Prank Ltd

Metacritic named Ant Raid as the 8th best iPad game of 2011 and currently the game holds the all-time number one spot of iOS strategy games with its Metascore of 90 out of 100. As a celebration to the success and due to the widespread praise of the game’s upbeat music, the company has decided to provide the entire soundtrack for free of charge.

Originally the game was released exclusively for iPad on July of 2011, and on January of 2012 a new version for iPhone and iPod Touch followed. Additionally, Prank published free versions of the game for both iPad and iPhone, featuring 10 unique levels. The original soundtrack of Ant Raid can now be downloaded from the game’s official website right here.

Enjoy!

Ant Raid for iPhone
Developer: Prank Ltd.

Rated: 9+

Price: $0.99 Download

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to close apps.
• Switch apps simply by swiping left or right from the edge.
• Smoothly swipe up to see your multitasking switcher.

Here’s a more in-depth look at the v1.1 update.

Zephyr costs $2.99 in the BigBoss repo.

Let’s start with apps that help anyone visiting an unfamiliar city, since they can benefit both vacationers and business travelers (not to mention locals looking to branch out from their favorite spots). One of the best apps out there is Urban Spoon, and if you don’t yet have it you are definitely behind the times. It can benefit anyone who likes to (or has to) eat out, thanks to features that help you search by city and food type. But what you’ll really love are the customer reviews that can help you compare establishments by rating (and find out which dishes to try).

Another good one along these lines is Foursquare, and this app is a bit more comprehensive. It can not only tell you where to find eateries, but it can also direct you to hotels, gas stations, clubs, and literally any type of service you might need during your time away from home. Plus, it can provide for some diversion from the drudgery of travel. You can check in at any establishment you visit (or come within range of) and if you go more than once you could even become the mayor of that venue! In most cases, this will only provide you with some measure of fun, but businesses that choose to use this social networking travel app to their advantage may offer special deals or discounts to those that check in frequently (or even once). And like Urban Spoon, you can see notes left by other visitors.

Of course, you have to get to your destination first, and there are lots of apps to help you here, as well. You should start by downloading Kayak. This app allows you to compare hundreds of travel outlets in order to find the best prices on flights, hotels, and rental cars. And you can use it to track your flight status, manage your itinerary, and look up related information (airline/airport contact info and even baggage fees). But just in case you run afoul of delays or worse, cancellations (or even if you want to catch an earlier flight), you might also want to download Next Flight, which can help you make new travel plans on the fly (so to speak) from anywhere (even the airport).

Finally, you’ll want to ensure connectivity wherever you go (so you can access all your great travel apps in order to find dining establishments, lodgings, or cheap car hire services), and Wi-Fi Finder is the way to go. It can help you to find hotspots in 135 countries, and if you download the Skype app you can talk to family and friends back home without wasting mobile minutes or risking roaming charges!

Editor’s Note

Thanks to Evan Fischer for this quest post. He is a freelance writer and part-time student at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California.

SRRN Games was founded by three graduate students with a passion for game development: Aujang Abadi, Tyler Carbone and Nathaniel Givens. Starting as a small startup incubated within the Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia, SRRN was quick to move from the pentatonic beauty of music puzzler Chimes to the retro aesthetic of Ash.

“SRRN has grown well-beyond Ash at this point, but the game’s universe and characters will always hold a special place in our hearts. It’s very important for everyone at the studio to give the series the conclusion it deserves,” says Tyler Carbone, co-founder, SRRN Games. “With Ash II: Shadows, we tried to maintain the level of narrative quality that fans have come to expect from SRRN. We also improved the gameplay and gave the graphics a major overhaul in order to make Ash II a proper sequel, something RPG fans can really sink their teeth into.”

Ash II: Shadows features:

• New story, quests, and characters that expand on the world of Aghaus
• Classic JRPG gameplay designed from the ground up for touchscreens
• Dozens of skills and hundreds of potential equipment combinations
• Beautifully re-drawn HD graphics optimized for iPhone and iPad
• Heart-pounding orchestral score

Ash II: Shadows will be released as two separate tiers. Gold ($4.99) includes all six chapters, and Silver ($2.99) includes the first two chapters — with chapters 3-6 available for $0.99. All versions can be enhanced with boosts via in-app purchases. For launch, only the first chapter will be available; new chapters will be added every two weeks via title updates. The game is being published by Konami and is compatible with all iOS devices.

ASH II: Shadows (GOLD Edition)
Developer: Konami Digital Entertainment

Rated: 9+

Price: $2.99 Download

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

1. Magic Wallet. Rather than being that person who notoriously flaunts ridiculous and useless apps (like the bro stache, beer, and guitar featured in a recent Geico video), make your friends look twice with this magic trick that requires the use of your phone to complete. Viewers will see a collection of jumbled coins on your screen, at which point you will put your finger behind your phone (viewers will see it going into your virtual piggy bank) and when you pull it out, you’ll produce real money. You can even tip the phone over and real money will fall out! Okay, so this isn’t a particularly difficult sleight of hand to figure out, but it is a good place to start (and at $2.99, it won’t break your real piggy bank).
2. iForce. Another one at the $2.99 price point, this fun app will let you read the minds of your family and friends. Of course, this is one where you don’t necessarily want the “trick” revealed, so no spoiler alerts here. You’ll have to purchase it in order to find out how it works. But suffice it to say, it will no doubt make for some fun party entertainment as well as a great way to break the ice.
3. Magic Lesson. While you could spend a lot for books and videos on how to perform basic card, coin, and rope tricks, this app brings you several classics for only $3.99. This is a great springboard for novice performers with step-by-step guides that include photos and video. It also includes pointers for improving your performance technique, including how to present the tricks and speak in a way that helps you to misdirect the audience.
4. Magic 101. This app is not only great because it is free; it also opens your eyes to the antics behind some of the world’s greatest tricks and magicians (like Copperfield, Angel, and David Blaine). With tricks for both beginner and intermediate levels, you can start small and advance to more complex prestidigitations, with the option to purchase more tricks at any time (for real money, unfortunately). And close-up videos reveal every detail of the tricks that have puzzled you in the past. Any magician London to Las Vegas will love this fun and easy app.
5. Marty’s Psypic. This one has been around for a while, but it’s still good fun since you use it to convince viewers that they are communicating with the dead. It features an old black and white photo to start. The viewer will either pick a card or an animal, at which point you zoom in and then zoom back out to reveal the viewer’s pick in the photo. It will cost you $2.99, but users that have reviewed this app all found it to be one of the best iPhone magic tricks out there.

1. TeacherTool One. This free app is like a godsend for overworked teachers. It lets you easily input and track grades and attendance by date, as well as file personal notes about particular students so that you can set reminders for yourself for upcoming lessons (i.e. “Joey needs to practice his multiplication tables” or “Susan needs help with sentence structure and spelling”). It’s a great way to instantly track students and each time you sync with your home or work computer it makes a backup copy.
2. GradePad. The nice thing about this app to help you make the grades is that it offers you a lot of handy options. While it will cost you $2.99 to download, there are some useful features, such as the ability to create groups (so you can make grades for joint projects), instantly track performance with rubrics that offer criteria and scaling options, and make assessments over time. And with an included web account it’s easy to upload class lists and other important information.
3. Dropbox. As freebies go, this one is a keeper. And considering how basic it is, you may wonder how you ever got by without it. It’s basically like a virtual backpack or briefcase. You simply drop in your files (docs, pics, even videos) from any device and you can view them on any other device. So you can take assignments from home to work (and back again) without having to keep track of physical copies, and if you find something that you want to share with your class (like snapshots from your weekend visit to the natural history museum) you can easily deposit them into Dropbox at home and then display them on your iPad in class.
4. Keynote. If your course is lecture-heavy, this app can provide you with a lot of time-saving tools that will help to spice up your speeches. At $9.99 it’s not the cheapest tool in iVerse, but once you get started you’ll use it all the time. You can utilize the templates provided to quickly insert text or graphics and you can even use it to create slide shows or animations to punch up your presentation.
5. Evernote. When you learn what this app can do, you may be surprised to see that it’s free. The functionality is pretty amazing; you can actually capture information anywhere to access and search later. On a basic level you can use the app to take snapshots for later reference or leave yourself voice memos, so if you see ads for home tuition services that would benefit your students, for example, you can just snap a pic of the info on the go. But you can also capture screen shots of web pages and then search the text later for further information. And you can download the app on several devices and use the sync function to access shared data from any of them.

Editor’s Note

Thanks to Evan Fischer for this quest post. He is a freelance writer and part-time student at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California.

And to keep the casework rolling, Telltale Games has initiated a new “Multi-Pack” in-app purchase program for Law & Order: Legacies. Here are the basics of the deal: users purchase Law & Order: Legacies Episode 1 universal app from the iTunes App Store for $2.99. Once that episode is completed they will be offered the option to purchase a “Multi-Pack” of 6 episodes at a sale price of $12.99 — receiving a total savings of $4.95 versus the cost of purchasing those episodes individually!

With cases reflecting today’s headlines, Telltale’s Law & Order: Legacies delivers the ultimate Law & Order experience as it assembles a “Dream Team” of police investigators and district attorneys from multiple Law & Order franchises for a full ‘season’ of seven episodically released games!

In Episode 3: Killer Smart an investigation of bodies dumped along a lonely stretch of road in Long Island is underway. The killers are revealed to be an intelligent sociopath and a dim-witted thug, who bizarrely decide to represent themselves in court. The sociopath attempts to manipulate his partner’s weakness to turn the case against him. But the partner is fiercely loyal. The player must now decide how to wedge them apart—or convict them both.

Turn your investigation to the App Store now to get Law & Order: Legacies Episode 3 and be ready to crack another tough case. And be sure to take advantage of the “Multi-Pack” offer to keep your casework on track.

Law & Order: Legacies
Developer: Telltale Games

Rated: 12+

Price: free Download

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

There are a couple of categories of apps that can really help you to reach your weight-loss goals this year, and the first and most important are those that center on diet. You can exercise day and night and never shed a pound (you may even gain) if you don’t begin by changing your eating habits, and that means paying attention to the calories going in and going out, the types of food you choose, and the motivations that keep you eating even when you’re not hungry. And when it comes to apps to help you out, Weight Watchers offers some of the best.

The great thing is that you don’t even have to be a member to download their many free apps (although joining will get you the full version). For example, Weight Watchers mobile offers a new recipe every day, along with the ability to save 10 recipes, a smart food cheat sheet, and success stories to inspire you (as well as a listing of nearby meetings in case you want to join up). But if you’re a member, you’ll also gain mobile access to many of the features on their eTools site, like points tracking and unlimited access to recipes. The company also offers an app for barcode scanning as well as a kitchen companion that will help you craft healthy recipes from the foods in your kitchen.

Of course, you don’t have to go with Weight Watchers; there are plenty of apps to help you track calories, scan barcodes for caloric information, and make healthier choices when it comes to food. Many are even free, including one from famed fitness expert and trainer Jillian Michaels. Her Slim-Down Solutions App not only helps you create a workable diet with slimming recipes (although the free version only nets you 30), she also provides fat-burning exercises, daily tips, a weekly podcast, and access to her real-time message board. If you thought you couldn’t afford a personal trainer, you were wrong — here she is for free.

But there are so many more. You can try Simply Organic HD for healthy organic recipes, MealBoard to plan your diet by the day, MyNetDiary to track diet and exercise, and dozens of cookbook apps for different diets like Atkins, South Beach, and so on. But you may also want to check out exercise apps like Fitness Buddy, Everywhere Exercise, and iMapMyFITNESS+. Since hiring a malpractice attorney Chicago style to sue the makers of their famous deep-dish pizzas is out of the question (ditto on Philly cheesesteaks), you’re simply going to have to take responsibility for what you put in your body and how you work off the extra pounds. And thanks to the iTunes store, there are dozens of apps to help you out.

Editor’s Note

Thanks to Evan Fischer for this quest post. He is a freelance writer and part-time student at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California.

• Spy Cam $9.99 ->$5.99
• Security Camera $4.99 -> $2.99
• Memory Cleaner $5.99 -> $3.99
• Handy Calculator $1.99 -> $0.99
• Lines $1.99 -> $0.99