WordsWorth
This app is perfect for those of you out there who love to play word games but don’t like the stress of being governed by the timer. While there is a little bit of timing involved, the player can essentially control it. And no, I don’t mean by shutting the game off when things get hairy.
The way the game works is you get a grid with hexagon shaped letter tiles. The object is to form words by either touching adjacent letters and then touching the submit key or dragging your way across the entire word with your fingertip. When you run out of words you can make, either shake the phone or touch the creepy looking man at the bottom of the screen to refresh your letter set.
It’s always great to get new letters, but unfortunately there’s a downside. You also get a timed tile. You have to get rid of these, by incorporating them into a word, before the entire tile changes from a dark red to a pale pink as the second hand on it moves. Otherwise your game ends.
Luckily, there are also some tiles that can help you. There are green tiles that give you bonus points and wild card tiles, with a silhouette of the creepy man, that you can use to sub for a letter in your word, just like the blank Scrabble tiles. Plus, if you make a word longer than five letters you could be eligible to win a gold tile, which is similar to the green tile, but prettier.
Each time your reach a predetermined score you get bumped up to the next level. Each one has a name like WordWrek or WordCadet. If your score is a high enough number, you get to be on the “Wall of Wow” when you finish. You also get an increase in the number of times you can exchange the letters, up to five.
While this game can be fun, it doesn’t have the addictive nature of some other word game apps. There are pretty simple graphics and no real competitive play. It’s easy to save your game (by touching the yellow back arrow), put it down and go on to something else. There is something to be said for that.
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iKoto 2
This app lets you play a traditional Japanese string harp by “plucking” the strings with your fingers. It opens with a lovely intro screen of falling cherry blossoms. Then you touch the screen to get started. If you want to play an individual string, you simply tap it, or you can glide your finger down across more than one make a chord.
After you’ve become a master musician, you can start recording your symphonies by touching the musical note icon at the bottom right of the screen, selecting a recording number and then touching the icon with the black circle on it to start taping, so to speak. If you turn out not to be so good, don’t worry. You can also play preinstalled music by touching the musical note icon and picking one of the songs listed under demo play and then touching the play arrow. Just tell your friends that you recorded the song yesterday.
Those who want a little different sound can change the tone scale. There are 11 options that give you an array of pitches. The names are related to actual Koto instruments, so it is pretty much trial and error for anyone not familiar with them. There are also options to turn the string numbers on or off as well as the pitch bend.
This app can be a little tricky to get the hang of at first, but the help menu is your friend. Just touch the icon at the very bottom of the icon list (the circle with the white center) and you’ll be on your way to annoying – I mean, entertaining – your friends and neighbors in no time.
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Peanut Butter Jelly Time
January 14, 2009 by Udiggity
Filed under Entertainment
No matter how bad of a day you’ve had, this app will surely put a smile on your face. It has an incredibly pixilated banana with arms, legs, eyes and a winning grin getting down with his bad self, kicking his feet and moving his arms up and down. He’s doing something similar to what my friends and I used to call the “idiot dance,” which we attributed to people at clubs that had absolutely no rhythm.
When I first launched the app it didn’t seem to do much else, just the dancing fruit alone, but then the song started in when I touched the screen: “It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time” by my favorite unknown band, the Buckwheat Boys. I also noticed that the song’s title is at the bottom of my iPhone’s screen, though it pretty much covered up by the feet of the banana man. You can restart the song by touching the screen again or by shaking the phone to make some mad beats. No matter what you do, the dancing never changes.
I’d have to say I’m glad this app is free, but my boyfriend absolutely loved it. In fact he already had “It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time” as one of his ringtones so this was just the icing on the cake. It’s sure to be a hit at parties and on college campuses, and I’ll probably launch it every once in a while when I’m having a bad day or on the phone with an annoying telemarketer.
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Pull My Finger
January 1, 2009 by Udiggity
Filed under Entertainment
Oh, where would we be without such wonderful apps as Pull My Finger? We would never know what the farts of Bigfoot or Igor the lab assistant sound like. Luckily, this app has arrived to satisfy our curiosity.
In addition to Bigfoot and Igor, there are 16 more fart types that you can choose from, including a business man and an opera singer. Just touch the image to get the persona you like, then touch the screen anywhere (though it’s most fun to pretend to really pull the finger) and you’ll get a fart noise and your phone will vibrate at the same time.
Can’t wait to get to the next farter? Don’t worry. Just touch the fingers pointing left and right at the bottom of the screen to go forward or backward. Push the down finger to get back to the home screen. If you want to hear all the farts at once, in some kind of symphony of flatulence, choose chorus. It’s sure to be a hit at any frat party. Just be aware, the chorus doesn’t stop on its own. It will continue to play until you turn it off, even if your phone goes into standby mode.
I actually liked this app more than I thought I would. The cartoonish pictures are pretty darn funny and the fart noises are at least somewhat interesting in their variety. Too bad you can’t activate the app remotely and stick your iPhone under someone’s chair during a boring business meeting.
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Amazon Mobile
This app is like having Amazon.com in the palm of your hand, with all of the same options and interface you’re used to when you log in on your PC. You can even use your username and password from your traditional account instead of making a new one just for your iPhone.
From this account you can turn on one click ordering by choosing an address and credit card, track packages, cancel orders, look at your wish list, search the store and of course make purchases. It keeps your login information stored so you don’t have to type it in each time. (You also have the option to sign out and log in as someone else.) It also gives you a front page based on the stuff for your wish list, which you may see as a good or bad thing, depending on your willpower.
There’s also the option to use a new feature on Amazon called Amazon Remembers by choosing the remembers icon at the bottom of your screen. With this option, you take a picture of any item with your iPhone’s camera and the staff at Amazon will email if they can find a matching product. I took a picture and it seemed to go through, but the jury’s still out on whether I’ll hear back from Amazon about it. Either way, it’s an interesting concept.
One thing I do find lacking in this app is the ability to narrow your search. Though you can sort your results by category, you can’t use some of the more refined options, like finding only items that qualify for Super Saver Shipping. It can also be hard on the eyes to have to scroll through a long page of results. I’d recommend using the Amazon app only if you don’t have access to the real thing on a PC.
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ACME Lie Detector
Trying to get a friend to spill secrets or just want to find out what happened to your favorite blue jacket? Bust out the Acme Lie Detector app. The user places a thumb in the designated circle on the screen and the app will let you know if he or she is telling the truth. If yes, a green light “lights up” and you hear a satisfied ding. If not, the red light shines and a buzzer goes off.
You may wonder how the iPhone would know what secrets lie in the hearts of men, or women. Well, there actually is some shady business going on. Before you hand the phone to the person in question, you hold your finger on the reset button and tilt the phone to the left (towards true) or the right (towards false). This directs the app to display that answer when the user takes the challenge.
Either ask your friends questions that you know the answers to to amaze them with your iPhone’s psychic abilities or use it to try to find out confidential information. It is totally up to you. Just don’t let them in on the secret.
My favorite part of this app is the graphics. It has a realistic needle that moves from left to right after the user puts his or her thumb down. It takes a few seconds to move back and forth between true and false for added authenticity.
Though it’s doubtful this app will ever be used by the FBI, it’s definitely fun to play with.
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Fieldrunners
I literally had to drag the iPhone out of my roommate’s hands to get him to quit playing this game. The object is to protect your base from the invading enemy horde using four basic weapon types — Gatling Tower, Goo Tower, Missile Tower and the ultra tough Tesla tower — to keep them from crossing from one side of the screen to the other. Let 20 cross undeterred and you’re toast.
Instead of having a character that shoots, you have to place these towers in appropriate spots on the screen by dragging and dropping them and they fire when an enemy comes within range. Each weapon has three stages of upgrade. You buy these upgrades using the dollars you get from keeping the enemies from getting across.
There are little guys, big burly guys, guys on motorcycles, guys in tanks – each is progressively harder to beat and requires more firepower to kill. When you begin the level, the start out in groups of as little as two or three at a time, but as you advance you’re faced with a bigger crowd. The idea is to creatively place the towers to slow the enemies down, adding a bit of logic to what could have been a typical shoot ‘em up.
The app has multiple maps and versions of gameplay that you can unlock, such as a competition to achieve the highest score possible or to complete 100 levels. The more you play the more options you’ll get. You can use the high score list to brag to friends, but there’s no option for multiplayer. The graphics are good and the app allows you to zoom in and out using the pinch function. The sound is decent though nothing too memorable. Apparently the app can be addictive.
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Enigmo
This game reminded me a lot of the PC game called Lemmings. The object is to direct drops of water, lava or oil into their respective containers using a variety of “tools” such as ramps and bouncers. Basic game play involves touching the tool on the left side of the screen and dragging it to the place you think it needs to go. You can use the circle that appears around the item to change its orientation in order to better serve your purposes. Get the wrong item? Just touch it twice in succession to put it away and start new.
While this game may be great for analytical types, I found it to be difficult and overcomplicated. I couldn’t figure out what some of the items did without looking at the rules, and to do that I had to basically exit out of the program and look at a PDF on the manufacturer’s website. The game has no internal help and simply redirects you. The fact that you’re timed and you get no points if you don’t complete the level in the short preset limit further added to my frustration. It’s never too exciting to see you beat a level when you’re rewarded with zero points. Thankfully, there is an option to pause and to save your game so you don’t have to replay each level each time.
I did, however, enjoy the excellent graphics. Even the intro screen is intricate with a distinctive underwater wobble when you touch the screen. The sound is a pretty realistic dripping water effect. So be sure to turn it off if you’ve just had three glasses of iced tea.
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WiFinder
This app is very straightforward. It finds wireless networks in your immediate area. All you have to do is launch the app and it immediately begins scanning. It then comes up with a list. Open networks are preceded by a green check mark and locked networks have a red do not enter type sign. (My search came up with a list of 12, though only two of them were unlocked.)Touch the name of a network to get more details about it, including MAC address, channel, strength, authentication and whether it is hidden. If you have the permissions, you can connect to the network by touching the conveniently named connect button.
If you’re traveling with your iPhone, you can use the auto scan button at the bottom of your screen to set your phone to continuously look for networks automatically. You can set the intervals for rescanning to any number of seconds and request notification whenever the app finds a new network to add to the list. When this setting’s turned on, your phone will vibrate each time one pops up.
It’s a helpful tool for when you’re out and about and need to find a WiFi connection. That will help you get access to local networking sources and often increases Web page loading speed. It can also be useful if you’re looking to connect your laptop or other mobile tools.
The interface is simple and clean. It’s very easy to use the app and it’s a total cinch to learn. Navigating the maze of wireless networks you find might be another story.
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Digi Drummer
The DigiDrummer app is like having a beat machine in your pocket, allowing you to make beats and play them with the most common of drum kit sounds. These include kick drum, snare, various tom-tom sounds and cymbals. To get started, go to patch select in the top right corner of the screen and use the up and down arrows to pick your kit from one of ten options. Then touch your “drums,” which are the eight white circles in the middle of the screen, to make your track. You can then record it and play it back. Just make sure to press record before you start playing.
If you want to go a nontraditional route, you can choose the “crazy” setting. This gives you not only drum sounds but also three different record scratching sounds – perfect for the aspiring iPhone rapper. You can also go to the settings menu, which gives you access to three options. You can choose “fatty thumbs skin” which makes the drums square and a little bit bigger. This was perfect for my boyfriend who has larger fingers. There’s also a volume control and a place to create a beat library by saving your beats permanently after you record them. If you don’t add them to the library the go away after you exit the app.
This app was fun for me, a tone deaf person, and also for my boyfriend, an amateur drummer. In fact, I had trouble dragging the phone away from him for the purposes of writing this review. His only complaint was that the volume was too quiet, but I think I’ll be thankful for that in the future.
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