Hatchi

Hatchi

Price: $1



Do you remember those annoying Tamogatchi toys? I have memories of coddling a digital penguin, dinosaur, ambiguous blob and even a baby (which would only last about a week before outgrowing you. Talk about the Tamogatchi getting sick of you.) What child from the 90's didn't know or own a digital pet?

Hatchi relives the same spirit, blocky black and grey pixels and all. It translates well for the iOS and is well suited to touchscreen gamers who aren't action oriented (for the most part.) You start off with a blob pet and as time passes its features (horns, wings, limbs) will grow based off of its personality and how well you treat it. If you get that far that is. Tamogatchi pets are legendary for a) being annoying and b) lacking any reason to stick around long enough.

For the one dollar admission price you do get a lot of value with achievements, Game Center support and iPad/iPhone support. The main problem is the notifications support. It has it. I personally use notifications to learn about the weather, read mail and see responses on Facebook. You begin to make priorities and quickly realize that Hatchi will take a back seat a lot unless you make time for it.

My Vagina is smelly and is very dirty

Turning off notifications is Hatchis own version of putting it into silent mode and sticking it in a drawer, sentencing another digital pet to the big server in the cloud. When I did play I did feel engrossed in the experience however since it replicates the good ol' days perfectly with the sounds and sights of a low tech gizmo. The controls are only wonky in a few mini games (which aren't mandatory to play) and the price is right for what you get. Unless you're buying an iPod Touch or iPhone just for Hatchi then wtf is wrong with you?

Posted with Blogsy

iA Writer: iPhone Version

Link

Price: $5

 

My first (paid) word processor for iPad was iA Writer. Did I get the name right this time? Anyway the first draw was the price compared to Pages. Then the interface. And I was sold with Dropbox support. It’s funny how my first crack was the perfect one that would never be topped. Then it became universal and I flipped.

Goodbye Write 2, My Writing Spot and others I can’t remember off the top of my head (I’ll get to them later). Does this app translate well to the small screen? Yes and no (gasp!)

It’s exactly like its bigger brothers in the way it delivers a simple and effective interface that gets the job done. The iCloud and DropBox support brings seamless integration between devices (and my God it’s just thuper.) It’s a faithful and useful shrink down of a great word processing app.

So what’s the problem? The issue is that the smaller screen requires more options and settings. Write2 works better for iPhone than the iPad because you can shrink down the text and use every pixel available while feeling absolutely comfortable. Both iPad and iPhone versions have a keyboard that takes up half the screen but the iPad can show more. Personally when I use small pockets of time to write on my phone, it’s in landscape. With iA Writer I change to portrait because I see just a little bit more.

Side by side comparison of iPhone (left) and iPad (right, duh)

After all is said and done I will place all my eggs in the iA Writer basket purely because everything is designed to optimize the writing experience. I don’t want to see buttons or textures or mess around with fonts or colour schemes. But thats just me.

Posted with Blogsy

Stanza

Stanza

Version: v.3.2

Compatibility: iOS 3.0

Price: Free

Thanks to touchscreens and e-ink displays, reading on the go has never been more accessible. If you're a smartphone addict like I am, your iPhone or Touch is probably never far away at any given moment. For the love of reading, e-readers are cheap and light, but an app is lighter, cheaper and even more convenient. The big dogs of the e-reader world (Kindle, Nook, Kobo) are available but aren't the best option for those of us who like to manually sync our own ebook and pdf libraries. When iBooks started getting sluggish, I gave Stanza a shot.

Since manga makes up a significant percentage of my digital library, Stanza was highly recommended as a one stop for everything literature including the popular cbz/cbr file format most digital comics are saved in. Stanza is favoured by publications such as Time Magazine, New York Times, Wired, PC Magazine and Forbes for being the best app to fit entire bookshelves into the palm of your hand. I love how it doesn't fill up the screen clumsily with buttons and menus. Books can also be downloaded from several partner stores as well as offering 50,000 free classics to choose from.

My one problem with the app is the look of it. There are many options to choose from for font, background, colours and all that jazz, but presets are virtually non existent. I dont want to choose from 30 or so background images which are really distracting or dozens of fonts that make it hard to read. Black text on white is hard to deal with as well thats why I choose sepia in iBooks. But choosing something takes awhile and when you're reading you want to go back into settings and looks for a better one. And thats not what I want from a reading app.

Compared next to iBooks, I prefer iBooks a short margin for the look but the lag in load makes Stanza a little better. Pick your poison.

Work+

Work+

Version: v.1.0.0

Compatibility: iPhone 3GS/4/4S, iPad iOS 5.0

Price: Free

When it comes to work I require a few things that I like since I'm technically homeless atm. Ambiance, wifi and coffee. Not a whole lot to ask for don't you reckon? Since I reside in a small Uni town, there really should be more choices and I had no idea how many choices I actually had after I got Work+. This was the app that made me jump onto the FourSquare bandwagon and encouraged me to offer my experiences to help my wandering brethren in search of a place to work.

What Work+ does is offer up suggestions on public places to work like Starbucks and such alternatives. Using data provided by Foursquare users you can figure out which cafes have good ambiance, wifi, outdoor patios or can accomodate large groups for meetings. Enter in what it is you're looking for and it will help you find a suitable cafe.

On top of that you can input notes or time your work for your own reference later. So if you were disatisfied somehow by one such place, you will know later that that place is balls and to neve go back because of all the screaming kids, shitty internet connection or overpriced scones. Admittedly I started using this app recently and have logged three or so entries but I go to cafes very frequently (everytime I write here or for Apartment Therapy.) The worst thing I hate to do is spend an afternoon in a crappy cafe only to waste my time, energy because of a crummy locale, Work+ lets me mix things up and try new things.

Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror Remastered

Broken Sword II
Version: v.1.3
Compatibility: iOS 3.1.3
Price: $6

A lot of the games I seem to be playing lately are the older variety of games. Even though I have a PS3, I've been playing PSOne games. The same goes for my Wii and indeed now my iPad seeing as the old wit of George Stobbart has made its way to my tablet. The point and click genre appears to be made for the touch screen revolution with Telltale games storming the app store with their new Jurassic Park series, Back to the Future and Sam and Max. So how does Broken Sword stack up?

The first feature I commend it on is its Dropbox support. Although I didn't use it very often, I carried over my save from iPad to iPhone and back when starting to play. It worked extremely well though the game doesn't work too well on the iPhone since clicking is very finicky. That's right, the controls are very wonky for a point and click. Howso you ask? The problem is that the original game required two types of clicking, left and right. Left interacts while right observes. This iOS variety works by clicking on a point of interest once and it presents the option afterwards. Clicking on the icon is hit or miss and you can not hit it right at first which cancels the transaction. Then attempting to hit that sweet spot again to bring up the option will miss and your character will end up walking away or worse, going to a new screen.

At some points in the game precision in movement and timing plays a factor. They are far and infrequent but when they happen, prepare for frustration.

My other gripe is a small one. They added new images during conversations of character avatars. They feel out of place but are not a huge deterrent. The proper voice acting and dialogue is still here however and that alone is well worth the money. George Stobbart is one of the characters that came before Drake (but after Indiana Jones) that fall under the adventurer with sharp wit. The core experience that the game stems from is here in its entirety and despite the frustrating controls is easy to lose yourself in. The beautiful visuals and incredible soundtrack (put on the headphones, it's one of those games) makes for an interactive movie experience that uses the best parts of the iOSs hardware to recreate a classic game.