Archive for the 'Apple' Category

01
Jan
10

100 Best iPhone Apps of 2009

By Russ Crandall Leave a Comment
Categories: Apple, Internet and Music
Tags:


If you’re a new iPhone owner, or you just don’t scour the App Store every five minutes, you may have missed out on the thousands of apps available today. Luckly, Mac|Life released their 100 Greatest iPhone Apps of 2009 list, and it’s a great introductory list as well as great way to catch up on those apps you might have missed.

Most of the apps on this list are good deals, although there are a few deadbeats in there as well ($20 for Wolfram Alpha, when I can go to it on Safari for free?). For instance, I’m still waiting for the GPS apps to go down in price, personally. But according to the list, Peggle is only $2 right now, so I’d jump on that with a quickness.

One glaring omission is the last.fm app, which is one of the best ways to experience new music for free.

25
Dec
09

iPhone Game Review: Babel Rising

By Mark Hill Leave a Comment
Categories: Apple, Games and Reviews
Tags: , , ,


It seems like iPhone game maker BulkyPix has released somewhere between two and three hundred titles in just the last few months (actually it’s more like six, but man can they send out some emails!). Only one of which though puts you in the sandals of a wrathful deity trying to stop peasants from building a tower to your Heavenly home.

The game is called Babel Rising, and tasks the player with stopping the completion of a tower by doing things like zapping the workers with lightning, washing them away with a tsunami, sending a rain of fireballs upon them, or a few other natural disasters. Think of it as a “tower offense” game. The ultimate goal is to delay the completion of the tower of Babel as long as possible, and gain points by killing the workers; complete with score multipliers gained by killing a bunch of them at once. The game also sports achievements, and Open Feint connectivity so you can see your friends’ scores.

All-in-all, it’s a good $.99 game. There isn’t much depth to it, seeing how there is only one level and all the powers are available to you from the very beginning. I would have really loved to see something to add to the replayability, such as early levels that start off easy with only a few powers, and becomes more challenging with greater unlockable powers. Handing the player everything right off that bat takes much of the incentive out of returning to it over and over again, and makes it feel more like a “Lite” version of a larger game.

It is fun while it lasts, though, it’s priced fairly, and even passes the girlfriend test. BulkyPix has nice line of solid games, such as the hit Hysteria Project, and this is another fun one to check out.

10
Dec
09

review: geospark

By Giang Cao Leave a Comment
Categories: Apple, Games and Reviews
Tags: ,

Some partnerships were meant to be (Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy) while others turn out to be trainwrecks (Paula Abdul and MC Skat Kat). Thankfully the collaboration between Imangi Studios and Critical Thought Games falls into the faller category. Together they’ve created geoSpark, combining the simple gameplay Imangi is known for with the visual style of Critical Thought Games. The game may follow the same archetype of other path-finding games on the iPhone but it manages to advance upon them by stripping the core elements down while injecting exciting gameplay mechanics that shake things up.
The premise is simple. Your goal is to eliminate floating shapes, known as “sparks”, on screen by either tapping them or dragging identical ones into each other to form a chain. There’s a risk-reward system in either style. Tapping is easy but inefficient and chaining while more rewarding, creates a gravity well where sparks are more likely to be pulled into each other. You die when two different sparks collide, either by you dragging an incompatible spark into another or by two wayward sparks eventually crashing into each other if you’re too slow to stop them. It gets pretty intense knowing that only one mistake can cost you the whole game but that’s all part of the arcade experience. There’s always a “one-more-time” hook to beat that high score that’s always in the top right hand corner.
While each game is unique, the pattern of which type of spark comes is the same for every play through. It would’ve been nice to see a random generation of sparks rather than knowing what to visually expect next. OpenFeint integration, while always appreciated, comes in only a global leaderboard. Achievements would’ve been nice to add variety and encourage different styles of gameplay. My caveats with the game aren’t dealbreakers by any means, especially considering its $0.99 price.

28
Nov
09

Don’t buy me (or anyone) an eBook reader for Xmas

By Russ Crandall 5 Comments
Categories: Apple and Gadgetronic
Tags:


MacWorld has an interesting article that details seven reasons why an eBook reader is a lousy gift. Some of the points are that Apple will inevitably release a tablet PC and render eBook readers (and netbooks) useless, that everyone that wanted one already has one, and that they aren’t discounted enough. Most importantly, you can use an iPhone for reading eBooks; hell, it even has a free Amazon Kindle app.

I just thought it was ironic that an electronics-minded website was telling people not to buy electronics.

25
Nov
09

…Once More With Feeling!

By Steve McKay Leave a Comment
Categories: Apple and News
Tags: ,

Almost as if coming out in sympathy with my crazed Twitter account and my broken Xbox, my iPod has also decided that it has had enough, and has decided that now would be a great time to die.  I, unlike Russ, didn’t opt for the extended warranty on it, so it looks like I’ll be paying for the repairs myself.  Sigh!

Throughout this whole debacle, the one question I’m left with is; why does technology hate me so much?

23
Nov
09

Gadgetronic: Thanks, Bulging MacBook Battery!

By Russ Crandall 2 Comments
Categories: Apple and Gadgetronic


You know that feeling of impending doom the moment you start up a laptop for the first time, when you know that someday soon the battery will lose its charge and you’ll be tethered to a power outlet forever? And how you visit your laptop manufacturer’s site to see how much a new battery costs, and it’s $130, so you can’t really justify buying a whole new battery for that price for something that should just work anyway? And then you cry?

Luckily, the battery on my 2.5-year old black MacBook started bulging a few months ago. I have three months left on my AppleCare (which I would highly recommend, considering I’ve had a total failure on my Mac at one point, which would have cost over $1,000 to fix) so my wife took it to a nearby Apple Store and got me a brand spanking new battery. That alone paid for the cost of my AppleCare! I mean, yeah, the battery could have asploded on my man area, but that’s beside the point.

12
Nov
09

Now Shipping: 27″ Quad-Core iMacs

By Russ Crandall Leave a Comment
Categories: Apple, Gadgetronic and News
Tags: , ,


Lots of rumors have been floating around about when the top-end, 27″ quad-core iMacs would be shipping. The Apple online store has said “November” since they’ve gone on sale (Oct 20th for anyone keeping track) and forums have been feeding frenzies of Apple fanboys and photoshop pranksters. I personally think a lot of this is pure rubbish – how is it that Apple can get away with not informing their customers when our products will become available? We as consumers should be able to dictate when we are given a product, and should expect to be informed on the $2k investment being made.

Well, take it from me, they are in fact shipping. How do I know? Because mine is on its way, and will be here on Monday at the latest. For all my stalkers who think they can show up on my house and steal it from the FedEx man, back off, because I know karate. Or at least one of our writers does.

24
Oct
09

Google Chrome Released on Mac

By Russ Crandall 2 Comments
Categories: Apple, Gadgetronic and Internet
Tags:


New buzz browser Google Chrome was released on the Mac yesterday, and instead of writing anything about it, I decided to try out the new screen recording capability of Quicktime 10 (which comes free with Snow Leopard). You can download Google Chrome for the Mac here.

21
Oct
09

Wrangling Google Reader: Gruml and Byline

By Russ Crandall 1 Comment
Categories: Apple, Gadgetronic and Internet


RSS feeds are web feeds for frequently updated works (blogs) which can be consolidated into one program for easy access. They can then be viewed online (via readers like Google Reader), on a standalone program, and even on an iPhone. Basically, I use them to view lots of blogs without having to go to a million sites every day. I’ve been using RSS readers for years now – first with Apple Mail’s built-in RSS reader, and then NetNewsWire until this past week, when I buried the RSS apps of old and jumped into new territory.

Gruml:
It’s no secret that the best online RSS reader is Google Reader – their interface is smooth and easy to use. The only online reader that was almost comparable was NewsGator, which synced with standalone app NetNewsWire (which has a PC counterpart, FeedDemon, but I’ve never tried it) until they gave up and started syncing it with Google Reader. Problem is, NetNewsWire doesn’t work as well with Google Reader as it did with NewsGator. This made me start looking for a replacement program, and I settled upon Gruml.

Gruml (pictured above) syncs perfectly with Google Reader and has a few great features, too, like being able to send articles directly to your Twitter, complete with shortened URLs. It also shows your unread count in the menu bar (nice touch). It’s currently in beta so it’ll only get better in the future. Totally free.


Byline:
I’ve been using the NetNewsWire iPhone app since its initial release in August of ’08, but I’ve never been that happy with it. It’s slow, clunky, and it just had a new update that actually made it less user-friendly. This “upgrade” drove me to look for other RSS iPhone apps, and I am currently loving the $4 app Byline, which runs amazingly fast, and is customizable well beyond any RSS app I’ve used. It even caches your feeds for offline viewing, should you be stuck somewhere without a signal (subway, doctor’s office, etc).

So there you have it. For $4 I can wrangle all my nerdy Google Reader feeds in three different ways.

20
Oct
09

iPhone Game: Rock Band

By Tyler Miller 2 Comments
Categories: Apple, Gadgetronic and Music

rbip

Again, I feel like an utter fool not knowing this was coming out until yesterday when it was already available on the app store (*aside, to self* I must be slipping in my old age!).

Q: Is this as good as RB on a major console?

A: NO, dummy. It’s still pretty good though. You have all the same instruments (don’t bother with singing. You don’t actually sing, it’s the same as guitar except you can only play one chord and the screen is flipped sideways). The songs are alright and the interface is almost identical to what you are used to.

Q: Does it even, you know, work?

A: For the most part. I have an almost two year old coughjailbrokencough iPhone with a shit-ton of games, music, apps and flotsam clanking around inside it. For me, playing the latter songs on HARD, it seemed like the synching was off and only half the notes were connecting. For people with a newer, faster 3GS, they probably won’t have any trouble at all. Most likely it was just the rapid succession of frets flying my way, if you want to master the harder songs you’re going to have to practice just like in the other versions.

Q: Okay, give us your overall.

A: Overall I like it. I played through the whole game on Drums/Medium in about two hours and really enjoyed doing it. Other instruments are okay but ultimately don’t compare to the enjoyment I think most people get out of hitting the skins.

Q: How much?

A: Yeeeeah… about that. The biggest obstacle to purchase (and it’s a big one) is that the app is $9.99. Ouch. But I’ve been hankering for a new game to play, and the reviews over at Toucharcade.com are pretty favorable so, what the hell.

Here’s the tracklist. Not including DLC:

Continue reading ‘iPhone Game: Rock Band’

17
Oct
09

69 Free Mac Apps

By Russ Crandall 1 Comment
Categories: Apple, Editorials and Internet
Tags: , ,


Mac|Life has posted a list of 69 free Snow Leopard compatible apps for Macs. Here are 10 of my favorites, in alphabetical order:

1. Audacity: Edit and master just about any audio file. Need to make a snippet of audio quickly? This works just fine. The GUI looks like crap but it works really well.

2. Boxee: Control all the media on your mac easily with this clean interface. I use this on our TV-connected Mac Mini, and I can browse my media as well as Hulu and YouTube with my TV remote.

3. Cyberduck: A simple FTP app. I have been using this for years to upload files (and more recently, our podcasts) to the internets.

4. Dropbox: Lets you share files/folders with other users and other computers of your own over the internet with a Finder-integrated interface. The fastest and easiest way to share files with friends, once everyone has it set up.

5. Flip4Mac: Play WMV files with Quicktime.

6. Growl: Lets your apps push little notification boxes into the corner of your screen when something happens (a download completes, a new song plays on iTunes, etc).

7. Neo Office: An open-source MS Office app, runs a bit slow, but hey, it’s phuree.

8. NetNewsWire: The best RSS reader out there, syncs with Google Reader and its free (but buggy) iPhone app.

9. Quicksilver: This “Finder extender” lets you open, close and mess around with stuff without having to click anything. Once you get it down, it can really speed up your computer experience.

10. SeaShore: A simple image-editing tool. I use this to create all of our pretty post images.

12
Oct
09

Cheapskate: I’m Boycotting Tweetie 2 (And So Should You)

By Russ Crandall 6 Comments
Categories: Apple and Cheapskate
Tags: ,


Let’s get one thing straight – I use the original Tweetie every day. It lets me easily manage multiple accounts, and gives me more features than the Twitter site. I was excited to hear about its recently-released “sequel”, Tweetie 2, until I started reading up on it.

Tweetie 2 is a re-written, upgraded version of the Tweetie app that I already paid $3 for eight months ago. And they’re charging $3 for it again. I feel that Tweetie 2 should be free for current Tweetie owners, or at the very least heavily discounted. I understand that the programmers spent some time on re-writing the code, but doesn’t that just mean they spent their time working on a new product instead of improving upon the one we all paid for already? Not only that, but they’ve pulled the original Tweetie app from the App Store, thereby guaranteeing that those of us that were hoping for improvements on our original app will be instead met with a smug little $3 twitter troll.

The worst part is that many in the industry are watching Tweetie 2 to see how well it will sell (currently the #2 paid app in the store) so that they can charge for their upgrades “sequels”, too.

20
Sep
09

Zzzzheeeoowwww, vvvvvwwwwwooooaaaammm-vvvvwwwoooaaammmm

By Tyler Miller 3 Comments
Categories: Apple and Games

pic7

360 Red Ringed on Friday, so I looked to my comprooter for gaming solace. But what can a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Macbook offer to a sophisticated modern gamer like me?  Jedi Academy is what, you pessimistic douche bag.

I’m sorry, that was rude of me.

Waves of nostalgia aside, it blows me away that for a game made in 2003 you can still hop in to a multiplayer match with no problem. Plus, the game runs supersmooth on my puny machine. Also, years of modding have contributed to massive amounts of content available for your perusal.

E.G: My multiplayer match with Link, Spider-Man, Predator, Chewbacca, Gordon Freeman, Samus Aran, Michael Jackson, The Red Power Ranger and Solid Snake. (I was lagging hard with the game running full-screen and the video capture going– as such I was getting worked over. I’m sooooo much better)

If this interests you much just let me know, I’ll hook you up.

29
Aug
09

Review: Wolfnstien RPG

By Tyler Miller 1 Comment
Categories: Apple and Reviews
Tags: ,

wolfeinsteinrpg_preview4

Full disclosure – I have a lot of free time at work. Sooo, I like to play big, well developed, time-sink games like Secret of Monkey Island, Peggle, Drop 7 etc… Shockingly, there is no good FPS for the iPhone (nor will there be until a peripheral with a more accurate input method is released) so I glossed over the release of Wolfenstein RPG because it had, what I thought, were FPS leanings.

Well I was wrong. WRPG is a turn-based, Nazi-slaying game through and through, albeit a sort of shallow one. Don’t let the above picture fool you, accuracy and precision have no real place in the game. You’ll be better to spend time deciding what status upgrades to administer yourself than to try and find a good sniper position.

Continue reading ‘Review: Wolfnstien RPG’

29
Aug
09

I’ll See Your Trials HD, and I’ll Raise You A Moto X Mayhem

By Mark Hill Leave a Comment
Categories: Apple, Editorials, Games and Reviews
Tags: , ,


Moto X Mayem is my new iDdiction. It’s a side scrolling, 2D dirtbike riding title that is so simple that I don’t think I can get a full sentence out of describing the controls; pushing forward makes you go forward, pushing back makes you brake, and tilting the iPhone on its vertical axis makes your rider lean forward for back. Was that a full sentence? Anyways, that’s it.

There are seven levels to traverse, each a little craggier than the last. The graphics are simple, but look great, and thanks to the ragdoll physics, it’s often more fun to watch your rider slam into a cliff head first than it is to make the jump. If there was a timeline that had Excite Bike at one end, and Trials HD at the other, this would be right in the damned middle. It’s $.99, and I highly recommend picking it up. You could also buy it for thirteen of your friends, and still not have paid as much as you would have for Trials.

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