Reviews - page 128

An email arrived at Cult of Mac headquarters the other day: “Can you please let me know if it possible to make a review of our game on cultfomac site?”

It was from Andrey Uchaev, one of the team at Russian developers Manera Software, letting us know about a free iOS game called Tochki Online. We don’t often do reviews of free, ad-supported games, even less often about ones like this that we’ve never heard of and that have no user reviews in the App Store. So why are we reviewing this one? Because it’s fun.

Microsoft’s online file storage service SkyDrive, got a boost today with the announcement of some new features, including a native Mac client app for OS X Lion. While SkyDrive might lack some of Dropbox’s more advanced features on OS X, it does offer something only a giant like Microsoft can afford: 7 GB of free space for everyone, and up to 25 GB if you already have a Windows Live ID and sign up fast enough.

Boy, can press releases be deceptive. When we recieved the email and photos from Logitech earlier this year unveiling the outfit’s cool new mouse/presentation device, we had the impression the little brick was much bigger than it actually is. In fact, the $70, wireless Cube is tiny — so tiny that it almost seems designed for the hands of a five-year-old.

Note: Since posting this article we received the following sound advice from app designer Propellerhead regarding the issue of latency we experienced with this app: “Try re-booting your iPad!” And it worked! The time delay reported herein seemed like a fun dimension intrinsic to the app, but this is not the case. My bad.

Figure is a new music-making app for iOS that allows users with a few minutes to spare to come up with electro / synth-pop grooves quickly while on the go. It’s a load of fun and sounds great, and you will never know what you are going to create next… really.

Minimalism is a fascinating thing. Our world is getting increasingly loud and busy, yet many are starting to want more minimal and distraction-free experiences. Apps specifically are another way that the minimalism trend can be observed; more and more applications are getting back to the roots by cutting away superfluous effects and features.

Pop is a perfect example of how minimalism manifests itself in a basic iOS app. Unlike other writing apps for the iPhone and iPad, Pop is just a blank pad to jot down text. Nothing else. Nothing at all… But really, that’s all there is.

For the price, the Sony RDP-X500iP is a hell of a lot of sound. In fact, it’s the best-sounding iPhone, iPod or iPad dock we’ve seen in its price range, and it even manages to match the audio quality of some speaker docks that cost $100-$200 more. If you’re looking to buy one, though, you should be aware of a couple of niggles before you drop your dough.

Awesome Calendar is a Google Calendar client for iOS, priced at three dollars on the iOS App Store (although a free Lite version is also available). Is it as awesome as its name implies? I wouldn’t say so.

645 Pro bills itself as an app which will turn your iPhone into a DSLR. At first glance, it seems like this has been achieved by mimicking the buttons and LCD panel of a modern SLR, and to an extent that’s true. But the real meat here is under the hood: 645 Pro shoots uncompressed JPEGs and TIFFs, and gives the closest that we’re likely to see to RAW images from the iPhone’s camera.

One of the first things you’ll notice about the Sony Tablet S is its design. It’s not flat, but a wedge that fits comfortably into the hand, like a magazine with its cover folded back on a hot summer day. The Tablet S looks wholly unlike any other tablet on the market. It’s something original, something that instead of simply trying to be an iPad knock-off has its own distinct design language. And it’s without a doubt the best thing about the Sony Tablet S. It’s just a shame that this brave and wonderful sense of identity in a sea of iPad clones is only skin deep.

The UK case from Maroo is a premium folio case designed by Seth Aaron, winner of the seventh season of Project Runway. It’s made from black and white leather with black nylon stripes adorning the front, echoing the iconic Union Jack and “Seth’s love of all things British.”

I’ll come out and say it at the top of this review: Mattebox is hands-down the best camera app I have used on iOS. That it was launched in December of last year and I only found out about it today is something of an embarrassment.

If you love the richness of features and tweakability of something like Camera+, then Mattebox may not be for you. But if you ever picked up a Leica and loved how the camera seemed to disappear, allowing you to just get on and shoot, you’re gonna be out by $5 in the next few minutes.

For anyone who spends a lot of time in trains and planes, noise-canceling headphones are pretty much essential. But if you’re walking the streets, then noise canceling can be a pain or even a hazard, isolating you a little too much from your environment.

Luckily, the Able Planet Linx Audio Clear Harmony headphones sound pretty good with noise cancelation both on and off. And they’re also comfy enough to keep on throughout a long journey.

You’re either going to love Opuss, or you’re going to really hate it. It’s a social network for word lovers. It’s Instagram for poetry. It’s Twitter for wannabe comedians. It’s beautifully and thoughtfully designed, but, still in its early days, isn’t as compelling as it could be.

The International ($350), from Think Tank Photo, is similar to every other piece of rolling luggage you’ve probably used, with a retractable handle and rolling wheels, but on the inside, instead of keeping your dirty drawers stowed, it secures treasures of a different kind: your plethora of expensive camera gear. And it does so admirably.

This is Readdle‘s PDF Expert 4 for iPad, and a more full-featured PDF reading and editing app you’ll be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

I was a big fan of the Alupen when it launched — so much so that I went out and bought my own. It was chunky, looked like a metal pencil and felt pretty good in my big hands. Then came the Wacom Bamboo stylus and our love affair was over.

Now, though, the newer skinnier, cleverer Alupen Pro has got me two-timing the svelte Bamboo. Why? Because it has a biro built in.

If, like many people, you find Mondays just too much to cope with, you might want to avoid today’s app. It’s not the sort of thing that’s going to make your Monday feel any better, and in some cases it will just fry your brain until next Monday. Which would be a shame, because you’d miss out on a whole weekend.

Be forewarned, then: The Fourth Dimension is an app which will mess with your head. Deliberately. Even though the aim is education and expansion of knowledge, it will still mess with your head. You will emerge from the experience only fractionally the wiser, and quite a lot more confused than you were at the beginning. Don’t worry, this is perfectly normal.

Ideas is an iOS app for managing, organising and sorting your ideas and thoughts. It stands out from the crowd thanks to a refreshingly different interface that does the job very well. It usually costs two bucks, but right now it’s on sale for one dollar.

There are no shortage of gadgets out there that allow you connect your guitar to your iPhone, putting the power of The App Store at your guitar’s disposal. But if you’re looking for the best of what’s around (see what I did there?), Sonoma Wire Works’ GuitarJack ($150) has a mixture of beauty and talent you’d do well to consider.

Yesterday we highlighted the release of TextWrangler 4, the wonderful free text editor from Bare Bones Software. Here’s a closer look at the new stuff you’ll find in this update.

Rebus Show is an iOS Rebus puzzle game with visual style and flair.

The CASELLET is a snap-on case for the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S that also doubles as a wallet for your credit cards and bills. Unlike most other wallet cases, which are traditionally made from leather, this one’s made from a durable plastic that aims to provide you with better impact protection against dings and drops.

It will hold up to four credit cards on their own, or three credit cards and a few bills. It comes in black, white, or pink, and it’s complimented by a brushed aluminum backplate. As you’d expect, it provides access to your camera, volume rocker, mute switch, and more. The CASELLET is the spawn of a very successful Kickstarter project, but is it actually any good?

Renowned developer Steven Troughton-Smith has released the iPad version of his popular Speed iPhone app. Thanks to the iPad’s larger 9.7-inch display and Retina resolution, Speed for iPad is the perfect GPS for your automobile. Not only does Speed track your location on a map, but the app tells you how fast you’re going and the distance you’ve traveled.

When I first heard about Drafts, I thought “What’s the point?” After all, who needs an app in which to draft messages before sending them off to Twitter, or mailing them, or otherwise disseminating them to the world at large? My Twitter and mail apps take care of that already.

And then I used it, and it has turned into possibly the handiest little note-taking app I have on my iPod Touch.

Everyone knows the iPad’s speaker is, well, weedy. To compensate, Big Blue Audio has just released two new Bluetooth speakers to give a lift to music, movies and game-playing on your iPad.

Available from Brookstone, the Big Blue and Big Blue Live resemble kitschy white kitchen appliances. The $149.99 Big Blue packs 30-watts of aural pleasure for music lovers, while the speaker’s little sis, the $99.99 battery-powered Big Blue Live, is designed more as a portable companion for amplifying phone calls and apps. These new speakers are introduced to compete favorably both bang wise and buck wise versus other popular wireless speakers of similar specs / dimensions, for example the Logitech Boombox and the Jawbone Jambox, respectively.

With their sci-fi looks and packaging, they are certainly noticeable — but do they sound good too? Read on….