More and more applications are being added to the iTunes App Store each day. I've read that there are over 800 applications available now, but I haven't counted them. I've downloaded nine of those 800...one of the heavy hitters I'm sure. ;-)
Here's a list and a review of what I've downloaded:
- AIM: This is for chatting with buddies, but I haven't tried it. My friends and I used to IM a lot, but none of us really do any more. Which begs the question...why did I download it? I don't know. It was free.
- Light: This free app turns your iPhone or iPod touch screen white to use as a flashlight. Surprisingly, there were a few of these apps, but when the store opened this was the only free one. I figure it might be handy someday, but I certainly wouldn't have paid for it.
- Remote: This is an app from Apple that turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a remote control for iTunes on your computer. It actually works and is pretty cool. You can change songs, adjust volume, choose another playlist, skip tracks, etc. from anywhere you can access your network. Pretty cool, except when the iPhone or iPod touch goes to sleep, you can't double tap Home to access the controls up. Instead, you have to press Home, slide the awake gadget, re-open Remote (if you're in another app) and then access the controls. Other than this design flaw, it's a decent app...especially since it's free. Apple should thank Hedy Lamarr for the idea that gave this app a birth.
- Tap Tap Revenge: Apparently, this is GuitarHero for the iPhone/iPod touch...and I'm bored. Fortunately, it was free. (Notice the trend, I've paid for very few apps.)
- Texas Hold'em: I've never been a poker player, but I do like Texas Hold'em. I've played various computer versions for pseudo-money, but never played in person or for real money...probably because beyond 3-of-a-kind, I can't remember what hand beats what. Not a good memory issue when playing a variation of poker! This version of the game is slick and fun, but there are too many players when you are playing against the computer and it's annoying to have to tap the stack to see the value of the current pot. They display each player's current stack, so why not the pot? It would also help to have some tutorials with this game so you know to drag your cards to fold, drag your chips to go all in, tap two corners to pause, etc. This was $4.99, and I've played several times.
- The Thirty-nine Steps: There are a few e-readers available in the App store, but I haven't tried any of them yet. One is free and well liked, but you can only download books specifically designed for that reader...so if you already have e-books, tough luck, even if they are from the same company. And they charge for all their books, so of course their reader was free. The old Kodak Brownie business method. Another reader is $9.95 and will work with several different types of books, including free ones, but the reader is getting bad reviews...so I'll wait on that.
Instead, another company has uploaded a slew of books from the public domain. Each book has it's own little reader and costs $.99. I decided to give this a try...once...with The Thirty-nine Steps. I've never read this book, but have seen Hitchcock's adaptation. The reader is very basic, but works. However, it only displays in one font...at least the size is adjustable, is in portrait instead of landscape view, and scrolling is choppy. Instead of scrolling, I've found it's easier to tap the lower half of the screen to page down when I reach the end of the screen. It would also be nice to have notes and bookmark features (it does re-open where ever you close it, but no bookmarking). I won't download many of these because each download brings the app down too and that's annoying even if it is small. I wonder how many of the 800 applications are books from this provider? - Trism: This is a game a long the lines of Bejeweled. Instead of matching jewels, you drag and tilt rows to match colored triangles. It's very addictive and harder than it sounds. My top score so far is 1,117,714...which shows how bloated the scoring is, not how good I am. My best move was a 7 chain, 63 trism match, for 545,018 points. I don't think that was in my million-point game. Trisms comes with a tutorial that is helpful, but they don't explain the star tiles so I've been figuring that out on my own. I need to get better at planning several moves instead of just taking the obvious move. I was also shocked during my million-point game when I ran out of matches and instead of ending the game, Trism shuffled the tiles! It then planted a bomb that I couldn't clear, so the game ended only a few moves after the shuffle. There are a few other games, one only allows tilting, no moving rows, but I haven't tried these yet. I paid $4.99 for this and have really had fun with it. (Speaking of Bejeweled, there's a version in the App Store for $9.99. There's also a version for older iPods in the Game section of iTunes for $4.99 and it's free via Apple's WebApps...so why should I pay $9.99 in the App Store? If there are new and improved features, they don't list that in the description...so I ain't buyin'!)
- TypePad: SixApart, the owner of TypePad, has come out with three "applications" for TypePad lately. First was the WebApp for iPhone and iPod touch. This is accessed via the Internet on Apple's WebApp site. It has some helpful tools, like comment moderation and editing, but I rarely use it. Then they released a new Compose editor to be used on a computer. This was a staged release to all TypePad users...I was in the first stage. This means the old editor was gone and the new, full-of-bugs-editor had to be used. They are slowly fixing things, but the editor still has flaws and is still very slow. Since they can't fix the slowness, they've created something else called a "Simple View" which I haven't looked at, but I guess takes away some of the new features. And yes, they did add several nice things, but these don't outweigh the bugs.
Then, as if they weren't busy enough...they released TypePad for the App Store. It allows the creation of new posts and adding photos to the posts...but NO editing of existing posts, no comment moderation, or stats. It also has bugs...my categories won't display for me. They should have focused on getting one new application correct instead of doing several. Well, they'll be nice if they ever get everything working. And they are free (except, there's a monthly charge for the service so they should be free). - WeatherBug: As implied by the name, this app provides weather information. You can choose up to three locations for detailed weather information such as temp, wind direction and strength, current conditions, highs and lows, humidity, dew point, alerts, forecasts, radar, and live camera shots. In other words...this app has a lot more information than the Weather app that came on the iPod touch. It's free. It's cool.
There are a lot of social networking applications on the App Store, things for Twitter, Facebook, etc., but I don't use any of those, so I've ignored those apps. I was shocked that some of them cost money! (So, do I not bore you enough? Do you want me to Twitter you to death also?) Even ebay has an app on the App Store...I'm pretty sure it was originally $2.99, but is now free. Several apps have dropped in price once they saw the competition and heard the complaints.
Some general comments about the new iPhone/iPod touch OS and the App Store:
- OS 2.0 seems to be harder on the battery than the old version. I'm having to charge a lot more even when I'm the same things I used to before I upgraded the OS.
- The App Store shares a search feature with all of iTunes and that's annoying.
- But the biggest pain with the App Store is that there are no trial or demo versions of the apps. Many of the product descriptions are too sketchy, or they promise too much, and there a lot of user comments from people that are unhappy with their purchases. I've avoided several apps that might be interesting, because I don't want to pay for them and then not like them. I really think Apple needs to build in time-limited trial versions...shouldn't be too hard...then I'd be willing to try more apps.
If you're wanting to know what new apps are being added to the App Store and which are being updated, check out the blogs here.
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