Super Ads XL [Review]

Posted by Jake on Feb 19, 2012 in Blog, Reviews | 0 comments

Almost everyone loves Super Bowl ads, whether it’s a witty Pepsi commercial or GoDaddy’s questionable shower scene. Aclass Apps delivers all of your favorite commercials and more to your local Enyo-supported device.

Similar to it’s smaller, phone version, when you first open up the app, it displays each Super Bowl game in a list on the left side from XLIII to XLVI. Once you select a Bowl, a list of advertisements appears. You select one and a popup appears with a YouTube version of the ad. Once finished, you can close out and select another. It’s simple to the first degree, and it should be.

To set favorites, just click(or tap) the big star next to the ad you like. It is saved in a list of favorites. One thing I did not like is that the “Favorites” list item on the left is inside the Bowl selection. I think it would make more sense to have the Favorites button where the Support button currently is, and have Support be in the App Menu(for non-Touchpad devices, there could be a button to bring down the App Menu, which is currently empty).

In terms of functionality, the app works great. The user interface is simple. I like the logos and the scores for the specific years bowl. However, the text for the teams name is a little hard to read. Upsizing it about 2px per font would do the trick.

The developer has promised the following:
1. Sharing will be in the first update.
2. New ads added as we find them automagically.
3. Have plans to add a Villo chat room.
4. Expect to see it on other platforms soon.

We at WebOS World are especially excited to see our own Villo services being used in any app.

Overall, the app is great, and with future updates already in the works, I can see a lot of people downloading to watch their favorite ads all in one place.

WebOS World Rating: 5/5

Demo and FAQ at: http://aclassapps.com/apps/superadsXL

Download links:

HP Touchpad
Google Chrome App Store

Wild’n Video Poker [review]

Posted by Jake on Jul 27, 2011 in Reviews, villo | 3 comments

Wild’n Video Poker will be the third Villo-enabled app in the WebOS App Catalog, behind Coffee Guy and our own WebOS World Services. Wild’n Video Poker has 2 chat rooms available, and has a leaderboard available for submitting your scores.

Selling HP webOS [App Overview]

Posted by Jake on Mar 30, 2011 in Blog, News, Reviews | 0 comments

In the web feeds, HP has published a new app entitled “Selling HP webOS.” The first assumption I have is that this is the demo app that would be on in Best Buy or somewhere and people can touch the list items and see the features of the phone.

The videos appear to be old, as the old Palm name appears at the very end. We know Palm isn’t dead, but I figure HP would’ve replaced that too. The Learn More button takes you to http://learning.palm.com/. This site is pretty cool, but is a work in progress (no mention of the Veer or Pre 3)

This app is a good first step towards grabbing the consumer market, but they need to update the videos with the latest features (Touch to Share, Touchstone v2, etc) to really give an eye opener about what webOS really can do.

Grand twitter client roundup – intro

Posted by pgovotsos on Jan 17, 2011 in Blog, Reviews | 10 comments

Since at least two new Twitter clients will soon be released (Phnx & Carbon), I thought now would be a good time to do an in depth review of all Twitter clients available for webOS.  This will be a multi-part project with a full review of a single Twitter client per article.

I will be spending a few days with each client using solely that client for all my Twitter activities.  I basically intend to tear them apart so I can present you with a comprehensive list of strengths and weaknesses of each product.  The goal is not to find “the best” Twitter client – such a creature doesn’t exist.  My goal is essentially a very detailed buyer’s guide.  To provide a level playing field, all tests will be performed on a patch-free Verizon Wireless Palm Pre Plus that is not overclocked.

I have a long list of criteria to evaluate the apps against.  Features will be divided into general classes.  Each feature will be worth a maximum of five points.  Each client will receive 1 point if the app supports that feature at all.  The balance of the points will be allocated for how well the app implements the feature.  If an app does not support a feature, it will be scored zero for that feature.  The goal is not a 0 – 100 scale, but a quantitative summary.  Results will be given for total score as well as scores for general classes of features so you can quickly see what area a client excels or falls short in.

It should be obvious that this method of scoring is heavily weighted in favor of evaluating the interfaces of the apps.  This far into the life of the webOS App Catalog, every app should have most features included in one way or another.  What differentiates the is the ease or difficulty of the hoops users must jump through and that’s what I will be focusing on.

One thing that needs to be made clear about these reviews.  I am going to base them on what is obvious on-screen or covered in in-app help.  Easily accessible (from a phone) online resources will be included, but the main source of guidance will, and should, be the app itself & the included help.  If a feature is not obvious on screen or covered in the in-app help, a client will receive a zero for that feature.  I’m not going to be blindly tapping, meta-tapping, sliding around the screen.  If a developer provides a feature for me to use, either show me or tell me how to use it.  I will NOT attempt telepathy.  So devs, if your app interface isn’t totally transparent or documented, now’s your chance to update it.

The clients I’ll be looking at are:

•  Bad Kitty
•  Spaz
•  Twee
•  Tweed
•  Twit-x Free
•  weTwit
•  Yak

Two clients I’m not including in these tests are TinyTwitter and TweetMe.  They have not been updated in 6 – 14 months.  If readers wish these two clients included, speak up in the comments and if enough want it, they’ll be added.

As this series progresses, some exciting new Twitter clients for webOS are in the process of rolling out including Carbon, phnx and TweetJar. The series will culminate in an indepth look at the “new kids” and whether or not they raise the bar for existing clients.

On the back burner as a possible addition to this series might be coverage of what might be called Twitter “adjuncts”.  Apps like Birdwatch, Twitter Wallpaper, TweetCam, Pixelpipe, and the like.  These are apps that add to or support the Twitter experience.

This series will run for a good bit of time.  There are a lot of good products out there with a lot of good features.  I want to make sure to give every app the scrutiny it deserves and not just dash off a “wow it’s great” article.  Some of these products are very flexible & it will take some time to examine every aspect.

Before I get too far into this, I REALLY need your help! What features are important to you?  What types of interfaces do you prefer?  For these reviews to be relevant, I want to make sure to cover as many bases as I can.  It’s quite likely that there are features that I won’t think of to cover so speak up in the comments with ideas of what’s important to you.

I’m very excited to be looking into this pool of talented developers.  I hope you will be too.

Review: Lopan by Dynaptic

Posted by pgovotsos on Oct 21, 2010 in Reviews | 0 comments

Recently, Dynaptic released a free Mahjong game called Lopan.  For those who don’t know what Mahjong is, it’s basically a matching game.  You are presented with a layout consisting of several tiles.  Select a matching pair and it is removed from the board.  There are usually 4 of each tile in a layout.  A few exceptions include flower names and season names.  With these tiles, any two are considered a match.  If you successfully remove all tiles, you win.  It’s a very simple game, but the strategies to play can become very complex.  Skilled players can take 8 or more hours to complete a single game.

For a first foray into PDK programming, Roy Sutton makes an admirable showing.  When you first start Lopan, you’re presented with a screen unlike what you might be used to seeing with most webOS apps.  The first screen displays all the fuctions available and the mnemonic keys you need to press for them.  To try and make the layout as large as possible, Lopan uses the entire screen to display the layout and has no room for onscreen controls (other than a help icon) so all the controls use the keyboard.   When you play Lopan, you’re going to want to keep the keyboard out so you can access the controls and, probably most importantly, (U)ndo wrong moves.  If you forget what key performs what function, select the help icon (a circled question mark) to view this help screen again.  Considering the limits of screen real estate and minimal controls needed, I think this is an acceptable trade-off.

Review: Convertor by The Coding Bees

Posted by pgovotsos on Oct 18, 2010 in Reviews | 3 comments

How many US Dollars are in a Euro?  How many square centimeters are in a Hectare?  I don’t know, but with Convertor by The Coding Bees, you can find out.  Convertor is an app that lets you convert just about any imaginable unit of measure to another.  It has support for 21 categories of units including common ones like currency (rates updated when launched) and area.  There’s also a few you probably won’t use every day like Typography and Radioactivity (although Radioactivity is missing such common units as rad, rem, Gray and Sievert).  Combined, these 21 categories provide 411 units of conversion. Convertor costs $1.99 and a Lite version is also available for free.