Click through for some racing, puzzling, tower defending and even adventuring fun!

Reckless Racing 2

Top down is an interesting perspective for racing games, and it’s probably best realized in Reckless Racing, the sequel for which hit the App Store this week.

Like its predecessor, you’ll be racing in a robust environment including many cars and tracks, very deep customization options, multiple control schemes, and both career and arcade modes. The improvements are immediately noticeable in the graphics department, especially if you’re playing on a newer device, and the customization options actually make a tangible difference this time around. Car feeling sluggish at first? Start tweaking it and you’ll soon have a vehicle that handles just the way you like.

The usual array of challenges, leaderboards and events make this an enjoyable game to pick up and play for hours, with or without your friends. Polarbit really know what they’re doing when it comes to racing games, so fans of the genre should not overlook this impressive sequel.

Price: $4.99
Developer: Polarbit
Download: App Store

Gorilla Gondola

Proving once again that non-sequiturs make excellent game concepts, Gorilla Gondola is a fresh action puzzler whose protagonist is a gorilla riding a gondola. Not a bad way to travel, I suppose.

Although there are only eight levels, these are in fact more like environments because each time you play, the game procedurally generates a brand new actual level so you’re never stuck grinding through the same place twice. You’ll do all the usual jumping, stomping and food collecting and the game also makes excellent use of the motion sensors and swiping to provide you with a control scheme that’s as appropriate and dynamic as the rest of the game’s components.

Stunning art and audio contribute to a very positive presentation, and the polish becomes ever more apparent as you play and get a feel for the animations and gameplay. Gorilla Gondola is remarkable, and well worth playing.

Price: $1.99
Developer: Electric Pixel Factory Ltd
Download: App Store

Monster Mayhem

Your free time is toast with this one. Monster Mayhem is a button mashing, monster killing, crazy fun time in your pocket. The formula is simple: take fun weapons, tight controls, delicious visuals and juicy sound effects and wrap them up in an incredibly rewarding package to get a must-play title.

If you’re familiar with Plants vs. Zombies, you’ll appreciate the presence of a monster almanac that describes the various foes you’ll encounter. Where this becomes important is when you notice that each monster has particular strengths and weaknesses, so you’ll need to be strategic about which weapons you choose to assault them with. See? It may be a button masher, but it’s not mindless.

As you encounter bigger baddies, you’ll want to make sure to upgrade your weapons so you can survive the onslaught — especially those huge bosses. Be quid, be brutal, and be sure you have some time to kill before you pick up Monster Mayhem because it’s one of the best mobile gaming addictions we’ve seen in a while.

Price: Free (Limited Time)
Developer: Taplay Limited
Download: App Store

The Lost City

Time for another point-and-tap adventure game, and an excellent one at that. The Lost City is a mysterious tale about a grandchild’s discovery of a mystical city said to be built by a lost civilization that could control the seasons.

As the legend your grandmother spoke of comes to light, you’ll find yourself drawn into the story by the wonderful art and engaging puzzles. The pacing is smart and not overly difficult, with few frustrating puzzles and a good variety of gameplay elements to keep the experience from getting stale. There is a walkthrough built into the game if you get stuck too, but the game encourages you to explore and play patiently, and if you do so you’ll be more than equipped to solve everything without help.

The adventure game genre is particularly well suited to the iOS family of devices, and the fact that The Lost City is universal means that you can even enjoy it on the bigger screen of your iPad, if you happen to have one.

Price: $0.99
Developer: Fire Maple Games
Download: App Store

Spice Invaders

By now we all know that when a Chillingo-published game is released for “free,” the truth is that it’s often far from it. Spice Invaders, unfortunately, is an example of very exploitative use of IAP and has rightly received some solid criticism from gamers as a result. Often, this is enough to deter people from dismissing it as a stupid cash grab, but in the case of Spice Invaders, the pricing is hiding a truly amazing tower defense game.

Pricing aside, Spice Invaders is an exemplary title. eight-player multiplayer, 55 levels, tons of weapons (all upgradeable!) and a slick visual style all contribute to the impression of quality and fun that the game offers. Gameplay is tight and immersive, and features interesting scoring quirks like kills being more valuable the closer they are to your base.

If you’re into tower defense and don’t mind a little grinding (or shelling out some coin for in-game purchases), then you’ll love Spice Invaders.

Price: Free
Developer: On-5
Download: App Store

What Have You Been Playing?

That’s a wrap for this week, everyone. Leave us your comments below and we’ll see you all next week with a fresh set of games. Oh, and happy Valentine’s Day!

Doxo is kind of like your digital file cabinet, so to speak. It’s the place where you can keep all of your monthly bills, statements or other files that you know that you will never look at, but you should keep just in case. The big difference is that you are not taking up storage in your house or your computer to do this, it is all in the cloud.

Your File Cabinet

Picture your file cabinet at home and what it has inside. I’m going to guess that it has bills, important documents as well as other miscellaneous documents that you need. Well, this is exactly how the File Cabinet on Doxo works and then some.

Doxo Homepage

You can add as many different types of accounts that you want to your File Cabinet and they can range anywhere from your banking statement, to bills that need to be paid, as well as documents that you just need to store like important receipts. It is very easy to add an account and customize it to the way that you want to by putting in your personal information for the account. Doxo provides you with a wide variety of services and businesses to add to your File Cabinet, and if they don’t have it, you can always manually add it.

Your File Cabinet

For each account you can take a snapshot using your iPhone’s camera and put it in your File Cabinet. That way you don’t have to necessarily keep the paper copy; it is instead saved in the app under that account. If you just want to put important documents in your File Cabinet, all you have to do is create a folder and you can put them in there. This is great for something like if you need to keep receipts for your business or a place to have your auto insurance documents.

Adding documents to your File Cabinet

Paying Your Bills

We all know that there are numerous bills to pay each and every month and Doxo has provided a way to help us keep track of them and when they need to be paid. Whenever you put a document in Doxo, it will ask you what kind it is. If you select that it is a Pay Document, the app will recognize it as a bill that needs to be paid. Once you fill in the amount due as well as the due date, then it will go into your To Do list. Each month after you pay the bill you can choose to either just keep the document in the File Cabinet or “shred it” and it gets deleted.

List of monthly bills

One nice feature about Doxo is that it has started to collaborate with businesses so that it automatically recognizes your bill each month and downloads it for you, without you having to scan it in. It then adds that bill to your To Do list so that you can pay and either file away or delete it. The only downside to this feature is that Doxo has yet to connect with many of the popular businesses out there. Out of the ten or so accounts that I have, only two of them are connected to Doxo at the moment.

Using the Web Version

What makes Doxo even better is the fact that they have a web version that is very similar to the iPhone app, but it definitely enhances the experience. The one thing you will notice is the fact that you get a lot of the same functionality on the web as you do on the iPhone.

Web Version of Doxo

There are a couple of things that make the web version a great compliment to the iPhone application. For one, you can upload your documents to the web in a variety of formats; anything from .doc to pdf, as well as jpegs and best of all, the storage is free and unlimited — as far as I can tell. The other thing that makes the web version great is something called doxoPAY, which lets you can pay your bill straight from the website without having to leave. The only dowside is that it is only for most of the connected services that are on Doxo.

Utilizing doxoPAY

Conclusion

Overall, I have to say that I find Doxo a very useful application. For someone who wants start moving their documents and statements to the cloud, this is a very handy and simple way to do that. I definitely like that they have a web version of the site and that it syncs with the iPhone client. The app is very well done, it’s clean and gets the job done. My only wish is that they would start to connect with more businesses so that I can do everything through Doxo.

You can get it on the App Store for free and your account is free as well. You really have nothing to lose here so go and try it out and see for yourself.

Then we find out the other day that Path would upload the user’s entire address book to their servers, making what is my personal information now the property of someone I didn’t authorize to do so. Turns out that Hipster does the same thing. Although Path has since apologized and deleted all of that data from their servers, the damage is done. Fact is, if we’re going to work with an app, we need assurance that they developer will treat our data correctly. But why is it so important for us to believe a person who’s making an app?

It comes down to trust.

Trust Issues

I’m not a very paranoid person when it comes to working on the Internet, and I never have been. I’ve given my credit card information to multiple companies, and although it has bitten me back a few times, it’s never been such a dilemma that I wondered if I could pay the bills on Monday. That said, my personal information is sacred to me, and I take that pretty seriously.

Now I understand the hypocrisy here. Yes, I have a Facebook page and multiple Twitter accounts, and they have all my info and then some — how is it possible that I think my personal information is sacred? It comes down to trust. I trust that Facebook and Twitter will only use my information for good, and that I don’t have to worry about anything happening to it in the foreseeable future. Maybe my belief in them is misplaced, but if I want to use social networks than I have to trust someone sometime, right?

This trust needs to be curated. We, as customers, need to know that the people who we give this precious gift will use it for good, not for evil. That our information stays with us and only us. That’s the point.

Breaking the Bond

The thing with Path is a bit touchy. The CEO puts it like this:

We upload the address book to our servers in order to help the user find and connect to their friends and family on Path quickly and effeciently as well as to notify them when friends and family join Path. Nothing more.

OK, that makes sense. They wanted to create a simple and easy way to get your Path up and working — make it “just work” as it were.

Here’s the thing though: That information on there isn’t necessarily mine to give. Every friend, colleague and business associate that’s in my iPhone’s address book has some information recorded on my device that they entrusted to me. Maybe it’s a Facebook profile, Twitter handle or their personal email addresses, but that was given to me, not to Path. It’s not just my trust that’s been violated, it’s all of theirs as well.

Extrapolate that all out and you’ve got some major problems. That means that for every one person that’s on Path, there are probably 50-200 additional contacts whose information was sent to Path without their permission. I don’t know how many members they had in the system, but if it’s just 8000 members who each have an average of 125 contacts, then 1,000,000 people’s names, addresses and phone numbers have been compromised. That’s a lot.

Break someone’s trust, and they never know whether to trust you again or not.

How Do They Come Back?

Quite simply, they don’t.

I’ve started to write multiple posts for this site about the problems with social networks and the iPhone (and successfully published one), and it comes down to the numbers. A friend of mine told me recently that of the five minutes that people spend on social networking every day, on average four of those minutes were spent on Facebook. That means that everyone else is fighting for that remaining minute. Who could survive in that market?

Path was certainly on their way up there, but now that this has hit, I’m sure that lots of people have left the service (I’ve tried to leave myself, but right now leaving means emailing the company, and I’m sure they’re inundated with cancellation emails). Sure, there are many who haven’t heard this news yet, and since Path was quick to respond, some of the damage may have been quashed. But for me, I’m done. Beautiful app or not, if I can’t trust them not to screw me over, then I’m just not going to use their service. The same goes for anyone else too, be it Google, Facebook or Twitter.

But Wait …

You might be thinking to yourself, “Kevin, Google is much more evil than Path. They scan all of your emails, track your web activity and everything else. They sell your information and demographic. What’s so different from Path?”

Good question. The answer? I knew that going into things.

When I decided to sign up for Gmail the first time several years ago, I knew that Google made their money from ads, specifically targeted ads. My emails would be handled for free, but I’d get targeted ads popping up on the side of the screen. I knew that, accepted it and moved on.

Same with Facebook, frankly, and had Path been up front about it, I wouldn’t have a problem with them either. But they weren’t. That’s the problem.

What Others Should Take From This

Running a startup is hard work, and this can lead to taking risks that may seem right at the moment, but turn out to be huge deal breakers. For every Twitter, there’s a thousand failures who just aren’t performing to expectations no matter how much money VCs dump into them. What direction that Path decides to take from here is up to them. I hope they can make it out of this because their UI really is gorgeous and inspirational, even if the app wasn’t one of my most used. And yes, they did make right on this whole deal by fixing the mistake quickly. But now I don’t trust them.

Those that just to walk down the same path should know that trust is key. You have to work hard to earn it, and if you break it, you might as well close up shop and go home because you’ll never get it back. Fool me once, and all that.

End Results

Path made a mistake, and I’m sure there are some who don’t see it as a big deal while others react more like me and go over the edge. Maybe they can pull out of it, maybe they can’t. Whatever happens, developers should know that if they’re trying to create a personal experience for their users that they may need a certain amount of trust to pull it off. That’s a very delicate situation, and it has to be handled properly. If not, then just like that proverbial bull in a china shop, things will get broken.

The two major movie apps, Fandango and Flixster, are packed full of features which may be useful to some, but don’t make it easy to simply find a movie I want to see in a nearby theater. You can also find movie times via the IMDb and the iTunes Movie Trailers app, but that’s not really their main function.

If share this point of view as well, join us after the jump to find out why Wigglehop may be just the app to use for your next movie going experience.

The Purpose of Wigglehop

Before I get into the ins and outs of Wigglehop, it’s important to point out Plastic Trophy’s intentions. Wigglehop is not supposed to be an app to buy movie tickets, check for all newly released movies or read reviews. Simply put, Wigglehop’s intent is to create a custom movie listing that you can share with fellow moviegoers. However, there are quite a few handy features as well.

Making Your Moviegoing Plans

When you fire up the app for the first time, you’re greeted with a splash screen that will eventually direct you to the first of four pages — Theaters, Movies, Times and Plans. Wigglehop works in a series of steps, and if you don’t follow them as intended (e.g. jumping to the movies page before selecting a theater) you’ll be directed back to the correct page to select the necessary item.

The splash screen is like a movie poster. How fitting.

Theaters

Before selecting a theater, you’ll need to enter a city or zip code in the search box, or simply click the arrow icon to have it automatically find your current location. A list of nearby theaters will populate, sorted from closest to furthest. A main UI element featured on the list, and subsequent lists, is the need to tap on a option to see more detailed information. It’s a design choice that I have mixed emotions about, but most likely will either be something you love or loathe.

Some additional sorting options would be nice to have.

When you tap on a theater choice, the distance of the theater from your current location (if you’ve given the app the necessary permissions) and number of movies currently playing are listed. If you’re in an area you’re not familiar with and need directions to the theater, you can tap on the map icon located next to the theater info and tap the Directions button at the top of the screen.

Tapping on the Directions button will open up the Maps app with the route already in place.

If you live in an area with a lot of theaters and want a variety of movie and showtime options, you can tap on as many theaters as you like before moving of to the next step. Once you’ve selected your desired theater options, you can tap the Admit ticket icon on a selected theater or simply swipe the page to the left.

Choosing multiple theaters will provide you with more showtime (and possibly movie) options.

Movies

Now that you’ve have your theater (or theaters) selected, your next step is to select a movie you’d like to see. By default, Wigglehop will only list the movies showing on the current date; however, you can jump ahead to the following day (or two additional days) if you’re planning ahead. It’s certainly a nice option, but a range of four days is a bit lacking in comparison to Fandango (twelve days) Flixster (six days).

You'll most likely find this list design to be minimalistic or plain.

Similar to the Theaters page, you’ll need to tap on a movie to see more information. Upon doing so, a short summary of the movie, its rating and running time, will be displayed next to the movie’s poster. In most cases, a little play button icon will be located in the top left corner of the poster, which indicates that you can view the movie’s trailer by tapping on the poster. When you’ve selected your desired movie (or movies), again swipe the page to the left to move on to the next stage (or tap the Picture Start icon).

Tapping on a poster icon will play the trailer (if available) within the app itself.

Times

The Times page lists the showtimes for all selected movies, sorted from earliest to latest. If you know what time of day you’d like to see the movie (i.e. day, evening or night), you can turn off any of the options at the top of the page that you don’t need. A really handy feature of the page that I would like to see implemented in other apps of this type, is that you will only be shown movie times that you have the ability to attend (e.g. if it’s 3 p.m. you won’t see any showtimes from earlier in the day).

Although displayed for the first time in this image, each page features a movie advertisement.

As with the previous pages, the show times are displayed in a simplistic list (time and movie). If you selected more than one theater option, you need to tap on a time listing to see the corresponding theater. I understand that the interface design needs to be consistent, but it would be nice to have an option to sort the lists by theater. When you have your showtime selected, swipe to the left one last time (or tap the Plan icon).

Plans

Now that you know which theater you’re going to, which movie you’re going to see and what showtime you’re going to see it at, you need to share this information with your moviegoing participants. Wigglehop allows you to do just that in four different ways — Facebook, Twitter, email or text message (SMS).

This page also displays the remaining time until the movie begins, located to the right of the poster.

Using any of the four options will open a subsequent page that generates a standard message, which includes a link to view your custom listing. You can enter additional text that will display on the original message, but won’t on the custom listing.

This is what your friends will see when they click the link provided in your status update, tweet, email or text message.

Final Thoughts

Wigglehop is either going to be an app that you will or will not use. On one hand, the navigation is dead simple and the overall design is stunning. The advertisement banners at the top of the page may get a lot of screen real estate, but it’s much more preferable to the random ads that pop-up in other movie apps. But on the other hand, there may be few too many features missing for your taste.

I was a big fan of Flixster for the longest time and then I jumped to Fandango after Flixster became overstuffed with features. Eventually, I dropped them both in favor of reducing the number of movie apps on my phone and decided IMDb’s showtime listings was enough to tide me over. But after using Wigglehop for past few days, I’m willing to make some room on my iPhone for a tool that’s so incredibly simple and enjoyable to use.

Back in 2009, EA Mobile brought The Sims 3 to the iPhone. While that game remains in the App Store, EA recently introduced The Sims FreePlay, a brand new app that, as the name suggests, is available for free!

Create-a-Sim

The first aspect of The Sims experience is Create-a-Sim, the tools that allow you to create your family of avatars (the “sims” of the game). The create-a-sim isn’t an incredibly dumbed down experience. You get a great level of customisability with a nice range of tools available to tweak your avatar, although still significantly less than in the PC counterpart. The degree of tools available is on par with console versions of the game, although it’s naturally better optimised for your finger.

If you too share a lack of creativity, one hit on the orange “random” button will give you a sim. You can just keep tapping the button to get getting new sims until you stumble on one you like. Of course, you’re able to tweak that sim in the way you would your own creation.

Create-a-Sim in The Sims FreePlay.

The interface here is very responsive and changes will be instantly reflected in the model to the left of your screen. EA manages to cram a lot of different options onto such a small platform, yet is able to create an intuitive experience that’s big enough for our fingertips to control.

Welcome to Life

As soon as you’ve left create-a-sim, you’ll be launched into the core game. Immediately I was struck by just how impressive the graphics are in this game. On my iPhone’s retina display, it looks very crisp, sharp and better than any I’ve seen on the platform. The graphics are significantly better than most paid games on the App Store.

The concept behind The Sims FreePlay is a little different than you might have come to expect from The Sims franchise. First, the game actually plays in real time alongside you; when it’s night in real life, it’s night in the game and vice versa. You’re unlikely to spend long sittings playing the game, so this style of gameplay is a very nice change from the norm.

Essentially, the aim of the game is to survive and progress through life. Just as you need to sleep, eat and use the bathroom, your sim has needs that must be fulfilled on a regular basis in order for them to have a good life. Failure to do so will have in-game consequences, but you it’s easy to see what’s needed by simply glancing at the UI. If you see anything red, you know to take action!

A "New Goal" modal in The Sims FreePlay.

In a very similar way to other games that run in unison with real life time, The Sims FreePlay has a system for speeding up actions, at a cost to the player. Lifestyle points are one of two currencies in the game which can be earned or bought for real cash as in-app purchases. By spending these points, actions won’t take as long as normal meaning you don’t have to wait the length you’d spend in the shower while your sim has one. Simoleons are the other in-game currency, used to buy items like furniture.

Unlike the sandbox gameplay in The Sims 3, The Sims FreePlay is much more focused on the completion of goals. This deviates what The Sims is known for, but matches the casual bursts of gameplay that you’ll probably use the app for. The goal-centric gameplay allows you to achieve this much faster than in most The Sims games, although there’s many to complete.

Graphics, Audio and UI

As i’ve mentioned before, I’m really impressed by the graphics in The Sims FreePlay. They are literally some of the nicest you’ll see in any iOS game, and don’t suffer from jagged edges like so many other games on the platform do. The audio is just like any other game in the franchise, with a nice selection of sound effects to match the various events as they happen. The full tracks that play during build/buy mode are the same critically acclaimed ones from The Sims 3 on PC and Mac.

The UI is minimal, but still gets key information across such as the current state of your sim’s need. It would be nice to be able to dismiss various parts of it, but it’s far from obtrusive to your gameplay. The game uses multi-touch gestures like pinch-to-zoom to control the camera within the game, which are surprisingly easy to pick up on.

As you can see, the graphics in The Sims FreePlay are pretty impressive!

Final Thoughts

The Sims FreePlay is a pretty impressive package considering it’s a free game. The gameplay strays away from the traditional The Sims experience, but only so it can better adapt to the traits of the platform. The graphics are, perhaps, the biggest upgrade over any prior instalment on the iPhone and look stunning on a retina display.

It may be difficult having someone living real-time in your pocket who you need to feed, put to sleep and take to the bathroom, but I’d definitely recommend the game based on its numerous strengths. It’s also the first Sims game on the iPad, where it also looks amazing on the large screen.

I say “nearly,” because one start-up has been doing some great work at making that experience less awful. Let’s be honest, the bar has been set pretty low, so any improvement would be noticed, but Hipmunk has made some serious strides. Their web service is by far the best for searching for airline and hotel travel and they also have an accompanying iPhone App which is what we’ll be taking a look at today. Does the experience spill over to mobile devices or does it fall short? Read on to find out.

A Different Strategy

Hipmunk’s real innovation is its re-imagining how flight search should work. In fact, it almost mocks the industry by using an “agony” metric. They’re trying to solve the problem that so many people have, and that is struggling to find the right flight at a decent price.

The web service has been around for a while now and has received critical acclaim. They pay very close attention to design and functionality trying to provide their customers with the best possible experience. With that knowledge of the company and their web service I was anxious to give their iPhone application a try.

Entering the Search

The first thing that is noticeable is that the interface is simple. The first screen, similar to the website, asks you for the basic information required to search for a flight. It’s a completely obvious design that you can jump right into — there’s no learning curve.

On the opening screen you’ll find fields to enter your departure and destination airports. Tapping one of those fields launches a live search function that is super responsive (given you have a decent network connection, of course).

The search form along with the quick search for airports

The application puts a slightly different (at least from what I’ve seen) spin on selecting a date. Tapping on that field loads a calendar. You’ll see a visual representation of a calendar with each month connected to the next, so it’s essentially one huge calendar that you scroll through. You tap on your departure date and then can immediately tap on your returning date if you’re picking a round-trip flight. You’ll then see the date nicely formatted in the field. The simple capability to search in one huge calendar, rather than flipping from month to month, along with being able to select two dates at the same time make this date picker just awesome.

The awesome date picker and what you'll see while you're search is processing

It sounds a bit strange to get this excited over a data picker, but it just shows how a simple design adjustment can make a huge difference in the overall experience.

Some buttons allow you to toggle the class of flight you’d like to search and a plus/minus field lets you modify the number of people you’d like to search for with the tap of a button. So really, within about thirty seconds (or less) you’ll be searching for the specific flight you want.

Search Results

The search results in your quest for the perfect flight are even more important than entering your query. If you’ve never done a search on the Hipmunk website I would encourage you to do so. The format in which you are presented the results is extremely different from what you’re used to. A more visual representation is used, which can be a bit shocking, but after a second or two to digest what you’re looking at it’s a much better and easier method to find your flight.

The iPhone application provides results in a similar fashion. The same functionality is there along with a familiar looking chart. If you’re not familiar with the format you’ll see cost along the vertical axis and the time and flight duration along the horizontal. Tapping on a flight within the chart opens more information specifically on that flight.

Displaying search results. One flight has been expanded to show more info

The touch features the iPhone brings fits the experience of browsing the chart perfectly. You’re able to quickly scroll through the results as well as toggle the standard Hipmunk filters, agony, cost, depart, and length. I would argue that it’s actually easier and a better experience investigating Hipmunk search results on an iPhone when compared to a computer web browser.

Once you’ve selected the flight you’d like, you’re taken to a screen with a summary of your flight along with the option to then finish at a computer. This is a pretty cool feature. A link is provided (finish.hipmunk.com) along with a phrase, which you enter once at the website to recall your selected flight. Doing this will give you links to your purchase options which will be through another service (i.e. Orbitz).

Showing the flight selected summary as well as options to book

You’re also able to email the booking link if you’d like to send it to someone else or maybe just get to it yourself later. I could see this being super handy. You’re heading home on the train and decide to search for that vacation flight. You find the perfect one at a good price, but can’t make the purchase right there. No problem, just email the booking link to yourself or your significant other. An email will arrive with the flight summary and a link to book the flight.

Here's what an email with the booking link looks like

These are really great options to provide. They allow for some serious flexibility and could come in handy in a number of situations. Hipmunk is trying to make the experience as painless as possible down to the very last thing that they can control — it’s as if they actually care. Could it be?

Oh Yeah, and Also Hotel Search

I’ve focused completely on the Hipmunk flight search functionality, but I should also mention that the hotel search is extremely handy as well. Hipmunk’s hotel web search isn’t as ground breaking, but it’s about as nice of an experience as you’ll find. The iPhone app is in the same vein. Just like with flight search, the core functionality is similar to their web service, but it’s able to harness the power of the iPhone and use its features such as geographic location.

Searching for a hotel and displaying some results nearby

Similar features to actually book rooms are available. You have the ability to email the booking link, or go to the finish website again and enter in a phrase to get the booking links.

Displaying results and what you'd see after tapping on one of the items

Again, it’s probably a better hotel searching experience on the iPhone as well. Combined with the touch and GPS functionality of the iPhone, it is a powerful tool.

Conclusion

If you’re a frequent traveler — heck, even if you’re a once a year traveler — do yourself a favor and give the Hipmunk iPhone app a try. You won’t find a better flight search tool and I have to believe their hotel search is in the same realm.

It’s easy to see that Hipmunk pays extremely close attention to design and how it impacts their customers. They are trying to change the way flight and hotel search is done, which is no easy task, and they are doing a fantastic job. Their website is a wonderful tool and now combined with their apps I see no other reason to look elsewhere. They’ve got you covered no matter where you are. Flight and hotel search has taken a couple huge steps in the right direction.

Thanks for reading AppStorm, and I hope you enjoy looking over some of our favourite posts from last month!

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Remember a few years back before we had the iPad? Rumors were swirling about the latest new Apple product, and how it was going to revolutionize everything we did. Well, it did that, and now we’re hearing similar rumors about an AppleTV — a real, physical, 40-inches and up television that has all the great features of the current AppleTV 2, but it’s, well, a television.

As they say, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, it’s looking like an AppleTV may be on the horizon. What do you think? If one existed, would you buy it? Let us know in the poll to the right.

This is where Zite comes in. After debuting on the iPad, Zite made the jump over to the iPhone, much like competitor Flipboard. Is Zite worth sticking on your phone, or should you look elsewhere for your lusted-after content? Read on and find out.

Getting Started with Zite

As I mentioned above, most people already get a steady stream of content from their Twitter accounts. Many reading this are probably doing so either from a link on Twitter or a subscription managed through Google Reader; both of those accounts, along with Read it Later, can be hooked up to help Zite learn what you like (and don’t like) to be shown.

The three accounts that can be hooked up to Zite.

Zite claims that they use this information to monitor how you work with your already existing content in order to give you more compelling things to read in the future. All of this takes place on the back-end, and doesn’t require any input (beyond what you’ve already taken) on the user’s end.

Browsing and searching through sections.

Let’s say that you want to have another curated list of things to read. Instead of making this difficult, Zite manages this through what it calls Sections. These are genres of content, from Politics to Gaming, Technology to Psychology. Adding a section is as easy as tapping it, at which point Zite takes over and starts showing you things that you may want to read.

Does it Work?

I found Zite to be a little hit-or-miss. There are some articles that I’ve found through Zite that have been really enjoyable, but there’s also a lot of fluff to get through. Since Zite analyzes content for “buzz” (how many times something is shared, whether it’s been “liked” by others, etc.) you’re going to end up with a lot of list-style articles.

Two of the four items shown are lists.

I also found Zite to be a bit … off with its categorization of certain articles. I can be facing a list of psychological articles when all of the sudden I’ll find an application review in there, and vice-versa. Sure, these are things that I would like to read, but it’s a bit jarring to find something that doesn’t belong.

If this sounds overly critical, lay your fears to rest. Despite these issues, I’ve enjoyed Zite each time I launch it. I – like many others – am a complete sucker for list articles despite my impatience with them, and there have been plenty of other things that I’ve read through the service. It’s competent, but far from perfect.

The Reading Interface

Until recently, I could barely stand reading an article in Zite itself. What felt like half of the screen was taken up by interface elements that didn’t need to be shown all the time, and the stark black that Zite chose looks more like a crappy Android app than a good iPhone app. Thankfully though, Zite has improved this and made the main reading experience full screen.

Mmmm, nice and clutter free.

With the clutter gone, I was able to easily focus on the text of each article. Everything is easily readable, and those controls that used to take up so much space are now brought up by tapping on the screen.

Ahhhh! Get those glyphs away from me!

Controls range from viewing an article the way that it appears on the actual website to sharing it on all of the usual suspects (Twitter, Facebook, email, etc.). The controls that really affect Zite are the thumbs-up and thumbs-down on the bottom of the screen. Hitting either of these allows you to express the quality and relevance of the article that you’re reading, giving Zite some actual feedback to improve your experience next time.

On Zite and Flipboard

I’m going to go ahead and state the obvious: Flipboard obviously looks better than Zite. Where Flipboard is polished and smooth, Zite is clunky and abrupt; Zite can’t win on interface alone.

Despite that, I found myself using Zite more often than I used Flipboard. Zite seemed to update more frequently, had a broader range of subjects without feeling overwhelming, and kept me coming back for more despite its flaws.

That said, both can exist on the same iPhone easily. While Zite is focused on bringing you new content quickly, Flipboard can act as a gorgeous RSS reader or Twitter service on top of bringing you new content. Both are enjoyable to use, though for different reasons. While someone may use Flipboard simply because it’s such a joy to operate, that person can get past Zite’s sloppy, half-baked interface for the end product.

Conclusion

There’s no harm in downloading Zite, as it’s free and easy enough to uninstall. There are certainly things that could be improved, ranging from the power of the service’s backend to the interface that feels like it was just slapped together. Still, I enjoyed my time with Zite, and have found plenty of things to read.

If that’s what you’re looking for, go ahead and download Zite. If you’re looking for something else, with a bit more of a personal feel, use Flipboard. If you want both, use both. It’s that simple.

Shotz is the most recent Dribbble client I’ve been playing with. It features a pixel-perfect layout for the standard iPhone and retina display. You can check out recent Dribbble shots, popular submissions and even access data from your own Dribbble account. It’s the perfect app for any digital artist.

Getting Started

Once you open the application, you’ll notice a very inviting home screen. The entire thumbnail layout is beautiful on iPhone — it’s elegant and very easy to sort through.

Featured splash image

By default, the home page view lists the most popular shots over the past 24 hours. By swiping upwards you can move the listing back even further in time. Beyond two pages you’ll have to tap Load More to pull from Dribbble’s API. This saves on load times and server resources for the website, and the interface is superb.

dribbble shots by everyone

Right away you’ll notice how simple and intuitive the the UI feels on a mobile device. Everything behaves as you would expect and there are a lot a of features to access. Each of the four tab bar items will sort through submissions in a different way.

Popular stories are the most liked submissions in the past day or two. Everyone will pull the most recent submissions from every Dribbble user. The 3rd tab is for Debuts which are newly recruited Dribbble users submitting their first shots. And finally, on the last tab you can enter your own username to pull data for your profile.

Personal Dribbble Settings

This is the part of Shotz that really gets my attention. There are plenty of other Dribbble apps which let you access your account information, but Shotz hosts such a beautiful interface and displays information in a clean, easy-to-use manner.

Personal user settings profile

You do not need to enter your password into the app login screen since Dribbble can’t authenticate through OAuth. Instead, the app will pass in your username and pull the data from an RSS feed. This means you could also enter another user’s name to view all of their stats quickly and easily.

Checking Out Shots

If you are on a listing page and tap onto a thumbnail image you’ll be directed onto a detail view. This contains a much larger photo of the shot, along with some more submission details. These include the title, designer, plus some statistics(number of comments, views and likes).

By swiping down you’ll find that Shotz also has a specially designed area for comments. Not all Dribbble clients are able to display comments, so this is a fairly unique trait to the app. It takes a bit more data to pull from the site API, but the functionality is worth it!

Of course, since you aren’t able to fully authenticate yourself it’s not possible to leave comments. But it may very well be possible some day soon.

Viewing individual shots & comments

Each of the comments are accompanied by the user’s avatar icon as well. If you begin to swipe within the paper texture area you’ll notice this behaves as a scrolling view. It’s a wonderfully creative interface element that really brings the application to life. It makes scrolling through 50+ comments a breeze and you can easily follow the train of thought.

If at any point you want to get back up towards the top view, just swipe outside of the paper area, such as swiping down from the top dark-grey part of the window, right below the pink toolbar. This is a slightly tricky aspect to the UI and possibly my only real complaint, aside from the lack of landscape views.

What Happened to Landscape?

This is just one feature which was ultimately a big letdown. Notice that on any shot listing you can’t get the application to change into landscape. This was built by design, and it actually works just fine to keep the thumbnail layout in formation.

Loading more shots

But unfortunately, you can’t even get landscape view to appear on the full shot preview screen. In many other Dribbble clients (such as Ballin’ App) you can rotate the view to display a larger shot of the original design. Although Shotz is missing such functionality, it isn’t required to really enjoy the experience.

In truth, one of my favorite features is the ability to tap on any shot image for more options. I can’t find a single other Dribbble client which lets you copy the full-sized image and lets you save the image to your device. This is crucial functionality and really takes the cake in my book!

Conclusion

Shotz features one of the most beautiful user interfaces I’ve ever seen on an iPhone application. The Dribbble API is used accordingly and each shot displays perfect on retina display devices. I would highly recommend this application for any Dribbble fanatic and especially users of the website.

The developer is still updating with new features over time, although there hasn’t been anything recently. Granted, this is a relatively new release and it takes time to grow on the App Store. Yet, in such a short amount of time, Shotz has become a quickly recognized iPhone and iPad Dribbble client.

We’re starting to see this mentality around our phones. Gone are the days of something small enough to be mistaken for a pack of gum; no, we want something with a 5.3 inch screen — anything less than 4.3 inches is for babies. Should the iPhone get a larger screen, or is it perfect the way it is? Let’s take a look.

That Rule-of-Thumb Thing

Most people operate their phones one-handed at least the majority of the time. I personally don’t even attempt to tap out a tweet or send a message using only one hand, but if I’m reading through Instapaper or Tweetbot I’ll use one hand to navigate. This is made easy by the iPhone’s screen size; I, and many others, can reach every pixel of the screen with my thumb.

Consider then, a larger iPhone screen. If it jumps to, say, 3.7 inches, I don’t foresee too much of a problem. I owned a Droid Incredible with that screen size, and everything was still easy to reach with one hand. I’d say that 3.7 is doable for most people, as it’s a slight increase over 3.5 inches.

Anywhere beyond that, though, and you’re beginning to stretch. One-handed navigation begins to require some shimmying around the phone, loosening your grip and sliding around in order to reach each object on the screen. For some – especially those with larger hands – this isn’t an issue, but I imagine that there are plenty of people with average-sized thumbs that wouldn’t be able to reach the entire screen.

Is That a Phone in Your Pocket, or Are You Happy to See Me?

If you are wearing pants that fit you properly there is no way that you can comfortably squeeze a large phone into your pocket. Now, I know that this isn’t an issue over here in the States simply because we can’t seem to find a way to educate people on how their pants should fit, but I like to think that other parts of the world have the miraculous capability to think about how they look. If there is enough room for a 5.3 inch phone to fit in your pocket, you genuinely feel comfortable and there isn’t some weird bulge in your front pocket, you’re either wearing sweat pants or you’re doing something wrong.

The 5.3 inch Galaxy Note. (Image credited to The Verge)

Contrast that with the iPhone. Right now it fits in the phone with no problems. Anyone wearing proper jeans should be able to fit their iPhone into their pocket without a large bulge (there is still a bit of a bump there, I’ll admit). My experience with the Droid Incredible has shown me that, again, it’s comparable to the iPhone. Trying to pocket my Dell Venue Pro, though, leads to some serious issues.

By increasing the size of the screen you are inevitably going to increase overall device size (within reason; Apple could probably get the iPhone to 3.7 inches without increasing device size) which affects the portability of the phone. Since your mobile phone is meant to be taken with you, this is maybe one of the most important things to consider when talking about screen (and device) size.

Okay, but Media is Awesome, Right?

Absolutely, imaginary heading. Despite the lower pixel density on my Dell Venue Pro, I can see how someone might prefer that larger screen size when they decide to watch a music video or (heaven forbid) a movie on their phone. Everything from looking at pictures to reading is more comfortable on a device with a larger screen.

Let’s think about the issues with the pixel density for a moment. Right now, Apple has gotten the Retina Display for the iPhone down to an art, with fewer and fewer malfunctioning displays and a continued emphasis on the quality of the screen. Factories and suppliers are accustomed to creating the Retina Display at a 3.5 inch size.

As screen size increases, our eyes will feel more comfortable with the size of the display, but will feel worse about the clarity of the display. In my experience using any phone (or even the iPad) after using the iPhone makes the whole experience seem blurry, as though I had forgotten that between putting one phone away and grabbing another I had turned into a seventy-year-old and left my reading glasses.

If Apple can get the Retina Display on a larger display I would be ecstatic. I’m hoping that this will happen with the iPad, but if it can be brought to a slightly-larger iPhone I’d be a happy camper. Screen size is important, but screen clarity is even more important.

Holding a Charge

Now, the bane of larger-screened phones everywhere: battery life. To be fair, this reputation might be from a mix of the larger screen size and 4G (LTE, blah blah blah), but through my own tests, even a phone with less pixels and no data connection ran through a battery faster than the iPhone.

Mmm. With a larger screen and 4G that bar could go from full to empty in no time flat.

Sure, as device size and screen size increase the battery size will also increase, but the question is whether or not that battery size can be increased proportionally with the demand from that larger screen. Since Apple is a leading force when it comes to battery life I can see this being a non-issue if they decide to release a phone with a larger screen, but I also know that they won’t release that phone until that battery is ready.

Conclusion

I don’t have the answers. I know that Apple will take its time changing the iPhone’s form factor; that’s exactly what they’ve done with the iPhone 4S. Beyond being incredibly pleased with the iPhone 4’s form – which is still unbeaten in this industry – I think that the 4S may have been a chance to make some changes to the iPhone while giving Apple some time to look into other, more drastic changes for the so-called iPhone 5.

With each change that they make, Apple is weighing in on what they believe is best for all of their customers. At this point, I’m not sure that a larger screen size is best for everyone, as most people are more than happy with the size of their iPhone.

Might Apple release a different line of iPhones with a larger screen? Maybe, but I doubt it. I think that, for right now at least, Apple is fine with having a smaller phone than those mammoths that we’re shown every day.

Toodledo is a service that’s been around for a while, that lets you manage tasks, notes, collaborate with friends and provides a huge set of features. So does their iPhone app, so let’s take a look at what it can do for you.

Getting Started

Tapping on Add Task will take you to a very simple form, where you can enter the task’s details and hit Add Task again to save it. For simple tasks, this is all you’ll probably need, but there are a lot more options if you feel like customizing it. Simply tap on Edit Details and you’ll get a lot more to change. For example, you can set the due date, add an alarm, change the task’s priority or even set a repeating pattern.

Adding a task, and setting a due date.

Tapping on Edit Details kind of automatically saves the task, so if you regret adding it, you’ll have to go to All Tasks and delete it from there.

Viewing Your Tasks

There are many ways to look at what you need to do. In All Tasks you’re literally viewing all your tasks. They’re sorted by importance by default, although you can change that by tapping right below the Add Task button. You can choose to sort alphabetically, by due date, even by distance from a specific location (which is kinda cool). The great thing about these options is that you can sort by, say, importance, then alphabetically and then by distance, for example. You can also choose different filters, where you can show tasks that are already done, hide them or just show the recent ones.

Different task views, and sorted by importance.

There are many other views, like the Folders option, where tasks are sorted by folders you specify when you create a task. One of my favourites is Locations, where you can actually view tasks on a map. If you specify locations for your tasks, you can see which ones are closer so you know where to go to get things done.

View your tasks on a map — take that Reminders app!

Location Based Reminders

This is worth mentioning and has its own section because it’s a great feature, but is a little hard to configure. First, go to the Settings pane and tap on Fields & Defaults. There, scroll to the bottom and under Unused Fields you’ll find one named Location. Drag it to the top so it sits under Fields Used. Go back, and you’ll see two more options under the Tasks category: Location Alarms and Locations. Tap on Location Alarms and turn the Get Alerts switch to ON. Customize the other options to your heart’s desire, but be sure to leave the Auto option selected, since this tells Toodledo to use your device’s location services.

Drag the Location field to the top, then enable Get Alerts.

Now, when adding a task, edit its details, and tap on Location. There, add a new one. Type a recognizable name like Home or Work, and set the location using the map. This way, when you get close to the location you set, Toodledo will remind you.

Customizing Your Experience

Toodledo has got to be one of the most customizable apps out there. The bad part is that it’s kinda hard to discover all of its features. Like the location based reminders I talked about in the previous section, there are many other features and task views you can unlock simply by diving into the settings. For example, go to the Settings pane, hit Fields & Defaults and slide the Tag option to the top. This will allow you to add tags to your tasks, and view them on the start page accordingly. You can do the same with contexts, for example, and even the reverse. Not really using the Starred Tasks feature? Simply slide that field to the bottom and it will disappear. That’s customization, alright.

Set up syncing to back up your tasks and notes.

Apart from the latter, you can set up syncing so all your tasks are backed up with Toodledo’s site. You can create an account right from within the app and sync everything. This is great since you can then use Toodledo from your browser if you’re on your desktop. You can also choose to use app badges and change the app’s start page, so you’re right where you want to when you fire up the app.

Final Thoughts

The app’s design seems a little weird at first, mostly because the icons don’t look like iPhone material. Appigo’s Todo app comes to mind here, where it has beautiful icons that go perfectly with iOS’ UI. Another thing that bothered me is the fact that you have to set a due date (and a due time) to set an alarm for a task. I prefer the way Apple’s Reminders app works, where you simply set an alarm and that’s it.

The thing I really liked is that you can customize the app to fit your needs very precisely. If you don’t need to star your tasks, simply remove that feature. Less clutter means less to worry about and more tasks getting done.

If you need more power than Apple’s Reminders, give Toodledo a shot, you will probably not regret it.

Hop in and get your game on!

Blot

Blot is a clone. It’s a strange, artsy clone of the very famous Jetpack Joyride from Halfbrick Studios, and somehow that doesn’t detract from its charm or fun.

You’ll control a blob of ink called Blot, and using the one-touch controls you will struggle to keep him safe as he speeds through gorgeous hand-sketched landscapes, avoiding floating pencils, pins and all sorts of obstacles. Collecting coins is a good way to work toward purchasing cool costumes and tools in the shop, and there are also “boost buddies” to keep an eye out for — they’ll help you achieve an invincible, Mario-style ultra mode where you can breeze along without fear.

One interesting aspect that differentiates Blot is the inclusion of ink colours. Dipping Blot in various colours will grant him certain abilities that help make progress easier against certain obstacles. This, combined with the tools you can buy are what makes Blot feel special, and with any luck the developers at Majestic Software will focus on these distinguishing elements for their future updates. Blot remains a very fun, if familiar, game.

Price: $0.99
Developer: Majestic Software
Download: App Store

Paper Monsters

Paper Monsters is one of the rare ones, folks. Somewhere between LittleBigPlanet and Paper Mario, this new title from Crescent Moon Games is an impeccably crafted side scroller with incredible visuals, charismatic characters, secretsand strong music.

The responsive controls will allow you to make your way through the game’s four worlds, and besides the usual running and jumping, you occasionally find yourself controlling vehicles, which add some diversity to the experience. Perhaps the coolest part is that, alongside the main game, there’s a separate mode called Dash that turns the game into an endless runner for some extra excitement.

Though it plays like an homage to the Mario series through and through, Paper Monsters is overwhelmingly beautiful and has emerged from its long development period as a perfectly tuned example of the genre, one that no one should miss out on.

Price: $0.99
Developer: Crescent Moon Games
Download: App Store

My Army

What happens when you mix a war game with social gaming? Well, something like My Army.

At its core, it’s a game where you use a clever combination of tilt and swipe/tap controls to guide your squadron through hostile territory, but what makes it special is the fact that your squad is made up of friends that you recruit yourself — from Facebook. As you tilt to steer your men through the action, you’ll have to tap on incoming mortar shells to detonate them before they strike you, and you must swipe at bombs to direct them away from your people.

Objectives help keep you busy as you make your way through the levels, and the fact that you’re playing with friends as avatars makes the action feel more intense. There are various points and ranks to be achieved, and you’ll also have a variety of Game Center achievements to work toward earning. Overall, a fun and straightforward combat game that’s easy to get into and socially savvy.

Price: $0.99
Developer: Bad Puppet
Download: App Store

Zombie Bunnies

Zombies we’ve seen, evil scientists we’ve seen … but zombie bunnies? Now we’re talking. Lavafish Studios brings us this quirky combination in order to tell the story of Good Dr. Bunny, whose experiments go awry and morph him into the evil Dr. Hare.

As you fly through the levels in his Bunny Ship (of Evil), you will use Dr. Hare’s zombie bunny minions to sow destruction and collect points. Citizens, structures, animals and anything else that gets in your way is just another target for your vicious zombie bunnies. Gameplay revolves around the completion of specific objectives that allow you to unlock upgrades to the Bunny Ship, as well as four different kinds of zombie bunnies.

The levels in the game are procedurally generated, and there are many levels of difficulty, so it’s nearly impossible to run out of things to keep you entertained in this strange little destruction simulator. Highly recommended and very addictive!

Price: $0.99
Developer: Lavafish Studios
Download: App Store

Dungeon Crawlers

As the title suggests, Dungeon Crawlers borrows many concepts from RPGs of old, though it presents them in a turn-based system that shifts the focus from mindless hacking and slashing to smart tactics that maximize your equipment and skills.

A sense of humour helps draw you into the story, and the distinct characters make it easy to get immersed in the game’s 3D world. Frequent references to popular fantasy classics bring in a healthy dose of laughter, but the self-referential humour is easy-going and well placed so that you won’t often find yourself distracted by it.

It goes without saying that there is a good amount of content in the game, but the best part is that the developers, Drowning Monkeys, have promised extensive and frequent content updates to help keep the game fresh and captivating. Any fan of the fantasy genre will find Dungeon Crawlers worthy of their attention, especially if you like your games with a bit of strategy built in.

Price: $1.99
Developer: Drowning Monkeys LLC
Download: App Store

What Have You Been Playing?

We hope you enjoy playing through some of these titles, but if you have your hands full with other games that we haven’t mentioned, we welcome your suggestions in the comments!

DuckDuckGo Search is a very simple engine which borrows a lot of traits from Google’s UI. Their search functionality is easy to use and also includes extra features for custom searches — in this way you can limit to specific domain names or even search in alternate places such as Wikipedia. Their web app is certainly fantastic, but the company has done an even better job for their iOS app, which we’ll delve into after the break.

Launching the App

On first startup, the app runs very clean with almost no distractions. The layout is created from a tab bar with four icons labeled Search, Bang, Bookmarks and About.

Initially launching DuckDuckGo

In the search view, you have easy access to entering keywords located in the top bar. If you’ve used the app previously, then all your history of recent searches will display in the background view. You can tap any cell in the table to immediately display search results related to those keywords, which is great functionality for a search engine to adopt! You can alternatively choose not to record your history in the app’s settings.

On the results page each link is split up with a larger site description. I feel this can actually be very annoying and difficult to sort through. These descriptions don’t always provide context for the website, so it’s difficult to gauge how useful the website will be.

Mobile Search Results

As you move through search links, the HTML page will render into a mobile browser window. The top toolbar appends some handy function icons to go forward/back in page history, reload the current page or access a more detailed sub-menu.

You can also easily bookmark specific websites or share links with your Instapaper or Twitter account. DuckDuckGo boasts a whole slew of unique functionality. There is even a button used to re-open the current page in Mobile Safari if you prefer.

"web design" keyword search

The rendering engine is pristine and appears similar to Opera Mobile. Page transitions are very snappy — a big +1 in my book. I can’t stand slow applications and especially slow animation in search engines.

Down at the very bottom of each search result page is a small button to load more results. By default, DuckDuckGo limits the amount of links pulled out. This helps to reduce load time and gives you more accurate results to choose from. Notice, you can always tap the back button in the top-right corner to select a new set of keywords.

Using !Bang Filters

The terminology comes off as a bit silly, but the inner-workings of their search filter is profound. By quickly scrolling through the list of suggested websites you can perform a !bang search limited to another website URL. There are practically hundreds of different choices, even options including foreign websites like Amazon Germany.

There are plenty of practical uses for these filters. You may quickly pull results out from a number of infamous websites, and there are new domains added frequently. The developers have spent a long time building up this system and I really enjoy it!

Say you want to look up dog bowls on Amazon. Simply type: !amazon dog bowls and you’ll be taken to Amazon’s website, where you’ll get search results for dog bowls. This has to be one of the coolest features available in DuckDuckGo.

Accessing More Data

If you are confused about all these different !bang concepts, don’t worry. The developers have made things a bit easier so you don’t need to jump online and research this yourself.

special !bang searches

On the About tab you’ll find another small table view of links. These are mostly attached to pages on their website which actually load optimized for mobile settings. The first and second links read Goodies and Bang, respectively. Just going through these two pages should give you a much better idea about how their search engine functions.

Additionally, you’ll find a whole set of other handy links below. Their About and FAQ pages are an absolute must-read for newbies. This holds especially true for those interested in search engines who have never even heard of DDG before.

Keeping Things Simple

My favorite point to make about this application is within its simplicity. There is nothing too difficult to understand about searching with DuckDuckGo. The developers have documented custom bang searches making them super easy for anybody to use.

Additionally, the main search page features such a minimalist layout. There is plenty of room to fit the keyboard and search bar. Since the results are loaded within another view, the history of search keywords is a nice extra page effect.

extra web browsing features

Notably, the Bookmarks feature isn’t exactly the most handy. If you are a big fan of DuckDuckGo then you’ll likely find yourself within the app more than anywhere else. In this scenario you may be hitting the bookmarks menu more often than not!

Conclusion

Whether you’ve heard about this search engine before or are just being introduced, DuckDuckGo is a fantastic iOS application. It’s completely free to download and you will not regret giving it a shot. I am still a huge fan of Google — it’s set as the default home page on all my computers — but on your iPhone you’re in a completely different world.

Having an alternate search app can come in very handy at certain times. Not to mention that Mobile Safari, while great, can be very limiting in it’s own regard. I have to highly recommend that new users give DuckDuckGo a fair shot. You may discover some really cool features and develop a bond with this wonderful piece of modern search engine technology.

ImGame is a revolutionary idea which attracts gamers of all crowds! The app behaves as a check-in social network where you can share what game(s) you’re playing. Check-ins are performed in real time and you can even accept push notifications for when your friends are online too. Find out more after the jump.

Getting Started

When you first open the app you’re introduced with two options: you can either log in with an existing username or register a new account. It’s unlikely you already have an ImGame account, so hit the new account button and you’re brought to a fairly complex sign-up view.

ImGame signup registration form

All of the fields are required except for uploading a custom avatar. You’ll to have to enter a unique username, your first and last name, e-mail address, along with a secure password.

Alternate forms for new users

On the second page you’re offered the chance to fill out additional profile information. None of these fields are required, but they help your profile stand out a bit more in the community. If you connect with a Twitter or Facebook account, you can also choose to share each of your check-ins with those services. Adding game network accounts doesn’t affect your profile itself, but it does give other users options to contact you via alternate means.

Managing your Check-ins

From the main view you’ll notice three tab icons. The first is your activity feed set by default and it displays a list of all your friends’ check-ins. You will also appear in this feed, and if you tap on individual check-ins you can leave comments. It’s a great way to interact with your fellow gamers!

Now if you tap on the middle button, this brings up the check-in screen. On this view you can search for a specific game title or choose from a list of your most recent check-ins. Each game is displayed with box artwork and a tag referencing a specific console system. This is very useful when you are searching through popular titles that have been released on more than one console (Wii, PC, PS3, Xbox).

Live friend's activity list

Tap to select your game and this brings up the check-in screen. Similar to Foursquare, you are given a small space to enter some additional comments. If you choose to share your check-in on Twitter or Facebook, this comment is also appended. But notice this is an entirely optional process and you can check-in without any additional comment.

I really like this feature and how familiar the controls are. It works splendid as a check-in mobile app with a unique twist. Plus the more you check-in the more tokens you can discover!

Unlocking Points & Tokens

For each check-in you receive a set number of points added to your account total. Over time this builds up reputation and you can even unlock small tokens to display on your profile. Granted, this isn’t the only way to unlock tokens, but possibly the easiest.

The creators of ImGame were crafty to implement such a accessible token system. This mimics the rewards system of Foursquare where you can unlock badges as you go from place-to-place. It’s a brilliant strategy of game mechanics which keeps players interested in checking into more diverse titles.

Profile tokens listing

It’s definitely possible that the developers will release new tokens as time goes on. I’ve seen some really brilliant ideas including retro tokens, FPS, and I even unlocked one as a beta tester for the app. The game is always ongoing and it’s a blast to follow along with your friends.

Connecting with Others

In the final tab view is your personal profile. This includes your total number of check-ins, points, tokens and friends list. A fun feature, “pwnerships,” tallies the total number of games you are pwning right now. This list is calculated to include the games you’ve checked into the most, and other players can easily take away your pwnership with enough check-ins. It’s almost like a mayorship status for video games.

User profile view display

Also towards the bottom of each profile you can find a list of popular game network IDs such as PSN, Xbox Live, iOS Game Center, etc. This is possibly one of my favorite features added into ImGame. It lets players connect outside of the app who would have likely never met each other before.

But another alternative to finding friends is to use the search page. This can be accessed from the top right button found on your profile view. The network isn’t large at all, so there aren’t a whole lot of players currently active. But it’s still very easy to locate your friends search by username and by digging through other profiles.

Conclusion

I am really impressed with the progress coming out from ImGame. The two founders, Joshua Corliss and James Hall, have been working tirelessly to pump out bug fixes and updates. The service has come a long way since beta testing and there is still plenty of room for improvement. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch and really enjoy gaming I highly recommend trying out this new social network. It’s 100-percent free to download and boasts some very impressive features.

What if you can’t do that but still want some focus? What do you think of? That last beach vacation with the waves gently rolling to the shore — or maybe that summer day with the birds singing and the gras rustling in a light breeze?

Everyone will think of something different and yet everyone yearns for that perfect moment of serenity. Now you can have that anytime, whether you’re in your crowded office or in your living room at home. With Serenity for iPhone, sounds and beautiful videos will take your mind on a vacation far far away.

Serenity For Your Senses

The new app from the makers of Camera+ and other successful applications strives to bring you ease of mind. The developers not only want you to listen to something pleasant — there are enough white noise apps on the App Store — but they combine nature sounds and synthesized music with stunning HD video footage or animated movies to appeal to two of your most important senses.

To that end, you need to bring some patience to the table before you can get started. At 241 MB, the app is rather big and will take some time to download. But once that’s done, it’s quite rewarding.

The sounds and videos are spread across five screens, each one symbolizing a different mood setting, ranging from romantic over a fresh spring/summer day to space and galaxies hurtling through space.

Choose out of 30 different moods

The preview images give an idea of what to expect and the loading time for both music and video are quite quick regarding the large file size. The quality of the video files is outstanding as well, making the use of the app in full screen a joy.

By the way, there’s no need to jump from screen to screen to check out the available moods; simply use the swipe gesture to go back and forth between them. Also, the app behaves similar to the Music app. As long as you don’t close it, you can lock your iPhone by pressing the power button for a moment and still enjoy the music (and save some power due to the screen being turned off).

Since there are 30 different moods I can’t go into every one in detail, but some are really striking. For example, the one with the mountain range in the thunderstorm, complete with lightning illuminating dark clouds. Or the one where you think you’re sitting on a spring lawn, the birds singing around you and a the bees buzzing back and forth. Not to mention the cute video of animal babies with soothing piano music or the galactic animation with synth sounds hurling you from nebula to nebula.

Enjoy stunning HD videos accompanying the sounds

Apart from the iPhone, you could also get the app for iPad to enjoy it on a big screen (unfortunately, Serenity is not a universal app) — but there’s no need if you are the proud owner of an Apple TV. Simply utilize AirPlay and put the stunning videos on your HDTV, then play the sounds through your stereo system.

Set a Timer For Your Break

No matter if you are intending to take a quick break from work or lull yourself to sleep, a handy timer within the app allows you to specify a time when your iPhone will fall asleep, or rouse your from your refreshing break.

Set the timer for a lunch break or an entire night

Simply select one of the moods and then use the scroll wheel selector to set a time. Anything from a short lunch break to a multi-hour sleep relaxation works.

If you use Serenity for a specific purpose, you can also just set the timer from the overview (at the bottom of your screen) and have it applied every time you start a mood.

Fun Stuff

One tidbit I came across rather by accident is a “hidden” screen before the one that appears when you open the app. If you slide your finger to the right, you will reveal a yin-yang symbol with three black stones.

While you can’t rake the sand the symbol is made of (wouldn’t that be a nice touch?), you can place the stones in different spots and even put them on top of each other. Nothing really mindblowing, but a nice playful touch nonetheless.

Push around some stones

Verdict

Serenity for iPhone takes you on a vacation every time you start the app. You can chose many different destinations, but most, if not all, will help you forget what’s around you and focus on what matters — may that be a task at hand or simply your pleasure.

While the video and audio are of very high quality, I wish there were some more nature sounds, especially with some of the beautiful videos of flowery fields, for example. I’d just expect something other than synthesized sounds with visuals like that; even piano music would be better here.

But then again, taste is something that differs greatly and Serenity has some wonderful video/audio combinations. Add to that the AirPlay support, and you have an app that can help to set the mood for whatever you have in mind.

What are your experiences with apps like this? Do you use them regularly or do you have other methods to relax? Let us know in the comments.

They are all great. Heck, even if somebody created a list of 500 great games, there would still be a ton of phenomenal games left out. That said, we have compiled a list of cool games spanning a variety of categories to have some fun. If you also have an iPad, or are intrigued by the prospect of gaming on one, take a look at our most recent roundup!

Head over to iPad.AppStorm and check it out!

Not too long ago, I stumbled upon Flava, which is a journaling application for the iPhone. But as I started to get into it and use it, I realized there is so much more to it. There are some great features that make it stand out and it could potentially be a great way to capture those special moments in your life.

Navigating My Way Through

When it comes to using Flava, you can log things using a wide variety of features that are integrated very nicely into the app. There are seven different ways that you can add to your journal, all of them being pretty self explanatory, but Flava has added a few extra features to spice them up a bit. For example, you can add an entry by just writing down text or by capturing a photo, but you can also change the color of the text as well and add different stickers to your photos to make them stand out.

Adding photos and texts

Next, let’s say you find a great restaurant and you want to make sure you log that into Flava. You have some great ways to make this happen, starting with marking that location. You can either search an address of the restaurant, or, if you are already there, Flava uses the GPS location so that you can bookmark it. But let’s say you are in a hurry and would rather just quickly enter in the info of the restaurant — you can use the Record function, which lets you record your voice and enter in a caption of what the recording is about.

Adding a Location

Then let’s say you decide to go to a coffee shop after dinner to relax and you get there, love the book you are reading and you want to share it with your friends on Twitter and Facebook. Flava has a vast library of books (they are connected with Google Books) that you can search and share with your social networks.

Adding Books

While you are at the coffee shop, you decide to listen to the music on your iPhone and there is a song that comes on that reminds you of something, so you decide to add it to Flava as well. Once you post the song you are listening to, you can actually listen to the song in its entirety from inside of the app, plus you can click on a You Tube button that takes you to the site and gives you search results for the artist.

Adding Music & Music Video on You Tube

Then, last, and very not least, you can also add links to your journal. If there is an important or special link that you want to remember for later, it can be added here. When you add it, a thumbnail image is also put on your post as well. When it is in your journal, you can go back, click on it, and you are taken to the site within Flava, without opening Safari.

Adding a Link

Social and Other Apps

As I briefly mentioned earlier, most of your posts can be shared out to Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. The only thing that you cannot share is when you make a link — I’m not sure why that is, as I could see it being useful.

Sharing Services

Different services to export to

Speaking of export, Flava has integrated both Dropbox and Evernote as main exporting options. If you have an Evernote account, you can sync your posts to it so that you always have a copy. Dropbox integration can be used as a backup as well, but the nice thing is that you can also restore your posts from it if you needed to.

Evernote Sync and Dropbox Backup/Restore

This Has Got Potential

Flava has definitely flown under the radar as far as I can tell. With all of the features and the integration with so many other apps, I really think that it has potential to do well. Granted, there are some great apps out there that do the similar things and are more popular — Path and Day One to name a few — but I really think with some work, Flava could challenge them.

Some things I would like to see are being able to take video, as well as an iPad app, both of which they say are coming in future updates. I am not the hugest fan of the UI and that could be a deal breaker for some, so it would be nice to see more polished visuals. Other than that, I definitely like Flava and I can see myself using it full time. Go download it from the App Store for free and let us know what you think.

Find out exactly what My Xbox LIVE brings to your iPhone experience after the jump.

The Xbox Experience

If you’re hip to the new Metro UI that was released for the Xbox in December, the overall experience of My Xbox LIVE should feel quite familiar to you. The first thing you’ll need to do sign in by using your Windows Live ID, which is the same login you would use on the Windows or Xbox website. The app’s interface is spread out into three different pages: Home, Social and Games.

If you don't have a Windows Live ID connected to your Xbox LIVE account, you'll need to sign up for one.

Home

Home features videos about games, news and Xbox tutorials. In addition, if you’re a fan of checking out the Gamer Spotlight, this page has you covered. On the Verizon Wireless network, these video streamed extremely well with no lag present.

Videos don't stream in HD quality, but they're still sharp.

Social

Social offer a lot of different features, the first being an animated version of your Xbox LIVE avatar. By tapping on your avatar, it will perform a series of different animations, ranging from happy to sad. To the left of your avatar is a list of your information, including gamer tag, first name (if provided in your bio), gamer score and your current Xbox LIVE membership type (Gold or Silver).

The Social page allows you to access the most features of the app.

To the right of your avatar is a list of different features, including Friends, Messages and Beacons. The Friends page shows which of your LIVE friends are online. Tapping on a friend will bring up their profile (which includes their animated avatar), and you can also view their recent games, compare games you’ve both played and check out their bio.

My Xbox LIVE allows you to see which friends have (or don't have, in case of my example) similar taste in games.

The Messages page allows you to view/respond and write message to friends. I hate having to enter text via the Xbox because it’s so painfully slow, so when I’m interacting with friends on LIVE, I’ll send messages on my iPhone because it’s so much faster. The only downside to this feature is that the app does not send you a notification when you receive a message.

Sending a message is super fast with My Xbox LIVE.

Beacons, a new feature that came with the recent dashboard update, allows you to passively inform friends that you’re interested in playing a game or watching a move via Netflix together. My Xbox LIVE allows you to set beacons, and will notify you when a friends responds.

Setting Beacons on the go is really convenient if you know you want to play at a later time.

Social also includes options to edit your profile and avatar. When editing your avatar, you can change your style or features, and even choose a brand spanking new avatar. Another nice features is the ability to turn your avatar 360 degrees by dragging it left or right on the screen. My only annoyance is the inability to purchase clothing from the Marketplace, but more on that later.

Changing your avatar via your phone is cool, as long as you don't want to buy clothes from the Marketplace.

Games

From the Games page, you can view your most recently played titles, including disc based and downloaded games. From the main screen, the number of achievements and gamer score points are displayed for each game, and tapping on a game will take you to a secondary page that displays each achievement you’ve earned (you can tap on an achievement to see what actions were performed to earn it).

Achievement junkies will really love that deep level of information provided.

A Visual Treat

One of my favorite things about this app is the overall look and feel. As a fan of Microsoft’s Metro UI, it’s nice to get a taste of what Windows Phone 7 users see every day. The clean interface is extremely simple to navigate and the Xbox sound effects used when toggling in and out of different pages is a subtle but very enjoyable touch.

The Metro UI used in My Xbox LIVE is a visual treat.

What’s Missing

While there are a lot of nice core features available in My Xbox LIVE, there are a number of features that are sorely lacking — the most obvious of which is the ability to access the Marketplace (including the ability to add Microsoft Points).

When I’m hanging out with my fellow gamer friends, I’m often informed of LIVE games and add-ons they highly recommend, but I tend to forget about their recommendations when I’ve eventually made my way back to my Xbox. If the ability was present in My Xbox LIVE, I’d be more apt to download the game or add-on from my phone.

Additionally, the Xbox Companion app available on Windows Phone 7 offers the ability to browse videos and music from the Zune Marketplace, which can then be activated from your phone and played on your Xbox 360 (similar to AirPlay between the iPad 2 and Apple TV). While this lack of functionality is to be expected in order to give Windows Phone 7 an advantage over its iOS counterpart, it’d be nice to see Microsoft share the love to those who aren’t ready to make the jump to their mobile platform.

Closing Comments

My Xbox LIVE is a definitely a very nice and sleek companion app that the most hardcore of Xbox 360 users will enjoy. The social features are particularly handy if you don’t own a ChatPad and get tired of taking over a minute just to write out a sentence. Additionally, it’s really nice to see which of my friends are online without having to boot up the system.

The lack of the Marketplace, though, really limits the amount of time I’ll really spend using the app. But, at the price of free, it’s definitely a good app to keep on your iPhone for when you need it.

They say that the best camera you have is the one that’s always with you, which is probably why I take more photos with my iPhone than with my other options. There have always been lens systems for the iPhone, but after reading about the iPro, I started wondering if I would ever buy a set for my iPhone. Is it worth the price?

Well, you tell me. The poll is right there, go for it!