iPhone Apps Reviews, News, and Alerts

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If you have kids and an iPhone, you’ve certainly had to hand over the iPhone to the youngsters or used it to keep them occupied. Henry & Hailey’s Preschool Pals is perfect for any preschooler (2 - 5 years old probably), and I know because I’ve used it on several occasions to keep my 2 year old, and even my now 5 year old occupied (and happy!). It’s a game that if they’re on the iPhone they will play it again and again (and I even have the light saber on my phone).

This iPhone game is simple but perfect for the little ones, they can swipe and change the body segments to make different, funny combinations, and when they get it all matching up and hit Play they get rewarded with some fun audio and visual effects. And for only 99 cents, you’ll be glad you had it at that next occasion where you’ll need it most!

The artwork is perfect for preschoolers, bright, colorful, and the people are in occupations or hobbies that even the young ones can identify with, like police, firefighters, ballerinas, football players, robots, and more!

Download Preschool Pals for only 99 cents!

I’m pretty picky when it comes to games, and most games I won’t play more than once or twice. In the last week I’ve found myself sneaking in a game of 2079 in spare moments because since downloading it and playing it just once, I love it. And for 99 cents, you can’t beat the price for a great game on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

2079 uses the tilt control of your device to move the ship and does continuous fire with direction controlled by your right thumb. Even with continuous fire, this game is challenging, especially when you suddenly get 20-30 “bad guys” coming at you. For these moments, shake your device to blast them all at once. Shoot the question mark blocks and uncover invincibility, additional lives, double or triple guns, barricade blocks, and more. 2079 keeps your high scores so you can always try to beat your previous high scores.

It’s too bad there are a bunch of poor customer reviews for the game, don’t let the rating sway you. I have to admit when I first looked at the game (before playing it), it looked pretty silly. But once I tried it, I love it, and I think you will too!

Download 2079 for just 99 cents!

If you have a newer Mac with an iSight built-in you may have played around with PhotoBooth, an application that takes pictures with the built-in camera and does funny things to the picture (like swirl it, give you a big chin or forehead, etc.).

OldBooth is a new iPhone app that lets you take a picture of yourself, a friend, or even use an existing photo, and then fit the face onto some classic looking portraits from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. You can choose between portraits of men and women, and even put a man’s face on a woman’s portrait!

OldBooth is designed beautifully, and without even reading directions you can figure out how to put your face on there. After you take the picture (or choose one) you can move it around, rotate it, zoom it in/out, and change the brightness to match the skin of the portrait template. It is a lot of fun, and one of those apps that you can show to people without an iPhone to help entice them to its technical prowess.

The developers plan on adding even more portrait templates, which will make this iPhone app even more fun! Well worth the $2.99!

Download OldBooth for $2.99!

We’ve all been impressed in how awesome the iPhone and iPod Touch is as a gaming platform, it’s like a portable Wii of sorts. Freeverse has tapped an “undocumented” framework in the iPhone API that let them output their iPhone game, Moto Chaser ($5.99), to a TV! Check out this video:

 

 

The graphics look stunning even on that big screen, although the framerate is only about 20 fps (normally 26 fps), that might be something that can be optimized. Freeverse only spent a few hours and got it working. With Google using another undocumented framework, it makes me wonder how many other cool things are on their way (and already built in!).

(via Macrumors)

I must be getting pretty picky with my iPhone games after my Batmobile iPhone game review. SpaceMonkey has great graphics and looked fun (and I think I got it for free over Black Friday). The intro video is entertaining, sets up the plot for the game of a monkey that has to pick up trash floating in space. You have to dodge batteries or do a super spin to get them away, and if you spin too much the bananas you just ate come out in your helmet (more cute than gross visually).

It was entertaining and I played a few rounds, but I think it would be more liked by my kids, easy enough they can do it without getting frustrated, and the graphics again are sure cute.

Download Space Monkey for $1.99, the kids will definitely like it

A friend of mine (who also developed Save Benji’s [free app]) created Adam’s Game, and it is a great game for the little kids to learn objects and have some fun at the same time. The cool thing I like about Adam’s game is that you can customize it and add your own, essentially creating your own game, with your own pictures and voice.

The game is rewarding for the kids, they get audio and visual feedback when they are correct. If you have kids like I do, this is a must have for those moments where they need something to do and you don’t have anything other than your phone. We were at a piano recital the other day and I got this out for my 2 year old, before the recital started, and it kept him plenty busy!

If you have kids, download it now for 99 cents!

This is a simple but useful app for anyone involved with Baseball, Softball, or Kickball, whether you’re an umpire, a coach, or just a parent watching the game. It is simple to use and keep track of balls, strikes, runs, and outs, and it goes for as many innings as you need.

The app is well designed and easy to use, and is designed with big buttons so even with one hand and wearing an umpire helmet/mask you can use the app.

Download Strikeout for $2.99

Thanks to the developer for the promotional code to try it out.

I like a good, challenging, addictive game. The Dark Knight: Batmobile Game is not one of them. The graphics are pretty cool, but not much else. You get to touch the screen when the game signals you to, tilt to get your plane right for a “perfect” landing, and you only get one course. Maybe we can help Warner Bros out a little with some suggestions:

1) A game should be challenging. Let me steer, let me have enough road time to get into the game.

2) A game should have levels. There is one course on this game, and the only “challenge” is to touch and tilt when you’re told to? Makes the bonus round sound REAL fun.

3) At least have a leaderboard. Sure I can email my score to my buddy, but then he’s going to be like, that game is lame. Let me at least go against everyone else who bought the game.

Going live with a “marketing department” game like this is silly, and it hurts you more than helps you. Back to the drawing board, and make a real game please.

Download for 99 cents if you don’t believe me

If you use Twitter, and you have an iPhone, you need Tweetie. Early in the days of iPhone apps I proclaimed Twitterrific the best Twitter app, but it has now been dethroned by Tweetie. Yes, it is $2.99 more than free, but in my opinion, worth every penny.

The first thing you will notice is how fast and responsive Tweetie is. No waiting, it just delivers the goods. You can quickly look at all the things you need (timeline, replies, directs, my directs), and even view links in a built-in browser, with the option to tweet the link (love it!) or open it in Safari. Taking a picture or grabbing one from your photo gallery is standard, with a nice retake option. What’s cool is the picture is compressed, then uploaded to TwitPic.com.

The really cool feature is having “search” built in. I use TweetBeep.com (ok and I built it) to track whenever someone tweets “gotapps”, “tweetbeep”, “@mdjensen“, or anything else about me or my companies, but this is a great way to browse different searches on the go, and Tweetie will even save your searches for easy access later.

You can have multiple accounts on there, and switching back and forth is rather simple.

Hard to find anything bad to say, but the only thing I could think of would be that the links should be clickable from the timeline, not just the “view” of the tweet.

Great job to @atebits for a fantastic iPhone app!

Download now for $2.99!