iPhone Weekly Digest: Musical Toy, Currency Exchange and Iffy Games Ahoy!

It’s Friday and it’s time for our weekly digest of tiny iPhone reviews, courtesy of iPhoneTiny.com, with some extra commentary exclusive to Cult of Mac.

APP OF THE WEEK

Plinky plonky!

TonePad: Fantastic grid-based musical toy, somewhat based on a simplified Tenori-On. Includes save/edit options. 5/5 Free http://is.gd/1OKub

Radial 50 Lite: Three-level circular Breakout. Great graphics and sound, but awkward, frustrating controls. 2/5 Free http://is.gd/1NPLb

Xpandaballs: Expanding-ball placement game. Fun & addictive, but annoying ‘automated movement’ aim mechanism. 3/5 $0.99 http://is.gd/1NPQf

Death Ball: Simplistic avoid-the-bombs game, saved by online scores but marred by jerky visuals and awful audio. 2/5 Free http://is.gd/1QrUI

Railroad Madness: Flight Control with trains. Doesn’t really work, due to limited movements & awkward switches. 2/5 $0.99 http://is.gd/1Qsy7

XE Currency: Straightforward, clear and highly usable exchange-rates app. Works offline with recent data. 5/5 Free http://is.gd/1U9Xo

This week proved the old development truth: if someone comes up with a great idea, someone else will copy it—often not terribly well. This is definitely the case with Railroad Madness, which takes Flight Control and tries to apply the ‘direct them home’ mechanic to trains. Thing is, trains aren’t quite as free moving, and so where Firemint’s game is exciting and flexible in how you can move your planes, Railroad Madness is merely frustrating, clunky and maddening with its trains.

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Xpandaballs also appears to have a slight case of copycatitis, being very similar to Gravulous. That said, the newcomer looks and mostly plays better than its older rival—both games task you with shooting expanding balls into space, using subsequent collisions to remove them from the board. Xpandaballs would have scored higher if it wasn’t for the aiming mechanism automatically moving back and forth—direct aiming would be a lot more fun.

App of the week this time round isn’t a game, though—it’s a fantastic musical toy. With TonePad, you tap lights on a grid on and off, and a loop of music is played back. It’s simple, but surprisingly engaging, and the ability to flip the grid and save compositions ensures it rises above ‘throwaway’ and becomes welded to your device’s home screen.

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