iApp Review - Board Games

These are apps in my "Board Games" folder.


Price:59p

Who doesn't love Scrabble? Scrabble on the go on the iPhone is very good, and essentially the same as playing it on a board.

There's quite a cheating "Best Word" button that though you can only use four tines is really cheap.

Pass and Play is good, and can be done over one iDevice or via WiFi between them.

Your other option is to buy "Scrabble Tile Rack" on four iDevices and then the main Scrabble game on an iPad and then have a super expensive game of Scrabble.

3.5/5

Buy it here - (UK iTunes) Scrabble





Price: Free

Words With Friends is a game like Scrabble but you play against other users and at whatever pace you want.

I could play a move soon after someone else and then be waiting a few days for them to make a move, or if they're in a different time zone it's convenient too.

There's also a chat feature which is sometimes handy. There's still a Pass And Play and local multiplayer options available but the main bulk is playing against other users online.

Words With Friends (Free) is an essential app if you like games like Scrabble.

4/5

Download it here - (UK iTunes) Words With Friends Free


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

More than half the year gone, the rest yet to come

So last month I did an “It’s June” post, to signify what was contained within my month, so now we’ll have an “It’s July” one, only with a less spontaneous title. Let’s see what I know July has in store.

More Reviews
I’ve been really enjoying writing my reviews for this blog, and do want to branch out in to movies, books and more things to review.

Writing

I like creative writing, almost as much as the next subject on the list and have put up one example and had a guest post on the subject so far but plan to keep doing more. I write whenever the mood takes me, or am given a good prompt.

D&D

Fine blog readers, I admit it. Ever since I started reading Darths & Droids (a Star Wars/D&D comic) and chatting to @austenw & @DurgisFlak who have been running games in the real world and on forums, I’ve been thinking about “rolling the dice” again, especially with 4th edition being out.

So I’ve picked up and read all through the Player’s Handbook, and will soon buy the Monster Manual, DM’s Guide and a campaign. It may be the geekiest thing that I do, but I don’t care.

If you know me personally, and want to get in on the first game, contact me. It won’t be until August though to give me time to read rules, do tests and so on.

Drawing

Okay, maybe you do not know, but I have a DeviantArt page where any stuff that I’ve drawn gets scanned in. I can see that my drawing has improved from the poor scraps that I did a year or so ago, but I’m still not quite happy with it yet. I’ll get there though.

Guest posts?

I keep pimping this out, to say that if people want to do guest blog posts all they need do is contact me, and it’ll go up on the site. Based on last month, I should get about 300 visits this month, which is nice.

Hopefully I manage to keep blogging too, though I thought it not worth mentioning. Oh look at that. Oh well.

It’s June!

It’s June now, so let’s run through all the good things that come with June. I don’t know if I’ll do this at the start of each blog month. We’ll see.

Sims 3 The third numbered game in the “The Sims” series is due out this month, with all new great stuff, and much more flexibility than the last game. I’ll certainly be playing this to death.

iPhone 3.0
3.0 beta is already out to those with jail broken phones or app developers, but for the rest of the iPhone users, 3.0 and all the wonderful bits that come with it.

Week Off
These are rare to me now that I have to do management work, so weeks off are much more appreciated now. I’m going to kick back and do bugger all.

Driving
More driving lessons will surely come in this month, and now I feel I’m really moving along with them. Driving instructor is a great laugh too and finally…

Blogging
I’m amazed that I’ve managed to keep this blog going properly for a good month or so now, so you can expect more reviews, more generic crap about my life and maybe a few guest reviews.

iPhone App Reviews #2

So I had another app review post, which I’ll link to at the end of the post.

8 Glasses Of Water A Day

Price: Free
This is quite a simple app, which keeps track of how many glasses of water you have had in a day. A recent update came that sticks the number of glasses you have to go on the home screen, similar to Mail or SMS. I don’t know whether there’s any proven health benefits to this, but it can’t hurt.

3/5

AroundMe

Price: Free
This app tracks your current location and tells you what services are around you, as the name suggests. Useless if you don’t travel much, or know what’s about where you travel to, but as I went to Birmingham the other day, I used it to find the closest Starbucks to me, which was handy.

3/5

Dictionary.com

Price: Free
If you’ve not heard of Dictionary.com then you should check it out. I usually use this app for the Word of the Day, and then try to fit it in to conversation that day. Yeah, it’s a geeky thing to do, but oh well.

4/5

Google Mobile App

Price: Free
I use almost all of Google’s services so this is a great app for me, especially when I can’t access my laptop at the time. If you use any of the services above, it would do you good to utilise this app. The only thing I’m a bit disappointed with is that it doesn’t allow me to post any blog posts from there.

4.5/5

Scramble

Price: Free
Scramble is like a fun little word search game, which can be played online or multiplayer as well. Sometimes it’s frustrating when you spot a few good words just before the timer counts down. An adjustable timer with a bigger grid might be more fun.

3.5/5

Tap Tap Revenge 2

Price: Free 
This app is essentially Guitar Hero on the iPhone, and you can download popular songs for free. The difficulty modes are as they should be. Extreme is very unforgiving, and Easy is nice enough for starters. I’ve been told by @benjirino that the actual Guitar Hero app which costs £3.49 is horrible, with covered famous songs that cost money to download. Get Tap Tap Revenge instead.

4/5

Hope you liked this review bunch.
If you make apps, and want them reviewed on this blog, send me a link for them.
If you have any that you’d like to see me review, send me a link again.
If you don’t have an iPhone or an iPod Touch yet, what is wrong with you?

last.fm

So, recently I've started to use last.fm a lot more seeing as I have the app on my iPhone and the scrobbler for my laptop/iPod. It basically gives you a nice insight in to what bands I like and what I've recently been listening to and will even compare your tastes if you visit my profile.

I especially like that last.fm now scrobbles songs from my iPod when I connect it, so that I can listen to it on the go and then update my listens later.

This is the first of a few "social networking" posts, with more direct links and some commentary to my social networking profiles.

If I don't interest you, there's always Bill Bailey.

iPhone App Reviews

So, now I've had my iPhone 3G for a couple of months and briefly mentioned some of the apps I had in this post. But now that I've learned how to take screenshots, I'm going to go through all the apps currently on my iPhone.

43 Things
Price: Free
This app is for the users of the website 43 Things and allows them to mark goals as accomplished on their list of things. However it doesn't allow you to go through the "43 Things" process within the app (though it runs Safari within the app to attempt this) so that you can share a story with the community about how you accomplished the goal. Also very crashy.

2.4/5

Backgrounds

Price: Free
A nice free app which updates regularly with backgrounds for your iPhone, which are saved to the Photos folder. Searching brings up a decent amount of results or you can check by popularity. They're all sourced from flickr, so they're fine to use. The occasional advert, which I hope will be removed in a future iteration of the app, but otherwise, it's good.

3/5

BBCNewsReader
Price: Free
A quality app and great for anyone on the go that doesn't have time to check the news. You can edit which RSS feeds the app gets (Europe, Americas etc.) to suit your news needs. The only problem with this is if you're on anything other than 3G or WiFi, the news downloads take ages, and you may as well check on Safari.

3.5/5

BigOven
Price: Free
I think this app was free, but can't remember off the top of my head. I only recently got this app in order to make myself less lazy when cooking. What's good about this, is being able to think of an ingredient, type it in, and seeing what recipes you can use it in. It boasts over 170,000 recipes and doesn't need WiFi to browse the recipes. I always make a shopping list from this app when I want something different.

Thanks to Steve Murch for correcting me, it's now close to 170,000 recipes and is free.

3.9/5

Geocaching
Price: £5.99
If you don't know what Geocaching is, follow this link. £5.99 seems an awful lot for one app and so far (mostly due to floods where I live) I have not got much use out of it. But when it's a warm sunny day, I plan to delve in to the community and hunt down a few caches. The price still annoys me though, knocks it's rating way down. If it were £3 or less, this would be at least a 3/5.

1.5/5

eBay
Price: Free
eBay browsing and everything on your iPhone. Simplistic and easy, need I say more? NEXT!

3.5/5

facebook
Price: Free
facebook on your iPhone, including facebook chat if you use that. It's okay, but I feel there's more they could expand on, such as choosing to like statuses, or updating your information.

3/5

Geohashing
Price: Free
If you don't know what Geohashing is, see here. This app will calculate the day's co-ordinates for you, then launch the Maps app so that you can plan directions to the day's hash. Does exactly what it should. Though a compass wouldn't go a miss in an update.

4.5/5

Google Earth Price:Free
Exactly the same (though lower resolution and no streetview) as the regular Google Earth. If you don't know what Google Earth is, leave right now.

4/5

IM+
Price: 59p (Currently on sale)
This is the full version of IM+ Lite, this version allows you to send photos and be signed in to multiple messaging services at the same time. Very handy if you're out and about and need to reach someone on MSN or AIM.

3.9/5

JellyCar
Price: Free
JellyCar is without a doubt, one of the funnest apps on the iPhone, and recieves a lot of updates with new levels. It's a game that will take you a long time to complete, and has a very fun control system. Get it now.

5/5

last.fm
Price: Free

Obviously for users of last.fm and it was recently advertised on TV, always great for when you want to listen to some new music.

4.7/5

LightBike
Price: £1.79
I actually got this while it was only 59p after trying out the Lite version for free. If you've ever watched Tron or played the Light Bike part in Kingdom Hearts II, you need this game. The updates have made it much more slick since it's humble begginings and WiFi mode seems almost ready to go as well. Get it!

4/5

Ocarina
Price: 59p
This is a close as you'll get to a real instrument on the iPhone and it even has a special "Zeldarian" setting for folk to imitate Ocarina Of Time tunes. I'm trying to play Epona's Song at the moment. A neat feature of this is the world view, where you can hear people playing (not live obviously) and can hear some great melodies from people around the globe.

4.5/5

Rainbow Ninja
Price: Free
This game has a simple mechanism, you either press the colour of the text, or press the colour that it shows you. It's good for a quick game and is free, so enjoy it.

4.3/5

Remote
Price: Free
Wirelessly control iTunes via WiFi through this app. You need this too.

5/5

Stanza
Price: Free
Stanza is for reading books on your iPhone and there's plenty of classics that you can download for free and also newer books that you can pay for. If you can't afford a Kindle yet, get this app in the meantime. Another near-perfect app.

4.7/5

Space Deadbeef
Price: Free
A great side-scrolling ship shooter, which advances steadily in difficulty. Unfortunately it doesn't vary much in types of enemies.

3.8/5

Tower Bloxx 3D Free
Price: Free
In this game, you build a city by dropping blocks down to build towers and increase population. The full version boasts a story, but for £3.49, I'm not going to get it. This free version is also very prone to crashes, so I don't want to pay and then have it still crash. Still decent for quick plays, and I like to build the tower as unstable as possible for added difficulty.

3.5/5

Tweetie
Price: £1.79
After seeing the abysmal Twitterific, I was nervous about paying for Twitter apps, but Tweetie came well recommended. It allows multiple accounts, trends and all the usual stuff. It's only okay, if you only have one Twitter account, use my next app.

3/5

Twitterfon
Price: Free
Twitterfon has a nice blue Twitter-esque interface, allows for trends, and tracks replies and DMs much like SMS's on the phone. If you use Twitter, get this.

4.5/5

Wikipanion
Price: Free
This app makes browsing Wikipedia so much easier and doesn't take long to load. It also allows you to save pictures from Wikipedia pages, which can be handy.

4.5/5

So, that's all the apps that I have, apart from the ones mentioned in the earlier post. If you have any recommendations, let me know.

iGot an iPhone

So, a few days ago I got myself a shiny iPhone 3G on the 4th of this month. I was so very happy with my purchase and informed people of such and show it off at work etc. Then later on when I was an hour away from finishing work, I pulled my iPhone from my pocket only to see it had a large crack in the screen.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, shit, shit" were my words when I saw the damage. Somehow that got supressed and I managed to remain calm about the busted £400 piece of technology which I had only had for four days. Got home and rang Apple to enquire as to whether I could get it fixed. The glass was broken, but the phone worked to enable me to ring them. I spoke to one rep whose name escapes me and he was very kind about the whole thing. I was then passed on to a senior technician, who I had to e-mail pictures to:


Pretty fucked huh? Though after e-mailing the photos I was told it would cost £X for it to be repaired. I rang Apple back up to organise a meeting at the Genius Bar at my local iStore, and was suprised to get one for the next day (considering I rang Apple initially at 5pm). It was all sorted, and though it would cost me money to get it sorted, I was okay (i.e. not stressing or raging) and headed off the next day to get it sorted.

Got to the Apple/iStore on Friday, and checked in. Pleasant so far. I then waited patiently to be seen (I'm in customer service, so know how to be a 'good' customer) while the guy ahead of me was complaining at one of the Apple guys. I got there nice and early and was seen promptly by a guy named Adrian. Conversation went as thus:

Adrian: "What can we do for you?"
Me (J): "You'll see when you see my iPhone."
I pullled the iPhone box from my bag and opened it up to show the wreck of the thing.
A: "Oh, that's not too bad, I thought it would be a box of pieces. So, we can replace your phone for you. Have you got everything backed up?"
J: "No, haven't had time."
A: "Have you connected it to iTunes since the initial set-up?"
J: "Yeah."
A: "Then it's all backed up."
He explained how to retrieve the data once I reconnected the new iPhone and explained that UK iPhones can't make ringtones from iTunes on Windows, but that a program called Garage Band took care of it all on Macs. Yet another nod that I should migrate myself to a Mac some time this year.
Then he went off to get a new iPhone, and shoved my now old one in a box, and then in a drawer behind him, presumably to be repaired.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned guy that was ahead of me and was complaining was still doing so as if it were the guy's fault. I hate customers like that. He was still whinging when I left.

Anyways, got my new iPhone, packaged it back up and then restored it when I got home. Remembered to thank Adrian for all his help with it though. The iPhone is almost as important as a lung, so there's no need for a review. However, some apps can have one.

Lightsaber™
Price: Free
An app simply for fun, which is now sponsored by LucasArts. Allows you to wave around your iPhone like a lightsaber™ and makes the appropriate sounds. The gentle glow of the lightsaber when you're holding the phone still, and the strikes when you make quick motions. Customisable lightsaber™ too. 7/10 for fun.

Remote
Price: Free
This very useful. Control your (or someone else's) whole iTunes library from your iPhone. Play creepy music at your friends house when you're passing by, or make them think someone's hacked their computer by rickrolling them wirelessly. 9/10.

midomi

Price: Free
You can use this app to identify any song currently playing, or even sing 10 seconds of a song in to it if you have a tune stuck in your head and it will show you a preview of the song and link you to the iTunes store to buy it if you want. It's pretty awesome. 8.5/10

Pac-Man Lite
Price: Free
If you don't know Pac-Man, leave now. This version allows you to swipe your finger for directions, turn the iPhone or even us a d-pad for moving Pac-Man around. Only one level, but that's all you need for a quick Pac-fix. 8/10.

Showtimes

Price: Free
Showtimes grabs your current location and shows you what's on at the cinemas around where you are. It will also show you movie ratings and trailers for films. You can change the cinema location, but it will always choose the closest one. Excellent for a movie goer like myself. 9/10

Twinkle

Price: Free
Let me just preface this a bit, and say Twitterific is horrible. Twinkle or Twitterfon should be promoted by Apple rather than Twitterific. Twinkle allows you to post to Twitter, and gives you a look at those using Twinkle nearby. Definetley get this if you tweet. 9.5/10

That's all the apps currently on my iPhone, so some day soon I'll review the ones I have since deleted, but for now that's all.