It’s been a while since I have beaten an iOS game. But now that I commute (A LOT), I have a few on my phone to amuse myself during down times. The majority of my iOS gaming still happens on the iPad that I don’t really carry around with me any more. Angry Birds I’ve never actually beat yet. I think I got stuck and gave up. However, Angry Birds In Space, adds a whole new level of complexity, gravity. The whole premise is there are planets and their orbits can suck you around in a loop and you must use this to your advantage. Some of the birds are the same as in previous games, but a few have changed.
The addition of gravity gives the game a whole different feel. You’d think winning a level was a fluke before? Well, you never know where on earth the orbit will swing you sometimes. The only thing I didn’t like about this new game was that harder levels had to be purchased for another 99 cents.. so for now I am going to cross this game off as beaten!
I am sending my laptop in for a makeover. Although I do have a decrepit backup laptop, I am going to challenge myself to live on just mobile devices for as long as Ursula is still in the shop. Yes, my laptop has a name.
Perhaps this is what the future will be like. I don’t think there is anything my laptop can do that I can’t find a way for one of my devices to. I have a first generation iPad and an iPhone 4S. One day in the not-to-distant future it will only get easier. The biggest challenge will be maintaining my script heavy music blog.
As long as I can blog, all will be merry. I will keep you updated on the journey.
The 4S was my first iPhone and like everyone else I was captivated by Siri. Like everyone else, the first thing I did was ask it arbitrary questions.
What are you wearing?
What is the meaning of life
I soon realized that there were limitations to what Siri can do and that the commercials were overly glamorized. Here in Canada location services are unavailable, meaning we can’t even ask where the nearest restaurant is. Nor set location-based reminders.
So, what do I use Siri for?
I’ll tell you that I definitely don’t use it for texting. My message always comes out gibberish and nonsensical. You know how in the Siri commercial the guy is running and telling his iPhone to text a message? That’s impossible. Have you ever tried to clearly say a sentence while running? I don’t have an accent,(at least I’m pretty sure I don’t) but it can’t get my message right when I’m sitting still. To make matters worse, my boyfriend’s name is Nash which always comes out as “mash”. He is doing the impossible
As a tech nerd, I decided to expand the capabilities by jailbreaking my phone and adding a little tweak called AssistantExtensions. It allowed me to do many things like tweet from my phone. However, for the same reasons as messaging, I don’t use it to tweet. You also can’t edit tweets, so whatever drunken gibberish was typed would send to all your followers.
So, do I still use Siri?
Yes, I do. I use it to set reminders, alarms and timers, mainly because I haven’t actually figured out how to set them manually yet. I also ask for the weather when I’m lazy to google and let it call people when I don’t want to sift through the phone book. However, it doesn’t always reach the right person, resulting in some really awkward phone calls.
Lastly, I use it to open programs. It’s one of the hacked tweaks but it’s quite useful since I managed all my apps into folders and sometimes can’t remember where I put them. If I yell “OPEN FACEBOOK!”, it will do just that. I won’t however do this in public. After all, I still think Bluetooth people look crazy, and I haven’t seen anybody yell at their 4S’s just yet.
If you don’t know already, Draw Something is the new mobile game sensation. It’s basically a set of Pictionary that you can play with your friends who have Apple and Android devices. I have been playing it for a couple of weeks now and through observation I have realized and learnt many things.
Celebrities are really hard to draw. I try my hardest not to use words when I am drawing clues. I think it’s cheating. However, when you get hit with a celebrity, it can become hard. This is Drake, boyfriend didn't get it.Name the first generic blonde person you can think of!
People draw people that look like themselves. Whenever the drawing requires the use of a person to describe something, they always seem to look like the person who drew the picture. I’m guilty of this too. My people always look like the doodles of me that I do on My Life In Drawings. Other people do this too though. My friends who have blonde hair draw blonde people. Those that have curly hair draw curly haired people. Even if it takes an extra step to do these things. Guess the hair colour of the person that drew this.
It can be used as a genius marketing plan. Companies should insert their names into this game. Subliminal advertising after all. And hey, if your logo isn’t recognizable for anybody to want to draw it, maybe you should do something about that.
It has been a while since I beat an iOS game on my iPad but I started to look for short ones I could play on my iPhone when I had short periods of free time. Puzzlejuice is my most recently finished. It’s a hybrid mix of Boggle and Tetris requiring you to be constantly thinking of two things at once.
There are goals to achieve that unlock certain powerups that can be used in each game:
It’s been a while since I’ve beaten and posted about an iOS game. I end up getting way too excited over games and download WAY too many of them. I’m slowly getting through the ones I currently have before I get any more. One game I have finished was Space Invaders Infinity Gene which is available in the iTunes store for $4.99. It’s well worth the money as it has some amazing replay value even when it’s been beaten.
look my notification has a nyan cat!I finished the Steve Jobs biography the other night. It was a very insightful read on both his mind and his influence on the product world. He was so obsessive-compulsive in controlling the entire user experience: from the packaging, the stores, the physical product and the software. Immediately upon finishing the book, for some reason I jailbroke and tweaked my iPhone 4S.
I have developed a recent addiction for buying things that look like other things. The most being this compact mirror that looks like a replica of an iPhone.
If you’re a notebook addict like me, you might be interested in some of the options available for the iPad. My favourite is Awesome Note by Bridsworks. It goes for $4.99 in the iTunes App Store, but it’s worth every penny.
There are a bunch of free options for notebooks available in the app store but the functions on this one aren’t really comparable. I love the colourful folders and themes available for each page. They are also constantly updating it with more features. There are different types of notes where you can add photos, text, send to friends, add links. There is a calendar where you can keep track of when you wrote what, or did what. And if you don’t want someone to read something, you can add a password-locked diary. It’s a fully functioning notebook that can probably replace all the notebooks a notebook addict has at home.
I have a ton of apps like App Shopper that notify me when there’s new free apps available. One of the one’s I got through this was Cleopatra’s Pyramid. The game, though free, actually does eventually come at a price, but you don’t realize this until you have played through some levels.
Tiana Feng 