Pocket Devil

For fans of Pocket God, Pocket Devil will look very familiar.  Unfortunately, Pocket Devil is nowhere near as fun as Pocket God.  While it does run very similarly to Pocket God, Pocket Devil just doesn't work.  I can barely get anything done before the whole thing crashes.  If I can manage to keep it running, it's extremely laggy.  Not to mention, not all that fun at all.  It's kind of an R-rated Pocket God.  You can still torture the little devils, except there is alot more blood.  Plus, none of the torturings are very fun at all.  One of the worst the worst $.99 ever spent in the AppStore.  Just don't even bother with it.

iGobo

This is an app for you theater tech nerds out there who follow our blog (because I am sure there are so many of you).  iGobo is an app made by Rosco that allows you to look at their entire of stock of gobos right there in the app.  If you don't know what a gobo is already, odds are you won't care, but gobos are the small metal plates that images can be cut out of and then placed into theater lights in order to project a pattern.  This app has actually already saved the day several times at work, and luckily, it's free!  So techies unite, and go get iGobo!

Aardvark

Here we have another one of my guilty pleasures/addictions.  This app is very similar to Yahoo Answers. Aardvark allows you to ask a question, and the app sends the question out to anyone at random to see if it can retrieve an answer.  Answers are usually very quick and productive.  Even more fun is being able to also answer other people's questions.  Maybe it has something to do with my God-complex, but I just can't resist the chance to attempt to answer other people's questions!  A fun story involving this app is that I once answered a question for a girl, who as it turned out, was in my philosophy class.  Out of all the people in the world for the app to send the question to, it sent it to me.  Even more crazy was that when her and I got to talking, we discovered that we were both born in the same city, within the same month, in the same hospital! If that isn't a strange twist of fate, I am not sure what is.  So go try this app, it's free, and who knows, you might meet someone interesting!

Fling

Here is a game that isn't like much else available in the AppStore.  The object of Fling is to fling these little furry creatures into each other in order to get them to knock each other off of the playing field. The difficult part is that you have to strategize in order to ensure that only one of these little fuzzy characters is left on the playing field at the end.  Two versions, a free trial version and a $.99 version.  Easily one of my new favorites.

Link4

Wow, it sure has been a long time, but Vince and I have just been so busy with school and whatnot.  Luckily, I had 5 minutes to breath, and decided to do a new post.  I have been playing Link4 for the past week, and literally cannot stop.  The object of the game is exactly the same as the popular board game, ConnectFour.  The really fun part of this game is that you are playing against other players, and with every game you gain experience points and move up levels, also, with every win, you gain regular points.  There are currently two versions in the app store. A free one chalk full of ads and a $1.99 version that is ad-free and places a star next to your username to let everyone else know you payed extra just to avoid ads (oh, and to get a star).  I highly recommend this game because it has provided me with hours of entertainment.

Budget Gadgets

Ok everyone, I have another website tell help you save money while keeping your iPhone looking stylish and spiffy.  BudgetGadgets.com is a unique company that offers many different gadgets at ridiculously low prices. But most importantly are their iPhone cases.  These cases can run as low as $5.  This guy in this video offers a pretty good explanation as to why they can offer their cases for such a low price.  But basically, because this site does not bother with fancy packaging and ad agencies, they do not charge the consumer (that's us!) for the extra charges.  Check it out.  You may just find a really cool case at a really low price.

Another Bargain Case

Found another recession friendly case.  If you are not willing to pay $35 for the highly recommended Incase Slider, then another company has got your back.  CaseCrown is offering their Polycarbonate Glider for $9.21.  This case looks very similar to the original Incase Slider, but I cannot vouch that it is better in any respects.  Might be worth a try.

100th Post!!!

Vince and I would like to celebrate our 100th post here on Zack and Vince's iPhone Reviews. WooHoo! Thanks to all our oh-so faithful viewers.  Haha! :)

Vaja Style, Cheaper Price

I thought this was a pretty notable find. Vaja Cases are notorious for being the most fashionable, and pricey, iPhone case available.  They are all handcrafted out of various colors of leathers that you can customize on their website.  You can enter their site, and easily spend over $100 just for a case.  But the Cretouch Illuzion is offering cases that are similar in Vaja style, but not in price.  It is definitely worth checking out. Plus, who doesn't like to save money???

Words With Friends

By the same makers of Chess With Friends, comes another game to be played with your friends when you are not with them.  Words With Friends is a Scrabble type game where you must use the letters allotted to you to make words.  You gain points based on the point value of the letters you place on the board.  These games do not have push notifications, but they make up for it by offering a text message every time it is your turn to play.  Overall, we really enjoy these games. $.99 or a free version, the difference between the two is a unclear.

Tech21 iBand

Check out this material that this company, Tech21, is using to develop stronger and safer cases for all sorts of electronics, including the iPhone.  It's a unique material that when touched slowly has the consistency of silly-putty, but when hit with high impact, it hardens up and absorbs the shock perfectly.  The guys in the video even wrap it around their fingers, then bang it with a mallet.  I want one!!!

ZumoDrive

File sharing between your computer and your mac is a genius idea, if it worked.  ZumoDrive seems like a really good idea: use your wifi connection to view files and pictures from your computer on your iPhone.  Now this is not a new concept. There are dozens of apps that offer this ability, but not many of them are free.  So naturally I was inclined to try ZumoDrive.  Not worth it.  Juts steer clear of this one.

Aqua Globs

Aqua Globs is another game in the very same likeness of FlightControl and HarborMaster.  But instead of airplanes landing safely on the runway or docking ships to unload their shipment, you have to combine similarly colored amoebas together to make them disappear and avoid colliding two different colored amoebas.  Nothing really special.  I much more prefer either FlightControl or HarborMaster because in Aqua Globs it becomes very difficult to manage all of the blobs when more than four come onto the screen.  $.99 in the AppStore.

Simplify Music (Original)

      How often have you been listening to the music on your iPhone when you think, "Hey! I really want to listen to *insert title of song you haven't listened to in forever*!", but to your disappointment, when you go to look for that song, you realize you don't have it synced to your phone currently and will have to wait until you can get back to your computer? For me, at least, it happens all the time.  Well, Simplify Music seeks to solve this dilemma that has been tearing away at techies since the dawn of the mp3 player.  And I've got to say, Simplify Music does a really impressive job.
      What the app does is uploads all of your music to a "cloud" (very similar to Apple's Me account), and from there, your iPhone can connect to this cloud to access all of your music, from ANYWHERE! That's right, it does not just do it over wifi, but also through the cellular network of your phone.  That is a really powerful ability.
      The only extra step you need to take other than just download the app on your phone is to download the free software available on their website.  The only real problems I foresee is that for your phone to connect with the cloud, the computer the music is coming from needs to be on and have the software running.  This would be no problem for a desktop computer, but for a laptop, that is almost impossible.  It's $3.99 in the AppStore, which is a little steep, but might be worth it to some users.

Current Temperature

Here is a pretty cool app for you guys who like always knowing the temperature of you location. This app is called Current Temperature and is available in the App Store! Basically you start up the app, plug in your current location either by zip code or city and a list of stats will pop up on the screen. You can also search your exact location through the satellite. Once you have done that, close the app and a little badge will display the temperature on this app icon. The app pushes and updates your badge every hour. My only complaint is that: I wish this app had a choice to push more often than every hour. Other than that, its a great app and I really recommend it if you love knowing the temperature all the time. Check it out in the App Store today for $0.99!

Sportacular Update: (now includes push)

Hey All! As promised, here is the review of Sportacular with the new update. This new update has a couple new features but the one I really want to highlight is the push notifications for sports scores! Prior to thisupdate, I had been using SportsTap, which is a great app for push notification but I didnt like the user interface all that much. Now Sportacular has come out with an update that includes push! In this update you are able to choose from all the sports that my previous review mentioned. You can have pushes sent to you: whenever the game starts, at the end of each inning, at a score change, lead change, and the final score! Right after I downloaded the update, this became my full time sports scores/news/schedule app. I got rid of SportsTap. Check out this app today! There is both a FREE version and a PRO version for $1.99.

Juice

Here is another battery app! This one does the exact same thing as the other battery app that I reviewed. This one is called Juice. This battery has the same features regarding how the battery is read where that it decreases in 5% increments becasue that is the only way developers are allowed to access the battery via a 3rd party app. Apple doesnt allow developers the exact statistics of the battery. A really cool thing about this app is that there are tons of choices as to what you want the battery to look like: whether it be different neon batteries, or a glass of soda or beer. Check it out in the App Store today. It's $0.99. It may seem a little steep, but if you want some choices in the style of the battery, then this app is right for you!

PhotoFunia

Here is another one of our favorite kinds of apps. PhotoFunia a photo editing app that allows you to place most photos into over 100 templates and effects. This app is really impressive because it takes a photo of your selection, and adjusts it as need to place it into a template. You don't need to do anything. No adjusting, cropping, selecting, etc. to be done by you. The app does all of that on its own. What makes the app even better is that it is ABSOLUTELY FREE! I cannot believe a free app has this much to offer. I'd run to the AppStore and download this app now before the developers realize that they have a gold mine on their hands and could easily start charging $1.99 for this app. Get it today!

iPhone Stylus

These things came out shortly after the release of the original iPhone, and I have been dying to try once ever since. Silly silly me. These styluses boast that they function due to what they call "electron transfer". That's really it for their descriptions. Basically, it's magic. I wish I could offer more insight to how this works, and I am throwing around the word "works" very loosely, but alas, I cannot. The only reason I purchased one of these is because I found one cheap enough on Amazon that if it didn't function, it wouldn't hurt my feelings.

From the moment I tried to use this, I realized that this is far from being a real stylus. I tried sliding the unlock button using about as much pressure as I would with a regular stylus, but nothing. Several swipes later, I realized that I basically had to jab the stylus at the screen to

get it to work. Vince's first words when trying it were, "This crap doesn't work!". I couldn't agree more.

Using the agility of a master clock maker, I managed to unlock the phone using the stylus. Next came the issue of selecting an app. A simple tap was not sufficient enough, far from it. Then came the aimless stabbing at the phone, but still nothing. Finally, I realized that I had to "roll" the rubber end of the stylus over and app to get it to select it. Not very effective, but it "worked".

Using the keyboard was just as unnerving. More strange rolling to select a letter, and even then, it was not always accurate. The typing speed decreases by so much it physically hurt my body and mind.

Alas, here comes it's final flaw. The rubber tip leaves some kind of strange residue all over the screen. It's nothing that a little wipe across the shirt won't fix, but who really wants to use a product that leaves gunk on another device?

I will give the stylus this, it does look good. It actually looks like it might actually be manufactured with a legitimate design. It also functions pretty easily on my MacBook Pro's trackpad, albeit, it still leaves a gray residue.

To sum it up, just stay away from these products. If the iPhone was intended to be used with a stylus, and not our fingers, Apple would have made the phone that way. But it's not. The iPhone's screen is very intuitive and intelligent, even for those with big fingers. Just stick to the original. Believe me, you'd regret purchasing this with actual American dollars.

Flight of the Hamsters

A pretty cool game that reminds me alot of Kitty Cannon. This version has to do with hamsters! This game is called Flight of the Hamsters. Your hamster will be set up on a spring board. There will be a little meter in the top left that has a slider. It will move up and down pretty quickly. Your goal is to tap the meter when it gets right in the middle or a little above. While your hamster is in the air tap or tilt your iPhone to make your hamster float in the air. I think this feature is a little weak and its not executed perfectly. While in the air try and catch the items. They help you progress through the level. It is a really fun game for the iPhone, but dont take my word for it. Check it out in the App Store today for $0.99! :D