#app junkie

[youbutterstudy]

The note-taking app junkie

I like collecting journals, stickers, pine cones, and more recently note taking apps. I can’t stop I have a problem.

Currently I have in my arsenal: notability, one note, notebook, good notes, simple note, Evernote, penultimate, nebo, notepad + free, moleskin, and memo. I’ll figure out which ones I want to keep and eventually delete the ones I don’t find useful

let me know if you have any questions about the first three-I’ve been using those religiously. Be safe out there//

[brihannajoi]

App Junkie Goes Old School

Junkies, the app world peaks my interest so naturally because I am a gamer at heart. Maybe this dates me, but Nintendo and Sega Genesis were popular babysitters at my house. Sega being my favorite console because it had such great games. They were challenging and looked better than any other games I had played. I especially loved the arcade turned console games where there wasn't as much skill involved as it was button mashing fun. Sega has definitely translated some of this genre to the app store and one that kept me reminiscing was Virtua Fighter 2.

Virtua Figher 2 for iPhone is a throw back to the original. You won't find too many changes here as it seems Sega's approach is to be completely classic. While I like this about the app, some may not. No elevated graphics or additional levels, just a true game to app conversion. 2D graphics, 8 classic fighter characters and 8 themed stages are what you get. It transports me to another time where I could do battle with my brothers in my living room, and win!

  The game is quick to load with Play, Options and Help buttons available on the home screen. The Help will give you instructions on how to play and control settings. Unfortunately the controls can not be changed. When beginning the fight you can play alone with a new game or continue your previous one as your progress is saved. The one new innovative feature to this app is the ability to play a multiplayer game through Bluetooth, which allows you to play against another iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch opponent.

The game is played in the classic arcade mode. The controls are a familiar directional pad and A, B and C buttons to kick, punch and block. Before your game has begun you can also configure options such as setting your enemy level at Easy, Normal or Hard. You can even change the time limits and size of the life gauge. Once the fight is set as you like you will choose your fighter. Then punch and kick your way to victory to challenge the perfect fighter, Dural. Each fighter has over 25 unique moves and if you unlock the final boss Dural, you can play him in future challenges.

Virtua Fighter 2 is definitely a fun to play button masher for the iPhone. At least with this version, it won't leave your thumbs sore! At a bargain price of $1.99 it is sure to bring back memories that are priceless. Now all you have to ask yourself is - "Do you have what it takes to become champion?"  

Rating: 4/5

  Brihanna has been a tech fanatic and computer nerd nearly all her life. When she isn’t chasing around kids or glued to her iPhone, she is updating app junkies like herself on where to find the latest go-to apps. Brihanna is the creator of the App Junkie column at The Smartphone App Review. You can also follow her on Twitter & Tumblr @brihannajoi

[brihannajoi]

Sudokulus for iPhone Review

Sudokulus for iPhone is a tool that solves Sudoku puzzles magically with the camera on your phone. And it does simply that. It is advertised to work best at solving printed puzzles on a flat surface. I tested it while looking up online Sudoku puzzles and it also worked. Just frame the puzzle in the camera viewer and hold still. The app will take a picture of the puzzle with the empty spaces filled in with the solution.

Sudokulus did work as promised, and when I plugged in the numbers, the puzzle was solved. My only problems with it were that sometimes the numbers were hard to read on the solved picture. At times I was guessing what part of number was scrawled in the small box. Also, when trying to capture the picture, it sometimes took a bit of time for the app to solve. I would hold the camera steady for several seconds and then have to restart and try again. This took a few times to get it just right. Sudokulus also works with puzzles with symbols, and not just numbers. You can also save the puzzles to your photos to view later and even email them.

Sudokulus delivers as advertised, and if you have a puzzle you just can't solve, it will definitely help. It will cost you though, a small fee of $0.99. Myself, I think I will stick to using brain power.

Rating: 2/5

   Brihanna has been a tech fanatic and computer nerd nearly all her life. When she isn’t chasing around kids or glued to her iPhone, she is updating app junkies like herself on where to find the latest go-to apps. Brihanna is the creator of the App Junkie column at The Smartphone App Review. You can also follow her on Twitter & Tumblr @brihannajoi

[brihannajoi]

Emberwind for iPhone Review

The best gaming adventures are the creative and imaginative, concepts that enlighten the gamer and absorb them into a new world. App developers have definitely taken these concepts from the gaming systems to the iOS. The newest magical platform adventure to make its appearance in the app store is Emberwind.

In Emberwind we play a little gnome watchman named Kindle Elderwood as he helps to rid the city of Grendale from the evil CandleFinger and his gremlin hordes. Along with your faithful snow owl you fly from place to place to battle the gremlins and free the villagers from their torment. Mystical owls, gnomes, gremlins, magical powers, it all aligns with main stream pop culture. The story and characters definitely attract and don't disappoint.

Originally released for PC and Mac, Emberwind is a 2-D side scrolling platformer available for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. To control our hero is a simple virtual joystick setup with jump and attack buttons. The graphics are simple and beautiful but with a throw back feel. I also love the story telling with the old dialogue boxes as the characters talk to each other. The interactivity with other characters is fun and moves the story along nicely.

  As you move through the levels Kindle must wack as many gremlins as possible and rid them completely from the homes of the townsfolk. As you progress you are able to unlock new moves, like shielding yourself under your giant gnome hat or rocketing to the sky under the same hat to reach secret places. There are also action buttons that will reveal other magical abilities when you are in certain rooms and levels. The levels can get a bit repetitive but unlocking the special moves keeps the game fresh and with new ways to destroy the gremlins and bosses. My only other complaint was that the buttons are placed a bit higher than other games I've played which did have an impact on my playing, but I eventually got used to it.

Overall, Emberwind is a fun and whimsical platform app worth adding to your device. Chillingo continues to add quality gaming to the app store and there is sure more to come. Get it now for only $0.99.

   Brihanna has been a tech fanatic and computer nerd nearly all her life. When she isn’t chasing around kids or glued to her iPhone, she is updating app junkies like herself on where to find the latest go-to apps. Brihanna is the creator of the App Junkie column at The Smartphone App Review. You can also follow her on Twitter & Tumblr @brihannajoi

[brihannajoi]

App Junkie is into Navigation

Gogo Navigator USA & CAN for iPhone By: EnGIS Communications, Inc. Price: $29.99   

Now all of us iPhone user's know that the iPhone comes equipped with a Google Maps app.Very convenient and works very well. Until... it sends you to the WRONG place! Say, the other side of town! What an inconvenience. What you have to realize is the maps aren't always updated and the app is free after all. If you are a constant traveler, a good navigation system is a must. But why carry around another clunky GPS device when you can use your phone? Well there's an app for that! Gogo Navigator USA & CAN by EnGIS Communications, Inc. is a GPS turn-by-turn navigation app for iPhone. It's fully featured, including Real 3D map with latest cutting-edge OpenGL graphics technology, turn-by-turn voice navigation, and built-in menu for custom searches and more. The menu gives you a plethora of options, enabling searching by address, look for points of interests (POI), route to contact addresses, save favorites, etc, etc... Gogo Navigator is very customizable. From changing between walking and driving modes to routing and guidance settings to language options: US English, Latin Amer. Spanish, CA. French and Korean. The list of custom options is SO long, I'm just going to list the rest of them for you here: FEATURES: • Live Traffic*

• Text-To-Speech (speaks street names)

• Real Signpost display

• Lane Guidance

• Auto re-routing

• Pedestrian Mode

• Multiple routing options; faster time, shorter distance

• Intelligent POI searching: search by phone number, Address, Category, POI name, partial word

• Ability to save and edit favorites

• Recent destinations stored

• Quick POI features (Home, Office, and Emergency POIs)

• Auto zooming (at intersection & on speed)

• Route Planning: create and save route itineraries

• Fuel cost calculator (customizable)

• Route summary for trip information

• Speed Limit warning: adjustable audio/visual warning

• Map data from Tele Atlas onboard (offline maps): covers USA, Canada, Hawaii      and Puerto Rico

• iPod Sound Control

• Automatic day/night mode

• Multiple Day and Night modes

• Multiple vehicle symbols

• Control safety alerts Whew! That's a lot of features! I must mention that the Live Traffic feature is an in-app purchase of $8.99 that can be added, though everything else comes standard with the app. Gogo has over 12 years of navigation and digital mapping experience and is updated regularly for free. Considering other GPS units require subscriptions, this is a great asset. It is a bit pricey at $29.99 in the app store and will take up quite a bit of space at 1.83 GB. Even so, compared to a separate GPS unit plus subscription services, this is a steal. I would also recommend the Live Traffic feature, even at its added price point mostly because it would optimize the routing options and save time by working around the traffic. For those who travel, time is priceless.

My only criticism would be that it is a bit overwhelming. The options are fantastic, but it takes getting used to figuring out where everything is, and what everything does. Though once set up to your preference, it works flawlessly. I used it on several trips and was very happy with the amount of time it gave for warnings on upcoming turns and changes. I was also very impressed with the speed limit warnings as I drove. I also used the POI option to locate a nearby gas station. The map was very accurate and I had no issues with my routes. Gogo Navigator USA & CAN is a great find and very reasonably priced for the many advantages it brings. Rating: 4/5

                                  You can also find me at thesmartphoneappreview.com and thenoobnews.com

[brihannajoi]

CloudAlbums for iPhone Review

CloudAlbums for iPhone By: IdeaSolutions S.r.l. Price: FREE

CloudAlbums is a cloud based photo sharing application from IdeaSolutions S.r.l. Through the help of a Dropbox account, you can organize, upload, sync and share your photos right from your phone. First off, connect your Dropbox account or create a new one within the app. Once you have logged in with your account you can begin a new album. You can name the album whatever you want and then select photos from your phone to add. One really great feature is that you can also select pictures straight from your Facebook photos from the app! The phone will automatically upload the photos you have selected for the album and sync them to Dropbox. You can add a maximum of 50 photos per album all using the free 2 Gb of Dropbox storage. Once uploaded you can invite people to come and view the photos through a web browser, Mac or PC, or using the CloudAlbums app. The app creates web pages to share your photos with everyone. Using the MagicMail feature you can email the link to as many friends as you like. The email will have a link for the user to sync the photos to their own app or view it via internet browser. You can also share entire albums to Facebook and Twitter.  If you ever want to unshare your album, simply select the photos or albums and delete them. They will automatically be deleted from your synced folders and those of you've shared with friends.

With a free account you are able to create only one album, but without limits on uploadable pics. If you want to create more albums you can upgrade through the in app purchase. For $0.99 you can add Facebook photos import, and for $1.99 you can add unlimited albums to your account. CloudAlbums is an excellent free app for photo sharing, backup and management. It syncs to Dropbox flawlessly and when uploading photos, I found it to work very quickly.  To find out more check out their video on www.cloudalbums.it Rating: 5/5  

You can also find me at thesmartphoneappreview.com and thenoobnews.com

[brihannajoi]

Securis for iPhone Review

Securis for iPhone By: PRNDL Development Studios, LLC Price: $4.99 Securis is a password manager and wallet application for iPhone. It begins with a simple interface with three main features. The first feature from Securis is the Passcode Generator. This allows you to choose a password length, up to 32 characters, and check boxes that will add uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. After you select your options and hit the Generate button, a custom passcode will be created. They are promised to be military-grade, 256-bit AES encryption. Pretty handy for creating very secure and randomized codes. The second feature allows you to store personal accounts, whether it be bank accounts, credit cards or just contact information. You can copy, sms, print, bluetooth share or email account information and even backup through iTunes or Dropbox. This gives you access to all your most pertinent information all in one place. And of course you can set a passcode to access these accounts in the settings. The third and final feature is a secure web browser that keeps your browsing history private from prying eyes.

All these features were easy to setup and worked flawlessly. The browser was quick and worked as well as Safari. It would definitely be an advantage to for a business or individual to have an application like this for all secure information. Better yet the sync and backup allow for it to not be lost if the app gets deleted. Securis is priced a bit higher than other security apps at the price of $4.99. But if security is an issue you are concerned with, Securis could definitely give you a lot of piece of mind. Rating: 4/5  You can also find me at thesmartphoneappreview.com and thenoobnews.com 

[brihannajoi]

App Junkie Joins Google+

Google+ for iPhone By: Google Price: FREE!

In case you have been living under a rock, Google's new social media venture Google+ came upon the internet scene last month, launching with an invite only member program. It's been the buzz of the social media community and the hype is good. All it needed to seal the deal was an app. Well Tuesday, it came to iOS. Google+ for mobile is the compliment to it's web counterpart. The design is very uniform, sticking to the Google color scheme on a white background. The new black bar is also present, as a notification bar. This bar is on the home page along with the Stream, Huddle, Photos, Profile and Circles options. Simply choose an icon to take you to the option. The Stream is much like the familiar Facebook news feed, consisting of all the updates from your Circles. Swiping right or left gives you two more options, Nearby and Incoming Messages. Nearby displays updates and check-ins near your location and Incoming Messages will store exactly that. The newest and most talked about inventions of Google+ is its organization feature Circles and messaging system Huddle. Circles allow you to assign people you add to categories, making your updates available to only those circles you choose. What is so revolutionary about this is that it essentially brings the formats of Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr all in one. There is no restriction on characters for posts, and by giving the user the power to choose who sees it makes the message into whatever that user wants it to be, whether personal message, or blog post. Categories given are; Acquaintances, Family, Following and Friends. Circles can also be added and renamed to the user's specifications. The Huddle is a new way to text groups of people and individuals. When a new message is received in Huddle, a push notification is sent to your phone. It is definitely a big improvement on the chat services of the past and I love how you can message a group of people at one time. You can also access your Profile from the home screen, but this will just show you how your profile is displayed to everyone else. You can't change your profile information from the mobile app as of yet. The one thing that is missing from the app that is included on the web is the Hangout feature which allows you to use live video chat with your friends in one room. Not sure if we will see this added in the future. So to sum it all up, Google+ has a lot of things going for it, and the app compliments what is already there perfectly. It is super simple, which is just as it needs to be. Will it take over the popular social media empire? Only time will tell. But one thing is for sure, having access to your network of choice on the go is essential, and a well working app is a step in the right direction. (Hint, hint, Facebook...). Only one suggestion for now, share button please? Google+ app plus iPhone user equals one great experience.

Rating: 4/5

You can also find me at: thenoobnews.com thesmartphoneappreview.com