sprites & bites

Gaming, iPads and a few biscuits on the side…

Category Archives: iphone

Poker Pals iOS

Chillingo recently released Poker Pals HD for iPhone and iPad. This is a great little take on a board game mixed with poker. Some reviews have likened it to a hybrid between Poker and Scrabble, this is true to an extent but of course you do not play words, you play Poker hands to gain points on the game board.

Poker Pals supports AI two player, local pass and play but ultimately online multiplayer with a friend or a random person. There seems to be no issues with online and it generally works very well. Myself and a few friends had an issue with the game not notifying on iOS5 but I found the fix for this was to go the the device settings – settings ->notifications -> Pals HD – and change the alert type from a banner to alert box.

Sadly, the game is missing online chat which is a great shame, many good iOS board games have online chat now and it is something that should be added to give a better feel of a social game.

Now onto the real issue I have. After having purchased the game for iPad, I found it was quite addicted so purchased it for iPhone too. The problem is that the second device will not accept my username and gives an error that username is already taken – yes it has been taken, by me!! But it seems that I cannot purchase it for two devices and play it with the same username. This is far from the usual behaviour for iOS games and it is something Chillingo must fix as soon as possible, it seems when they made this fun game they forgot that some people may have multiple devices. I am sure they will fix it, but in the meantime do not buy it again for a second device.

So all in all, a fun game, very addictive but has a few issues and tweaks that they need to resolve. I would like to reiterate though apart from the issue above and the tweaks I would like added, I have found no problems with the gameplay itself. Oh and as a BTW, there is an achievement for beating Difficult Davey, I did it after about 10 tries but I swear he cheats. And speaking of achievements, there seems to be a bit of a bug – I magically unlocked a load of achievements I never actually earned!  :)

 

 

 

Kickin Mamma HD

Kickin Mamma HD was released on the iPad a few days ago and instantly to me it looked like a Peggle clone. This is a good thing as I loved Peggle. But to my surprise, it is actually better than Peggle in my opinion.  Rather than having to get all the pegs like in Peggle, you have to get a set number of gems scattered around the pegs. During the game you are given powerups and extras like fireball to be able to break through frozen pegs so there is a little added variety.

The game is not huge by means of time of completion but there is some replay value to go back and get the gems you missed and aim for gold medals and there is a promise of more levels to come in a future update.  I recommend this game as a short blast of fun which you may prove difficult to put down.  At the moment it is also only £1.49 in the AppStore too, so grab it while it is cheap. Also available for iPhone.

Hidden Object Fun

I have a little secret shame which I am now to air to the world. I have developed an addiction to hidden object games. These are the games where you are tasked with finding a series of objects within a cluttered scene. Sounds boring, yes it is in a way but oh so quite compelling and I have found that the hours can easily pass away and not notice it is very late and sleep should be forthcoming.

There are many variations in the hidden object game genre, some are simply find a list of objects and complete a scene, but the better ones have a proper story attached to them and brain exploding puzzles to really give your mind some exercise. Some of the puzzles may be easy and others are so evil you may find yourself looking for help online.  Hidden object games are always suitable for all ages but some of the ones with hard puzzles in may naturally be too difficult for younger children.  They are also very accessible and can be found on all formats from mobile phones to ipads and PCs and there are even a few on the gaming consoles. And they are great to play if you have only a few minutes or many hours.

Here is a little rundown of my favourite hidden object games on iphone or ipad, which with the touch screens are perfect for hidden objects. Be wary when choosing though, some are really short about an hour or so long and others are 4-5 hours or more.  The selection below are all fairly lengthy games except for Nick Chase Detective HD which I felt was a great story anyway so deserved to be on the list.

Antrim Escape 2 HD

Awakening: The Dreamless Castle

Awakening: Moonfell Wood

Drawn: The Painted Tower

Flux Family Secrets

Mushroom Age

Nick Chase A Detective Story HD

Treasure Seekers 1

Treasure Seekers 2

 

Most of the games are of a decent length and took me at least 4 hours to
finish. They also have a good mix of hidden object finding and brain bending
puzzles to vary the action. Antrim Escape 2 is extremely hard so if you are
new to these games this one is best avoided but may I suggest starting with
Flux Family Secrets, it is not too easy but has a good balance between not
too difficult and giving your brain cells some action.

 

iOS Airprint

Apple’s latest OS update 4.2 was released last month and it supported printing to wireless printers within apps which added the feature. The official list of printers which support Airpint so far are only some HP printers but unofficially other printers work too.  Seeing as I needed a new printer anyway I decided to go for one of the HP printers listed as officially supported so lessens the risks of incompatibility, but more printers will be added to the official list as time goes by.  I opted for the HP e-AIO Premium printer which has an RRP of £189.99 approximately but Comet had a sale on and I snapped it up today for only £89.99

The printer itself is excellent with a large array of features which you would not usually see on printers.  It is web app enabled so with a touch of a button you can print out graphs, calendars, soduko puzzles, colouring pads and much more.  The printer also has it’s own email address so people can send emails to it and it will by itself print out the emails and any attachments.  If you choose to use this feature though be sure to register the email on the HP website and lock out unauthorised email printing otherwise you may come home to a pile of printed porn. It is easy to lock out unauthorised users via the website.

I don’t want to harp on about the features much as a better review is posted up on the TECHRADAR website here.

Moving onto Airprint.  The printing is extremely easy to use on iOS devices.  Printing is supported in Safari, Mail and Camera Roll, so go into the item you want to print, click the arrow (normally used for reply/forward/etc and select print. Choose your printer from the list and print, it is that simple. It is extremely quick and printing signal from phone/ipad to printer was only a second. The printing functionality does lack a few features, the only option is to select how many copies you wish to print. There are no other basic options like selecting the orientation of the print. I had my ipad in landscape mode and a Google page printed in portrait mode so it seems it is portrait only for now.  One thing useful (or not) is that it formats web pages quite well.  As a test I printed a page from the BBC News website. As you know BBC is full of links, images and everything they can cram in but it printed only the story with no photos or extra rubbish so ink and paper waste is reduced.  I note that this is a good thing but in some circumstances you may want everything printed including photos so for some it may be an annoyance.  I am sure future updates will bring extra printing features but for now, it is one tiny step closer to making the ipad a laptop replacement, well for me it is anyway.

A list of apps which feature Airprint so far can be found HERE CLICKY HERE

Is the iPhone 4 Antenna Problem Software based?

The iPhone 4 was released today and it was soon evident there was a problem with the signal dropping when people were holding the phone. Many videos showing the evidence have been posted up on various forums and video sites proclaiming a mass manufacturing error. @ghalfacree has duly noted to me that this is likely to be an OS4 related issue and a fault in the displaying of bars rather than a fault with the phone, like Apple claim.

So I thought I would test my iPhone 3GS model loaded with OS4 and voila I could replicate the problem. Within 20 seconds of holding the phone, my signal went from 5 bars down to one. I did this process 3 more times to rule out a fluke and the same happened. Some people have shown videos to show calls dropping on the iPhone 4 but as Gareth states, if the phone thinks it has a low signal it will drop the call. Now I am no scientist or a technical buff, I leave that to the experts, I can only tell you that this happens on the 3GS too on OS4 so it is highly likely to be a software issue. I await a patch from Apple to fix it.

iPhone My Top Media Apps

With the iPhone’s all singing, all dancing features, I thought I would do a series of my top apps available to users. Some are not downloadable apps but links to direct services.

So in no particular order:

Sky+

The Sky+ app is your sky guide in your hand.  Link your mobile phone number to your sky account and you will have the ability to send a remote record request to your sky+/HD box when you are away from home and you have forgotten to record something. If the programme has already started you cannot record it though. Sky+ app has recently had an update and now it is faster, easier to use and has a better navigation layout. The Sky+ App is free to download and use from the app store.  UK only.

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TV Catchup

TV Catchup is not an app but a service you can use directly through the browser. The name TV Catchup gives the impression that you can catch repeats online but actually this service is LIVE television as it is aired.  It is not some cheap crap service showing weird Japanese or minor US channels, these are top UK channels being aired live. Channels include BBC1, BBC2, BBC 3+4, ITV1+2+3+4, Channel 4, Channel 5, Five USA, Fiver, E4, More4, Film 4, BBC News 24, CBBC and a few others, plus the +1 hour versions of the above channels.

It is a fairly substantial service and it is entirely free, no catches and is 100% legal (you need a TV license of course).

This is a great package on the iPhone, but if you want more channels (50+) then you can alternatively watch it on a proper computer.

The iPhone version uses wifi or your 3g connection. On 3g the streaming is excellent and in my experience no buffering issues at all with an excellent picture.Although this is dependent on your local mobile network.

To view on iphone point your browser to iphone.tvcatchup.com and to make it easy to access you can set a shortcut link on your home screen.

To view on home computer point your browser to www.tvcatchup.com

Both services require a signup login, but they do not ask for email address or other details, just chosen name and password. How this service manages to be free I do not know, maybe they plan to charge in the future but for now, enjoy your free TV.

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BBC iPlayer

The original TV catchup service. Again, not an app but a direct service, really the iplayer needs no explanation other than it works extremely well on the iphone through 3g or wifi.  Point your browser and make a direct link to http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/iplayer

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TuneIn Radio

Tune In Radio is a new live radio app from the app store. It costs only £1.19 and is the best radio app I have found on the web so far.  There are many live radio apps on the app store but two things make this app stand out from the crowd.

1) The ability to browse the web while the radio is on.  They have included a web button on the radio interface which brings up a new web page for you to carry on browsing while radio is playing, whether this is a first or not I do not know but it is something all radio apps should have due to the inability to have radio playing in the background.

2) The ability to record live radio, pause rewind and forward. Yes its dab in your pocket.  The record works very well and you can record as long as you have space on the iphone, there is no restriction. This is great but a point to remember, do not forget you are recording something as you may find you run out of space if you leave it recording for a few days.  I did a test record and a 2 minute record took up about 2mb space, so this gives you an idea of what to expect from recordings.  Recordings can also be played without a connection in airplane mode, this is useful if you wish to record a bunch of programmes to take away on holiday with you.

There are hundreds of radio channels and you can browse by location, language and genre.

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iPhone App Store Fever

There is one thing about having thousands of cheap choices on the app store – and that is that you can easily on a whim in a few clicks download an app for only 59p, £1.19 or as much as a few quid.  The wallet does not think about that 59p at the time because it is only the price of a chocolate bar but because it is so easy to make purchases, it is easy to rack up a far larger bill.  I bought an itunes voucher as I hated all those little 59 pences appearing on my credit card but the upshot of that was that I spent the voucher far quicker than I normally would as I had this big credit on my account.

Now the problem is that I am finding most of these apps I buy I never use more than once.  I have over 75 apps which sit there doing nothing but taking up screen space.  When I remove them I want them back ‘just in case’ I may want to use them.  This is a silly situation. Not only is it a waste of money but it is a waste of my time downloading, uninstalling and so on.

Take word games for example. I have about 10 or so word games on my iphone. I play two of them regularly and the others I do not bother with because normally something else is slightly better. Other games I just buy because the screenshots look pretty but I end up not playing them :-(

I want a GTD (getting things done) application but most of these are around about £5 or more each and it would be expensive to buy them all. Granted, some of them have lite versions, but the very features I want to try out (like push notifications) are disabled in the lites so I do not get to try them at all.

I have a number of apps I use regularly, most notably…

Sky News, ITN News, Reuters

Tweetie, My O2

Accuweather, Weather Pro

Bejewelled 2, Boggle, Moxie

The rest I have are just sitting there winking at me wondering when they will be pressed.  I think I need to stop buying.