review - page 15

Today’s Best Thing Ever has to be Stuck on Earth, an app for travellers who haven’t left home yet.

If you’re the kind of geeky person who experienced a little thrill of joy when the hacking scene in Tron:Legacy included realistic use of a genuine command line interface, you (or perhaps your kids) might also enjoy playing with Hacker Typer.

Back in 1981, Bill Gates co-wrote a PC game called Donkey, commonly known (as some apps were back in those days) by its filename, DONKEY.BAS. If you’re old enough to remember those days and old enough to yearn for them, you might enjoy playing Donkey all over again on your iPhone.

Meet one-eyed Evi, a one-dollar alternative to Siri which works on older (non-4S) iPhones.

She’s had a bit of a rough introduction to life, thanks to a much-hyped launch followed by 24 hours or so of struggling to keep up with demand.

New from Tap Tap Tap is Serenity, a relaxation app for iPhone or iPad.

Relaxation app? What’s one of those? It’s an app for relaxing by; in this case, a digital jukebox of all things peaceful, calm, tranquil, and imperturbable. It plays sounds and moving images to lull you to sleep, or at least to a less troubled state. It’s an anti-alarm clock. Without the clock.

Tree is an outliner with a difference – it offers an unusual horizontal view of your document alongside a host of useful outlining features.

I’m lucky: the real Stonehenge is only about 40 minutes’ drive from my front door, so I can go and visit whenever I like. For students of prehistoric monuments who live further afield, the Stonehenge Experience app for iPad offers a tiny glimpse of what this ancient English stone circle is all about.

This is Mou, a rather cute little text editor that you might like to check out if you ever use Markdown to format stuff for publishing on the web. Or even if you don’t.

This is FlickrBucket, a cute one-dollar uploading utility I found on the Mac App Store this week.

All this time, people have blindly taken the Birds’ word for it, and joined them in their campaign of violence against the pigs. Nobody thought to ask the pigs for their side of the story. Until now.

Here’s a treat for Indiana Jones fans. It’s called Temple Run, it’s free on the iOS App Store, and it gives you the chance to relive your Indy treasure-hunting dreams.

Let’s get two big facts out the way right now: Yes, these Scosche IEM856m canalphones ($250) look a little like several of the canalphones in Monster’s lineup (eg. the Beats Tour), mostly because of the flat, ribbon-like cable; no, they’re not anything like any of the Monster earphones they somewhat resemble. In fact, one big detail makes them very different from almost any other IEM on the market.

Shared Paper is a lovely iPad app for making and sharing presentations on a huge scrollable canvas.

Solar Walk is an excellent educational app about space and everything in it. With Earth as your home base, you wander the Solar System, cruising the planets and moons and making discoveries along the way.

Photo Toaster is a photo editor for iPad, packed with features and on sale now at a bargain price.

Say hello to Voice Actions. She’ll say hello right back.

Voice Actions is a basic Siri alternative, available right now in the iOS App Store.

The FieldFolio case ($70) for iPad 2 is an innovative case that’s inspired by classic cloth-bound notebooks. It’s manufactured by hand from recycled board and cotton-blend bookbinding linens, and traditionally bound just like a real book. But instead of paper inside it, you’ll find a custom-fit cradle that houses your iPad.

Review by Jordan Trimas

The Seagate GoFlex Slim Performance Hard Drive ($100) is a compact, sleek, and fashionable storage accessory good for both Mac and PC users. If you’re looking for a sexy and functional piece of computer candy, the GoFlex Slim is the Prada of portable storage solutions.

There are many other development tools available besides the free copy of Xcode that comes with every Mac. LiveCode 5 (starts at $99; $49 for upgrades), a development tool running on Mac OS X and other operating systems from RunRev, gets it inspiration from the programming language HyperTalk. It is designed with an intuitive user interface to make application development easier using a language that uses an understandable English-like syntax. You can use it to create your own iOS apps.

Apple and Google have chosen to opt out of a new industry-sponsored app ratings system developed by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in favor of their own internal systems. CTIA-The Wireless Association and ESRB issued a press release announcing the new system today, but both companies were absent from the list of adoptees.

Outside my local Apple Store in Bath

DerManDar is a cute three-dollar panoramic photography app for iPhone, and it produces some lovely pictures.

It works like this: you hold the phone vertically, and turn slowly on the spot. The app takes snaps for you (you don’t need to hit the shutter button for each one) then stitches them together into an elongated panoramic view.

Raven is a new browser for OS X (Snow Leopard and Lion), currently in beta. What sets it apart from the rest is a sleeker appearance, and a Twitter-esque side panel called the Smart Bar.

This is iF Poems, a new educational app aimed at children, but with much to offer to grown-ups too.

Onmaway is a location sharing app designed to let you concentrate on your travels, rather than interrupting them to tell everyone where you are.

Simplier is a very simple $3 music player for people who just want to hear some tunes without having to trudge through the hassle of opening and browsing inside iTunes.