3D action and shooter games can be a lot of fun. While they can entertain and excite people, they do not necessarily make their brains sharper. That’s what puzzle games are for. What makes a great puzzle application? An app that is easy to pick up, hard to master, and does not bore you to death. Tangled 2 Doodle is one of those puzzle games that is easy to start and tough to finish. Untangling a bunch of dots may sound easy on paper but it can be pretty challenging if you have enough of those dots sitting on your screen.

The developers behind Tangled 2 Doodle have already developed a couple of other apps around the same concept. Unlike the movies, this sequel is as good as the original, if not better. The game is pretty simple to learn. You want to untangle the lines and make sure they do not overlap. It’s simple to do when you are dealing with a couple of dots. It does get very complicated as more dots are added to the game.

Tangled 2 Doodle has 3 modes. In Regular mode, you just follow the rules and untangle all the lines to clear each level. It has 30 levels in this mode, which will keep you entertained for a while. When you are done with these levels, the Random mode will provide you with even more challenges. The Action mode is pretty exciting. In that mode, you’ll have to untangle the dots one by one before there are too many of them on your screen. Waste time, and you’ll end up with an almost impossible puzzle. Read the rest of this entry »

A interview with Mike Smithwick, author of Distant Suns 3 for the iPhone/iPad and blogger at distantsuns.com. Mike is a seasoned iPhone/iPad developer who has developed numerous iPhone applications. He has recently released Distant Suns 3. Follow Mike’s work on Twitter for more information. In this interview, he shares how he got started with iPhone development and what led him to develop Distant Suns (don’t miss the giveaway at the bottom of this page).

1.  Tell us a little bit about yourself and your apps. How Did you get started as an iPhone developer?

A. My graphics background came from working at NASA on the $20Million real-time flight simulator graphics systems. But considering my audience was about 12 engineers, I gravitated to consumer stuff on my own time. My success is based not on how expensive the machines are that I work on, but how many people enjoy the software I write.

I started work on the iPhone stuff ‘cuz it was just fit the definition of cool. It had the power, graphics libraries, development tools, visual and color resolution that would make it an ideal platform for me. Plus in the early days it was heady to tell someone I was an iPhone developer, and I would get awe and wonder in return. Now I get “So who isn’t?”

2.  Distant Suns is a very impressive app. What inspired you to develop it the way you did? What Motivated You To Develop Distant Suns?

A. My Distant Suns stuff was merely to keep me off the streets at night (and during the day, and on weekends). It worked. I loved planetariums as a kid, even writing a show for my 7^th grade class and giving it in a local community college planetarium. The Projectors were a little large to have one of my own, so I had to settle for a computerized version that no one was doing right when I started.

3.  How Long Did It Take You To Develop Distant Suns?

A. What’s the date? Oh, so far about 24 ½ years. The first version was done in about 18 months on a 2Meg Amiga 1000. It took about 6 minutes per compile for the most simple of files. I was going to retire it officially in 2008 as we were getting only a handful of sales (for the PC version) a month. But then the iPhone SDK came out, looked pretty simple (compared to say, Symbian) and so I migrated everything over to the handheld platform I had always wanted to have.

4. Distant Suns has been getting rave reviews for months. What’s your secret?

A. I build the software I want to use, and hope that enough other people like it as well.

5. What challenges did you face when developing Distant Suns? Did you have any problems getting your apps approved?

A. I only had DS bounced once (before the iPad version, but we really didn’t know what Apple’s criteria for that thing was). The reason was that I had a bullet point on my appstore page that Apple didn’t like, saying something like “It’s $1,499,999,995 less than a Voyager probe”. The reviewer said that I wasn’t supposed to mention dollar amounts in the copy as this was for international distribution. Right. As if Stanislaw in Krakow won’t know that 1 ½ billion dollars isn’t a lot of Zlotys. Read the rest of this entry »

There are plenty of iPhone GPS apps on the market. Some give you accurate directions and all kinds of information on the go. Some provide you with great graphics. iGO My Way gives you both.  iGO My Way 2009 is an innovative GPS application for iPhone that provides you with the directions you need to get to your destination without having to rely on a standalone GPS unit. Similar to other top GPS apps for iPhone, iGo provides you with beautiful 3D maps to help you find your way around more easily. So whether you are in Canada or the U.S., you can always rely on these 3D maps to get yourself out of tricky situations.

Unlike a few other top GPS applications, you won’t have to worry about map updates until the end of 2010. So that should give you plenty of time to enjoy your app without paying for updates. I found the app to be very easy to work with. Entering an address and following directions on the map is very easy. The voice commands were very clear, and the lane assistance feature was a plus. What I like about this app is that you are not reliant on your network connection for directions. Essentially, you still get directions even if you are in a dead zone. The automatic re-route feature works like a charm as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Fritz is one of the best chess engines in the world. I got introduced to the Fritz family in the 90s. It feels almost like yesterday when I picked up Fritz 4.01 to take my chess game to the next level. Fast forward a few years, and we finally have Fritz Chess on the iPhone. Fritz is no ordinary chess game. It’s a super engine that can help you analyze games, play rated games, and take your chess game to the next level. Fritz is more than a game. It’s a comprehensive chess training system that helps you get your game to the next level, and now you can do it all on your iPhone.

What I like about Fritz chess is all the game modes that are available on it. The Blitz mode is useful if you want to play quick games. The long games are closer to what you see in a classical chess game. You can also turn the clock off and go without a limit. I obviously don’t recommend that unless you have trouble managing your clock. Fritz also have many levels to help players from all levels to have fun without getting beat to a pole by it. Fritz can be ruthless if you choose the highest rating level. So if you are a chess newbie, I strongly encourage you to adjust the playing level to have more fun with Fritz.

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Playing the piano on a mobile phone has never been this much much. Piano Sharp is a super cool piano applications for iPhone. It makes it so easy to compose and play your music on the go. You can record new songs and play your existing MIDI files. Best of all, Piano Sharp is designed to have something for everyone, regardless of how good you are.

Piano Sharp lets you pre-record up to 3 different parts of your songs separately and then put them together. The piano is very easy to play with. You can use the accelerometer to manage the piano more effectively. Another feature that I loved in this app was the ability to export recorded songs and also import MIDI files.

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