Apps

7 Simple, Yet Sweet Games in the App Store

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I don’t care much for complicated role playing games that require you to complete missions and figure stuff out. Some of the best iPhone games are those single-purpose, mindless games that are challenging yet don’t require much thought.

I have too many things to deal with in my real life that I don’t want to have to worry about the tasks and stresses of some RPG character, too! Give me a simple game that I can play to take my mind off things every now and then, and I am a happy camper.

Here are seven simple and sweet iPhone apps that satisfy my small, but gnawing appetite for games.

  1. Sheep Launcher!

    How to Play: Keep the baby propelling upwards through the air by tapping it when it starts coming down. If you miss, game over. High altitude = high score.

    Sheep Launcher iPhone game

  2. FallDown!

    How to Play: Tilt your iPhone left and right to keep the red ball falling towards the ground. You must hurry or you’ll be crushed between the floor and the ceiling! You can pick up tokens along the way to accumulate points, stop the movement, or speed up the ball.

    FallDown! iPhone game

  3. Falling Balls

    How to Play: Tilt your iPhone left and right to force the stick figure man to run away from balls that are falling from the ceiling. If you’re feeling daring, play in the more challenging Ninja mode.

    Falling Balls iPhone game

  4. Paper Toss

    How to Play: Flick the wad of paper into the trash can as many consecutive times as possible, keeping in mind the office fan that’s blowing wind across your path. Read more in my original Paper Toss review.

    Paper Toss iPhone game

  5. PAC-MAN

    How to Play: Do I really need to explain? Your goal in this classic arcade game is to guide the yellow Pac-Man through the maze, collecting little dot thingies while you avoid the evil ghouls. Get it?

    Pac-Man iPhone game

  6. Skee-Ball

    How to Play: Roll the balls into the holes. Seven balls, seven holes. The farther away a hole is, the more points it’s worth. Extra points for getting the ball in a hole that’s flashing yellow.

    Skee-Ball iPhone game

  7. Touch Hockey

    How to Play: Just like a classic, real-life air hockey table, your goal in this iPhone game is to get the puck into your opponent’s goal. You can play against a computer or against a friend.

    Touch Hockey iPhone game

Do you play games on your iPhone or iPod Touch? What are your favorite games in the App Store? Let me know your opinion in the comments.

5 Reasons Facebook for iPhone is F**ked Up!

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Facebook for iPhone

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Want Facebook fixed? Post this on your Wall!
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Dear Facebook,

Pardon my passion, but it must be said: the Facebook iPhone app is f**ked up! I hoped it wouldn’t come to cursing, but you just won’t listen, and I need your attention.

Facebook is the most downloaded app in the App Store, yet still your company manages to ignore some critical issues with the app.

Words can’t explain my frustration with the Facebook iPhone app these days, so I’ll shut up and let these 5 screenshots do the talking:

(All screenshots accompanied by the relevant bug report on Facebook.)

  1. Discussion Topic: I can no longer post pics on friends wall

    Facebook for iPhone image upload problem

  2. Help Center Topic: iPhone: Your video could not be uploaded at this time. Except this time is 100% of the time.

    Facebook for iPhone video upload problem

  3. Discussion Topic: Time Zone data incorrect even in 3.0.1

    Facebook for iPhone events problem

  4. Discussion Topic: bug: posted “links” to photo albums show no pics

    Facebook for iPhone photo album problem

  5. Discussion Topic: “Your message could not be delivered at this time”

    Facebook for iPhone messaging problem

Notice that no one from Facebook has replied to any of the discussion topics above? Some of these Facebook iPhone app issues occur less frequently than others, but all are common enough to be an annoyance, and an impediment to my work.

Facebook is not just a venue for vain status updates. I use Facebook as a tool for organizing people and a vehicle for marketing my work, and a mobile Facebook offers enormous potential for keeping in touch with customers/users/constituents on the go. But these problems with Facebook for iPhone prevent me from doing my job well, and they need to be fixed if I am going to continue to take your social network seriously.

Why is it that some independent developers — like those who develop iFitness, for example — are able to keep up with customer feedback and make improvements, yet this social networking giant will let even obvious issues go unattended?

These issues are demonstrative of a larger customer service problem at Facebook. I am sure the talented Facebook developers could resolve some of these things in a day with a simple update. Yet as of right now we don’t even know if Facebook is aware of the issues. Am I going to have to wait a year for another major update to the Facebook app before I can use it to its full potential?

PLEASE, go take a look at the Facebook for iPhone fan page. Look at the Wall: “No recent posts.” Look at the Discussion Board: many complaints, few responses. Look at the Notes: the latest is three months old, “What’s New in Facebook for iPhone 3.0.”

The Facebook for iPhone fan page lists a whopping “17,312,515 monthly active users,” and still no one at Facebook is taking the time to update or reassure us that you’re working on the issues.

Look, I applaud the Facebook for iPhone developers for the great work they’ve done so far, but seriously Facebook, you have to dedicate more resources to your iPhone platform.

Facebook, your iPhone app is f**ked up! Now please fix it.

(Quite) Sincerely,
Chris

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3 Ways the Nook iPhone App Will Beat the Kindle iPhone App

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Nook iPhone app

I recently reviewed the Kindle iPhone app and exposed some serious weaknesses. How will the upcoming iPhone app for Barnes & Noble’s new Nook ebook reader be better than the current Kindle iPhone app?

Although the Nook iPhone app is yet to debut, here are 3 reasons I think it could be a Kindle killer unless Amazon steps up its game.

  1. If the image posted on Barnes and Noble’s new eReading blog, Unbound, is any indication, Nook will have a “Find” feature that lets you search for specific text in books. The Kindle iPhone app lacks any kind of search feature.
  2. It seems to me that one of the icons on the bottom panel of what is presumably the Nook iPhone app says “Import.” If so, Nook may let you import content into its iPhone app. With Kindle for iPhone, you are bound to the books you buy in the Kindle store. I hope Nook will be unbound by DRM restrictions and allow you to view other ebooks and content.
  3. Nook will let you lend books to people who use iPhones, Blackberries and iPods. This kind of sharing is not possible with the Kindle iPhone app.

Up In the Air

Still undetermined is whether the Nook iPhone app will let you copy and paste content, and whether ebooks you purchase will be viewable online as well as on your iPhone and Nook reader. Kindle does not let you read your books online or in PDF form.

What do you think? Is Nook looking like it might be a Kindle killer?

Kindle for iPhone, Want the Key to My Heart? Fix These Five Things First

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iPhone Kindle

I love the feeling of a real book in my hands, so I never would have imagined Kindle’s iPhone app could be so compelling. It is surprisingly easy to get caught up in reading a book on my iPhone, and Amazon’s Kindle store has tons of books I actually care to read.

My first two purchases: Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail and David McFarland’s CSS: The Missing Manual.

iPhone Kindle

The availability of titles is no doubt Kindle’s strong suit. The app itself, however, lacks some crucial features.

Here are 5 ways Amazon should improve the Kindle iPhone app if they want me to keep buying books:

  1. Let me browse the book store within the Kindle app. I want to search and buy books without launching Safari.
  2. Let me lock into landscape mode. You know when you’re lying on your side, perhaps in bed, and iPhone’s accelerometer forces the page into an orientation that is impractical to read? Safari has a solution to that: if you want to read in landscape orientation while you hold your iPhone vertically, simply hold it upside down. The Kindle app doesn’t offer this solution. (Update: My mistake. The app flashes a small lock at the corner of the screen whenever you change the orientation. Tap the lock to lock in your orientation.)
  3. Let me search. Especially for reference books, the lack of a search function in the Kindle iPhone app is extremely inconvenient. Search would tremendously improve the usability of the Kindle iPhone app.
  4. Let me copy & paste. Must I even explain? We begged for a copy & paste feature on the iPhone for 2 years! Why does the Kindle iPhone app still not have this feature?
  5. Improve synchronization. I bought the book, why can’t I view it on my computer, too? Amazon should give book buyers access to a database of purchased books (and their contents) on kindle.amazon.com.

Does Amazon purposely disable these features to make sure the Kindle iPhone app does not surpass the Kindle itself? It’s like the recording industry’s efforts to block their customers from downloading music so that they could keep selling them CDs in plastic jewel cases.

The iPhone presents a plethora of possibilities for Kindle. Imagine searching through endless titles to find information you need for a research paper. Imagine copying and pasting passages to quote them in your papers or share them with your friends. Imagine then having access to your books on your iPhone, your computer, and your Kindle.

Come on, Amazon, you have a chance to make the Kindle a real game changer. Let’s see some improvements to the Kindle iPhone app.

What Do You Think?

{democracy:4}

Unleash Your Anger with iSheriff [Augmented Reality]

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Maybe you think gun violence is atrocious, and that it should never be endorsed by an iPhone app. Well, you may be right, but I am sick and waiting for attention at the UF student healthcare center and there’s nothing I want more than to shoot up the place.

Cue: iSheriff, a new “augmented reality” (or should I say demented reality?) iPhone app that lets you blow the brains out of anyone in the viewfinder of your iPhone camera.

“Hey, sick kid in the waiting room. Let me put you out of your misery…”

iSheriff iPhone app

“And will someone please turn off this damn TV! No!? Well then I’ll do it myself…”

iSheriff iPhone app

If you’re not one for blood and guts, Disable Gore and go for the clean kill.

iSheriff is an amusing development in the new and emerging realm of augmented reality iPhone apps that are hitting the App Store.

Thanks to the iPhone 3.1 update, developers can now combine the iPhone’s camera, compass and GPS to place a virtual layer over a view of the real world.

Gonna shoot up a place? Use iSheriff.

This post was created using the WordPress iPhone app.

7 Augmented Reality iPhone Apps You Can Download Right Now

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The iPhone 3.1 update enables a new realm of “augmented reality” iPhone apps, which use the iPhone’s GPS, compass and accelerometer to impose a virtual layer of information over a view of the real world as seen from your iPhone’s camera.

Augmented reality iPhone apps will revolutionize the way we access information on the go. Don’t believe me? Check out these 7 augmented reality iPhone apps that are in the App Store right now:

Note: Because they use the iPhone’s compass, many of these apps are compatible only with iPhone 3GS.

  1. Cheap Gas!

    Cheap Gas augmented reality iPhone app

    The Cheap Gas iPhone app is a gas station locator for your iPhone 3GS with an Augmented Reality View that shows you icons of nearby gas stations and prices in the direction where you’ve pointed your iPhone’s camera.

  2. cAR Locator

    3. cAR locator augmented reality iPhone app

    cAR Locator is an iPhone 3GS app that shows you in the camera viewfinder where your car is located and how far away. Just press “Save Location” when you get out of your car, then point your iPhone camera in any direction and you’ll be reminded where your car is.

  3. Cyclopedia

    4. Cyclopedia augmented reality iPhone app

    Cyclopedia shows you information about nearby landmarks and historic locations in your iPhone’s viewfinder. Point your iPhone’s camera at the Statue of Liberty, for example, and it will overlay the Wikipedia entry for that landmark. Cyclopedia relies on the 65,000 entries on Wikipedia that are geotagged.

  4. Wikitude

    5. Wikitude augmented reality iPhone app

    The Wikitude World Browser finds “Points of Interest” in your vicinity and overlays information from Wikipedia, Qype and Wikitude.Me.

  5. Robotvision

    6. Robotvision augmented reality iPhone app

    Perhaps the most intriguing example of an augmented reality iPhone app is Robotvision for iPhone 3GS, which uses the power of Bing’s local search feature to show you nearby attractions in your vicinity, including ATMs, art galleries, bars and pubs, coffee shops, gas stations, gyms, hospitals, hotels and motels, movie theaters, restaurants, rest stops, schools and tourist attractions.

    Robotvision also shows you Twitter updates from people in your area, based on geotagging information embedded in the tweets; and Flickr photos of nearby attractions. It seems the app places a limit on the number of attraction, tweets or Flickr photos you can see in a given area, but nevertheless this app shows a lot of promise.

  6. Fairy Trails

    Fairy Trails augmented reality iPhone app

    Fairy Trails is a children’s game that overlays flying fairies, fireflies and butterflies on the real world as seen from the lens of your iPhone camera. Your mission is to capture them before they fly off the screen.

  7. Nearest Tube (UK only)

    Nearest Tube augmented reality iPhone app

    Nearest Tube is a UK app that shows you train/tube stations in the vicinity.

Although these augmented reality iPhone apps leave some things to be desired, they are the first wave of a new kind of app that that is bound to dramatically change the way we find information.

Have you downloaded any augmented reality iPhone apps? If you don’t own an iPhone 3GS, would you upgrade for the opportunity to use AR apps? Speak your mind in the comments.