Mahjong Epic is on sale for $0.99, and at that price, it’s a steal for an incredibly powerful iPhone game. This game brings the power of Mahjong, the tile game from ancient China where you only match “free” (not surrounded by any other tiles) tiles to clear the board game, to the palm of your hand. And it does so incredibly well. I especially appreciated that the game was sensitive to my touch, and it knew where I was pointing. Kristanix Games got this rather well. I’ve played so many other games where I felt like I experienced “fat fingered-ness,” causing me to ‘tap’ on the wrong game piece. Not the case wit Mahjong Epic.
In Mahjong Epic, the lightly-shaded tiles are the ones you can play with at the present. The darker-shaded ones can be used when the other tiles are cleared. The game offers multiple boards to play with at first, and it also sports a nice editor that lets you create your own boards, making the possibilities for enjoyment endless.
The only thing I’d suggest is giving more options to the player: the background should be customized to our liking (blank, a photo from our album, for example), and we should see other style tiles. I’m a big fan of Mahjong and Shishen-sho (which, by the way, Kristanix Games should totally make) but as a player from non-Asian descent, the tiles are confusing to me and most look the same. I think a little variation — different tile boards — could make this game a real killer.
If you want to try it out beforehand, Mahjong Epic Lite is available for your perusal. I think you’ll agree that the paid version, though, is quite worth it.
With probably 30 or so screens of iPod touch applications, you can only imagine that I was excited for iTunes 9 and iPod touch v3.1.1. After all, the highly anticipated feature of being able to manage your screen icons was introduced in both versions, which in actuality was a good feature. But hype was all this feature had going for it. (After all, when you have perhaps a thousand apps like I do, you can’t organize these “hidden” apps on the screens even with the newer software upgrades, and that’s what I was looking forward to most.)
Version 3.1.1 of the firmware broke a highly-important feature, as indicated in severaldifferentsupport threads. In short, when an application with sound effects is opened, you can no longer double-tap the home button to pull up the iPod controls. While this may seem like no big deal to most users of the iPhone, it’s a huge deal to iPod touch users, especially those of us with 1st generation devices. With applications that are extremely loud, some owners prefer to be able to lower the volume, and pulling up the iPod controls made them able to do this without exiting the application.
As for me, I’m one of those “game addicts” (which I guess is fair to say, given my reviews here, and is great for Apple, given its huge emphasis on how they hope Apple is supposed to change the gaming industry). But while I play my games, I want to dictate what I want to hear. Sometimes, I’m stuck playing a single game for hours on end, and listening to the same game’s 1-minute music clip is excruciating. Having no ability to intervene and let my music take priority has been the absolute worst “feature” Apple has introduced.
I’ve complained about the underlying problem in the past, emphasizing that I’d appreciate being able to prioritize my music over game sounds in the Settings of the iPod. (People have actually asked me to appeal to game developers, but doing that with hundreds would be unfair. It’s an easy change for Apple to integrate into its devices.) After all, the iPod touch is just one of the newer devices that comes in a large family of music players, and most people still see it as such a device (but now with games). Having the music emphasized should be a no-brainer.
Instead, Apple lost sight of that. They never introduced this feature throughout its several firmware updates, despite me complaining about it for over a year.
There was a workaround, though. If you opened the game app, you could double tap on the home button of your iPod device and get the iPod controls, thereby letting you manage your music from within the app. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked better than anything else I tried.
Then version 3.1.1 of the firmware came out. This workaround has effectively been terminated entirely. If you’re running an application with music, you can’t simply double tap the home button and get the controls. And while there are workarounds to this workaround, most of them don’t work at all with most games since music is being played.
I’m torn. I really appreciated 3.1.1′s app sorting feature since I need it in the worst way, but I lost one of the most important features contributing to the usability of the device. It’s as if I bricked my iPod touch despite the fact that it’s not jailbroken at all and there are thousands of dollars of apps on it. But Apple does not care.
For most of you, especially if you are dependent on this feature, don’t upgrade. You’ll lose an essential feature that Apple did not think was necessary. In fact, many of the people who contributed to the forum discussions downgraded back to v3.0.
Apple has always been a company that valued aesthetics over usability. I surely hope that Apple is not going to keep this feature locked out of subsequent versions of the firmware any longer. I look forward to actually updating this post to show that Apple has listened. But I’ve complained about the earlier issue for months and got no resolution, so I’m not holding my breath.
Here’s a video of the entire phenomenon. Please excuse the bad quality.
The OpenTable iPhone app is the perfect idea for the iPhone. You’re stuck in traffic and can’t get to a phone book to find a restaurant or your girlfriend asked you to reserve dinner at Chez Bernies and you forgot. No you can sneak away and turn it on and get the closest restaurants to you (thanks to GPS location), then choose a time, a party size and presto a reservation that is confirmed and ready for you. The iPhone was built for apps like this and OpenTable has built a great app to support it. The only catch is the restaurant must be using the OpenTable reservation software, so your favourite restaurant might not be on the list.
Another plus, if you book through OpenTable you get Dining Rewards Points (100pts per reservation) which when accumulated are good for dining vouchers (2000 points = $20 voucher) at affiliated OpenTable restaurants. So there are perks to using this app and service, in addition to convenience and fast reservations.
This app is a must have for travelers on the go, who are looking to explore the cuisine in a new city, makes finding location, menu, reviews and confirming reservations easy – all in one app.
Great features like reservation modification and canceling of a reservation are easy with Open Table iPhone app. If you are a concierge, assistant or similar and are used to booking reservations for your clients, Open Table offers Administration accounts (Dining Reward Points eligible) that will allow you to book for another party straight from your phone. Like you needed another reason to get an iPhone.
Available in select cities in the US, Canada and UK.
Too busy to download and upload all your banking transactions? No time to login into your online bank, but want to check your balances? Then try the free Quicken Online Mobile iPhone app.
Before I get into the details, here are some reasons to get this app:
Auto-refresh transactions/balances for checking & savings accounts and credit cards
See up-to-date status of financial goals
Track cash expenses on the go and throw away the receipt
Categorize transactions which are not automatically categorized from your iPhone.
Consolidate multiple accounts easily and get instant Cash flow stats.
Trusted Quicken defacto standard in financial management software as opposed to Wesabe.com or Mint.com (relative newcomers)
Now the first thing to do is create a free sign in account online at Quicken Online. If you’re Canadian, for some reason there is a quirk that forces a US Zip Code, just put in the famous 90210 to get past this. Once in you can add your bank accounts and credit cards. Voila! Use the iPhone app to get a financial snapshot at any time, while your sipping a $5 Starbucks or waiting in line for the latest movie and wondering where all your money is going.
Goals, a great feature that allows you to set monthly goals for spending on gas, groceries, dining out, etc. Since each transaction is automatically categorized to a list of pre-defined or custom categories, you get an instant goal status every time you open the app. Great for reducing costs on items or to see where your paycheque is going.
Useful Features not available through iPhone but through Online Web App:
On the online web app there is a Trends tab which outlines trends in spending or income in a graphical and transactional manner. Another very useful feature is the idea of Alerts under Settings, which you can define to email or SMS you if you exceed a certain amount on a credit card or category of spending, very useful as your own fraud alert or to curb your spending ways.
Definitely an app to have in your top 10, did I mention it is free – Quicken Online Mobile
On the heels of reports that new SKUs were popping up previous to the 9/9/09 Apple event, and the fact that rumours were circulating about a new AppleTV device, Apple has abandoned the 40GB AppleTV model. Standing alone now is the 160GB model with a $100.00 discount.
A lot of people swear by the AppleTV, but I was skeptical, especially when you consider the difference between the original AppleTV price and the price of a Mac Mini. The discount has me second guessing my choice a little now. At $229.00, it’s starting to look a little bit more realistic to purchase a couple of them for the TVs around your house, but that being said, when you compare the AppleTV to an Xbox360 or Playstation 3, you start to realize just how overpriced the box currently is, and I don’t really see it persuading others to buy it. What would you pick, a gaming system that streams content, plays video games, and acts as a dvd player, or a device that streams content? I think I’d opt for the 360 again.
With Apple’s release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, the maximum size of icons in application has been increased to 512 pixels by 512 pixels from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard’s 128 x 128 pixel icons.
Now, most would think ‘Who cares about icons’? Well, actually quite a few people notice. If you hit command-tab with any of the Apple applications running you might notice how nice of an icon that each of the icons display. There is one exception, which surprises me; iTunes.
iTunes does not have a 512 x 512 pixel image. I’m not entirely sure why this would be the case nor the reasoning behind the icon not being updated, despite iTunes just being updated to version 9.1 less than a week ago. The only possible reason might be because Windows can only support 72 x 72 pixels in terms of icons. But then one would question why Apple wouldn’t want to use a higher resolution icon in their Mac OS X version of iTunes. A better operating system must deserve a better icon, right?
Why the OS X version of iTunes does not have a nicer icon is just baffling. I mean even iPhoto ’06 has a decent icon and the software is 3 years old already.
There are also some other applications that have bad icons. So far I have only found two others.
Cyberduck
Utorrent, including the icon for utorrent files.
All of the bad examples are below:
It’s not like Snow Leopard just happened to be sprung on everybody with no notice what-so-ever. Developers had well over a year to update icons, even if for no other reason future proofing their software. Maybe it only annoys me, but alas it is annoying to have to look at the icon and see such pixelation.
I love my keyboard shortcuts, I couldn’t function without them. Even when I start using a new application, I try to find what built-in shortcuts will prove to be the most useful to me. Like spotlight for example. I can’t count the number of times I use ? + Space a day. This is true for a lot of applications that I run though. I only use shortcuts when I use Evernote, and it makes it more time efficient for me
But why do I bring this up? I mean shortcuts aren’t really mysteries are they? Well recently I stumbled across a shortcut on my Macbook Pro that launches a quick add event window for iCal. This command is ? + Space. Normally this launches full screen quick view in finder and in other applications it does other tasks. But when I use this shortcut and where in any application I get an “Add Event” window. I have been trying to track it down, but haven’t had much luck. I have checked every where that I could think of, Even in the Keyboard Shortcuts preferences. It is driving me crazy! I could over look it if I knew how it happened, But it is a complete mystery to me. So my question to you is, have you ever found a keyboard shortcut that was a complete mystery to you about how it got there? If so, let us know in the comments, and if you have any insight to this phenomena, let us know that too.
UPDATE: Well a friend of mine on Brightkite pointed out on a screenshot from a couple days ago a desktop calendar app I have been running, asking if it could be the culprit. Sure enough, The only app I didn’t check was iDesk-Cal. So thanks to BarkerJA on brightkite and twitter for your help.
iDesk-Cal is also an app I will be reviewing soon and showing off some features to.
September 15, 2009
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