iOS 6: Part 7

Welcome back to the next segment in my ongoing talks about Apple's upcoming iOS 6 update. Today we're going to talk about how the Mail and Safari apps have changed and been improved.




Mail:

So the mail app has been redesigned (though if you ask me it doesn't look much different) to be more streamlined and easier to use. There are also improvements to add attachments like photos and the like to your emails as well there is a new feature that lets you create a "V.I.P." list so that you'll lever miss an email from the sources that matter most.

Unfortunately that is it. If you were hoping for some substantial changes to the way you used your email app on Apple's iOS devices then this will come as somewhat of a let down. Sure it's great to make things easier to use, but don't tell me you've "redesigned" the whole app when picture by picture comparisons to older versions of the app look almost identical. But minor improvements are still improvements, so it will be interesting to see just how useful and good these improvements turn out to be.

Safari:

Unlike the new Mail app, the new Safari app actually brings in a number of substantial and great sounding changes and enhancements. First off Safari works through the cloud with iCloud tabs meaning that you can open a tab and start looking at a website on your iPod and then resume looking at that same page over on your iPhone. Secondly Safari now saves web pages to your Reading List which allows you to still be able to see and read everything that is on a particular web page even when you don't have Internet connection. And thirdly if you're posting a picture to a website you no longer have to go through the arduous process of leaving Safari, opening up the camera app, taking a picture, going back to Safari, then posting the picture. Now you can do all that right in Safari, something that sounds great to me.

All of these improvements to Safari actually sound like the sort of features that I would use and all sound like, if done right, they could be great. With so many problems with Safari in the past, I've slowly grown to hate (I'm among friends when I say this) Safari. But changes like these could slowly start to change my opinion. It's still going to take a lot more then that to make me start loving Safari, but it's a step in the right direction.

Recommenations of the Week: September 26th

Welcome back to this week's edition of Recommendations of the Week. Let's begin.






Shop Deals:

For the majority of the "bigger" apps in the AppStore, and by bigger I mean closer to full fledged games such as Dead Space as apposed to a mini game like Doodle Jump, they can be quite expensive. Of course this is all relative. People complain non-stop when game developers released games for more then $5 on the App Store, yet they don't say anything for dropping $40 on a game for their X-Box which theoretically should have eight times more content (if we went by pricing) but doesn't actually. So if you're one of those people who complains about costly apps and resorts to not buying the app, don't fret, there are alternatives. And I'm not talking about jailbreaking your device (something that I originally did to get past the cost of buying so many apps), no I'm talking about shopping for deals. Apps actually go on some amazing deals and they go on sale more then you'd think. These sales often can be quite high too. For instance there was a great app a few weeks ago normally priced around $10 brought down to $0.99 for the duration of the sale. And it's prices like that that you really can't beat. So if you're in the neighbourhood for some "expensive" apps but don't want to cough up some cash, just wait it out a few weeks, there are good chances your app will go on sale.

App Bites #32: Drop Box

Welcome back to another App Bite. Today we look at the Android version of the official app for Drop Box.






Drop Box:

Most of you are well aware of Drop Box and its usefulness. Arguably one of  the best cloud storage options out there, Drop Box has been around keeping peoples things stored in the cloud since this month of 2008. There are Drop Box apps for pretty much every single operating system out there so you can use Drop Box on your computer, phone, tablet, or whatever. The Android version of the file hosting site is great. Its convenient if say you're running out of memory on your phone, just drop off all your photos and the like in Drop Box and you're good to go. And with that you don't even have to think about syncing your phone to your computer because you can just access your Drop Box account on your laptop or whatever you have and boom its right there. So for mobile situations, Drop Box can actually be very useful. If you want to grab it you can do so here in the Play Store for free.

Brick Wars # 35

Welcome! Welcome to the new blog, and welcome to the thirty-fifth Brick Wars comic! 

A bit of behind-the-scenes: I had to build a new Trade Federation Battleship, rather than reusing the original model that was in the second Brick Wars comic. This one looks much nicer, and doesn't require as much Photoshopping, I've found.

The laser effects and explosion are from LSMaker, a fantastic lightsaber program. If you're ever in the mood to film yourself wielding a lightsaber, check it out. It requires a bit of learning, but is actually quite user-friendly.

Anyways, enjoy the comic, and enjoy the new blog!

Cheerio,

Doodle Jump is Back Again Again

With another update in the bag for Doodle Jump earlier this week- and update that Lima Sky (the creator of Doodle Jump) claims is the biggest update ever for the game- I thought it would be a good time to talk a bit about Doodle Jump.

Doodle Jump is one of the biggest most well-known and popular apps ever, but in recent months, and years even, Doodle Jump has kind of fallen off the radar. Once a little thing called Angry Birds came out and gained momentum all of Doodle Jump's time in the spotlight seemed to be forgotten. The whole Doodle Jump craze died off almost over night only to see brief renewals of interest from time to time with minor updates came out or when the two other Doodle Jump spin-offs were released. Both of which garnered little attention unlike spin-offs of other games like Angry Birds who found massive success with their spin-offs games like Seasons, Rio, and Space. And the minor updates that did come out for Doodle Jump have been just that, minor. It used to be that Doodle jump got entire new levels and achievements and the like and those updates came out pretty well every month. Then as the games popularity waned so did the updates.

But Doodle Jump is back with the Ninja update. As I said above, this update is claimed to be the biggest. So what is it? Well there is now a new ninja themed level with brand new enemies and the completely new thing which is coins. There are coins now lying on random platforms and you use the coins that you collect to buy yourself upgrades from the Doodle Jump Store. These upgrades vary from new suits for your doodle to jump in to things that help you like a thing called resurrect which "saves you the next time you fall".

So this update is actually fairly substantial for a Doodle Jump update and is much needed to save this game. I have to say that it is a great idea and is fun to play and collect the coins, but I think it's a little to late to get me interested in the game again. But for new people who maybe never played this game over three years ago when it came out this might be enough to suck them in.

Doodle Jump is sitting in the top 50 again for paid apps in the App Store, a far cry from the number one spot where it sat comfortably for around a year. But top 50 is still extremely good considering how many apps are out there. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out, will it be enough to restore Doodle Jump to its former glory? What do you think? You can find Doodle Jump here if you're interested.