Welcome to our weekly installment of Picks of the Week at iSource where we provide our expanded coverage of Apple accessories and applications Here we will promote our favorite iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac and Apple TV related items, as well as bring you occasional tips and tricks. Hopefully many of our favorite items will also be of interest to you. Please feel free to comment on our selections, and suggest picks of your own. Check out this week’s picks after the break.
Scribblenauts Remix (v1.1)
Picked by: Jay
This week Scribblenauts Remix gets my pick! I grabbed it a few weeks ago (on sale) after reading this review but didn’t tell my oldest son, who’s 8, until yesterday when we put it on his new-to-him iPhone 3GS. He spent the next few hours pouring over solving some of the problems that Maxwell needs to solve.
His Mom and I bought Scribblenauts for him two years ago to accompany his Nintendo DSi that Santa left him, but he never played it as much as we had hoped. Now that his reasoning skills, spelling, and keyboarding skills have improved, perhaps he will find renewed interest in the expensive DSi option after playing this universal iOS version (designed for both iPhone and iPad).
So what is Scribblenauts Remix? According to iTunes description,
Help Maxwell acquire the Starite by creating any object, bringing it to life and using it to solve each challenge.
What that doesn’t tell you is how cool it is to type just about anything you can think of to help Maxwell accomplish a challenge. It’s kind of like Siri meets gameplay (except you use a keyboard).
I originally had another Pick for this week, but as I watched the family huddle around my 8 year-old son and troubleshoot as he asked, “What’s something slimy a witch could put in her potion to make a dragon fall in love?”, I knew Scribblenauts Remix deserved a head nod for getting all of us to participate in the game. By the way, an “eel” worked for the potion.
($4.99) iTunes Link
Stamped (v1.0)
Picked by: PatrickJ
Stamped is an absolutely basic and easy recommendations sharing app. You create a free account, connect it to Facebook and Twitter if you want, and start stamping. There’s no rating things on any sort of scale – the idea is that anything you stamp is being given your stamp of approval. What you stamp is wide open – a favorite dish at a restaurant, a favorite draught beer, movie, TV show, and so on.
You can follow friends or suggested users to see their recommendations and post your stamps to Twitter and Facebook. Here are some of the app’s notable features:
Photos – Add your own photo to any stamp
To-Do List – Organize all the stamps you want to try on a To-Do list
Map View – View all of your friends’ stamps on a map to check out what’s nearby
Opentable, Amazon, Fandango and iTunes integration – You can make reservations, buy books, get movie tickets, and download songs, all through the app
Search – Easily search stamps by keyword, person or location
I love how simple this idea is. I’ve only just installed it today, but it’s one I look forward to using.
(Free) iTunes Link
Audium (v1.0)
Picked by: Thomas
My pick of the week is Audium, a simple music app centered around albums. Instead of showing a list of music and from various artists, Audium focuses on an experience that is reminiscent of Cover Flow for albums. There is no setup and there are no settings to play with here, just music.
All you have to do is launch the app, flick until you find an album that you like, and then double tap to start playing the album in its entirety. There aren’t any buttons within the app to control playback, though you can use gestures to swipe on the currently playing album (up/down to change volume, left/right to change songs).
Due to Audium’s minimal UI, I mistakenly thought that albums without album art were simply unidentifiable, but it turns out that there’s a gesture (well, gestures) for that, too. Swipe down on an album and the title will reveal itself quickly and cleverly in white text.
Audium effectively puts the spotlight back on the album as the artists and producers see it. Audium then isn’t so much a music player as it is a music utility — an interesting way to get to know your music as more than just sets of singles.
($0.99) iTunes Link
PopClip (v1.2.1)
Picked by: Alex Jordan
This nifty little app brings iOS – like cut/copy/paste functionality to the Mac. With this app installed, selecting text with the cursor invokes a menu that would looks very similar to the one featured in iOS. No, this doesn’t add any new functionality; it simply makes cut/copy/paste commands that much easier to access. Of course, you can make the experience as transparent or as opaque as you would like with the ability to access options from the menu bar, or turn the app on or off at will. To be honest it surprises me that Apple hasn’t done this already. There is a free trial, and if you like it it can be purchased for $4.99.
($4.99) MacApp Store
(Free Trial) Pilotmoon
Temple Run (v1.4)
Picked by: Renkman
Temple Run is an amazingly fun and addictive game. Since downloading the game several weeks ago, I have spent many hours of “free-time” running through the temple collecting coins, and trying to avoid being overtaken by monkeys. The concept is incredibly simple, to learn. However, I have yet to become tired of swiping, jumping and tilting my way through the jungle as my character avoids pitfalls in this fast-paced running game.
This is one of the only games I pay attention to how my GameCenter friends have faired, as I try to out compete them on a daily basis. Whether you have 2 or 20 minutes to spare, Temple Run doesn’t disappoint.
Recently updated for the fourth time, version 1.4 now bring several new enhancements to an already addictive experience…
– If you’re on Game Center, you can now see how far your friends ran as you play! Can you beat your rivals? You can toggle this on and off in the Options.
– 2 new characters! Play as Zack Wonder, the football star, or Francisco Montoya, the conquistador searching for the fountain of youth!
– 6 new achievements!
– 3 wallpapers to unlock!
– So many bug fixes! Let us know if you find bugs!
(Free) iTunes Link
There you have it! Hope you enjoyed this week’s installment of Picks of the week. Please let us know what you think, and share with us some of your favorites.
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