Chat application
Chat applications always have some degree of complexity to them because the makers assume you’ll want to do all kinds of crap… add friends, use emoticons, set status, go invisible, yada yada yada. And they’re right, all that fancy stuff is good and often necessary.

Frivr.com takes a drastically different approach with small talk: throw everyone into a single chat room for an anonymous free-for-all! This is a totally stripped-down chat room with no features except the ability to select your nickname and text bubble color.

You’d think this type of chat would be (a) chaotic, and (b) disgusting, but you’d only be half right. When text bubbles from anyone and everyone just pop up and you don’t know who’s talking to who, things can get a little nuts. What I didn’t find in my 30 minute trial run, however, was any significant amount of nastiness! Surprise surprise, everyone was (for the most part, anyway) very respectful of each other and the few hookup attempts I saw didn’t attract much attention. I don’t know if it’s always like this, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s more often pleasant than not.
Very fun application

Tags: os3, iphone, iphone apps, tips

• landscape support (every app that features typing should support this, even you Apple)
• font size adjustment (from the settings page)
• searchable translation history (which can be cleared)
• language/country dialect pairing
• rate translations, suggest improved ones and even send them as emails

Tags: tutorials, iphone news, iphoneos3, pictures

Monster Trucks Nitro
The virtual game Monster Trucks Nitro requires you to run over wrecked buses, leap chasms, time your jumps to hit ramps at the right angle — even do five loopdeloops perfectly to beat one of the highest levels. This is a very cool game!

Easy gameplay
Even casual gamers will find this side-scroller easy to play. Unfortunately, there’s just not much to it. Monster Trucks Nitro has eight time-trial levels, all of them short and not particularly challenging. You earn medals by barreling through each level as fast as possible. Beat the clock and you’ll level up, or as the Monster Trucks Nitro instructions say, “When you beat the time required for bronce [sic] medal, you will unlock the next track.” You can get a new truck by earning five gold medals.

Monster Trucks Nitro’s graphics are mixed. The vehicles are a bit rough but the backgrounds are well rendered. The game’s physics work well, however, and that is really what makes Monster Trucks Nitro fun to play, at least for a short while. It seems to take an inordinate amount of time, in comparison to similarly rendered games, to load.

The graphics and physics are pretty good, great game!

Tags: iphone news, videos, iphone apps, tutorials

AiSG Video Poker Master Collection

Video poker game:
All of our Video Poker games combined into one! This Master Collection of Video Poker games includes
- Jacks or Better
- Deuces Wild
- Joker Poker
- Deuces & Joker
- Bonus Poker
- Double Bonus Poker
- Double Double Bonus
- Triple Double Bonus

Challenge your friends to beat your high score! All variations have their own save game, so you can continue where you left off! I you like Poker you like this game!

Tags: iphoneos3, tutorials, games, tips

chat application that rocks!
If you’re looking for a great all-in-one chat client, try this one out. Nimbuzz supports a ton of chat and social networking platforms and it’s easy to set up if you know your login info for each of the platforms you’re using. It also has little icons that are labeled Phone Calls and Messages but I never bother with those. Apparently you can use a VoIP (”internet phone”) account, your cell, or Skype Out to call people but I’ve never had the occasion to use it… nice to know the option’s there, though.

Nimbuzz
I wish Nimbuzz would perform more advanced functions like hiding me from people I owe money to, but it’s free and it’s great so I guess I won’t look this gift horse in the mouth.

As of right now, Nimbuzz supports:

• Windows Live (MSN)
• Skype
• Yahoo!
• Facebook
• Google Talk
• AIM / MobileMe
• MySpace
• ICQ
• Hyves
• Jabber

I love the support and this great app!

Tags: tutorials, iphone apps, iphoneos3, iphone

Travel
create elaborate Excel spreadsheets of packing lists to hand to my teens and hubby so that they don’t forget to pack anything for our vacations.  I spend a crapload of time creating them, just to have to re-create them for the next trip.  So imagine the Nirvana I achieved with Packing, the travel app from Quinn Genzel.  From the first moment I felt I had found my soulmate in an app developer.  Packing contains sample packing lists of commonly packed items, one for male, one for female, even for the size of trip.  The demo trip shows how the different categories of item can be configured, customized, and added together to create a unique list of items that need to be packed for any sort of trip, from an overnight business junket to an African safari.

And don’t be afraid, if you don’t know where to start – the templates make it easy to start from the basics – everything from your passport and traveler’s checks to your hiking boots and elephant gun.  If there are items you normally pack that aren’t on the master list, that’s fine – add them, and they’ll always be available.   If you’re creating the list for someone else, like I do my kids, simply click the email icon and the list will be emailed to them from your default email account.

I created the packing list my oldest kid needs for his upcoming trip to Germany in 10 minutes, and that includes the time it took for me to create the list from an existing template, edit the template items, add items to the master list and select them, and email it.  It was – dare I say it? – almost orgasmic.  The Melvin Udall in me was completely sated.

This is a very usefull application if you travel a lot.

Tags: games, videos, iphone apps, tips

Tags: iphone apps, games, iphone, iphone reviews

Vegan meal
If you are trying to eat a vegan meal, dining out can often be confusing and difficult. The VeganXpress seeks to alleviate some of those concerns.

I have on occasion wanted to order a vegan meal and gazed at menus wondering what hidden ingredients may be in a dressing or sauce. Containing recommendations for more than 100 restaurants, beers and candies, VeganXpress seeks to take the guesswork out of such decisions.

Open VeganXpress and select your desired restaurant to see your options. A quick look at Denny’s reveals a choice of Fruit/Veggies, Tortilla Chips, Pico de Gallo, Baked Potato, Sautéed Mushrooms, some Breads and Salad. Check out IHOP and decide between the Fruit Bowl and the Oatmeal.

Initially I thought this to be a wonderful idea. A daunting task this must have been to sort through so many menu items at so many restaurants. VeganXpress would be the guiding light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately there is a  problem but it’s with not the app. The problem is the poor choices offered at so many of the popular U.S. restaurant chains. VeganXpress does everything it sets out to do, providing vegan choices at many non-vegan restaurants. In doing so it also sheds light on the aforementioned poor choices we have become accustomed to.

The bottom line is, especially if you’re a strict vegan, you’ll have to do your homework and ask questions.

Tags: pictures, tutorials, tips, iphone

I Wingman
Are you trying to get the woman of your dreams? Think Swingers & Wedding Crashers but less cool. What the app does have is charm. Something that might win your sweetheart’s favor even if you’re not confident enough to do it on your own. iWingman is packed with more than 250 one liners. They range from super cheesy to pretty clever.

The visual interface is ash grey with lots of blinking lights, gauges and buttons. The iWingman menu is set up as if you were pressing buttons in an airplane. There are six categories from which you can rate your compatibility — face, clothes, personality, intelligence, smell and location. Try hitting one and you get a pick-up line. For instance, choose face and you might end up with a line like “Seeing your beautiful face makes my smile aggrandize.”

iWingman is stable. It won’t crash, flash or randomly start over. What it could do better is have an option to go back to the menu without starting from the info menu. It seems like an unnecessary step. There is only one sound in iWingman, the sound of a plane taking off when you go to the main menu. Of course, if you plan on using iWingman on the down low, this is a good thing.

Overall, iWingman is okay. I am sure you get a few laughs, in which case it’s done its job. If you plan to use it as a serious dating tool, well, that might be stretching it.

Tags: iphone news, pictures, tips, games

Cool card game
There are 3 cool card games with MP Solitaire, including the traditional version of solitaire, but throws in a twist that makes it possible to play alone or with other players via split screen or simply against computer players. It does sound a bit confusing, but in truth, MP Solitaire’s an intriguing game that supplies you with this bizarre option to play solitaire card games with someone else.

First and foremost with MP Solitaire, you get to play solitaire the real way — alone — and let’s face it, solitaire is a must-have standard on a handheld device. It’s like some of those standard features on cars (daytime running lights) that you don’t know if you’ll ever use, but have to have anyway. Or in my case, it’s like the staples in my pantry, only I actually use solitaire. The one thing I find missing in MP Solitaire, which I really wish had been included, is an “undo last move” option, but as my grandpa always said, “a card laid is a card played,” so with respect to that mantra, I can live without “undo.”

The other two games included are “golf” and “13 in the middle.” Both are similar to solitaire in that your goal is to play all the cards in your deck to the appropriate fields, but each has their own unique set of rules. For instance, “golf” has you playing cards on top of the discard pile that are either one higher or one lower than the top card. If you’re not familiar with any of the games, take heart, there is a step-by-tutorial for all three games that explains the rules and includes a brief demonstration of how to play each game. In MP Solitaire there is also a little bonus point mini game included where you tap joker icons as they fly across the screen.

While you can opt to play any of the three games alone, the multi-player option makes MP Solitaire a bit more interesting. You can choose to play MP Solitaire with a real person on a split-screen and compete for the best score or race to be the first person to go out, or you can play against computer players, whose playing fields will be displayed in the upper left of the screen. MP Solitaire also saves high scores to your device and gives you the options of changing card backs and background colors. This is a fun card game with great options!

Tags: iphone, tips, pictures, videos