Any other "uses" for your iPhone? Comment about it!

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The first nice touch that you'll notice is the use of different, striking colours for the main dictionary and thesaurus pages. In addition to giving a big clue as to which module you're currently in, the same colours are used for the icons showing matches in the 'Search' page - all very intuitive. Word matches are very good, with even British spellings recognised (despite this being a USA product), even though the entries are essentially redirects to the American version of the word. The information given, in all modes, is nicely implemented into a standard iPhone OS 'look and feel'.

Importantly, and despite this product being largely the creation of an online dictionary site, all the main word and thesaurus information is stored locally, i.e. on your device, so you don't need an Internet connection to look up words or their synonyms. So if you're miles away from Wi-Fi and also don't have a good 3G signal, you'll still be able to use the application.

In a sensible design decision, there are two features which do need to go online: firstly, the audio previews of each word, of necessity requiring significant storage space - these download quite fast over the air and are typically played within a couple of seconds. And secondly, the 'Word of the day', designed to increase your vocabulary - this is presumably set manually on the developer's servers.

The only slight confusion, and the reason why Dictionary.com drops a star in its rating, is that the dictionary's not quite as complete as you might think. Many words are 'resolved' down to their main variant and you're left to complete the related words in your head. For example, 'coagulability' is in the main listing, in that it comes up as a 'quick match' as you type. But when the entry is shown, you're looking at (and hearing, via the preview) 'coagulable' - you'll get the gist of what the initial word means, but it's a shame that so many complex words are rationalised down in this way.

Although there's no 'browser-like' forwards and backwards 'history', you do get a 'Recent' list, which keeps track of everything you've viewed - if anything, this is even more useful. Overall, for a free application, you really can't fault 'Dictionary.com - Dictionary and Thesaurus' in terms of value for money(!) and commercial competitors will have to really stretch out in order to beat it on functions too.

The initial list of eight categories looks a bit thin on the ground, but tapping on 'More categories' opens up another dozen, presented in a separate list, somewhat bizarrely. Even more strangely, there's no way to collapse these extra categories again, to show just the original eight - why the full set wasn't kept as one list is beyond me.

However, get past this glitch and there's something for everyone in the categories on offer. You pick a category (e.g. 'Fashion') and are shown entries presented in order of distance from your current position. Tap on one and you'll see the address, contact details, plus, crucially, the chance to drill down further to read user reviews and see user photos. Qype claim to have a quarter of a million registered users available for writing reviews for their system. Tapping on the address, as you'd expect, brings up the location in a Google Maps rendering, although you have to use the supplied button to close Qype and open the full Google Maps application if you want anything ambitious like directions.

So far so good then, but Qype, as with every other 'point-of-interest' system, is ultimately only as good as its underlying database of places. Qype didn't do badly, in that almost every category brought up suitable matches, from restaurants to petrol stations, that were genuinely not too far away. So at least it's not leaving you high and dry. But it could do a lot better. In most cases, my own local knowledge could supply a better and closer restaurant, hairdresser, coffee shop, and so on.

Trying the same 'searches' in Google Maps (built into every iPhone or iPod Touch) provided more matches and direct routing, albeit without the user reviews and photos. Still, in order to really replace the big 'G' for this sort of thing, a third party system has got to at least match its underlying data - though I can understand that this must be a somewhat daunting task.

Qype lets itself down again by the scarcity of photos - having majored on putting thumbnails besides each place of interest in every listing, it's disappointing to see most of the gaps not filled in.

I'm sure Qype Radar will acquit itself better in big cities (many of the matches for my somewhat rural location turned out to be in the nearest city) and in some cases may even turn out to be a useful search and social tool - but in the light of Google Maps' own search system it's tempting to file this as an interesting also-ran.

Once you get past the sheer number of variations in Solitaire that can be played here, you start noticing the detail that has gone into this title. Firstly, and most importantly, there are simple and well written rules for each, available at the tap of an icon when playing. 'Stats' keeps count of how many times you've won at each variant, e.g. "At Klondike, you've won 5 times out of 29". 'Auto' automatically plays any cards whose placement is obvious (if appropriate, this depends on which variant you're playing), and 'Undo' (obviously) allows you to think better of the last card played.

Tap on the somewhat misleading 'i' at any point and you get a full screen of things to fiddle with - half a dozen settings, some specific to the game in hand, plus the chance to change the background and card colours, just for a change. You can also preselect which solitaire variations you want to appear on the opening screen, using a simple iPhone on/off UI widget. It's all beautifully in keeping with the main iPhone OS look, feel and philosophy.

Cards are played simply by tapping - in variations where you need to decide where they go, just tap on the destination as well. Cards are animated quickly and smoothly, too so there's little guesswork on what's gone where and no waiting around.

If you like Solitaire then just buy this and you're set for the next 50 years. Really. Over 40 Solitaire games, each taking between one and ten minutes to play through. Times infinity for the random card layouts each time. That's a lot of card-tapping gameplay!

Marble shooters aren't a totally new idea, of course - the idea here is to fire marbles so as to join an ever-advancing line - where three or more marbles are of the same colour then they explode and disappear. If the coming together of the marbles around them cause another match, then you get a combo bonus, and so on. Each level is distinctive and designed so that you often have to plan when you'll attack each section of the marble snake(s) coming towards your lair.

The basic gameplay is good enough to warrant being made into an iPhone title, but StoneLoops! of Jurassica goes the extra mile. In fact, it goes an extra ten miles, with powerups such as 'Avalanche' (in which most of the marbles fall out of the line) and 'Spear', in which you get to fire half a dozen spears at awkward marbles. The powerups simply appear at random and are auto-activated, you don't need to remember which is which, thankfully. When simply firing marbles or when firing lightning bolts at the advancing line, the animation and effects on screen are first class.

StoneLoops! goes further still by including the 'Grab 'n' Shoot' alternative game mode, in which you can play the whole set of themed 75 levels all over again, but with the different gameplay mechanic. In this, you 'grab' existing marbles out of the line and then 'shoot' them back in at a different point. It's not quite as much fun as blasting marbles frantically, right, left and centre, but it's good to have for when you fancy a change,

Bonus levels (in either game mode) are inserted, with simpler lines but with an extra emphasis on speed. There's also a whole back plot, in which you're earning 'upgrades' for your stone age 'house', and a currency system wherein you earn gems, but these seem rather unnecessary in the light of the rest of the game's delights.

Being picky, the biggest fault with StoneLoops! of Jurassica is that the atmospheric soundtrack is only in mono - a full stereo experience would have worked much, much better here. That aside, the game is virtually flawless and will please any iPhone or iPod Touch gamer from 5 years upwards.

At the heart of TonePad, as you'll see from the screenshots, is a 16 by 16 grid of dots, each of which corresponds to a note in pitch and time. Tap a dot to 'light' it and, as the time bar sweeps across the grid, it plays whatever dots are 'lit', producing some wonderfully pretty sequencer effects, repeating for effect. You can add extra lit dots in real time, remove some which are already lit, or apply one of the four built-in editing effects ('Flip', 'Rotate', 'Shift' and 'Shuffle'), each of which rearranges the dots as appropriate and creates a new (and probably equally pretty) sequencer pattern. There's no break in the rhythm while the change is applied either, with the effect that one pattern seamlessly morphs into the next. Very cool.

Unfortunately, this is where you realise that, pleasant though your initial trip with TonePad has been, it's over and you've already discovered most of what the utility can do. Musically, it's limited to the same 16 notes (spanning two octaves, but that's still quite a narrow frequency range) and there's currently no way to vary the sequencer speed (surely a candidate function for an update?) So, although TonePad is super for getting ideas for patterns, riffs and sequences, and might even make for the basis of an ambient demo, it's hard to see anyone using it for real in a semi-professional basis.

There is, thankfully, the facility to load and save patterns, so that when you find one you really like, you'll always be able to get back to it. You can even upload patterns to the TonePad web site, although this was down during the review period so I wasn't able to download patterns from other musicians. Each pattern uploaded is given a unique reference code, so all you've got to do, in theory, is pass this code to someone else and they can then grab your pattern, to play it and perhaps even enhance it in TonePad on their own device.

The interface is intuitive to use, although somewhat fiddly - the dots are quite a bit smaller than a human fingertip and you'll often find yourself hitting dots you didn't want to hit. A 'Colors' function allows you to change the palette for the dots and background, in case you find one system easier to visualise than another.

Available for free, with just top-of-screen banner ads to endure/ignore, TonePad is highly recommended for anyone with a penchant for electronic and experimental music.

PGA Tour Golf was the pick of the crop back in the early 1990s and it has remained on top for almost 20 years, on PCs, consoles and now phones. The touch-screen iPhone version is right up, as far as is practical, with the console version, with full almost-photo-realistic, fully-3D terrain and real-time rendered effects, characters and obstacles. It's an impressive achievement and you have to look very closely in order to spot any graphical glitches. Hole to hole loading screens are kept to around four or five seconds and these delays are cleverly used to show one of about 20 'tips' screens, to help you play better.

Dispensing with the usual button-based 'three click' mechanism for selecting power and timing on a shot, an intuitive swing control is used - just tap and hold, drag the ball back and then swipe it forwards, as straight as possible. Arc too much in one direction and you hook the ball, in the other and you slice it. Need a little more power? Just swipe extra fast and your shot receives a 'boost'. The system works superbly on the iPhone's screen and the game is utterly engrossing.

In addition to all the courses and their scenery, there's full modelling of wind, ball lie and slope and you've got a full set of virtual clubs to select from. As with most other PGA Tour conversions, getting your shot right in the face of variations in lie and wind, and with an imperfect swing, is distinctly tricky and addictively challenging. After striking the ball in the air, there's also the option to swipe up or down the screen, to add topspin or backspin, adding yet another element.

Putting is aided by an animated grid superimposed on the green, plus 'caddy tips' (basically telling you exactly where to aim) and even a 'putt preview' feature, just so you can make sure that your putt drops. It's here that I have to take issue with the game, in that with both these putting aids Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf is just too easy. When you can nail most putts, it becomes easy to produce birdies and you're then going to beat the field more often than not. By turning caddy tips off and ignoring putt preview, the game becomes much more challenging and realistic.

The sound's good-ish, with occasional digitised quotes from real commentators. These do add atmosphere but sadly, they don't always match what's just happened on the course, e.g. you end up in a bunker and the voice says "Great shot, he's got to be pleased" - that sort of thing.

Other nitpick criticisms include the putting assist grid only covering the area around the hole, so that long putts become guesswork. And the crowd are all invisible - you hear the cheers and applause and you see your player acknowledging the people, yet not a single spectator is modelled in the graphics.

But I don't want to dwell on the negatives, there's enough glamour and gameplay here to see Tiger Woods PGA Tour happily into a five star rating.

What you see is very much what you get with 9-Toolbox - the opening screen/menu attractively presents the various utility functions on offer. What each does is mainly self-evident, but I'd like to highlight a few of my favourites. 'Currency' is, of course, a currency converter, but it gets brownie points by going online regularly to get updated rates for you. 'Holidays' calculates (or looks up?) the dates of the major national holidays for half a dozen major countries (e.g. 'When is the Spring Bank Holiday in the UK?') and should be a real time saver.

'Date Calc' and 'Days Until' are somewhat trivial, while 'Loan' and 'Tip calc' take the donkey work out of some macroscopic and microscopic financial transations. 'Inclinometer' is something of a gimmick, showing off the sensitivity of the iPhone or iPod Touch's accelerometer rather than pretending to be a professional spirit level. 'My Girl's Day' is rather more useful, at least to anyone in a relationship - while you might not want to talk about the subject in detail, knowing/estimating your wife or girlfriend's monthly period dates can save embarassment all round and perhaps even prevent an unwanted (or help create a wanted) pregnancy!

The 'Units' utility is in the classic units conversion mould, although it's slightly limited here to just 'Area', 'Length', 'Pressure', 'Temperature', 'Volume' and 'Weight', with the latter only knowing about USA weights and not the UK versions. Still, the interface is supremely clear and it's trivial to adjust the from/to units and enter amounts where needed.

Tapping on the developer's logo brings up some help and the aforementioned 'Bonus app', 'Price Grab'. This does a good job of solving the classic supermarket dilemma: "Is it best to buy a pack of 8 for £28.99 or the five pack for £20.99?". As the developer thinks of extra bonus apps, it would be better to reformat the main screen to allow 12 slots, I think, despite the rather limiting (in hindsight) name.

A fabulously useful utility collection with very few weak points. My recommendation?: grab this and wait for future updates - I like the way this developer works.

From the opening screens ("In a galaxy far, far away...") to the way the story is animated and illustrated, from the original theme music to the sound effects, it's very obvious that this is a very big budget game. The quality of the background artwork in all the fight set pieces is Stunning - with a capital S - it's almost worth buying the title just to have a gorgeous piece of the Star Wars universe on your phone. Almost.

You see, apart from the odd train simulator, never has the phrase 'on rails' seemed so appropriate. Throughout all the action, despite all the luxurious cut scenes and backgrounds, it gradually dawns on you that you have absolutely no control over your hero (or should that be anti-hero? - you do work for Darth Vader, after all!). He enters a set piece fight - and you fight, trying to stay alive and defeat the bad guys - and then you're moved on to the next set piece, and so on, until the end of the chapter (mission). There's no "I wonder what happens if I wander over there?" or "Can I get rid of those sentries first before tackling that other batch of storm troopers?" Within a set piece, you can't move your character manually AT ALL. In many cases you just have to stand still, waiting for incoming fire to deflect or for opponents to come within range. It's all rather unsatisfactory.

In addition, there are numerous problems with both the premise and mechanics of Force Unleashed. The idea of 'drawing' specific shapes to select/control each opponent and then other gestures to bash them against the nearest bulkhead is a good one, it's a nice analogue 'light sabre-ish' way to fight. The only trouble is that because all these storm troopers are theoretically on your side, you don't get to really use your light sabre as a, you know, sabre. You just use 'The Force' to render each trooper unconscious - there's no actual contact, let alone lopping off arms or killing anyone. A litany of 'special' gestures has to be learned, invoking the famous 'Jedi Mind Trick', activating some kind of self-healing, and so on. These are  fair enough, but some of the other gestures, such as the aforementioned fire-deflecting, don't always work as advertised.

Then there's the plot problem. As Darth Vader's Apprentice, you're supposed to be completing missions without giving yourself away - surely dozens of stunned storm troopers, all of whom are going to wake up and squeal to the Emperor are a bit of an issue? Despite the money poured into this mobile title, if you persevere through Star Wars: Force Unleashed to the bitter end then you and Darth Vader deserve each other.

Car Jack Streets starts well enough, with some superbly drawn and atmospheric cut scenes, plus 'gangsta'  rap music, leading you through the plot, i.e. that you've got to go on a life of (car) crime in order to get money to pay off the big mafia boss 'Frankie'. You're then led into a series of tutorial 'missions', getting you used to the virtual d-pad and the 'GPS' (map crib), all the while enjoying some sounds of the city in stereo.

So far so good. You 'steal' your first car and the music starts up, with several hours of 'pumping' rhythms to enjoy while you cruise around - if you get that far. There are numerous problems here, unfortunately. First is that the action is all top-down, making it very hard to intuitively control your cars when they're driving down the screen, for example, with left making the car go right, and vice versa. There's an optional steering wheel control rather than the basic left/right option, but this only improves things slightly.

Then there's the 'GPS'. This is more accurately just a map, zooming out to show where you're supposed to be going next, the one thing it doesn't show clearly is your current position, making navigating around far more tiresome than it should have been.

The third problem is the real biggie, though. The opening cut scenes appear every time you start or relaunch the game. Every time. A full minute or two's worth, and there's no way you can step past them - this is very, very frustrating and simply bad design. The scenes should only have to be seen ONCE, even by novices - the plot isn't THAT hard to grasp, surely?

Pleasantly surprised though I was by the lure of level after level of organised crime, by the way you can drive freely, smashing through garbage cans and the like, by the way the game's light levels vary according to the real time of day, the three problems above had ruined things for me so badly that I simply couldn't continue with any kind of pleasure.

Back to the drawing board for the developers, I think. Call me in a few months when you've coded up a first person driving view, sorted out the GPS, and put in a cut scene skip.