Android – Iphone – Applications

Problem: You like launching explosives in physics-based puzzle-worlds to kill enemies.

Solution: Angry Birds.
Residual problem: You really want to kill people, not pigs.

Better Solution: Fragger.

Fragger’s a smooth-playing, cute, physics-based slaughterhouse a la Angry Birds, but you’re throwing grenades instead of slingshotting feathered furies, at enemy people rather than pigs. Well, mainly people anyway. Sometimes your arc-enemies are bipedal aliens, but either way, you aren’t just makin’ bacon, you’re snuffing out thinking, emotive, sentient life, presumeably with families, fond recollections of childhood, favorite sports and amusement park rides, and all the rest. (…)
Read the rest of Fragger: Launch Your Attack

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Fragger: Launch Your Attack | Best iPad Apps | Best Free Apps

written by MinhA18Mumford

iA Writer. is another drop-box enabled text editor for the iPad, however the developers have done an extraordinary amount of work to ensure that it works by letting you focus on what is important, your text. There are no fancy display options, no settings (other than the Drop Box enabling) and just a single document for instructions. It adds a little, but offers a lot, for a simple Text Editor.

The theory behind being able to quickly and effectively write is that you can stay focused. What iA Writer does is create an environment where you simply focus on what you’re typing. The “Focus Mode” fades everything but the last few sentences you wrote into the background so you can work on what you’re doing at that one moment. The feature that I enjoyed most is that it disables all the cut/copy/paste popups and spelling correction popups so that you won’t get distracted while you’re trying to write.

The second thing I most liked about this App is the additional keys given to the top-row of the keyboard which include an automatic previous/next word and single character cursor movement buttons and all the extra punctuation keys not usually on the main iPad Keyboard (I especially appreciate the parentheses because these are particularly hard to flip back and forth to get, twice within a short period of time).

Once you set up your Drop Box account you can sync all the documents on your iPad. I’m so delighted that this is quickly becoming a default feature of text editors, becuase at this point I simply wouldn’t use one that didn’t have it, I’ve come to rely on it so much. However, I wish that the integration in Writer was a bit better. Firstly, you need to manually sync your dropbox whenever you want to upload or change a new edit. I’m not a big fan of having to manually sync — though as there is no ’save’ option, I see how implementing autosync could get tricky.

While I appreciate the thought and research that went into choosing the typeface, size and spacing for the App’s actual look, I do wish that I had an option to edit the font display size. While it’s big and clear, I find it’s maybe a bit too big for me personally.

Overall, I do have to say that I enjoy the focused feel of this App, and I’m going to try and use it for all my mobile writing for the time being. The devs have gone out of their way to try to make writing easier, and I think they’ve at least succeeded at creating a decent, useful Text Editor – and those who will use and like this App will probably have a hard time going back to another.

[ iA Writer. iPad App Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by shanna

Daffodils are quite important to Vikings it seems. Or at least according to Axe in Face: Defense of the Daffodils, they are.

You play Red Beard, a Viking who is extremely passionate about his daffodils. It’s down to you to ensure that Red Beard’s daffodils aren’t trampled by those pesky Viking hordes who have no understanding of the importance of horticulture. It’s simple to stop them – throw an axe in their direction. To do this you simply draw a line across the screen and the axe follows that trajectory.

It gets a little more complicated than that across the 32 levels on offer, as the hordes grow in number quite rapidly. At its heart, Axe in Face clearly borrows from the many tower defense games already on the app store but the line mechanics makes things feel more unique. With some careful planning you can adjust the trajectory so that the axe catches a foe in the back rather than the front. Indeed this is vital in later stages when new foes emerge who have shields to protect them or even trees which can block shots unless you set your axe on fire first.

Axe in Face makes for some good, casual fun. Things get more hectic the further you progress, but it’s fun to accrue bigger and bigger combos. You can also collect orbs from your foes and then use them to electrocute groups of Vikings. There are also trophies to collect, which are always satisfying to gain. It’s just a shame that there are no global leaderboards to encourage you. There’s also no endless mode, which is a missed opportunity, so once you finish the 32 levels, that’s it unless you want to revisit already completed levels.

Despite these small flaws, Axe in Face is well worth a purchase. It’s charming and cute. Most importantly, it’s an absolute bargain for a game that has the addictive qualities of iPhone greats such as Angry Birds or Flight Control.

[ Axe in Face review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by zuzka

Clickgamer seems to have the casual gaming genre down pat, with Angry Birds perched on top of the App Store for as long as I can remember. They are indeed making other games though, and Pipe Rush, their newest, is no slouch.

Pipe Rush is a simple casual game that has you connecting pipes to various houses located on the game map. Instead of just putting pipes together, though, random pipe pieces come down an assembly line, a line that gets clogged up quickly if you don’t use or dispose of the pieces. Since the pieces that come down are rarely the perfect ones that you need, chaos regularly ensues.

To make things more challenging, there are all sorts of random events that mess up your progress. Earthquakes will strike, destroying random pipes that have been laid, aliens will come and beam up pipes and move them to random places, and your assembly line will randomly blow up, ruining the parts that you have saved up.

As far as casual gaming goes, Pipe Rush is about as good as it gets. The graphics are above average, the controls are easy to grasp, and the gameplay is extremely easy to “get” while the individual levels are tough to master. It doesn’t have the depth that some other puzzle games have, and has little to no story, but it is a casual game — and a good one at that.

[ Pipe Rush Review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by MinhA18Mumford

Chegg is a very popular online textbook rental service. Chegg has recently raised $75 million from Ace Limited, an Asian-based investment firm. Chegg had $144 million of funding before this. Other venture firms that put money into Chegg include Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital, and Insight Venture Partners.

Chegg started as a classifieds rental service in 2005 on the campus at Iowa State University. Chegg works across 7,000 schools in the U.S and the company employs about 120 people across Silicon Valley and Louisville, Kentucky. Chegg recently acquired CourseRank, a Mountain View, California based start-up where students can share class schedules with friends and write reviews on classes.

[AllThingsD]

written by pwaltes