Captain's Log is a fun bit of promo

Last week I had a chance to try out Captain's Log, an iPhone app meant to promote the latest Trek feature. As a Trekkie, I wondered how long it would be before someone made a nice Trek-style communicator for the iPhone. This isn't the first, but it's pretty, fun and makes use of the iPhone 4's gyroscope. Here's what I found while playing around.

Look and feel

Turn it on and you're greeted with familiar Star Trek sounds. I'll let the Trekkies among you ID what you hear, but there's communication noises, the famous "woosh" of the ship's doors opening and closing and of course the chirp that accompanies flipping open a communicator.

Speaking of which, yes, you can flip it open. At first you'll see a pulsating Starfleet logo and a window displaying a rotating 360º view of the Enterprise (more on that later). To open the communicator, either jiggle the phone or slide your finger up across the screen.



The lid slides up and three main controls appear. On the left are customization options. Basically, these set the color and logo details. Choose between Captain (yellow), Engineering (red), Science/Medical (blue) and generic Enterprise (silver). If you're feeling a bit more adversarial, go with Romulan (green) or Klingon (orange). Each puts the appropriate logo on the communicator's "lid," and will tag messages you send.

I went with Engineering, because everyone knows that's the coolest.

Use

Looks don't matter if using the app isn't any fun. Fortunately, Captain's Log is a good time, as long as you don't mind cloaking your tweets, Facebook updates and emails with a serious Star Trek theme.

To make an entry in the log, tap the center button to reveal the "mic." The Log screen appears with three choices: Record Audio, Record Image and Record Text. First, give your log entry a title. Then choose which type of entry you'd like to make. You can make all three types on a single entry. To record audio, tap the appropriate button and a new screen appears. From there you can record your own voice or use a supplied "Trek sound," like the transporter room.

Recording an image works much the same way: snap your own photo or chose a still from the JJ Abrams movie (note: no other iterations of Trek are represented, so no Shatner or Picard). Finally, recording text brings up a simple text field and keyboard.

Once you're done, you can either save a draft of your entry or post it to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or email. The end result looks something like this.

Fan service

A bit of pure eye candy is the gyroscope-powered 360º view of the Enterprise. Tap the round window at the top of the communicator to get a very well-rendered image of the Enterprise hovering in space. It looks wonderful on the retina display and responds to the iPhone 4's gyroscope. Move your body around in space to change your perspective of the ship. It's a lot of fun and I spent much more time playing with it than I should have (my kids loved it, too). Sure, it's pandering, but who cares? Look how cool it is!

Annoyances

Those sounds can get really annoying if you've got the app running for a while. Fortunately, there's an option to turn them off. Also, I had to enter my Twitter username and password each time which is a hassle. Finally is the fact that this is basically an ad for a movie that's been out of theaters for a year. Your Trekkie friends will enjoy your updates, but others not so much.

At the end of the day it's a lot of fun for two bucks, especially if you're a fan. The lack of TNG, Next Gen and DS9 will disappoint some, but you know that's the deal going in. Finally, I'll recommend hardcore fans check it out while simultaneously congratulating myself for getting through this entire post without making one cheesy Trek joke.
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