Evan Killham - page 24

I know I don’t get enough sleep, but I’m kinda dumb, so sometimes I need to look at pictures to really put things into perspective. That’s where SleepBattery comes in. You tell it how old you are, and it suggests how much sleep you should be getting every night. When you go to bed, you tap a button, and the screen-sized battery begins to fill. When you wake up, you tap the screen again, and the battery begins to drain.

When it’s completely empty, it tells you to go to bed. And I probably won’t, but it’s nice to know the app cares.

Source:SleepBattery – Free | Max Haubold

Faif is a weird game.

It’s kind of like Bejeweled, only you’re not trying to match anything. And it’s kind of like a role-playing game, except you’re not really on a quest (or are you?). It’s sort of like gambling, but you don’t win anything, and it’s a smidge like a free-to-play game, but you don’t have to pay real money for the in-game currency.

All of these kindas and sortas add up to a unique experience that I think I enjoy, but I’m honestly not sure.

Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?

Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.

Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include a comparison shopper for books, a route-maker that factors in current traffic, and a couple things to keep your pictures nice and pretty.

Here you go:

It’s not likely that anyone consistently takes pictures that look like one of the supervillains’ hideouts in the old Batman TV show, but even a slight tilt can make a photo look strange. Orient is an app that will eliminate your photography’s chronic case of the skews by using your iPhone’s gyroscope to ensure that every shot you take is level and straight.

You can choose from a bunch of aspect ratios, and then Orient works almost exactly like your regular Camera app, complete with Instagram-style filters.

Just, you know. Straighter.

Orient: The Self Aligning Camera – Free | Ajit Katti

ETA is all about telling you how far you are from your favorite places. It’ll also point out which direction they’re in, in case you have to know that at all times.

But Maps will do that, too, so to distinguish itself, ETA lets you build up a list of your most-traveled spots, and it’ll tell you at a glance how long it will take to get there in current traffic. And with a couple taps, you can get directions from either your built-in navigator or Google Maps. And that’s really handy because I always like to know how far I am from sandwiches.

ETA – $1.99 | Eastwood

I love living in the future, but sometimes I feel a little spoiled. This app wants you to find useful things, but it thinks that your iPhone or iPad keyboards are just too hard to use.

Shot & Find is a visual-search app that lets you quickly search YouTube, Amazon, Google, Wikipedia, or Spotify just by snapping a picture of a movie, video game, or CD cover. It works really well, too. I did a YouTube search from a DVD, and it pulled up the trailer. A Wikipedia search from a 12-year-old video game also worked just fine.

The app’s effectiveness is almost as ridiculous as its premise, but you can’t argue with results.

Shot & Find – Free | Arctic Toucans

Now that you know where to find all those DVDs, video games, and CDs with Shot & Find, you might want something to read. All Librarist needs is an ISBN, a keyword, or a quick scan of a barcode, and it’ll let you compare prices from stores all over the world.

The scanning works really well, and it includes an impressive selection of stores to choose from. Now if only it actually had some way to give me more time to read, it would pretty much be the perfect app.

Librarist – Free | Droid Ltd

Admit it: You have trouble keeping your camera level when you’re taking a picture of an important document. And then the text looks all weird, and it’s embarrassing.

Alright, maybe it’s not super embarrassing, but it’s nice to avoid skewing anything if you can help it. With Photo Copy Level, you just place your iOS device against the thing you’re shooting and set the level, and then a handy circle tells you when you’re shooting straight. The upgrade unlocks features like an automatic shutter.

Photo Copy Level – Free ($0.99 feature upgrade)| Yaroslav Mironov

Admit it: You have trouble keeping your camera level when you’re taking a picture of an important document. And then the text looks all weird, and it’s embarrassing.

Alright, maybe it’s not super embarrassing, but it’s nice to avoid skewing anything if you can help it. With Photo Copy Level, you just place your iOS device against the thing you’re shooting and set the level, and then a handy circle tells you when you’re shooting straight. The upgrade unlocks features like an automatic shutter.

Source:Photo Copy Level – Free ($0.99 feature upgrade)| Yaroslav Mironov

The cosmos has a bunch of ways to kill you, and in Out There, one of them will probably succeed. And it’s just as well, really, because I have it from a reliable source that it’s lonely out in space.

But if you insist on surviving, you’re in for a challenge because this game is as cruel and random as life itself. You play the role of a lone astronaut who wakes up from cryosleep to discover that your circuit’s dead, and there’s something wrong. And now, you’re stuck in uncharted territory with limited resources.

It’s up to you to get the stranded hero across the map, but it’s not at all easy.

Now that you know where to find all those DVDs, video games, and CDs with Shot and Find, you might want something to read. All Librarist needs is an ISBN, a keyword, or a quick scan of a barcode, and it’ll let you compare prices from stores all over the world.

The scanning works really well, and it includes an impressive selection of stores to choose from. Now if only it actually had some way to give me more time to read, it would pretty much be the perfect app.

Source:Librarist – Free | Droid Ltd

Wave Wave reminds me of the end of a story called “Blind Alleys” from an old Tales from the Crypt comic. It’s about the residents of a home for the blind seeking revenge on their unscrupulous caregiver by setting him loose in a maze lined with razor blades with a starving dog. He’s running from the beast, slashing himself to ribbons but still staying ahead, “And then some idiot turned out the lights.”

Why does this twitchy arcade game remind me of that sadistic story? Because it hates me in the same way, starting me out at a disadvantage and then continuing to throw in sudden changes until I lose.

It’s a random, cruel, mechanical bull of a game, and you should absolutely play it.

I love living in the future, but sometimes I feel a little spoiled. This app wants you to find useful things, but it thinks that your iPhone or iPad keyboards are just too hard to use.

Shot & Find is a visual-search app that lets you quickly search YouTube, Amazon, Google, Wikipedia, or Spotify just by snapping a picture of a movie, video game, or CD cover. It works really well, too. I did a YouTube search from a DVD, and it pulled up the trailer. A Wikipedia search from a 12-year-old video game also worked just fine.

The app’s effectiveness is almost as ridiculous as its premise, but you can’t argue with results.

Source:Shot & Find – Free | Arctic Toucans

I like Angry Birds as much as the next person, but it’s a little too, I don’t know … angry.

Sure, those birds have valid beef with the egg-stealing pigs, and destroying their blocky structures is a lot of fun, but I don’t find any joy in it. Revenge is a rough business, and it takes its toll. Just ask the eponymous villain from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Oh, wait, you can’t — he’s dead. And also fictional, but whatever.

Demolition Crush, however, is a new free-to-play game that brings fun back to rampant and wanton destruction, and it’s worth your download.

ETA is all about telling you how far you are from your favorite places. It’ll also point out which direction they’re in, in case you have to know that at all times.

But Maps will do that, too, so to distinguish itself, ETA lets you build up a list of your most-traveled spots, and it’ll tell you at a glance how long it will take to get there in current traffic. And with a couple taps, you can get directions from either your built-in navigator or Google Maps. And that’s really handy because I always like to know how far I am from sandwiches.

Source:ETA – $1.99 | Eastwood

I play a lot of games about getting one thing and maybe getting three other things along the way if I can (or feel like it). I just reviewed one Wednesday, in fact. But it’s a solid premise, and as long as getting all those things isn’t boring, developers can keep making them until everyone’s thumbs fall off.

Developer Klei Entertainment’s first mobile title, Eets Munchies, is another “one and maybe three” game, but it’s also a clever puzzle title that is equal parts Lemmings and Rube Goldberg. It’s the latest in Klei’s debut series, and it’s interesting to see the company go back to the cutes after its recent dalliances with hyperviolence in games like Shank and Mark of the Ninja.

Don’t let the adorable graphics fool you, though; once you really get into it, this game is to difficulty as cake is to delicious flavor.

Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?

Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.

Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include a granular finance system, an especially informative compass, and a really complicated camera.

Here you go:

Nobody hopes for a war or a natural disaster or an alien invasion from beyond the stars, but they like to know that if any of those things do happen their family will all be on the same page about where to go and what to do.

Emergency Plan helps out by keeping meeting locations, contacts, and even basic medical information all in one place so nobody has to dig or guess about anything while they’re running in a zigzag fashion down Main Street to throw off the cybertanks’ laser-guided heat rays.

Or if there’s like a tornado or something. Either one.

Emergency Plan – Free | Another Cup of Coffee

I don’t know who makes these rules, but apparently, “society” wants men to wear clothes.

But how does one decide which clothes to wear? Dapper wants to help. It’s a shopping app that collects items from several different stores and arranges them into categories like office, casual and active. When you see something you like, you can add it to your “Daplist” or put it in your cart. You can swipe left on items you don’t like and banish them to the Phantom Zone.

You can create an account to purchase right from the app, or you can just be one of “those customers” and nose around with no intention to buy. That’s what I do.

Dapper – Free | Dapper Shopping, Inc.

You’ve probably seen the do-it-yourself, social media comics called Bitstrips in your Facebook feed at one time or another, and maybe you want to see more, or you’d like to find some that might actually be funny.

Best Strips for Bitstrips can help: it only posts strips that pass muster with the moderators. You can rate what’s there and even submit your own for consideration, if you’re feeling confident and/or brave.

Or you can just keep taking your chances with the ones in your feed, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Best Strips for Bitstrips – Free | Echo Bay Apps

GyroScan is a little intimidating.

It works a lot like the panorama function on your iPhone’s camera, but you can capture a complete 360-degree image either horizontally or vertically by spinning in a circle or rotating your phone up or down. When you look at the instructions, it all gets very technical, but once you work with it for a little while — and maybe rig something up to keep your phone still — you can get some really good results.

You can also scan in “stereo mode” and make 3D pictures, but that’s just showing off, GyroScan.

GyroScan – $0.99 | Intelligent Gadgets

Alright, so your iPhone already has a compass built right into it, but if you want a little more information in your orienteering, you might want to look into this app.

In addition to the standard “North is over there” bit, DueNorth will also give you your latitude and longitude, and plunking your finger down anywhere on the screen will tell you which direction and heading you’re prodding. Plus, the display has a Night Mode, so you can figure out how to get out of the woods without every bear in the vicinity knowing that you’re lost.

DueNorth° Simple Compass – Free | Justin Mueller

It’s not likely that anyone consistently takes pictures that look like one of the supervillains’ hideouts in the old Batman TV show, but even a slight tilt can make a photo look strange. Orient is an app that will eliminate your photography’s chronic case of the skews by using your iPhone’s gyroscope to ensure that every shot you take is level and straight.

You can choose from a bunch of aspect ratios, and then Orient works almost exactly like your regular Camera app, complete with Instagram-style filters.

Just, you know. Straighter.

Source:Orient: The Self Aligning Camera – Free | Ajit Katti

Sometimes, you just gotta break something.

But you probably don’t want to break your own stuff, and people get mad when you smash up their things. This is where gaming often enters the picture: It’s an environment in which you can demolish the crap out of things with no consequences. And it’s even more satisfying when the things break realistically.

Smash Hit is a game about literally that, and it’s incredibly satisfying.

Alright, so your iPhone already has a compass built right into it, but if you want a little more information in your orienteering, you might want to look into this app.

In addition to the standard “North is over there” bit, DueNorth will also give you your latitude and longitude, and plunking your finger down anywhere on the screen will tell you which direction and heading you’re prodding. Plus, the display has a Night Mode, so you can figure out how to get out of the woods without every bear in the vicinity knowing that you’re lost.

Source:DueNorth° Simple Compass – Free | Justin Mueller

You know how it goes: You’re up late, feeling a little peckish, and you don’t have anything in the fridge. What do you do?

I mean, I’d go to the store down the street and get some sour bears. And if you’re Draku, the star of Midnight Bite, you do the same thing. Except substitute “store down the street” with “village at the base of the mountain,” and substitute “sour bears” with “blood of the sleeping townsfolk.”

But he’s a little guy, and the humans are prejudiced against vampire children who stalk up in the night and murder them, so he has to be careful. And as the one controlling him, you also have to be careful because the controls are apparently also racist against the undead.

GyroScan is a little intimidating.

It works a lot like the panorama function on your iPhone’s camera, but you can capture a complete 360-degree image either horizontally or vertically by spinning in a circle or rotating your phone up or down. When you look at the instructions, it all gets very technical, but once you work with it for a little while — and maybe rig something up to keep your phone still — you can get some really good results.

You can also scan in “stereo mode” and make 3D pictures, but that’s just showing off, GyroScan.

Source:GyroScan – $0.99 | Intelligent Gadgets

God of Light has a simple, fun concept. It has pretty graphics and some cool music by British electronica outfit Unkle. And it has realistic light physics. And all of these are great, but a lot of games look and sound good.

But God of Light is special because in addition to all of these good qualities, it also offers something else: a meditation on what puzzle games are, what they do, and how and why we play them.

And the best part is that the developer accomplishes this not by telling us, but by building all of these qualities into the gameplay and mechanics.

You’ve probably seen the do-it-yourself, social media comics called Bitstrips in your Facebook feed at one time or another, and maybe you want to see more, or you’d like to find some that might actually be funny.

Best Strips for Bitstrips might help; it’s an app that only posts strips that pass muster with the moderators. You can rate what’s there and even submit your own for consideration if you’re feeling confident and/or brave.

Or you can just keep taking your chances with the ones in your feed, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Source:Best Strips for Bitstrips – Free | Echo Bay Apps

Monkeys are cute.

They’re fuzzy, they make little noises, and they act like tiny people if you train them well enough. And they’re mostly cool to hang out with once you factor out bad seeds like that one in Raiders of the Lost Ark that was a Nazi. And the ones who attack humans. And those other ones who attack other monkeys and steal their food for no reason.

Actually, you know what? Monkeys are awful. Here’s Monkey Boots, a fun game about getting one killed repeatedly.

I don’t know who makes these rules, but apparently, “society” wants men to wear clothes.

But how does one decide which clothes to wear? Dapper wants to help. It’s a shopping app that collects items from several different stores and arranges them into categories like office, casual, and active. When you see something you like, you can add it to your “Daplist” or put it in your cart. You can swipe left on items you don’t like and banish them to the Phantom Zone.

You can create an account to purchase right from the app, or you can just be one of “those customers” and nose around with no intention to buy. That’s what I do.

Source:Dapper – Free | Dapper Shopping, Inc.

I think Mad Skills Motocross 2 saved my life.

It’s not because it taught me a valuable lesson about not mixing chemicals or that someone shot me, and I had Mad Skills Motocross 2 in my pocket, and it stopped the bullet. And it didn’t swim out and rescue me when I went beyond my depth in the grown-up pool.

No, Mad Skills Motocross 2 saved my life by teaching me that I should never, ever, attempt to ride a motocross bike. Because I will die.

I’m not very good at this game, is what I’m saying. But it’s still pretty good.

Nobody hopes for a war or a natural disaster or an alien invasion from beyond the stars, but they like to know that if any of those things do happen their family will all be on the same page about where to go and what to do.

Emergency Plan hopes to do that by keeping meeting locations, contacts, and even basic medical information all in one place so nobody has to dig or guess about anything while they’re running in a zigzag fashion down Main Street to throw off the cybertanks’ laser-guided heat rays.

Or if there’s like a tornado or something. Either one.

Source:Emergency Plan – Free | Another Cup of Coffee

Primal Flame is one of those games that’s immediately impressive. Its brief loading screen at startup is gorgeous, and the title screen presents the obligatory social-networking links in its own cave-drawing aesthetic so that they fit in while still remaining recognizable.

But I’m not here just to talk about the title screen, luckily for you, and once you stop gawking at it and actually start Primal Flame up, it just keeps on being amazing.

You start with a black screen covered in specks with the sounds of a forest at night. Brighter lights start drifting down from the top, and you run your finger along the screen. Sparks fly and grow and burst into flame, and then you’re playing one of the most unique games I’ve ever seen.

Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?

Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.

Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include something to help you read that fine print, a handy money-tracker, and a shockingly comprehensive converter.

Here you go:

I’ve covered a few list-makers before, but this one just replaced Notes as my go-to item tracker.

It’s called UpWord Notes, and it is a simple but powerful app that lets you create, manage, and update lists with just a few simple commands. You can swipe left to make bullets and mark things as important, and you cross items off with a swipe to the right. Coolest of all, you can pull down, refresh-style, to remove all crossed-off items at once.

Plus it all syncs to Dropbox, so you can rest assured that you can always get your grocery list anywhere.

UpWord Notes – $0.99 | Lau Brothers LLC

It’s enough for some people just to plunk one value into a box and watch the conversion come out the other end, but we’re savvy here, right?

The newly released free version of Aperture Mobile’s Converta app thinks you are, and that’s why it actually bothers showing you what it’s doing. The free version calculates the equivalent values of angles, lengths, mass, temperatures, and volumes, and the $0.99 paid version includes things like illumination, radiation, velocity, and energy. You can also choose between a keypad and a clever gestural interface.

I’m not sure how useful the radiation conversion would be to most people, but it’s nice to know it’s there.

Converta – Free | Aperture Mobile

Sometimes, print is too small or your eyes get tired. Or you just want to see what something looks like really close up. Enter Zoomer, a simple-to-use, completely uncluttered app that lets you magnify things up to 10x just by swiping to the left. You can swipe to the right to zoom back out, turn on your LED flash, and even reverse colors to make things look all weird (it’s probably for night-time reading, but it does also make things look totally weird).

You can also use it to look at ants close up without accidentally setting them on fire. And I’m sure the ants appreciate that.

Zoomer – Free | LightBulbOne

Balance Book is a simple, easy, clean way to track your income and expenses on a daily or monthly level. You set up categories and assign colors to keep them straight, and then you just make entries based on how much money you bring in or spend. It automatically calculates your net values to give you an idea of where you are on any given day.

Now I know that I’m probably spending way too much money on sour bears. But in my defense, they are delicious.

Balance Book – Free | Tree Planet