Monthly Archives: March 2011

AppStart for iPad

This is one of those apps that I really want to like. It’s content is useful (mini app reviews), it provides useful curation (best of apps in categories) and I tend to agree with the app picks. Unfortunately, the app crashes a lot and it’s navigation is a bit too sensitive. I find myself thrown pages I didn’t intend to go to or, worse, sent to the App Store with its relatively long startup time. I uninstalled it for now but will revisit it sometime in the future.

Comic Book News HD for iPad

Comic Book News HD for iPad is a featured app in the iTunes App Store this week. So, I decided to take a look at it. The app provides brief summaries of new comic books from most of the major publishers. One big hole in list is DC (Superman, Batman, etc.).

The app crashed when trying to select a publisher the first few times I used the app. However, it eventually let me choose publisher categories without crashing. Bringing content down from the net takes a long time for every action. I found the app was too slow overall for me and uninstalled it.

Tower Madness HD: Interesting But Not my Cup of Tea

Tower Madness HD for the iPad is a free tower defense type game. The object is to place weapons in the path of the invading aliens to protect the sheep (sheep?). My problem with it is too difficult at the very first level. It seems to want to force you to make an in-app purchase (using real money) to buy better weapons.

Addictive games tend to be easy in the beginning to let your learn the rules and draw you in. Addictive games also provide enough interactivity to keep you interested and engaged. Tower Madness HD simply runs on automatic pilot for wave after wave after wave of invading aliens after you place the weapons on the playing field. I’m surprised it made it so high up the iTunes iPad free apps list (it is currently #4). I’m uninstalling it from my iPad. Next!

NHK World Radio Japan English Language Podcast Available (2011.03.13)

While looking for Japan news sources, I noticed that NHK (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai – Japan Broadcasting Corporation) began providing an english language podcast starting today (March 13, 2011). You can find it here on iTunes.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/nw-english-news-nhk-world/id141016660

NHK also has a free iPhone app (NHK World TV Live) that provides streaming video of their english language TV news broadcasts. You can find this app here:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nhk-world-tv-live/id350732480?mt=8