Notacious- App In Focus

Notacious for iPhone ($0.99) by lepidu development is a simple note taking app for your iPhone with online syncing capabilities.

Notacious requires an account to use, much like my personal favorite, Simplenote. Creating an account is fast and easy, and best of all, is free to use. From the login screen to account creation and others, you can tell that there was a lot of thought put into the design of Notacious to make it look great.

Once you create your account and log in, you’ll be greeted with a default “Welcome” note. This note will give you a basic guide of using the app.

The notes listing is the main screen of the app and allows you to view the note title, when it was last edited, and the first line of the body text.

Creating a note is very simple. From the note listing screen, tap that + button to create a new note. A title can be entered for easy organization and reference later. Then simply tap the text area beneath to start typing out your note. The interface is clean and pleasing on the eyes. When you’re done, a tap of the Save button will save all changes and take you back to the note listing.

Be careful to hit the Back button before saving changes. There will be a prompt that will ask you if you want to discard all changes – if you tap Yes, all progress will be lost. If you tap No, you’ll remain on the editing screen until you hit the Save button.

If you view a note, you’ll have a couple of options at the bottom. The ‘i’ will pull up Information about the note, which will only show when it was created and when it was last edited. The button that resembles a “download” icon will allow you to copy all the body text of the note to your iPhone’s clipboard. This way, you can share your note by email or whatever other methods you prefer. The trash can, of course, deletes the note, but not without another prompt to prevent accidents.

Notacious has a few tweaks that the user can change in the app settings, accessible from the main screen. The Readability settings are probably the one you’ll want to try first, because this is where you can customize the app’s editing interface to your own liking. Choose from five fonts, three text sizes, and three text colors. I’m usually a Helvetica kind of girl, but I’ve taken quite a liking to the “Noteworthy” font, especially in dark grey. There’s also a Reset Cache option if you need it.

The biggest thing you’ll probably notice in the Settings is the Account Type at the top. Notacious has two account options – free and premium. The premium version allows the user to lock notes and share them (instead of copying the text). Currently, these are the only additional features of a Premium Notacious account, but the developers have more planned for the future.

This Premium account costs only $2.99 and is a one-time purchase from within the app. Once you get Premium, that’s it – it’s not a recurring annual subscription fee like Simplenote. However, if you try to get a Premium upgrade from the web app at notacio.us, it seems that the price of a premium account is $5.99 there, for whatever reason. If you want to save a few bucks, then get the upgrade from the iPhone app.

While I’m digging the interface of Notacious, I’m finding the saving method a bit cumbersome. The app does not seem to automatically save changes in timed intervals, and you have to watch the app finish saving changes before you can do anything else. I would much prefer if the app can save automatically or not lock me out of anything else when saving changes.

I would also like to think that the ‘i’ option on a note should include something like word and character count, because that may be more useful to me than just knowing when a note was created or last modified. I’m also not sure why but it seems that the text that serves as a preview of a note gets cut off randomly, making it look awkward. I’m sure it’s dependent on the first few words of a note, but still, it bugs me seeing something like “We’d like to take th” instead of the complete words with a “…” at the end if there’s more text.

One more thing that the app is missing – landscape. So if you prefer that long horizontal keyboard for your note taking on your iPhone or iPod Touch, then you’ll want to hold off for now.

While the app is pretty good overall, I can’t see myself replacing Simplenote with this just yet, even though the premium upgrade is cheaper. All your notes are only stored on Notacious’ own servers, with no option for something like Dropbox, which is an option for premium Simplenote subscribers. I also can’t use Notacious as a replacement unless there’s an API for it like Simplenote for use with desktop applications, such as Notational Velocity.

It’s a good app, but still has a way to go before I can replace Simplenote with it. However, it seems the developers have plans for an iPad and Mac version, so I’ll play the waiting game.

You should still check it out though, since it could be great for those that don’t already use Simplenote.

Get Unlimited Storage And Unlimited Access Right On Your iDevice (By AppAdvice)

Wouldn’t it be great if you could have unlimited storage on your iDevice and access it from anywhere? Well with the help of some hardware and software this dream can become a reality.

PopCap Games Releases The iOS Port Of The Classic Arcade Puzzler Candy Train

PopCap Games has re-released the old-time classic, Candy Train, into a native iOS app. Candy Train is a simple to play but difficult to master puzzle game. A locomotive makes its way throughout the gameplay area picking up candy that becomes the railroad cars on an endless track you need to create. You don’t recreate the track from scratch, rather put it together properly by tapping on the railway sections to rotate them.

There are a few “gotchas” to pay attention to. The train slowly speeds up as time progresses and the candy will vanish sooner or later. Those aren’t the most devastating factors. The track sections eventually change on their own and track components aren’t guaranteed to connect to one another. So, keep alert and plan ahead.

Once you finally get the hang of it, you should be able to make your train complete — meaning a caboose. After collecting the caboose, a train station will appear. Get to the train station to unload your cars and move onto the next level. If you feel really cocky, there’s an Expert mode for overachievers.

As mentioned earlier, Candy Train is the second title from 4th and Battery, “the experimental sandbox of a label within PopCap, in which we present smaller, less polished, and sometimes weirder games than you would normally expect from us.” While maybe not polished, I didn’t notice anything to gripe about, and certainly not for the game’s price of free.

Candy Train is a universal app compatible with iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch running iOS 3.2 or later, and available as a free download in the App Store now.

Collision Effect-App in Focus (iPhone)

Collision Effect puts you in control of a particle collider. Various colored particles float on screen, and the particles always come in groups. You tap a particle to attract the same colored particles to the one you tapped. If different colored particles touch, you lose instantly, and you only are allowed one mistake per game. The price of this game in the App Store is $0.99


Video Over-view:

The Breakdown:

Collision Effect is very high risk, because you can lose with just one wrong move. As soon as you tap a particle, the similar particles take a straight line to the one you tapped. This mechanic requires you to think about which particular particle to tap for the others not to run into anything. To make things more challenging, you need to make split second decisions because of the rapid pace of the game.

Particles are flying around the screen, and it is extremely hectic managing all the particles. Due to the tremendous action on screen, you really need well-made controls. Luckily, a single tap mechanic is the perfect control scheme to manage all the action. Collision Effect is similar to GeoSpark, but GeoSpark uses a line drawing mechanic. The tapping controls are essential for the fast paced nature of Collision Effect.

To challenge yourself more and rack up the points, you can make combos. When you cause collisions at the same time, you get a combo, but the timing has to be practically instantaneous. There are power-ups as well that are a definite joy to see once you’re overrun by particles.

The three difficulties in action mode are substantially different and add variation. The addition of a puzzle mode also offers a lot of bang for your buck. The particle engine is extremely well done with shiny trails left behind each particle. The black screen is soon overloaded with colors, and it’s a great sight to see.

Collision Effect ($0.99, Universal) is a perfect game for fans of hectic action. The game gets your adrenaline pumping with the speed of the particles and the combos. There is a surprising amount of replay because the game keeps you hooked to play one more time to better your last score.

Collision Effect is a should buy for only $1 and is a definite adrenaline rush.

Call of Duty: Zombies- App in Focus (iPhone)

The grisly surprise extra that originally appeared in Treyarch’s console shooter Call Of Duty: World At War shuffles onto iPhone and iPod touch. Stranded alone in an abandoned, derelict house circa World War II, your character awakes alone to find himself surrounded by ravenous zombified Nazis. What’s a man to do?

Beat them back with whatever you can grab, is the answer. The gameplay and scoring system are near identical to the console version, with zombies attacking the player’s hideout in waves, tearing down barriers and breaking through walls in their quest for brains.

Blasting zombies and rebuilding barricades gives you points which can then be spent on unlocking new areas and new weapons once the old ones start running low on ammo. The third and most risky way to blow through zombie points is at the Mystery Box – a crate hidden in each level which, for a fee, will dish you out a random weapon – at best a coveted heavy machine gun, at worst a slow-firing peashooter.

Small changes have been made to facilitate the transfer to iPhone and iPod Touch. The game now uses an auto-lock-on feature to make dealing with multiple zombies more manageable, and repairing the barricades is now a one-touch action, rather than having to hold a button for several seconds. There are three different control schemes to choose from too, and, winningly, multiplayer over WiFi.

Since COD Zombies first appeared – priced handsomely at £5.99 – the game has slashed its price down to three quid, making it much more appealing. With five maps ported from the original console version, it’s a strong contender for best shooter on the iPhone.

Buy this app: Call of Duty: Zombies for iPhone