App

One of the things I love most about gaming on an iPhone, is having options at my finger tips. I love to keep a diverse assortment of games so that when I have time to play (which is quite rare :( ), I have choices.

Recently, I had the opportunity to review BounceTrap - a truly original and fun arcade-style game, developed exclusively for the iPhone platform by PlayScreen. The game is aptly described by the developers as having elements of "Pinball, Pachinko and a slight dash of Peggle." It has a great soundtrack and a highly polished and smooth interface. Combined with the ever present sound effects, you are promised an experience that is reminiscent of the great arcade classics.

iVoiceDialIt from VoiceIt Technologies is a premium voice-controlled dialer for the iPhone available in the App Store for $9.99. The app's minimal design makes it one of the safer voice dialing apps on the market.

It is very convenient to use while driving as you can use it without paying much attention to your iPhone. The interface boasts a large 'action' button in the center that you press to initiate a voice command. Another alternative is to simply shake your iPhone and then speak the name of your contact.

eWallet is a powerful and secure password manager for your iPhone. Use it to store all your passwords, sensitive information or private ideas. What makes eWallet so attractive is its polished finish and intuitive interface. The app provides 256-bit AES encryption for all your sensitive data and you can apply a limit to the number of password entries and specify the length of time for which the app should be locked. You can also set the app to lock when inactive for a certain period of time.

Inputting data in eWallet is quite easy, however, the app confines you to a particular hierarchy of wallet > category > card. Thus you can't simply add a card in a wallet without assigning it to a particular category. So much for not being organized! The smart data fields help to speed up data entry but can be improved. For example, when you select to enter an account number, the default entry type is text when it should be numeric.

With more than 12,000 apps already in the App Store (and counting), sometimes great apps can get lost in the crowd and easily slip by even the most attentive eyes. Such a fate befell RemoteTap by ReadPixel; an app that allows you to control your Mac from your iPhone. This is truly unfortunate not just for the developer, but more so for the end users who have really been missing out. RemoteTap may very well be the most powerful utility available for the iPhone!

Now, the other VNC-based clients available for the iPhone (Jaadu VNC and Mocha VNC) are great, but when it comes to features and functionality, they honestly don't stand a chance against RemoteTap. Set-up is very easy. First download the server software to your Mac's preference pane from ReadPixel's site, set a password and go ahead and enable it. Launch the RemoteTap on your iPhone. If you're on the same wi-fi network, hit scan, select your computer and enter the password. Voilà, you now have full control of your Mac from your iPhone. Now this really isn't anything groundbreaking as the other apps offer a fairly easy set-ups also.

Many fans have been raving about how awesome Raging Thunder is since it hit the App Store a few months ago. We finally got some time to play around with Polarbit's hyped racing game for the iPhone. The game is a pleasant cross between a fun happy-go-lucky Crash Bandicoot and a hardcore racer like Asphalt 4. 

The graphics are not great, but they are OK. To be fair, the game is only 2.6 MB, so we really didn't expect extraordinary graphics or a long gameplay. You can choose different cars and tracks but again, they are pretty limited. As you win races, you can purchase more cars or upgrade the one that you have. During races, you have skulls scattered on the road which will slow you down (but not the AI) and lightning bolts which will give you a boost, so watch out!

Well, it seems that even Microsoft cannot resist the mesmerizing lure of the iPhone. Ok, fine. It was bound to happen - we're really happy to see Microsoft making software for the iPhone. On Sunday Microsoft graced the App Store with its first app - Seadragon. This gave the first hint of the possibility of a Mobile Office in the works for the iPhone. Seadragon allows you to view super high resolution images on your iPhone and the ability to zoom in to incredible detail. The app comes with some image samples, but you can log into your Photosynth account or pull more images from an RSS feed.

The app is superfast and really smooth! It's the kind of App that you show off to your friends and wait for the Wow. (Hey, didn't Microsoft have a Wow ad campaign? Too bad it wasn't the iPhone)

Seadragon is designed to provide next-generation visual experiences, regardless of the size of the screen, size of the file or speed of your network. It's already available on a number of platforms, including Microsoft Surface, and in Photosynth and Silverlight. Now we're bringing that same graphical smoothness right to the iPhone in your pocket.

The app is available for free in the App Store, check it out! To get a vague idea as to what deep zoom looks like, check out the series of pics. Welcome to the iPhone Microsoft!

In my opinion Wordbook by TransCreative Soft is comprehensively, the most well designed dictionary application available for the iPhone. It has all the elements that you look for in a great iPhone app and is a truly outstanding reference tool. Wordbook is packed with features and you will really enjoy using it.

First let me say, that Wordbook has a well designed icon! From the onset, you can tell that the developers were very meticulous in the app's design. The UI is very elegant and straight forward. At the bottom of the app you will find the following links: Featured, Favorites, Search, Definition and More. The featured list has 7 words that you can set to change daily, every time the app is launched or when you shake the iPhone. It is a really cool way of building not only your vocabulary but your knowledge base in general. If you like a word and want to bookmark it for later use, add it to your favorites panel. If you didn't remember to do this, no worries, just browse through your history and retrieve it.

Zagat is a popular ratings and reviews guide for restaurants, nightspots, hotels and attractions in hundreds of cities worldwide. Handmark Inc. has brought the 2009 catalog with over 40,000 entries to the iPhone with their app Zagat To Go '09. For our review, I had a chance to take it for a spin and tested in in 7 different cities across 3 different states. While it was very effective in helping to find hotels and restaurants, we were disappointed in the lack of features and the user interface.

The interface is clean but not very intuitive. The globe icon does not immediately indicate that it will bring up your location preferences. Also, if you navigate to the maps app from Zagat To Go '09, the app quits completely and does not remember where you left off. Features such as 'Browse Locations' should be brought down to the main page and not be integrated within search settings. When I wanted to browse for hotels in Jamaica for example, this was the path: Globe Icon>Browse Locations>International Locations> Jamaica>Negril (Checkmark)>Back Button-International Locations>Back Button- Browse Locations>Back Button-Change Location>Back Button-Zagat To Go>(Location is Updated)>Select Hotels>Select All> Then I could finally see some results! Enough said :( 

The iPhone is a great device to access your favorite RSS feeds on the go, and many developers currently offer different apps to achieve this. It is always a pleasure when doing reviews to find apps where the developers employ creative ways to make them unique. OMZ software, the creators of Newstand have done just this by using the concept of a simple RSS reader and wrapping it in a truly sophisticated user interface and packing it many features. 

Newstand has an easy-to-use and intuitive interface with lots of eye candy! What you'll love most about it is how quickly you can access all the various features. Simply tap the 'Unread' or 'Flagged' button at the top of the app and you can view articles from all your various feeds marked accordingly. You can quickly edit your feeds and arrange them in hierarchies within Newsstand.

dBelement currently offers a handful of apps for the iPhone - Noter2, Reader, Stripr, Financer Lite, MindDojo and CityRunnr. Today we take at Noter2, a unique list manager that brings a breath of original design to the monotonous design that plagues most of the others. This is an app that we believe has a lot of potential, but which needs to be brought back to the drawing board.

First let me say that the app is very colorful and syncs well with your dBelement account. Editing and managing your notes is fairly simple and you also have the option to color code them. We weren't particularly impressed with the functionality of Noter2 but more by its attempt at a unique design. With a few updates, this app could be really great! The current design however is counterproductive. For example, the move function is not as easy as the 'edit and drag' that most other apps employ. Also the space for text input for notes is way too small. Consequently, the app is more efficient as a simple To-Do list rather than a full blown notes application.