iphone – Page 2 – Tiana Feng

Life on the A List

January 2, 2015iOS, Technology, Video Games1 Comment

A few months ago as a social experiment (fine I sort of wanted to play it), I downloaded Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. The beginning of the game was fast moving. There were tons of things to tap on. I worked in a clothing store, bought a house, bought furniture, dated boys and then Kim Kardashian started invited me to parties in different cities. After a few hours of play, it started to get a lot slower and my energy bar needed to be refilled. Obviously, I didn’t play to pay the game. But I wanted to know if it was possible to get on the A-list without spending money.

Energy refilled every few minutes. However, without premium money I couldn’t do things like make connections with people at bars or pursue a serious relationship. People didn’t seem to want to talk to you very much unless you had money. This resulted in the A-list being a bit harder to reach. Some fancy clothes also cost premium dollars. I decided to pursue the game wearing things that I would actually wear in real life. After a few weeks, I did make the A-list and quit shortly after.

I don’t know what lessons were to be gained from all this. Be yourself? Or probably, don’t waste money on pretend things in a superficial game.

I Won 2048

April 19, 2014Entertainment, iOS, Technology, Video GamesLeave a Comment

I was late to the 2048 train. I only got the game last week and I finally beat it yesterday. I feel strangely accomplished.

In playing it a couple hundred times, I realized there is sort of a strategy to it, even if I didn’t exactly figure out where the “2s” spawn. Towards the end, I came close to winning many times and then finally did so by keeping these things in mind:

Stack numbers. Start by pressing left or right until you can’t, then go the other direction.
Don’t go down. When you have enough stacked, go up. Don’t go down. Going down leads to death. Alternatively you can only go down and avoid going up.
Get rid of 2s in the top corner ASAP. Turn the 2’s into a higher number ASAP so you don’t get stuck.
Careful with 2s and 4s beside each other. Think carefully when this happens and get unstuck or this usually leads to death.
Remember to feed yourself when you get addicted to playing the game.

I Cut All The Ropes

November 21, 2012March 10, 2013iOS, Technology, Video GamesLeave a Comment

I spent a lot of time commuting lately and short-level games have been great for the ride. I finally I beat Chillingo’s Cut the Rope. I’ve had the game on my iPad for quite some time but I recently restarted it on my iPhone and within a month of commuting finally finished the game.

If you live in a box, Cut the Rope is a cute little physics game where you literally cut rope, avoid traps or use things to your advantage in order to get the candy to the cute little dinosaur. The game is only 99 cents in the iTunes app store and has over 300 levels.

Levels are arranged in “boxes” and each box has a certain type of theme that determines the types of traps in the level. Like angry birds you can gain up to 3 stars per level. I’ll be honest and say I didn’t get 3 stars for all the levels (and I think if I did that for every game it would take forever).

It’s definitely worth the money with the amount of levels and the promise of more to come.

An iPhone Without 3G Is Like Popcorn Without Butter

August 7, 2012August 7, 2012iOS, Life, TechnologyLeave a Comment

willitblend — Without 3G you might as well blend it.

I went over my 1GB data plan today. I decided to turn my phone off instead of incurring any more fees. I’ve only had a smartphone since Christmas but I already feel like a cripple without it’s data-eating ways. Having an iPhone without 3G is as pointless as popcorn without butter.

Here are some things you can’t do without 3G:

iMessage: By default, iPhones running iOS 5 and higher send iMessages. I couldn’t receive messages from any one with an iPhone or send any without manually clicking “send as SMS” first. In addition, without data you can’t sent people pictures of your dog.

Social Networking: Can’t tweet, Facebook, Pinterest, Chime.in, Tumblr or Foursquare what I’m eating.

Find Out Where I am: I had to go pick something up in an area I’m not so familiar with. I took a streetcar, but didn’t get off on time. I even turned on my 3G (getting lost seems like a valid reason to). However, the service must disable itself after you too much over your data plan, because it would not work. I was stranded and had to ask Nash where exactly I was in relation to where I wanted to go.

Without internet to distract you, here are things you end up doing:

Looking at people on the bus: Since my head is not down and immersed in some sort of social network, I have to focus my eyes somewhere. Looking out the window resulted in a lot of sand in my eyes so I started looking around inside the bus. There’s a ton of funny looking people in the world.

Reading other people’s things: I ended up accidentally reading part of someone’s erotic novel.

Listening to brown people talk in circles: “you know?” They seemed to be having something delicious for dinner though.

Thinking to yourself: Sometimes I write blog posts while I’m on the train, but today I thought this one up in my head.

Thank goodness my cellphone billing period restarts tomorrow. One day of this nonsense was enough.

Uber Cool Taxi Service

July 30, 2012iOS, Technology1 Comment

In the past, whenever I hailed a cab in Toronto, I would be constantly rejected for not going a far enough distance. For example, none would take me from Sound Academy (most inconvenient location ever) to Union Station. However, recently I decided to try the new Uber Taxi service and I think it may solve all my taxi problems.

The service operates with a smartphone app. It pinpoints your locations as well as how far away the closest cars are. Once you hit the big green button you get a text and a cab instantly heads to you and your phone keeps track of it’s location. They’ll call you once they are outside. The cars are black and sleek and makes me feel like I have a million dollars. There are two types of cars you can choose from; a normal black car and an SUV.

Another neat feature about Uber Taxi service is the payment is done through the app with a credit card. There is no worry about having cash at hand, and they don’t need to know how much you tip. The service fee (of $8) is a little bit more than the normal $4 you pay to get in regular cabs, but at the end of the ride you don’t have to add tip (and there’s no option to even if you wanted). There is a minimum charge of $15, but at least that means they will take you anywhere no matter the distance.

I love that Uber has considered business through an app. It’s innovated and smart, and I’ll definitely be riding them again! It’s still in testing in Toronto but the other cab companies can learn a thing or two from their business model.

I’m A Fruit Ninja Black Belt

June 29, 2012iOS, Technology, Video GamesLeave a Comment

When Fruit Ninja first came out, I thought it was pretty stupid. Then I got it on my iPhone and I liked how I could play quick games when I was waiting for the train.

If you don’t know, it’s a game where you simply slice the fruit that is popping up on the screen. Arcade and classic mode has bombs that either lower your score or kill you. Zen mode you just slice to a timer. It’s pretty simple. There are also bonus fruit that can be bought that raise your score.

The game would have probably been not as interesting if it weren’t for the Dojo. It is where the “unlockables” were listed. They were mainly for aesthetic values, such as different designs of blades and backgrounds but a goal is a goal and I finally unlocked them all.

Unless you care about raising your score, the game doesn’t really have too much replay value. So off in the vault of beaten games it goes.

Angry Birds in Space is So Much Better

June 8, 2012June 8, 2012iOS, Technology, Video GamesLeave a Comment

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!

Things I Learned From Being Just Mobile

June 2, 2012iOS, Life, TechnologyLeave a Comment

My period of computerlessness only lasted for mere few days. I didn’t expect Dell to ship my laptop back so quick and in tip top shape. I survived the past few days with my iPad and iPhone and blogged occasionally from work when it wasn’t too busy. I was surprised how efficient I was at music blogging when I had a limited time frame to do it.
In addition I also realized the following:
– I had to cut my nails so I could type on a screen
– I don’t have anything that can read SD cards
– texting has made me a better typer on my phone than my iPad
– I alwaysforget to hit space onthe iPad
– Google + is actually really pretty
– nights seem darker without a laptop’s eerie glow

Just Mobile

May 29, 2012May 29, 201230 Day Challenge, Inspiration, iOS, Life, TechnologyLeave a Comment

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.

This post was written on an iPad.

Do I Still Use Siri?

April 12, 2012iOS, Technology3 Comments

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”.

iphone4srunning — 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.