Used to be my daughter would sit in the back of the car, bored, and ask to use my wife's iPhone to draw. No more, now that I've got Kids Finger Paint. It's about as simple as it gets, which is how it should be for a drawing app. Touch the screen, and you draw. To get a different color, you touch the color wheel. No hidden menus to mess with. Now I'm the coolest parent in the car. The app costs a perfectly reasonable 99 cents. Download info after the break.
If you had to go into a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu death match with your precious iPhone 4, which case would you be better off taking with you -- the Golla Stunt Pouch or Otterbox Defender? Soft, plush fabric with the security of a magnetic flap and belt loop, or hard plastic beneath flexible silicone in a easy on, easy off holster? That's the challenge they put to me and my husband, Antony in the debut episode of TiPb's Amazing Case, our hardcore, case vs case tests of strength, durability, and performance.
We figure if either -- or both -- of these cases can survive being slammed to the mats, rolled on and over, pinned and punished, then they can survive pretty much whatever normal, day-to-day use throws at them.
Follow on after the jump for the tale of the tape, and the give-away!
###Golla Stunt Case for iPhone 4
Golla Stunt is perfectly named for the stunts we're pulling in TiPb's Amazing Case. It's a side-loader and claims durable fabric and a magnetic flap that'll keep your iPhone 4 secure and scratch-free. The belt loop, while harder to take on and off, also means it'll stay on until it's *ripped* off. There's also a zippered pocket inside for your credit cards, ID, cash, gym membership, or hospital card (depending how the stunt ends!). And if the dark tones of the Stunt don't knock you out, there are a ton of other colors and styles to choose from.
- Soft materials
- Fun and trendy patterns and colors
- Large belt loop
- Magnetic closure
###Otterbox Defender for iPhone 4
The Otterbox Defender is rugged in the rock-em-sock-em tradition, and promises protection from drops, bumps, dust, and shock. The screen is covered, the casing is covered, even the buttons and ports are covered. The silicone outer skin and the hard plastic shell are a one-two punch of protection, and notched inside its holster, it clips, it swivels, and it secures your iPhone to your belt yet lets you snap it off in an instant when needed.
- Layer 1: Thermal formed protective clear membrane. Protects keypad against scratching, as well as dust intrusion (layer optional depending on the level of protection desired)
- Layer 2: Hi-impact polycarbonate shell for an added guard against drops and shocks
- Layer 3: High quality silicone skin to absorb bump and shock
- Full access to all keys, ports and functions
###Fight! (And give-away!)
Check out the video above to see the results of our Golla Stunt Pouch and Otterbox Defender Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu death-match, then head on over to the TiPb iPhone 4 accessory store, find your favorite Golla bag (they've got tons of styles) and paste the link in the comments below. We'll pick a couple of you and send you Golla bags of your very own. (Make sure you leave a valid email address so we can contact you if you win). US mailing address required.
Are you ready? (Are *you* ready?) Bring it!
Birdbrain for iPhone [iTunes Link] is an app that aggregates your Twitter statistics such as followers, following, blocked, and several other variables into one app. It also shows you differences in how many followers you've gained or lost. You can also see the specific people that have started following you or stopped following you. Clicking on a user will also allow you to view certain statistics about that user.
If you're someone who likes to keep track of your statistics on Twitter, Birdbrain could prove to be very useful to you. I could see this app being helpful for companies who want to use Twitter as a marketing tool and track trends. On the same token, I could also see it causing problems where people now have a way of knowing exactly what users have stopped following them (let the Twitter fights commence).
When you open the app for the first time, it'll grab initial info from Twitter. So at first, you can't see past information such as the last 7 days or last 24 hours. When you open the app in the future, it will begin to congregate past statistics and show you the differences.
The overall layout of the app is pretty slick. It's incredibly easy to figure out and very user friendly. One thing I wasn't sure of was how the app loaded your statistics. I wasn't sure what happens if you don't open the app for a week or so? Are the 24 hour statistics still accurate or what is it loading it from? That's what had me a little confused. It definitely doesn't load your statistics in the background.
I could also see some users wanting push notifications. Getting push notifications for when users follow or unfollow you would be a nice added feature but that would require Birdbrain to poll the Twitter servers quite often in order to aggregate and push the information. I could see that being a little overkill. Personally, I wouldn't really care to see notifications of when someone stopped following me, but I wouldn't mind having notifications for when someone starts following me. Then I'd disable the emails Twitter sends me. There's also a mentions tab within the app, which will congregate all your mentions and keep a running total of how many times you've been mentioned on Twitter.
Overall, it's a decent app that does what it says it will. If you've been looking for a way to monitor your Twitter statistics more closely, this app could be what you've been looking for.
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We Farm for iPad is a real-time farming game by ngmoco. If you're familiar with We Rule, We Farm is very similar except that your are building a farm instead of kingdom.
As with most ngmoco games, you must have a plus+ account to play. If you don't have one already, signing up is simple. When you first start playing We Farm, the game takes you through a little tutorial which is pretty helpful.
The goal of We Farm is to raise money and build your farm. You raise money by growing crops, raising animals, and receiving and placing orders with friends. Almost everything you do yields experience points. As you level, more items are available for purchase; higher level buildings will output more money. You will also be able to upgrade your farm as you level which gives you more space and gives you a nicer looking farmhouse. You can also turn on notifications to alert you when certain tasks are complete. However, they do not work for me. I've asked around and apparently I'm the only with this problem.
There are two currencies used in We Farm. The first is gold and is what you make doing various farm tasks and buying items. The other is Gro. This is used to instantly complete tasks like growing crops, building buildings, fulfilling an order, raising animals, and increasing your animals' happiness. You earn Gro every time you level and is also available as an in-app purchase.
My biggest complaint of We Farm is animal raising. To make your animal happy, you have to periodically "pet" it. Each pet increases the animal's happiness by 5%. The happier your animal is, the better chance he has of winning a prize at the fair. Once you win a prize, your pen/coop/pasture becomes available for your friends to place orders at. This means you make a lot more money from it. The problem is that if you have an animal that takes 2 hours to raise, you must come back every 6 minutes during that 2 hour period to get the happiness to 100%. This is an unrealistic expectation in my eyes. Of course, you can get around this by using Gro, but We Farm doesn't provide enough Gro to use it on all animals before needing to spend real money. However, the happier your animal is, the less Gro it takes to bring him to 100% happiness, so my strategy is to pet my animals as much as I can, then use grow at the end to bring it to 100%.
Another small complaint I have is that there isn't a way to quickly return to your own farm when visiting someone else's farm. I'd like to a small icon to tap in the corner of all farms that quickly takes to your farm.
All in all, I enjoy playing We Farm. However, you must like time management games to have fun with this one. I have been impressed with the performance of the app; it runs smoothly, I've never received a memory error (a common problem with We Rule), nor has it ever crashed. So if you're a fan of these types of games, check out We Farm - it's free!
Screenshots after the break!
[Free - iTunes link]
##Pros
* Good performance
* Fun
* Easy to tailor around how much you want to play
##Cons
* Can't quickly return to your farm when visiting someone else's farm.
* Animal petting requirement for a ribbon is unreasonable
* Push notifications not working (for me)
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The iLuv Flexi-Clear iPad Case not only adds no bulk to your iPad, it adds tons of protection as well. It comes in a couple different colors and gives you the peace of mind of knowing that if you set your iPad on a surface face up or face down, the screen nor the back will not obtain any damage.
I've always been particularly fond of silicon skins and cases for iPad and iPhone. The iLuv Flexi-Clear iPad case exceeded my expectations. The first thing I look for with silicon cases is whether or not they collect lint or dust. If a case does, I probably won't use it. This is probably a bigger issue with the iPhone as they normally end up in pockets, but iPads end up in bags, so to me, it's equally as important. This particular skin doesn't seem to collect any dust or lint.
The next thing I typically look at is whether or not the skin stretches over time while using it. I've picked up a couple cases in the past that seem really nice but after a couple weeks, they lose their form. The bad part about this is, you typically won't know unless you use the case pretty extensively. Most places offer a 30 day return period and I've always found that to be enough to know whether or not a case is going to stretch out. If it does, I typically return it.
I was extremely happy with the fit of the iLuv case. It didn't stretch at all and stayed incredibly form-fitting. I will stick it in another case and throw it in my bag. The skin provides even more protection for the iPad than a standard case alone, and also provides some grip. If you're looking for a nice silicon case to add to your iPad accessory collection, check out the iLuv Flexi-Clear iPad case in the TiPb iPad Accessory Store.
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Like Star Wars? Like tower defense games? Then you might want to take a look at THQs recent release Star Wars: Battle for Hoth for iPhone.Â
The game premise is that of all tower defense games; prevent your enemy (in this case the Imperial Empire) from reaching the other said of the map. As you play the game you get a fairly diverse set of units to deploy in defending Hoth. But, before I get into that, let's look at play mechanics first.Â
You start Battle for Hoth with some simple ground troop units and a shovel. The shovel allows you to alter the landscape of the level and force units to move a certain route. This is a great tool in later levels as you can really funnel the Empire to their doom. When you place your units and they destroy a wave of Imperials, you are rewarded with a green wrench icon you have to touch to collect. This gives you points to build or upgrade units. You have to be fast though if you wait too long the wrench will change color to orange then red, decreasing the point value. Wait too long, and your points are gone forever.
As you play through the 15 levels you unlock more types of units including; seated blaster units, radar lasers, turrets, snow speeders, x-wings, shield generators and ion cannons. Some of the more complex units like the ion cannon, shield generators and turrets require an energy generator placed next to them. The energy generator is required to power those units. If you upgrade a unit (say the shield generator) without upgrading the energy unit, you run the risk of losing power to that unit so you always have to keep it in check.Â
You can upgrade your existing units to make them more powerful and sell them as needed. I found the most fun in the game building up units under the safety of the shield generator and then taking out AT-ATs with relative ease once my units were upgraded to the maximum.
When writing this review, I have to admit I had some distaste for this game. Simple and not a lot of variety in what appeared to be a shameless use of an awesome gaming license. However, after I made my video review above, I am having a bit of a change of heart. I think I am trying to make Battle of Hoth more than it is;Â a simple Star Wars-themed tower defense game to kill a view minutes in your day while standing in line to get groceries. Should you get it? If you are a Star Wars fan I think you will enjoy. If not, I would pass.Â
[$2.99- iTunes Link]
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