Macgasm

Dialvetica is the simple, but powerful $1.99 contact manager that aims to replace the Phone application on your trusty iPhone dock. The method to Dialvetica’s madness is simple: Less taps to place a phone call, email, or SMS. Dialvetica aims to achieve this in three ways:  First, it keeps track of your habits and brings your most popular contacts to the top of the list. Second, it lets you search for contacts via its sticky keyboard (always on screen) by typing the first couple of letters you associate with that contact (it could be their initials, the first few letters of their first or last name, or even an uncommon ‘z’ if you’re looking for your buddy Chaz). Third, it sets a default email address, SMS number, and phone number, and then it will launch the appropriate app for the task (Mail, SMS, or Phone App) with a single click.

What’s Macgasmic

Dialvetica is the type of app that you might not realize you need until you give it a try. Compared to the standard phone or contact app, Dialvetica definitely helps you find your contacts and take action much more efficiently. The design is clean and simple, and it doesn’t try to be anything it’s not. In short, Dialvetica does exactly what it claims to do.

What’s Not

My previous complaint with Dialvetica was that it was maybe too smart for its own good. It wouldn’t let me edit my contacts, or remove a contact from the smart favorites.  The editing issue was resolved in the latest version (3.1), but if you accidentally called your 3rd cousin from Norway, Dialvetica requires you to call the rest of your favorites enough to bump them from the list.

Final Thoughts

You know the saying, “old habits die hard”? If you can find a way to kick the old habit of using the Phone app, make space for Dialvetica on your dock, and let it work its magic. You’ll no doubt come away with a great app for its $1.99 price tag. Otherwise, Dialvetica can have a tendency to be forgotten in the pile of screens and folders on your iPhone.

Have you tried Dialvetica? If you have, drop us a line in the comments and let us know how you like it and if you’re still using it!

The Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages officially announced today the required approval for Apple to establish a Canadian iBookstore. In order to receive the approval, Apple has agreed to the following.

• Promotion of Canadian-authored books—both French- and English-language titles—in iBookstore in Canada and other iBookstores internationally;
• Increased opportunities for Canadian publishers and authors, including new and independent writers;
• Increased access to titles from Aboriginal authors and publishers;
• Assistance to Canadian publishers in streamlining processes of e-book creation and enhancement; and
• Jobs for Canadians and improved services for Canadian consumers, including an iBookstore tailored to Canadian readers.

A Canadian-based iBookstore represents a huge opportunity for Canadian authors and publishers.  There is no word on how quickly iOS users will be seeing the Apple iBookstore stocked with Canadian content.

Tip Courtesy of Ben Myers

Civilization V, the love it or hate it strategy game from Firaxis, arrived on Mac OS X on November 23, 2010.  Originally releasing for PC in September 2010, Civilization is a turn-based strategy game in which each player takes on the role of the leader of one of 18 different civilizations.  From the Americans to the Aztecs, each civilizations goal is to grow their nations through the eras, from ancient to modern.  Civilization has you controlling just about every aspect of your nation, including city production, technology research, social policy adoption, to diplomacy with other nations.  The goal is to build your civilization towards one of several different types of victories; domination (destroying all enemy capital cities), science (building a space ship and launching into space), culture (building a Utopia through social policy), and diplomacy (starting and leading the United Nations). If it’s not clear already lets say this now; there is ALOT to digest in Civilization V. Despite an excellent tutorial system designed for new users, you will likely be overwhelmed if this is your first civilization experience.

What’s MacGasmic

A breakdown of the Rome Civilization with history and perks.

It’s always reassuring to see a game release on the Mac simultaneously or a few months after its PC release.  While most Mac users don’t buy their computers for the games, its nice to know the Mac is being considered by game developers.  For the most part, Civilization on the Mac plays the same as its PC counterpart with a few issues that we’ll discuss in a later section.

For Civilization fans, you should already know what you’re getting into. If you’ve enjoyed previous Civilization games, you’ll be right at home with this version for the Mac.  An addictive experience, with nearly limitless customization options, a sense of complete control over your civilization, and plenty of new features to justify the jump from Civilization IV.

What’s Not

The decision to give Civilization V a try should start with a tour of the system requirements.

Minimum Requirements

• 

  How Civ5 looks on my minimum requirement MacBook Pro

  Operating System: 10.6.4 (Snow Leopard)

• CPU Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo (Dual-Core)
• CPU Speed: 2.4 GHz
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Hard Disk Space: 8 GB
• Video Card (ATI): Radeon HD2600
• Video Card (NVidia): Geforce 8600
• Video Memory (VRam): 256 MB
• Media Required: DVD-ROM

Recommended Mac System Requirements

• CPU Processor: Intel Quad Core
• CPU Speed: 2.6 GHz
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Video Memory (VRam): 512MB

The social policy tree that eventually leads to Utopia

Take note of the Snow Leopard requirement and specs that even a MacBook Pro purchased in 2010 won’t meet.  If you’re not sure what you’ve got under the hood, click the Apple icon in your menu bar, then About this Mac.  You can note the Processor speed and type, and memory from this screen.  Click More Info then Graphics/Displays and you’ll see the video card and VRAM in your system.  For comparison sake, I’m running a MacBook Pro purchased in February 2010 with 2.26 Ghx, 4GB of Ram and a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with 256 MB of VRam.  I don’t even meet the minimum.  Despite this, Civilization V still runs on my Mac on the lowest graphics settings.  The gameplay can get choppy as the map builds, but overall it’s still playable.

There’s also an issue with local multiplayer that wouldn’t allow us to connect two Macs on the same network.  It looks like this is an issue with the PC version as well.  I was also unable to test the internet multiplayer as it nearly requires a convention to organize a match and an entire day to declare a winner.

Final Thoughts

The strategic city map where you control production and research

I’ve always been a fan of strategy games (my family nearly disowns each other during our holiday games of Risk).  I remember playing the older Civilization games as a kid and was anxious to bring back some nostalgia with Civilization V for the Mac.  Unfortunately for me, there’s just too much time and cash required (a new 27 inch quad core iMac would be pretty sweet though) to really enjoy Civilization V.   I found myself playing for an hour, then starting over to bring the game back into the comfort zone for my system requirements, and try a new civilization.   With that being said, I completely understand how so many people are enthralled in this game, and with a fancy new Mac, I could see myself falling down that path.  There’s just something unavoidably exciting about taking a civilization from its infancy and paving your way to world domination. Or maybe that’s just me.

If you’ve got the time, and a fancy new Mac, I would certainly recommend Civilization V.

From the makers of Angry Birds comes the next big craze to hit the iTunes Store: Cut the Rope. Based on the same puzzle-solving, addictive, simple gameplay, Cut the Rope managed to sell a mere 1,000,000 copies in the first 10 days after launching and dethroned Angry Birds in the App Store Top 10 list. Available for $0.99 for the iPhone/iPod touch and $1.99 for the iPad, that’s between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 in revenue in just over a week (for those keeping score at home).

Cut the Rope puts you in the position of primary caregiver for a friendly, but impatient candy loving green frog. The physics based gameplay starts out by having you cut the candy free from its rope, letting it fall gracefully towards your hungry pet. If you’re up for a challenge, you can have the candy collect up to three stars before it becomes lunch. While the game starts with simple rope cutting, things become more complicated with fans, baloons, spikes, bubbles, pulleys and lightning, all put there to keep your frog from it’s delicious treat.

What’s Macgasmic

Game publisher Chillingo found their formula for success with Angry Birds and is sticking to the script with Cut the Rope. Simple, physics-based gameplay requiring a nice blend of logic and creativity. Put this into a clean and colorful package, with a memorable character, and you’ve got a top selling app. This is where Cut the Rope really delivers. You can’t help but become attached to your new candy loving friend and the cartoony feel keeps things light in what can be an otherwise frustrating puzzle game.

What’s Not

Don’t get me wrong, Cut the Rope is a fantastic game and a fantastic value at $0.99. However, unlike Angry Birds, the accessibility and fun factor isn’t quite up to par. While Angry Birds could keep you entertained for hours with its addictive gameplay and enjoyable destruction, Cut the Rope gets old quickly if you’re not making progress. The game can be challenging and if you’re not keen on puzzle games, expect to become frustrated.

Overall

For me, Cut the Rope was right up my alley. I enjoyed both the presentation value and the challenging gameplay. It may not be for everyone, but for $0.99 it’s tough to go wrong. If you’re into puzzle games, or just want a quick distraction, Cut the Rope is a great choice for your App Store dollars. The game is also available for the iPad for $1.99.

How was your experience with Cut the Rope? Let us know in the comments.

For me, reviewing a painting App on the iPad would be similar to having Charles Barkley as a judge on Dancing with the Stars. It’s slightly out of my comfort zone.  With that being said, it’s hard not to be impressed with ArtRage for the iPad.  A beautiful app that really shows off the flexibility of the iPad and reminds us of the power of a touch screen display. For $6.99,  ArtRage delivers a nearly true-to-life artistic experience, minus the cost of supplies and the mess that would likely ensue if you unleashed a non-artist like me on a canvas and finger paints.

What’s Macgasmic

When it comes to simulating painting on a real canvas, it’s hard to imagine a better experience than ArtRage.  The experience starts with a choice of 24 different preset canvases ranging from a basic canvas, to stucco, to even tin foil.  Each one can be customized and interacts differently with the paint, leading to limitless options to start your painting.  On the paint side, you’re given a choice of both the color and metallic level of the paint with 13 different types of instruments including brushes, spray guns, putty knifes, and chalk.  If you can’t find something you like from the large list of pre-sets, each brush option is completely customizable.

As impressive as the customization options are in ArtRage, it’s the simple things that impress the most.  Having previously tried a few paint programs on the iPad, I was taken back when I noticed that in ArtRAge the paint fades as you paint long brush strokes.  Paint also smears as you run one color over the last, and if you turn off the auto-clean setting, you’ll pickup the combination of the two colors on your next stroke.  All of this leads to an authentic experience that is sure to please all artists.

What’s Not

In addition to my artwork (seen below), there have been considerable reports of crashing in this App, which could lead to some frustration for digital artists.  I personally didn’t experience a crash on version 1.0.3 in which the developer noted significant stability improvements.   There’s also some sluggishness in the interface, likely due to the considerable processing that would be required to run this type of app.  Finally, for inexperienced (read: no experience) artists like myself, a tutorial on the interface would certainly be helpful.

Final Thoughts

Many of the complaints about ArtRage are insignificant against the beauty and creativity that comes from this App.  For $6.99, it offers artists an incredibly convenient way to create brilliant art-work.  While painting with your fingers is fun, this could be the app that forces you to go grab a stylus.  There are a number of great options available, and you’ll have a much more authentic experience when working with the different tools.  With stylus in hand, there’s likely no limit to what artists will create using ArtRage.  We’ve already seen a piece of artwork made with an iPhone app grace the cover of the New Yorker, and I’m sure artwork using ArtRage is not far behind.

ArtRage for iPad is highly recommended.

There is no shortage of unique and creative games available on Apple’s App Store, so a game with a unique design like Shot Shot Shoot may have some trouble getting noticed. Add to that an extremely minimalist approach and it’s easy to get completely overlooked. Shot Shot Shoot, available for the iPad for $1.99, is a one or two person shooter game that is simple in concept, but complex to master.

The concept behind Shot Shot Shoot is to shoot small blocks across the screen towards your opponent’s five targets.

The more blocks you shoot at once, the slower they go. There’s a limited amount of ammo for each side, with more being added by hitting smaller blocks half way to your target.  Good so far? Bullets are fired from the center block and can be controlled after launch by swiping left or right on the iPad. Bullets hitting each other cancel out making them both offensive and defensive. Destroy your opponents 5 targets before they destroy yours and you win the round.  Simple enough.

What’s Macgasmic:

Any game that makes you think quickly and strategically is great in my books. In Shot Shot Shoot, you need to balance between offense and defense, volume vs. speed, and ammo vs. attack. Depending on your opponent, you can find yourself in a chaotic mess with bullets flying all over the screen, or a slow and strategic chess match with each opponent carefully thinking through their next shot.  From a design standpoint, you’ll either love it or hate it.  The design is clean, simple and does a great job of not distracting from the gameplay.

What’s Not:

Playing against the computer, even on the easier of the two settings, is absolutely overwhelming at the start. Shot Shot Shoot is trial by fire with the computer opponent absolutely demolishing me in the first 10+ games. Just to be sure, I had a few others give it a try and they experienced the same results. There’s a very good chance you’ll walk away from this game before you win your first game. Not good with so many game choices available under $2.

Final Thoughts:

If you’re looking for strategic challenge, or want a casual two-player experience, you will probably enjoy Shot Shot Shoot. If you’re impatient, or need stunning visuals to enjoy a game, then there are much better options. Adding a tutorial, or making gameplay easier for beginners could go a long way in helping this game become more accessible.

How familiar does this scenario sound? It’s a bright sunny day, you’re strolling around your neighborhood and you come across a scene that inspires you to take a photo. You left your camera at home, but luckily you do have your iPhone. You point the camera at the scene and try to adjust for your best shot. But, there’s a problem.  Too much light coming from the sky is blurring the rest of the picture. You have the iPhone 3GS, so you tap your screen to focus on the sky and instantly the brightness is gone and the sky looks crystal clear. But your problems have just begun. The rest of the scene is now almost completely black. Your iPhone is making you choose between bright and dark, and neither choice is giving you a picture you can be proud of.

Enter a technology called HDR, short for high dynamic range. Included in the new iPhone 4, HDR helps deal with exposure problems, such as the one in the previous scenario, by taking multiple exposures of the same scene and stitching them together to generate a photo with the proper exposure for both the bright and dark areas. Now if you have an iPhone 4, you can stop reading. The feature is built right into your pictures and works as advertised. If you’re using an iPhone 3GS, then you may want to check out Pro HDR.

What’s MacGasmic

Pro HDR is a $1.99 camera app for the iPhone 3GS and 4 that allows you to take multiple snapshots of the same scene and automatically merge them together into a final picture. Simply launch the app, select “Auto HDR,” tap the screen and hold steady while the app analyses the lighting conditions, takes two pictures, and combines them together. The whole process takes about 10-15 seconds and produces some outstanding results (see gallery at the end of this review).

Pro HDR has a few other useful features including a manual mode for fine tuning each HDR output, and a library mode that allows you to combine previously taken pictures into a new HDR images.

What’s Not

First, while the Pro HDR apps does exactly what it claims to do, it’s still a little rough around the edges. For most iPhone photographers, some pictures require a fair bit of urgency and not being able to quickly open an app and capture the moment can be frustrating. While the standard iPhone photo app opens one click away from capturing a photo, Pro HDR requires you to launch the app, then select Auto HDR before being ready to capture a picture. Combine this with the extra delay required to analyze lighting and snap two pictures and it can be difficult to capture any time-sensitive scenes.

Second, because Pro HDR is actually snapping two separate pictures instead of two exposures in the same image, there is a 1-2 second delay between each image. While Pro HDR does a great job of adjusting the picture if you happen to move the camera a few millimeters in between shots, it can’t compensate for movement within the scene. This makes it impossible to capture any scenes with movement, and very difficult to shoot portraits unless your subject can ensure there’s no movement in between shots.

Final Thoughts

While the extra settings in Pro HDR have a few advantages over the native iPhone 4 HDR, the disadvantage of requiring two separate pictures to be taken far outweighs them.  For the iPhone 3GS, however, Pro HDR is a must have app. The app leverages HDR perfectly to produce stunning improvements on any scene with a high exposure range. Despite a few shortcoming that are inherent in this type of HDR technology, there is very little criticism that can be thrown at Pro HDR. A great concept, simple execution, and brilliant results.  What more can you ask for from an app? Pro HDR is available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 and is highly recommended.

Image #1 (High Exposure)

Image #2 (Low Exposure)

Image #3 - Combined HDR image

Pro HDR image (Lake Ontario from the Niagara-on-the-Lake Golf Club)

Pro HDR image (Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada)

Whether you’re working a 9-5 or dating a member of Destiny’s Child, everyone has bills to pay. With that in mind, iBear LLC set out to create an app with a function that would appease just about everyone: a way to plan and track your bills and expenses. Available for the iPhone ($1.99) and iPad ($3.99), Bills is designed let you do just that, from the comfort of your virtual office.

Bills is fairly simple in design, with most activity centering on a nicely designed calendar. The process is simple as well.  You select a date, pick a category, add the amount of your bill and you’ve now added a new bill to the “planned category”. Later, once the bill is paid, you can approve the transaction moving it from “planned” to “paid.”  Once your bills are added, you’ll have a nice calendar showing what’s due when, and a handy indicator showing your progress on “planned vs. paid” expenses.

What’s Macgasmic:

If you read through the iTunes description for Bills, you’ll notice how much attention has been paid to highlighting the app’s design. In this area, Bills definitely delivers.  While you’ll still get the pretty interface and smooth transitions on the iPhone version, the extra screen size of the iPad really lets Bills shine. Styled after a typical office, Bills displays the calendar as a projector, your settings in a bookshelf, categories in filing cabinets, and your list of bills on an easel. It’s a nice touch, and can take some of the monotony away from planning and tracking those pesky expenses. The design is complimented by nice use of color and vibrant icons to represent each category of bills and expenses.

Bills also brings a few helpful features including bluetooth sync between the iPad and iPhone, the ability to add a security PIN, category customization, push notifications, and the ability to export to CSV.

What Needs Work:

What Bills makes up in design, it lacks in functionality. Things start out rough from the minute you launch the app. While it’s fairly straightforward to add bills and expenses, Bills offers absolutely no tutorial or initial setup screen when you launch. You’re greeted with a view of your office, a calendar, and that’s just about it. Not unlike a typical first day at some companies. Things get worse from there with sloppy coding requiring the app to skip past one screen to get to the next, leaving you feeling like you’ve done something incorrectly. Adding bills isn’t complicated, but the interface could be laid out in a much simpler format with certain fields only showing up when needed (like asking for a confirmation number even for “planned expenses”).  Also, as simple as it is to mark an expense as paid (tapping the checkmark beside the expense), it was less obvious how to undue this easy to make mistake (editing the bill, then selecting the newly available “paid” checkbox.”  While the interface isn’t awful by any means, a few functionality mistakes really hold this app back.

Final Thoughts:

There are still a few features that could be added in future releases, such as iCal and Google Calendar sync, expense charts and history, and more customizable notification options. If you are sensitive to interface issues, it may give you a few moments of unnecessary stress. If you need a more robust solution then there are much better options. Overall though, if you’re looking for a simple app to track your monthly bills and aren’t too picky about the interface, I could recommend you give Bills a try.