Review: Flawed and bizarre "Monkey" app may entertain

Sometimes you run into an application so bizzare that, despite it being not particularly well made, you just end up playing with it in an uncontrollable fascination. iPopetz's Monkey (iTunes link) is one such application. Yesterday, I had a chance to sit down and put Monkey to the test.

The idea is this: Monkey provides an interactive avatar that lip syncs to your voice. You control the emotions and actions of the monkey and the application records your session. You can then share that session with friends via a central website. The app costs two bucks and you can upload your clips to the shared site without limit.

Ars exclusive: Review of Papers for iPhone

A couple of years ago, a Mac OS X application came along and blew my socks off. I raved about it at the time, and continue to do so just about every chance I get. That app was Papers, which has done for scientific literature what iTunes did for music files. Now, the company behind Papers, Mekentosj, has done it again, this time by bringing its killer app to the iPhone in a timely manner. It doesn't disappoint.

What made the desktop app so great was the way it took all the hard parts of maintaining an electronic literature database and hid them, while at the same time providing a great-looking interface from which to read papers, search for new ones, and even export them to bibliographic apps. The iPhone app works in pretty much the same way as the desktop version, bringing some or all of your desktop library over to your iPhone or iPod touch, along with the option to search for new articles and so on.

Review: Full Screen Web Browser for iPhone

Now that Apple is allowing third-party browsers into the App Store, Safari alternatives are cropping up almost as quickly as fart apps, sans the lack of utility. While most of these browsers seem to be stricken with an anorexic case of the "me toos," Full Screen Web Browser (iTunes link) by SOPODS.com offers some compelling features over the iPhone's incumbent.

To get the headlining feature of Full Screen Web Browser (FSWB) out of the way, it offers a truly, erm, full screen Web browser. Starting up FSWB reveals a slim address bar at the top and a spartan, translucent toolbar at the bottom as the default Google homepage loads. That's right: I said default homepage. You can change your homepage in the Settings app (loss of 10 points for following Apple's Human Interface Misguide here), and this page loads each time you start FSWB. You hear that, Apple? Someone created an iPhone browser and actually remembered that homepages exist. Astounding!

Time Crisis Strike for iPhone: not a surefire thing

When it comes to games in the App Store, rail shooters are pretty much nonexistent. As a result, the news that Namco was bringing its venerated Time Crisis franchise to the iPhone was delightful to hear, even though none of us was entirely sure how the game would work. Now that we've gotten to see Time Crisis Strike in action? The shooter should have stayed in development a bit longer, as it misses the target.

The game's biggest problem is that it's incredibly short and shallow. Whereas other recent action/adventure titles have had a pretty reasonable script, Strike doesn't actually have a plot at all: there isn't an intro cutscene explaining what's going on in the world or why players happen to be going up against the game's terrorist baddies. In fact, there's no way to know that you're going up against Wild Dog and his army unless you happen to read the game's official description.

Review: Duck Shoot tickles for short-term fun

For a free ad-supported game, Duck Shoot delivers an amusing little treat that may occupy a few spare minutes of your time, but is unlikely to become a long-term passion. Based on the standard carnival game, you must shoot down little tin ducks while avoiding hitting "babies" with your shots. The ducks move around your screen, changing style, color, and difficulty, adding a light tinge of challenge to gameplay.

To aim, simply tilt your phone to move the rifle sights around the screen. When you've set your target, tap the screen (just once! a second tap will always miss) to shoot. Blue ducks are worth an extra point.

Review: Hour of Heroes brings WW2 to iPhone in style

Bringing 3D games to the Apple's touch-oriented platform is still pretty rare, but Gameloft is doing its best to be the first game developer exclusively associated with the genre. Not only that, but the company is working to put out quality action titles for the App store. Previously, we were taken to Ancient Greece with Hero of Sparta; this time, we're liberating WW2 Europe from the Nazis in Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes.

The game tells the story of soldiers in the 101st Airborne as they fight their way through a total of thirteen missions across the regions of Normandy, Ardennes, and Tunisia. The story here is pretty basic, not much more than "go here, shoot these guys," but most players don't really need much of a plot when they're taking on Axis forces across Europe.

Review: GrubHub iPhone app delivers... our grub

Food delivery aficionados who live in Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, or New York are likely aware of GrubHub, an online service that offers a centralized location to find restaurants that deliver to you from all over the city. Through GrubHub, you can even order online from many restaurants and filter for those that are delivering now, different kinds of cuisine, and so on.

At least here in Chicago, GrubHub has a pretty strong following, so when the company announced today that its GrubHub iPhone app had landed in the App Store, we were elated.

In order to understand the need for an iPhone app that lets you order food, you must first understand the demographic that would want to have food delivered in the first place: the lazy. If I can place an order for some curry without dragging myself to a computer, or even if I'm on the train heading home and would like dinner to be on the way as I arrive, that's exactly what I want to do. So, with incredible eagerness, we tried out the GrubHub iPhone app in hope that it answered all of our prayers—and it sort of did, but with a few shortfalls.

Review: iStat for iPhone cool, but not for sysadmins

iStat is a new iPhone utility that allows a user to remotely monitor computers running Mac OS X 10.4 or higher with a free iStat server application. Additionally, you can monitor the vital statistics of an iPod Touch or iPhone, which we will also talk about in this review. Connections can be made using either Apple's Bonjour networking protocol if devices are on the same network, or TCP/IP if the machine you wish to monitor lies outside. Once the server is launched, it gives you a five-digit pass code used to authenticate the server and the client.

By default, the server listens on port 5109, but that can be changed if another is more to your liking. If you are connecting via Bonjour, the machine running the server will appear in the servers list; otherwise you have to manually add a TCP/IP or hostname. Once you select the server, you are prompted to enter the five-digit code; at that time, you are given access to all of the goings on of the remote computer. Although you can reset authorizations and create new passcodes, I couldn't get my iPod touch to be prompted for a new code after entering in the original. This is a somewhat serious security flaw, but one the company is aware of and is working on a fix for.

App Store Lessons: 6 ways to better promote your application

You have worked hard on your app. Apple has given it the green light. Soon, you'll be selling it through App Store. What's the best way to get the word out and get some Web coverage? You might be tempted to just throw together a quick message with an App Store URL and a promo code and shoot that off to the major tech sites. Speaking as someone whose inbox is regularly flooded with haphazard announcements, let me suggest a few points about crafting that e-mail. Here are six ways you can better promote your application.

Tell us what the product is and what it does.

"I have a new game" or "I just published a new utility" doesn't provide enough details for us to know what you're talking about. Jump right in and start with a product description, one that lets us know right off what this software does: "I'm writing today to tell you about Foobar, which is a new iPhone utility that lets you search through your iPhone contacts and rank them by personality. Sure it's mean, sure it's evil, but I bet you'll have as much fun rating Grandma and that hunky guy down the hallway as we do."

Slotz Racer for iPhone: Fun with little electric cars

Freeverse and Strange Flavour, the guys behind Flick Fishing, have re-teamed to bring iPhone users SlotZ Racer. It is, as the name suggests, a slot racing game. You race your little electric car around a slot track, applying the electricity with a light touch so that you remain competitive while not getting yourself thrown off the track at the curves by going too fast. For $2.99 it's a sweet little game with a bunch of advanced features including a somewhat daunting track editor and a marginal multiplayer mode.

The best way to play the game, in my opinion, is to choose the standard one-player Quick Race or Single Player challenges. It's you versus the iPhone with a camera angle that moves with the race so you can see the track immediately behind and in front of you.

Pandora 2.0 iPhone app better than ever

A few weeks back, I described Pandora as software worthy of marrying and taking home to meet the 'rents. This week, Pandora for iPhone has been updated to version 2.0 and it's better than ever.

Pandora 2.0 introduces a handful of new features that expand the listening experience, offering a don't miss upgrade for iPhone users. Most notably, album covers now have backs. You can tap the album icon at the top right of the now playing screen, just as you would in the iPod or Music applications. The cover flips over and gives you access to artist bios and song information.

Pandora 2.0 introduces easy-to-access back covers for albums

When you rotate Pandora 2.0 to landscape orientation, the view switches out to Coverflow. You can review recently played songs by swiping left and right. The same back cover information is available here. Tap the "i" info button or tap on the currently selected cover to flip from the front cover to the back.

Unfortunately, scrolling down the biographical writeup in Coverflow mode is a little harder than it needs to be. By accident, I kept flipping back to the front cover rather than scrolling down the description. Make sure your up and down flicks are precisely vertical to avoid this problem.

A new Coverflow view lets you review the songs that have already played.

Sharing music and creating new stations is easier than ever before. On the main album playback screen, tap the album cover to reveal the station overlay. A tap on the "+" button lets you add a new station based on the currently playing artist or song. The right "envelope" provides quick access to e-mail sharing. At the top, a progress bar shows playback progress through the song. You cannot, however, scrub through the currently playing song.

It appears that the Pandora engineers have built their own SMTP client because sending email didn't dump me out of the application or interfere at all with music playback. The actual email was inoffensive, stating, "A friend wants to share some music with you," with a basic minimum of Pandora advertising. A link in the e-mail took me straight to the Pandora station I'd been playing.

Create new stations or send email with this overlay.

New genre-based stations allow you to build a Pandora station based on a musical style rather than on a particular seed artist or song. Unfortunately, my attempts to try this out always ended in "Unable to create your station" with Cancel/Try Again buttons. Perhaps this new feature is still being rolled out. I'm really looking forward to seeing how well Pandora performs when working with a genre rather than its original algorithms.

Pandora now (or will soon) supports genre-based stations

A final feature enhances Pandora bookmarks. You can now listen to a 30-second sample from your bookmarked items. Just click the Sample button.

Play back samples directly from the Bookmarks page.

The Pandora people have produced a worthy new version of their already fabulous software. It's a free update and available for download today at iTunes or on your device in the App Store.

7 iPhone Apps that have stuck on my home screen

To say that a lot of software has passed through my iPhone's home screen is an understatement. Between apps that I bought and apps I've been asked to try out, my iPhone has been subject to more software than I ever expected. With the year drawing to a close, I decided to take a look at my iPhone home screen and mention some titles that have displayed sticking power. Here is my list of the top 8 apps that stayed on my iPhone and show no sign of going away any time soon. They are in no particular order.

Flick Fishing

Link: iTunes Link
Publisher: Freeverse
Price: $0.99 (Update: Now $1.99)
Platform: iPhone and iPod touch

I must be honest.When I first heard of Flick Fishing, I thought it was the stupidest idea for an iPhone game that I had yet encountered, right up there with most golfing games. (My dad is a devoted golfer. Hating it is in my blood. I have no excuses.) Here's how it works: you flick your phone and this sends out a fishing line with bait. You then sit there and wait for a fish to nibble on your line. When a fish does bite, you reel him in. And then repeat. Over and over again.

Almost two months later, my children and I are still playing this game. It's freaking addictive. There are competitions. There are hidden treasures. There are named fish. And, at the end of the day, there's the sheer delight of hooking a big one and fighting that fish into submission, taking great care not to break the line or let the fish escape.

There's something very calming about sitting out on the boat and letting yourself be on "fish time." The fish comes when it feels like it (and yes, I know, it's just a silly little algorithm running on the iPhone CPU) not when you demand it. And there's a great social component about fishing with the kids, even in a virtual reality. And you wouldn't believe how big that fish was, the one that got away!

Word Warp

Link: iTunes
Publisher: MobilityWare
Price: $0.99
Platform: iPhone and iPod touch

I first reviewed Word Warp back in early October. At that time, I was playing the free version, but soon upgraded to the full paid release. Word Warp remains one of our family's favorite games on my phone. When my Dad visited a few weekends back, we sat and Word Warped together for hours. It's the kind of game that's easy to play with others, even on the iPhone's small screen.

Word Warp presents a scrambled six letter word. You have to unscramble that word within a time limit and then use those letters to make as many other words as possible. Solving the six-letter item lets you advance to the next level.

The game couldn't be simpler and the interface will never win awards for beauty, but it's playable, playable, playable. You can pause at any time and pick up exactly where you left off, making Word Warp match the way people really use iPhones. That's a vital design feature and one that Word Warp knocked out of the ballpark.

The number of hours I have spent using this program is insanely high and yet I keep coming back because the game remains timeless and enjoyable.

Trism

Link: iTunes
Publisher: Demiforce LLC
Price: $2.99
Platform: iPhone and iPod touch

I've gone on and on about my love for Trism in the past. Trism debuted right along with the App Store and there it is on my iPhone, still getting used. Steve Demeter has earned a gadzillion dollars on Trism and every sale has been well deserved. It's a great game that works beautifully on the iPhone platform. There's a lot of game play, a continuous learning curve, and a breathtaking simplicity that makes it accessible for users of all ages.

Like Word Warp, Trism plays nicely with interrupted play. You can stop, do other things, and pick up exactly where you left off. That makes it a great phone companion that you can revisit whenever a few minutes linger before you.

Pandora

Link: iTunes
Publisher: Pandora Media, Inc.
Price: Free
Platform: iPhone and iPod touch

OMG OMG OMG, how I love you Pandora. Pandora is the very best Internet Radio App for iPhone, hands down. I would marry you and bear your babies if you were human. (And yes, that's what Pandora would look like if he were.) Pandora, which is an outgrowth of the musical genome project, lets you seed your playlists with the kind of songs and artists you like and then uses that data to seed a private radio station personalized to your musical tastes.

Pandora is probably the number one reason I went ahead and put a data plan back on my iPhone. (Well, that was due to Pandora and that silly AT&T decision to drop PAYG data.) With Pandora, I can listen to the music I love while I get dressed in the morning, when I'm out walking, or even when I'm driving across town. So long as I have good EDGE reception, Pandora is there for me.

What's more is that I can use the jailbreak program Backgrounder to keep playing those tunes as I work on other things. If you've jailbroken your iPhone, Backgrounder lets Pandora run while using other applications.

TwitterFon

Link: iTunes
Publisher: Kazuho Okui
Price: Free
Platform: iPhone and iPod touch

I have tried a lot of iPhone Twitter clients. TwitterFon is the one I keep coming back to again and again. It's a rock-bottom simple client. With it, you can tweet, check your friends, your replies, your messages, and search. And that's about it. There aren't many bells or whistles. It just does its job and it does it well.

I am an admitted Twitter addict. TwitterFon lets me service my addiction effectively. The program loads fast and works cleanly. Can you ask for anything more?

Cydia

Link: Info Page
Publisher: Jay Freeman
Price: Free
Platform: iPhone and iPod touch

Cydia is Jay "saurik" Freeman's GUI front end for the Debian APT distribution system. It is installed by default any time you pwn your iPhone to jailbreak it. Jailbreaking involves opening up the system for full read-write access, all the way up to the root of the file system. Pwning lets you install and run third-party applications outside of the App Store ecosystem.

Cydia is the jailbreak world's bedrock. It provides a gateway into the jailbreak application world by offering access to all the repositories of software that hobbyists have built. Cydia's GUI is not especially polished or fancy, but it does everything you need it to. Cydia will install software, uninstall it, let you know if updates are available, and help you upgrade to those updates. Should you ever decide to jailbreak, Cydia will become an essential component of your home screen, as it has on mine.

PDANet

Link: Info Page
Publisher: June Fabrics
Price: Free (Update: Free Trial. The actual cost after 2 weeks seems to be $29)
Platform: iPhone

PDANet offers emergency tethering for times that you need to access the Internet from your laptop or computer but your normal connection has failed. It is a jailbreak application and Apple has made it clear that it will not sell tethering apps in the App Store, at least in the United States. When I first posted about PDANet, I assumed I'd delete it shortly thereafter. But here it is, a couple of months later, and I have no inclination to remove it at all. It's an enormously valuable backup system and one which I am loathe not to have around.

To be clear, I have not used PDANet much at all. I think outside the article research I did, I used it twice. Once was as a demonstration. Once was to connect briefly to Ars when Comcast experienced a service outage. Just knowing that I have a backup system in place, one that could connect my system to the Internet without forcing to rely on the cramped iPhone screen, has been a great comfort.

iPhone tethering is prohibited according to the AT&T terms and service, which states, "...UNLIMITED PLANS (EXCEPT FOR DATACONNECT AND BLACKBERRY TETHERED) CANNOT BE USED FOR ANY APPLICATIONS THAT TETHER THE DEVICE (THROUGH USE OF, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, CONNECTION KITS, OTHER PHONE/PDA-TO-COMPUTER ACCESSORIES, BLUETOOTH® OR ANY OTHER WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY) TO LAPTOPS, PCS, OR OTHER EQUIPMENT FOR ANY PURPOSE. Service is not intended to provide full-time connections, and the Service may be discontinued after a significant period of inactivity or after sessions of excessive usage." This having been said, PDANet has stayed on my iPhone because adults can and do make informed choices.

Site helps devs monitor App Store ratings across the globe

A while back, I wrote a Perl script to scrape App Store reviews from around the world. This is incredibly helpful for developers selling their wares on the App Store, as it helps them see how their software is doing on the other side of the globe. However, because Perl and the command line aren't everyone's thing, Christopher Ostmo of Costmosoft put together a simple web form that collects those reviews without having to use the command line.

To use this, you (the developer) will need to know your Application IDs. You can get that number from your application's iTunes URL. Right-click or control-click the Application in iTunes and choose Copy iTunes Store URL. Towards the end of the URL, you'll find viewSoftware?id=284222001, where the ID is the App Store application ID

With that ID in hand, open the ratings page, paste it into the Application ID field, and click Get Reviews. Then stop and wait. It takes about 10 seconds for the service to scrape all 62 stores and return with the reviews. Should those reviews be in a foreign language, the page allows you translate them with a single button click.

The PHP code that powers the page is freely available for download (just give credit in your usage) so you can customize the system for your own use. If you end up doing so, please drop me a note so I can take a peek.