★★★✩✩ (iTMS)
The idea for this app is great. Forgot to bring a deck of cards? Use this app instead. It enforces no rules, instead letting you deal, shuffle and manage stacks like you would if you just had a dumb, physical deck.
Card Deck has an interesting twist to let this app work for local multiplayer up to 4 players. When the phone lies flat on the table, all cards in the player areas are hidden. Every player has an edge each. When the player picks the phone up and tilts it toward them, their and only their cards are revealed, and the other players’ cards can’t be touched. That is, if the feature had worked. I couldn’t get anything to happen when I tilted, so that didn’t really work… You *can* double-tap each card to turn them over for each turn, but I’m sure that’d get tedious fast.
The other major problem is that each player’s hand region is too small. If you want to play a game with hands bigger than six cards, you’re simply screwed; they won’t fit. The game could do with some sort of “hand” concept apart from that holding region, or a much larger playing board that you could pan and zoom.
Finally, I’m having a bit of a hard time envisioning the scenario when you go somewhere you’d want to play cards, but forgot to bring a deck. Sure, it’s possible, especially for a single player game like solitaire. However, the killer feature here would be online multiplayer, where it’d really make sense with an app like this.
I’m keeping my hopes up for this app. This could be really good if given some additional polish. ~~nevyn
★★★✩✩ (iTMS)
Seahorse Software presents BlackJack Run, a refreshing take on BlackJack, to the iPhone.
The objective of BlackJack run is to rack up as many points in consecutive rounds by getting 21 (or as close as you can get) in each of the five rows. Each round is timed, giving players 30 seconds to try to hit Blackjack or 21.
In each round players must meet the minimum point amount of 95 to move on which is not hard to do if players get the right cards.
Blackjack Run features leader boards and the ability to make the game harder if players feel that they’re dominating the game. After a while though the cards will catch up and players’ fire will be lost, causing them to start over.
BlackJack Run comes in two versions, the full version and the lite version. The full version is a little pricey for what you get at $4.99. The free version has all of the fun of the full version without the ability to make the game harder as well as limited access to the leader boards.
Allover, BlackJack Run is an addictive and fun game. It’s a great new take on Blackjack that hasn’t yet been explored on the iPhone. BlackJack Run is stable and plays well. Not a must-have like other games reviewed here but definitely a worthy pick up for a card game-lover’s iPhone
★★★✩✩ (iTMS)
It’s almost Valentine’s Day and you haven’t bought a card, why not make one on your iPhone with Create A Valentine?
Create A Valentine is a simple, free app that lets users create a Valentine’s Day message and save it using different frames and backgrounds. The messages save to the iPhone’s Photo Album for quick and easy emailing to friends and loved ones.
Create A Valentine is simple and easy to use and while it won’t warm Mom’s heart like sending an actual card, it’s not a bad backup plan.
★★★✩✩ (iTMS)
Tapinoma’s Easycontact iPhone app lets users select a contact from their address book and quickly creates a business card complete with their name, picture, email and phone number (all depending on what’s stored as that contact’s information). Easycontact also allows for you to send that to other Easycontact users through email, Wi-Fi and audio linking.
The interface is smooth but confusing. If you want to create a card for yourself, you have to add yourself as a contact and fill out all of the information that you’ll never need again outside of Easycontact.
I’m a college student so I can’t judge this application as fairly as I would like because I have no use for it and no one to use it with. I suppose if you have to send your contact information to someone, then Easycontact would be an efficient way to do it but for me text messages do just fine.
★★★✩✩ (iTMS)
MetaCreature Games’ Juggler is fun and simple. A section of the bottom of separated so you can touch the falling juggling balls and send them back up into the air. Just don’t let one fall!
The game is straight-forward, fun and easy to pick up. The settings allow you to select to juggle anywhere from three to ten balls with your choice of three designs. Juggler also supports a leaderboard system so you can compete with fellow jugglers around the world.
Juggler comes in free and paid versions ($0.99) with no real difference other than the appearance of ads in the former. It’s a solid pickup.
★★★✩✩ (iTMS)
 (Photo Courtesy: Takayuki Fukatsu)
Japanese developer Takayuki Fukatsu brings an interesting new camera app to the iPhone. QuadCamera, as the name suggests, takes four pictures in succession and creates one image out of the four.
It’s a fun toy but nothing too practical. The created image is a 320 by 480 pixel, the same as the regular camera outputs with each photo being a quarter of the whole image.
The only problem I had with QuadCamera was that without the sound on there’s no way to tell that it’s taking more than one picture. With the sound on however, you can hear four shutters as the pictures are quickly taken.
QuadCamera puts a nice effect on the output picture making for images you won’t find on every iPhone’s camera album. Playing around with the settings allow for other dimensions other than 2x2 and the ability to take black and white QuadPhotos.
For $1.99 you’ll get a fun camera toy that puts a new spin on iPhone photography. While it’s nothing too practical, it does what a fish-eye lens does for a real camera: ads fun with limited functionality
★★★✩✩ (iTMS)
Simplenote accomplishes what it sets out to do: notes on your iPhone in a simple style. It works exactly like it should with only two buttons, one trash your note and one to save it. Simplenote also has a search function in case your notes queue is overflowing with reminders.
The app takes five to 10 minutes to get aquainted with. Tapping on the screen in certain places doesn’t do what you would expect such as when creating a new note, tapping a blank area below your list of notes that have already been made does not allow you to start something new. Instead, you type your title into the search bar and press ‘return.’ The result is a new note with a big, fresh page for typing.
Simplenote only gets three stars because of small design flaws such as I stated above and the lack of picture or audio notes. Though Simplenote executes well, there are other, less expensive apps that do more and are more worthy of your iPhone’s storage capacity. ~~Zack Shapiro
★★★✩✩ (iTMS)
Reading through the reviews of this on iTunes, I noticed that some users mentioned a similar game on jailbroken iPhones and iPod Touches. I’ve never played that game so this review is devoid of that experience.
Word Warp brings Text Twist’s addictive, challenging charm to the iPhone with one important added item: the ability to pick it up and put it down at any time. I can only give it three stars though because it doesn’t really blow me out of the water. It gets Text Twist’s job done effectively and guess what? It’s free!
If you like word games and have some space on your iPhone I definitely suggest you pick it up. If you’re skeptical, this is the one app that you should try, it’ll turn you into a fan and a believer.~~Zack Shapiro
Tumble - ★★★✩✩ (iTMS)
Tumblrette - ★★★★✩ (iTMS)
We’ve been waiting for a little over two months now for an app to drop in the App Store that gives us access to our tumblelogs outside of Safari. I’ve had a chance to play with two apps, Tumble and Tumblrette and I can safely say that they’re both solid apps.
Tumble is a simple, free app that simply allows you to post on your tumblelog. No more, no less. You can choose from Text, Photo, Quote, Link and Chat type posts. The interface is clean and simple and again, just lets you post to your site.
Tumblrette is the Rolls Royce of the Tumblr apps. It costs $1.99 and allows for the same functionality as Tumble but with the included feature to see your dashboard as well. From there you get the same thing that you get when posting from your computer at home: followers, other tumblelogs that you write for, Explore, Preferences, etc.
Both apps are easy to set up and will have you blogging in no time. They’re are simple, streamlined and easy to use
$2 is a tiny price to pay for the added functionality that Tumblrlette brings to your iPhone. If you’ve ever posted or checked Tumblr from your phone and have a measly $2 to throw towards a great app, do it. ~~Zack Shapiro
★★★✩✩ (iTMS)
PapiJump is a simple game with a simple goal: get to the top. Where is the top? Well…there isn’t one.
In PapiJump you try to make the little ball climb higher and higher, racking up points and while the game gets more difficult the higher you go. It’s in no way a complex game or even one with much strategy. You can go as fast or as slow as you want.
PapiJump addicting and kills time but isn’t anywhere near what I’d consider a must have for your iPhone. It’s fun waiting for the bus or while you poop. It’s fun during a commercial break or while waiting for a friend to come over and hey, it’s free! ~~Zack Shapiro
Hey, this game is great. It’s no secret I’m a sucker for simple, fast gameplay, and this is all that. It’s ugly and unpolished, but damn, it’s addictive! Get it. ~~nevyn
Speed - ★★★✩✩ (iTMS) vs. SpeedBox - ★✩✩✩✩ (iTMS)
I’m not sure what Mr. Schneider was thinking. This is the iPhone. It’s got style. It’s glossy, damnit! You’ve gotta make it beautiful! Oh, and it would help if your app could actually measure the speed, too.
Speed: Nice looks, got all the options of SpeedBox, and does accurate measurements. Good going, Steven!
★★★✩✩ (iTMS)
SportsTap is a free app packed with information that you don’t even get with some paid apps like MLB.com At Bat. Not only does SportsTap feature live-updated scores, it has other great features like news, trade transactions, and player stats.
SportsTap also covers a wide range of sports from Baseball to Soccer, Golf to the 2008 Olympics. It comes with all of the information you would need when you’re on the go to check up on your favorite teams and players.
The interface is a little strange. Once you take icons off of the main SportsTap screen you need to reset the main screen to get them back rather than add back the ones that you want. I’m sure that will be fixed in an update but for now I can only give SportsTap three stars. It’s a very solid app, something I’ll keep on my phone at all times. ~~Zack Shapiro
Morocco - ★★★★✩ (iTMS) vs. Othello - ★★★✩✩ (iTMS)
A Tumblr user turned me onto this game about a week ago and I’ve been hooked. I’ve played both Morocco and Othello, two different apps, same game.
The two apps are very similar but there are some small differences that make Morocco stand out over Othello. The feature that stands out the most is Morocco’s multiplayer. Morocco has the option to play against the computer (as white or black) or against a friend. No Wi-Fi/3G or over-the-air is supported, however. Othello, sadly, is missing multiplayer (though it could and will probably come in a future update). Also, Morocco has no sound or annoying pop-up alerts like the ones that come with Othello. Though you can turn Othello or the iPhone’s sound off to escape the worthless clicking noises that come from when you make a move, if you touch the wrong place on the screen Othello will bring up an alert box imposes on the game being played.
Both games feature three difficulty settings but only Morocco will save your game in the middle if you get a phone call, text message, or just decide to press the Home button. If you get interrupted in the middle of Othello be prepared to lose your game. Both games feature a steep learning curve as well, even on easy, if you’re a novice player.
Morocco allows the human player to be either black or white while Othello only allows a player to be black. Changing color adds a different dynamic to the game and allows for the player to experience offense or defense.
Othello has a few features that I liked that were absent in Morocco such as Hints, Undo, and Skip. Occasionally you’ll hit a point in the game where you have no moves and you’ll have to skip a turn. Morocco auto-skips these turns whereas in Othello you physically have to push a button on the screen to skip your turn. It creates a more genuine feel when playing the game. Lastly, Othello is better looking, with a sleeker finish and a Chinese/English touch on all of the text.
Again, both apps are free so feel free to download and test them both out to see which one you like better. However in our first App Faceoff, my download goes to Morocco. ~~Zack Shapiro
Sounds to me like Othello is a complete failure as an iPhone app, while Morocco is pretty nice. Don’t be too kind, Zack! Any iPhone app that does not save your game/state when the phone rings deserves to go in the trash, no second chance. ~~nevyn
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