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3D Mini Golf Challenge is one of the games I play most often when I have a couple of minutes to spare. There’s nothing much to it: play some putt-putt over a couple of different, wacky courses trying either to beat par or trounce the computer opponent. As one accomplishes these various goals by scoring points, additional courses to play are unlocked.

The controls are extremely intuitive and simple. Other than aiming the club to select a path for the ball, the only other action is to select the strength with which the ball will be propelled forward. A touch and drag on the ball is all that is required.

That’s probably what makes this so much fun to play – no complicated controls to master and the ability to improve quite quickly as one learns how gradients affect the direction and travel of the golf ball.

The 3D environment is attractive and the animation and panning well executed. There are occasions when the view of the intended shot is obstructed. Otherwise, the ability to rotate the view and zoom out to some degree is adequate. The course are quirky and contain numerous traps to ensure the ball is prevented from making it to the hole too easily. The game contains 100 holes for play in various modes: against par, against the clock, against the computer opponent or try for a hole in one challenge.

If you’re interested in a game that is quick to learn, fun to play and doesn’t require a huge time investment, give 3D Mini Golf Challenge a try. It’s available for USD 4.99 from the Apple App Store.

I haven’t bought a new GPS for the car since I’m unable to decide on a specific model or brand. Garmin units have served me well, but the recent availability of the German-made Navigon range has piqued my interest. Since I haven’t tried any turn-by-turn GPS product on the iPhone, I decided to spring for the USD 79 Navigon MobileNavigator for the iPhone to gain access to an interim solution. As far as I know, that price is valid until the end of December 2009. After that, the price of the software will probably jump back to USD 99.

For the claimed map coverage, Navigon’s MobileNavigator is extremely compact: the download is only 130MB in size and downloaded reasonably quickly over my wireless network. The map set includes South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Lesotho. For the South African map, Navigon indicates 82468 POI’s in 71 categories. With so much crammed into such a small base file, I was interested to see what extent of detail the application could provide.

The iPhone’s GPS is rather quick to acquire a signal and in conjunction with the Navigon application that aspect does not disappoint. On first use, my location was determined in an extremely short period of time and I was immediately impressed with the quality of the display. Some options need to be changed, particularly the units of measure. Somehow, I just prefer metric values…

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Though I never really had any extended use for dictation software, I was really impressed with earlier releases of Dragon Naturally Speaking, a speech to text processor. There’s no way one would be able to use something like this in an office environment, but in the comfort of a quiet place and with a lot of typing to be done, dictation software is certainly worth a look.

The Dragon product has been owned by many different companies over the years. Nuance is the latest owner of the software and they have taken a bold initiative by providing a version of the Dragon speech to text engine for a very popular mobile platform – the iPhone. Of course the iPhone doesn’t have the processing power to run a speech to text processor. Instead, Nuance relies on the recording ability of the iPhone and a powerful backend that processes the captured speech. The text version is provided on the iPhone and may be texted, e-mailed or saved to the clipboard. Overall, a very neat idea and, better still, it works!

The iPhone application is available as a free download. Installation is quick and easy: the application has a size smaller than 1MB. Once launched, a single button appears. Tap that and record whatever it is you have to say. The big Done button is hard to miss…

The application performs its function with aplomb. In my very brief tests, the application was able to decipher my mumblings without a hitch. Ambient noise levels and the clarity of speech are obvious things to consider. I was unable to determine whether or not the application favours a Yankee drawl – as I mentioned, the speech to text conversion seemed to work very well.

Once speech has been captured and processed, some editing is possible using the keyboard. Additional text may be added by pressing the record button again. Tapping the arrow frees the text up to be either mailed, sent by SMS or placed on the clipboard.

Dragon Dictate is a great application to have installed on the iPhone. Speech to text translation is seamless and fast, and the application is extremely easy to use. To use this on an iPod Touch, a microphone will be required.

For those addicted to texting whilst driving, this should provide a safer method of doing that: only a few buttons to press now…

As a committed fan of the Star Wars franchise I was looking forward to the impending arrival of the Star Wars: Trench Run game for the iPhone. The game places the player in the pilot seat of an X-Wing and provides the challenge of blowing up assorted bits and pieces that said pilot would encounter in the trenches of the Death Star.

The graphics engine of the iPhone is suitably leveraged to produce stunning visuals and smooth animation. Great sound effects taken directly from the movie help wanna-be Red Squadron pilots get into the action. There are few controls to master: simply tilt the iPhone in the intended direction to steer the X-Wing. Large areas of the screen provide the necessary buttons for firing weapons and activating other functions. Various modes of play and difficulty levels are available.

The ultimate mission: carefully aim a torpedo into the exhaust port of the Death Star. Use the Force if you have to…

Star Wars: Trench Run costs USD 4.99 and is available in the iTunes App Store. A great game, not only for fanboys.

The one aspect of the MiFi that should be improved in a future version is the fact that it is unable to display the battery state on the device itself. One is reliant on the web interface to determine roughly how much the battery has been run down. Whilst virtually every device one will be using the MiFi with will feature a web browser, additional software is always useful. Enter Mi-fi for the iPhone or iPod Touch.

The application is a free download from the iTunes App Store – yesterday, a new version was released that works with the European firmware loaded on the MiFi sold in South Africa. The previous version of the application displayed garbage on the screen and was unusable. The new version runs quite nicely, though it is basic and suited to only a single purpose.

When started, the application connects via the wireless network connection to the MiFi and reads data regarding the signal strength, battery level, data volumes and IP addresses. The data is displayed on the screen and is updated every few seconds.

If you have a MiFi and iPod Touch or iPhone, this application may be very useful to have at hand when wanting to gain a quick insight into your MiFi’s status.

Last week, Marvel Comics announced the availability of select titles for the iPhone and iPod Touch devices via in-app purchasing options. I have the Comics application by Comixology installed, though I don’t use it at all that often. The primary reason is the fact that the free content available holds little interest for me and I don’t have the time to research some of the independent comics available on that platform. The promise of Marvel Comics titles is a bit more interesting, if only due to the fact that I know many of the characters and storylines. The fact that the Marvel titles are available only within the US was of little concern – I have a US iTunes account. Strangely, Comics shows no Marvel content whatsoever…

Providing a wide choice of applications something the iTunes Apps Store cannot be criticized for. I downloaded the free Panelfly reader to the iPhone and launched it in anticipation. Marvel Comics? No problem! As a service to you, the loyal reader, I attempted to purchase issue #1 of the Astonishing X Men: Gifted.

The comics cost USD 0.99 each and are downloaded rather speedily. That’s the good part. The bad part is the important one: reading a comic on a minute screen and having to zoom in and out whilst panning around the page.

Panelfly is able to show an overview of all pages in the current book for easy selection.

Reading any of the content in the full page view mode is pretty difficult, unless you have the habit of carrying a microscope permanently attached to your forehead. Rotating to landscape mode makes little difference and simply necessitates more scrolling.

To zoom in is tedious and takes time. It also made me lose my position on the page. It’s not the ideal reading experience.

So, even though I’m able to get to the Marvel content, it’s unlikely I’d consider this a viable comic book reading experience. Now, if Apple would consider producing a device with a 10″ touch screen, that could all change…

I’ve spent at least eight hours attempting the update of my iPhone 3G from its 3.0 firmware to the newly release 3.1 version. Somehow, the update of the firmware for both my iPhone and iPod Touch devices has never really been a pleasant experience. First off, the download via iTunes is an absolute pain, taking far too long, timing out and having to be restarted way too often. Without even attempting the download via iTunes, I head for the direct download links kindly maintained here. At least a direct download implies the use of my browser’s download manager, restartability and a generally shorter download time.

With the download complete, I started this update with trepidation. With very few exceptions, the update has always failed at least once. I use the MacBook as my sync computer for the iPhone. Copied the firmware file, started iTunes and opened the update file by holding down the Option key and clicking Update. Select the file and hold thumbs. It took a very short time for a rather familiar screen on the iPhone to show up:

Error 14. That’s pretty much a catch-all. It has no direct resolution, other than restoring the device using an older firmware file. I tried the 3.0.1 release simply to gain something out of another unpleasant upgrade experience. That worked seamlessly. The most annoying bit is waiting for all applications to be reloaded using the last backup file, a process that completes after about two hours or more. Stupidly, I attempted the update again sometime after that. Same result. Even more stupidly, I tried it again a few days later. Same result. My iPhone stays on 3.0.1.

In a way, I’m relieved the upgrade didn’t work. It seems there are some real issues with the new firmware relating to reduced battery life, an inability to access Exchange mail and services and overall stability problems. So I’ll wait for 3.1.1 or 3.2 or whatever the next release will be. Then I’ll try again…

On to page 3 of my iPhone application collection. This is one of two pages containing camera and photography-related applications, many duplicating features others in the collection already provide. The camera on the iPhone 3G is a lot of fun and is always with me. Startup times are reasonable for catching important moments, though the low resolution can be a let down at times. Time to consider a 3GS…

I’ll ignore the two two standard iPhone apps Camera and Photos.

Camera Zoom is an alternative to Camera that includes a slider to zoom the image seen by the iPhone. Obviously, the image quality suffers as the zoom is increased – this is a digital zoom function and cannot improve or alter what the iPhone camera detects.

Basically, Camera Zoom increases the size of each pixel to provide a zoomed image. It’s not as crass as that, but the overall effect is based on that principle. Here, a photo using the built-in camera’s natural focal length:

And then, zoomed to the max:

The result is usable and is certainly handy to have at hand. Important: hold the iPhone steady to prevent even more blur in the photo.

Frequency of use: occasional

My rating (cost and usability taken into account): 3/5

Price: USD 0.99

iTunes App Store URL for Camera Zoom

Camera Bag is an application that provides a number of classic camera simulations. Selecting an existing photo or taking a new one from within the application allows the selection of various interesting effects. That’s really all there is to it, though the output can dramatically improve an image or make it far more interesting.

A variety of effects are provided, including the classic Helga and Lolo. Applying any of these to the selected photograph is a simple matter of selecting the most appropriate one.

The new photograph may be saved for further processing. It’s simple, but provides great value.

Frequency of use: occasional

My rating (cost and usability taken into account): 4/5

Price: USD 0.99

iTunes App Store URL for CameraBag
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Today, we move to page 2 of my iPhone application collection. This page contains news sources that I enjoy reading and two important reference sources: Wikipedia and a dictionary. All of these are free to download and rely on their respective backend data sources to populate their information. Using these apps a lot is a bit of a drain on bandwidth consumption, so I tend to use these more when I’m in reach of my home wireless network.

With very few exceptions, all news apps are created equal: access to content that is also available from any web browser, a selection of news stories belonging to various categories, images, video and the ability to comment and interact with other users.

News24 is the mobile portal to the popular South African news site. News on current events with a focus on South Africa but with a fair bit of coverage of important international news.

I’m also always interested in the financial and motoring news provided. The layout is clean and neat and easily navigable.

Visit the News24 website here.

Frequency of use: occasional

My rating (cost and usability taken into account): 3/5

Price: free

iTunes App Store URL for News24

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I took the easy way out with my first post on detailing the applications I house on the iPhone and iPod Touch. I presently have 10 pages of applications on there, with page 10 being a landing pad for things I’m trying out or considering deleting. I’ve downloaded many apps for the iPhone and am constantly adding new ones. If you have an iPhone in South Africa and haven’t yet applied (by fair means or foul) for an account on the US store, you’re seriously missing out on a lot of content.

I’m a bit of a stickler when it comes to organizing the application icons, and I’ve developed my own categorization to help me find things more speedily. Of all the things I want to see in iTunes 9 (or whatever the rumoured new version to be launched September 9 will be) is something to allow me to organize the icons quickly and easily. Currently, it takes a fair bit of time to drag and place icons where I want them.

Page 1/10 is the home screen and contains all the applications I consider most important for daily use. These are the applications I use most often, with the most critical ones stored in the dock: Phone, Mail, Calendar and Contacts.

We’ll skip the standard iPhone applications Settings, Messages, Clock, App Store, Safari, Calculator, Maps and Weather.

NetNewsWire is an RSS aggregator that works in conjunction with Newsgator. Yes, I use RSS even though I’m an ardent reader of Twitter streams. I set up an online account and added RSS feeds to that. Using a browser, native app for Linux/Mac/Windows or NetNewsWire on the iPhone I have access to all RSS feeds I’ve subscribed to.

Reading on any one platform will update my read counts.

What I like best about NetNewsWire is its ability to store clippings of stories I want to remember for follow up later on. Unfortunately, the online interface at Newsgator will no longer be available soon: Google Reader is my next best bet, but NetNewsWire is unaffected and will still work.

Frequency of use: frequent

My rating (cost and usability taken into account): 4/5

Price: free

iTunes App Store URL for NetNewsWire

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