iPhone News Blog

Chillingo's Cogs Review

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:29:49 -1000

Cogs is a 3D rendition of the classic tile slider puzzle game. Remember those puzzles where you slide the pieces around to compose the picture? Well, Cogs is very reminiscent of that, in fact, I remember when the Mac OS (prior to OS X) used to include a game just like that. Anyway, if you watch my video review, you'll understand how this game is played. It is very challenging but yet keeps you coming back for more.

Make an iPhone app with AppMakr in Just 20 Minutes

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:12:45 -1000

If you've ever wanted to make your own iPhone app for your website or blog, now you can do so pretty easily with AppMakr. All you need to get started is an RSS feed and some graphics for a splash page and an icon for your app.

AppMakr makes creating iPhone and iPod Touch (2nd Generation and up) apps easily. No Cocoa coding knowledge needed. No learning the iPhone SDK either, although getting a Apple Developers Account can help you test your app out before you submit it for publication.

My Thoughts on Apple's iPad - The Beginning...

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:56:20 -1000

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know what the iPad is. Even more surprising, is that it's only been five days since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad and already in that short span of time, there has been a lot of product analysis made by so-called industry pundits. At first glance, the iPad has been overlooked by casual observers as an oversized iPod Touch. By the same token, there are others that feel that the iPad represents Apple's vision of the future of computing.

Thoughts on iPad

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:20:06 -1000

After almost 2 years of speculation, Apple Inc released their first product in a new category called the iPad.

With so much hype and anticipation, it was almost impossible for Steve Jobs and company to fulfill everyones expectation of what this device could/should be. It wasn't very long before comparisons to other products began and folks started pointing out what they saw as shortcomings of the device. Voices from all over the interwebs quickly made comparisons to netbooks and others began calling it a "Bigger iPod Touch".

Chillingo's 3-Day Wild $0.99 sale

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:40:30 -1000

To celebrate Christmas, Chillingo has some great games for sale and they include:

Touch KO ($.99)
Defender Chronicles ($.99)
Jules Verne's Secrets of the Mysterious Island ($.99)
Julse Verne's Return to Mysterious Island ($.99)
Cash Cow ($.99)
iDracula ($.99)
Toki Tori ($.99)

I have also posted video reviews at http://www.youtube.com/user/typezero3. Enjoy and Merry Xmas!

Pinger's TextFree Unlimited SMS Review

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:50:53 -1000

Are you tired of carriers (well, AT&T) charging you some insane monthly fee to get an unlimited amount of text messages? Well, Pinger's TextFree Unlimited application might just be your answer.

TextFree is able to use a phone number or email address to get messages to and from iPhone to iPod Touch. Not only that, all the replies are free.

The developer says that TextFree is:

The fastest and most reliable texting application
Is able to notify you of texts even when you're NOT in the app
Able to assign a different tone to each friend
Able to customize look and feel of chats/conversations
Horizontal keyboards
Emoticon support
Supports many U.S. carriers

My New iPhone: 52 Simple Projects to Get You Started - Book Review

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:50:05 -1000

I've never been a fan of reading books on any of Apple's devices. I mean I've owned desktops, laptops, and now an iPhone and till this book, I've never had to read a book on how to operate Apple's devices.

However, this book, "My New iPhone: 52 Projects for Every iPhone User" is unlike any other book that I've read and I think the format actually works for me.

My past experiences tell me that I learn best by doing and this book provides that in spades. The 500 pages guide readers through projects that are meaningful, fun and useful at the same time.

Not only does this book feature included applications but it also goes into some of the third party applications and that I found useful too....I really appreciated that this book was up to date (covering up to iPhone OS 3.0, if I'm not mistaken).

iON Universal Mobile Power Bank

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:24:33 -1000

iON - Universal Mobile Power Bank

We've all be told at "great things come in small packages", but upon receiving this particular power bank from iON from FSP Direct, the package itself was the object of admiration!

Chillingo's Horror Racing Review

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:28:20 -1000

When I was growing up, I played A LOT of video games. Needless to say, one of my favorite video games of all time, was a game called Rock 'N' Roll Racing by Blizzard, Horror Racing is just like Rock 'N' Roll racing.

In an nutshell, this is a top down racing game where you can blast your opponents with weapons that you find along the racetrack. I guess its sorta like Super Mario Kart, but from a top-down perspective. Can you tell that I really enjoyed this game, maybe I'm a little biased but I think that this game just nails the gameplay head-on.

The IconFactory & DS MediaLabs Ramp Champ Review

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:16:47 -1000

I have been eagerly awaiting this game. I've heard and read all about Ramp Champ before it was published to the AppStore and when it came out I eagerly watched to see how people reacted to it. All the reviewers had very good things to say about it and all cited the high quality graphics and playability.

With that in mind, I'd like to say that Ramp Camp lives up to all the hype and is well worth the wait. After the initial purchase, users are greeted with four different "ramps." The four ramps are: Clown Town, Breakwater Bay, Icon Garden & Space Swarm.

YACA: Yet Another Camera App: Snapture

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:00:57 -1000

There are a ton of apps that take advantage of the iPhone's built-in camera. There was a lot of hype surrounding the release of Snapture so we decided to take a look and see how this camera app compared to the standard camera app that already comes with the iPhone.

We gave a demo copy to our good friend Mr. Lee who did a lot of testing and had this to say:

In reviewing and critiquing Snapture I needed to realize a few things. First, I needed to understand that a cell phone camera was not meant to be a replacement or the equal to a digital cameral. Second, I'm an old guy and don't like taking pictures of myself by holding the camera a foot away from my face. Okay, with those caveats, here goes:

Gamevil's Hybrid: Eternal Whisper RPG Review

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:29:04 -1000

Gamevil is quickly becoming one of MY favorite game publishers. I feel they are off to a great start with their porting of RPGs to the iPhone...originally, they arrived on the scene with Zenonia, the awesome RPG i reviewed here. But, this review isn't about Zenonia, but rather an action/adventure RPG called Hybrid: Eternal Whisper . I think that for the most part, Hybrid can be classified as an sort of a side scroller with RPG elements (weapon/armor/skill upgradeability.)

If i'm not mistaken Hybrid: Eternal Whisper was created the ground up for the iphone OS and it's amazing multi-touch capabilities. Not only do you slash at enemies using special button combinations, you can also "draw" spells on the screen to activate powers such as fire, wind and gravity to name a few.

Whatsapp Inc. Whatsapp Messenger

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:58:54 -1000

For some time now, I've been looking for an app to be written that was similar to the BlackBerry messenger but for the iPhone. In fact, it was one of my project ideas when I was starting to learn Objective-C. In any case, Whatsapp has provided iPhone users with an app that provides just that; a direct messaging network that is exclusive to iPhone users.

Whatsapp makes use of the iPhone's built in Addressbook as a cross-reference to see if any of your contacts are using whatsapp. If they are, the people are instantly added to your whatsapp contact list. There is an upside and downside to this as 1) you need to know your contact's phone number BUT the feature comes in VERY handy because there is almost ZERO configuration when it comes to finding your friends.

Chillingo's Defender Chronicles - Legend of the Desert King

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:15:25 -1000

Review note: At the time of this review, Defender Chronicles is on sale in the iTunes AppStore for $3.99; that's a 20% discount from the normal price.

Defender Chronicles is, in it's most basic gameplay design a tower defense game...However, where it differentiates itself is in the fact that it allows you to upgrade your hero character and give him/her more armor/weapons/abilities.

If you've been watching the AppStore, you'll notice that Defender Chronicles has been amongst the top games and with good reason...the graphics are top notch and the gameplay is easy to pick up and put down in a pinch.

Lingopal Holdings Lingopal - Fun Multilingual Phrasebook Review

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:59:08 -1000

Lingopal's Fun Multilingual Phrasebook is a fun little app that will give you access to commonly used phrases in over 44 languages. It is however not meant to be used as a comprehensive dictionary by any means.

The application takes into account your native language and the language that you want to hear the phrase in. That's right, you read that right, the application will "speak" your phrase for you with the correct foreign inflection and pronunciation. No more bungled pronunciations and taking a chance that you might be saying something sillier than you originally meant...that alone is worth the $10 in my book.

I'm not sure if I'd rely on this application if I didn't know how to speak a foreign language at all, but it does come in handy for a quick reference and it does include over 900 phrases.