Interesting apps for your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

Applications have become a major part of the mobile phone arena and rightfully so. Although hardware is accelerating forward at a tremendous pace, applictions have also become quite sophisticated in their own right and are evolving rapidly. Previously we had showcased some interesting apps for the iPad now here’s a list of a few more iOS apps for your Apple devices that should come in quite handy every now and then.

Mumbai on the Go or Bengaluru on the go - Travel - Rs. 110 ( Lite Edition avilable for Mumbai on the Go)

A number of free apps exist for navigating public transportation in the city, but Mumbai on the Go is well worth the money. It offers schedules and route information for buses, taxis, rickshaws and trains on all lines. The interface is simple and controls are mostly well implemented. You can see entire bus routes, though you have to know the exact name of each stop to plan your own journey. It would have been nice to be able to group bus stops by vicinity. Most impressive though is the rains section. You can instantly calculate any fare between stops and also check which trains stop at which stations— accurate to the minute—and plan trips in advance. A free version drops detailed bus routes and support for the Central and Harbour train lines. Hopefully, versions for other cities will be out soon.

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For all the travel information in your city

My Measures & Dimensions - Utility - Rs. 165 ( Pro version is available for Rs. 330.50)

This fantastic app could be a huge convenience for anyone- who needs to draw, design, or build things and show their ideas to clients or contractors. Architects, artists, designers, and creative professionals in many fields will love the idea of what it does. Quite simply, it lets you annotate any image with markers for angles and dimensions, just by tracing along edges and gaps. You can choose the colour and arrowhead style, and then just type in the values and units you want. You’ll see a zoomed-in view of any point of the image you touch, allowing you to precisely align endpoints. Images can be sorted into folders and shared via email or exported back to the photo library. The $5.99 pro version adds volume and area calculation, text boxes, iPad support, PDF export, and iCloud syncing. If you’ve ever had to grab a pen and paper just to explain something you’re seeing in your mind, you’ll instantly begin to appreciate this app. 

Flight Control: Rocket - Games - Free

Flight Control was immediately successful because of its utter simplicity and the brilliantly addictive use of a touchscreen device. Sadly, its sequel seems to have lost track of that formula. Rocket has quirky retro-futuristic Jetsons-style artwork and the same basic premise of guiding ships to their designated landing spots, but there are too many additional complications in the form of bonus “bots” which need to be charged with batteries and boosted with crystals, all of which cost bonus coins which EA helpfully offers to keep selling you. Essentially, the game has lost its charm and gone along with the disappointing trend of offering a limited experience in the hope that users will keep making small payments in-app just to progress. Fortunately, gameplay is fun (apart from the one constantly-repeating background track). The Infinity and Odyssey modes are quite similar, with Odyssey more difficult to score in.

Fly Rockt, Fly!

TowerMadness HD - Games - Rs. 441 ( iPhone vesrion avilable for Rs. 165)

There isn’t much variation between most tower defence games, but TowerMadness at least has a unique sense of humour. Your job is to protect a flock of sheep from invading aliens, using a variety of guns to prevent the aliens from reaching them. Conveniently, the aliens always land on the opposite side of the field, and there’s plenty of space through most of the levels for you to plant guns and pick them off. The 3D style is interesting, and you can zoom in till you’re practically on the ground. The fields and aliens are stylized in a fun manner, and there’s even a techno-country background track to amuse you. The paid version of this game has over 30 maps, 49 tower strengths, and even a two-player split screen mode. Later levels get surprisingly difficult, and you’ll have to play earlier levels again if you haven’t scored enough points to unlock them. An iPhone version is also available for US$ 2.99.

Strategy required to stay alive

Bounzzle - Games - Free

Picture puzzle games are a dime a dozen. Bounzzle is innovative because the picture you have to rearrange is actually an animation of a bouncing ball which jumps around against a plain backdrop. You have to pay very close attention to the ball in order to see where it goes—the earlier levels are simple enough but things get a lot more difficult as you go on. The grid gets larger and you have to deal with more balls, often multiples of the same color which become very difficult to keep track of. It’s easy enough to make you want to keep going, but challenging enough to remain fun for ages. This is a great example of doing one simple thing really well. The app displays a small banner with advertisements on the bottom of the screen, which is not too distracting. There are 16 basic levels and a “quick play” mode which you have to pay to unlock.

OliveOffice Basic HD - Productivity - Free (iPad Only)

This is a simple app, but one that could easily become indispensable. OliveOffice Basic displays Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Open Document Format files, with the tantalizing promise of more features to come. The fact that it’s free means there’s absolutely nothing to lose. You can use the app to show off documents, and presentations, or just refer to your own spreadsheets when you need to. We found that the app also displays PDFs, an undocumented feature, though it didn’t work with JPEG images. Word and PowerPoint files in both 2000 and 2003 formats displayed perfectly. Excel spreadsheets tended to lose formatting such as cell shading and text alignment. You can print PDFs to an Apple-supported wireless printer, but not other formats.

For all your work requirements

Do feel free to list out any other apps you might find inetersting for the iOS platform.