= 5 stars

Turn your iPhone into the coolest track pad mouse ever.

The Good

• Much more than just a mouse. The variety of mice and layout options demonstrate a lot of thought. Default is a trackpad with a scroll wheel and left and right buttons. Turn the iPhone into landscape mode to get a larger surface. But Air Mouse goes much further: Tap the icon in the upper right corner to turn your mouse into a controller using the iPhone tilt controls. The button layout changes, removing the trackpad and making the right, left buttons and scroll area bigger.
• But there’s more: in addition to the mouse options, you get the iPhone’s standard keyboard, and a black keyboard with several modes (function keys and arrow keys, multimedia for controlling iTunes, and a browser control interface). So in addition to the mouse you also have a surprisingly capable keyboard replacement.
• Requires installation of Air Server software on the computer you want to control. The software adds an icon to your menu bar and is very straightforward to set up and use.

The Bad

• Has a very specific use, since all computers come with mice and keyboards these days. I personally have plans for it as a remote control of a MacMini hooked up to a home entertainment system, but that’s a pretty niche activity.

Conclusion

Air Mouse blew my mind when I first used it. It’s more than just a mouse replacement for one key reason: the developers really leveraged the iPhone’s ability to provide a changing UI to make it better than a mouse, and turning it into a fully featured computer remote control. It actually makes a decent demo for a future MacBook where the entire keyboard area is another display. Highly recommended.

iPhone App Store Link:

= 3 stars

Tower defense style game set in space and with rotating worlds, which you must defend against alien invasion.

The Good

• 3D graphics provide a unique spin (no pun intended) on the standard tower defense game. The map is shaped like a sphere which you can rotate and zoom in and out from using the iPhone’s multitouch. There’s a predesignated path on the globe where the enemies march, and your primary task is to line the sides with various turret towers using drag and drop.
• Variety is added through the various towers and alien baddies you battle.
• The overall design reminded me a bit of StarCraft.

The Bad

• While the 3D graphics and unique globe board have some initial appeal, ultimately this is “yet another tower defense variation.” Plus, the 3D aspect occasionally proves a hindrance to accurately placing towers or seeing where the aliens are.
• Some stability issues: freezes and crashes.
• For what it is, $5.99 feels high.

Conclusion

After the surface appeal of 3D wore off, I haven’t found much reason to continue playing what’s basically another version of Tower Defense. I think I’ll stick with geoDefense.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 3 stars

Battle swooping aliens with a side-stepping spaceship in this updated version of the arcade classic.

The Good

• Comes with classic Galaga.
• Options for different controls (buttons, a slider, or accelerometer), difficulty number of lives, and point level for a free man.

The Bad

• The price of $5.99 feels prohibitively high, I mean, this is based on a decades-old video game.
• The remix version plays solely in landscape while the classic version in vertical.

Conclusion

Despite its better graphics, the updated of Galaga is merely okay. The real entertainment is the classic version of Galaga — and I feel it’s rather hard to justify paying $5.99 for an extremely old video game.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 3 stars

In the interest of fairness I checked out 2 Across, another crossword puzzle iPhone app. It’s cheaper than Crosswords yet promises to do the same thing — download crossword puzzles from the web and let you solve them, so you’ll always have a supply of crossword puzzles with you wherever you are.

The Good

• Totally capable crossword app. Once you figure out the conventions for navigating around the board, you can jump right in and start solving puzzles. You see the entire screen and double-tap to bring up the keyboard.
• The puzzle is easier to read at small size than with Crosswords.
• Different levels of clues, one letter, a word, or the whole grid.
• A “pencil” mode for guessing various letters.
• Nice touches like small icons for the various puzzle sources and even their masthead in the upper left corner.

The Bad

• The keyboard used is the standard iPhone keyboard, which unfortunately takes up a large portion of the screen, obscuring the puzzle. Crosswords has a custom keyboard that is smaller, which I prefer.
• You only have a vertical view. The app doesn’t rotate to horizontal view.

Conclusion

While 2 Across is a totally capable crosswords app, I prefer Crosswords since it has several more views and a smaller keyboard that personally, make it easier for me to solve puzzles. But after fiddling with 2 Across, I’d say you can’t go wrong with either app, so if you want to save a few bucks, 2 Across should suffice. But an even better idea would be to downlod the free “taster” versions of both apps (2 Across Lite, Crosswords Lite), play around with them, and then make a decision. Aren’t free iPhone apps great?

iTunes App Store Link: