Mac|Life - Reviews

Grand Theft Auto 3 Review

Andrew Hayward — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:37:09 +0000

Rockstar Games' seminal open-world crime game arrives on the iPhone and iPad in this touch-enabled 10th anniversary re-release, which serves up the original go-anywhere, do-anything action experience for a cool five bucks.

And you'll get your money's worth here, as the lengthy solo adventure takes your anti-hero through all manner of illicit activities, plus loads of side missions, and the sheer thrill of high-speed cop chases still shines through today. Whether on-foot or behind the wheel, there's plenty to do throughout Liberty City, and quite a bit of it amuses and entertains in equal does. Plus, all of the amazing radio stations from the original console release remain intact!

While not as glossy as some newer iOS releases, Grand Theft Auto 3's open sandbox of mischief is welcoming on both devices, though the mass array of virtual buttons can be a bit overwhelming, and it's not as precise as the controller schemes of past versions. Luckily, the buttons can be moved around the screen, letting you design the most comfortable control option for your device and preferences. And regardless of any nagging control issues, it's pretty amazing to experience such a huge and entertaining adventure like this on a much smaller screen.

The bottom line. Despite some bugs and signs of age, Grand Theft Auto 3 is still a blast a decade after its debut.

Review Synopsis

Product:

Grand Theft Auto 3 1.0

Company:

Rockstar Games

Contact:

http://rockstargames.com

Price:

Requirements:

iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 4.3 or later

Positives:

Stellar and complete port of a true open-world action classic. Works well on both iPhone and iPad. Extremely well-priced for what you're getting.

Negatives:

Controls aren't perfect, though they are customizable. Looks a little dated, plus you'll encounter occasional glitches.

Score:

4 Great

App Showdown: Google Music Players

J Keirn-Swanson — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:30:00 +0000

It seemed forever ago that Google announced their Music Beta service. Upload up to 20,000 songs (for free, albeit at a snail's crawl) to be streamed to and downloadable to any computer. Access to the service on iOS devices was limited, for a while, to a clunky HTML-5-based weblication. Eventually, third parties got in on the act.

gMusic ($1.99/Universal)

IIS bills their app, gMusic as powered by last.fm and offers scrobbling if that sort of thing is important to you in a Google Music player. They also bill the app as fast loading, though this was not our experience whether over WiFi or 3G.

Opening up the app on the iPhone, all the buttons are tucked away in a hidden sidebar. Tap the stacked line button in the upper left and the screen slides aside to find your library list. On the iPad version (which only works in landscape), all the controls are out where you can see them, with the play, forward, and back buttons up top. Music is broken down into playlists, artists, songs, albums, and genres. After that there are auto playlists, offline songs, then the settings. There isn't much to settings and auto playlists are the same wherever you go.

Pretty simple controls

Tap one of the song categories and you are given a long list of those with a search bar and a shuffle button at the top. Tap an arrow next to the name of an album or song track and an overlay screen appears that allows you to play that song next, to add to a playlist, or to create an instant mix based around that track. A slider button at the bottom of these options allows you to download the song for offline playing.

Make an instant mix or download a track

This was by far the slowest loading app and it had to reload to the full extent if you've changed your Google Music database in any way. By far its biggeset problem however was its apparent struggles with metadata -- a pretty big sin actually since all data is organized and found on the web through metadata.

Hey there, metadata trainwreck

An example. Tap on Genres, then pick a specific one, and you are taken to a higgledy piggledy list of bands, often duplicates. Tap that band name and do you get an album listing? No, you get a number of songs, many of which aren't even by the band in question. This settles itself out eventually and begins showing correct track names in the list, but often songs played without a track name listing.

Resolved itself eventually, though will it stick?

While that may just be general bugginess, we like the hierarchy of our metadata to be respected. Tap Genre, we should get a list of our tagged genres -- and we do. Tap one of those genres and we should get a list of artists, then albums, then songs. gMusic jumps straight to a song listing. This makes finding an album to play more complicated than it needs to be. This is more Google's fault, as the app is merely aping what happens if you were doing the same thing online, though we can't say following Google's lead in this instance is a good choice.

App for Google Music HD ($0.99/Universal)

Opting for a simple white on black scheme belied by the app's much more exciting orange start up page, App for Google Music from developer MinhMobileDev loads fast and presents your music listings in a fairly stripped down interface. In fact, the app is nothing more than a skin for the web app version of Google Music. The one trick it sports that is worth spending any money on is that the app allows you to sign in to up to three different Google Music accounts.

Passcode lock? To hide my explicit lyrics?

That can be helpful if you have multiple machines in your house and various accounts or if you're road tripping with other Google Music users. We didn't have much use for it, but we see how valuable an option that would be.

No real difference between the two, except one's free

Six buttons run along the app's bottom to take you to settings, to switch between accounts, to update your database (if you've made changes or added or deleted music), a help button, and a Twitter button to take you to the rather neglected account of Mike Nguyen, the developer. The app's top has your navigation buttons. In the iPad version of the app, it mysteriously works better in landscape, though there isn't any great changes to the operations or layout.

Controls for the music

Artists is the first of the tabs that appear at the top, then Albums next to that. To see more, swipe to the left and your screen changes to a Songs view, then Playlists, then Genres. If you've spent any time in Google Music on your iPhone, then you know what to expect. Google has not had a stellar track record when it comes to their iOS apps and their music weblication's weaknesses are why someone might want a third party's offering.

Navigation through Google Music isn't very optimal either. Swipe the to the Albums list, find your album then tap it and you're taken to a screen just for that album with the tracks listed below. If you pick the wrong album, tap the headphones in the upper left to go back, but you don't go back one screen. You return to the Artists lists and have to renavigate your way back to the Album list to find the album you really wanted. We also found in the iPad that the headphones required repeated tapping to get results.

Metadata gives context; Google should know better

Unless you have multiple Google accounts with multiple music libraries and you want quick switching back and forth, there's really no reason to pay for this app as it provides nothing you can't get for free through Safari.

Melodies for Google Music Pro ($0.99/iPhone)

Connect Technology Co., Ltd opted for a light wood grain motif in their Melodies app. It immediately opens to your Playlists with a + button at the top of the list to quickly make a new one. Arrow buttons on the right give you the choice of playing that playlist or enabling the whole list to be available offline. Tapping the name of the playlist itself takes you to the track listing. Tap a song and you are taken to a screen with its album art, song name, artist name, and album above music controls.

An appealing visual style

If playlists aren't your speed, Melodies also has Artists, Songs, Albums, and a More button at the bottom for additional options. Here the architecture of your library's metadata is given preference over Google Music's rather sloppy organization. Tap Genre and you get a list of them; tap a particular genre and you are list of artists who are sorted into that genre; tap an artist for a list of albums; tap an album for the song tracks.

All songs are love songs

Navigation is no trouble either as at the top where the familiar Now Playing button usually resides in music apps there appears to the left a back button that takes you back exactly one screen. This is considerably more screens and more taps than the others, though we find we'd rather tap seven times to navigate directly to a track than to scroll up and down a list looking for it manually or searching it out by typing its name.

Get to the heart of things here

Also tucked away under More are Thumbs Up (your Google Music favorites, more or less), a list of your purchased songs, where you'll find your offline tracks, and the settings. Our only complaint with this structure is that there's no way for us to move categories so as to move Genres to a more prominent place.

New playlists in a snap

As a player, Melodies had no problems whatsoever. Even with very weak 3G signals we experienced no interruptions in our playing and very little lag between tracks. This one is going on our home page, AT&T data throttling or no.

Extended Play

This was one of the few weeks when we had a very clear winner. Music players need to play music without a hitch and only one app did that this week. gMusic had struggles with metadata and an amazingly slow initial load time even on WiFi, while App for Google Music brought one mostly unnecessary new feature to the table. Melodies was slick, had a lovely eye pleasing design, and worked flawlessly with a 18,000 track library -- no mean feat. While we agree that some of the problems of this week can be laid at the foot of Google Music, Melodies was able to hurdle those obstacles. It's just a great, great music player, one of the very best cloud-based music apps, and unless pixellated album art is a killer for you, it can be embiggened for iPad use without any problems whatsoever.

Path Review

Garrett Martin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:30:31 +0000

Path launched in 2010 as a single-app combo of Foursquare, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, with a focus on exclusivity. It limited you to 50 friends, the thought being that Path would prioritize the relationships that actually matter, and not just spotlight every kid you ever sat at a lunch table with in elementary school. Recently, Path increased that maximum to 150 friends along with a bevy of improvements, but even that still-limited tally doesn't explain why my Path friends list is so slim. The problem with Path is hardly anybody is using it.

That's a little surprising, as Path is less cluttered and easier to navigate than Facebook. Creating posts is incredibly simple: click on an icon at the bottom of your screen and six buttons fan out in a quarter-circle. From here you can write whatever's on your mind, take and upload photos, pop up a location tag, and share what songs you've recently listened to (along with links to buy them). These all appear on a single screen along with your friends' updates.

All the information you and your pals share pops up in one long, single scroll. Like Facebook, that could mean having to sort through multiple inane posts of sheer unrelenting vanity to find anything of substance about a friend or family member. That probably won't happen, though, because it's tough to find enough pals on the service to make regular use essential for most.

It's tough to be an off-brand social network. Apps like Path are only as useful as the size of their user base, and Path has roughly 799 million less users than Facebook. I fraternize within various social circles, all of which are heavy with tech-savvy Internet addicts, and yet I struggled to find many people I knew using Path.

The bottom line. This Path is best walked with friends, but it can be a quiet journey. It might be too fundamentally similar to Facebook to steal away users en masse, though it can syndicate its posts out to other networks; but Path's more elegant interface makes Facebook's web-based approach feel old.

Review Synopsis

Product:

Path 2.0.4

Company:

Path, Inc.

Contact:

path.com

Price:

Requirements:

iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 4.3 or later

Positives:

Clean, simple layout that handily tops Facebook for aesthetics. Easy to post a photo or message.

Negatives:

Small user base at present. Folks deeply entrenched in other social networks might not bother switching (as seems to be the case thus far).

Score:

3.5 Good

The Week's 10 Hottest Apple News Stories, February 3rd

J Keirn-Swanson — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:30:00 +0000

Bring Me Sandwiches!! Review

AJ Dellinger — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:55:23 +0000

Who would have guessed that Adult Swim, the late-night network famed for its irreverent cartoons and live-action series, would prove to be one of the most consistent producers of quality iOS games? Its latest addition to the stack is Bring Me Sandwiches!!, which is one part platformer and another Katamari Damacy, topped with a dab of absurdity and slapped between two slices of bread.

You'll take control of lovable loser Jimmy Nugget, a hapless employee at a local fast food restaurant. When a seemingly unquenchable glutton of an alien named Gourmo threatens to destroy the earth, Jimmy is called upon to save the day by meeting the otherworldly visitor's single, titular demand. Of course, an extraterrestrial isn't going to crave just any kind of sandwich; he's choosy about ingredients, so don't be surprised if you're asked to offer up a cat and fire hydrant sandwich.

At the start of each vibrantly colored and well-designed level, Jimmy is handed a slice of bread. Running around using either the intuitive touch or tilt controls, you'll collect any and all items that are littered about the level to stack your sandwiches higher. While the controls work well, there are rare occasions where they don't seem responsive enough; jumping off the heads of other characters comes to mind. Some platforms are also ill-defined, though it's seldom problematic. Neither presents a significant hindrance, but the rest of the game is so sharp that the little flaws seem more prevalent.

The bottom line. Bring Me Sandwiches!! is a genre-blender that takes the best parts of other favorites and makes them work together. It's so quirky, entertaining, and difficult to put down that you might find yourself in your kitchen, simply stacking random objects on bread because you just can't get enough.

Review Synopsis

Product:

Bring Me Sandwiches!! 2.1

Company:

Adult Swim

Contact:

http://adultswim.com

Price:

Requirements:

iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 3.1 or later

Positives:

Plenty of variation within the simple concept. Easy to pick up and play. Hilarious dialogue and sandwich combinations.

Negatives:

Controls feel less responsive than expected on occasion. Hard to see parts of the level when sandwich stack gets too high.

Score:

4.5 Excellent

SousChef Cooking Software Review

Florence Ion — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:55:47 +0000

Make your Mac carry its weight in the kitchen

There are two things I learned the first year I took up cooking: it takes many failures to create a successful dish, and it’s okay to bring the computer in the kitchen. With the advent of online recipe archives, I’m not shy about placing the MacBook next to the cutting board. SousChef capitalizes on this, and hopes to become the proverbial apron your computer needs to help you cook. And frankly, it’s a great help.

The SousChef app has an easy-to-navigate interface, with options for searching for recipes based on what’s in your fridge, categorizing them by cuisine, adding in substitutes, and making a grocery list. You can sort all recipes by name, rating, category, or cuisine, and if you find one you want to share, there are built-in settings for publishing straight to Blogger, grabbing an HTML snippet, or emailing it via your default mail application. Editing existing recipes is also a breeze--simply click each category and type, without worrying about formatting. The app also taps into a cloud database of recipes, so there is a constant flow of new dishes for you to try. And if you have a family recipe you want to keep private, you can opt out of sharing with the cloud.

There aren’t too many cooks in the kitchen when your partner is SousChef.

Inputting recipes is a cinch. Normally, recipe apps don’t play nice with copy and paste, but I took recipes that I had clipped in Evernote and copied them into the appropriate areas without any hassle. But while the formatting stayed the same, the photos did not copy over, which I need so I can see how the process is supposed to look. SousChef also limits you to one photo per recipe, unfortunate considering visual references are essential in the kitchen, especially for novice cooks.

SousChef’s best feature is its ability to direct you in the kitchen. When you’re ready to begin creating your culinary confections, SousChef will launch your Mac’s built-in Speech app. The app will switch to a full-screen display with large font and dictate the directions as they’re written, so you don’t have to worry about scrolling through with floury fingers. It gives credence to the app’s tagline that it’s your “digital cooking assistant,” so kudos to SousChef for delivering on that.

The bottom line. With its ability to organize recipes, pull new ones from the cloud, and dictate directions, SousChef is the ideal companion for novice cooks looking to get their bearings in the kitchen.

Review Synopsis

Product:

SousChef

Company:

Acacia Tree Software

Contact:

Acaciatreesoftware.com

Price:

$19.99, <a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=ApuPaiKIpxg&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Fapp%252Fsouschef%252Fid420590151%253Fmt%253D12%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30" target="Mac App Store">Available in the Mac App Store</a>

Requirements:

Mac OS 10.5 or later, minimum resolution of 1024x768

Positives:

Categorically organize recipes, pull new ones from the cloud, set up Speech to have your Mac dictate directions to you.

Negatives:

No add-on for clipping recipes from the browser; only allows one photo per recipe.

Score:

4 Great

Soulcalibur Review

Andrew Hayward — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:48:59 +0000

Considered one of the all-time great fighting games on consoles and in arcades, Soulcalibur makes a surprisingly stellar translation to a touchscreen interface, with virtual buttons that deftly issue sweeping sword strikes and kicks, and a stick that lets you move your fighter ably around the stage.

Soulcalibur still leads the weapons-based fighting genre today (with this week's release of Soulcalibur V on consoles), and this late-90s flashback serves up all of the original fighters -- including the staff-slinging Kilik, as well as sword-wielding samurai, Mitsurugi. While the combat isn't quite as robust as in later entries, this is still a satisfying affair that works well on both iPhone and iPad. Plus, this decade-old classic looks better than ever thanks to the high-resolution bump, though the rough textures of a bygone era aren't entirely absent.

Soulcalibur remains a fast, fluid, and thoroughly exciting fighter after all this time, though this universal iOS port feels frustratingly incomplete. Omitting the beloved single-player mission mode is a drag, sure, but leaving out multiplayer – both local and online – is a truly baffling move for a competitive fighter. Additional modes are expected via updates, but at the full price of $15, or even the current launch price of $12, we shouldn't be left wanting such an essential feature.

The bottom line. Soulcalibur is a great fighter, but it's currently a questionable value – at least until multiplayer is added.

Review Synopsis

Product:

Soulcalibur 1.0.0

Company:

Namco Bandai

Contact:

http://namcobandaigames.com

Price:

Requirements:

iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 4.3 or later

Positives:

Stellar port of a true fighting game classic. Virtual buttons are responsive throughout. Universal app looks nice on all compatible iOS devices.

Negatives:

No multiplayer, whether local or online. Rewarding mission mode from original console release also absent. Very pricey for such a limited feature set.

Score:

3.5 Good

Posterino Review

Florence Ion — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:16:43 +0000

Collage your memories

While Facebook and Flickr are fabulous ways to share your memories online, there’s something very one dimensional about simply clicking through a slideshow of photos. Why not do more for your memories by showcasing them in an artistic collage with Posterino? This Mac app allows even the most novice artists to create collages from templates and then easily print them out as a keepsake. It’s easier than doing it by hand, and as long as you’ve got the hardware for it, it’s cheaper than paying a professional service to do it.

Posterino offers 35 different collage options, including templates for a random display, placing photos in an e-card or calendar, or a mega-collage of a photo for one day of every year. Once you choose your project, the app will ask you to choose your dimensions, from a standard 4x6 photo size to A1, which is 594mm by 841mm. It’s up to you to select the dimensions that fit your printing needs, and Posterino promptly reminds you of this fact before you print.

Create beautiful collages without using scissors and glue.

Once you’ve started a project, Posterino lets you drag and drop photos from your Pictures folder, Aperture, iPhoto, or Adobe Lightroom onto the canvas. From here you can adjust the dimensions of each individual square, the background of your project, the layout, paper size, and even use photo filters, including one that gives your photos a vintage feel. When you’re finished, save your collage as a TIFF or JPEG file, send it to iPhoto, or publish it to Flickr. Posterino also supports Lion’s Auto-Save and Versions features, so you needn’t worry about losing your projects in the middle of a computer meltdown.

Posterino is fairly easy to use, but depending on the size of your project, it can be difficult to see which photos are placed where, making the process feel tedious at times. Fortunately the app has the option to fill at random, and you can do so by event. The end result is beautiful, and we were impressed at the quality of the collage on a standard 8x10 printout.

Globetrotters and social butterflies will especially enjoy Posterino because it’s a dynamic way to share photos beyond the standard slideshow fare. It’s also more cost efficient to pay for the software than to have a photo service piece your photos together for you. However, unless you have the printing capabilities available to you, it may be difficult to justify the cost of the app. For a simple digital collage, there are some cheaper—even free—apps out there that do the job.

The bottom line. If you’ve got a powerful printer and love to piece together photo memories, Posterino is worth the splurge.

Review Synopsis

Product:

Posterino

Company:

Zykloid Software

Contact:

Zykloid.com

Price:

$29.95, <a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=ApuPaiKIpxg&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Fapp%252Fposterino%252Fid412411033%253Fmt%253D12%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30" target="Mac App Store">Available in the Mac App Store</a>

Requirements:

Mac OS 10.6 or later, a fancy printer that prints photos

Positives:

Easy to use, integrates with available photo libraries, exports to web or printer, offers a large range of dimensions.

Negatives:

Not worth it if you don’t have a printer to print the collages.

Score:

4 Great

App Showdown: Tappable Keyboard Alternatives

J Keirn-Swanson — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:15:00 +0000

A long time ago, typewriter keyboards were laid out alphabetically, but typists got so good and so fast they jammed the keys. The invention of the QWERTY keyboard was designed to slow them down. It's what we all learn in typing classes, but in the age of touch screens does it really make sense anymore? Some app developers are banking on you being interested in something new.

MessagEase (Free/iPhone)

Of course, Apple will never let any of these keyboards substitute for their own on the iOS devices. But that hasn't stopped Developers Exideas from tempting you with their 14 key app, MessagEase. The concept is simple: Single keys will do multiple duty at their edges. With O hugging the center square, it's in the most prominent place, with eight letters arranged around the periphery of that one center key. To type an O, you tap the center of the key in one quick tap. To type the letter B on that key, you tap it and hold slightly before sliding your finger over to the right.

The normal view has a lot of letters in a little space

So when you open up the app, you have a little less than half the screen up top blank white with your blinking cursor. Below that, the 14 keys. Your letters are all arranged in a 3x3 grid with most letters clustered near the center. The O key, as we've said, has 9 of the 26 letters of the alphabet. Eight more surround the O key on keys of their own with most, like the T key, having to share with only one other letter (the Y). A pulls double duty with a C and a V on opposite corners while E at the bottom has two letters and the four most common punctuation marks.

Tapping Space then sliding up gives you tons more options

Other keys include an upward pointing finger key which offers options like get help, go search on Google, tweet, and so on. Below that is a key that reads 123, but tap it and the reading changes to abc and your letter keys have now been replaced with a standard 10-key numeric pad, with mathematical operators and various mathematical formula shortcuts all sharing keys just like the letters. A return key, a space bar, and a delete key round out the 14 total.

Use the finger to send your text out into the wide world

To start a new note, you merely swipe your finger left across the top of the screen and you move into a second "page" of notes. You can edit or access this list of notes through the upward pointing finger key.

If you find it difficult, a typing game helps

We found MessagEase rather difficult to use initially. It took quite a bit of practice to get the sliding of our finger off the key to produce the letter we wanted. The arrangement takes some getting used to and it's important to remember when you start that you will be looking around a lot more than usual, but once you've used the keyboard for a while you can get much faster. We certainly did, though not without more backing up and deleting than we'd have liked.

FlickKey Keyboard Notes ($2.99/iPhone)

Will Temple has the same general idea with his FlickKey. Things are a little different as he tries cracking the same nut. How to maximize key size for typing to make it faster while re-envisioning the keyboard layout not tied to QWERTY standards?

Caps lock makes text shouting easy

Six key are all you get when you open this app, though there are a few differences. Your paper is lined and two tiny buttons appear in the upper corners. The notes key takes you backward to a list of notes you've made (though it's populated with instruction files when you first buy it). The other key is a plus button which creates a new note.

Your notes, neatly stashed away

The keys however are made up of one row of three keys, each with 9 letters on them, save the third key which has that most common letter combos, "TH" as a choice. The buttons work essentially the same. Tap the key made up of Q, W, S, A, E, D, Z, X, and C, hitting it right in the center if you want the letter that's in that position on the key or sliding your finger in the direction of an alternate choice on that key.

The three buttons beneath that are made up of various command style keys such as the one with backspace, delete whole line back space, capitalize, and caps lock. Other commands on the other two keys include space bar, tab, period and space, carriage return, quotes, end punctuation, and internal punctuation. Tap the 123 key and all six keys switch to a mathematical arrangement with one key having the nine major digits.

Where's this note going to anyway?

The killer feature of FlickKey sits right above the keypad. A small bar with navigation arrows predicts what word you're typing. While it can be quick and easy to start typing then tap the word that appears, FlickKeys' internal dictionary is very weird, such as when I typed the lower case "u" and all three of the suggested first words it could come up with were u-boat related. Nor was that an isolated incident as "Thi" prompted "Hi" "Ti" "Tho" "Thai" and "Thin" instead of the much more common "This."

U-Boats? What the heck?

Tap the arrow out key when you're done typing and you can send your text as an email, SMS, or a web query. Or you can just trash it. The keys were a bit easier to use and felt more responsive than MessagEase, but we can't shake the feeling that the dictionary needs some work.

TikiNotes (Free/iPhone)

TikiNotes from Tikilabs is most similar to FllickKey when you open it up. At the notes list screen, you have a choice up top of tapping the + key to write new notes or "Edit" to trim some of your text flab. The similarities don't stop there as TikiNotes has the same six key structure and the same word suggestion row.

Already being helpful and we haven't even started

What's different is that TikiNotes doesn't have keys you slide your finger across to get to more letters. Instead, you find six keys breaking up the alphabet into six character blocks. The first block from the left in the upper row includes "a b c f e d." The second is "l g h k j i." One of the six keys features the numbers 1-6, the other 7-9 and zero, along with the last two letters of the alphabet. Tap the "abcfed" key and the bottom six keys transform into six keys for those letters, one per key, laid out how they had appeared in the first screen.

Simple enough to understand

So, with two taps necessary to type one letter (three if you want it capped), TikiNotes has to have something awfully good going on with its word prediction. And we're happy to say that it does. We're not sure what kind of contextual algorithms go on under the hood for TikiNotes, but it was killer at guessing what word we wanted next. In the sentence "There are plenty of," TikiNotes was able to guess "good" the moment I hit "g." Deleting "g" and replacing it with "o" gave me "other," "opportunities" and "opportunity" -- all solid choices. Type "p" and "options" the word I wanted got added to the mix.

Send it to the clipboard to take your text with you

Five taps to type a seven letter word, saving me two keystrokes. More if my word choice had been "opportunities." TikiNotes best guess is the first one in line which also appears in a little white text on black box right in your paragraph, ready to tap. In fact, there are choices ready to go based on context before you can even get your next initial letter typed and most of those were just as good at guessing your next choices.

We really wanted this feature to work, but it didn't. Sigh

By far, TikiNotes word suggestions were the best, actually offering choices that make sense and were likely to be helpful. What may seem initially like more typing based on the key arrangements turns out to be very, very fast indeed. And we were pleased to say that we were able to pick up the key arrangements very quickly.

The Last Word

We haven't seen the end of QWERTY by any stretch of the imagination. It's far too familiar a layout for anyone to believe that it could someday be gone, but there is definitely room among touch screen phones for something that might be better suited to the ergonomics of our pocket-sized computers. Until such keyboard options are allowed to be chosen as defaults, we can't see any one of them really taking off.

Without better responsiveness, MessagEase will just frustrate most users going for speed when they have to slide their finger so specifically. FlickKey had some of the most responsive reactions to what we were typing, but a good predictive engine is something an app like this completely depends on -- and it just isn't there. TikiNotes' extra taps might seem an unlikely winner, but we found that we could fly through quick messages letting its predictions set the pace. Quick, responsive, intuitive, TikiNotes is our favorite of the week.

WriteRoom 3 Review

J.R. Bookwalter — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:14:58 +0000

Could make procrastination a thing of the past

Writing is often a thankless, solitary task requiring isolation from outside interference. Just when you least expect it, the telephone rings, new email arrives, or an interesting tweet diverts attention from the work at hand. WriteRoom can’t thwart all of life’s interruptions, but it does offer solace from most computer-based distractions with a streamlined writing environment, making it easier to get the words on the (virtual) page.

If you thought Apple’s TextEdit was bare-bones, just wait until you launch WriteRoom 3—there’s just a smattering of preferences and menu-based functions. Gone is all the traditional word-processor cruft, and with it, all your excuses for getting distracted. The app is now completely built for the required OS X Lion (including Auto Save and Auto Resume), offering a remarkable full-screen writing experience with the ability to track writing sessions (or even record them to a spreadsheet) and view ongoing statistics such as character, word, line, or page count.

The real star of WriteRoom 3 is OS X Lion full-screen mode, which removes the distractions and lets the words flow.

New documents can be created in plain or rich text and easily exported to PDF at any time. There are no tools available for fancy page layouts with tables or graphics here, but WriteRoom doesn’t skimp on useful features such as Paste and Match Style (for pasting text without formatting) and plentiful view options like typewriter scrolling, blinking insertion point (or block mode, reminiscent of old-timey standalone word processors), and displaying invisible characters.

WriteRoom 3 also knows how to play dress up, with the ability to create and share unique themes as eye candy for lengthy sessions banging at the keyboard. Aside from the WriteRoom default (white text on a dark gray background), the app can emulate TextEdit, Terminal, or a print document, with other user-created themes available on the company’s website.

Full-screen writing is the real star of the show: choose between standard Lion full-screen (additional monitors are blanked out with gray linen) or full-screen single (main display only). More disciplined users can remain in traditional window mode, with many type formatting options available via contextual menus from all three. Documents saved to Dropbox can sync to the $4.99 universal iOS version, making it the perfect solution for home, work, or travel.

The bottom line. Most of the text in Mac|Life was originally written in Word or TextEdit, but WriteRoom 3 has us in a switcher frame of mind. When it’s strictly about getting words on virtual paper quickly and efficiently without the hassle, noise, and expense of modern word-processing applications, WriteRoom 3 is now the standard by which all other plain or rich text editors should be judged.

Review Synopsis

Product:

WriteRoom 3.0.1 for Mac

Company:

Hog Bay Software

Contact:

hogbaysoftware.com

Price:

$9.99 Available in the <a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=ApuPaiKIpxg&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Fapp%252Fwriteroom%252Fid417967324%253Fmt%253D12%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30" target="Mac App Store">Mac App Store</a>

Requirements:

Mac OS 10.7 or later

Positives:

Fast, distraction-free writing tool with minimalist interface and just the right balance of features users can’t live without. Text formatting available via contextual menus for uninterrupted full-screen writing. Dropbox-sync friendly with iOS edition.

Negatives:

No support for pre–OS X Lion systems. Strictly for writing rather than occasional desktop publishing uses. No export to MS Word or other formats (plain or rich text and PDF only).

Score:

4.5 Excellent