The iPhone App Review : iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad App Reviews

The iPhone App Review : iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad App Reviews

Never Forget the Date: The Man App

June 3rd, 2012

Philip Chan

Price: $0.99
Rating:
The Man App: Written iPhone App Review

Reviewed by Philip Chan

Ever feel overwhelmed by the array of relationship holidays that need to be remembered? As a guy, keeping track of everything from your significant other’s birthday to special personal celebrations can be difficult, especially when juggling work, relationships, family and much more. Imagine having a one-stop app, where you could get personalized reminders about all your relationship duties and related events? Sure, it might not be the most romantic of applications, but it might help prevent a few “Whoops” moments that could leave you in the dog house! Thus, I present to you The Man App, from developer Sticky Pixels. Does this app actually help out with personalized relationship reminders? Read on!

Features

Boot up the Man App for the first time and you’ll need to initially choose a relationship status to start with (Wife, girlfriend, etc). Then, the app will auto assign a few important holidays to keep track of (Christmas, Valentines Day, etc). It’s up to you to fill in the rest-birthday, anniversary and so on. Categories listed are Essentials, Your Reminders, and Man of the Year. The latter category is basically a random/funny category, with different ways to score points at different times of the year listed. For example, Women’s Christmas: scheduled for January 5th each year, is a “celebration” for when the Christmas Tree is taken down (“helps to ease the January blues and will ultimately make life a little easier for you” claims the app.
Looking at the bottom of the screen you will see a Random Acts tab and a Ideas & Info tab. Random Acts is a reminder to do different random acts of kindness, with a customizable schedule. You can choose to create your own, select from a long list, or have the app automatically choose one for you. Ideas and Info includes all sorts of ways to make your special someones life better, with gift ideas, ways to escape the dog house and many more. Most suggestions are more on the humorous side. There is also a section for Her Essential Stats (eye colour, dress size, you know the rest), and a helpful Wedding Anniversary Index.
Finally, under the Settings, you can customize if notifications are turned on or off, enable discreet notifications to keep the app more secret, and adjust the home screen music.
Man App has a pretty impressive array of features, as I’ve just shared. It’s really easy to setup and I didn’t encounter any bugs or annoying crashes with this app, even when tested on an older device. My only complaint was with the event scheduler-it would be nice to be able to set events as annually, monthly, weekly, etc and not just based on one date/time. This is especially important for recurring events each month and the like. Hopefully, Sticky Pixels will include an update for this in the near future!
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Top 5 iPhone and iPad Apps of the Week

June 3rd, 2012

Luke Patrick

It’s been one hot week here at the iPhone App Review, and we don’t mean just because of the summer sun! No, we’ve been hard at work reviewing apps, and if you want our full Top 5 iPhone and iPad Apps of the week, you need only to skip on down below the break. But first, have a sneak peek!

This Week’s Stand-Out Apps

TOP5 150x150 Top 5 iPhone and iPad Apps of the Week

Reviewed by Luke Patrick

This week brought us the gaming joy of Infinite Sky, as well as the hypnotic sleep inducing power of Hypnotic Sleephour. We also took a look at the word gaming pleasure that is Tile Pile.

That’s it for our sneak peek, but feel free to jump on down further for our Top 5 Apps of the Week!

Top 5 iPhone and iPad Apps of the Week

GoNinja

GoNinja – Free

We’re going to ask you that most age-old of questions right now: Ninjas or samurais? If you decide to go with GoNinja, you’re inevitably going to have to take the side of the ninja. However, this is hardly a bad thing, as doing so comes with a lot of benefits: What we mean is, deciding to play the game could be a tremendously huge boost to your personal enjoyment. Here’s why—

The game is essentially an endless running game, but with demon samurai, a horde of explosive powerups, unique attacks, and even a fair amount of stealth and strategy. Best of all, it’s completely free to tryout on both your iPhone and your iPad. So in other words, what are you waiting for? Get to slashing!

Newsify

Newsify – Free

There is absolutely nothing we like more in this world than free stuff. Maybe we like beer more, but in the end, free stuff is pretty up there. So with that in mind, go ahead and take a look at our top free offering of the week: It’s called newsify, and it’s an absolutely gorgeous Google News Reader application that you can have today without paying a single penny.

The app is easily as gorgeous as Flipboard, features all of the same functionality, and comes ready made to integrate directly with your Google News account. All of this adds up to a whole lot of fluidity, but the fact that it has remained free since launch is just the icing on the cake. Don’t hesitate—snag this one now!

Graffiti Heaven

Graffiti Heaven – $0.99

One of our absolute favorite genres of art is street art. When Banksy hit the big scene, we absolutely adored his works. Since then, we’ve moved on to bigger (or smaller, really) artists and different scenes, but all in all, that background makes us unbelievably stoked for Graffiti Heaven.

The app provides its users with a big blank wall and a set amount of paint. The user must then attempt to draw as large a street tag as they possibly can without running out of paint. Paint within your lines, and all of your strokes are freebies. Go outside the lines, and you’ll be drawing from reserves. It’s a wicked concept, and in the end, it’s really just one big excuse to make some pretty incredible street art, isn’t it?

Zombie Carnaval

Zombie Carnaval - $0.99

Do you like zombies? Do you even sort of want to be a zombie? If so, we can’t help you all the way (try voodoo and weirder friends) but what we can do is give you a quick review of Zombie Carnaval. The app is the latest game to cash in on the undead infatuation the world is suffering from, but it comes with a lot of cool gameplay. The basic premise is this:

You’ll play a zombie that runs through town. As you go, you attempt to swallow up and convert nearby humans. The more you get, the more of an army you have to work with. And thus, higher points, easier times rolling through obstacles, etc. It’s a beautiful mix, and the app comes with some of the coolest graphics we have seen in a very long time. Furthermore, it’s just downright fun. Which means it’s easily worth the dollar it will cost you!

FlickrBoard

FlickrBoard – $0.99

To be honest, we aren’t sure what happened to Flikr. It was once the golden work horse of the photography inclined, allowing us to catch up and review what all of our friends were doing with their cameras and their creativity. Then somewhere along the line, it just got bloated and underused. However, with Flickr, our opinion of the site might be changing.

The application provides a slick Flipboard like framework for the site, allowing you to flick through what your friends are doing in an absolutely stunning interface. You can catch up on the latest releases, see new photos, and generally spend some quality time on Flickr, without wanting to tear your hair out. And to us, that is easily worth a dollar, must to recapture the Flickr magic.

Infinite Sky: Infinite Arcade Action on the iPhone

June 2nd, 2012

Luke Patrick

Price: $1.99

Infinite Sky: iPhone App Written and Video Review

Infinite Sky for iPhone 1 300x187 Infinite Sky: Infinite Arcade Action on the iPhone

Reviewed by Luke Patrick

Here at the iPhone App Review, as we’ve mentioned at least a few times before in our reviews, we tend to go absolutely bonkers over arcade games. There’s just something about them that we very genuinely adore, which means we’re very stoked today to deliver you our full review of Infinite Sky, by developer TouchTen. The app is a perfect combination of classic arcade dogfighting, endless challenges, and fun powerups. The price isn’t bad to boot either, which means we’ve got a full review wrapped up and ready to go for you just below beyond the break!

Concept and Gameplay

If you have ever before played a classic style dogfighting arcade application, especially on the iPhone, then you likely have a pretty good idea of what’s going on here in Infinite Sky. The premise is relatively simple: The player must direct a plane about the levels by tilting the iPhone back and forth from left to right, as well as up and down. Holding down a finger on the screen produces live shots that take out baddies, or depending on the powerup you’ve got, launch out something truly wicked. On that note, going through the levels destroying enemies will earn you cool powerups, which can be used to take care of even more bogies in even more spectacular ways. It’s a wonderful combination, but one that’s not quite done yet— Infinite Sky also comes with boss fights. As you roll along, the occasional big, bad daddy will appear, requiring you to squirm and fire until he is no more. These are the moments we most enjoyed Infinite Sky, but to be honest, the whole thing is one giant barrel of laughs and merriment. Top-notch arcade gaming, to be sure.

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Hypnotic Sleephour: The Best Night’s Sleep You Ever Got With Your iPhone

June 2nd, 2012

Luke Patrick

Price: $0.99

Hypnotic Sleephour: iPhone App Written Review

Hypnotic Sleephour for iPhone 1 200x300 Hypnotic Sleephour: The Best Night’s Sleep You Ever Got With Your iPhone

Reviewed by Luke Patrick

If you’re like us, you have a really hard time getting yourself to sleep. In fact, it’s basically a nightly struggle for you simply to go out cold, and then not wake up the next morning with a raging case of the “groggies.” If that sounds familiar than go ahead and queue up for today’s review, as we’ve got Hypnotic Sleephour by developer SiynApps. The app makes it quick and simple to fall asleep using a combination of ambient noises and beautiful images. And with a plethora of extras, including a timer and a catalog of more sounds, we have a feeling your good night’s sleep will be getting even better from here on out. For our full review, simply scroll on down below the break!

Concept and Functionality

As stated, the basic idea behind Hypnotic Sleephour is relatively simple: The app is designed to lull you into a position where you can more easily and more readily fall asleep. It does so firstly by presenting you with soothing sounds of desert winds, the calming ocean, or the sweet rainforest. No matter what the ambience, you can rest assured (no pun intended) that you’ll be relaxed. From there, the app throws in images of those places associated with the sounds, providing you with rich and engaging landscapes to look at. The idea behind this is basic: By relaxing you and giving you soft visual stimuli to make use of, you’ll very quickly feel tired enough to sleep.

The app even includes a few extras, like a napping timer which you can turn on and adjust to meet your napping needs. You can also integrate directly with social media, or pause and play the images at will. You can even like the images as they scroll by, saving them for later. And with a handy catalog, you can purchase even more materials to fall asleep to.

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Tile Pile: Calling All Word Lovers

June 2nd, 2012

Philip Chan

Price: $0.99
Rating:
Tile Pile: Written iPhone App Review

Tile1 200x300 Tile Pile: Calling All Word Lovers

Reviewed by Philip Chan

Searching for a word game that appears simplistic, but can be brain challenging? Then look no further for Tile Pile from developer Wanderling Games is just the app for you! It is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), and iPad, and runs on iOS 4.3 or later.

Gameplay:

When the user initially loads Tile Pile they are prompted with the following menu options: Tutorial, Warm Up, Normal, and Expert. The user will need to complete the “Tutorial” stage first before they can unlock the other levels. Basically the user will be given a word and a single letter and will be asked to transform the word into a different word by using the single letter tile as a replacement or an addition. The user will use the single tile to swap out a different tile in the existing word, by sliding the letter tile directly on top of the other tile then want to swap with. If they want to add the single letter tile to the existing word, the user will just slide the tile at the beginning or end or middle of the word. If they want to remove a letter, the user will drag the letter into the empty space where the single letter used to be. However, whether the user swaps, adds, or removes a letter, the word shown must be an actually word or the action will not be allowed.

Once the user unlocks the “Warm Up” level, they are venturing on their own to solve the letter riddles. The hints offered at this level are free, but as the user progresses to the high levels, that will no longer be the case. What is neat about this app, is when the user is trying to figure out how to swap a word to a different word, they are shown a definition of what the word means on the bottom of their screen, a great tool in brushing up people’s vocabulary skills and excellent for those who consider themselves as visual and/or kinesthetic learners.

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GeoEmpires: Build and Conquer

June 1st, 2012

Philip Chan

Price: Free
Rating:
GeoEmpires: Written iPhone App Review

Geo1 200x300 GeoEmpires: Build and Conquer

Reviewed by Philip Chan

Like the idea of playing in a virtual world based on your actual real life location? Always like the thrill of building your own kingdom and conquering others? Then look no further for GeoEmpires from developer GeoEmpires is just the app for you! It is compatible with iPhone, iPod, and iPad, and runs on iOS 4.3 or later.

Gameplay:

From the get go, the user must note with the GeoEmpires app, the user will need to have access to a data plan or WiFi, since this app is solely based on their actual current location. The user also has the option of signing in to the app with either a Facebook or Google account, so if they do not have any accounts with those two networks, then they can create one or the way will have to create a GeoEmpires account in order to sign in to experience actual game play.

The basic premise of the app is to battle against other players or friends and become a ruler based on the user’s real time location surroundings. The app also allows the user to build and defend their own establishment, and go treasure gold hunting. The user also has the capability of planning enemy attack and raid strategies. It is a pretty basic, yet enjoyable game app.

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