@app-review Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Daily iPhone App: Zello lets you chat walkie-talkie style with friends, co-workers

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 9th, 2013)

After years of living in an area with no cell service -- but with a very active radio tower -- I grew accustomed to talking with my husband using a ham radio instead of text messaging. Now that cell coverage has improved, we no longer use our ham radios and have switched to the iPhone. To ...

Daily iPhone App: Wizard Ops Tactics offers well-made tactical battles

by Mike Schramm (May 8th, 2013)

Wizard Ops arrived on the App Store a couple of years ago -- it was a wild and wooly take on magical combat that played more like a shooter than a fantasy RPG. Developers Phyken Media have now returned to the world of Wizard Ops, though not the genre, with a new title called Wizard Ops ...

Feed Wrangler: A subscription-based RSS reader for web and iOS

by Matt Tinsley (May 8th, 2013)

Feed Wrangler (US$19/year) is David Smith's subscription-based RSS aggregation and syncing service for web and iOS devices. If you're a Google Reader user, you're probably aware that the service will shut down on July 1st. This means you'll either go back to browsing your favorite news and blog ...

Daily iPad App: Leviathan Warships features sweet, turn-based boat warfare

by Mike Schramm (May 8th, 2013)

First of all, go enjoy the wonderful trailer for this game. If you're not sold on Leviathan Warships (US$4.99 on the App Store) after watching that, then I'm not exactly sure what else you want. Leviathan Warships is a turn-based naval strategy game. Your job is to guide a series of ships ...

Daily iPad App: Draw This App challenges you to refine your drawing technique

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 7th, 2013)

Aspiring artists may want to grab their stylus and check out Draw This App from Peter Hamilton. The app improves your drawing skills by practicing your copying technique and challenging you to do better each time you sit down and draw. The app is basic in its scope and is designed for beginning ...

Daily iPhone App: View Seeker Location Scout: a handy tool for iPhone photographers

by Mel Martin (May 7th, 2013)

View Seeker Location Scout is a handy US$0.99 photo app that can help you find the best locations for landscape photography. You can get all the best locations around you with a click, which the app does by sourcing images from Panoramio and Flickr. Once you find a spot you like it appears on a ...

Daily iPad App: ScreenLab

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 6th, 2013)

If you look at your lock screen and see wasted screen real estate, then you should check out ScreenLab from Lemonskin. ScreenLab allows you to design a lock screen wallpaper filled with useful information. Because it uses the lock screen, ScreenLab can display these details to anyone, even when ...

Air Microphone turns your iPhone into a wireless PA system

by Mel Martin (May 6th, 2013)

Air Microphone is a US$0.99 app that uses AirPlay to connect your iPhone to an Apple TV or AirPlay-equipped amplifier to give you a wireless microphone. The app is not hard to use. After launch, go to the multitasking bar on the iPhone and select any AirPlay device and start talking. In my tests, ...

Daily iPhone App: Haunted Hollow is frighteningly good

by Mike Schramm (May 3rd, 2013)

I've been crowing about how great Firaxis' Haunted Hollow is since GDC earlier this year, so odds are that you've probably already seen me telling you once (or more) to go pick it up. But in case the message hasn't gotten through yet: Go pick it up. Firaxis' latest game is just an excellent, ...

Daily iPad App: Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy is a great board game adaptation

by Mike Schramm (May 3rd, 2013)

Eclipse is one of the most popular board games around right now -- it's a vast, involving epic "4X" game, where those four Xs stand for eXploration, eXpansion, eXploitation (as in mining crops and resources from various planets) and eXtermination (as in finishing off your alien opponents). ...

Drafts 3.0 adds archiving, improves organization, more

by Dave Caolo (May 2nd, 2013)

Drafts is a fast, lightweight note-taking app for iPhone (US$2.99) and iPad ($3.99) with so much more to offer than simple lists. Drafts is handy. You can use it to quickly jot down a list or something you'd like to recall later, which is great. But the app's real power is in the myriad of ways you ...

Daily iPad App: Gradients is a free iOS photo editor that is worth a look

by Mel Martin (May 2nd, 2013)

I'm always on the lookout for free photo apps that do a good job, and Gradients for the iPad or iPhone (free, universal) fits the bill. The app lets you add gradients to existing photos with almost infinite variations and control. I often create gradients in Photoshop, especially to tone down the ...

Daily iPhone App: Zombies, Run! 5k helps novices train for a 5K

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 2nd, 2013)

In June, there is a local 5K race and I want to run in it. It's been years since I've done any serious running so I definitely have to prepare for this event. Like any good techie, I turned to my iPhone and the App Store for motivation. After searching, I stumbled on a new version of an old ...

Daily iPhone App: House of the Dead Overkill - The Lost Reels is gross but innovative

by Mike Schramm (May 1st, 2013)

There are some really excellent apps arriving on the App Store tonight (including Firaxis' great Haunted Hollow), but before we tackle that new crop, I did want to mention this app, released last week by Sega. House of the Dead, if you're not aware, is an arcade shooting game, where you take on ...

Daily iPad App: Tipping Point Adventure for iPad is clever and engaging

by Mel Martin (May 1st, 2013)

My experience as an adventure game player goes way back to the text-only Colossal Cave game, which then morphed into the classic Zork text games from Infocom (which, by the way, you can play even now on iOS with the Lost Treasures of Infocom app). Now, with speed and graphic power, games are a ...