Tag / iOS

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

App of the Week: Monsters Ate My Condo

This week’s app of the week is Monsters Ate My Condo, a game from Adult Swim for iOS and Android. The game is simple – various monsters want feeding, and you do that by feeding them apartments. If you make a chain of 3 or more condos of the same colour, you get a shiny bronze combo condo, and then you gradually get all the way up to diamonds. Feeding shiny condos to the monsters activates special powers, and the game ends when a monster is neglected and goes on a rampage or your tower block falls over. Add in some seizure-inducing colours, wacky animation, a blue unicorn that vomits rainbows and a fat lady that sings when the game is over, and you have yourself a ridiculously addictive game.

Monsters Ate My Condo, iOS and Android, 69p
Download from the App Store or Google Play

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

WWDC in 5 word sentences

That screen sounds absolutely incredible.
You can talk to iPads.
USB 3.0 is now infiltrating.
Nobody likes massively oversized laptops.
Siri likes fridges, mocks Samsung.
Open Monsters Ate My Condo.
The Mac Pro isn’t dead!
Why did you expect iPhones?
Maps are the way forward.
Apple will survive without Steve.
FaceTime over cellular is pointless.
Want Ivy Bridge with that?
Sharing from notifications is egotistical.
Facebook is still a thing.
At least Ping is dead.

by Henry Hunt

App of the week: Dungeon Hunter 3

Well I never saw this coming – I have chosen an Android app of the week. If you have read some of my earlier articles, you will be as surprised as I am. The reason for this is that my mum got an award-winning Android tablet and, me being me, I had to play with it the second I came home from school and, having been using it for the last few hours I was inspired to do an Android AOTW. So here it is: This weeks Android AOTW it Dungeon Hunter 3.

This is the best android game I have played so far, but admittedly I haven’t played a lot, and I wish that it were available on more platforms. When you start playing the game, you have to chose between four different classes, each one with different strengths and weaknesses. I personally chose the warlord as I always chose the tank class, but you can also chose from the astromancer, trickster and the shaman. Once you choose your class you are then given a quick tutorial, showing you how to both play and upgrade you character. Once completed, you are then free to kill and maim to your hearts contempt.

The gameplay is very detailed, with each kill giving you both money and experience, slowly helping you to buy countless upgrades and items to help your character on their way to becoming invincible, but, for those more inpatient people out there, each level and mission comes with three additional goals that, when completed, give you a large boost to both gold and XP.  The game is easy to get the hang of, with the tutorial teaching you know all you need to know, but having played it for about two hours I can tell that completing it and fully upgrading your character is no mean feat. It will take countless hours of gameplay.

Dungeon Hunter 3, iOS and Android, Free
Download from Google Play or the App Store

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Splashtop Metro Testbed lets you try Windows 8 on an iPad

Want to try out Windows 8 on a tablet but you’ve only got an iPad? Splashtop could have the answer with its new Metro Testbed app, which gives users the chance to use the Windows 8 Consumer Preview in a simple iPad app.

Splashtop Metro Testbed, iPad, £17.49
Download from the App Store or visit the website

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Facebook buys Instagram for $1 billion

In a post on Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that his company has purchased Instagram for $1 billion. Read his post below.

I’m excited to share the news that we’ve agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.

For years, we’ve focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we’ll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.

We believe these are different experiences that complement each other. But in order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram’s strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.

That’s why we’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.

We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.

These and many other features are important parts of the Instagram experience and we understand that. We will try to learn from Instagram’s experience to build similar features into our other products. At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook’s strong engineering team and infrastructure.

This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together.

We’re looking forward to working with the Instagram team and to all of the great new experiences we’re going to be able to build together.

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

Instagram launches on Android after iOS exclusivity

Instagram, the popular photo-sharing app cum social network, finally launched on Android today. The app, which lets users apply filters to their pictures and share them across a variety of social networks, including within its own community, has proved wildly popular since its launch on iOS, with over 30 million registered users (from myself to Justin Bieber) and Apple naming it as the best iPhone app of 2011. If you have a phone running Android 2.2 or later and you want to see what all the fuss is about, head over to Google Play for the free download (unless you have the new HTC One X), but don’t blame me if you become addicted. I hear it can have that effect on people.

Instagram, Android & iOS, Free
Download from the App Store or Google Play or visit the website

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

New Tweetdeck apps coming for iOS and Android?

Tweetdeck, my favourite Twitter client for iOS and PC, has been rather stagnant since its acquisition by Twitter last year, but news from TechCrunch of a major update to the fantastic mobile apps goes down very well in my eyes.

by Xavier Voigt-Hill

New iPad out now, but not for £50

Announced just over 1 week ago, Apple’s new iPad is now available. The ‘resolutionary’ tablet sports a  2048 x 1536 display that covers 9.7″, doubling the pixel density to Retina levels. The processor has received a 200MHz bump to become a 1GHz dual-core chip, while the GPU from the PlayStation Vita completes the A5X chip. 1GB RAM, a 5MP rear camera that borrows optics from the iPhone 4S and support for ‘4G’ LTE and HSPA+ networks round out the change list.

Stores will be selling the new tablet from 8am on Friday in various locations, with the UK pricing starting at £399 for a 16GB WiFi model, before progressing up to £479 and £559 for 32 and 64GB respectively. To get LTE capability as well, expect to pay an additional £100, up to £659 for the 64GB WiFi and 4G model. Do not, however, expect to pay £49.99 for it. A technical blunder from Tesco, similar to that involving Argos and the Nokia Lumia 800, priced the high-end model at this bargain level, but orders were swiftly cancelled. A spokesman confirmed:

We like to offer our customers unbeatable value, but unfortunately this is an IT error that is currently being corrected.

Will you be getting one, or does the newly reduced iPad 2 still float your boat? Let us know in the poll and comments.

by Ali Wilson

What do we expect from the iPad 3?

Apple are set to release the next iPad at a San Francisco press conference tonight and the question running through every Apple lover’s mind is simple: what’s going to be different?

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