But today, 12 years later with two kids and a wife, I’m no longer that guy. I’ll watch the F&F movies, but at this point it’s all about entertainment, not wishing I could get my car in the film. So what appeal will Fast & Furious 6 — a game based on the latest installment in the series — do for me? Let’s find out after the jump.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

The Premise

Like most movies that contain the words “Fast” and “Furious,” there isn’t much of a plot to be had. You’re a street racer, and you have a car that you race to earn cash to modify your car. Your goal is to join a group of racers — the main characters from the films — so you can commit crimes and what-not.

Characters from the movie like Ludacris — or Tej, as it were.

The plot is just a device to move you around the game, with various levels offering different options. You can also check out some unique movie features, such as trailers or the soundtrack if you like.

Avoiding the Common Flaws

The biggest problem I have with most racing games on the iPhone — or any iOS device — is that you usually have to lean or tilt the phone to get the car to turn. Between pivoting the phone constantly and trying to tap virtual buttons on the screen, it can get quite irritating. That’s why I typically don’t play (or review) racing games.

The walkthrough gives you very clear instructions.

Fast & Furious 6 avoids this problem by turning the game into a series of quicktime events. For example, each race starts off with a launch. To get the best start, you need to tap the Launch button just as the proverbial checkered flag drops. If you want to drift, you tap the Drift button just as you enter a certain segment on the course. And of course, there’s shifting and nitrous to work with as well, all of them just requiring a quick tap or hold of a button to progress. That keeps things simple, and fun as well.

The Pretty Stuff

The graphics in the game are pretty spectacular. The cars show reflections in the paint, the streets have a glossy appearance and the lighting in the background is impressive. On the Retina display on the iPhone 5, this is just a good looking game. It’s not Infinity Blade, but it’s up there.

See? It’s pretty.

The Evil Inside

The problem, as it is with most free games, is that in-app purchases make a sinister appearance. Each race earns you money, and some earn you golden FF tickets. As you play, you’ll need to modify your car so you can beat faster rides, and to do that, you need to spend the money or tickets. Of course, if you want to get those tickets faster, you can buy them.

IAP. Ugh.

But that’s not the insidious part to me. What offends me the most is that your car takes gas. And of course, when it runs out of gas, you can’t race any further. To get gas, you can spend the money or tickets that you’ve earned, sure. Problem is, the cost for gas is exponentially higher than most upgrades, making it almost a given that if you want to continue, you’ll be forced to make an in-app purchase. That’s crap. Admittedly, you can earn gas just by sitting around and waiting, but that can kill a vibe when you’re in the middle of a big session.

Final Thoughts

Overall, F&F 6 is a fun game to play. It is a bit repetitive — drift, race, get money, spend money, wash, rinse, repeat — but that’s not a bad thing. This type of game has a short shelf life anyways, so for the month or two that we’re playing it, I’ll have a good time. And since it’s free — assuming you ignore all that IAP stuff — then there’s nothing to worry about.

What’s unfortunate is that the game doesn’t have more depth. With a bit more to it, this could be a game that I could really sink my teeth into. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, and it probably won’t be with this type of licensed app. Oh well, I suppose there’s next time.

If only I’d had Arro back then, an app to narrow down your choices and take the guesswork out of major purchases. Can Arro point you in the right direction and get rid of all of that decision-making anxiety?

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

Take Aim at What You Want

Arro’s great if you need to buy something, especially something expensive, but you don’t know what to buy. There are five categories to choose from: electronics, personal care, baby, fitness and appliances. If you’re looking for something that falls outside of those buckets, Arro can’t help, but if you need a new TV or stroller, you’re all set. Tap the category that matches the thing you need to buy.

What are you looking for?

Choose the type of product you’re looking for on the next screen. Is it a makeup concealer in personal care or a camping stove in fitness? Once you’ve told Arrow what you need, it will ask you what’s most important to you. Do you value durability over ease of assembly? Comfort over portability? (These attributes will all change based on category; Arro won’t ask if you want a comfortable Blu-ray player!) Scroll to the bottom for any extra options, set your price range and tap find.

Arro will return your search results, with a top match highlighted. This is the product Arro thinks most closely fits your needs. There will be a star rating taken from user reviews, and you can see how much it’ll set you back. If you’re ready to pull the trigger, Arro also links you to an online retailer where you can go ahead and buy your new eyeshadow, crib or dishwasher. For big items that are difficult to ship, you can also search stores near you.

Tell Arro what you’re looking for, and it will find your best match.

If you’ve already got something in mind, you don’t have to go through the dog and pony show of listing out your must-haves. Instead, tap Buy Or Not at the bottom of the screen. Here you can search for anything you’re thinking of buying directly, as long as it fits in the five Arro categories. Anything Arro thinks is a good buy gets a green Yes screen, but if not, you’ll be met with a large, red No that leaves no room for misunderstanding.

Arro thinks I made a better choice and has a better suggestion for me.

Buy Or Not will then give you recommendations of better options similar to the potential purchase you’ve just input. Often, Arro will recommend a new model of the same thing or a better brand. Here, though, Arro isn’t taking into account any of the attributes you would have used in the product matchmaking feature above, nor does it keep its recommendations to a set price range, so you’ll want to take the Buy Or Not product list with a grain of salt.

Favorite Things to Buy

I’m not someone who rushes in, and I take some time before making big purchases, especially if I’m buying something big like a television. I’ll want to read lots of industry reviews in addition to all of the user reviews I can access on retailers’ sites through Arro. Luckily, I can save anything I’m really digging to my favorites in Arro and review it later. That way, if there is something I’m thinking of purchasing but I’m not ready to hit the Buy Now button, I can keep track of it and come back to it later when I have more information.

It’s not all electronics with Arro.

It would be great to separate out all of my favorite items in Arro by category. Currently, I have Blu-ray players, a dishwasher and some makeup in my favorites list, and they’re all jumbled up. I’d like to easily compare the Blu-ray players, but to get them into any coherent list, I need to manually reorganize everything. While that’s certainly doable, category listings would be awesome and would quickly rid my personal electronics comparison chart of moisturizing facial wipes.

Final Thoughts

Arro is really a neat app to have on hand. The first time I tried it out, I put in all my requirements for a camera and it spit out the newest model of the camera I already own. While it felt nice to be affirmed like that, told I had made the best choice a couple of years ago when I last bought a camera, I couldn’t help thinking Arro was spot on. I love my camera and haven’t had any complaints. Arro knew what it was doing.

If you’ve ever looked to buy something that you really knew very little about, it can be incredibly overwhelming. You know what’s important to you, but you don’t know which products have those features. And I bet you want it to be reliable, too. On top of all that, you have to search a ton of sites to get the best information. Instead of spending hours or days researching before you finally make a purchase, Arro takes care of all of that for you, giving you back a feeling of confidence when buying big (or even small) ticket items.

Don’t worry if you’re a fan of other genres though — variety is the spice of life, and we’re always keeping things spicy here at AppStorm. Click through for some crazy fish antics, a bit of petty theft and a variety of mind bending puzzles!

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

What Have You Been Playing?

Good luck puzzling through this week’s collection of games! See you back here next Friday for a fresh set.

Again based upon Nick Risinger’s stunning cosmological photography, Sky Guide is the new iteration of Sky Survey — the most beautiful app in the App Store, until now. Like Apple, Risinger knows even the best products can be improved, and with Sky Guide his team has brought a wealth of new material to give any astronomy enthusiast goosebumps. The idea may remain the same but there’s plenty of features to get excited about whilst scanning the Milky Way. Let’s take a look.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

Natural Beauty

The unblemished night sky is one of the finest sights known to man; the trouble is that such a sight is becoming increasingly more difficult to witness. For the uninitiated, Nick Risinger’s 5,000 megapixel mosaic is made up of 37,000 photographs captured from some of the most remote locations on Earth and shows an incomprehensible array of celestial sights in unadulterated clarity. This extraordinary image forms the very fabric of Sky Guide and allows for an experience rarely had in the flesh.

The stunning panorama of the Milky Way.

Competing apps like Night Sky show a computer render of the Milky Way with thousands of banal, indistinguishable dots miserably representing the beautiful spiral galaxy’s components. Sky Guide incorporates the built-in gyroscope to accurately mirror the sky above with real images, thus enabling instant recognition of every planet and constellation on show. No data connection is required to traverse the skies and it is even possible to enter raw coordinates to mimic a specific area from anywhere in the world.

The panorama can be dimmed to match the sky above your head.

The core image behind Sky Guide is incredibly detailed and, due to its enormous size, is not shown at full resolution. Such intricacy shows thousands of real stars, some impossible to see in even moderately light pollution free areas; therefore, with a two-finger scroll gesture the panorama can be dimmed in order to match the sky above, enabling easier identification of the visible stars. That’s not where the beauty ends with this app, however.

Information, Beautified

Sky Guide, although perfectly capable of being a browsing app, is innately educational with complete disregard for degree of knowledge. Whereas its predecessor relied upon Wikipedia for content, this time multiple academic sources have been utilised to provide higher quality content. Much of the information has been handcrafted by a number of highly respected individuals giving an unparalleled level of expertise in this app category and a vast amount of educational resource.

Detailed information can be accessed by selecting specific objects with external links below.

To access a particular object’s information, simply tap on the panorama to uncover the necessary icon from where a slide-out panel appears. Rather than occupying only a portion of the screen as with Sky Survey, the new app utilises the full display to reveal beautiful, specific images alongside the relevant information and links. The interface itself is marvellous and allows focus to remain on the rich content featured with the sans-serif font set against deep black panels being a beautifully minimalist touch. After all, it is simplicity that makes for a great UI and this app has it in abundance.

Customise what you can see in the panorama.

The interface is exemplary throughout with a slimmed down menu and simplistic sharing options that allow selected areas of the panorama to be showcased on Twitter and Facebook. The main menu — accessible from the ubiquitous hamburger button — lists options for customising the panorama; however, compared to Sky Survey, the detail options are very few and far between. That said, Sky Guide is light years ahead of the former app in terms of general speed, fluidity and beauty making the trade-off more than worthwhile.

Serene Utility

One major addition to this title is the presence of music. A collaboration with Mat Jarvis of Osmos HD fame has yielded a melodic soundtrack oozing with ethereal, dulcet tones. As with Osmos, I highly recommend using Sky Guide with a set of headphones to become fully immersed in the app; an experience I promise is like no other on iOS. Amazingly, it’s even possible to play the stars as each recognised star has a related note that sounds when tapped. Hotter stars emit a higher pitched sound compared to the deeper tones of their cooler counterparts. The integration of the special sounds and the overlying track is intriguingly brilliant with each extra sound seeming to fit perfectly every time.

Insert specific coordinates and see when your favourite constellation is due to rise.

Searching for specific objects is possible from the magnifying glass icon quietly displayed to the top right and allows for a manual search or object-specific browsing. Every app has small, seemingly irrelevant features that can help bring the entire project together of which Sky Guide has several, however, one in particular stands out. With each search result a time is given in which the constellation, galaxy, planet or star is due to rise then set. This not only means you know what to look for but also when to look upwards, such a feature exemplifies the thought that has been given throughout the app making it a real pleasure to use.

An App For Every Space Enthusiast

I love everything about this app if you couldn’t tell already, right down to the icon itself. Let’s face it, an icon has to be picturesque to warrant a spot on any homescreen and Sky Guide’s may be one of the best. However, that’s enough of the minutiae, the simple fact is this app is fantastic and a marked improvement upon its already near-perfect predecessor. Given the nature of the apps, owners of Sky Survey already have the predominant feature of Sky Guide; however, personally, between the far superior information bank and gorgeous soundtrack, I believe there is more than enough here to warrant taking a look.

Find out why you should grab a sword and join Usagi on his noble journey after the jump.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

Get Going Down the Rabbit Trail

Usagi Yojimbo’s mission is to retrieve a mirror that is being held onto by priests. Somehow, obtaining this mirror will free the Old Ones, who are currently in a cave. Once they’re freed, they’re capable of ridding the world of evil, so what valiant hero wouldn’t take up arms to help out?

Start Usagi’s journey and follow this map through forests, mountains and various villages.

Usagi will engage in dialogue with the rogues he runs into. After waxing poetic grunt speak about how they plan to hurt the hero, battles ensue. Some opponents will simply be muscle, while others may carry a weapon or fire off arrows with their bows. Regardless, keep track of who’s on the screen and who has Usagi in their crosshairs, because once the rabbit’s life gauge is empty, that’s it for this hare.

The Bunny Battles Back

Of course, a good offense can be a great defense against bad guys. The red and blue buttons on the bottom-right portion of the screen represent strong and not-as-strong attacks, respectively. Use them at their most simple to fend off the thugs trying to take Usagi down.

Get slicing against the variety of foes that are ready to rip Usagi Yojimbo apart.

As Usagi progresses from one stage to the next, he’ll unlock attack combos that will make short work of his enemies. Make a note of the order of which red-blue-button combination will complete the fierce techniques.

For example, double tapping an attack button may get the long-eared hero to strike someone twice or perhaps cause him to jab his sword with more force to take out the enemies. One of the more fun power-ups earned is a technique that allows Usagi to jump and spin in the air, wielding his sword to thrash enemies standing on either side. That move is helpful during fierce fights where the odds aren’t in the ronin warrior’s favor.

Learn new attack combos as Usagi progresses through fierce battles.

Friends and Other Benefits

Since a two-player game isn’t an option, Usagi Yojimbo gives players the next best thing. Throughout the anthromorphic adventure, Usagi will meet up with allies, and it usually isn’t long before a gang of toughs follows. Like some role-playing online and video games, Usagi’s allies will join the fray, controlled by the app’s internal computer, and help him slice and dice his way to the next part of the stage. This is no small advantage, so let them get in a few hits or tackle tough guys that may be more difficult to conquer. Be warned: their help is only temporary and the cast of sidekicks changes throughout the game.

Be lucky the lady is on Usagi’s side when the app helps out our hero.

Once an enemy has been exterminated, he’ll fall flat on his back, exhale a skull and crossbones, and may leave behind a goodie such as a coin or even a heart, which can revitalize Usagi’s health meter. Coins can purchase Health, Damage and Armor upgrades, each of which will improve how strong our hero becomes and improves how long he will hold up during the vicious battles that come his way.

Get chatty with friends and enemies.

Keep track of how much progress Usagi has made by giving the map a glance every now and then. Downward pointing arrows will indicate which stages have been completed and players can get an idea of the terrains they will battle in during future fights. During gameplay, what look like movie reels show up on the screen that ends each stage. These will rank players as to how well they have completed a level. They’ll also transition players into an educational session, where they will be schooled on a new ninja technique or weapon that they can use to Usagi’s advantage during battles. Pay special attention to these tips!

The action gets intense, so keep your hand close to your sword.

Grab the Rabbit by the Ears

Usagi Yojimbo: Way of the Ronin is a treat among iOS games. The graphics are impressive — characters are nicely drawn and have detailed facial expressions. It’s almost always easy to identify which creature they are a caricature of and it’s fun to have some underused members of the animal kingdom (walruses!) present and accounted for. The background scenery is also well done, be it the intricate design of the forest or the obvious thought put into the distinctive look of the rooms of home and buildings in village.

Gameplay is simple enough, but players bored with button mashing can use finessed techniques to add some style to their fighting. Usagi is also very responsive to the controls given to him, executing moves fluidly and efficiently during the violent confrontations.

Some of the conversations that take place between Usagi and his friends and enemies within the game can be too frequent and too long. Players who love a good story might enjoy the interludes, while those looking to beat up Noah’s Ark may get annoyed at the delay.

But overall, the intensity of the battles is challenging, as are the opponents. This is an app that will draw in and keep entertained the casual gaming fans as well as those who take the craft seriously.

On the other hand, sometimes a home just needs a little freshening up as your style and tastes evolve over time. If your abode is in need of a makeover, look no further. Herein you’ll find tips and tricks, plus plenty of inspiration. Now roll up your sleeves and click “more” to get started.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

Home Sweet Home

Where does your home design inspiration come from? And which apps are crucial to your home improvement and other DIY projects? Let us know in the comments below.

Here, I have compiled a list of ten iPhone essentials that will guarantee to make your road trip run that little bit smoother. Hit the jump to read on!

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

Destination Unknown

So there we have it — ten iPhone essentials that will ensure your trip goes without a hitch. Are you planning on hitting the open road this year? Where are you going? Leave a comment and let me know!

Rovio is back with yet another sequel, but this time, it’s not an affiliation with a big blockbuster movie. Angry Birds Friends is all about bringing deep Facebook integration to everyone’s favourite bird-flinging game. Let’s take a closer look at what Rovio has crammed into its latest title, after the break.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

Overview

The idea behind Angry Birds Friends is to take the same renowned and loved gameplay formula of the Angry Birds series, and create a new title that essentially plays the same. But instead of working your way through stages, it has you compete against your Facebook friend’s scores in weekly tournaments, all whilst enjoying the same great gameplay style that made Angry Birds so popular since its introduction in 2009.

The stage selection screen, where you choose what stage to play next.

While this formula isn’t wholly original (tons of games already integrate with your FB friends list for personalised scoreboards), the addition of weekly tournaments and other time limited challenges keep things fresh and keeps you coming back to see if you can finally get a win.

Getting Started

Once you’ve downloading the app, you’re presented with a tutorial that comprises of a few test levels to introduce you to the gameplay mechanics. Upon completion of the tutorial, the app will request access to your Facebook information to fill the game’s scoreboards with your friend’s scores and profile pictures. This is all done securely through iOS’s Facebook integration, so there’s no need to reveal any login details to the app itself.

The main menu.

After the tutorial is completed and your friend’s scores are integrated, you can jump straight in and hit the week’s tournament. A tournament comprises of six different individual stages to complete, with your total score tallied up at the end and displayed in a leaderboard amongst your friend’s scores. You can go back and play any of the six stages as many times as you like within the seven days to improve your score and hopefully step up a place of two in the rankings.

Gameplay is pretty much the same tried-and-tested formula we’re used to.

This freedom to keep replaying stages helps with the longevity of the title. You could be in first place, then half an hour later you could have lost your top spot because your friend went on and improved their score. I like this style; instead of you playing the six stages then just waiting to see the rankings at the end of the week, it’s ongoing. It reminds me very much of N-Gage’s shadow racing tournaments back in the day (props to you if you even know what they were).

Gameplay

Gameplay has remained pretty much the same as previous Angry Birds titles. As a brief overview for those who aren’t familiar, in each stage there are several “bad piggies” that are (most of the time) stationary, and you have to fling your birds at them to destroy them. Sometimes the piggies are underneath or next to obstacles, like pieces of rock or a wooden tower, that you must either move or knock down with your bird flinging skills. The game is a cartoon styled 2-D, and very much physics based. You sometimes find yourself having to hit obstacles to then knock them into a piggie to destroy them, or skillfully bounce your bird off a surface to then hit an intricately placed piggie.

It’s all very addicting stuff. Add in different birds you can fling that have different skill sets (such as exploding when you tap the screen during flight, or ones that split into three smaller birds to take out multiple piggies at once) and you have a winning formula. Angry Birds Friends also features four classic power-ups from previous titles, as well as an exclusive new one.

Some stages are quite creative.

As with all other Angry Birds titles, it’s very much skill based and the more you play, the more accustom you’ll become with what angles to fling the birds at, what piggies to aim for first, and when to use your power-ups.

The only thing people may find a little strange is that once you’ve had your fun with the weekly tournament, that’s kind of it. There is no other game mode, apart from power-up practice (which doesn’t really count as a game mode).

Performance & Presentation

The cute cartoon-style presentation we’re all used to is back with Rovio’s latest addition to the series, and it’s as great as ever. Everything is sharp and crisp, in-game environments look great and overall the title is a joy to look at. Sounds are brilliant too, just as ever. The birds squawk as they fly through the air, say “ow” when they hit a rock and there are loads of other background sound effects to add to the whole cutesy nature of the title.

The blue triple splitting bird is my favourite.

Playing the title on my iPhone 5 is fantastic in terms of performance. I experienced no dropped frames and no crashes. Some users have experienced difficulty connecting to Rovio’s server, which has resulted in a few one-star reviews on iTunes, but I haven’t experienced that myself.

Pricing

Rovio has opted to make this title free, which is great. However, there are in-app purchases available (surprise, surprise). To be honest though, these are purely for coins which allow you to buy more power-ups, and these coins can be earned by playing stages anyway. Therefore, whilst I’m sure these in-app purchases will annoy some users, those who choose to invest a little cash in coins won’t be at a huge advantage — free users will just need to play a little longer to get as many power-ups.

Some in-app purchases are available, but they keep things fair.

Conclusion

Any Angry Birds fan is sure to find some value in this title, and those who haven’t played before are sure to find it good fun too. Having your friends in the leader boards adds a competitive edge to what is widely regarded as one of the best casual games out there.

It seems like when people want to start complaining about iOS, skeuomorphism — the concept of making digital interfaces that look and act like their real-life counterparts — always seems to come up. Sure, the Podcasts app was pretty rugged for a bit, and no one likes Game Center, but is it all that bad?

Well let’s ask you. What do you think? Does skeuomorphism work for you or do you hate it? Let us know in the poll to the right!

Sparrow and Gmail both have filled in some gaps for Gmail users, but they’ve mostly addressed issues such as filters and labels and things that non-Gmail users are never going to use. But maybe the real problem with mobile email is that most developers are so busy trying to replicate the desktop experience that they’ve forgotten to address the needs of the mobile user first. This is the gap that Triage is trying to fill.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

The Details

First things first: to use Triage, you need to have a Gmail account, Yahoo! Mail account or an iCloud account. Most IMAP services are also supported, but developer Southgate Labs isn’t making any guarantees (it was only recently that support came for FastMail and DreamHost).

It’s important that I tell you right away that this is not a desktop email client. There are no folders or labels. Gmail users can’t tag anything and there’s no search. You won’t be browsing through old emails only the newest unread ones in your inbox get displayed. Triage has Archive support for Gmail, but that’s it. Nothing fancy.

This is as simple as it gets.

There isn’t notification support and there’s no way to send a new email from within the app (you can, however, reply to a message without a problem). This is an exercise in making design decisions that some people will feel compromise mobile app design. That being said, Triage is unique and its compromises are brilliant solutions to unsolved problems in the mobile industry.

How Does Triage Work?

Triage simply fetches your email from the server and displays it as a stack of small cards in the middle of your iPhone screen. If you tap the card, a full-screen view comes up that allows you to read the email. There really isn’t much to do in an email, either: there’s a Reply button and an icon that essentially acts as a Back button to get you back to your stack of messages.

What’s really nifty about the app is more the stack of messages itself. Instead of letting you organize email into folders or anything like that — things that take, frankly, too much time — you can either choose to get rid of the message or keep it for later. Depending on your email provider and your settings within the app, getting rid of a message means either deleting or archiving it (but not both). You flick the message up to get rid of it, which means it’s gone like you would expect. Of you were to open another mail app on any device, the message wouldn’t be in your inbox.

Because I’m using Gmail, swiping up archives the email. But swiping down keeps it so I can respond later.

If you choose to keep the message by flicking down, the message disappears from Triage, but not your inbox. Triage doesn’t even mark the message as read. That being said, you’ve dealt with it. Now you’re on to the next message and you get to do what you choose with that one too.

When you keep a message, you’re essentially saving it for later. If you open the stock Mail app, it’s still sitting there and it’s waiting for you, unread. You can reply to it there or categorize it however you want. It’s also waiting for you on your desktop or work machine whenever you get to it.

This is the detail view of an email.

Let’s not ignore the Reply function, though: if you do feel that an email is pertinent enough to get an immediate response, you can do that within Triage without a problem. Actually, the interface is clean enough that I felt its Compose window was, in some ways, superior to Apple’s stock app. Not that you’ll be seeing the Compose window a lot in Triage; again, there’s no way to send a new email. You’ll have to rely on a different app for that kind of work.

But Why?

I’m so glad you asked that question. The point of Triage is simple: make handling email on your mobile device easier. The whole point is that by stripping away what you’re capable of doing in an email client, it lets you actually think about what you plan on doing with the message itself.

You can tap the header to see a bit more detailed information as well, but the app doesn’t overload you with information.

When I wake up, I check Triage. There are no notification dings or vibrations. From there, the decision becomes simple. If I can type out a short response on my iPhone and it’s important enough to do so, I’ll do that. If it’s not, I’ll save it for later or delete it. If I save it for later, when I move to a computer or iPad, I’ll type out a response then. After all, it’s still sitting unread in my inbox and waiting for me whenever I’m ready. My twenty minutes spent checking email on my phone every morning while making coffee turns into twenty seconds.

This is the Reply window. As you can see, there’s no way to insert an image or anything like that.

And that’s the point: Triage lets me take care of my emails quickly, when I’m ready. Because there’s no notifications and no way to turn them on and because I can’t waste half my day organizing email into the appropriate folder, email is back in my control. It’s like a controllable way of reaching Inbox Zero. Triage will tell me there aren’t any new messages, because there aren’t any new messages. There are just the messages I’ve seen, and they’re either gone or waiting for me whenever I’m ready.

Is It For You?

I’ll make no bones about it: this is a user problem. I’ve been trained, as a user, to respond to notifications when I first see them. I’ve been trained to use every function of my email client. By stripping it all down, I’ve rethought how my email should work and it’s made things easier for me. Maybe I’m crazy, but I think I need an email app like this and I think there are more people like that out there. True, you could treat email in Mail or Gmail or Sparrow similarly on your phone, but Triage forces you to.

I’ve reviewed a lot of apps and said a lot of good things about them, but not all of them have stayed on my phone and none of them have made their way into my dock. But Triage has done both of those things and the stock Mail app now sits where it belongs: in my Utilities folder. I wish Triage would let me compose a brand new email, but it’s not meant to do that. It’s not replacing those apps or your desktop client, but it’s making email feel as fast-paced and mobile as I am. And to me, that’s worth my $1.99.

With Photoshop being such a power desktop application, I asked myself if it was possible for Adobe to develop an adequate version for a phone. After spending time with Photoshop Touch, though, I came away with a definitive answer to my previous question.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

Navigating the Interface

The biggest challenge with developing a version of Photoshop for the iPhone is creating a UI that is both intuitive and uncluttered. While not perfect, Photoshop Touch certainly hits this mark very well. The Canvas takes center stage, and you can zoom in and out by performing a pinch-in or pinch-out gesture. When zoomed in, there’s not clear method to move to a different area of the photo, so you’ll need to zoom out and back in, respectively.

You’ll need to pinch and zoom to navigate the canvas.

The top menu displays four icons that group categorized functions and tools together. For instance, the first icons are all selection based actions (e.g. copy, deselect, select all). On the far right you’ll find the ever so handy Undo tool, which is always one of the most important functions in any photo editing app (though I’d prefer a history menu like in Luminance).

You’ll find a number of great tools in the top toolbar.

The bottom left icon allows for quick access of the most popular Photoshop tools, such as the Magic Wand, Brush, Eraser, Clone Stamp. To the immediate right you’ll find the options menu, which like the desktop app, is used to make adjustments to your selected tool (e.g. Brush Size, Color). Finally, the bottom right icon opens the Layers menu. From here you can add new layers, make layer adjustments and reorganize layers by tapping the desired layer and sliding it up and down.

The layers menu is very well designed for a phone interface.

If you’re familiar with Photoshop, finding and using most tools and functions will be a piece of cake. However, I spent over 10 minutes trying to figure out how to move an object, which is typically done with the Move Tool. To save everyone else a bit of time, moving an object is performed by selecting the Transform tool (found by tapping the ampersand icon), and then tapping anywhere outside of the selected object and sliding it to your desired location.

Crop, rotate and add text are all found here.

Unique Tools & Options

I absolutely love the manner in which numerical adjustments are made in Photoshop Touch. For instance, when changing the size of the Brush, you’re able to use sliders to increase and decrease the size number. If you want a particular number, which is often difficult to achieve with sliders, you can tap the number and a keypad pops up, allowing you to quickly input the number and tap the checkmark button. This may seem like a rather small feature for me to tout so highly, but most apps would simply use the built-in keyboard for numerical inputs of this nature, which is the opposite of convenience.

Photoshop Touch offers one of the best number input interfaces I’ve ever seen in an app.

Out of the barrage of tools available in Photoshop, a large number ended up making it into Photoshop Touch. While that alone is pretty cool, Adobe created a pair of selection tools unique to Photoshop Touch. The Brush Selection Tool can be used to paint objects you wish to select, while the Scribble Selection Tool is used to highlight objects you wish to keep and objects you wish to remove. I found that these tools worked very well in conjunction, with the Scribble Selection Tool being used as a starting point and the Brush Selection Tool being used to make more precise adjustments.

The Scribble Selection and Brush Selection Tools are unique to Photoshop Touch

Workflow & Stylus

I can’t speak for everyone, but my workflow in Photoshop Touch isn’t nearly as fast or smooth compared to working in the desktop app. However, it would be foolish to think this wouldn’t be the case. When using tools, there are a number of additional taps you’ll need to perform in Photoshop Touch that aren’t necessary in Photoshop. With that being said, once I got used to where each tool was located, I was able to tap and navigate quickly to each new selection and make quick adjustments to tool options.

A critical tool for some Photoshop users when dealing with workflow, is the pen tablet. Luckily, this experience can be replicated with the use of a stylus. For the sake of research, I experimented with both my finger and a stylus. I experienced issues with my sausage fingers when attempting to perform actions that required a bit of finesse, but broader strokes were performed with ease. However, I ended up growing fond of my stylus, as it allowed me to see each stroke without my handling blocking the view.

Powerful Editing

While some may dismiss Photoshop Touch as substandard version of the desktop app, lacking the ability to perform powerful editing, I don’t believe this is the case. It’s true that some of best and/or my personal favorite features of Photoshop, such as Masks, Burn Tool, and Adjustment Layers, are nowhere to be found. However, it doesn’t mean that powerful edits aren’t possible.

Original photo on the left and the Photoshop Touch on the right.

As I test, I attempted to duplicate a personal project I created in celebration of Impossible Astronaut Day (all Whovians should understand, hopefully). My original edit required several layers, in which I used various tools and filters. Since Adjustment Layers and Mask weren’t available, I had to make adjustments (e.g. Saturation, Hue, Brightness & Contrast) to the layers themselves (never a good editing strategy if it can be helped). While I was unable to duplicate my previous efforts exactly, I found both versions to be equally well constructed.

Importing & Sharing

Photoshop Touch offers integration with Adobe Creative Cloud, which when used will automatically sync all projects to your Creative Cloud account. If you happen to use Photoshop CS6, this is a great feature because you can import synced files and continue your work. For those individuals using a previous version of Photoshop, which includes myself, you can always save a JPEG or PNG version to your Camera Roll, or to a number of third-party apps (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Evernote, Dropbox).

There are number of methods available for sharing your photos and designs.

The Bottom Line

As a Photoshop user, I’m quite at home with Adobe Photoshop Touch for Phone. I certainly miss Masks and Adjustment Layers, but for the most part I’m able to find simple workarounds. The biggest problem I found with Photoshop Touch, however, is that without prior Photoshop experience the app is very intimidating to use. The Help section offers a lackluster explanation of the app’s features and tools, so inexperienced users will often be left to fumble in the dark, so to speak, in an attempt to use many of the apps functions.

So, if you’re in the market for a great photo editing app but aren’t experienced with Photoshop, I suggest trying out less intimidating apps such as Luminance or Snapseed. Both offer powerful photo editing, but only require a basic understanding of editing tools. For those of you that have a familiarity with Photoshop, Photoshop Touch is very much worth the price of admission ($4.99), but only if you don’t feel that apps like Snapseed or Luminance do not fulfill your photo editing needs.

What makes Dots better than my other addictions? Well, there’s a list, so let me just break it down after the jump.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

1. It’s Easy to Play and Learn

Dots has arguably the shortest description I’ve ever seen on the App Store:

Dots is a game about connecting the dots.

While that is true, there is a bit more to the game than just the dots themselves. You have five colors of dots on the board: blue, yellow, red, purple and a minty green. Your job is to use your finger to connect two or more dots together. You can only do so in straight lines — no diagonals.

Even the intro is deep.

However, if you can trace your path back to the original dot or create a pentomino (and yes, I had to look that one up), then you get more points. And the bigger the shape, the more points you get. Also, once a pentomino is built, it clears out all of the dots of that color from the board. This usually allows you to build more square shapes, get more points and so on.

2. It’s Quick

One of the most important things about a game for me is that it’s easy to pick up and play quickly. The doctor’s office waiting room is a good example; I’ve got time to kill, but I have no idea how much, so I pick up something that I can put right back down if necessary. Grand Theft Auto doesn’t fit into that category, nor does anything else with a Save button. That’s why a quick game makes sense in those scenarios, and since I constantly seem to find myself in some kind of line or waiting room, Dots fits that criteria well.

As you connect dots, a line forms around the perimeter of the screen. Complete the shape, and the screen changes to reflect the color of the dots you’ve used.

Each round of Dots is just 60 seconds. If you find yourself in a bind for time, there are ways to temporarily stop time, but this levels the playing field across the board. If your friend has Dots, you can compare scores and see who does better in the same amount of time. Plus, it means that the longest I’ll have to wait to finish a bad or quick game is just a minute.

3. It Uses the iPhone in a Way That Makes Sense

Sliding your finger around the iPhone’s screen isn’t innovative, but it’s better than stupid virtual joysticks and buttons that you constantly miss. If I don’t hit the right key when I’m typing an email, no sweat. But reaching for a button that doesn’t exist can cause me to lose the game, and that will tick me off.

Even if you just complete the shape at the end of a trail, it works. Oh, and you can connect with your various social networks as well.

And there’s another advantage to the ease of the game: my three-year-old son can pick it up and play it anytime he wants. To me, that says that the game is simple enough for a preschooler to use, yet challenging enough for an adult to play regularly. Now that’s a tough game to beat.

4. It’s Fun

One of the cool things about Dots is that it gives you these little achievement cards whenever you pass a certain threshold. I played it a lot over the course of this review, and suddenly I see this card pop up that reads, “Kusama Dot. You completed forty rounds of Dots!” I’m sorry — forty?

I may want to consider putting this game down.

So yes, the game is a blast to play. It’s one of those games — like Tetris, naturally — that requires some brainpower, but not enough for full concentration. I can play a game quickly at a commercial break, or sit intensely working at it for a bit to see how far I get. I love this game.

5. The IAP Doesn’t Suck

I think that most people hate in-app purchases, particularly when they’re placed in such a way that you need them to get the cool stuff or advance further in the game (which brings me back to Tapped Out, but I digress). With every game in Dots you earn points. Those points can be used to buy Time Stops, Expanders and Shrinkers, three options for you to adjust your game. If you want to speed up the process and buy more, you can purchase more points — but it’s completely unnecessary. Although I never had the cumulative points to get Expanders, I bought lots of the other two, and that helped.

The IAP doesn’t suck, nor is it necessary.

Speaking of, what do those extras do? Well Time Stops can be used once per game, and they stop the timer for five seconds. A shrinker lets you eliminate one dot from the screen in case you need just that extra spot to make a shape. Finally, Expanders wipe out all the dots of that color from the board, just like making a shape does.

Adding It Up

End result, this is a fun game that you should own. There’s no reason why not, particularly when it’s free (although I paid $0.99 when I bought it a few weeks back), beautiful to look at and a ton of fun.

Any complaints on my end? No. Well, I guess that’s not totally true. I’m not happy with what it did to my productivity while I was writing this review, or once I was done. Is that something worthy of mention?

Who cares, I’ve got to get back to playing Dots.

They can’t find anymore new puzzles, and honestly, paper just isn’t doing it for them anymore. Providing a fix for puzzle addicts, Nono Logix puts a twist on a conventional puzzle style. Will it hold the interest of power puzzlers or is it just a Sudoku clone?

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

Just Say Nono

Nono Logix is a nonogram puzzler. That meant absolutely nothing to me; I’d never heard of nonograms. They’re also known as picross puzzles, which I’m at least aware of, but I still didn’t know what was up when I got into Nono Logix. The developer breaks it down as a cross between Sudoku and Minesweeper, which, I mean, mind blown, right? That still made no sense to me, but I at least know what both of those are, and after playing a lot — and I mean a lot — of Nono Logix, that’s probably the best description I could come up with, too. Before that, I was stuck on “Sudoku but with more math,” but that seemed to lack a certain something.

Yeah, it looks simple enough to start. It’s not.

Nonogram puzzles consist of grids, sometimes quite large grids. Each row and column comes with a clue to let you know how many of the squares should be filled in and how many should be left blank. A clue of “7 2” for a 10×10 grid would mean the first seven and last two squares are colored in with the eighth left blank. Easy enough because the blanks and filled in squares add up to ten. It gets more difficult when you’re given a clue like “1 1 2” on a large grid.

In a traditional nonogram puzzle, you’d really want to make sure you’re not filling in anything you shouldn’t be, because you’d be trying to make a picture. Any square out of place would ruin the final product. In Nono Logix, the disincentive to make errors works differently. If you try to fill in a square that doesn’t want filling, you get an ugly orange mistake symbol. It sits in the mistakenly tapped square for the rest of the puzzle, and you’ll get a tick in the mistakes counter. Not only that, but Nono Logix is timed, and every mistake you make adds minutes to the final duration.

You’ll want to clear the nonogram in as little time as possible and open up more difficult puzzles.

Luckily, you can darken any squares you know are going to stay blank and aren’t going to be of any use to you. If you know that square won’t get filled in, darken it with an X. This really helps eliminate squares and narrow down your choices, so you’re only filling in what needs to be filled in.

Get Your Fix

Nono Logix starts off really easy. You’re going to think you’re just so smart. You’re going to be all, “I should be in Mensa!” Then you’ll unlock the larger puzzles with the tiny clues that won’t fill up the grid, and Nono Logix is going to be all, “LOL, you’re dumb!” You might even agree.

Yeah, it’s not easy, but it sure is a good time.

You’re not going to stop playing, though. Whereas the first puzzles only took thirty seconds or less to complete, you’ll be taking upwards of five minutes or more to get past some of the harder nonograms. When you finally finish each puzzle, though, you’ll feel such a sense of euphoria, you’ll have to move onto the next one. And the next and the next.

This is what’s meant by an addictive game. The challenge ramps up steadily but quickly, allowing you time to learn the mechanics of the game and develop your skills, hopefully picking up tricks to more easily solve the puzzles. By the time things really get difficult, you know what you’re doing, and it just feels so good to beat each puzzle and unlock the next set, it’s hard to put Nono Logix down.

Words to the Wise

The only flaw with Nono Logix on the iPhone is that the squares are so dang small. Sure, I don’t have tiny Smurf hands, but I like to think I have normal-sized fingers, and I still ended up smashing the wrong squares more than I would have liked. This got a lot worse as the grids got larger and the squares got smaller — I was making two or three errors on each puzzle, adding several minutes onto my final time.

As you complete more puzzles, you will unlock new puzzle packs.

Fans of nonograms and picross puzzles will soon realize these aren’t traditional nonograms. A nonogram should reveal a picture, and these don’t. If they do, it’s some sort of modernist, abstract, nonrepresentational picture. Like a Jackson Pollock painting on graph paper. Which is fine by me. I’m here for puzzles, not to look at pictures, and I think if I started revealing an image halfway through, it would make it too easy to solve the rest.

Final Thoughts

Nono Logix is a fantastic puzzle app. It’s slick and modern and is a nice introduction to nonograms. If you like Sudoku or really any number puzzle, you’ll absolutely find something to love in Nono Logix. That said, gameplay is different enough from other types of puzzlers that you won’t feel like it’s more of the same.

It’s challenging enough to make puzzle completion really rewarding, and it’s exactly that feeling of accomplishment that makes Nono Logix such a compelling game. It’s truly difficult to put down and fun to play, even in the torment of nonogram confusion, making it well worth a download.

Today’s batch of freshly-picked App Store goodies includes a long-awaited space sim, a zombie game with a twist and some fascinating papery fun. Come see!

What Have You Been Playing?

Enjoy the weekend and come back next week for our next collection of mobile gaming stars!

One tool that I’ve been very excited about checking out is CheckThis, which lets you easily create simple websites that you can share and interact with others. It’s like a canvas on your iPhone that lets you do a variety of things and then share it with friends who can comment on your activity. I was able to use CheckThis on the web and I really liked what they did there, so I was even more excited to hear that they were coming to the iPhone.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

Creating Your Own Page

When you first start to use CheckThis, you’ll find that they make it simple for you to start your own page. You get a blank canvas to start that has a handful of features to use. Think of this app as a place where you can create something to share with your friends whether it be a photo collage or a story you are writing — it doesn’t matter. You can start by selecting the right colored background and also selecting the font that you would like to use.

Choosing your background color and font

You can add images to your site by selecting them from your iPhone or you can also get them from your Instagram feed as well. Text can also be added either as captions for your photos, or just as words on your page.

Selecting images from your iPhone or Instagram

Lastly, there is a Poll feature where you can insert a questionnaire of sorts to your page and get feedback from people on a topic. You provide the question as well as the choices of answers that the user can select from. What is also nice is that you can move things around once they have been created on your page, and items can be deleted if you decide you don’t want to use them.

Using the poll feature

Sharing and Interacting

There are a variety of ways that you can share your post with your friends and other people around the web. Once you are done with a post you can send it to Facebook, Twitter as well as email. You are also given a public URL that you can share with others as well.

Sharing your post with social networks and with others

When your post is published on CheckThis, your friends that use the app can see your post on their feed and they can choose to “like” as well as comment on it. You can follow your friends from both Facebook and Twitter that are on CheckThis, or you can invite them by email.

Interacting with others on CheckThis

Use Your Imagination

What really got me interested in CheckThis in the first place is the ability to use their app in so many different scenarios. If I want to throw together a quick page about a recent trip that our family took, I can easily do that and share it with my relatives. I can also easily write blog posts or use it as a way to share my thoughts and important memories. I have also used CheckThis in the classroom as a teacher, where students can create content and then share it with me.

These are just a very small sample of how CheckThis can be used and I am sure there are many more out there. That is the beauty of it, and I like how easy it is to create content on the iPhone. There are other apps out there that have similar functionality and more features, but what is nice about this one is that they keep it simple and fluid for the user. The developers don’t overwhelm you with things that would get in the way. They are able to recognize that the iPhone is used to create simple content and that if the user wants to do something a little more sophisticated, they are probably going to turn to their computer for that later.

Final Thoughts

CheckThis for the iPhone has not been out long and I expect as it continues to get better, there are going to be more features added. I would love to see the ability to add videos and maybe even audio to future releases. They even have a payment feature on their web app, where you can sell something online and get paid through PayPal; I would love to see this come to the iPhone. Overall, for its first release, CheckThis created an app that is easy to use and can be used for a variety of different purposes and I believe it will continue to get better with time. Go and give it a try and see what you think, and let your creative juices start to flow. Go create something awesome!

TypeThis may not translate teen-speak, but it just might succeed in making players better at the technological art of texting. The skill-builder buried within this app uses points and competition to train texting accuracy, and the rate at which it’s executed. Can learning and training actually be a boredom buster, too? Find out after the jump.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

Letter Rip

TypeThis lets players take on their family and Facebook friends or random opponents supplied through the network that has downloaded and is actively using the app. The goal is to score as many points as possible within the 60-second time frame. In order to score those points, players will have to exercise both speed and precision.

Words will pop up from the bottom of the screen and as they do, you must text in the appropriate letter in the correct order. Doing so will yield the points that players so eagerly chase. But unlike your smartphone’s autocorrect, tapping the wrong letter will result in the rest of a word dropping from the screen, which forces the player to focus on the next word in the queue and can cost them serious seconds and scores. The key here is to always have one’s eye on the screen and look for the green highlighted letter box.

On the left, regular gameplay, with green boxes showing successfully keyed letters. On the right, using the power-up to see the forthcoming word.

Each letter properly typed will earn a player points, so even if a word isn’t fully spelled out before a player makes an error, there’s still potential to come away with partial earnings for their effort.

Know in advance that players are given a certain number of points. As time goes on, the points will replenish themselves and can be won through game play, but they can also be purchased in-app. Each round of gameplay takes up 15 points.

Word Play

What exactly will players be typing as they play? A fairly random collection of phrases, sentences and stories. As mentioned before, the words will pop up from the bottom of the screen. Only the word actively being texted out will be visible unless you use a specific power-up (more on that later).

Create your own text to type (left), and peruse your scores, letters typed and words typed (right).

Finding the sentences and stories that you are typing bland? Want to jazz up the structure to trip up your opponents? Choose the option where you decide what each player texts during a round of play. There is a maximum number of characters that can be used, of course, but it’s all up to you how complex or nonsensical these messages end up being. It could be the cheat you need to earn those few bonus points above your duel partner.

Prose Power-Ups

With points being the means to score a victory TypeThis, take solace on the fact that there are a few more cheats that will help players beef up those tallies.

For five coins, players can purchase one of these leg-ups. The first, the clock icon, adds an extra few seconds to the end of a round, meaning that if a wordsmith is on a roll that they can continue on powered by momentum.

Choose from one of three power-ups (left) and purchase more points for added gameplay (right).

Another icon of a star places valuable gold letters throughout the words a player is typing. Successfully keying these at the right time banks heartier additions to a player’s scorecard.

Finally, there is a glasses icon. This nifty power-up lets the player see the word that follows the one they are typing. Utilizing this move allows a typist to map out manual moves a few strokes ahead of time.

A 2-Player Game Played Alone

So, here’s one of the biggest problems with TypeThis: If you plan on playing against random opponents, it might take some time before your bracket wraps up. In reviewing the app for this write-up, the opponents in the best-of-three rounds, which were initiated over the course of several days and at varying times, never came back to play their part of the match. This wasn’t a problem in such games as Letris & Friends or Songs Pop, where random challenges are also offered and players didn’t need prodding when it was their turn, but within TypeThis, it’s a consistent issue. One might have better luck relying on email invitations to friends or inviting them to square off on Facebook.

Check the progress of your ongoing matches.

TypeThis provides scores based on how fast the texter gets through the words and the accuracy with which they tap the keys. Players will be provided with how many letters they typed and how many words they got through. The game won’t provide any sort of measurement to show improvement, so it’s up to the individual to remember what their scores are and how they change over time.

TypeThis or Type Elsewhere?

TypeThis falls into the category of being a good distraction, but that’s likely going to be temporary for most players. Without a consistently engaged audience playing the game, there isn’t much that will draw regular users or even encourage them to keep playing. With no true measurement of one’s improvement in the game with, say, a tally of keys typed or the presentation of an error percentage, there’s nothing beyond points, and the letters-words typed tallies to prove how well you’ve done.

These missing elements, along with a no steady stream of competitors, makes the game feel empty and lacking — something that regular participation from users would likely encourage, but seems far off.

What you can do with Dubbler is limited only by your imagination — sing, tell short (very short) stories or jokes, provide pop culture commentary, spread some news, it’s up to you. Click through to see how it works.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

Recording

When you launch Dubbler you’ll have the opportunity to connect the app to Facebook or Twitter before landing on the home page. A button in the top left lets you access your profile. The alarm icon in the top right lets you view your notifications (different icons denote the type of notification, such as a like, follow, comment, etc.).

From Dubbler’s home screen you can easily access all your notifications, including those for new follows, likes and comments.

The compass in the bottom right allows you to explore trending Dubs (the app’s name for audio clips) and hashtags. And from the bottom left you can access the main timeline.

To record a Dub, tap the icon in the center of the bottom of the home screen. Provide up to 60 seconds of audio. When you’re finished, you have the option of re-Dubbing it if you weren’t happy with your clip. Or, if you’re satisfied with your Dub, you can leave it as Original, or try out the different voice filters, of which there are nearly a dozen.

Voice filters included Cat, Grab a Mic, Techtronic, Bird, Dub, Romance, Cow, Robot, Fast and Stage. Highlighting each filter will allow you to listen to your Dub sampled with that particular voice filter.

Choose from Dubbler’s filters to alter your voice or audio clip; you can also add short text and an image.

Some filters dramatically alter the sound of your voice or the audio, while others add music or special effects. Choose the filter you like best and then post your Dub for the world to enjoy via Dubbler, Facebook, Twitter or email.

You also have the option of adding short text, hashtags and/or even a photo to your post, which means you could choose to make your Dub an audio caption for the image. Crop and frame pictures exactly the way you want before posting them.

Listening

Browse the timeline and pick a Dub you want to listen to. Click the Dub bar to play it. You’ll see the clip’s length (in seconds), the profile pic of the user, an icon representing which voice filter the user selected for that Dub, and a status bar that progresses as the clip plays.

Click on a Comments bubble to see what other Dubbler users are saying. Tap on users’ pics to view their profiles.

You’ll also notice there are bubbles displaying the number of Likes and Comments. Click the number of comments to listen to other users’ Dubs on the subject, or make your own Dub in response.

Click on any user’s profile pic to view all of his or her Dubs and interact.

Click anyone’s profile pic to view all his or her Dubs, leave a comment, plus discover who the user is following.

Exploring

If you truly want to kill some time, click on the compass icon on your home screen to see which Dubs and topics are trending on Dubbler. At the top of the screen you can enter a keyword to perform a search among all the Dubblers or hashtags. Pull the screen downward at any time in the main timeline or the trending screen to refresh.

You can also explore what’s trending, search for friends, view the most popular Dubblers, and follow suggested users.

On the Explore page, in the top left corner there’s an icon for Add Friends. This allows you to search for friends by Name or Username, or find your Facebook and Twitter friends. You can also take a look at the users Dubbler suggests for you, as well as the “Hot Dubblers” (handpicked staff favorites and very popular Dubblers).

Final Note

The recording quality is good. The audio filters provide a nice selection of options, whether the goal is to disguise one’s voice, enhance singing or add some goofy fun. And the hashtag functionality, which was added after the initial release, was a smart addition and improves navigation.

Dubbler could be on the verge of something great here. There’s nothing else on the market that’s quite like it, and its applications are nearly limitless.

The question is, will the masses view posting audio clips as having the same value and convenience of text messages and other 140-character ramblings? Is hearing something just as valuable as seeing it? In my opinion: Yes. I think people instinctively want to communicate and will find unique ways to use Dubbler (any other app like it that may come along) in telling or enhancing their stories. I discovered quite a few users who already have. How will you use it?

Rivr is trying to claim a piece of that innovation for itself. Rivr is an app that focuses on making your stream beautiful and intuitive, and it’s not afraid to bend some interface rules to get it done. Rivr is extremely functional, but you might be wondering if its ease of use gets lost in all this extra functionality, or if it’s as easy to use as Netbot, perhaps the most popular ADN client in town. Read on to find out.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

The User Experience

Right away, you’ll notice that Rivr is different than most social networking apps. Unlike Netbot, there is no tab bar on the bottom of the screen. Your stream is unified so even though there’s a separate Mention stream, there’s no real need to visit it. Swiping to the right reveals the app menu, and swiping to the left allows you to write a new post. There’s a nice animation for each swipe and a little bit of bounce-back to just about every flick in app that feels really visceral and, more importantly, natural. This is app design that works because it’s visceral. It’s fun. Social networking should be fun, so that’s important.

The unified stream in ADN is functional and easy on the eyes, but it isn’t particularly beautiful.

What really makes Rivr different than most of the competition is the variety of options available for a new post. You can write a post, take and edit a picture, shoot a video, share the song you’re listening to, geotag a post or even just post an emoticon. The real bread and butter here is image and video sharing, in my opinion, which is really intuitive and looks great in Rivr’s unified stream. Rivr displays images and videos as inline posts, so there’s no additional taps to take a closer look at anything. To refer back to Netbot, these are things that Netbot has skipped in its effort to be as familiar as Tweetbot. This is functionality that Rivr is building on top of ADN, which bodes well for both the future of ADN and Rivr as a client. Innovation breeds further innovation.

Choosing a filter in the app.

The Interface — What Works and What Doesn’t

The colour scheme is unique to Rivr. For lack of better words, it appears naturalistic. The colour palette is decidedly brown. There is a Nighttime Mode in the Settings, but I didn’t find it preferable in any situation. It also takes a few too many taps to get to the Nighttime Mode to make it of any real use, not to mention the fact that it can’t be scheduled. Adding a simple Nighttime Mode symbol (one that looks like a moon) directly to the bottom of the main menu would alleviate this issue, but it still doesn’t help with what I feel is a lack of colour or contrast appeal.

It takes too many taps to do simple things in Rivr. Gestures could be beneficial.

The real problem with the interface is that a lot of things take too many taps to accomplish. Netbot has gestures. Swipe over a post to look at a conversation or even just the details. Rivr has none of those things. Rivr is all about tapping on posts, and then tapping again to select how you want to handle it (reply, repost, etc). The bottom line is that it simply doesn’t feel efficient.

My one other big beef? If there’s a repost in my stream, instead of seeing the original poster’s avatar, I get the reposter’s avatar and a couple arrows in the post to indicate that it’s a repost. I prefer Netbot’s method: the original poster’s avatar is displayed, and beneath the post it says “Reposted by X.”

Like the rest of the app, profiles aren’t glamorous, but they are functional.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like Rivr’s interface. It looks good if you don’t turn on Nighttime Mode. I particularly like that there’s no persistent tab bar. But in real-world use, it feels like Netbot is just a hair faster and more intuitive thanks to its gesture support.

What’s Missing?

There are a lot of features in Rivr that simply aren’t in other ADN clients. Image posting is a great example. Rivr not only allows you to apply filters to shots directly in the app, but it also supports Camera+ natively as well. Video support is a great added feature. There are more ways to post on Rivr than there are in any other ADN client I’ve tried (and yes, you can still crosspost to Twitter if you like). Instapaper and Pocket support come built in. There’s an option to open links in Google Chrome.

I don’t personally find that Nighttime Mode holds any additional appeal.

So with that in mind, what features are missing from Rivr? The biggest one is multiple account support, something a lot of power users frequently request. People looking for that will have to go to another client. And although Rivr supports Instapaper and Pocket, it doesn’t feature an Instapaper or Pocket mobilizer for easy web-based reading. Beyond that, although Rivr uses ADN’s storage, it doesn’t support web services that Netbot supports such as Droplr, CloudApp, Mobypicture and the like. These features are mostly minor, but for many users, they’re important.

Is Rivr Worth Your Time?

ADN is still in its infancy and it’s going to be interesting to see how it grows with time. That being said, ADN’s growth is dependent on developers pushing growth and growing with it. Like a lot of other people, I love Netbot because I love Tweetbot. But, despite its popularity, I’m not sure Netbot is going to grow with the ADN service. And in all honesty, Netbot feels too familiar. With ADN, I feel like I should have the opportunity as a user to experience a new kind of social networking app.

Thanks to its push towards innovation, I feel like Rivr is going to try and grow as ADN grows. Development will continue, and its developers have an active interest in seeing Rivr grow into something bigger. Rivr is flawed, but its flaws aren’t tremendous and it’s trying new things (like in-app video shooting) to push social networking forward. It feels like ADN can steal from Rivr’s features over time in the same way that Rivr will absorb ADN’s. I have more faith in Rivr’s continued innovation, while I feel that Netbot might stall.

There are a lot of ADN clients out there for iPhone alone, many of which are very good (check out Felix and Riposte if you’re looking for other great alternatives) and many of which are free. I haven’t tried them all, but I have tried a few of them, and Rivr is one of the most forward-thinking and features one of the better designs. Most importantly, Rivr is plain old fun to use. And it’s free. Rivr might be imperfect and have some room to grow, but it’s still a polished and recommended ADN experience.

Using proper knife skills is not just about chopping ingredients; it’s about becoming more safe, thrifty and efficient in the kitchen. Learning the correct way to cut up an apple reduces waste. Once you’ve mastered basic knife skills you can throw out the gadgets clogging up your kitchen drawers — no need for a garlic press, apple corer or fancy mango and avocado slicers. You’ll be more adventurous, trying exotic ingredients you may have been intimidated to tackle in the past (ginger, pineapple, lobster, whole fish). Kitchen Knife Skills has everything you need to learn: knowledgeable instructors, step-by-step video demonstrations, clever tips and a knife-buying guide.

Don’t let lacking knife skills hold you back in the kitchen, keep reading to learn more about this useful resource for home cooks.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

Getting Started

Launch the app and you’ll find a sharp, sleek interface with an attractive intro photo and a main menu that reads like the table of contents from a book. In this time of mobile innovation and regression of print publications, it seems a bit strange to model the app design after a book, but maybe the idea is that by using a familiar format the app becomes more approachable and easier for users to navigate.

The Kitchen Knife Skills app is designed like a book, with an attractive cover photo and easy-to-navigate table of contents.

From the home screen you can access each section of the app, beginning with the Preface, which introduces you to the authors and gives a bit of guidance on how to get started. Kitchen Knife Skills is a Betterbook app created by Open Air Publishing. These guys are dedicated to working with skilled experts to develop how-to e-books for touchscreen devices. Respected food magazine editor, Jane Kirby, authored the app, and Sarah Copeland, a Food Network alum, is the on-camera expert. Many instructional apps in the marketplace never mention who’s behind the content and why users should trust their expertise, so it’s great to see the focus on transparency in the Betterbook family of apps.

Chef’s Knives 101

The first chapter of the “book” is titled, “The Go-To-Gear.” Tap the title for an expanded view of the information found inside. Navigating the app is intuitive and you can use a variety of motions to move from one area to another. This app includes quite a bit of information, but they’ve smartly broken down the text into small bites interspersed with photos, interactive diagrams and slideshows. You can decide how deeply you want to drill into the content, and as you interact with the app, your experience becomes more interesting. The gear section is all about understanding the purpose of each knife type, general knife anatomy and choosing a cutting board.

Tap on a chapter, like “The Go-To-Gear,” for an expanded view of the information within, left. The app goes into great detail regarding knife types and anatomy, with special features like interactive diagrams, where you can tap to learn more, right.

The app is focused on giving you the facts so you can make your own informed decisions as to which knifes to buy. The amount of detail given is impressive, to the point where you can tap on words highlighted in red for more information, like a diagram, definition or translation from inches to centimeters.

Each knife has a detailed description left. Tap text highlighted in red for more information, like where to find the “belly” of the knife, right.

This section of the app has everything you ever wanted to know about knives. Including an extensive section on Japanese knives, complete with a lesson on the Japanese philosophy and knife-by-knife-type comparison between Japanese and Western style cutting implements.

Learn to Cut, Slice and Chop Anything

Return to the home screen and you’ll find chapters dedicated to each food type in the Operating Instructions section. Building on each lesson in true Betterbooks fashion, the app introduces Fundamental Form to teach you how to handle a knife safely before you get cooking. You’ll learn how to hold the knife safely, and the different types of cuts to make. Here, instructional videos demonstrate techniques like the “push pull cut” and the “rocking cut.” Kitchen Knife Skills goes above and beyond expectations by also providing interactive diagrams so you can break down the elements of each motion. They’ve even included step-by-step photographed instructions.

Basic knife cutting techniques are illustrated in a variety of ways: by video demonstration, left, and by interactive diagram, right.

Once you’ve completed Fundamental Form, you’re ready to tackle the Fruits, Vegetables, Poultry, Seafood and Red Meat chapters. Each chapter is broken down further by ingredient. For example, Vegetables includes artichokes, hot peppers, onions, potatoes, etc. Poultry includes cutting up chicken or turkey. Seafood includes working with whole fish, shrimp and lobster (sadly, no crab). It’s nice to see a focus on using the knife to prep food, as well as serve it — the Red Meat chapter gives lessons on carving bone-in ham and prime rib roast, among others.

Knife techniques are demonstrated in fun and informative videos, left. Each technique is accompanied by a tools guide which links to the knife description, right.

Each lesson is given by video demonstration and comes with a handy tools guide linking you to the knife descriptions. I must also mention that Sarah Copeland demonstrates the techniques with a great energy and the videos are fun and informative to watch.

Digging Deeper

The app finishes with a chapter on Caring for Your Knives and a Buying Guide. Knife sharpening is a source of intimidation for many home cooks, and this section does a great job of demystifying knife maintenance. In the same vein as the rest of the app, you’ll learn what equipment is needed and find useful diagrams paired with step-by-step photos to help you master the skills. The instructors go surprisingly deep, explaining the material makeup of knives, the difference between honing and sharpening as well as how to clean and store your knife.

The Caring for Your Knives section provides valuable information and diagrams on how to clean, maintain, and store your knives, left. The Buying Guide allows you to browse a selection of knives from Amazon, right.

The Buying Guide is an interesting feature that breaks knives down by type (chef’s knives, paring knives, bread knives, etc.) so you can shop from options available on Amazon. Scroll through the selection and tap purchase to leave the app and enter the Amazon store. Would you purchase a knife this way? I doubt it, but at least you can get an idea for what’s out there. If you’ve learned anything using Kitchen Knife Skills, it’s the importance of holding a knife in your hand to really know if it’s right for you.

Conclusion

Kitchen Knife Skills is unique when compared with other cooking apps in the market in the way it utilizes the mobile interface to enhance the learning experience. The app focuses on sharing information from credible experts with plenty of supportive videos, step-by-step photographic instructions and interactive diagrams, and this is an example of why Betterbook apps are well-worth the money. Invest in this app and trust that you’ll walk away with everything you need to master knife skills and become a more confident cook.

WWDC is right around the corner, and when it happens, we’ll find out all the good stuff on the latest versions of OS X and iOS. With Scott Forstall’s departure and Jony Ive taking over revamping the OS, it seems like there are a lot of changes on the horizon.

But what are they? We’ve compiled a few of the ones we’ve seen across the web, and put them in this handy poll. Do you think that iOS 7 is going to be more of the same, or will it come with a lot of changes? Let us know in the poll to the right!