iPhone Weekly Digest: New Games, Sporting Apps, and a Clock Detailing DARKNESS

Left: Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble; right: ESPN ScoreCenter

It’s ~~Friday~~ Sunday 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.

Under review this week: Diorama, Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble, Darkness, Nag-O-Meter Deluxe, Glypha, Rugby Zone, Otakukous and EPSN ScoreCenter. As always, all id.gd links are to the relevant App Store page.

APP OF THE WEEK

Find out when darkness will encroach with, er, Darkness

Find out when darkness will encroach with Darkness

Darkness: World clock with sun/moon info. Location-aware + looks great, but needs full-screen mode. 4/5 $0.99 http://is.gd/3OXpN

Diorama: Stereoscopic 3D marble-rolling game. Innovative but frustrating, due to overly sensitive controls. 3/5 $0.99 http://is.gd/3Jbx5

ESPN ScoreCenter: Usable, configurable sports aggregator. Slow loading and US-only ticker, but otherwise great. 4/5 Free http://is.gd/3MtgC

Otakulous: Dubious app for leering at oddly-drawn bikini-clad Manga girls. App UI good; pity about the content. $1.99 1/5 http://is.gd/3OUXE

Rugby Zone: Rugby results, standings and news. Lacks team tracking; also a bit unstable to begin with. 3/5 Free http://is.gd/3OVhw

Glypha: Fast, challenging and playable Joust clone. Marred by simplified gameplay & slightly awkward controls. 3/5 Free http://is.gd/3OVTj

Nag-O-Meter Deluxe: Mildly amusing categorised audio ‘nags’. Includes motion-sensitive ‘nag bomb’ + alarms. 2/5 $0.99 http://is.gd/3OWr7

DON'T MISS
iPhone Weekly Digest: the Return of Edge, the Bonkers Mr.AahH!!, a Great FTP App, and More!

Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble: Pretty & fairly playable but largely unexciting bubble-bashing update. 3/5 $4.99 http://is.gd/3QDYi

Three standouts this week. Darkness—the app of the week—is an interesting take on an iPhone clock, providing all sorts of info regarding daylight times, along with a live map showing darkness covering the globe. ESPN’s ScoreCenter is a sluggish but very usable sports score app, enabling you to flag favourite teams, which are subsequently highlighted when you scroll through listings. And Diorama, while not matching Squareball for quality, shows the developer nonetheless has a keen eye on taking long-standing gaming styles and doing something new with them—in this case, true 3D.

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6 comments »

About the author

Craig Grannell is Cult of Mac's designer and an occasional contributor. He also runs iPhoneTiny.com, a Twitter-driven reviews site for iPhone apps and games. Follow Craig on Twitter @CraigGrannell and visit his website, Snub Communications.

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Posted in iPhone Apps, Reviews |

Darcy McGee
This made me chuckle:
> bikini-clad Manga girls. App UI good; pity about the content. $1.99
Didn’t Cult of Mac (along with pretty much everybody else) spend quite a bit of time complaining about Apple censoring App Store content?
Isn’t it hypocritical for Cult of Mac to make (seemingly) moral judgements about an app’s content while criticizing Apple for doing it?
You could have just not reviewed it.
http://www.snubcommunications.com Craig Grannell
I didn’t make a moral judgment—my point was the content simply isn’t any good.
Steve
I’ve tried the ESPN one and its far too slow. For something like EPL and other football league scores its unusable.
Tim
What are these “is.gd” links? This is confusing. Please use a service such as http://urlshorteningservicefortwitter.com/ so that you don’t confuse your readership with this cryptic garbage.
http://www.snubcommunications.com Craig Grannell
@Steve: It’s not too bad hereâ€”I generally flick through all the pages and return to the first, by which time the info’s downloaded. It does need to be a tad snappier, though, and it’s a shame it’s not faster, because it’s otherwise an excellent app.
@Tim: “Cryptic garbage”? They’re just links to the App Store. Given that this article comes from my Twitter feed, the links have to be as short as possible or they wouldn’t exist at all.
http://www.mystroketracker.com/st/ Golf App for iPhone
That world clock app is pretty cool looking. I can’t imagine using it myself but I see the advantage of using it for trip planning, sporting event weather predictions and soon. There are plenty of useful applications out there like a golf app for score tracking, course maps, etc…you just have to find what you need and read feedback like these posts. Thanks for the info.