Daily App Digest – November 21, 2011

Gormaya today announced Recipe Timer 3 (previously named TasteTimer) available exclusively for the iPhone and iPod touch. Recipe Timer has a new name, user interface, icon and 1,000+ time and temperature recipes for steeping tea, grilling, brewing coffee and cooking.

Tweet your Steep!
Using the new Twitter(tm) integration of iOS 5, share the tea you’re steeping. Share your grilling, brewing, roasting, searing and cooking too. Text to friends. Email and Print any of the included recipes – or your own.

"Recipe Timer is much more than a timer app," said Duane Fahey, co-founder of Gormaya, LLC. "This is a fantastic reference tool to use while shopping. A way to remember your own time and temperatures. Make notes. Share with others.".

Three taps to great taste!

Each recipe includes time, temperature, amount, and notes. English and Metric.

Recipe Timer 3.0 is now available for $3.99 in the U.S. and is priced accordingly in other regions. iOS 4 is required. Recipe Timer is available world-wide from Apple’s App Store for iPhone and iPod touch.

$3.99/£2.99/Download

Toccata Technologies today is pleased to introduce FaceBooth for iPad 1.0, their Entertainment app that performs advanced image morphing of a male face and a female face to produce a photo of what the pair’s grown child might look like. With sophisticated face-detection technology, the powerful app permits one-button swapping of the main and secondary faces plus continuously variable control over the influence of the main face on the final image. The app allows the user to morph Camera photos, Photo Album photos, or built-in Model (sample) photos.

FaceBooth for iPad is one of the latest iOS image-morphing apps, and it has several advantages over the competition. First, the ad-supported version of the app is free. The user may use one-click in-app purchase to remove the ads and the "Morphed by FaceBooth" banner on saved copies of images,

Second, all morphing apps require the user to center control dots, which help align the features of the two photos, over the eyes and mouth on each picture. FaceBooth uses face detection technology to automatically position its control dots, so the user only needs to make very slight adjustments to exactly center the dot. An extremely helpful feature is the magnifying glass that automatically opens above any point touched, and which remains open as the user drags the dot, enabling precise centering and more realistic morphs. In addition to the three main control dots over the center of each eye and the mouth, FaceBooth provides seven secondary control dots for the edges of the mouth, the contours of the face, and the bottom of the chin.

Third, the app enables the user to adjust the final image to achieve the desired look. Because it is designed especially for advanced image morphing of a male face and a female face, FaceBooth designates the first photo chosen as primary and the other as secondary. That means that the final image will be the same gender as the person in the primary photo. If the user is curious about what might result if the offspring was of the opposite gender, a single button swaps the primary and secondary photos and re-morphs the image. Beyond allowing the user to determine the sex of the couple’s offspring, the app also includes a continuously variable slider that controls the degree of influence of the main face on the final result. Users can select any value between 50% and 100% to achieve a greater resemblance to one parent than another.

Free/Download

Metamotifs today is pleased to introduce HuntedApp 1.0 for iOS, their new augmented reality, Entertainment app where the iPhone owner is tracked down by virtual pursuers. A speed and a finish point for the chase are set in advance, and the player is given a head start. When the pursuers get too close to the target, the player hears the sound of police officers or snarling bloodhounds approaching. The pursuers follow the same path that the player has traveled, and the trackers’ progress can be viewed in real-time. It is even possible to "hide" from the pursuers by temporarily interrupting the iPhone’s GPS signal (e.g. going indoors). An imaginative pastime and an entertaining way to stay in shape, HuntedApp tests the player’s resourcefulness, composure, speed, and agility.

At present, the app includes four different pursuers, each with their own distinctive sound that is heard through the player’s iPhone: The Law, A Pack of Dogs, Bloodthirsty Cannibals, and an Attack Helicopter. The sound of any of these, as they close in on the player, is enough to motivate even the most tired prey. The app includes iPod music integration, so that fugitives can enjoy music as they flee, and the volume is automatically lowered to allow the player to clearly hear the approaching Attack Helicopter. A chase History function allows the player to track progress and share the hunt with friends.

$0.99/£0.69/Download

NextRoot launches SongMix 1.0, a cool interactive music trivia game and music discovery tool for iPhone and iPod touch. Jog your memory with songs raging from the greatest classics to the latest hits. SongMix enables you to test your musical knowledge in three engaging gaming modes: Arcade, Song Attack and Time Attack. While playing if you come across a song you like you can also mark it for future reference. So basically whenever you’re stuck in traffic or having that meaningful conversation with your significant other you now can just zone out and recycle your playlist.

The app has a very straightforward and intuitive interface and gets you down to business in no time. While playing you also have the option to mark the songs you like for future reference and since stealing music is a crime the app allows you to buy the songs you like through iTunes. Get SongMix on your iPhone and challenge yourself in a fun way. Also it can provide scientific evidence you know more about music than your friends.

The main features of the game are:
* Time Attack mode – try to guess as many songs within 3 minutes
* Great music discovery tool – save the songs you like to your Favorite list
* Gorgeous artwork
* Game Center integration
* Connect with Facebook and Twitter to share your scores and achievements
* Two music genres to play: Pop and House

Free/download

Independent children’s app developer Squeaky Frog is pleased to announce the release of Hiding Hannah, an interactive children’s book for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Developed in conjunction with Santa Monica-based Glowdot, Hiding Hannah is a story for children ages 2-5 about a girl who loves to hide. Young readers can search for the items that Hannah hides, whether they are household items or Hannah herself. Each page features several hiding spaces, and the objects are hidden in different places each time, so the experience is always different for the reader.

Hiding Hannah is narrated by Tom Kenny, the voice of TV’s Spongebob Squarepants, illustrated by Sesame Workshop digital artist Melanie McColl, and written by Squeaky Frog founder Mike Johnson.

Famigo, a website dedicated to finding quality mobile applications for children, awarded Hiding Hannah 5 out of 5 stars.

Features
* Simple-to-use interface for children
* 12 fully illustrated pages with animated hiding places to search and bonus interactive elements like working lamps and faucets
* Interactive elements flash after a time to provide clues when hints are turned on
* Mom, Dad and Hannah characters speak dialogue when touched
* Text accompanies narration to encourage young readers
* Special surprises like dancing sock monkeys

Hiding Hannah is the first release for startup Squeaky Frog, who co-developed with Glowdot, a veteran in the mobile marketplace, through the Glowdot Kids division. Glowdot is best known for their action games such as Rogue Runner and puzzlers like mentalBlock.

$1.99/£1.49/Download

YFactory today is pleased to introduce Aesop Fables HD 2.1 for iPad, their new, free Book for kids that features five different illustrated stories by the first fabulist, Aesop, written more than 2,500 years ago. Included in the eBook are: The Frog and the Ox, The Fox and the Grapes, The Ant and the Dove, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, and The Ant and the Grasshopper. At the end of each professionally illustrated tale is a brief summary of the moral of each story, and how its lesson applies to everyone. The author of more than 50 timeless fables, Aesop’s most famous stories are The Boy Who Cried Wolf and The Tortoise and the Hare.

Aesop Fables HD 2.1 for iPad consists of five fables, each approximately 12 pages long, more than 60 pages of inspired, entertaining illustration, text, and music. The app offers a Read to Me, professional audio narration option that is available as an in-app purchase. Parents can read each fable to their kids, and the music and illustrations help to tell the story. The high-resolution illustrations use a limited palette of colors with an emphasis on shading to create shadows, and blends and gradients to create textures.

The stories are told here in a whimsical, light-hearted manner, and are not serious, object lessons. For example, in the story The Ant and the Grasshopper the six-limbed grasshopper is painted with four arms and two legs, strumming a guitar and singing as the ant works to store food away for the winter. The grasshopper wears a blue, pinstripe sports jacket, and tall, orange top hat. The ant, perhaps less sophisticated, wears no clothing. When winter comes and the grasshopper has no food, his top hat is no longer tall, weighed down by snow, and his sports jacket is now a heavy coat. "The Grasshopper regretted that he spent time being lazy." The tale ends with the ant happy to share his food; the characters do not moralize

$0.99.£0.69/Download

Corporate Smalltalk Consulting has announced Aeronautical Charts 1.8.6 for iPad, an update to their Navigation app that provides an advanced document viewer that accommodates highly detailed documents at high magnifications. As airlines continue moving toward the paperless cockpit, and iPads are appearing increasingly in pilot flight bags, Aeronautical Charts, with its proprietary LargeViewer technology allowing rapid scrolling and minimal drawing lag times for large charts and massive PDF documents.

While aeronautical charts can be a small, 60 x 20 cm (24 x 8 in), such documents, when converted to high-resolution TIFFs or PDFs, can become more than 64 megapixels in size. Ordinary iPad document viewers slow to a crawl or simply crash and scrolling is extremely difficult. Aeronautical Charts has been specifically designed to provide effortless, real-time scrolling both horizontally and vertically, and quick zooms in and out. The app features TIFF, PDF, and Dropbox download compatibility, quick-view thumbnails, multi-tasking support, and either iOS and/or OS X based pre-rendering.

As reported in the 7/4/11 edition of the New York Times, "Because Apple’s tablet computer weighs less and is more compact than a laptop and its touch screen easier to manipulate, its introduction in 2010 made the move away from paper in the cockpit easier. Switching to the iPad is also expected to reduce health care costs and absenteeism from shoulder and back injuries associated with hoisting heavy flight bags, said David Clark, pilot and manager of the connected aircraft program at American Airlines."

Most aeronautical charts are currently available through third party subscription services in PDF or TIFF format. Employing accelerated PDF viewing logic, combined with CSC’s newest TIFF decoder, facilitates the pre-rendering of files into LargeViewer format. All pre-rendering need be done only once; thereafter, converted files may be opened and viewed easily. While pre-rendering can be done within the app, CSC recommends their free, Mac OS X LargeViewer Helper for batch pre-rendering. Pre-rendering is done at 2x, but users can render finely detailed charts at 5x, enabling instant zooming in at 40x magnification.

$9.99/£5.99/Download

Smash Atom Software today is pleased to introduce Cinderella Storybook HD 1.0.0 for iOS, their new Book that presents a digitally enhanced version of the classic fairy tale. Featuring smooth, vector art and professional voiceover narration, the enchanting re-telling presented here is sure to touch children and adults alike. The app includes optional automatic page turns, optional narration Off, touch activated text to speech and sound effects, and a universal binary format optimized for grain-free display on all iOS devices.

Cinderella is the story of a young girl mistreated by her step mother and step sisters. She is given a magical chance to attend a ball until midnight. There she meets and falls in love with the prince of the kingdom. At midnight Cinderella steals away leaving only a glass shoe which the prince uses to find her. A classic fairy tale that is enjoyed by children worldwide, the story has been adapted into other media, such as opera, film, and theater.

With more than 50 versions of the fairy tale available on the App Store, it is reasonable to ask what makes Cinderella Storybook HD stand out from among the others. Briefly, this trans-national production (the text and voiceover are selectable for English or Mandarin Chinese), achieves a narrative whole that is much more than the sum of its parts. The illustrations and voiceover (plus music and sound effects) complement each other so well that the story comes powerfully alive.

The book’s artwork is an example of digital cartooning at its best. Only people and animals are thinly outlined in black; all objects, vegetation, and backgrounds have no outline. This technique has the effect of making the characters "pop," and lends them a strength and dynamism. Great attention has been paid to fills, which are solid colors or gradients. Color fills express ideal textures only found in fiction; the layers of fills and side-by-side contrasting of fills found here create expressive detail without detailing. Very realistic in style, the illustrations successfully use coloring and blending as an inspiration to the reader’s own imagination.

$1.99/£1.49/download

mMyrix Studios Ltd wishes to announce the release of their new game GridBreaker on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. GridBreaker is not just another bat and ball/breakout game. The game is visually and musically stimulating as well as fast and action packed with lots of exciting power ups. It pays homage to traditional breakout games but with a modern twist. Although the basic gameplay is the same as any other breakout game, there is an intriguing story that is designed to captivate the imagination of the player and that is portrayed in every aspect of the game.

GridBreaker takes you on a journey with our hero Zimmerman a soldier who has the fate of the world on his shoulders. We join our hero as he embarks on his epic mission to destroy the enemy’s defenses. The aliens fight a psychological battle with its enemies, making mental images of the things most loved and treasured that have been lost and making them relive the lowest points in their lives, and the only way forward is to play their game and destroy the images.

Each level is intricately designed to reflect a various part of our hero’s life. The original music and scrolling backgrounds were carefully designed to reflect the journey of our hero.

$0.99/£0.69/download

Corporate Smalltalk Consulting, Ltd. has announced Fax Viewer 1.8.6 for iOS, a feature update to their document viewer app that allows the user to either view the TIF files generated by standard office fax machines, or convert them to PDF documents for other apps to use.

As faxes are increasingly emailed to save on paper costs, Fax Viewer works by supplementing the existing document display logic found in iOS 4.x and 5.0, which will only display the first page of a fax but not allow access to subsequent pages. The app includes newly enhanced page manipulation features to allow the sizing and rotation of pages as fax pages sometimes arrive in various orientations, tap areas for paging, and adjustments to swipe to scroll. Bookmarking support is provided on a page basis to allow navigation within the document, but also external bookmarking allows for opening an existing fax to a page by tapping a custom URL received in the Mail.app or copy/pasted into Notes.app.

Fax Viewer enables viewing of multi-page faxes by first importing the entire file into its storage area. Once imported, the file undergoes one-time pre-rendering that ensures the fax is optionally re-scaled to be optically correct and to provide the fastest possible rendering when viewing as a multi-page document. The user can copy documents into Fax Viewer by using iTunes to copy files into, delete, or copy them out of the app, a different manual process is required to move files from Mail.app into Fax Viewer.

Now supporting variable size pages, scaling by width or height, and continuous pixel level scrolling to allow you to treat a fax like a roll of paper.

$5.99/£2.99/Download

8 Bit Grenade today is pleased to announce the release and immediate availability of Snap Trap 1.0, their new gaming title for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Snap Trap is one of the latest iOS games, that uses Apple’s touch screen technology, in a unique and intuitive way.

You are a hungry mouse determined to collect every piece of cheese, but lying in your way is an assortment of deadly traps, including: mouse traps, booby traps, tripwire grenades, and dynamite! Your goal is to navigate around these traps and return home safely. One thing for sure, these are not your Ma and Pa’s mouse traps!

Features:
* Unique and intuitive touch screen controls
* High-quality stylized artwork
* 30 challenging levels
* Avoid 6 deadly traps
* Strategize, plan your routes, or go kamikaze style
* Find the fastest route for higher scores
* Are you a Pipsqueak or are you Smooth Cheese? Get character ratings based on your overall score
* Earn up to 3 stars per level
* Something for everyone. Arcade, Action, Adventure, Strategy, and Puzzle genres

$2.99/£1.99/download

Scottish-based software developers Vasoware are pleased to announce today the release of Christmas Clock: Deluxe Edition for iOS, their new cheery app featuring a suite of tools to use in the run up to the holidays. Count down the days and hours to Christmas, listen to classic Christmas songs, and track Santa’s every move, all while enjoying fluid animations and dynamic weather effects. In keeping with the Christmas spirit, all users get the Christmas Deluxe version for free. This app is a big hit with young children and anyone who eagerly anticipates the holidays, and has already been downloaded thousands of times.

Feature highlights:
* Countdown the days and hours to Christmas Day
* Santa tracker – rekindle the magic and let your children see where Santa is!
* Classic Christmas songs – for free!
* Real-time clock – use as your main clock!
* Fluid animations, crisp sounds and retina display
* Dynamic snow effects and day/night cycle

Free/download

Gogo Sushi, from Ozgnahc, Inc. serves up a delicious fusion of casual gaming and foodie fun. The game gives players the chance to experience the fast paced world on the other side of the sushi bar, as a young sushi chef-in-training. But it’s not just the goal of becoming a competent cook at stake. Players are also aiming to edge out a sushi selling supermarket competitor and save the family business.

Satisfying simplicity laced with delightful details make Gogo Sushi a hit waiting to happen. The game is a perfect fit for casual gamers, with each level (consisting of one "day") being brief enough to pick up and play anywhere, anytime. It also offers the perfect level of complexity, by integrating a market for sushi supplies and a shop for special restaurant items. Pulling off complicated orders and predicting customers’ needs gives ambitious gamers the substance they’re looking for, with a well paced rewards system. When players perform exceptionally, they receive gifts from the market owner, and on special days they can receive items from exclusive bonus sets.

Gogo Sushi is beautifully designed and reasonably priced for a game which offers endless replay value through its variety of customers, orders, sushi types, items and combos. Available in the iTunes App Store for $1.99, Gogo Sushi is a sure thing. But like any restaurant owner, Ozgnahc. Inc. knows that a free taste can convince those that hesitate.

$1.99/£1.49/download