Aramation Mobile

iPhone (and its phoneless sibling iPod Touch) has seen its countless share of games and applications. Who knew a convenient marketplace would lead to such a development! Fieldrunners for the iPhone is a simple tower defence game where the goal is to prevent a group of nasties from reaching one end of the map by installing defence structures. The game gives you 6 types of structures: machine gun, goo that’ll slow down enemies, rocket and flamethrower with splash damage, lightning and heavy artillery. Each of these structures can be upgraded to increase the damage as well as area of effectiveness. Overall, it’s a standard gameplay with great art direction. Visuals are vibrant and the game runs pretty smoothly on your iPhone (although towards the latter stages with the map full of defensive structures, you will notice some dip in framerate.

The game’s simple nature and addictive proven gameplay of tower defence, it is no wonder that it made Time’s list of Top 10 videogames of 2008.

[Download Fieldrunners - opens in iTunes]

Now that I’ve been using the iPhone 3G for a few weeks, I’ve come to grips with its many positives such as large touchscreen, wealth of programs available in one convenient online store, and the best music player in the market. However Apple still does not have a perfect device and these are some of the problems with the phone.

Reliability Issues
It’s a bit odd to hear people claim Apple’s softwares aren’t buggy, unlike Windows counterparts. In my case, iTunes clearly demonstrates Apple has a long way to go to create reliable software on the Windows platform. iTunes itself is bloaded with unappealing visuals yet surprisingly high resource usage. Sometimes it doesn’t even want to start the application.

Coupling iTunes with iPhone 3G, it occasionally causes my Vista computer to display that dreaded blue screen of death (BSOD). For the record, iTunes is the only software I’ve ever used on my computer that crashed the entire OS.

AppStore can’t update apps
This is a peculiar problem I started having after updating to 2.1 firmware. If I access the AppStore on the iPhone 3G and update the applications, it fails giving me an error message that I should connect the phone to a computer and use the AppStore from iTunes. The problem is, iTunes does not recognize that the application is supposed to be installed on the phone. In the alternative, I try to update the applications directly from iTunes, and that fails as well. Installing, updating and uninstalling applications have to be reliable. I’ve had less issues on this front with my previous phone T-Mobile Shadow and that runs on the often-derided Windows Mobile.

General lag
It is frustrating when you try to use the touchscreen (for example to scroll through the contact list) and nothing happens. Contacts and e-mails can get unresponsive every now and then, preventing you from using the phone. Making matters worse is sometimes a lag is present when you try to answer the call. Apple’s design did not afford a hardware button to answer a call, which means a finger swipe is the only way to take the call. I’ve had several calls I intended to take go to voicemail just because the phone doesn’t recognize my finger swipe to answer the call.

Organizing the applications
This isn’t really a bug in the software but it is still very annoying that there is no easy way to organize applications’ order on your home screen. The only method is this primitive icon based approach where if you move one icon, everything gets moved to create space. Windows desktop may not be the most efficient, but it lets me place icons wherever I want to, in whatever order I desire. Even worse, there is no way to create hierarchy (like you can in the menus) so you can’t really put secondary or tertiary applications away from the main home screen.

As Apple continuously puts out iPhone updates, it is only time before these issues are address (maybe with the exception of new home screen).

PageOnce is an incredibly useful aggregator that’s available for free. What it does is it remembers your login information to various websites, ranging from e-mail such as Live Hotmail, utilities such as your cell phone provider and social networks. It can even keep track of pesky information such as your frequent flyer mileage, Starbucks cash card balance and your YouTube profile.

With the launch of the iTunes App Store, PageOnce has released its free application for the iPhone, and it works as intended. Once you set up your information on PageOnce.com, it will be available on your iPhone. Setting up is easy (as all you have to do is enter the PageOnce.com login information), and looking at the data is simplistic. The program feels sluggish when it comes to downloading your account information, but it still beats having to login to every one of those sites individually.

In short, if you’re already using PageOnce, getting your data mobile is an easy step when you have an iPhone or iPod Touch. After all, this mobile version is free as well.

[Read my review of PageOnce.com here | Visit PageOnce.com and create your account]

Today is July 11th 2008, and that means iPhone 3G is finally launching in Canada on Fido and Rogers. Reviews are slowly trickling in and most of it is positive, as the iPhone 3G improves upon the regular iPhone in both hardware and software deparments.

All Things Digital: “If you’ve been waiting to buy an iPhone until it dropped in price, or ran on faster cell networks, you might want to take the plunge”

Engadget: “For our money, you’re going to have a hard time finding a better device for two hundred bucks – or maybe even for any price.”

USA Today: “Still not perfect, but really close”

Guitar Hero franchise keeps expanding and has now reached the smallest screen available: your cell phone. Guitar Hero III Mobile is based on the latest console Guitar Hero III. By eschewing the plastic guitar, you have to rely on your phone’s keypad to rock. Instead of 5 frets, you have to contend with 3 only – activated by keys 1, 2 and 3. Of course there are blue glowing notes and when you hit a series of notes correct, you can collect star power.

The effort to shrink the experience to the small screen is overall succesful. The game ships with 15 songs initially, and there are 3 new downloadable songs each month. If you’re into the Guitar Hero franchise and you’d like quick fixes outside of your home (or when you don’t have a DS around), Guitar Hero III Mobile is perfect for quick diversion.

Rating: 80%

Just because iPhone is launching in just a few days doesn’t mean it will be the perfect phone for everybody. Fido has recently released Sony Ericsson’s W380a at $60 (with 3-year contract) or $300 without any contract. How does this multimedia-oriented phone fare?

CNET (6.7/10): “respectable, midrange Walkman phone that offers some nifty design touches. But there are better Walkman options out there”

There isn’t too many reviews available so far (as the W380a isn’t even offered by an American carrier)

Spot the difference is a pretty popular game that gets tiring quickly, and Crazy Spot for Windows Mobile (and Symbian) devices suffer from the same fate. Your goal is to compare 2 photos and find the 5 differences in each photo. Sometimes it is easy to see – thanks to some bad Photoshop jobs – and othertimes, they made it maddeningly difficult.

If you think spotting the difference is a game for you, you can try the demo for free, or download the PC version for no charge whatsoever. It is perfect for short burst games while you’re waiting for something (such as the bus…) but don’t expect a marathon gameplay out of this one.

[Download Crazy Spot for PC, Windows Mobile and Symbian devices]

Live Search Mobile, first released last year for Windows Mobile, BlackBerries and other phones, has now been updated that includes many new functionalities. (I first talked about it on May 31 2007.) In addition to Map, Directions and Traffic, the application can search for Movies, display local Gas Prices, search the Web, display local Weather and even get updates from other websites such as HomeThinking and Flickr. Another big improvement is the addition of voice search. By pressing "Speak" button, you can now search without typing.

Overall, the new additions improve the usefulness of the application over and beyond what Google Maps offers. Although there are plenty of websites and applications that offer weather forecast, it is a nice idea to put it all in one place. It is easy to find out gas prices in your region (especially if your phone has GPS capability since it will know exactly where you are, and then to route to the gas station).

As this is a free download, you should head over to wls.live.com on your mobile device and download Windows Mobile version as it will complement your other applications.

[Visit Live Search Mobile website for more details | Go to wls.live.com to download Live Search Mobile]

Herocraft’s game Robo has a simple concept: navigate a level and get through to the exit without getting killed by many lasers in the level. To do so, you must disrupt laser’s path using rocks and mirrors, move them or blow them up with bombs scattered throughout the level. While the premise is simple, the game is incredibly tough to beat as simply moving things around at random will not get you to the exit.

The game requires a lot of advance planning and strategy as you need to figure out how to change a laser’s path and which one to take out. Even if you think you have something figured out, you will have to try a level many times as it’s tough to anticipate every move. Robo does feature an undo button but you can only undo one move… the game would have benefited greatly from undo button that can take you all the way to the beginning of the level.

The biggest problem with this game is the difficulty spike. First 4 or 5 levels are pretty straightforward, and then you are suddenly stuck in a level where nothing you do makes sense. Often, there is only one way to get through the level, and it can take a long time and many tries if it didn’t click in your brain.

If you like a lot of strategy in your puzzle game, you will definitely enjoy Herocraft’s Robo. With 76 levels, you will get plenty of game time out of Robo. This game is available for many devices such as Windows Mobile (where I tested it) and even TomTom navigation devices at various prices (ranging from $7.77 to $15.85).

Rating: 75%

[Download trial and buy full version from Herocraft website]

As Rogers becomes the first carrier in North America to sell Nokia’s flagship N95, it is time to look at what has already been said about this super device. Nokia insists it is a computer, but we’ll settle for a pretty-smart phone.

CNET (7 out of 10): they like the fact that it is a feature packed phone, but dings it for poor standby battery life, sluggish performance and flimsy sliding mechanism.

Gizmodo: GPS and great quality 5 megapixel camera make this device stand out from the competition, but once again battery life and laggy performance are major turn-offs.

GSM Arena: they call N95 "crown of the entire Nokia portfolio" however they recommend you turn off 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS unless you want to charge the device twice a day.

Mobile Burn: this powerhouse smartphone is recommended for its amazing feature set, but they characterized the stand-by batter life as "horrible"

My-Symbian: N95 is a "great looking phone and a great performer" and suggests you go and get it.

If you want a feature-packed phone, there is no other device like it on Rogers lineup. With internal memory of 8GB, 5.0 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, 3G HSDPA network access, Bluetooth, 802.11g, and even built-in GPS will ensure your phone will have something for everyone.

Priced at $399.99 (after mail-in rebate), it is also the priciest phone available at Rogers. Only recommended for hard-core users that need everything (and more) in their phones.