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VINE

See and share life’s greatest moments in motion – More like spend hours of your day laughing at your phone and gasping at ridiculous videos!

Since its debut on the app store in January 2013 vine has become a phenomenon in the world of social media, by April 2013 it had become the most downloaded app on the app store and has been at number one many times.

If you don’t know what vine is by now, then you’ve either just come out of a coma or come out from living under a rock. Where have you been for the past year? Do you realise how much you’re missing in your life?

Vine is a free app owned by twitter which lets users make videos for six seconds on a loop and can be shared to social network sites.

I love vine, it has to be one of the best and most used apps on my phone, whether I’m on a train or up at 5am with insomnia I always use vine to fill my boredom. Vine is basically a mixture of Instagram and twitter but a video version. When you first sign up you can either sign in with twitter or you can create a new account using an email address. Now the fun begins!

So by now you have your account set up you might as well quit your job, get a divorce or drop out of university and college because vine will seriously take over your life – it did mine! Vine recently updated the app and has made it much more user friendly so don’t worry if you don’t know what you’re doing it’s pretty easy. With the recent update came brand new settings, I’m loving the fact that you can now make your profile private – “ain’t nobody got time” for people seeing you’re private things! You can now also select from a range of different colours which makes your profile feel a lot more personal now! 

The thing I love the most with the new update has got to be the messaging option, you can now send video messages to your friends and to vine users! It’s cool because unlike twitter you never really get to emote how you feel when about your favourite celebrity (cue crying 15 year old girls over Justin Bieber) and with a lot of celebrities jumping on the vine hype, you can now send them a video message telling them how much you love them. Think about it. They can actually see you. Well you and 5 million other followers! Not just that, you can video message your friends or send them funny videos a lot easier now. It’s really easy to share with Facebook and twitter as well so any video you make or like it’s now easy to upload to twitter and Facebook with a couple of taps.

So let’s say you want to record a video click the record button and hold the screen to record, if you want to pause – let go of the screen. Simple.

I say simple because Vine’s new update has made it even more easier to create videos! There are new buttons on the record screen like the grid button to help frame the shot and a focus button so you can easily pinpoint objects you’re filming and lock the focus on them. However you can only use the focus on the front facing camera, so all you video “selfie” lovers will have to do without manual focus!  My favourite feature is the “save the clip” button which lets you store the video to come back to later on! For all you people that like to make stop motion videos, you can now select the ghost button which essentially leaves a “ghost” of your last frame so you can line up the next shot from the old one.

However, if you’re like me and severely camera shy *Hah! Get it?* you can just click the explore button from the options and search from hundreds and thousands of videos!

Confused on what to watch - You’re in luck! The new update has added the option of selecting any topic you like from comedy, art and experimental, cats, dogs, family, beauty and fashion, food, health and fitness, nature, music, news and politics, special effects, sports, urban and weird. I usually find comedy to be the best sort of entertainment with the “Vine Celebrities” Britney Furlan and her sketches, Nash Greir and his boyish charm and pranks, Kingbach with his ghetto humour or Jerrome Jarre with his “selfies with strangers” pranks. However if you’re a cat lover (no I’m not judging you) or love special effects then click those options!

If like me you’re just bored and want something to watch you have are “popular now” and “on the rise” which are usually your best source if you want a random selection of videos that are popular or are trending. However if you’re looking for a specific type of video you have the search bar to type in certain hashtags like “selfie” or “prank” to get you what you want.

One of the let downs with Vine is that you can’t add your own videos like you can with Instagram, so if you didn’t use vine and want to share a random moment you caught by accident on your camera, you can’t, unless you record it through the vine app you can’t upload it. I’d like to see an update where that feature is added in because with vine becoming so big it stupid that feature isn’t included? Perhaps you can - and I just haven’t figured it out yet? If anyone reading this knows how to do that, write a comment below or on our Twitter/Facebook pages and let us know!

Another thing that I find a little frustrating is “re-vines” – like twitter and its retweets and with the rise of vine celebrities all the people you love to watch have now started to “re-vine” either adverts or other “viners” that they’re trying to promote. It’s not too bad on twitter because you can scroll easily past a status but with videos they take up the whole screen and then my home page is full of videos of things I have no interest in? Ideally I would like it if there was an option to watch all the people you follow by uploaded videos only not “re-vines” so that way all the things you don’t want to see don’t come up and you could watch just the videos made by them– however that’s just wishful thinking and I’m just being fussy!

Overall I’d say it’s the holy grail of video sharing – but then, perhaps that’s just me! I give it 4 Taps! I love the app but it missed out on 5 taps because of its inability to allow camera videos to be uploaded and with annoying “revine” button – I might regret that if things are changed when it updates again but for now I stand by 4!

Go check it out on the app store! Get back to us and let us know what you like about the new update and if you’re new to vine let us know how you’re finding it!

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DISCOZOO

Ever dreamed of having a zoo in which you could have 16 hippo’s, 8 rabbits, 12 lions and 5 griffins, just for good measure?

Well your dreams are about to become reality.

NimbleBit makers of, “Tiny Tower” (Free) and “Nimble Quest” (Free) many other stellar IOS originals, have teamed up with MilkBag games to create “Disco Zoo” in which you can realise your dreams of owning a zoo with dozens of animals to entertain your tiny audience. (this pun will be relevant to fans of Tiny Tower)

  The game has a simple mechanic in the fact that all that needs to be done to capture more animals for the zoo is to play a quick match 3 style mini game. This is initiated by visiting your zoo’s Heliport and using the modes of transportation you have unlocked to take you to where the animals lay waiting.

Whether it is a hot air balloon ride to a farm or a helicopter ride to the Savannah, there are in total 7 areas to unlock each holding a collection of different animals. 

The more animals you find for your zoo, the more areas you can visit to unlock even more animals.

and within each area is a “legendary” animal to find which make it even more exciting when you come across one in the field and carefully remove tiles to locate the beast, making it an incredibly satisfying when you see your legendary animal mooching about in its pen back at the zoo. 

The game is free, but don't be quick to label it “Freemium” or class it in with may other of the money snatching titles that crowd the App store.

Much like NimbleBit’s other titles, the player is never pushed or forced into turning on the money hose and wasting money on pointless timers, or those special golden coins that we need to unlock

the next area, with DiscoZoo, I never felt the need to spend money, I can play the game and unlock all the content without spending anything, and that is what is perhaps best with NimbleBit’s games is that if you can choose to support the developer with money or not, either way NimbleBit have created a full game for free with high amounts of polish and charm.

The only problem I have with DiscoZoo is that, with all that I have talked about, that is the length of its depth, you match tiles to find animals to bring back to your zoo, to unlock more areas, with more

animals, and this cycle continues until you have unlocked all areas and then there is nothing more but to look at your animals, swiping through the different habitats waking them up so they earn more coins for you. (which by the way, the only reason to spend coins is to again go to the areas in which you capture animals.)

It is, in a way, an extremely shallow game with not a lot to offer, but I cant shake the feeling that more is to come, and I can see a high amount of potential. It isn't hard to imagine more areas with more animals being added later down the line, or even a store with items to customise your zoo.

If your looking for a simple, free game that contains tons of cute charm and personality, with easy mechanics, not to mention the joy of seeing a collection of rabbits, crocodiles or even unicorns, bounce and fly around their tiny homes, then DiscoZoo comes highly recommended, its a good distraction.

Even if that distraction starts to way thin after a short while. 

3 (Based purely on the content at launch with a definite chance of an increased score if more is added later in any future updates)!

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GTA 3

It’s here.

The game that altered an industry and pushed it into new boundaries of narrative possibilities and gameplay mechanics. With a strong influence from popular culture and the state of society Grand Theft Auto 3 challenged numerous stereotypes outside of the video game industry and touched on real life issues. A satire for and of the modern age.

There have obviously been previous incarnations of the grand theft auto series and while they themselves are fundamental games, it was Grand Theft Auto 3 that started a new era for the series, and even the gaming industry.

Being the first 3D entry in the series, GTA3 had a lot of expectation and pressure riding upon its release, but when it was initially released on the PlayStation 2 back in October 2001 all that expectation was realised, much praise was had, and much controversy was sparked, but GTA 3 was cemented as a pillar for a new modern culture and its influence is still going strong, 10 years on. (Initially being released for its 10th anniversary on December 15th 2011)

So here we find ourselves, after years of this title being ported onto numerous platforms, Grand Theft Auto 3 is available on our IOS devices allowing a whole new generation to experience. Not only has it simply been ported, but it will be the best possible version of GTA 3 you have played too. With a better checkpoint system and enhanced visuals. GTA 3, while looking aged, will still blow your mind that you are playing it on the same device you use to call your mother on a Sunday evening. For those who don't know, GTA 3 follows the story of “Claude” and his descent into the criminal underworld, throughout his struggles Claude will come across the Mafia and the Yakuza crime gangs all in an effort to rise the ranks of liberty city’s most notorious.

The setting for this modern tale is Rockstar’s (The developer of the Grand Theft Auto series) own unique vision and recreation of the grandest city on earth, New York. Who Rockstar have creatively re named as “Liberty City”

You will be able to explore all 3 islands that make up this marvellous city, however not all are open to you from the beginning, the player is first needed to reach certain points in the story in order to unlock access to the all the islands. Liberty City is your oyster.

The player is free to create havoc in a vast number of ways the only limit is your own questionable sanity.

Do you obey the rules of the road playing model citizen? Do you partake in the many side activities such as ambulance driving or police chases. Do you collect cars for you garage. Do you explore the city seeing what sights and mysteries await? Or do you run riot within liberty city stopping for no one until you either get yourself arrested, or killed, using your vast arsenal of weapons to inflict damage upon the unsuspecting citizens of Liberty City.

GTA 3 bounces from strength to strength, whether that be the excellent narrative of the story, offering up a satirical look at society and pop culture, with many Easter eggs and references to movies, other games, and our own very lives. Or whether it is the sheer amount of things to do to occupy your stay in Liberty City.

Every single aspect of the game lends itself to the other. The only complaint I have is with this particular version of Grand Theft Auto, and that is with the virtual controls. While I believe RockStar have done their best and offered up possibly one of the best virtual control systems on the App Store, they are still difficult to master, and frustrating, especially during tough story missions or when all the chaos kicks off. 

You can however customise these controls, resizing the several action buttons to your liking, making them easier for your own personal use. But this is a given for a game on a touch device and this is an unavoidable issue, but with the recent release of iOS 7 and its ability to become compatible with the many IOS controllers that attach to your device, you will be able to satisfy your need for physical controls. Only when the game is compatible with such controllers however.

I want to give this game a perfect score. Its brilliant storytelling, how it can touch upon real world issues with an extremely serious tone one minute, then move on to a completely satirical one the next.

The wonderful and diverse cast of characters you come across and the incredible voice talent and acting they dish out.

The openness presented to you is only magnified by the fact you are playing it on a device that fits in the palm of your hand. Grand Theft Auto 3 is a fundamental title as it is, but becomes something even more impressive for this modern era.

I can’t ignore the controls, and while i understand this is unavoidable and RockStar have given it their best shot, they still affect some play sessions and get in the way in a frustrating manner.

Grand Theft Auto 3 has therefore achieved a 4/5!

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TWITTERS FRESH NEW LOOK

Twitter has recently released an update available for iOS devices (iOS5, iOS6 and iOS7 ready) with a brand new look. This review is just taking a look at what’s new and how it looks now. Immediately you’ll notice the App icon has now been changed to fit in with the new iOS7 style (see above) this is a good move, I mean you don’t want a horrid looking icon on your main screen do you? I certainly don’t…

  When you open the app you’ll notice that Twitter has taken on board the new trend of having flat images instead of any other styles it may have used in the past. The main header is now a nice Twitter blue which I personally think is a really nice touch I mean, Twitter has always had the blue in past images and logos but never really used it in past Apps. You’ll see that the Me page is pretty much the same with a few of the images changed to fit in with the new style (flat images).

This also applies to the Home page too, not much has really changed here about from some minor colour changes however you can see that the Thread feature recently released now also looks a lot better with the fresh new look. One of the nicer changes is on the actual tweet page where you can see it fits very nicely with the new keyboard and also has taken a feature of iOS7 with the Cancel and Tweet buttons no longer being buttons but just text instead.

Twitter have made this the perfect companion for iOS7 and it’s worked really well. I give you a great 4 Taps for the new look!

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THE NEW AND IMPROVED SIRI IN IOS7

Siri can now seduce you by simply saying your name.

First of all, I want to say a huge well done to Apple for maintaining and improving Siri. I have had the voice assistant since it’s inception, since then, it’s improved massively!

Now with a new UI and high quality speech, it’s even more beautiful then ever!

Siri can handle even more tasks in iOS7, here are just a few.

Restaurant reviews

Toggle settings

Search for images

Post to Facebook and Twitter (quickest way without the quick posts from iOS6)

Play voice mail

It’s even got a little brainier, it can now learn pronunciation of difficult names. You can change the gender of your personal assistant through “Settings > General >Siri >Voice Gender”.

I’d say for the past 2 years Siri has been in it’s “beta” stage, just shy of it’s full release. Like a boy about to enter puberty. Well, now with iOS7, Siri has exited it’s “beta” and has become man.

That’s all I can really say about Siri. It’s not a major part of my life but it’s nice to have it there, and when I need to bury a dead body, he has the best suggestions!

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WHAT IS AIR DROP?

AirDrop is kinda like Apples own Bluetooth. It allows you to share photos, videos, contacts and anything else from any app that has a Share button. The only catch, that other person has to running iOS7 on their iPhone.

It’s a cool feature and I would say it’s arrived pretty late for the iOS ecosystem.

It’s perfect for students, you’re with a few friends working on a project or some other work and you need to show everyone what you’re working with or looking at? AirDrop is all you need (that is if everyone has an iPhone 5 running iOS7) you just press Share and all your friends will appear under your AirPlay and ZOOM, it’s beamed to them. Yes, that quick too! If you’re still unsure about it, try it out for yourself, actually using it is the quickest way to learn about it.

AirDrop has a cousin – AirPlay. They both share a room on Control Center.