LinkedIn App for iPad Now Available

Professional-oriented social network LinkedIn has introduced an iPad app version, aiming to encourage more users to engage with their free service.

“Our mobile platform is the fastest growing consumer service on LinkedIn,” wrote Manish Sharma, LinkedIn’s product manager. “We aspire to be the place where every professional comes throughout the day.”

Although LinkedIn brags about its 150 million members, making it one of the top social networks in the world, only a third of them check the website on a daily basis. Compare that to Facebook whose half of its total members use the site everyday.

The app–now available for download–works a bit different from its web-based counterpart, as the mobile version is designed to be a personal assistant of sorts. It has added features such as calendar integration and focus on LinkedIn’s personalized news feed, which displays articles that are popular among people within the user’s network.

Source: Times of India

Aurora Feint 3 iPad Game App Review

You have played Bejeweled on your desktop and mobile device thinking any game that try to copy its gameplay are bound to fail. Not so much in this case.

Aurora Feint 3 is a tile-matching game infused with RPG, kinda like Puzzle Quest for Nintendo DS. Unlike Bejeweled, however, this game only slides jewels horizontally and you can even tilt your iPad to shift gravity, giving it a more challenging play.

The RPG part of the game comes with raising your character with more power and health as his level goes up, which you dearly need in battling mystical enemies.

Developed by Openfeint Inc, Aurora Feint 3 is available to download for free in the iPad.

Shocker! Apple Planned to Add Physical Keyboard on iPhone

Back in the day when BlackBerrys were the coolest phones in the planet, Apple was struggling about what to do if they add mobile phone features on their iPod. One option, apparently, was to give the device a physical keyboard just like the BB phone.

Shocking, I know.

The revelation came from Tony Fadell, a former Apple engineer and founder of learning thermostat company Nest. In an interview with The Verge, he revealed that Apple had three design options with its iPod-phone, one of which involved adding a hardware keyboard. We can guess that it would have been a keyboard that slides out of the phone, much like many smartphones today.

The report sparked a lot of questions. What if Apple indeed added a keyboard on what would have been the first iPhone? Would another company becomes the first to create the first touch-screen smartphone? Would Apple have patented the hardware keyboard, even if other phones already have them, and sue everybody else including RIM (the maker of BlackBerry)? Would Apple’s fanboys diss other smartphones with full touch-screens simply because they do not have keyboards like the iPhone?

We could only imagine.

Source: The Verge, via CNET

Cube Lets You Play Using Google Maps

Google has just rolled out Cube, a 3D game that teaches players about the functions of Google Maps as you roll a blue ball through mazes of major cities.

There are eight levels in the game, each making use of features found on Maps such as cycling paths, traffic flow, and even sales within certain shopping establishments. The only rule here is to move the ball using your mouse cursor, weaving through streets and alleys until it reaches its destination.

The game culminates on the eighth and final level, where the cube maze switches maps as the ball reaches its goal until it settles on its fifth destination.

Cube is free-to-play and does not require downloading. Try beating its all-time fastest game, clocking in at around 2 minutes 15 seconds.

Source: Ubergizmo

Flick Kick Field Goal iPhone App Review

Image Source: Apple App Store

The National Football League just recently concluded its Annual Draft for new football players out of the different colleges and universities in the country. While the excitement may have somehow simmered down and the fans eagerly awaiting NFL’s next season this September, people can still enjoy football by playing games on their iPhone like the Flick Kick Field Goal iPhone Game App.

The Flick Kick Field Goal iPhone Game App is a simple yet engaging field goal kicking game. Players become the kickers for a football team. The same as the actual kickers in the game, the player has to consider factors like angles and wind speed and direction to make that perfect kick that sends the ball through and in between the goal posts and score.

Flick Kick Field Goal also features multiple game modes for a variety of challenges for the player. It comes with Sudden Death, Arcade, Time Attack and Practice Modes. With a realistic football  stadium setting and 3D graphics, the Flick Kick Field Goal iPhone Game app is a simple and yet addicting game for those who wish to get that football fever going up until the September season opening. This game app is available at the Apple App Store for a $1 download.

GodFinger All-Stars iPad App Review

God games are arguably one of the easiest apps to play. You do nothing but play god and control your minions as you please. However, a lot of god games lose their charms in the long run. GodFinger All-Stars by plus+ tries to disprove that notion and then some.

The game enables you, the god, to interfere with your subjects in great detail. Stun your followers with awe and terror, send them leaping through the heavens, and collect Follower Stars to power up your people. Follower Stars are created as you wow your minions with your wonders.

Another great feature of this app is how you can transform your planet according to your liking, such as turning deserts into lush plains, planting flowers, and flooding gullies. Players can also add Awe Points in form of in-app purchases.

GodFinger All-Stars can be downloaded for free on iTunes for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Connection to the Internet is required to play.

Jetpack Joyride iPad Game App Review

Jetpack Joyride is a new and exciting game from Halfbrick Studios, the same developers that made the highly popular Fruit Ninja. But instead of cutting up flying fruits with a katana, this new game features a game character named Barry Steakfries. Not only that, this game involves Barry suiting up jet packs to move around in a one-way adventure.

In this game, Barry breaks into a secret laboratory to get the experimental jet packs off the hands of the evildoers and successfully escape. Players simply tap on the screen to make Barry and his jetpack fly and remove the fingers from the screen to descend. But there are also obstacles that Barry faces along the way as bullets, lasers, rainbows and even bubbles rain all around along with guided missiles and electricity fields. There are also other stuff that Barry can obtain along the way such as coins, power and speed boosters.

Over the course of the game, players can also upgrade to other jet packs that provide added features to make Barry’s adventure even more exciting. For those with the new iPad, this game now provides Retina support, making gameplay even more unique. The Jetpack Joyride iPad Game App is available at the Apple App Store for free download.

Logo Quiz Game iPhone App Review

Image Source: Apple App Store

iPhone game apps now come in many shapes and levels of fun. But some of them can also be quite informative as well. There’s the iPhone game app like the Logo Quiz Game that takes players into a fun journey of recall over those iconic and popular logos that has been etched into the mindset of many people.

The Logo Quiz Game for the iPhone is a simple and yet engaging game that gets players into guessing the different logos being presented but with a certain twist. The logos are not presented in their complete form. The logos have some of parts blanked or left out, making players trying to recall what the partly drawn logo is. Gameplay comes into several levels, with each one having a certain number of logos to guess from. Hints are also provided to help players recall the logo with different info connected with it. The Logo Quiz Game app for the iPhone is a simple and yet addicting game, especially for those who like to recalling a popular and familiar logo used by different companies from all over the world. It is available at the Apple App Store for free download.

“Draw Something” Usage on a Downward Trend

Source: Business Insider, via The Atlantic

Just over a month ago, reports claimed that Draw Something was the most popular mobile game in the world. But in the world where new apps are introduced every week, it seems the latest Zynga acquisition is losing steam quickly.

Using a third-party chart maker, Business Insider checks in on the number of people actively using Draw Something and notices a worrisome downward trend. As of May 1, the average number of active users per day is at 10.2 million, lower than when when Zynga acquired the game. Meanwhile, monthly average users–those who play occasionally, but not all the time–remain steady, but it is declining slowly settling at 35.3 million users as of May Day.

Although the AppData client tracks users via Facebook logins, which Draw Something does not require, Business Insider claims it is a “pretty good directional measurement.”

“Like most one-hit wonders, fans got bored and moved on,” wrote Dashiell Bennett for The Atlantic, which reported the so-called “decline and fall” of the app.

It is interesting to note that Draw Something’s popularity peaked as soon as Zynga bought the game and the employees of the game’s former company OMGPOP for $200 million. While it is easy to compare the game’s popularity to Angry Birds, the latter’s upgradeable levels and expanding challenges keeps it on top of the apps charts for over a year, while Draw Something collapsed as soon as it peaked.

And if Zynga does not act quickly, it may be left holding the bag.