Android – Iphone – Applications

It’s great to be able to send smileys via SMS but wouldn’t it be nice to have a bit more variety? Enter TextPics, an app that provides over 250 customisable ASCII art pieces that you can text to your friends or add to your clipboard. Adding to the clipboard is particularly useful as it means you can then insert the art into emails or other apps such as Facebook or Twitter.

The variety of art is pretty entertaining. There’s the cutesy in the form of bunny rabbits, Halloween themed ones like pumpkins and ghosts and there’s even the quirky in the form of the bunny tank. Besides those, there are also ones aimed at occasions such as birthday cake, Christmas trees and even shamrocks. Not all are as impressive or as useful as they could be. Pictures like a man with a moustache are impressively designed but ultimately a bit pointless. The amount of choice is fantastic though.

Besides offering pictures of items or living things, there are also various emoticons, Japanese smileys and even the ability to convert anything you want to upside down text.

It’s all rather excellent fun. It’s a shame that you can only really text to other iPhone users, as it might not be displayed correctly, but the ability to copy images into other apps is fantastic.

If you fancy trying your luck at creating your own images, you can do so and submit them to the TextPics server, which is a nice touch. TextPics has had various new pics and emotes added in recent updates so if this can be continued for a while, it’ll just continue to be more and more useful. A bargain at its current price and even more so in the future by the looks of things.

[ TextPics review is a post from 148Apps ]

written by alysa90 \\ tags: ability, apps, ascii art, christmas, clipboard, device-reviewed, even-the-quirky, facebook, halloween, iphone apps and games, japanese, price, rating, social-networking, textpics

Spirits for iPad can invoke a strong sense of nostalgia; it’s a testament to how successful the Lemmings series of games was because you can’t help but draw a comparison between the two. Yet Spirits is more delicate, more poignant than that oft-quoted game and whilst it has its failings too, it is definitely one of those that you just have to experience.

In this game, the Spirits that are under your command are not only impervious to fall damage, because they float on wind currents, but are also much easier to lose to those same wind currents especially as many of the environments are littered with spike traps. The wind is indicated by elegant particle swarms that gush and dance across the area and to navigate it you have to make use of four abilities; a wind blocking fuzz ball, a wind emitting cloud, a burrow ability that allows you to travel underground and a bridge ability that allows you to reach higher places. Not all of these abilities are available on every level.

Making use of these abilities, ultimately, sacrifices those Spirits for the greater good, but as well as attempting to rescue all of the Spirits possible you should also be trying to “activate” light emitting plants too—either by walking over them or tapping a spirit whilst in mid-flight to release a small ball of energy. This secondary objective is often more difficult to get but it isn’t impossible.

Spirits for iPad looks terrific, thanks to the stark contrast between painterly background graphics and the bleak, at times menacing foreground. The orchestral soundtrack, on the other hand, doesn’t have the same appeal; pairing Spirits with a good ambient or minimal techno artist (think Future Sound of London, Proem, Trentemøller or Stendeck) seemed like a much better listen, although many of the pieces weren’t bad in their own right. Happily, you can access three levels at the same time so getting stuck isn’t a big deal.

Some of the more demanding levels require precise, nimble actions so the game can suffer from the same flaws that plague Lemmings games, such as finding trouble selecting the right Spirit at the right time and performing the required action without letting another fall to their doom. Spirits tend to get bunched up which is more of a failing of level design than anything else, and sometimes the giant fuzz balls can get stuck in a wall before they are fully swelled up. It’s disappointing that there’s no fast forward button to use once you’ve lead the first Spirit to the exit vortex, so you just have to be patient.

Even though you can tell where Spirits for iPad got its inspiration from, there’s no denying that it is an inspiring product in its own right. Its delicacy, intricacy, difficulty and artistic flair is what sets it apart from the rest of the clones and should definitely be on your list of iPad titles to buy.

[ Spirits for iPad is a post from 148Apps ]

written by Duy Phong \\ tags: $4.99, across-the-area, Application, ipad apps and games, london, overall-rating, price, rating, spaces of play, spirits, such-as-finding

If you need a little better acoustic recording from your iPhone or iPod, or if your portable device is simply fitting a little too easy into your pants pocket, Blue Microphones has your solution. Its Mikey microphone is finally shipping, after getting a debut nearly a year ago. The specs are still the same as we expected before, including CD-quality recording in stereo or mono with a swiveling base that lets it cover 230 degrees of your own little sound field. One thing that has changed, and quite nicely, is the cost: down to $80 from the previously expected $99 MSRP. Everybody likes that.

Blue’s Mikey microphone for iPhone and iPod finally shipping to picky recorders originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 09:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink

written by Duy Phong \\ tags: blue, finally-shipping, Iphone, ipod, microphones, picky-recorders, recording, simply-fitting, solution, stereo, still-the-same, swiveling-base

written by nhiepphong \\ tags: another-browser, browser, browser-changer, changer, default-browser, from-the-tabs, general reference, list, such-as-skyfire

eviGroup has announced a new version of their tablet computer. The Paddle Pro lets you control Windows using head movements. The cursor for the mouse on Windows is controlled with your head using…



[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

written by iieevvn1 \\ tags: content, content-summary, evigroup, full-links, mouse, new-version, other-content, tablet, the-mouse, their-tablet, using-head, windows, your-head