Audiobooks

Developed by Cross Forward Consulting, LLC

Rating: 5/5

Audiobooks is a goldmine for literature fans, collecting over 1800 audio books, many of them classics. The app taps into the library of the LibriVox Project, a collection of books in the public domain. Books are read by volunteers, but checked for quality before added to the database. In the app, users can browse by author, title, or popularity. There is also a “Surprise Me” button which takes the user to a random book. Any book can be added to your own library for quick access later, and a “Resume” button appears at the bottom if you stopped listening in the middle of a book.

Books are downloaded only after you choose what you want to hear, and you can start listening once the first chapter is downloaded; the rest of the book will download while it plays. While listening, users have a number of basic controls: pausing, skipping chapters, and a slider to move around within a chapter.

Audiobooks is a truly great app. It uses the strengths of the iPhone (mobile availability and an internet connection), offers a staggering amount of content, and best of all, is free. I would be willing to pay at least $4.99 for this app (which of course goes against the public domain availability of the books), and I am very careful with how much I spend on apps. If there is a classic book you have always wanted to read, chances are good that Audiobooks has it. I am not a big reader, nor do I often listen to audio books, but ever since downloading this app I have been excited to really give it a try. So far, I have not been disappointed.

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Free iWingman Lite – Pickup Lines Generator

Developed by 3PM Studios

Rating: 3.5/5

Besides having a mouthful for a name, and possibly being the most poorly categorized app on the App Store, Free iWingman Lite – Pickup Lines Generator is an amusing distraction for a few minutes. The app contains a number of categorized complements laid out in a table (for “Smell”, it lists “Vanilla”) and a pick-up line generator. I’m sure you could find a more comprehensive list of pick-up lines on the internet, but the satirical presentation of iWingman ties everything together. Pick-up lines are always best when delivered with a smug, jerky attitude, and nothing says smug like an app pretending to be the expert in social situations. The developers seem to have put the app together mainly as a joke, but at a quick glance you might assume it to be seriously intended as help for men struggling to break the ice. This dual nature made the app a lot more entertaining to play around with than I originally expected, and is worth a download if you want a quick laugh.

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CubeGame Lite

Developed by Mirai LLP

Rating: 4/5

I wasn’t really sure what CubeGame Lite was when I downloaded it, and am still not really sure how to describe it, so I will borrow a few sentences from the iTunes app description:

“CubeGame is based on an ancient self-awareness exercise – with a few minutes of highly entertaining, fully interactive Q&A, you will obtain a detailed and UNIQUE personality profile of the player!”

The lite version allows you to make two profiles, while the full version ($2.99) allows you to create unlimited profiles, and email the results of your exercise. After going through a round of CubeGame, I was pleasantly surprised. I don’t know if I would call the questions “highly entertaining,” but at the end the app did have some useful insight. The exercise asks you to imagine a desert, and then the app gives you five objects to imagine in that desert. You are tasked with telling the app how you picture those objects (choosing from a few options, such as “small and hovering over the sand”), and at the end it gives you a detailed profile of what each item says about your personality. I have never been into self-insight, and probably would not have downloaded the app if I weren’t reviewing it, but it was interesting to see what it could identify about me from a few seemingly-unrelated questions. For example, after imagining a medium-sized cube hovering in the desert, the app “knew” how much I enjoy beaches. It proceeded to make a number of predictions of my future life that I will probably ignore, but for only spending five minutes on the excersie, it was an intriguing experience to read surprisingly accurate insights about my life.

I don’t know if there is much need for the full version, but if you have five minutes to spare I would recommend downloading the lite. At the very least you will be surprised at how wrong the app turns out to be, but it might turn out (like for me) to have some valuable acuity into your life

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Zaptap Lite

Developed by Trippert Labs

Rating: 4/5

Considering it is just a fancy version of Simon Says, Zaptap Lite is fairly addicting. Players are shown a few dots, and they light up in sequence. Then the player has to tap the dots in the same order as quickly as possible. What makes Zaptap more fun is the design the developers applied to the otherwise simple and over-done concept of Simon Says. Slick electronic music plays throughout the game, and hitting the dots plays deep techno tones. The theme of 1980′s style electricity, bright colors, and synthetic noise is all executed very well, mainly through the sound. Playing without sound feels like a boring (and simpler) version of repeat-the-pattern games, but with sound Zaptap seems like its own game and becomes fairly addicting. The full version ($4.99) features “unlimited levels” and global high scores. I don’t know if it is worth $4.99, but the lite version is certainly worth a download, and you can make up your mind from there.

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BMI

Developed by CirkelSoft

Rating: 4/5

BMI is a cartoony way to check your BMI (Body Mass Index). Users open the app to a giraffe with a basketball, and can drag around the screen to change his size and weight. Moing your finger up makes the giraffe taller, and swiping down makes him shorter. Dragging left makes him lighter, and right, heavier. The graphic changes size as you drag around, and the BMI shown in the upper right will change based on the height and weight. It turns green to show an “appropriate” BMI, and red or yellow if otherwise.

There is some controversy regarding the BMI, and whether or not it is an accurate or useful number to measure, so the results of this app should not be seen as an alarm that you have a problem.

Also, there are a number of options besides the giraffe for a critter to represent the height and weight (including a super hero cow and a pilot monkey) and international users can choose to use the metric system. The graphics make this app fun and easy to use, although I’m not sure if seeing a distorted image of a muscular chicken is the way I would want to find out my BMI is too high.

The app does its job, and is useful for those who are interested in the BMI. I never knew what mine was, and pulling a cow with a cape out of proportions was an interesting way to find out. Again, I am not advocating serious use of this app or the BMI number, but if you are curious about your BMI this app is a curious way to find it.

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Airman Clock

Developed by Glycine Watch

Rating: 3/5

If you have ever really wanted an Airman 17 (apparently a famous mechanical watch), but are just as happy with a free digital representation, Airman Clock is an app for you. The app is simply a depiction of a (very) complex watch. With all the numbers, dots, and lines depicted in only a few colors, I had difficulty figuring out if the app actually showed the time. It also shows the date and supposedly can track two different time zones (although I could never tell what part of the watch was showing this other time zone). I am not really a watch person, and always rely on my computer or iPhone for showing the complex time-related information contained in Airman Clock (and much more!), but for people who are genuinely interested in such devices, I would recommend trying this app out (and then letting me know if it actually works!).

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Sick Note Lite

Developed by Splaysoft, LLC.

Rating: 2/5

Sick Note Lite is a great example of the useless novelty apps that buries the really valuable apps. The app opens to a fake sick note offering an excused absence for either (the user checks one) work, class, or “other.” The note includes a “comical” explanation signed by one of a few fictitious doctors (doctors who are well known in popular culture). The date at the top is filled in automatically, and users can tap the bottom right corner of the screen to get a new note. The entire illusion is broken with the ads that keep flashing on one side of the screen. Not that anyone should expect this app to actually be useful in getting out of something. The only real purpose of Sick Note is the attempt at humor in the “wild” excuses (such as “Bitten by a rabid blood-thirsty raccoon with crazy eyes”), but anyone in such desperate need of a laugh is better off opening up Mobile Safari and doing a Google search for jokes.

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All Things Digital

Developed by All Things Digital

Rating: 4.5/5

All Things Digital is an app version of the technology news website AllThingsD.com. The app takes a bit longer on start up than it should (about a minute at minimum to check for new stories and download them). The Home tab (pictured below) is just a list of stories, but the tab bar at the bottom also offers quick access to specific columns. The More button lists even more categories (including photos, videos, and a search option), as well as the ability to customize which options appear on the tab at the bottom.

Selecting a news story opens a preview (generally 2-3 paragraphs) of the article within the app. Tapping a link at the bottom will download the entire article, all still within the app. This was a nice change, as many apps will just link out to their websites. But with AllThingsDigital, everything is self contained and presented with a clean interface that makes news browsing a painless process. For fans of the All Things Digital website, or even just anyone interested in technology news, this app offers a great way to get information. If the developers could just release an update to help with the startup loading times, this app could be even better.

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Sphericle

Developed by Chadwick Wood

Rating: 4.5/5

Sphericle uses the GPS of the iPhone to offer an interesting social experience. The idea is that you can drop virtual notes where you are in real life, and search for other notes left by other people in the same area. The app does not specify how big an area it searches for notes, and when I first tried this app I did not find any when I tapped the search button. This left me a bit disappointed, and I was ready to write off Sphericle as rather useless (though more a fault of just not being commonly used than because the developers did something wrong). I left a simple note, “Hi How are you?” and went back to my day.

Now a few hours later I opened the app to do a more comprehensive run-through, and was surprised to see a response to my note! Suddenly I felt an excitement, and saw the potential in this app. I found myself wanting to ask a number of questions of this random person, but contented myself with just one, “Where are you? (general region– I’m just curious how far this spreads)” Maybe that was a bit creepy, as this mystery person hasn’t replied yet, but I am interested to see if some random person just a mile away from me also happens to be using this (relatively unknown) app too.

Sphericle does have a few issues though. None of the notes I left appeared in the “Notes I created” section, and a few times I got stuck in a menu and had to exit and reopen the app. In addition, it feels a bit dull and pointless when there are no notes around you, but after the surprisingly large amount of excitement of seeing someone respond to one of my notes, I realized that Sphericle was definitely worth downloading. I strongly encourage readers to give this app a try (after all, it is free!) and check for notes around you, or leave a few for anyone who comes after you.

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Pacers Running Stores

Developed By Josh Sroka

Rating: 1/5

Pacers Running Stores is essentially an advertisement for a running store with four locations across Virginia and Maryland. The app has a Store Locator which lists these four stores, and tapping on one of those listed will open the Maps app and find it. The app also boasts a lap counter and stopwatch, presumably to entice people to download it. Unfortunately, neither of these really work. The lap counter gives you “+” and “-” buttons to increment or decrement your lap total, but this somehow fails at the task of adding or subtracting one. I hit the + a few times, then the -, but my laps kept increasing.

The stopwatch is somewhat better, in that it does track time. However it does not keep time past every second (as opposed to the Clock app that comes with iPhones, which keeps track of tenths of a second), and there is a significant delay between pressing “Start” and “Stop” and when the stopwatch actually responds.

The app also has Training and Events tabs, but these just link to Pacers sponsored programs and are not much use. Unless you are a dedicated runner who loves Pacers, this app is not worth downloading. The only redeeming value is the stopwatch, and if that is all you need there are plenty of other options on the App Store. Just doing a search for “stopwatch” I found TapTimer Lite, which also has a counter. I haven’t tried it, but this app seems like a much better option if you need a counter and/or timer.

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