hurl a bird to the pigs’ hideouts, you’ll see a curved line indicating its the projected path. But that doesn’t mean the game is as easy as aiming the end of that curved line to your desired destination. Again, note that gravitational forces get in the way of the bird’s trajectory.

Except for slight differences in their appearances, the birds and pigs in Angry Birds Space are pretty much the same as the birds and pigs we’ve come to love or hate, respectively. In addition, there’s a new avian warrior called the Ice Bird, which freezes everything it touches. Moreover, the Mighty Eagle of past Angry Birds titles has metamorphosed into the Space Eagle, creating a black hole around the pigs’ dwellings when summoned.

All levels in the first level pack in Angry Birds Space, punningly titled Pig Bang, are free to play, as is the first (and only the first) level of the especially challenging Danger Zone level pack, which can be unlocked via in-app purchase. Other level packs in the game, as well as a number of Space Eagles, can also be unlocked via the same.

Wihout a doubt, Angry Birds Space has taken the Angry Birds franchise to a whole new level, a level so high that it has gone beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.