iPhone Weekly Digest: New Games, Sporting Apps, and a Clock Detailing DARKNESS
12:43 pm, October 4th, 2009, Craig Grannell

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 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
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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Posted by Craig Grannell in Reviews, iPhone Apps | Comment on this article












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.
Darcy McGee, on October 4th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I didn’t make a moral judgment—my point was the content simply isn’t any good.
Craig Grannell, on October 4th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
I’ve tried the ESPN one and its far too slow. For something like EPL and other football league scores its unusable.
Steve, on October 4th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
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.
Tim, on October 5th, 2009 at 1:59 am
@Steve: It’s not too bad here—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.
Craig Grannell, on October 5th, 2009 at 3:51 am
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.
Golf App for iPhone, on October 14th, 2009 at 12:30 pm