Pandora's Box Of Music

"Pandora Radio is free personalized radio that only plays music you’ll love. Just start with the name of one of your favorite artists, songs or classical composers and Pandora will create a custom "station" that plays similar music." - App Store

Pandora brings the radio to your iDevice, but not in the same way you might be used to. For those who have used Pandora via the standard web interface and have an account can just log in and play. For the Pandora virgins, prepare yourself for a radio experience that is above and beyond your expectations.

Start off by entering your favorite band, song, or genre. This will create a station with similar music to your entry. As you listen you can either "like" or "dislike" the songs to further tailor your station to your liking. That means that the longer you listen, the better Pandora gets to know your taste in music and plays the stuff you want. Much better than your car radio isn't it.

My only concern with this app is for people who want to use it on the go. Be careful with how much data this app uses as it can be a bit of a 3G hog. That being said, if you don't have a data limit (or don't pay the phone bill), use Pandora all day long!

Pandora's icon (left) and the in-app song info screenshot (right)

Great app for anyone who listens to music and is looking to broaden their musical horizons.

Get the app by clicking here!

P.S. This review is a suggested review by the blogs first follower!

Zynga - Games With Friends

Zynga is the creator of the well known apps Hanging with Friends, Scramble with Friends, and most popular game Words with Friends. They have recently added Matching with Friends to their lineup as well. All of these games can be played against friends, as you can connect your Facebook account to the game, or random opponents. Please note that all of these games both have free and paid versions. The only difference is that the free version has ads that pop up in between turns. No need to pay for these folks. If you insist on throwing away $2.99, throw it into my bank account instead please!

Scramble (top left), Words (bottom left), Hanging (top right), & Matching (bottom right) with Friends icons & game boards

Scramble with Friends is a game very similar to Hasbro's Boggle. The objective is to make as many words as possible by dragging your fingers over the letters in sequence. Each letter is worth a certain number of points just as they are in Scrabble (also made by Hasbro). There are three rounds of play in total in which one player creates as many words as he/she can before allowing their opponent the same opportunity on the same board. The opponent's scores are then revealed to both players. Whomever has the higher total wins. The game is one that most definitely requires both skill and intellect to master, but requires neither to enjoy.

Get the app by clicking here!

Words with Friends is essentially Scrabble. You and your opponent go back and forth player tiles drawn at random on a board with both word and letter multipliers until there are no tiles remaining. I enjoy this game very much because there is a good deal of strategy that can make up for an inferior vocabulary. By playing tiles in smarter locations one can score more points with a shorter word than someone playing long words with no mind for multipliers. This can help to level the playing field and make this game another that can be enjoyed by all.

Get the app by clicking here!

Hanging with Friends is also derivative of another common game; Hangman. One player is given twelve (12) tiles to arrange in eight (8) spots with which them must spell any word. The longer the word the better as every unused letter equates to a wrong guess by the other player. For example, a six (6) letter word would leave six (6) unused tiles resulting in six (6) incorrect guesses by the opponent. If you can not guess the word in its entirety then you one of you five (5) balloons pops. If you pop all of your balloons before your opponent does, you lose!

Get the app by clicking here!

Matching with Friends is the newest addition to the "With Friends" games. I am currently playing/testing and will update this post accordingly!

Get the app by clicking here!

Shazam - Musical Genie

While listening to the radio, how many times have you asked who sings this song? Which album is this from? What's the name of this song? Shazam has the answers to all of your questions and give you a bit more.

Shazam is a music recongition app that listens to the music playing via the built in microphone and matches it to an enormous database. It pulls up the song name, artist, album, and cover art for the current song. Every song that you "Shazam" gets added to the apps tag list, so that you may download the song at a later time or look back to find songs you enjoyed. The app also provides access to a top 20 chart with the current most popular songs. Lastly, one of my favorite features of Shazam is the real time lyric streaming that scrolls through the lyrics as the music plays. Great addition to the app!

Shazam's icon (left) and the in-app home screen (right)

Shazam is not just an app for music enthusiasts, but an app for anyone who listens to music at all. There is a paid app as well, but it simply provides the same functionality without ads. The free edition is just fine.

Get the app by clicking here!

YAHTZEE!

Everybody and their mother grew up playing Yahtzee. You roll the dice a few times and count up what you got and mark it down for points in a few scoring categories. Everyone has played it and everyone loves it.

Well the guys over at Stofle Designs got it right when they made Dice With Buddies. It brings the fun and simplicity of Hasbro's Yahtzee to the iDevice so that you can play against your friends and family, or even a random opponent. The app has blown up since its release in May of 2011 and has caught on, riding the wave of multi-player turn based games.

Dice With Buddies icon (left) and in game snapshot (right)

For anyone who enjoys apps like Draw Something or Words With Friends, which may be reviewed at a later date, this app is for you! Look out for reviews of the aforementioned apps and other by Zynga.

Get the app by clicking here!

"Yahtzee"

ZITE - The Personalized Magazine

"Zite is a free personalized magazine for your iPad that automatically learns what you like and gets smarter every time you use it. Zite delivers all the great news, articles, blogs, and videos you want – and helps you discover new stuff that you'll love. " -App Store

Here's how it works. Zite prompts you with a list of suggested sections varying from World News to Gadgets to Sports. You may also create customized sections by entering for keywords in a search box. After carefully selecting the topics you wish to follow, Zite pulls up a wealth of content that pertains to what youve selected. As you can see in the image below, it arranges the topics on the top bar while filling in the content below in a very user friendly manner.

Zite icon (left) and snapshot of the home screen (right)

Zite is a great app for those looking to stay up to date with their favorite topics. Perfect for those who commute on trains! Hope you get as much use out of it as I do!

Get the app by clicking here!

Attention Gmail Users!

The following message is for people who actually use Gmail for its labeling and sorting features. Please do not use the "Mail" app that is built in on your iDevice. It provides literally no labeling functionality whatsoever and doesn't even show something that gets labeled automatically.

The app simple called Gmail is a free mail app designed by Google that brings most of Gmail's functionality to you mobile device. You can append labels to emails, view all emails of certain label, and even set a vacation response all from within the app. The Gmail app also allows you to compose and send mail to you Google contacts as well as the contacts on your iDevice. The only flaw of this app is that you cannot create/edit your filters to automatically label and or manipulate your emails. This is a minor oversight as most people would not be editing or creating filters on their mobile device anyways.

Gmail icon (left) and the inbox screenshot (right)

This is a must have app for Gmail users as it really allows you to still use Gmail for all its worth. Hope you enjoy it!

Get the app by clicking here!