Daily App Digest – August 15, 2011
Latest apps and updates to hit the App Store today…
Adobe Photoshop CS5: A Tutorial for Beginners
The app, called "Adobe Photoshop CS5: A Tutorial for Beginners," was written by Dr. Michael N. Roach, who has years of experience in both working with and teaching students how to use the program. It walks users through Photoshop, illustrating each tool, filter and mechanism while pointing out advantages to certain preferences and options. It also provides real-world examples and step-by-step instructions.
"While Photoshop is an outstanding tool for all types of design work, it is all too easy to want to skip the manual and get right to what you think you want to know," Dr. Roach said. "However, what you think you want and what you actually need may be two different things."
In addition to all of the basics for beginners, the app also covers a number of advanced techniques, like image retouching, proof setups, exposure adjustment and color balance, that will help more experienced users fill in any gaps in knowledge they might have. It also allows users to develop the skills and knowledge needed to conquer the incredible toolkit contained in Adobe Photoshop CS5.
Zoozoo Readables
Cavallo Media Group, creators of the Letter Buddies AlphaBooks app for iPad and iPhone, today is pleased to announce the launch of their latest early childhood reading app, Zoozoo Readables for iPad and iPhone. Adapted from the popular education series, Zoozoo Into the Wild, currently used in classrooms across the US and Canada, Zoozoo Readables is a collection of eight humorous animal fiction stories for budding readers, ages 3-6. The stories, brought to life with light animations, feature zoo animals that are most popular with young children. In creating Zoozoo Readables, Cavallo Media included many of the digital features that were popular in the Letter Buddies AlphaBooks app including narration and text highlighting but enhanced the storytelling experience by adding more enriching and interactive art and animation.
My Virtual Boyfriend
WET Productions today is pleased to announce that My Virtual Boyfriend, has been approved and is now available on the iTunes app store. From the Creators of the hit iPhone game, My Virtual Girlfriend, comes the eagerly anticipated male dating simulation game for iPhone and iPad, My Virtual Boyfriend. My Virtual Boyfriend is a 3D, dating simulation game that features an all male cast of characters of varying personalities and varying physical appearances. It is a universal app that runs on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.
Minicars Touch
Dracoders today is pleased to introduce Minicars Touch 1.0 for iOS, their new auto racing Game featuring the Epic Control System, which allows the user to control their car by dragging their finger along the track ahead of their racecar. Other features include: 15 different tracks, up to six cars racing simultaneously, nitro power-ups, electric barriers, teleports, secret track elements, and detailed pixel-art graphics. Played in overhead view, players can bump in to other cars and run them off the track. The game includes 15 levels of play, each of which must be unlocked to go to the next level.
Good racing games have dedicated, hand-held controllers that allow the player to continuously trim speed and direction. Lacking such controllers, touchscreen based racing games have had to rely upon touch controllers that lacked sensitivity and accuracy. The Epic Control System turns touch control from a disadvantage into an advantage. The player maintains absolute control through every turn and straightaway using their finger, which provides their car with a control path. Wherever the player’s finger drags on the track, their car follows.
Terminology
Terminology is a dictionary and thesaurus app for people who care about words. Concise definitions, deep word relations – paired with a great, modern user interface – make Terminology the best way to explore language on iOS. Terminology has topped the charts in the App store’s Reference category, and been listed in "New & Noteworthy", "Staff Favorites", "Words for the Wise" and other App store features. Also, checkout term.ly, Terminology’s online companion, the best way to lookup and share words on the web.
According to a recent study, more than 75% of medical providers (Physicians, Physician Assistants, and Nurse Practitioners) are using handheld, mobile devices as resources when treating their ailing patients. With this in mind, Abe Balsamo & Co. has set out to provide peer-reviewed, point-of-care medical information to these providers.
Now the maker of "Arrhythmias", Abe Balsamo, a Physician Assistant still in full-time practice, has decided to give back to his community. This month’s sales (every penny that is made) will go into a fund to help a young motor vehicle accident victim who had a devastating accident in mid-July, 2011. The profits will be used to help her pay her continuing medical expenses.
An update of MMP Plan – Meeting Organizer, the premiere effective meeting planning app from Creative App Design, is now available on the iTunes App Store. This iPad/iPhone universal app helps meeting organizers easily set up an effective meeting – scheduling, determining attendees, setting an objective, planning the agenda and communicating with attendees.
MMP Plan integrates scheduling, including adding attendees (invitees) through Outlook if an Exchange Calendar is utilized. After scheduling and entering an objective, adding attendees as well as agenda items (with Duration), an email with all this information can be immediately generated to communicate this information with attendees. The current update adds features most frequently requested by users: importing of attendees and agenda items from saved meetings as well as addition of purpose to the agenda item.
Ivy Ride
MDev Studio today is pleased to announce the release of Ivy Ride v1.0 for iPad and iPad 2. Ivy Ride – exciting race on a hoverboard! You have to race through a sandy track avoiding rocks, jumping over streams, dodging deadly tumbleweed. During the ride you’ll be able to increase speed. The faster you go – more points you earn. The choice is yours, but remember – you can’t slow down. Among the obstacles on the road will appear a variety of bonuses. Some of them will ease your ride, others – will bring additional points.
Th@T WuZ HarD!!
Jordan Morgan Apps has introduced Th@T WuZ HarD!!! 1.0, now available as a free download on the iPad app store. The goal of the game is simple, use your finger to guide a red square away from all the other moving objects. The catch, however, is the abnormally high escalation in difficulty that’s encountered very quickly.
"You see so many apps going through the app store that are easy to pick up and play." Jordan Morgan, CEO of Jordan Morgan Apps, exclaimed. "We wanted to do something a little different. Make a game that doesn’t reward you easily, an app that is almost borderline frustrating, but also a blast to play." With that mentality in mind, Jordan Morgan Apps set out to create a formula that would draw a large audience in, but ease players into a high degree of difficulty within their app without scaring them off. Th@T WuZ HarD!!! then became prototyped to fully developed within two months.
Monster Smasher
Steve Randles has announced Monster Smasher: A science experiment gone wrong, an iPhone app. Here in the sleepy town of Bowling Green Ohio a lowly Game Developer Steve Randles has finally manifested from the ethers of creativity his very first iPhone game title "Monster Smasher: A science experiment gone wrong". This iPhone app is now available on apple’s very own AppStore for a mere ninety-nine cents. This iPhone game has it all a fun quirky art style, and an intense yet simple gaming experience.
The game’s story is about a group of what some may call "mad" scientists performing a dangerous experiment on an alien substance. During the experiment something in the lab goes wrong and things take a turn for the worst. The alien substance awakens and immediately begins to multiple. These monsters must not be allowed to get out of the building for fear they will take over the world. Also these monsters are very hungry and will gladly eat any scientist that gets to close.
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: [email protected]
