This Week at 148Apps: March 11-15, 2013

We Are Your App Authority

Week-in and week-out, the 148Apps reviewers comb through the vast numbers of new apps out there, find the good ones, and write about them in depth. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Want to see what we've been up to this week? Take a look below for a sampling of our latest reviews. And if you want more, be sure to hit our Reviews Archive.

Farsh

I never would have thought that carpet could be so much fun when incorporated into a game. This mind-bending puzzler may be one of the most innovative iOS games I’ve played in a long time. For those who don’t know, Farsh is persian for carpet. The game was created by award-winning indie game developer Mahdi Bahrami and it is port of the free PC version. Although it’s based off the PC game, there have been a few improvements to make it even better on iOS. --Angela LaFollette

Ridiculous Fishing

Ridiculous Fishing from Vlambeer, Zach Gage, and Greg Wohlwend as well has been on a long, strange journey to the App Store, with one major pratfall in particular: Gamenauts’ 2011 title Ninja Fishing, which Vlambeer describes as an outright clone of their original Radical Fishing Flash game. Being cloned it distressed Vlambeer enough that the studio considered shutting down at one point. However, a year and a half later, the studio’s own version is finally out, and it was worth the wait. --Carter Dotson

Incredimail

The in-built Mail app is useful but it’s far from essential or visually pleasing. It does the job and nothing more than that. This is where apps like Incredimail come swooping in, demonstrating how the experience can be so much better and, no doubt, saving the regular iPad user plenty of time. Things immediately start out well for Incredimail, thanks to its start up screen making it a breeze to set up. There are options for things such as Gmail, Yahoo! and AOL but it’s also possible to add any account, providing one knows the relevant IMAP settings. It takes a little while for the app to import all the emails, especially if there are plenty available, but it’s a one time thing. Future loading takes a lot less time. --Jennifer Allen

RockSteady XS

The RockSteady XS is a portable, micro Bluetooth speaker designed for use with any audio source that supports the Bluetooth 3.0 protocol, including iPads, iPhones, and other mobile or computing devices. It also includes a audio port for a line in, and a full-sized USB port for audio in and device charging, as well. There are a host of buttons on the front of the unit, which can be used to play, pause, forward, or reverse playback with many audio apps, like Pandora, Music, or Rdio. --Rob LeFebvre

Other 148Apps Network Sites

If you are looking for the best reviews of kids' apps and/or Android apps, just head right over to GiggleApps and AndroidRundown. Here are just some of the reviews these sites served up this week:

GiggleApps

The Adventures of Sophie the Sweater

The Adventures of Sophie the Sweater is a gem of an app, an interactive storybook which allows children to make choices that will affect the direction this tale takes, as this is the story of Sophie, a sweater who experiences many different lives with a varied group of people as they re-use and re-cycle her into other garments, craft ideas or other objects which illustrate how to use her material. I did enjoy a great deal the Choose Your Own Adventure or Which Way books as a child, and I have begun to read these titles to my son as well. I do love this app as I think it brings an intuitiveness to these kinds of books... --Amy Solomon

Bugs and Numbers

Bugs and Numbers is a delightful universal application – a collection of bug-themed mini-games that re-enforces beginner math concepts as well as other subjects such as understanding one’s left and right, shape matching, sorting, sequencing and tracing of numbers and shapes. Each one of these 18 mini-games includes a bright and engaging look, oftentimes including bug elements as well as an interesting dichotomy as some of these sections are quite beautiful to look at, while others include distressed qualities that show bugs in less than pristine conditions that children may also find interesting. --Amy Solomon

Fey Mouse

Fey Mouse is an interactive picture book based on the title of the same name, developed by Blue Quoll as the first in their series of Australian Vintage Picture Books, adapting out-of-print titles and making them accessible to children from around the world. Fey Mouse is the story of a cat born into a mouse family, misunderstood by distant relatives and living in the shadow of their successful lives. --Amy Solomon

AndroidRundown

Fitocracy

It’s a New Year. Resolutions abound. Fitocracy might just be the tool to help folks keep the ones related to healthier living. It’s an app that uniquely melds excessive with a competitive process that “rewards” completion of tasks. In doing this, it looks to avoid being just another fitness application, and to potentially become a full-fledged life coach. The app itself comes with a mature, clean look, with trademark purple hues making a starring appearance. The app is made up of three main pieces, accessible via the left side pane: Feed, Track and Your Profile. The Feed maintained my interactions with other “Fitocrats” all around. I could talk, encourage and request feedback from Fitocrats. --Tre Lawrence

Telepath Tactics

This is a special edition of our Kickstarter Spotlight column, because a promising turn-based strategy game that is planned to release on Android has just launched its Kickstarter campaign. Sinster Design’s Telepath Tactics is taking a second shot at getting funded on Kickstarter, and there’s plenty of reasons to care about this throwback to the days of 2D grid-based turn-based strategy games like Shining Force and Fire Emblem. The game has hopes to be a deep single- and multiplayer experience, but it needs the help of backers in order to reach its goal. As the title intimates, telepathy plays a big part, as the game takes place in Sinister Design’s Telepath RPG series, full of characters with powerful mental abilities. These not only represent the standard magical ability tropes such as healing and ranged attacks, but it’s also possible to do things like push and pull enemies into water or lava, which will do damage to them. It’s also just funny to push an enemy into a fiery grave. It’s also possible to do things like build bridges (or destroy them), freeze water to walk across, and set traps to help keep enemies away, or to draw them in to a strategic disadvantage. --Joseph Bertolini

Slingshot Racing

Good racing games need not require the fastest, most realistic cars. Sometimes they don’t even require cars with engines at all. Meet Slingshot Racing from Bolt Creative and publisher Crescent Moon Games. These cars are propelled by slingshotting around grappling points spread throughout the tracks, trying to jostle with other cars, hit speed boosts aligned on the tracks, and just finish as quickly as possible. The controls are simple: tap and hold on the screen to latch on to the nearest grapple point, and release to let go. The controls work 99% of the time, though rarely a different grapple point will be hit than what the player expects, but it’s otherwise easy enough to pick up on. --Carter Dotson