**Update 2:Just finished the press confrenece call with Pizza Hut themselves and amongst other things they assured me that support for their full menu is in the works and should be released in the near future.

*Update: At the original time of this writing the app was known as iHut and has since changed to Pizza Hut

We’ve finally done it! First it was the wheel, then sliced bread, and then we even landed on the moon, but now man has taken his next big step in evolution. Finally we can order a pizza by phone…wait, what?! Thats right, we’ve apparently come full circle from walking down to the corner to order a pizza, calling in an order, to typing in a web order and now we’re back to phones again. However thanks to Pizza Hut’s new app ‘iHut’ we’re seeing it done in a whole new fashion.

iHut is the iPhone’s version of online ordering and not only does it work but I think it’s quicker and easier then either calling in or ordering online. Using your online account you log in and it already knows your favorite locations or you it will use location services to find the closest Pizza Hut to you.

iHut then takes you through the steps of choosing an ordering method (Delivery, Carry-out, or Dine In) and what types of food you’d like to order (Pizza, Pasta, or Wings). You’re given all of your normal choices of sauces, toppings, and quantities that you’d see on the website. To keep things entertaining though they’ve also worked in some accelerometer gestures when choosing toppings and sauces, an effort I highly applaud the developer for, it’s these little things that really escalate a good app to being a great one.

Wait there’s more! From the main menu your also given the choices of iFaves where you can save your favorite meals for 1-click re-orders, Deals where you can view virtual coupons on your virtual fridge, and Hut Racer. Hut Racer is iHut’s attempt at a game within the app where you are a pizza delivery truck driving down the street weaving in and out of giant pizza, wing, and pasta boxes in an effort to make a delivery as quickily as possible. While the game is nothing but a time waster that you’d get bored with after 1 or 2 plays, I do appreciate the effort with putting it in. Although I have yet to see it, it does claim that if you are either quick enough or race enough times you may receive extra coupons on your fridge to be used on your order.

While there are some drawbacks that I found, i.e. not all normal menu items are available in the app, but overall if you order pizza even semi-regularly then having this guy on your phone is worth it. It makes ordering so easy, even if your at a friends’ house, it will find you and tell you what the best location is to order from instead of the other way around. Oh and let’s not forget the best part, at least as of now it’s free to download so what do you have to lose? Now go get some wings!

If you’re the type of person who extends their alcoholic consumption beyond your typical beers and wines then Drinkspiration by Absolut might give you a fun and interesting way to recommend drinks for yourself as well as others. The app utilizes the two primary features of the iPhone that every app strives to include, location and internet connectivity; Drinkspiration does this well.

The App Store gives a visual warning that this application may be unsuitable for people under the age of 17, however in reality this application is unsuitable for anyone under 21 as they really shouldn’t be interested in mixing drinks when they aren’t allowed to drink at all–obviously an problem on the part of Apple.

The interface for Drinkspiration consists of a typical bottom menu bar and a sort of roll-o-dex of cards that you flick through once you’ve made a few decisions about what kind of drink you’re looking for. Of course all drinks that are made with vodka “reccomend” Absolut vodka while every other drink recipe is listed generically with things like rum, scotch, or gin. You can access drink reccomendations by different categories to fit every occasion location based, currently popular drinks, classics, drinks that are “hot right now” and even what sounds like a “kitchen sink approach” in the categories time of the day, color, and background volume. I mean, if you’re at a loud party thats playing polka then apparently Drinkspiration was prepared to handle that eventuality.

The presentation and access to drinks is straightforward and the app provides a history of your drinks as well as a search function. Once you’ve picked a drink you can post that you’re now consuming said drink on twitter or facebook. Absolut also offers a “Absolut Drinks” connector which boasts functionality for blog and website integration. The social media and absolut drinks postings are a nice addition if you’re comfortable with seeming like an alcoholic when you post a bunch at once. Of course you have the option not to do so as well.

I really can’t imagine many things beyond Drinkspiration’s current feature set that would better fulfill the applications intent to help me pick a drink. The by location feature is nice but might be better if it could also recommend local bars. I know this is a bit of a stretch, but the location drink recommendation seems to go hand in hand with bar recommendations. This would provide a more complete feel to the app for travelers or people who have just moved. Drinkspiration is only further augmented by its variety of means for presenting drink recommendations and social media options.

As far as reuse is concerned, I’m not sure if the drink listing grows or not. I would imagine that further updates would include new drinks if for no other reason than to populate the “drinks that are hot right now” tab.

Overall Drinkspiration is a straight forward application with a robust feature set that not only meets but surpasses its purpose.

Intro
Opening Shopper for the first time you’re greeted with a pop-up telling you where to learn how to use the app. This is a nice touch for people who like getting the whole enchilada right off the bat for new apps. For those who just want to get busy, skip it and come back later if you like, it’s intuitive enough to start putting together a cornucopia of food stuffs quickly for your next shopping safari.

What I like
I go grocery shopping for my wife a lot. Go ahead and laugh if you like, boys, but girls love this stuff. With 3 boys at home (one 5-month baby) it’s easier for me to go shopping on a Sunday afternoon or on the way home from work. I used to use Zenbe Lists for grocery lists, but really enjoy the aisle feature of Shopper. It’s so much easier to have everything automatically categorized so that I can easily plan my assault on the store of my choosing.

It’s silly easy to build a list. You’ve got a few options, and for most things you’ll be able to find them in the default shopping list. Anything extra you need to add is easily done and you can add it to a category, or create a new one. For instance, wine is not in the drinks category, so I just plugged it in and added it to the permanent list.

The killer feature of Shopper is that built-in list. It used to be a tedious task to create a shopping list as I typed each item in. With Shopper, I just peruse the aisles and add the items I need to buy. Once this is done I can save this list for future trips, thereby saving more time as I have my most common items at my beck and call. When it comes to shopping lists, you can’t only save one, but you can create multiple lists for each store you frequent. For example, I buy my kosher meats from Trader Joe’s, and a few other items my wife likes from them. This feature allows me to make one list of the items I buy most and call it into service when I need to.

While you’re cruising the aisles of the store and getting the item on your list, there’s a nice detail added here… you check the box for the item you picked up. Just like getting the item off the shelf and putting it in your basket, Shopper marks this item complete by moving it into your Cart. This action is complimented by a smooth animation. You can always see what is in your cart and put it back in the list by unchecking it if you need to.

Though I don’t use it, I’m very impressed with some of the advanced functionality of Shopper. For those interested in taxes Shopper builds in a tax calculating function. There’s also the ability to add prices to your items, either by volume or quantity. This is also a nice touch as you’ll get a running total for your shopping trip. This attention to detail tells me that MidCentury is making this app all that they can so that it appeals to a wide group of people. Kudos.

What I dislike
There can be a lot to learn to get the most of this app. Some people may find this a bit much for a grocery app. I would also like to see a syncing feature available similar to Zenbe Lists. I realize this may be out of reach just now for the developer, but one thing that I miss even though it is not a deal-breaker for me, is the ability to create a list online and sync it to my Touch. It was also nice that my wife could create the list and I just open the app. Finally, Shopper left the option for the Classic Color Theme on version 3. This is too bad, because the new theme is really easy on the eyes and the old yellow notebook paper look detracts from this. That said, these are minor complaints which do not detract at all from Shopper’s overall usefulness.

Conclusion
Shopper is a mature app in version 3. It is really easy to use and makes list building a breeze. You’ll get a lot of value out of this app—especially at the .99 price point. Once you figure in saved lists and custom store lists, you really can’t go wrong with Shopper.

Putting together a grocery list is a weekly (and sometimes painful) thing around my house. It starts out with meal planning and then with the evaluation of our pantry. Traditionally I have used the standard list pad and struggled with my pen while bagging produce and pushing a cart. Over the last year I have played with several apps on my iPhone in an attempt to streamline the process. Some were a little too simple, and some were too complex or buggy. Groceries is a shopping list app that leans in the simple direction but chooses its features wisely. The process of making a list within its interface is familiar in seconds.

Creating a List and Shopping

When you open Groceries, you will be greeted by what looks to be a piece of notepad paper hastily acquired and attached to a stylized cork board. The paper suggests tapping the plus button to add items to a list. Once you’ve done so, you can easily edit quantities by pressing the button to the right of each item. Touching the name of the item removes it from the list of remaining items. I particularly liked that Groceries has both the remaining items list and a list of all items on your list. This prevents accidental removal of items. Further, Groceries’ removal animation takes about two seconds, allowing you time to see a mistake and correct it over in the “All” category. For basic list management, the edit button allows you to select items and delete them from your active list or to reorganize their location to different aisles of the store you frequent with just two clicks. This is a good example of the streamlined user interface that separates this from so many others who would force you to reorganize from the database instead of the active list. If you’re done shopping the app displays a “You’re done shopping!” cheerfully and a Start Over button is always present to reset your list. I also appreciate that the developer didn’t feel the need for landscape view, which has made me scream at other note and list software on the occasional trip.

Sharing

The main screen is very focused, with the only other function (outside of list creation and management) being the option to email the chore to anyone. Another nice touch here is that the list you email is formatted in the Groceries style (sans cork board) and seems to display pretty well in other email clients (but perfectly in the mobile Mail.app).

Other Options and Thoughts

Further customization is available in the iPhone Settings section under Groceries. This lets your decide if you want to group by aisle, display a badge on the application icon, customize double and triple taps, and customize the database with brands (though I haven’t seen many brand names in the list) or start with a blank database.

I only have a couple of criticisms and they’re tiny. In the list view there are little flecks of brown on the (very white) list. These are so well done that they actually made me think that my screen was dirty. They continue to be a slight annoyance every time that I look closely. I’m not sure why they bother me so much, as I’m not usually the type to have this sort of reaction. It’s a aesthetic decision though, and the designer has done so much right that I can’t really complain. Additionally, I’d love the option to add stores with aisle layouts and to change stores mid-list. As it is, the aisle layout is universal.

Conclusion

Everything about this application perfectly suits my shopping style. Others may have different demands in mind, but I found that I could instantly find my way around the app without any prompting and that it seems capable of decreasing the time and energy I have to spend. More than that, its interface defends the list against errant touches and allows a reset if something happens and I have to abort my trip mid-cart.

This isn’t a meal planning or trip organization application. Though I’d love for Sophiestication Software to expand into those realms, Groceries does just what it should, just as it should, and that’s a rare thing. I appreciate the thought and restraint that went into creating something this easy to use. I’ll be using Groceries to compile every food or household-related list in the future.

If you’ve ever stood in front of a fully stocked bar and wanted something delicious but ended up just pouring a Jack & Coke because it’s all you knew how to make, this is the app for you.

What can the app do?

When you first start it up you’re presented with 6 different sections to choose from:
All Cocktails, By type of cocktail, Bartender Secrets, Cocktail at random, Favorite cocktails, and Recently viewed.

I’m going to focus on the first 3 menus as the last 3 are pretty self explanatory. All Cocktails allows you to browse through the entire alphabetized drink recipes library that iVideo Cocktails has to offer. Currently, the list offers recipes and videos for 50 different drinks, many of them the staples of the cocktail world… but I’m far from calling this list extensive. Where’s my Long Island Ice Tea recipe? I’ve got some memories from Mexico I want to relive!

With that being said, I’m sure there are already plans in the works to expand this in future updates/releases. In fact, if you take the free survey at the bottom of the main screen you can already get 10 additional cocktails for free.

Once you choose your drink, a beautiful photo of how it “should” look in the end appears. For some reason mine never seem to turn out quite as nice. You’re then presented with several options; you can choose to watch a very good streaming video of how to make the drink, mark it as one of your favorites, go through the ingredients list, or read through the preparations step by step.

The ingredients list is one of the best parts of this app. It’s made in a check sheet manner where you can mark off what you do and don’t have before starting to make your drinks. It also allows you to choose how many people are braving a taste of your concoction (between 1-4) and will automatically adjust the portions of ingredients as needed.

By type of cocktails is a handy menu as it groups drinks based on its main alcohol ingredient, i.e. vodka, rum, tequila, etc. My only dilemma is the way the developer describes this menu “Cocktails based on the contents of your bar.” To me this means something entirely different. What I would like to see is a section where you can go through a inventory list of what is in your bar, check it off and then the app automatically compiles a list of all the different drinks you can make from it. It would save a tremendous amount of time from reading the individual ingredients of a dozen different drinks, do I have that? No, next. Do I have that? No…etc.

The 3rd menu, Bartender Secrets, is a cool idea where professional bartenders give you some tricks of the trade. Unfortunately as of now though its just a waste of space. There are only two barmen in the list, one with only 5 tips, and the other with just a bio of himself (how is this a helpful secret?). If this app added some cool pouring trick videos or something along those lines.gets expanded it could be a great section. Maybe adding

In the end this app definitely has some room to grow, but even now it’s a solid purchase.

Recap

The Good
• Well organized
• Detailed videos and preparation lists anyone could follow
• Cocktail at random helps you find new fun drinks to try
• Possible future updates to the drink library keeps reusability high

The Bad
• Bartender secrets is currently a waste of space
• Small drink library
• Needs options to search library by name or based on ingredients in your own bar

I could do my traditional review where I’m highlighting the good parts the bad parts the “iPhoneness” to it etc… but in this case I think a little anecdotal story of how it helped saved face might be more appropriate.

When ever I’m in a mad rush to cook a thrilling and exciting meal that will delight the taste buds of my family, I try to have a quick surf on the net for a recipe. Invariably this takes far too much time because the number of small sites with one or two recipes and then printing it out or writing it up becomes more hassle than it’s worth. That’s where these types of apps come into their own. I have had other similar ones on my phone before, this one however will replace them.

Being able to stand in my kitchen and just look at my phone for a quick and useful recipe is great. I was in the middle of making an apple crumble, (as you do) and realized that because I was making it from memory I was missing the correct quantities of some ingredients. It was great to be able to just pull out my phone and find within a few clicks the ingredients and their quantities.

Even better than that was the ability to show off my iPhone at a dinner party. I was the only iPhone user there, and they were proclaiming that really the iPhone was useless to ‘normal’ people (whatever that means). I was able to say “well there is even an app for cooking and recipes that everyone could use”.

She disagreed.

She said “there’s no way” – and claimed that she would “any day” prefer her cookbooks.

I set a challenge.
Fine – give us both 2 ingredients and let’s see who gets a recipe faster.

Long story short – I won.

In the time it took me to find several different and interesting ideas with the given ingredients, she had walked to the kitchen, gotten a book from the shelf and began to look at the index.

What I’m trying to write is that, applications like these, that add serious functionality to what is essentially a phone, is where the market should really expand. When I refer to my phone, I say “it’s not a phone folks – it’s a lifestyle”.

This application is usable on its own or you can create an account that links in with the website so you are able to save your favorites too which is great. There is an extensive glossary with videos, text and images to support the item you are looking at. The featured section has recipes that have been voted for by the community for being really great, or easy to make. These also have videos (250 step-by-step) to accompany them. This really is a major selling point of the app. Those videos are such a great inclusion to the app that it really means it has so much use for those of us who maybe have slightly less cooking ability than others.

There are categories to start you off, from desserts *yum* to Italian, Asian and breads. Everything is searchable and if you just want inspiration they include new recipes weekly in the featured section. The interface is so clean and uncluttered. The colours of the interface are really well thought out. Another nice thing is the measurements are in Imperial, or you can click that and it puts it in metric.

Each recipe has the prep time, cooking time, difficulty, health factor, ingredients, what kind of cuisine it is and how many it serves.

Overall this application is really jam packed with features. The weekly updated recipes mean that you will never be short of ideas. I have looked at other similar apps and this one will be able to replace them all. It is pretty steep at $9.99 so maybe try the free version first to see how often you use it. I do think it’s a keeper.

No excuses lads – go make your girlfriend, wife, mom a nice meal. Happy Cooking!

Zen Magic is one of a few relaxation applications out there. One of the best sellers on the device, in fact, turned out to be little more than a barely interactive pond of Koi fish. Coming from a designer by the name of James Cann, the application is little more than a chalkboard with background music. Okay okay, so it’s got pressure sensitive controls, a brush stroke toggler, 7 different soundscapes, and microphone support. Unfortunately, the aforementioned features are little more than hints of unnecessary bulk to an already barebones application.

You’re first greeted with a giant blue “board” upon opening the app. Your ears perk at the faint whistle of the wind in the background as you start to drag your finger across the screen. A small black line appears and begins to dissipate as a whisp of gray trails behind. After drawing the obligatory crude symbols and squiggly lines, your finger finds its way the microscopic “i” in the lower right hand corner. You frantically tap at it causing little more than tiny black dots around its epicenter. Twelve minutes and a grilled-cheese later, you manage to strike it at the perfect angle and are brought into the game’s only option panel.

Here you can change soundscape track, stroke thickness, and evaporation speed. Like I said, it’s quite a barebones experience. The soundscape tracks range from the soft drone of the waves, an evening in the desert, a subtle rainstorm, a heavier rainstorm, and three lessons on how to relax. Yeah, that’s right. Relaxation coaching.

My first issue with Zen Magic lies in its performance. I’ve restarted my device more than once and I’m still experiencing multiple crashes within the app. Just when I’ve finished painting the perfect effigy of Donald Duck in a wedding dress, my screen refuses to respond and sends me plummeting from a waltz above the clouds to the cold shadow of reality. It’s not quick to recover, either. With the crashes that have set in, my device refuses to respond for quite some time. Aside from that, there’s a fair amount of delay between the stroke of your finger to the brush actually appearing on-screen. Most of the time, you’ve finished your stroke before anything actually happens. I never thought doodling in a rainstorm would be such a taxing errand for the iPhone.

Though it’s bundled with many frustrations, it’s not a complete misadventure. The evaporation animation is remarkably smooth (until it locks up). Additionally, the soundscapes are fantastic and couldn’t fit any better with the application. Touting an unbelievably steep price tag of $2.99, I can’t recommend this purchase unless your using the iTunes giftcard you received from Aunt Milda on your birthday. Even then, you’re probably better off buying a few of your favorite Buddy Holly songs instead. Peggy Sue gives Zen Magic three stars out of five.

I will admit up front that I am somewhat of a couponaholic. I make extensive use of internet coupons, the Sunday paper and even Clipper Magazine! And despite all of the hype surrounding the launch of Yowza!!, owing largely to the fame of one of its developer’s Heroes/Felicity fame (Greg Grunberg), it left me wanting…a lot…more.

The concept of Yowza!! is great—coupons for the digital age. After all, clipping coupons and carrying them around with you is so 2008. Basically, what the developers have purportedly done is negotiate shopping and dining deals, making them available to users via their iPhone application After tapping in some basic demographic information, Yowza!! makes use of your device’s location finder to present you with a list of coupons which can be scanned straight from your device. Other features include the ability to track your favorite deals and merchants as well as your total savings. Yowza!! presents you only with deals from merchants who have negotiated exclusive offers for Yowza!! users. In this aspect it is uniquely different from other services that ‘aggregate’ internet coupons for you.

Sounds great, right? The main issue with Yowza!! is a distinct lack of content. I live in Miami, Florida. Not Miami, OH or some other underpopulated homestead in this vast country of ours. And Yowza!! returned a grand total of five (5) results, two of which seemed to be store ads or ‘news’ items and not coupons at all. Now I realize that this is a new service and some would say I’m being a bit harsh, but the developers put this app out there for public consumption and it doesn’t seem ready for prime time. My hope is that retailers will see the concept’s potential for growth and sign on now that Yowza!! is up and running; there are a lot of iPhone and iPod Touch users out there after all.

You can’t help but feel a charging iPhone could be put to more use. The enormous battery indicator Apple slapped on there is nice to look at but it only tells you one thing. For those of you who feel the time your iPhone spends out of action could be put to better use, Wired Frame could be worth a look.

At first glance, the app is visually pleasing enough (although I wouldn’t say it was up to Apple’s standards) and displays the time, weather and date at the top as well as your RSS and Twitter messages down at the bottom. When tapped, they bring up a few more details and the option to open the link in the Safari browser. It’s a simple enough layout and suits its purpose well. If you wish to change the information being shown, you simply swipe your finger to scroll through on the section you wish to change. The main thing I initially noticed here was that the app took a long time to load, some ten seconds at times, which for an app you want to load quickly to view information is a big turn off.

To bring up the settings, you simply double tap in the centre which brings up a new menu of ‘Settings’ and ‘Save Picture’. ‘Save Picture’ simply saves the current background image to your camera roll, a useful feature if you’ve set your background as interesting pictures from Flickr and want to save the photo. Tapping ‘Settings’, unsurprisingly, brings up the apps settings.

There are plenty of ways to customise the app, such things as the speed your information scrolls across the screen, the font you wish to use, the clock format and how long till the phone auto-locks are all customisable from the settings screen. For most purposes, the basic customisation was sufficient to get the app working as I’d like but I was surprised to see a lack of an analogue clock and the choices of font were quite sparse. It would have also been nice to have the ability to expand the RSS and Twitter panel to fill the screen and display as a list as I personally find ticker-tape style information to be counter productive as you are forced to wait for the information you want to scroll around.

Following this, you have the ability to log-in to Twitter and Flickr. There are no additional options for Twitter which was a shame, it would have been nice to be given the ability to display the public feed rather than your own or just your replies, for example. Flickr, however, offers up many options, namely displaying your own photos, a user-defined tag or those deemed ‘Interesting’ by Flickr. It would be nice if the developers added in a couple of other photo hosting sites to the mix as to give some choice (namely Photobucket and MobileMe) but I felt the Flickr integration was sufficient for its purpose. Following this you can add RSS and Photo-RSS feeds which entails simply typing in your desired RSS feed, nice and simply. The RSS pane also comes with a few pre-defined feeds (such as Engadget and TechCrunch) which was appreciated in getting started.

As far as stability is concerned, it was quite good however when I first logged into Flickr the app crashed but seemed fine on subsequent log-ins. Similarly, now and again, the app does seem to go extremely slow (when there was no network connection, it simply stalled rather than using cached information) and sometimes your taps and swipes are ignored by the interface.

Considered as an app on its own, Wired Frame is pretty good. It does what it sets out to do but falls short due to some stability issues and the occasional bout of unresponsiveness. My big problem with Wired Frame, and any similar app, is that due to the limitations of the SDK, it’s not possible to integrate it into the iPhone by any means so to use the app, it needs to be launched every time. Ideally, the app would automatically launch after a sync or when on charge. I appreciate that this isn’t the developer’s fault but it makes the actual usable value of the app almost zero. If you don’t mind launching the app every time and want something to display on your iPhone’s screen when docked, Wired Frame does a decent good job but as a paid app, I can’t help but feel there isn’t enough here to justify actually paying for it.

All right, I’m a literary junkie. I’m the girl who’s always armed with a book (or two, or three) in her bag, and I like to rely on recommendations for my new purchases. Sadly, any avid reader knows just how easy it is to lose track of the suggestions doled out by friends.

Next Read is meant to be a crisp, organized way to keep track of all of those book recommendations by storing them in a convenient iPhone app, and it works pretty well. You can add books to your list of suggested reading using either the Amazon-based search function or “Quick Add,” which requires both a title and an author, or an ISBN number. The app’s hyped feature, however, is its rating system. Square Wheel touts its “completely customizable” scoring system, which allows you to assign weights based on the origins of the suggestion. Did you hear about it on the radio? Plus one point. From a friend? Plus three. You can create your own categories and edit the pre-existing ones, too. Your list of suggested books will automatically sort itself by ranking, awaiting your next foray into a bookstore.

The interface is clean and sleek, with tabs for the different sections. You can sort suggested books by score, source, author, or genre. There’s no option to sort by title, which is a weird omission. When you tap on a book, you’re presented with a few options. You can raise the ranking of a book, “zero” its score (delete it), and view its details, such as price. You can also jot down notes on the book, browse for Listmania lists, and hop over to Amazon to read reviews, details, or even buy the book. You can also share your lists with other Next Read users over Wi-fi. While I doubt that I’ll find many other users around me, it’s a nice thought. For now, Listmania provides plenty of book lists, if you’d like to download them. Overall, the app nicely organizes your reading list.

As for the rating system, it works fine, but I can’t really see myself using it. For starters, I don’t consider books based on who recommended it to me; I’d rather just be presented with a simple option to not rate my books. For those who want to keep track of their sources, though, it provides a neat way to do so. Because you can adjust a book’s score even once it’s in a category, you can always just ignore the ratings and use the system to figure out whose recommendations are actually worth your while. If you like ratings, then the rating system works. If you don’t, it’s just a triviality.

Integration with Amazon handles well for the most part. I loved being able to look up reviews so easily, and being able to buy the book within the app is a plus. (Instant gratification!) However, I experienced some crashing while viewing Amazon through Next Read. Instability is a pity, especially when coming from such a well-designed app, and getting ungracefully dumped onto my home screen is just annoying. If it wasn’t for the crashing, it would be a great way to browse for books.

My other main gripe lies within the structure of the app itself. Yes, it’s great to be able to look to the future of my literary horizons, but what about the past? When you “zero out” a book, it’s deleted forever. There’s no library-like function where you can go back to review your past reads, or keep track of how many books you’ve read lately. Also, there’s a function where you can shake your iPod to get reccommendations based on a random book from your list. I’d love it to pick a selection based on my entire list, a la Pandora or last.fm, rather than a single book. I had Holly Black’s Tithe on my list, and it turned up a bunch of Stephenie Meyer’s novels. Ugh. Not quite, Next Read. Let’s try that again. I also wish that Next Read was integrated with other sites, such as Barnes and Noble or Borders. Amazon doesn’t always have the best prices, especially when the local B&N won’t charge me shipping.

All in all, this is an app for a select audience. If you’re a lover of literature who needs to keep track of books, well, this app is probably worth your while. It’s a very slick way of keeping tabs on your eventual reading to-do list. If not, you probably haven’t gotten this far into the review! The bottom line is that while Next Read won’t do everything, it fulfills its specific mission well enough to make it a keeper. Square Wheel currently has Next Read priced at $0.99.

Dreams & Lotto claims to be based on the book La Smorfia, which according to the app’s description is “one of the oldest and most well-known texts on interpreting dreams.” The app description also claims that you can “Write in your dream and the corresponding numbers will appear,” but instead gives you a dictionary of just over 2,400 words to choose from.

Based on the app’s description you’d think that Dreams & Lotto would perhaps be a diary where you could record your dreams. Maybe it would have the ability to hunt through your diary entries and give you lotto numbers based on that text?

Instead what you get is a dictionary of sorts. You search for specific words but the dictionary is so small it will often not contain what you are looking for. You can also scroll through the list and select a word. Each word is tied to a specific number. Once you have picked numbers, you can then e-mail them to someone.

Other than the search list and the ability to e-mail the numbers you’ve accumulated, the only other option Dreams & Lotto has is a button to clear the number list so you can start over again. It is a bare bones app that appears to have one goal, and that is to take your money and give you very little value in return. I recommend you avoid this app.

In case you clicked through hoping to see a new controversial mod for GTA4, you’re out of luck. Hot Popcorn is a movie listings app for the iPhone / iPod Touch, but it has much more inside its glittery UI than seen at first blush.

Hot Popcorn does its centerpiece feature very well. On the Movies tab, you can sort films that are out in the theater by current box office revenue, alphabetically, opening soon, and upcoming. When you’ve chosen your filter, the list of movies displays as you’d expect, with poster art and a quick summary of information you need at your fingertips: plot summary, Rotten Tomatoes rating, release date, running time, and MPAA rating. See a film you’re interested in? Select it with a tap to see the full detail, which includes a larger movie poster, star reviews, Rotten Tomatoes rating, runtime, genre, actor list, Rotten Tomato critical consensus, and synopsis. From these detailed pages you can click through to Amazon, which opens right inside the app, or even purchase movie tickets inside the software. Reviews from around the web, as well as Rotten Tomatoes critiques, are one click away as well.

The DVD tab offers the same kind of interface for browsing Top Rentals, Current Releases, New and Upcoming DVD releases. Keeping the navigation and detail pages the same as the Movies section provides seamless integration and familiarity across the application (although “Buy Tickets” doesn’t make much sense for DVD releases).

The Search tab, as you’d imagine, allows you to quickly search for a theater or DVD title. If you simply want to see what trailers are out there at the moment, the Trailers tab allows you to scroll through a list of previews, although it’s hard to determine exactly what order the app is trying to display them. The Theaters tab displays the current movie times in your area.

Aside from a well-designed UI, two things struck me about Hot Popcorn that elevate it above current free offerings in the iTunes Store (some of which are nearly as capable as this one). Firstly, when I click on the Theaters tab, Hot Popcorn instantly displays the closest theater showtimes in my area without me having to enter a zip code or manually scan for my coordinates. Secondly, the feature that makes this app worth its $1.99 asking price is the ability to purchase tickets right within the application without having to go to Safari. In fact, all links within the software stay inside the software, a welcome change to the tiresome click-link-exit-app-open-safari-close-safari-reopen-app task that I seem to be doing more often than not in other applications.

One of things I don’t understand, however, is Hot Popcorn’s need to display an ad for a movie when you first open the app. If I’m paying a premium for the software itself, why should I be subject to ads? Here’s hoping they either remove the ad (which displays for a quick second at the beginning and then disappears), or just move to a free ad-supported version. My second gripe is that Boctor Design is only using movietickets.com to enable purchases, which may be fine for a lot of theaters, but the two largest cinemas in my area are Regal, and thus only sell their tickets through Fandango. I’m not sure what kind of licensing issues they’d have to deal with, but getting Fandango on board seems like a priority.

Even though other movie listing apps in the store offer similar functionality, paying $1.99 seems like a cheap commodity for the ability to purchase tickets and visit reviews and more without exiting the software (as long as your theaters are supported). If Boctor Design makes just a few tweaks to the existing code-base, we think this could turn into a perfect 5-star offering.

The Good Guide helps you find the best natural, safe, and organic products wherever you shop. For each product you can see a photo, and information on where it’s rating came from. This rating comes from a variety or ratings including the ingredients of the product, the manufacturing process, and the ethical practices of the company.

You can also set up shopping and avoid lists for the stores you shop at. To do this you need to create an account at http://goodguide.com though.

If safe, natural, or organic products are important to you, the Good Guide is a fantastic reference.

Pick & Choose Groceries is an application designed to, as you might guess, make grocery lists. It’s well done and with continued use might save you some time in creating your grocery lists.

The convenience that Pick & Choose Groceries adds over just using the standard note pad is the extensive lists of indexed groceries included. Rather than typing in what you need, you can simply choose the items that you need from the index. In addition, you can choose items recently checked off from your other lists. The idea being that some items may be common purchases for you — think milk, eggs, bread, etc.

Pick & Choose also includes the ability to keep multiple lists. This might be something you set up for different stores or perhaps different trips to a store.

When you are at the store, you can switch into shop mode — this mode allows you to quickly check items off of your list. In addition, your lists are automatically categorized into the areas of the grocery store. Other features include the ability to e-mail a list and to find nearby grocery stores. Finding local stores is an interesting feature, but one that I doubt anyone will use very often.

While in the end I think this application is well done, and there are very few things that I would change in it, I question if I would actually use it. The real benefit comes from repeated use and configuration to tailor the lists to your common purchases. If you are the kind of person that would benefit from such a list making app, then it might be worth a try, it’s just not for me.

Wikime is a location aware iPhone OS application that will return Wikipedia articles that are location tagged near your current position. For this to work, WikiMe need to get your current location from the build in GPS. It’s a great tool for finding out about areas you travel to but is hampered by the number of articles in Wikipedia that are actually tagged.

iPhone Integration Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

While WikiMe integrates well with the GPS system in the iPhone, it stops there. Contacts integration seems like a natural addition to this application. An ideal feature to add would be the ability to add a contact based on the results returned or find results near a contact.

User Interface Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The user interface is fairly well done. The only issues is with the text size on the Wikipedia articles. They can be rather hard to see without zooming in. Many mobile Wikipedia programs will process the returned article for better viewing on the smaller mobile screens. That would make a nice addition to this application.

Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

One thing you can say about this application is that it provides value. I’ve found myself referring to this application many time while away from home. The results it finds are interesting, educational, and surprising at times.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Overall a good value for an informational program such as this. With a few tweaks this could be come a world class application.