Reviews - page 138

Magic Hour is a photo app for people who love the filter effects you get from apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic.

Our roundup of must-have iOS games this week includes 1-bit Ninja — a unique new platformer that boasts retro gameplay in a stylised 2D side-scrolling world, which you can drag into 3D at any time to reveal hidden paths — like no other platform game you’ve ever played.

Also on our list is Pocket Academy, the latest release from Kairosoft, the developers behind Game Dev Story; and the official Transformers game from Electronic Arts.

If you, like me, have lusted after the Tenori-on electronic musical instrument for years since it was first announced in 2005, then here’s some good news: an official iOS port of the device is now on sale in the App Store.

The iTunes Festival 2011 is now well under way in London, boasting 31 nights of music from 62 artists including Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Linkin Park, Bruno Mars, My Chemical Romance, and many more. If you weren’t lucky enough to bag yourself some tickets, you can still enjoy every show live and on demand with the iTunes Festival London 2011 app for your iOS device — the first of this week’s must-have iOS applications!

We’ve also included the brand new Starbucks app, which boasts Mobile Pay, reward card management and eGifts; and the Photosynth app from Microsoft, which just got an awesome update!

Aviiq’s Portable Laptop Stand ($60) is very similar to the manufacturer’s other stand we reviewed a few weeks ago, the Portable Quick Stand. The big difference? You can actually use this one on your lap, and it’ll even work with an iPad. It’s also considerably more expensive.

The TRTL BOT Minimalist 4 ($30) is an eco-friendly iPhone 4 case made entirely from recycled plastic bottles. It attempts to substitute your wallet by providing a card slot on the back of the case which will house up to three credit cards, while protecting your device from scratches, scuffs and scrapes with a sturdy plastic shell that clings to the stainless steel band around your iPhone. 

“Dude, your laptop case is, like, totally sick, brah!”

I looked up. It was my waiter, every inch of him a bro. He looked like the kind of guy whose cocktail of choice was a pounder of vodka and Mountain Dew, who spelled extreme with triple x-es, who never met a problem he couldn’t jump a skateboard over. He wore an Offspring t-shirt and a wallet on a chain covered in stickers. His goatee looked like a mullet growing out of his face.

I looked down. The “sick” case in question was the BookBook Case by TwelveSouth ($80) — a case which was designed to make my 11-inch MacBook Air look like some dusty vellum tome plucked from an ancient library.

It’s been a great week for iOS gamers, with fantastic new releases from Gameloft, Chillingo, Sega and Telltale Games. Picking our favorites has been some task.

Here’s this week’s roundup — featuring the return of Sonic in a brand new arcade kart racer, an iPad platformer that uses your iPhone as a controller, and the final episode of Monkey Island.

Here’s a little gem I found on the App Store this week. +Loop is a video recorder app for iDevices, but it stands out from the crowd because it records multiple mini video clips in one, and costs nothing.

This is Monster Soup, my latest favorite puzzle for iOS. It’s a fast-paced color-matching game with lots of personality and a great sense of humor.

This week’s roundup of must-have applications features one of the most unique video apps we’ve ever seen for the iPhone, a fantastic new note-taking app from tablet-maker Wacom, and a simplistic calendar app that aims to bring old-school desktop calendars to your iPhone.

Check out all of this and more below!

Here’s an interesting idea: Take a thoughtfully designed, well-rounded, high-tech Bluetooth headset and mate it to a dedicated iPhone app (called EarPrint) with a boatload of mostly useful functions, and — voila, the dazzling result would look exactly like the Sound ID 510 Bluetooth headset ($129).

Nailing down the design and functionality of a Bluetooth headset seems like it’d be a fairly easy task. Yet if you’ve ever been in the market for a new headset, you’ve probably noticed that their aren’t many models out there that offer great design and functionality at a fair price. Jabra’s Extreme Headset ($79) is here to the rescue to provide a great experience at a reasonable price.

Review by Kelly Keltner

Despite the word “Droid” plastered everywhere, the new Motorola CommandOne Bluetooth headset ($100) has already become my friend. True, it’ll never learn to pronounce my name correctly, is misunderstood by some of my other friends and has questionable fashion sense. We remain friends, however, because it’s easy to understand and comfortably fits in my ear. It’s unlike most relationships, but it works for us.

Although BlueAnt focuses exclusively on Bluetooth communication gadgets (and now earphones), they aren’t as well recognized as some of the other names coming up in our review, and they don’t proffer up a ton of offerings. In fact, they currently only offer five; with the BlueAnt Q2 Headset ($100) positioned as their marquis headset.

This week’s roundup of must-have games kicks off with the Nintendo DS classic Zookeeper — a vivid and engaging puzzle game in which your mission is to capture the animals and become the world’s best zookeeper. There’s more puzzle fun in Feevo HD, which boasts Bejeweled-like match gameplay from the makers of Tetris Online; and Bunny Shooter will be a huge hit with Angry Birds fans thanks to its physics-based bunny assassination with a bow & arrow.

This week’s roundup of must-have iOS apps features two great new titles for music lovers, which will provide you with instant access to your entire iTunes library wherever you may be, and allow you to find upcoming gigs for all your favorite artists based on the tracks stored on your device. We also have an app that makes discovering new iOS apps & games incredibly quick and simple, and Bungie’s new iPhone companion app for Halo gamers.

Find out more about the apps above and check out the rest of this week’s must-haves below!

Ball Frenzy isn’t a game I expected to like – but I do.

Anyone playing around with an iPhone 4 for any length of time will have realized that its compactness, decent sensor-processor combo and the huge selection of editing apps available make the darn thing is a superb platform for making both films and still photographs — if you can work around some of the gadget’s limitations. In this case, Habbycam, a small Southern Camifornia-based company that supplies all manner of rigs to the film industry, came up with the Habbycam iGrip ($140) as a better way to hold and position the iPhone for extended shooting. We think it needs work.

Review by Kelly Keltner

Before encountering Altec Lansing’s women-specific Bliss Platinum earphones ($70), I had never considered the idea that my ears might be too feminine and precious to handle having a larger earpiece forcibly shoved into their delicate canals. Now I know that, like many things, most earpieces are made for men and we poor, sweet ladies must go about life making do with too-big things. Altec Lansing hopes to solve that issue by giving ultra-precious lady ears a much-needed rest from all the bigness with the Bliss Platinum.

Since Apple started popping out the first mouse to be packaged with a personal computer with the Macintosh back in 1984, designers have been trying to find alternatives to the ubiquitous rodent. Apple itself seems to be out front in terms of interesting creations, experimenting on their mice with intriguing, if not always satisfying results. In this case, Smartfish, with their Whirl Mini laptop mouse ($50), have focused on perfecting the ergonomics of the mouse instead of trying to reinvent it. Did they pull it off?

Now that WWDC is over for another year and we’ve put all the excitement behind us, this coming week is going to be a little dull without something good to keep us entertained. Thankfully, our list must-have games is here to help. This week’s roundup features Dream:scape — the latest eye-popping game to use Epic Games’ Unreal Engine; 1000 Heroz which promises a new adventure every day you play; plus more great titles that are guaranteed to please.

Kicking off this week’s list of must-have iOS apps is a great new iPad 2 title from Evernote called Peek – the first iOS release that uses the Smart Cover to create a quiz game. We have a terrific new note-taking app from Junecloud, the developers behind the highly acclaimed Delivery Status Touch. Plus an app that will ensure you never get hit with a parking fine again, and plenty more.

Road Warriors are people, not simply animatronic robots — if you prick us, do we not bleed? If you lose our luggage, do we not get pissy? And people need tunage. That’s where Logitech’s S715i rechargeable speaker dock ($150) comes in. Sling it in a bag and it’ll provide the party out on the road while you’re furiously tapping at that TPS report or chilling post-deadline — and it’ll look hot doing it. Just don’t expect much when the party goes ballistic, because the bass simply can’t keep up.

The Nuu MiniKey is a snap-on case for your iPhone 4 that aims to transform the way you type on your device. It features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and connects to your device via Bluetooth, and promises to be “perfect for blogging and emailing.”