Hey guys,

I just thought I’d do a little update explaining what’s up with AllTechRelated at the moment. As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been neglecting ATR for the past couple of months due to the fact that I’ve simply been too busy. I’m in the last year of high school and that being combined with football and life in general has meant I simply haven’t had time to maintain ATR. However, this does not mean ATR is going away. I am going to keep the website online until next summer as I hope to restart updating the website after I’ve graduated.

I also wanted to thank all of our readers who have supported ATR up until now, and have helped make the website as big as it was in it’s prime. We hope you’ll stick with us through this tough period in the website’s life, and will come back once we restart in the Summer of 2012.

Thank you for your support!

- Matti (psp2468)

Name: Coin Drop! | Price: $0.99  [Buy it] | Rating: 5/5

Today, we’ve got a review and competition of a great game called Coin Drop! [Buy it] by the folks over at Full Fat. The game is an addicting and beautifully designed piece of software, which supports the whole iDevice family (iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad). To enter the competition, see the end of this review.

The game starts off with a couple of short tutorial levels teaching you the know-hows of the game, allowing you to move swiftly onto the game itself. The story behind the game is that the world has been taken over by bad pennies, and you’re the one who is here to save the day! The game comes with over 75 levels where your aim is to rescue the girl coins, demolish obstacles and solve your way through puzzles, done in the form of dropping coins by tapping on your iDevice’s screen.

The graphics of the game look truly gorgeous on a retina display and make the gaming experience even more enjoyable than it already is. The gameplay itself is fun, and is one of those game where you can pull up your iPhone at any time and have a quick game, due to the levels being short and snappy. It is the definition of a perfect mobile game, in that sense!

The game has a very polished feel to it. A mixture of luck and skill are necessary to complete the 75 levels, making it an unpredictable app, as well as giving it a replay value.

Full Fat have put together a great trailer for their game giving you a taste of what you are in for if you buy the app (or win a copy from the competition below!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8_atQNA7FU

We’ve given Coin Drop! an excellent 5/5 and boy does it deserve it! We definitely recommend you picking up the game if you don’t manage to snag a copy in the below competition. The game can be purchased for $0.99  [Buy it] on Apple’s AppStore.

Competition

Full Fat were kind enough to donate 3 extra promo codes to give away to 3 lucky winners to get Coin Drop! for free.

How to enter:

First thing you MUST do is comment on this article with a valid email so we can send you the code if you win (you do not need to post the email in the actual comment, just fill in the email field with a valid email). This counts as one entry. The following gives you an extra entry into the competition:

• One extra entry: Retweet the following message: @alltechrelated is giving away 3 promo codes for Coin Drop! by @fullfatgames on the iPhone/iPod Touch. Read more: http://bit.ly/jOObH5

If you do the above tweet, do not forget to post your Twitter username in your comment below.

The competition will end on Friday the 8th of June 2011 at 19:00 EST. Any entries after that date will not be counted.

The winners are: Krash, Alex and Djlatino. Congratulations to them and thank you to all who entered! 

Good luck!

Big thank you to Full Fat for the promo codes!

Name: Coin Drop! | Price: $0.99  [Buy it] | Rating: 5/5

Today, we’ve got a review and competition of a great game called Coin Drop! [Buy it] by the folks over at Full Fat. The application is an addicting and beautifully designed game, which supports the whole iDevice family (iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad). To enter the competition, see the end of this review.

The game starts off with a couple of short tutorial levels teaching you the know-hows of the game, allowing you to move swiftly into the game itself. The story behind the game is that the world has been taken over by bad pennies, and you’re the one who is here to save the day! The game comes with over 75 levels where your aim is to rescue the girl coins, demolish obstacles and solve your way through puzzles, done in the form of dropping coins by tapping on your iDevice’s screen.

The graphics of the game look truly gorgeous on a retina display and make the gaming experience even more enjoyable than it already is. The gameplay itself is fun, and is one of those game where you can pull up your iPhone at any time and have a quick game, due to the levels being short and snappy. It is the definition of a perfect mobile game, in that sense!

The game has a very polished feel to it. A mixture of luck and skill are necessary to complete the 75 levels, making it an unpredictable app, as well as giving it a replay value.

Full Fat have put together a great trailer for their game giving you a taste of what you are in for if you buy the app (or win a copy from the competition below!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8_atQNA7FU

We’ve given Coin Drop! an excellent 5/5 and boy does it deserve it! We definitely recommend you picking up the game if you don’t manage to snag a copy in the below competition. The game can be purchased for $0.99  [Buy it] on Apple’s AppStore.

Competition

Full Fat were kind enough to donate 3 extra promo codes to give away to 3 lucky winners to get Coin Drop! for free.

How to enter:

First thing you MUST do is comment on this article with a valid email so we can send you the code if you win (you do not need to post the email in the actual comment, just fill in the email field with a valid email). This counts as one entry. The following gives you an extra entry into the competition:

• One extra entry: Retweet the following message: @alltechrelated is giving away 3 promo codes for Coin Drop! by @fullfatgames on the iPhone/iPod Touch. Read more:

If you do the above tweet, do not forget to post your Twitter username in your comment below.

The competition will end on Friday the 8th of June 2011. Any entries after that date will not be counted.

Good luck!

Big thank you to Full Fat for the promo codes!

App: Ninjump| Price: $Free  [Buy it] / £Free [Buy it] | Rating: 4/5

Ninjump appears to be very simple when you first play it, so is it really any good? Find out after the break!

From backflip studios, Ninjump is a game where you scale the walls of a town, and do so by jumping from side to side of your screen. You do so by tapping the screen to change sides, which also prompts your ninja to start spinning into an attack mode. This is because there are various obstacles being thrown into your way, from ninja stars to birds.

If your lucky enough to attack three of them in a row, you are rewarded with a power-upin which you blast your way up the screen invincibly. The premise of the game is to get as high as you can, with no real goal apart from getting a better high score, however scores are uploaded to OpenFeint which introduces somewhat of an element of competition.

All in all, Ninjump may lack depth, but the fact that its free makes up for this and gives it a well deserved 4/5 rating!

App: Cover Orange | Price: $0.99  [Buy it] / £0.59 [Buy it] | Rating: 4/5

Cover Orange is a new game from FDG Mobile Games, where the basic premise is that you protect oranges from  a dangerous cloud carrying deadly poison. Your probably going to want to continue reading after the break to try to figure out what is going on…

So here goes – Cover Orange is a game where you’ve got to move round nearby objects, like boxes and barrels, to keep oranges covered from the aforementioned poison cloud. It’s another puzzle game, a genre clearly well suited to the iPhone platform, but I tended to find it a little bit clunkier than our Delicious rated games. That said, it’s still a fun game. It also seems to be very long, having played for quite a long time and i’m still on the second level of six, with more promised by the developers!

A complaint I do have however, is that the level of difficulty fluctuated wildly as you go through the game. You will suddenly be presented with a level you’ll have to skip, only to be presented with a string of levels that can be solved in one go, which is quite frustrating.

All in all, Cover Orange is a fun little game which isn’t going to have you spending hours on it, but still deserves its 4/5 rating.

Google Latitude is my favorite tool for stalking my friends seeing what my friends are up to in real time. After nearly a year of waiting for an official iPhone App from Google… it’s finally here!

Until now, I’ve been relying on Google’s browser-based Maps application for my Latitude experiments. (I say experiments because at this time I have a whopping total of two Google contacts that live locally and use the location service.)

I’ve found time and time again that the browser-based application is often laggy and needs regular manual page refreshes to work properly. I’ve also found myself being annoyed with how difficult it is to change settings without using my computer.

Here’s what the browser-based app looked like:

Browser-based App

As you can see by the photo collection below, the new application looks great. But that’s just a bonus. The official iPhone App also addresses all of my concerns, most notably eliminating the need for me to refresh my browser automatically.

Official iPhone App

One of the best features the App has is the ability to run in the background. That means if you want your friends to know exactly where you are at all times, it can be done. (This will likely drain your battery rather quickly, just like any other GPS-heavy app.)

Google Latitude [iTunes link] won’t be for everyone, but it’s definitely worth checking out.

During my blog perusing today I learned of the newly available Talkatone [iTunes App Store link]. There are a two main reasons I’m psyched about this app.

1. It brings VoIP capabilities to my iPhone (and all other iOS 4 devices)
2. It brings VoIP capabilities to my iPhone before my Android-loving friend gets it on his Nexus One (He has told me his is “jealy” about this. To that, I say, “lulz.”)

Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good

Talkatone is free.

It provides Google Voice subscribers with an easy way to both make and receive VoIP calls directly from their iPhone over 3G and WiFi.

You can easily record calls by pressing 4 on the in-app number pad.

Sound quality is, for the most part, pretty good. My friend who helped me test the quality said there was some audio clipping on occasion. I heard the same clipping, but it didn’t adversely affect the overall quality by much. (You can listen to my conversation here: VoIP Test — Talkatone)

The UI of this app is great. Navigating the app is extremely easy and, overall, everything looks great.

Incoming Call, In Call, Home, and Dialing Screens (Left to right, top to bottom)

The Bad

As mentioned before, there are some sound quality issues. The issues aren’t terrible, and they certainly aren’t grounds for dismissing Talkatone completely. However, it’s important to keep in mind that people have come to expect near-perfection when it comes to phone-to-phone sound quality. Some folks on the other end of the line from you might not be totally tolerant of some light sound interference.

More annoying than slight crackling and occasional clipping is the expected delay that comes with VoIP calling. During my three test calls using Talkatone, I noticed a delay ranging anywhere from .5 second to 2 seconds. As with the sound clipping issue, this isn’t a deal breaker. In fact, for some people with a limited number of minutes (or none at all, if you’re without a phone but have an iOS 4 enabled iPod or iPad laying around) the delay in sound is likely no big deal. (A silver lining with the delay is that it’s very hard to be interrupted during conversation.)

The Ugly

This is just me being picky, but it would be nice if the calling feature worked with the Edge network. As with most new data-heavy communication apps, you’ll need to be on 3G or WiFi for this to work properly.

My verdict is that this app is a must-have for any Google Voice using iPhone owner. I’d also go so far as saying this is “download right now” app for anyone with an iOS 4 enabled iPod Touch that wants a Google Voice-style “land line” or WiFi-only phone.

Your Guide to iDevice Browsers

So, you just got your fancy new iDevice, and you want to use the internet on it. But what choices do you have on what to use? This guide/review will hopefully make your decision a little easier, and explain to you what each App is like, and how it performs, so you can make the best decision possible.

NB: I am on 3.1.3 on an iPod Touch Third Generation at the time of this writing.

In this Guide, I will review the following:

• Safari – Native iDevice Browser
• Opera Mini
• Firefox Home
• Mercury

• Price:Free with every iDevice. Is the native browser
• Release date:Standard since first iPhone, so since June 29 2007

NB: I am using Safari Download Manger off of Cydia. This is not included with Safari so I am not including it in this review. Just pretend it’s not even there in the pictures

Safari is the native internet browser, that each and every iDevice has come with, since the first generation iPhones/ iPod Touches. It was ported from Apples Safari, for Mac and Windows. To many, it is there first choice for web browsing, as it is pre-installed, and easy to use. Just pick it up and go.

Features:
Safari offers the user many features:

• Tabs – Up to 8 pages
• The ability to easily add, and store Bookmarks – You can save them to your SpringBoard
• The ability to view in Portrait, and Landscape
• Easy navigation, pinch to increase/decrease size of page
• Save web images to the Camera Roll
• The ability to choose your own search engine

User Interface:
From start up, we are greeted with the Bookmarks menu, where we can select a Bookmark, to we can press Done and staright browsing.

Safari allows for navigation in both, Portrait, and Landscape, and has the toolbar at the bottom displayed at all times for convenient access. The Toolbar has back and forward navigation of pages, an Add button, which we can Add a Bookmark, add a Bookmark to the homescreen as a SpringBoard Icon, or Email option where you can send the page to a friend. There is also a bookmarks folder, where you can view history, bookmarks, and put your Bookmarks into organised Folders, and the Tabs Page, where you can have up to 8 tabs open.

Navigating Web Pages:

Navigation of webpages on Safari is a fairly easy task to do. Swipe your finger to scroll up and down the page, and pinch to zoom pages. You can navigate back and forward of pages easily, via the two buttons on the bottom toolbar.
In the navigation menu, when you type, it searches through your history, and gives you suggestions and what you are looking for. This is very convenient, as it saves typing out longer URL’s. Navigation Menu disappears as you scroll down the page, leaving you with the standard Apple bar, so you can see more of the page.

Bookmarks:

If you are like me, you have heaps of bookmarks, and use them all the time to get to your favourite pages, and sites. Safari has a very easy, and civilised way of doing so. Simply press the Bookmarks button, and we are brought to the Bookmarks page. Here you can move your finger up and down, to navigate. Pressing the edit button gives you the option of rearranging the order of the bookmarks, and putting them into Folders (Ie. iPod Touch things in one folder, gaming in another, etc.)You can also press History, where you can view, and clear your History.
Bookmarks are added, by pressing the ‘+’ icon in the toolbar.

Tabs:

Obviously for any modern browser, Tabs is a must have feature. Safari has done it perfectly. Safari enables you to have up to 8 tabs, however, you can have up to infinity with a mod off of Cydia. Navigation of Tabs is done by swiping your finger left and right, to choose a page. You can then tap it, to open. On the bottom, like on the SpringBoard, are dots, representing the number of pages. Creating a new tab is simple. Just press New Page in the bottom left, and it does its magic for you. Closing tabs is simple as well. Press the red ‘X’, at the top left corner of each page, to close.

Settings:

If you want to change any of the settings of Safari, you must exit, and go into the Settings App, where you will find a host of options to change, such as Search Engine, and whether you want it to block Pop-Ups or not.

Pros:

• Being the built in Browser, it is very easy to pick up and go, so this appeals to me.
• Easy navigation of webpages.
• Tool bars at bottom of page is convenient.
• Navigation menu at top of page disappears as you scroll down
• Can play HTML5.
• Doesn’t take up a lot of memory

Cons:

• No full screen option
• The majority of settings are out of the app, so it can be a wee bit of a pain to change something if you ever need to
• Limit to 8 tabs

Overall Scoring:

• Simpleness: Very easy to pick up and use 4.5/5
• User Interface: Very simple to understand and use by someone who is new to it 5/5
• Tabs: Safari has done this superbly. Tabs are very easy to use and follow, however, it is disappointing there is a limit of 8 tabs 4/5
• Navigation:Easy to navigate pages, text is a readable size 4/5
• Bookmarks: Presented with Bookmarks at start up, very easy to use and follow 4/5
• Overall: 21.5/25 (86%)

Conclusion:

Safari is a very good browser, for any user. It is simple to pick up and use, and is not elaborate or over complicated. Here, less, is more. Apple have done very well one this masterpiece.

• Price:Free from App Store
• Release Date:May 11 2010
• Click me for the link!

Next up, is Opera Mini. Opera Mini was released to the App Store on May 11, 2010, and is marketed as being “the fastest browsing experience available for your phone“. The interface is quite different from that of Safari, but it is more visually appealing to the eye.

Features:

• In Built Settings
• Option to go Full Screen
• Unlimited Tabs
• Bookmarks
• Save images to camera roll
• More visually appealing
• Can view it Portrait or Landscape. You can even turn your iDevice upside down!
• Quick search words on page

User Interface:

The user interface for Opera Mini is drastically different than that of Safari. From start up, we are greeted with the home page. Get used to this, as whenever you want a new page/tab open, this is what you will see

Navigating Web Pages:

As with Opera’s lightning fast loading, it doesn’t fully load everything, which is good, but bad. It means text is teeny tiny microscopic, until you tap, and it zoom in. On the subject on that, there is no pinch to zoom. Just tap, and it will automagically zoom in. You don’t need to pinch. However… You cannot set the level of zoom that you want it to magnify too… This can be a pain too some, but joyous to others..

Why so serious? xD

Tabs:

Unlike Safari’s Tabs, you can have an unlimited number of pages open at any time. In saying that, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Opera’s tabs are set out in a funny way. THey don’t cover the full screen, however, it is hard to navigate between them. To do so, slide your finger across the screen, or tap one of the icons. When you have 10+ tabs, it gets preety crazy to navigate. To close a page, press the red X in the top right corner.

Bookmarks:

Bookmarks are incorporated beautifully into Opera Mini, in two ways. The first, is from the very first page you open up. This is where you view your favourite, you most used web pages. Might be a good idea to just put Multi-Touch Fans down in there

To get to Bookmarks, press the Tools button, then tap Bookmarks. You will then be presented with your bookmarks. Like Safari, you can have bookmark folders too. Opera has already made a default one, self labelled Opera. How nice of them.

Tools:

Unlike Safari, Opera has a whole range of tools, that you can use to help you browse the web. All of them should be self explanatory, however, saved pages, takes a snap shot of your current page for later.

Settings:

Unlike Safari, the settings for Opera Mini is built into the App. To get into them, tap the settings button, then press Settings. In settings, we have quite a few options, which are quite handy. There is; Load images, image quality, font size, mobile view, full screen, Opera Link, Privacy and Advanced.

Pros:

• Nice, different User Interface
• Fairly easy to pick up and use
• Just as it says on the tin, it’s fast.
• Unlimited tabs
• Full screen view!
• Tools button is very convenient
• Lots of freedom

Cons:

• Tabs can be a hassle to navigate when you have quite a few pages
• Tiny microscopic text when zoomed out
• Can’t control how much you want it to zoom in

Overall Scoring:

• Simpleness: For a new user, it might be a bit difficult to use straight away, if they have used Safari in the past. However, in no time they should pick it up. 4/5
• User Interface:In comparison to Safari, the interface is very unique. I personally quite like how everything you need is right there. However, to others it may be confusing 3.5/5
• Tabs:While it has unlimited tabs, it gets quite crazy to navigate once you go over about 6 tabs 3.5/5
• Navigation:Navigation can be a pain sometimes, due to the small size of text, and the ability to not control the zoom is a let down 3/5
• Bookmarks:This is very well done. I like the way they have done it a lot 5/5
• Overall: 19/25 (76%)

Conclusion:

Opera Mini is certainly a very different browser, than Safari. In some areas it excels, however, in other it doesn’t perform to it’s full potential. If you are an iPhone user, and use 3G, then this browser would be a good choice for you, due to it’s speed. However, it would be good for the everyday user as well.

• Price:Free from the App Store
• Release Date:16 July 2010
• Click me for the Link!

Last, but not least, is Firefox Home. This App was released on the 16th of July, 2010. The main purpose of this, was so that you can pick up your internet form where you left off on your main home computer, and view it on your iDevice. Firefox Home requires you to be using Firefox, and it requires you to make a Sync Account, which only takes a couple of minutes.

Features:

• Pick up from where you left off on your home computer
• Tabs – kinda
• Your Firefox bookmarks
• Search, and the Standard Firefox Awesome Bar, where you can search Tabs, Bookmarks and History.
• View in Portrait or Landscape.

User Interface:

Firefox Home is fairly easy to use. It looks quite nice and simple, which is exactly what it is. Simple. Here, you can choose from Tabs, bookmarks, search, and Settings.

Navigation:

Navigation of web pages is exactly the same as Safari. Swipe to move the page up and down, and Zoom in and out to view. You can control how much you zoom in. Unfortunately, you cannot save any images.

Tabs:

With Tabs in Firefox Home, they are your Tabs from your last browsing session on Firefox from your Home Computer. You can’t add any more, or delete any. Simple as that

Bookmarks:

Bookmarks are your bookmarks from your home computer. I think this is a great feature, as you can view what you already have saved on your home computer straight away. It would probably be a good idea saving Google as one of your favourites in Firefox, just so you can navigate other pages…

Settings:

Firefox Home doesn’t really have any settings, other than Logout, About, and the number of bookmarks and tabs you have. Nothing else in it.

Pros:

• Simple to use
• Don’t need to set it up (Add bookmarks etc) Imports all data from Firefox
• Easy navigation of pages

Cons:

• Almost too simple
• Can’t add or remove Bookmarks or Tabs
• Can’t save images
• Can’t view other pages (You have to use Google to get to them)
• If you don’t use Firefox, you can’t use it

Overall Scoring:

• Simpleness: Very simple to use and pick up. All self explanatory 5/5
• User Interface:simple to use and operate, although it doesn’t offer much 4/5
• Tabs:Tabs are a joke, just your previous Firefox tabs, that you can’t close, or create new ones 2/5
• Navigating:Fairly easy to do, but you can’t safe images 3/5
• Bookmarks:Your Firefox Bookmarks. Can’t add any new ones. 3/5
• Overall: 17/25 (68%)

Conclusion:

I’ll admit, Firefox home could be very useful for someone that uses Firefox, and want to continue using it on there mobile device from where they left, but to others, it can be annoying. You either love it or you hate it. Hopefully soon you can fully unlock it’s full potential as a browser…

Mercury

• Price:Free from the App Store, although to get all features you can buy Mercury Pro for $0.99 USD
• Release Date:10 March 2010
• Click me for link!

Mercury Web Browser is next up. Mercury is described “as the best replacement for Safari“, and they are nearly spot on. So many things are done right in Mercury.

Features:

• Pick it up and go straight away
• Tabs – Up to 6
• Full screen mode instantly
• Pinch to zoom – You can control the level of zoom
• Bookmarks
• Can view in portrait or Landscape
• Has a built in Download Manager

User Interface:

The User Interface is quite simple to pick up and use, by anyone. From the very beginning, you are greeted with there simple Interface, and the keyboard, so you can start viewing the Web immediately.

Navigation of Web Pages:

Navigation of web pages is very easy to do on Mercury. Just like Safari, pinch to increase the size of the page, and you can control the size of the text as well. You can’t save images to the Camera Roll, which is disappointing. However, what is handy is when you click on a link, instead of a navigation bar taking up the page, there is a little box that had a progress bar and a Stop Button, which I like. If you want to view other tabs/go to a different web page, tap on the Green arrow in the Tap Right. Tap on the page to remove the navigation Menu.

Tabs:

Tabs are done in the navigation bar, which is hidden until you tap on the Green Arrow. Unfortunately, you can only get six tabs. To Add a tab, tap the ‘+’, and to remove, tap the ‘X’. Unfortunately, sometimes your finger slips and you tap the X instead of +, so it deletes one of your tabs, or the other way round.

Bookmarks:

To get to the Bookmarks, tap on Tools. This brings you to Bookmarks as the First option. Bookmarks are presented like on your Springboard, as little icons. Tap one to go to that page. Unfortunately, you can only view it in Portrait. To add a Bookmark, tap on the Add button, then press Add Bookmark. You will then get a menu, once again in Portrait, where it saves the Picture of the Website (Not sure of Name, but Multi-Touch Fans is the Home Button. Here, you can change the name of it as well.

Tools:

Like Opera Mini, Mercury has a tools menu. In the tools menu, is Bookmarks, History, Downloads, and Settings. As this is also tools, tap the Add button. This gives you the Option to; Add Bookmark, Save Page, Set Page as Homepage, Mail Link the page, and use Lock Rotation. For those who aren’t Jailbroken, Lock Rotation is a convenient feature for when browsing in bed, or on a couch. They know how you feel

Settings:

There isn’t a lot in settings, but they do have some handy features. There is a Startup Screen Option, where you can choose whether you want Saved Tabs, Homepage, or Bookmarks. There is a Private Browsing Option, where you can choose if you want it to save History/Cookies for that session. There is an Enable Compression Option, and Remember History Option. You can also Clear your History/Cookies

Pros:

• Full Screen browsing all the time
• Easily see all your tabs
• Download Manager
• Bookmarks is presented well
• Lock Rotation
• Easy Interface

Cons:

• There is the little globe at the bottom right of the screen. Tapping it just takes you to an Ad for there paid version.
• Only 6 Tabs
• Can only view bookmarks/settings in Portrait

Overall Scoring:

• Simpleness:Very easy to use and understand 5/5
• User Interface:Very easy to use, has many features 4/5
• Tabs:Only has 6 tabs, but they are done well 3.5/5
• Bookmarks:Looks really good. Slight annoyance that it is only in Portrait but that isn’t much of a pain 4/5
• Navigating:Navigating is really easy on this. Just pick it up and go 5/5
• Overall: 21.5/25 (86%)

Conclusion:

Mercury is set out to be the replacement to Safari, and I honestly think they could be right. This is done superbly. If you are looking for a new browser, this is a fine choice. It is a pain that there is only 6 tabs, but you can work around that. I would love to see what the paid version is like. Hopefully I can review it soon.

Well, hopefully this guide has made your decision to choosing a browser for your iDevice a little simpler.
Thanks!

Name: Roswell Fighter | Price: $0.99 [Buy it] | Rating: 4.5/5

Roswell Fighter is one of those classic ‘top-down’ airplane shooters except with an interesting twist. In Roswell Fighter, Earth has been invaded by aliens and it is your job to shoot down as many of their aircrafts as possible to save mother earth!

The game has a mixture of 2D and 3D graphics, but is first and foremost a top-down shooter. Controls are easy to use and the game has a very short, if any, learning curb. The default setting is to move your aircraft around the screen with your finger, however the game has two more settings, one being to you press where you want the aircraft to go and the other is using the accelerometer. Shooting is down automatically for you.

You have to carefully navigate the bombs whilst shooting down enemy aircrafts and ground guns.

The game has 11 fully packed levels with over 30 different enemy aircrafts, each with a different flight pattern, trying to shoot you down. The game’s difficulty is set well as whilst it is not so easy that you can get shot a 100 times before you crash, it is also not so hard that after one hit, you go down. However if you do find the game too easy or too hard you can change the difficulty of the game as well. There are many upgrades for you to try and obtain during the game. Some allow you to triple your fire power, some allow you to gain control of two more aircrafts or some even shoot out a massive lightening bolt which destroys anything in it’s path.

Roswell Fighter comes with over 50 different soundtracks for you making sure you always have something to listen to whilst you play the game. Of course, you can also play your own music whilst playing it if you choose to.

One of the upgrades allows you to control three aircrafts instead of one.

The game itself is very fun, addicting and keeps you on your feet because you never know what type of aircraft is going to attack you next. At the end of different stages in the game, there are Bosses that you need to beat to advance in the game. This is a feature which I think enhances the enjoyment I get from this game.

The only reason why this game didn’t get a 5/5 for me is because whilst it is fun and addicting, and this is not a fault on the game itself, but the idea behind the game. I think it’s fun for the most part, but may get slightly boring after having played it for a long time. That is why I think their price of $0.99 is the ideal price for the game as it is still a very fun game whilst it lasts!

You can find Roswell Fighter on the AppStore for only $0.99 [Buy it].

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg6lsVU-CU8

Name: Crash Course | Price: $0.99 [Buy it] | Rating: 5/5

“Crash Course almost belongs on another console altogether, making it a small victory to get to play a game this beautiful and exciting game on the go.” by Andrew Nesvadba / AppSpy.com

We have 4 free copies of Crash Course to give away! More information at the bottom of this post!

Crash Course, apart from Plants vs. Zombies [Buy it], is my favorite game. It involves the use of 3D, and is a shooter. It has levels, power-ups, and upgrades. It is pretty much the best of it’s genre!

Controls: There are 2 virtual joysticks, one controls the movement, another controls the gunfire. You have buttons too, one that lets you drop a destructive nuke that destroys the whole screen, and another is a boost button that lets you speed up killing things in your way (note that the effect takes time to charge).

Difficulty: There are many different styles of play in Crash Course. There is casual, for begginers which is more if you want to start from the beggining and just play. There is also “Arcade style”. This has Easy, Difficult, and “extreme” which is unlockable. Unless you are very good at this game, Extreme is way out of reach

Gameplay: There is many types of ways to play. It lets you customize the zoom, which I find the most useful. There is also ways to make higher or lower detail. Lastly there is 3D customization (The game is already 3D, but you can make it much more so with 3D glasses).

A finishing note… Crash Course is a very fun game, with lots of ways to play. There are times when you are sorrounded by a ring of spaceships and comets and have to shoot your way out, or even have to let out a nuke. It is a great game and is more then worth 99 cents. It has 25 (in the next level this number will be doubling to 50!) levels, each taking…10 minutes, so thats 8+ hours of gameplay to keep you entertained. Happy gaming!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QXRIJH6Gx8

Competition:

We have 4 extra promo codes for you guys to win to get this game for free. ONLY US iTunes account holders can enter as the promo codes only work in the US iTunes store.

How to enter:

First thing you MUST do is comment on this article with a valid email so we can send you the code if you win (you do not need to post the email in the actual comment, just fill in the email form with a valid email). This counts as one entry. Each of the next two things count as extra entries.

• One extra entry: Retweet the following message: @alltechrelated is giving away 4 promo codes for Crash Course on the iPhone/iPod Touch. More info available here: http://bit.ly/aDiriE
• Two extra entries: Join the AllTechRelated.com forum and make at least 2 posts.

If you do either of the two extra entries, include your Twitter username/ATR forum username in your comment below!

The competition will end in 7 days on the 7th of June, 2010.

Good luck!

Thank you to DFCGames for supplying us with the promo codes!

Name: Doodle Army | Price: $0.99 [Buy it] | Rating: 4.5/5

Doodle Army [Buy it] is the latest ‘Doodle’ game to hit the AppStore. The game involves you controlling a stick soldier who has to travel through a course and last as long as he can whilst being bombarded with bullets, grenades and missiles from rocket launchers.

We have 4 extra promo codes for you guys to win!  More info on how to enter at the bottom of this review.

If you go down right to the heart of the game, it has the same basic idea as other popular Doodle games such as Doodle Jump [Buy it] being to travel the largest distance before dieing. In this game, you start off in Boot Camp and have to travel through an obstacle course and survive for as long as you can whilst hundreds of other soldiers relentlessly fires bullets and throw grenades at you.

You may start off at Boot Camp, but once you accumulated 1000m of distance in Boot Camp, you will unlock the next of the 7 different levels including a rice paddy, a beach bunker, a sand trap and even a Mars mine.

The game also includes another mode called Boss Mode where you get to ride a quad bike and have to last as long as you can whilst shooting enemies from your ride. During the game, you get to use a range of 25 different weapons including pistols, submachine guns, sniper rifles, shot guns, grenade launchers, assault riles, machine guns and even a flame thrower.

Playing the game itself is done through a set of on screen buttons. They give you the ability to move left, right, be able to duck and to jump. The game has two options as to how you shoot your weapons. You can either simply press on the screen towards the direction you want to shoot or you can use a circle button that you spin to alter where the weapon aims. Throwing grenades is done in the same way expect with holding down on the screen to change how far you throw it.

The game is fully incorporated with OpenFeint allowing you upload your highscores online and compare your scores with your friends.

If I’m honest, this is one of the funnest games I have played. I was never a big fan off games like Doodle Jump [Buy it] or Papi River [Buy it] where the idea of the game is simply to survive for as long as possible, but this game has changed it for me. The gameplay is fun, exciting and makes we want to play it for hours.

The fact that the game has 7 different levels is a big bonus as it keeps the game original and not boring. The controls are easy to learn, but the game is at the right difficulty so that it isn’t so easy that it gets boring and isn’t so hard that after your first try, you give up.

My only slight quibble with this game is that the on screen buttons are placed in such a way that it is difficult to move your guy and shoot using the press-on-where-to-fire option. Sometimes your fingers get in the way of where you want to shoot. However, there isn’t really a way to improve this or a different places to put the button. The only solution is the use the circle firing method which isn’t as fun in my opinion.

You can find Doodle Army on the AppStore for only $0.99 [Buy it] but if you want to try it first, there is a lite version with only the Boot Camp level for FREE [Buy it].

Competition:

We have 4 extra promo codes for you guys to win to get this game for free. ONLY US iTunes account holders can enter as the promo codes only work in the US iTunes store.

How to enter:

First thing you MUST do is comment on this article with a valid email so we can send you the code if you win (you do not need to post the email in the actual comment, just fill in the email form with a valid email). This counts as one entry. Each of the next two things count as extra entries.

• One extra entry: Retweet the following message: @alltechrelated is giving away 4 promo codes for Doodle Jump on the iPhone/iPod Touch. More info available here: http://bit.ly/btbyQG
• Two extra entries: Join the AllTechRelated.com forum and make at least 2 posts.

If you do either of the two extra entries, include your Twitter username/ATR forum username in your comment below!

The competition will end in 7 days on the 27th of May, 2010. The competition has now ended. The winners have all had the codes sent to their emails. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Good luck!

Thank you to Chad Towns for supplying us with the promo codes!

Opera Mini is a popular web browser for mobile phones, and it is supported on almost every platform. As long as your phone has Java, it can probably run Opera Mini. So with Opera available on the Android Marketplace as a beta (and a good beta at that), I can fully underatand why they would bring it to iPhone OS. Now Apple, if you don’t already know, is very picky about accepting apps into their store. They don’t allow apps that are in direct competition with their own, i.e. you can’t put your own media player on the App Store, so I was thoroughly surprised when I heard the fate of Opera Mini on iPhone OS turned out good, and I was very pleased too. And after just a day of use I’m already hooked to it. So I decided I would write this review of Opera Mini on the iPhone using solely my iPod touch and Opera Mini. I hope the formatting turns out ok!

When you first open Opera Mini and you’re brought to a page with a 3×3 grid. These are your quick links, what Opera calls the start page. Tap on any of these boxes and you go to the page shown. Twitter, Facebook, NY Times, AccuWeather…And a couple seconds later the page is loaded. The speed is impeccable! Now I have an iPod touch, so all I have is WiFi, but using Opera Mini on an Android device with 3G renders the same speed results. It’s blazing fast. This is why Opera Mini is so popular. It uses it’s own web format, Opera Binary Format. Here’s how it works: you request a website, say Google. Your request is sent to Opera’s servers, which go to the webpage, take what’s shown, and convert and compress it into Opera Binary Format, a significantly smaller format than HTML. Opera’s servers then sends their data to your device. First, the layout of the page is loaded, with the text and it’s formatting. Only second are the images and other media shown. This way the smaller data (the base of the webpage) is sent first, with images and other media sent secondly. Many times the media isnt necessary to browse a webpage, so you can navigate the page and surf the web before the media is even done downloading. Opera Mini also supports your basic HTML rendering, but using Socket (the Opera Binary Format method) is always faster, even if only by a little, so I kept it at that.

Using Opera Mobile is no different fro Safari or any of it’s Webkit browsers found in the App Store. Move around the screen with your finger, sliding it around. The major difference is scaling. There is no pinch to zoom. If a webpage takes up lots of space on the screen it will show a zoomed out version, with text rendered only as lines. Then when you zoom in by double tapping the web page in its full size will be shown, text and its formatting shown. In most cases this works, however it can be troublesome to zoom into a page at only one level. It works very well for text, which Opera sets at the width of the device, meaning paragraphs of text will not extend to their full width on a page, bur rather as wide as the screen is, so then you dont need to scroll from the left to the right to read it. But pictures dont do so well. Opera doesn’t change the size of pictures, and keeps them at their original width and length, so you will need to scroll around to see the whole thing. Text boxes work the same as Safari, although say you’re inputting a Google search. There isn’t a Go button on the keyboard. You must exit the text box by first pressing Done, then tapping Search on the webpage. It takes some getting used to. Opera’s rendering is in no way perfect, but it does the job.

The UI of Opera Mini is very simple. On the top you have your address bar and search on the right. On the bottom there are five buttons: back, forward, reload, tabs, and tools. The first three are no-brainers. The tabs interface is really neat. Your tabs show up as different boxes, and they each contain a page preview. Much like Windows 7′s task bar, except the boxes begin to overlap when theres many of them, or many tabs open. The selected tab has an X in the upper right, which when you double tab on, closes that tab. At the far right is a new tab box, which (guess what?) opens a new tab. Switching between tabs is very fluid. There is no delay between going from one tab to another, no load time. Each one is cached, so you don’t reload the data of the page after leaving it. For that matter, going forward or back, the pages are also cached. No loading time, you are literally brought to the previous page instantly, and at the same spot you were on it. Again, Opera’s speed is amazing. Maybe it’s because the UI doesnt use any iPhone OS elements except the keyboard. Aside from that Opera is using it’s own UI elements. They heavily mimick the iPhone OS’ UI ones, but work much faster. If there’s one downside, it’s that the animations are choppy, not fluid, but Opera Mini opts for performance over aesthetics.

The browser also gives you a bucketload of settings and features to mess with. Under the last button on the right, tools, you can see your bookmarks, history, the start page, your saved pages, the settings, and lastly search the page for text. All are mostly generic functions of web browsers. And there’s also tons of different settings, from the image quality, font size, fullscreen browsing…Many features and settings missing from Safari are found in Opera Mobile, like text search, saving pages, font size and image quality. Score one for Opera Mobile!

As nice as Opera is, it has it’s fair share of problems. Rendering issues aside, as well as the previously mentioned text box problem, iPhone features such as auto-correct are gone, which I can blame for the many spelling errors in this article. The lack of pinch to zoom is also unfortunate, but the way Opera Binary Format works, I think it would be near impossible to implement.

To sum it up, Opera Mini is a browser that opts for performance over aesthetics. There’s nothing revolutionary in the UI like some browsers try to do (think Full Browser). The speed at which web pages load, thanks to Opera Binary Format, as well as the speed the app itself runs at are the true beauty of the app. However, rendering with Opera Binary Format take away pinch to zoom and sometimes render web pages badly, as well as a lack of auto correct (which will most likely be fixed in the next update). Where Opera succeeds in performance, Safari and it’s sister browsers succeed in design. The choice is up to you. For me, Safari is slow on my 1G iPod touch, and for many iPhone users the speed bump on cellular networks will be your major reason to use Opera Mini. Try it and see what you think yourself. You might like it more, or you’ll still perfer Safari. In any case, it’s worth keeping around for those times when the only connection you have is EDGE. You’ll thank me later for that tip, I guarantee it.

A doodle fly is one of the most addicting games I have ever played. Lucky for you its free for a limited time so head on over to the app store and download it. All you do is you choose the angle and power you are shot at. You then use a jetpack to help boost you around to bounce off stuff.

Well this is all happening you collect coins for money to upgrade stuff such as super elephant to shoot you faster or super rocket for a stronger rocket. Money angel makes more uncommon coins more common. Along with the jet pack if you upgrade your somersault cloud and aeroplane they give you boosts. Unlocking things aren’t the objective, each level has objectives to compleat such as reach a distance or a hight into the air. See if you’ve got what it takes to beat my high score.

Hey guys, im gonna start doing a “My App Of The Week”, where I look at the most funniest, creatives applications the appstore has to offer! This week, I have been looking at an application called TalkingCarl which can be purchased on the App Store for 0.59p ($0.99). Video after the jump!

It is hilarious and keeps even me entertained for a few minutes! Basically, it repeats what you say in a more higher, squeakier voice. I think it’s funny because you talk, carl talks in a funny voice, you laugh, carl laughs’ at you, making you laugh even more! It may only be a simple application, but it is hilarious!!!

Poke his eyes and he will have a go at you! and if you pinch him he will scream at you in a diffrent depending on the width between your fingers during the pinch! [ Buy It ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1DxmQNO8qw

Name: Castle Conflict | Price: $.99(On Sale) [Link] | Rating: 5/5

“A truly stunning Campaign, great layout and amazing looks. It is on sale for 99 cents, but anyone in their right mind would pay up to $10 for this amazingly fantastic game.” -AppVee

Castle Conflict is a side scrolling 2D where the main objective is to get people to the other side, using a variety of styles, and a power scale of who can do damage to another. When they do get to the other side, or the opponent’s castle, the character inflicts damage. You can do that using a variety of ways. One by using Air style, Magic style, or Ground style. You are trying the destroy the opponents castle before they manage to kill yours.

All of the people used to attack, and the weapons/effects used.

Wood Cutter—collects resources

Thief—steals resources from the enemy

Foot Soldier—basic ground unit

Engineer—repairs castles

Armored Knight—strong ground unit

Mounted Knight—most powerful ground unit

Cannon—battles air units and castles

Blimp—basic air unit

Bomber—dominates air and land

Also, the new update allows mages, and mummys too!

So basically, too get the guys used to attack the other side, you use woodcutters. They cost either 15, or 5 gold. The more expensive woodcutters are better, and give better gold per tree. The trees spawn up all over the board, and it is your job to collect them, to get you money.

Woodcutters from the opposing red team, gather trees for money.

Another thing I like about this game is that it has a map, that has alternate paths. There is also over 55 levels, in 4 different scenerys, including egypt, so it is very hard to get bored. Another great setting, is that you can change the difficulty level, from easy, medium, or hard, so you can have many different ways to play.

There are many different maps, and styles you get to face.

I also want to say, on a concluding note, that this games learning curve is incredibly understandable. It is probably one of the easiest to learn games, while still being challenging, type of game on the app store I have ever seen.

Promo codes for Castle Conflict: Please comment below with the one you use.

Name: Castle Conflict | Price: $.99(On Sale) [Link] | Rating: 5/5