= 4 stars

Help catball eat everything.

The Good

• Simple gameplay: touch the screen sides to roll in that direction, hold down both to jump, and tap repeatedly to float into the air. Your goal is to eat all the treasures littered between the level’s objects, and then eat the objects themselves — hence the game’s title.
• Unusual cut-out collage look; catball is a bizarre, legless entity more similar to tribble than feline. Each level is much larger than catball and seems based around a theme of spooky animals. And when the timer runs out, a ginourmous dog zooms in from behind to put a stop to your efforts. It’s all quite bizarre but definitely sets the game apart from others.
• Free download; additional levels are 99 cent purchases.
• I love cats.

The Bad

• Slightly derivative gameplay of Katamari and world-tipping games like Rolando, which suggest the accelerometer would be a better control.

Conclusion

Although similar to other games, the unique, collage-art look pushes Catball over the edge (pun intended). Recommneded.

iTunes App Store Link: iPhone: Catball Eats It All — Broken Compass Studios, Inc.
iTunes App Store Link: iPad: Catball Eats It All — Broken Compass Studios, Inc.

= 3 stars

Play classic Atari 2600 and Atari arcade games on your iDevice.

The Good

• Overall, decently-implemented translations of arcade controls to the iPhone’s touch screen. The Tempest spinner-knob is replaced by a touch-strip, and a surprisingly responsive D-pad allowing for swipes replaces a trackball (Centipede, Missile Command, Crystal Castles).
• Attention to detail in amusing places: each arcade game has settings for tweaks like difficulty, control type, bonus lives, and a “cheat” mode. The 2600 console features the original console switches to toggle game modes, and even switch the television from color to black-and-white. Each game contains a photo gallery featuring original art and manuals — and in the case of the Swordquest games, their associated comic book. Now that’s retro-nerdy.
• This app is more successful on the iPad’s larger screen, plus you can then purchase the iCADE — a shell that surrounds your iPad and turns it into a video game console complete with joystick and buttons.
• Bluetooth support for multiplayer between multiple iDevices.

The Bad

• The 2600 games are Atari-only, and I soon realized some of my fondly-remembered titles (Pitfall, Kaboom!, Chopper Command, H.E.R.O.) were from Activision, and therefore, make no appearance.
• Some controls are less successful: Asteroid’s odd combination of rotate and thrust into one D-pad renders it personally, unplayable.
• Free only gets you one game — either Pong or Missile Command, with the rest obtained through in-app purchases which may frustrate your digital miser. I eventually just ponied up for the entire package of over a hundred games at $14.99.

Conclusion

Despite the game selection and some quibbles about controls, this here is an entire retro gaming arcade in your pocket with unlimited plays, which blows the mind of my inner, past child who spent a crap load of time, money, and youth in quarter-sucking, neon-lit arcades. Sure, the full package is $14.99 — but that’s personally, not that many quarters — particularly when spread over several decades. If you can justify that price and have faith Atari will release future tweaks — you’ll have fun.

= 5 stars

Track runs with a timer, pace tracker, workout manager and GPS mapper.

The Good

• Data recording of just about every exercise statistic: elapsed time, distance, pace, calories, etc. Each workout contains three screens featuring a GPS map of your route, a graph displaying your pace for each minute, and time per interval. All workouts are saved chronologically so you can review progress over time.
• Programmable workouts: say you want to run for ten minutes, walk for two, repeat three times plus a two minute warm up. You can save this sequence of events as a workout and choose it at the start of your run.
• Audio support: Choose an iTunes playlist as background music. A friendly voice announces each interval start along with time elapsed time and pace information.
• Post workout results to Facebook, Twitter, or the Runkeeper website, which is interesting enough to deserve a separate post.
• Reliable: Once started, you can trust the app will continue working for the duration of your workout.

The Bad

• Can’t tap on a minute bar to see a pace while a workout is in progress, and would be nice to sort activities by certain criteria, say fastest time or longest distance.
• Must carry an iPhone / iPod Touch during your workout, which requires pockets or an armband.
• Not sure how it would work in single-location activities like running on a treadmill.

Conclusion

I’ve been jogging regularly since the start of the year largely due to Runkeeper Pro, which turned my iPhone into a personal trainer that gets my ass in gear. Highly recommended.

iTunes App Store Link: RunKeeper Pro — FitnessKeeper, Inc.

= 4 stars

Tap along with a variety of popular songs in this musical rhythm game.

The Good

• Simple gameplay: circles move toward three buttons at screen bottom. Tap a button when a circle passes over it, which occurs in time with the music. The surrounding graphic elements change to match the aesthetic of the artist’s song you’re tapping along with.
• The over a hundred free tracks are supplemented by premium songs by a large variety of artists and genres, including Lady Gaga, Foo Fighters, and Blink 182. I had to dig around to find something I actually liked; namely several Jackson 5 songs and recent Ingrid Michaelson material. The latter actually instigated a minor skirmish over the iPhone with my wife. Never encountered such passion with any other iPhone game.

The Bad

• Free songs are largely by artists unfamiliar to this Gen-Xer, and songs I actually wanted to listen to repeatedly meant paying money. And even then, the artist choices are seriously limited.
• Interface loaded with prompts to purchase additional songs, other apps, and ads — even a preroll video plays on first launch. Be wary of possible, accidental in-app purchases.
• Interface was occasionally slow when switching between different sections.

Conclusion

Addictively entertaining app with an insidious dark side which can be summed up thusly: despite the initial price of “free” expect to spend some money in order to get music you actually like.

iTunes App Store Link: Tap Tap Revenge 3 — Tapulous, Inc.

= 3 stars

Mr. Montblanc wants a clean lawn. Get to work, Mario doppleganger.

The Good

• Retro-pixely graphics resembling some imaginary NES console.
• Simple gameplay: tilt the iPhone left or right to move; shake up to jump. Position your broom over brown patches on the lawn to clean them up. Avoid obstacles: relentlessly pooping dog, flying birds, giraffes, and pigs. After a death, you re-enter the screen by falling from above, which gives you an opportunity to pop a balloon, sending a bone to the ground — a welcome distraction to that craptastic dog.
• Free

The Bad

• The bizarre setup soon results in strange questions: Why can’t Sweep Man leave the right side of the screen and appear on the left side like the animals? What does the dog eat that generates yellow “bonus” poop (and why should poop of any sort generate a bonus)? As poop flies from birds, pigs, and dogs at a rapid rate, one wonders if money ever exchanges hands, because this is the worst job ever? Sweep Man looks like Mario, is this some subtly sick joke on the Nintendo franchise?

Conclusion

Seriously odd game. Free is the best thing going for it — I’d be much harsher if this game cost even a cent. A moderately amusing “meh.”

iTunes App Store Link: Sweep Man — Poppy

= 4 stars

Keep better tabs on all your hard earned money with this financial services aggregator app.

The Good

• Solves a common problem: you have several financial accounts, and are losing track of what’s where. Mint pulls all your financial information into an easy-to-understand web interface and this iPhone app, providing the big picture.
• Straightforward setup with the most tedious part, entering in login information for several accounts. Along the way were welcome reassurances that the process wouldn’t take long, and the whole set-up is secure. The iPhone app includes a PIN to prevent prying eyes.
• You can set up a monthly budget on the Mint website, and the iPhone app will alert you when your spending drifts out of line.
• In-app alerts whenever you receive an avoidable fee — I got one in regards to a non-bank ATM withdraw (yeah, that was bad), and an annual credit card service fee (maybe I should get a new card). I can already see where Mint can help me save money.

The Bad

• Doesn’t update quickly enough. The process of checking each of your financial websites can take minutes. Don’t expect to your minutes-ago ATM withdraw to appear instantaneously.
• Mint relies on each service to play nice and allow access to your information.
• Doesn’t let you perform transactions. You won’t be able to move money from one pile to another with this app.

Conclusion

Although I wish it updated faster, the Mint iPhone app definitely makes me feel more on top of my finances. Recommended.

iTunes App Store Link: Mint.com Personal Finance — Mint.com

= 5 stars

Sync files between computers, online, and view them on your iPhone.

The Good

• Works in conjunction with Dropbox on a computer (Windows, Mac, and Linux versions available). Installing Dropbox on your computer creates a folder in which you place stuff you want to sync or share. Said folder appears on other Dropbox enabled Macs, and on your iPhone via this app. It’s super simple, and the overall execution is very Mac-like, complete with a new icon in the menu bar and Finder windows, providing easy access to your Dropbox folder.
• Works with a variety of files: JPGs, rich text, PDFs, MP4. Images in particular appear in a gallery format.
• There’s a website interface, which also has neat features like sharing files and activity history. DropBox also acts as cloud storage.
• Freemium: 2 GB free storage for free. Pay for more storage; 50GB for $9.99 a month or 100GB for $19.99 a month.

The Bad

• Large files don’t work well, particularly over 3G. A 500K PDF loaded just fine, but a 10MB comic book became laggy and unresponsive. A large audio file skipped before it loaded completely.

Conclusion

Feature wise, the free DropBox is similar to iDisk which requires a $99 annual MobileMe subscription, plus its ease of use nearly out-Apples Apple. With small files, I’m already using Dropbox instead of iDisk or trying to figure out some way to shoehorn them into iTunes. Highly recommended.

iTunes App Store Link: Dropbox — Dropbox

= 4 stars

News app delivering the familiar weekly news magazine TIME to your iPhone.

The Good

• Clear navigation. A menu bar at top (that also scrolls horizontally) takes you to subject sections of the magazine (headlines, politics, U.S., world, business, etc.). Buttons at the bottom lead to different app sections (news, lists, quotes, popular, and media). There’s a toggle button at top to switch between a more familiar thumbnail image and text headline view to a more graphically oriented large image, horizontally scrolling “image flow” view.
• The media section consists of photographs and videos. Videos display using the familiar iPhone UI.
• Button to share articles via email or Twitter.
• Can adjust font size.
• Can read articles in landscape view.

The Bad

• Don’t care for the default “image flow” view, and prefer the more standard thumbnail plus headlines view for articles. Thankfully, you can turn off “image flow” view for all sections by tapping the settings “gear” icon in the upper left corner.
• Personally find the “Top 10 Lists” and “Quotes” sections pointless.
• One bug: when reading an article in landscape view, and tapping the next article button, the next article’s text width is formatted for the vertical view and therefore too narrow. To get the text to flow to the full width, you have to tip the phone 90 degrees and back to “reset” the view.

Conclusion

Despite occasionally klunky article display and lacking the “wow” factor of CNN app’s videos, TIME Mobile is free, and as such this is essentially a free subscription to TIME magazine on your iPhone. As far as I’m concerned it’s good enough to forgo the TIME magazine “dead tree” subscription.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 4 stars

Photo editing app that brings some basic features of Photoshop, Adobe’s powerful image editor, to the iPhone.

The Good

• Performs several useful image editing functions in intuitive ways: crop, rotate, flip, exposure, saturation, tint, black and white, sketch, soft focus, and an area that applies a variety of amusing filters. Once an effect is chosen, the amount of effect is controlled by swiping across the screen. A numeric indicator shows the level.
• Undo and redo.
• Works with the iPhone camera and camera roll so you can take a new photograph within the app or edit a photo already stored on the iPhone. Once done editing, you can save the edited photo to your camera roll.
• Account at Photoshop.com not required for image editing. But if you do have a Photoshop.com account you can upload, store, and share all your iPhone photos using that service.

The Bad

• Any regular Photoshop (or Photoshop.com) user will think of additional functions that would be nice to have, such as blur or focus, or multitouch to zoom in and out. This isn’t by any means a Photoshop replacement or even equivalent. I hope this app will get better over time with the addition of more features.

Conclusion

Adobe’s first entry into iPhone apps is solidly comparable to other iPhone editing programs — and the best part: it’s free.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 3 stars

Read recent articles from BusinessWeek magazine, plus current business news articles and stock quotes, on your iPhone.

The Good

• Serves up articles from BusinessWeek magazine. Another section tracks stock quotes and latest news. The UI is pretty bare bones but easy to figure out.
• Option to share articles via email or Twitter.

The Bad

• The font for the headlines is a little small. Would be nice to have an option to increase font size.
• The stock section with latest news section is less successful. The charts are on the very small side with no option to see a larger view, which both Bloomberg and Yahoo! Finance provide.
• I know business news is generally rather dry, but none of the articles have pictures.

Conclusion

Since this app is free, and is essentially a free subscription to BusinessWeek on your iPhone, it’s hard to find much fault with it. I wouldn’t bother with the stock quote sections however.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 3 stars

iPhone App that hooks into the Yahoo! Finance website to provide financial information on your iPhone.

The Good

• Plays Yahoo! Tech Ticker videos which aren’t viewable through the iPhone’s Safari because of lack of Flash support.
• The stock section UI has some interesting ideas: stock quotes appear in modular boxes that can be modified into several sizes (just a quote, a quote and a chart, and quote / chart / articles). Tapping on a box calls up a more detailed view, featuring a larger graph and headlines to recent news articles. The graph appears at an even larger size when the iPhone is tipped into landscape view. This section of the app is the best at recreating the functionality of the website within the confines of the iPhone, and with some added functionality familiar to iPhone users.

The Bad

• The UI in other sections leaves a lot to be desired, particularly in comparison with the excellent Bloomberg app.
• Could be better about presenting its content. The UI feels a little clunky, and several of the articles I tapped on came up with the error message: “News not available.”

Conclusion

I visit Yahoo! Finance multiple times a day, and was therefore initially excited to check out this iPhone version. I must admit to being let down by the way it serves up news articles — which should have been the easiest part. The end result: I’ll use this app for Tech Ticker videos and checking stocks, but in regards to everything else, in particular; news articles: Bloomberg.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 1 star

Taser a cartoon hippie and see how he reacts in this novelty app.

The Good

• Performs as advertised.
• A few smirks from the various phrases spoken by the hippie. It’s well voice acted.

The Bad

• After a few go rounds, I began to feel guilty. While not as bad as shaking a baby, electrocuting an old, clueless, drug addled oldster is not exactly my idea of fun, and I wonder whose idea it would be. Read up on the Milgram experiement.

Conclusion

Not sure what makes me more uncomfortable: the people who created this app or the people who download it. That’s all the thought this app deserves.

iPhone App Store Link:

= 3 stars

Ride a ridiculously huge, twisting water slide through a cityscape. A tie-in to a recent Barclay’s smart card commercial.

The Good

• Decently simulates a water slide experience. Tilt the iPhone left or right to bank in either direction. Avoid crabs which slow you down and pick up green diamonds for points.
• Options to change gender (big plus for that one) and camera placement.

The Bad

• More simulation than game, and without enough variety, ends up not moving past novelty.
• Depending on how cynical you are, the advertising tie-in may hamper enjoyment of this app.

Conclusion

Provides the entertainment it promises and little else — harmless entertainment while you stand in line at the ATM. Best of all: it’s free.

(This review requested by developer)

iTunes App Store Link:

= 3 stars

Kill or be killed in a scary dungeon where the graphics are ASCII characters. Port of the old-school UNIX game of the same name.

The Good

• Uses color (yeah!) ASCII graphics, just like the original. Your hero is represented by an “@” symbol, monsters various capital letters, tunnels with a “#”, etc. Events occur in text only. Yes, this is cool as far as I’m concerned.
• Because the iPhone lacks an old-school keyboard, commands are given using multi-touch gestures. Tap the screen at any side to move in that direction. Swipe from the middle toward any direction to attack. Double-tap in the center to view inventory. But gestures get more complex than that: draw a capital “W” starting in the upper left corner to wield a weapon, or an “E” to eat food, etc. The gestures are listed via a “commands” button which pops up a scrolling menu. Thankfully, the game is turn-based so you have some time to decide your next move. If you have no desire to remember the gestures, you can launch them from the scrolling menu instead.
• A new, randomly generated map for each game.
• Even with simple graphics and being turn based, things move surprisingly quickly.

The Bad

• Very tiny screen — the whole map is shown at once without any zoom in or scrolling. The characters are literally squint-worthy.
• The multi-touch gesture / scrolling menu set-up is a bit awkward.
• Crashed on me several times.
• Extremely limited appeal to old nerds — most likely limited appeal to those with no memory of the original.

Conclusion

I downloaded this game out of sheer nostalgia and was actually surprised to find it still pretty playable, game-wise. The biggest downers are its poor use of the screen real estate and an awkward command system. But my complaints only have so much weight because: this app is free. Let the questing commence.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 4 stars

Toss paper balls (crumpled up sheets of 8 1/2 x 11) into a wastebasket with varying distances and wind conditions.

The Good

• Super simple game play: just swipe toward the waste basket from the bottom of the screen to launch the paper ball toward its target. The complicating matter is a fan sitting to either side that blows at a different speed during each toss. The wind direction and strength is given to you beneath the waste basket, but that doesn’t make things easy. Points are scored through consecutive baskets — one miss and your score resets to zero.
• Tiny details make the game: most satisfying is a “rim shot” where the ball bounces off the wastebasket rim. occasionally saving a close throw. Other details are subtly subversive: the background depicts a cubicle office setting (complete with monitors displaying Windows XP), giving one the giggly feeling of goofing off at work.

The Bad

• The distance of your upward swipe has no effect on the toss distance. Therefore, the game is all about your initial swipe angle, based on the fan speed. A higher number means leaning your swipe further to either side.
• Not much variety beyond the tossing concept. The paper balls don’t interact with the other office furniture in any way, so bank shots off of a cubicle wall or file cabinet aren’t possible. Even the subversive sense of humor could be expanded upon: would be amusing to see the balls ricochet off potted plants or on desks, or be persistent so the office slowly got filled with your ridiculous balls.

Conclusion

Paper Toss is a simple idea realized well, resulting in a game more addictive than it has any right to be. Plus: it’s free. May the subversive goofing off commence.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 2 stars

Simple puzzle game where you remove colored squares from a board.

The Good

• Simple gameplay. You “start” in the upper left corner. Tap the colored buttons at the bottom of the screen to turn all touching squares of that color to the new color. Eventually, your unified area spreads across the screen. You win if you can turn all the squares the same color before running out of moves.
• Color palette choices and varying board sizes results in a pixelated, lo-res, semi–op art experience.

The Bad

• Kudos for a simple concept, but it’s taken a bit too far. Needs more variety, say bonus pieces, progressively more inventive levels, changing color animations, or animated rewards for passing levels.
• The larger boards are difficult enough to cross the line into frustration.

Conclusion

I’m a fan of easy to learn, difficult to master, casual iPhone games but Flood-It goes a bit too far. Mostly due to lack of variety, it hasn’t held my interest beyond a few go ’rounds. It’s unlikely I’ll pony up for Flood-It! PRO.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 3 stars

Navigate a fighter plane through a battlefield, shooting down everything enemy-related.

The Good

• Essentially a 1942 clone using the iPhone’s tilt controls to maneuver your plane, including majority of the extras  — shooting all the orange planes in a squadron to get a bonus, different weapons, and smaller wingman planes that fly alongside you and add firepower.
• While the gameplay is decidedly retro, the detailed graphics aren’t. The scrolling backgrounds in particular look great on the iPhone screen.

The Bad

• Your plane fires automatically at all times. I know in many games of this style you can get by through holding the fire button down, but it would be cool to have some control over firing so you’re doing a little more than flying and hitting the bomb button.

Conclusion

Already tempted to get the full version. Recommended.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 5 stars

Read The Wall Street Journal on your iPhone with this free, ad supported newspaper app.

The Good

• Runs more smoothly than the New York Times app.
• Ad supported: small banner ads appear at the bottom of each article. Some articles available on the app require a subscription on the website proper.
• In addition to text articles, also has videos and audio files (WSJ Radio) produced by the newspaper.

The Bad

• Sometimes hangs at launch while checking for new sections.

Conclusion

A while back I complained about the lack of a great newspaper app for the iPhone. Well, The Wall Street Journal has delivered (pun intended). It’s good enough that I would have gladly paid for it, but guess what: this app is free.

If in the future, The Wall Street Journal decides to charge for this content, I’d pony up for the app and the content. It’s essentially an iPhone replacement for a dead-tree newspaper. Highly recommended.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 3 stars

The pencil and paper game comes to the iPhone. Create as many squares as possible by connecting two dots with a straight line on each turn.

The Good

• Easy gameplay. Just tap the space between two dots to draw a line in that location. Squares created appear in a different color than your opponent.
• Options to set two human players or computers, and settings for sound effects and board size.

The Bad

• The computer opponent doesn’t put up much of a challenge. Just avoid creating three sides of a square for as long as possible, and when you must, do so in an area where your opponent will win as few squares as possible.
• Graphics and sound effects are nothing special. The doodle on paper aesthetic, seen in several other iPhone games, would have made a lot of sense here.

Conclusion

A decent, no frills implementation of the dots game. Dots Premium just removes the ads, so you may as well just stick with this free version.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 2 stars

Shoot basketballs from two different positions around the 3-point line.

The Good

• Simple, just swipe up toward the basket to throw the ball. How far you swipe and in what direction determines the forward velocity and direction of the ball. The goal is to get the ball in the basket.
• Good graphics put you in the moment of tossing free throws, complete with a crowd behind the basket and an annoying announcer. The animation of the ball throw and interaction with the basket is pretty good, too.

The Bad

• The biggest omission is the inability to move the hands anywhere. They remain perfectly centered before the basket. So all you do is swipe to throw the ball, which feels lacking — you don’t to aim.

Conclusion

Based on this free version, I don’t feel intrigued enough to get the full price version, and will stick with Arcade Bowling.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 4 stars

Tap Tap Revenge 2 is a simplified Rock Band style game where you tap along to music in patterns formed by moving targets.

The Good

• As close to Guitar Hero or Rock Band as I’ve seen yet. Music plays, the colored balls approach in any of three columns, and you tap and hold as the balls pass the bottom of the screen in time with the music. Occasional arrows prompt you to shake the iPhone to either side and tilt it forward, making use of the iPhone’s tilt detection.
• Variety is added with different difficulty levels from kids and easy to extreme which is insanely difficult. Also one and two player modes.
• Link to purchase the songs in iTunes.

The Bad

• Although you can download a fair number of free tracks for variety, the selection is quite limited, all from bands I never heard of, or music I didn’t care for. Not liking the song you’re tapping along to really kills the incentive for repeat play.

Conclusion

Tap Tap Revenge 2 is free, and in itself a solid game. The only thing missing is songs I’d really enjoy tapping along to. And that is surely its real point, to get one to pony up for the Coldplay or Nine Inch Nails versions. Where’s ABBA?

iTunes App Store Link:

= 4 stars

Use the AMC entertainment app to keep up to date on shows and news produced by the American Movie Classics.

The Good

• Lets you watch recent AMC news videos, videos dedicated to each show, and show blogs.
• The app works well, I watched several videos which played no problem on the iPhone, and looked great.
• Each article and video has buttons to save as a favorite or share via email to a friend.

The Bad

• Doesn’t let you watch the television shows themselves; only “extra” supplemental content.
• Limited to AMC content — no surprise, but I wish I could view New York Times content on this app; it runs that well.

Conclusion

I downloaded this app to keep track of new news on Mad Men and the upcoming remake of The Prisoner. It will do that job and then some. If you’re a fan of any of the AMC shows, give it a try: it’s free. There’s no question in my mind that Don Draper looks even classier on the iPhone.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 3 stars

BargainBin is an app that lists current iPhone app bargains in the iTunes Store.

The Good

• Pressing on an app’s icon takes you to the iTunes Store. Pressing and holding calls up some buttons to read the app’s description, look at the app screenshots, and email the app’s link.
• The price tag icons show the original price, so you know how good of a deal you’re getting.
• Definitely useful. I’ve already scored some app bargains.

The Bad

• Once launching the iTunes Store app, I haven’t figured out a way to return to BargainBin.
• Sometimes takes a prohibitive amount of time to load the appllists.
• The apps are organized by day. It would be nice to sort the list according to different criteria, say rating or price.

Conclusion

Despite a less than perfect interface, Bargain Bin is great if you want to save money on iPhone apps. And who doesn’t want to do that? Recommended.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 3 stars

iPity is a Mr. T soundboard that plays famous quotes by the mohawked eighties icon.

The Good

• Over 70+ Mr. T sound samples.
• A few amusing playback options: tap the screen or shake the phone to play a random sample. For more control, hit the choose button to select a sample from the long list.

The Bad

• Useless if you don’t give a whit about Mr. T (although I pity the fool).

Conclusion

The epitome of a novelty app, iPity is barely worth 99 cents, but  it’s currently on sale for a really good price: free. At that price, I’m sticking with this app.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 3 stars

Mokugyo (With Cat) is a musical simulation of a traditional Japanese instrument. The cat part is a very strange “cat mode” where pictures of the author’s cats replace the app background.

The Good

• The musical instrument is admittedly quite basic, but the real special sauce is that nutty “cat mode.” I’ve been scratching my head for quite some time now, trying to figure out what the app author means by it.

The Bad

• Essentially useless once the novelty wears off.

Conclusion

Bizarre app. The “cat mode” made me laugh, however. Thank cats it’s free.

iTunes App Store Link: Mokugyo (With Cat)

= 4 stars

Boxee Remote is a remote control app for controlling an installation of Boxee.

The Good

• Works as advertised. After launching, it immediately recognized my Apple TV running Boxee connected to the same WiFi network, as well as Boxee running on a MacBook. I was able to switch between controlling either installation from within the remote app.
• There are two interfaces, a standard button one and a more unique “gesture” interface where you drag a Boxee icon around the touch screen. While the latter is a music, I prefer the former. Both interfaces are responsive.
• A “Now Playing” button brings up a thumbnail of the currently playing program on your iPhone. Pretty slick.

The Bad

• Crashed a few times when Boxee on my Apple TV failed the loading of a Hulu stream. Luckily, the app boots up quickly so I was able to return to where I was in not much time.

Conclusion

If you’re running Boxee on a Mac or Apple TV and have an iPhone, you simply must to try out this remote app for Boxee. It provides yet another fun way to interact with your favorite media player. Plus, it’s free.

iTunes Store Link:

= 1 star

iGirl Lite places a virtual woman on your iPhone that you can interact with.

The Good

• I suppose if nothing else excites you, this could be a new sort of thrill.
  

The Bad

• The interaction with the pocket babe is pretty limited. The main feature is zooming a camera around her so you can ogle at it from different angles. You can shake the iPhone and she’ll momentarily lose her balance. Excuse me while I calm down from the virtual excitement.
• Options are rather basic. You have different ethnicities, hair styles, and outfits, but despite this I wasn’t able to get iGirl to look much better.
• The graphics aren’t very good. The wooden blocks in Zen Bound are more realistic and appealing, with varied lighting. Yes, I choose the wooden block wrapped in twine over iGirl.

Conclusion

I’m sure the full version of iGirl has more options than this “lite” version, but based on what is on display here, I’m not going to pony up for the full version. Don’t bother with this total waste of time.

iTunes Store Link:

= 4 stars

Public Radio Tuner lets you listen to public radio stations based all across the country on your iPhone.

The Good

• The list of supported stations is huge. They’re organized by state.
• A few options makes things easier on your thumbs. You can bookmark your favorite stations for easier access. There’s a proximity option which calls up radio stations within several miles of your present location. Lastly, the list has a search feature so you can easily find a station by call letters.
• Since this app streams audio via an Internet connection, it works best using WiFi, and decently via 3G. While I got it to work via EDGE, it connects too slowly for regular use.

The Bad

• The only thing I can nit pick about is the UI is essentially the standard iPhone UI — no cool user interface here.

Conclusion

If you’re a fan of public radio, this app is a no-brainer download. It’s free and works well, provided you’re on 3G or ideally, WiFi. Recommended.

Read more about this app at the Public Radio Tuner website.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 3 stars

Simple Paint is a simple drawing program for the iPhone.

The Good

• Works as advertised and is responsive enough that you can start drawing within seconds of launching the app.
• The UI is almost too simple, but for what it does, it works well. The circle in the lower right is the brush size, and each tap cycles through sizes. Tapping the colored squares in the palette changes color. Touching and dragging on the top area draws a line with your chosen brush and color. Tapping the top area changes the background color / pattern to a random color.

The Bad

• No way to save your masterpiece from within the program. Your only option is to take a screen shot using the iPhone’s built in power button / main button press.
• I recently tried the program Brushes which is a much more robust and feature-rich app.

Conclusion

Simple Paint lives up to its name — it simply lets you pain. But the fact that it runs fast and feels snappy is its best feature. And an added bonus: the developer is a nine year old kid.

iTunes App Store Link:

= 2 stars

ZeptoPad Free is a drawing / mind-mapping application for the iPhone.

The Good

• Lots of functionality: text boxes, different pen sizes, colors, editing (cut, copy, paste), undo, and saving files to photos which appear in your camera roll. You toggle between drawing and editing modes. In drawing mode, touching the screen draws with the pen, and in editing mode you draw a marquee and cut and paste the contents.
• The directory button takes you to a library of thumbnails containing all your saved drawings.
• You can load pictures from your camera roll, draw on them, or incorporate them into your drawings. Use multitouch to resize and rotate.

The Bad

• The app is sluggish and drawing is not very responsive. Pretty much any attempt to draw something decent achieved very haphazard results. I found myself getting more frustrated with the lack of response than being creative.
• The UI is quite different from the iPhone UI and takes some getting used to.
  

Conclusion

While there’s a lot of cool functions packed into ZeptoPad Free, I feel its basic drawing functions ran too slowly for this program to be anything more than a novelty.

iTunes App Store Link: