iPhone Atlas

Where's the Grinch? In this uninspired game, only his hand appears. Grinchmas, indeed!

(Credit: Oceanhouse Media)

Maybe I'm feeling extra Grinchy today because stupid iTunes keeps timing out when I sync my iPhone, but I don't like Grinchmas.

In this new game from Oceanhouse Media, you're a disembodied Grinch hand that flings snowballs--or presents, if you're in more of a "Merry Grinch" mood--at houses down in Whoville.

And that's it. The challenge, if you can call it that, lies in flinging accurately: you have to swipe at just the right speed and in just the right direction to score a hit.

If I'm any indication, grown-up players will tire of this in about 18 seconds. The littler Whos in your house might enjoy it for longer--the game skews cute, colorful, and Seussian--but ultimately, Grinchmas works so hard at being "casual" that it forgets to be fun. Skip it.

Give your snapshots a fun, Grinch-ian makeover with Dr. Seuss Camera.

(Credit: Oceanhouse Media)

The real Dr. Seuss-inspired fun lies in Dr. Seuss Camera: The Grinch Edition, which uses the iPhone camera to create whimsical, Grinchy holiday cards you can share with friends.

Start by choosing from 20-plus different cards, then point your iPhone camera (sorry, Touch users) at the kids, the dog, cranky Uncle Fred, etc.

Each card has either a face cutout area or an empty space alongside a Grinch-related character (if not the ol' meanie himself).

After you snap the photo, you can decorate it further with stamps and borders, then save it to your Camera Roll and/or e-mail it to friends and family.

It's a cute little app, easy to use, and a perfect slice of holiday fun. Here's hoping that "The Grinch Edition" subtitle means there are other versions in the works. (I've always wanted a photo of myself next to Horton the Elephant.)

(Credit: TomTom)

When we took our first look at the TomTom app for iPhone, it seemed like a perfectly competent helper for getting from points A-to-B. But, we couldn't help but notice that a few of our favorite GPS navigation features were notably absent--particularly TTS instructions and graphic lane guidance.

Well, there's good news for users of the TomTom app in the form of a free update that adds these missing features, and a few more.

The update will add text-to-speech (TTS) for spoken street names and points of interest (POI) as part of the device's directions, graphic lane guidance which displays a visual representation of complex highway intersections with indications of valid lanes for the route, and a "Help menu" offering a shortcut to emergency number and directions to the nearest emergency services. TomTom is also enabling in-app iPod player control, so drivers won't have to exit the application to pick a song or playlist.

Also included in this update are a free map update and the inclusion of a safety camera database update. Users will be able to set audio warnings when approaching safety cameras or driving over the speed limit, possibly preventing citations and increasing vehicle safety.

TomTom tells us that the application update has been submitted to Apple and is pending approval. For current users of the TomTom app for iPhone, this will be a free update. For everyone else, the price of the app will remain at $99.

Boost your photography skills with Nikon's free iPhone app.

I've owned a dSLR camera for years, but it spends most of its time on Auto mode. That's because I can't wrap my brain around things like aperture priority, ISO, and f-stops.

Unsurprisingly, most of my shots bite. I've tried reading enlightening books like How to Do Everything with Your Digital Camera (nepotism alert: I know the author), but that doesn't help me when, say, I'm standing on the soccer-field sidelines trying to capture my daughter as she scores a goal.

What I need is a simple, informative how-to guide that fits in my pocket. Enter Nikon Learn & Explore, a new iPhone app that teaches photography fundamentals and offers shooting techniques for common situations.

Actually, that's just part of what you get from L&E. The app also offers a library of professional images you can browse, each with an accompanying Nikon World article that details shot composition, equipment, lighting, and all that.

The Learn section offers articles on image editing, shooting techniques, and fundamentals--many of which include both sample photos and how-to videos.

The Nikon World section provides features from the eponymous magazine, while the Glossary explains photography terms from A to Z. You can even mark individual articles and photos as Favorites for quick future access.

In short, this is a must-have app for novice shutterbugs and pro photographers alike (but more for the former). Best news of all: it's free.

(Credit: CNET / Josh Lowensohn)

The iPhone has many applications that let you view Web cams from around the world, but what about turning your phone into a remote camera of its own? A new app called IP Camera (warning: iTunes link) does just that. This $1.99 tool takes a photo from your iPhone's camera every 12 to 15 seconds, then posts it to a local Web page that can be accessed from other computers on the same network.

All that's needed for setup is to make sure your phone is on Wi-Fi, then to jot down the special local HTTP address it gives you. It will keep running until you quit the application manually or get a phone call; although like any good iPhone app it starts right back up when you're done with a call.

While there are very few bells and whistles, this app worked really well in my testing with an iPhone 3G. Although one big thing that's missing is a way to archive the photos it takes. You can temporarily stop its stream of photos, then save whichever one it's on, but it does not keep a "recents" on its Web page, or on your phone's camera roll.

I'd also like to see a way to change the frequency in which it takes photos, which could keep it from zapping too much juice if you're using it while disconnected from a power plug. And a way to run it with the display off would be nice too, since hitting the sleep button freezes the app into re-sending the same shot over and over again.

Tip: the iPod universal dock and iPhone 3G dock are both angled in such a way that makes it incredibly easy to perch your phone on a bookshelf or on top of a coworker's cube and get a great view. They'll never suspect you're watching their every move.

Related: DIY home surveillance with a Webcam

The IP Camera app turns your iPhone into a mini server, taking photos every 15 seconds and posting them almost-live to a Web page.

(Credit: CNET)

Chase Jarvis is a professional photographer. Chase Jarvis has an iPhone. Chase Jarvis got tired of using five apps to shoot, edit, and share photos taken with his iPhone so he created the Best Camera app.

If you haven't already started watching the demo video above, you can open the app, shoot a picture or open one from your photo roll, apply filters and effects, and then upload it to Facebook, Twitter, or Jarvis's iPhone photography community Web site.

The app is only $2.99 and appears to be heavily branded to help sell copies of Jarvis's book of iPhone photography, "The Best Camera is the One That's With You." Personally, it looks like it's still missing some features that'll keep me using other apps, but hopefully Jarvis and his software-engineering partners, Ubermind, Inc., will continue to evolve the app and not charge extra for updates.

Jessica Dolcourt, associate editor over at CNET Download, has two other quite good photo app recommendations: Photogene and Snapture.

(Credit: CNET)

Back in March I wrote about a skee-ball-type game called 10-balls 7 cups that was surprisingly fun. It had great sounds and graphics, and the gameplay consisted of a flick of your finger to send the ball down the alley and a tilt of your iPhone to redirect the ball into the cups. I said at the time that the only problem I had with this simple yet fun game was that the silly prizes you could buy at the end with your points didn't have pictures.

I just received word that longtime Mac gaming publisher Freeverse has gotten onboard with this unique title (and apparently worked out the licensing) to publish an upgraded version, appropriately named Skee-Ball (99 cents). Some flashier graphics have been added, but for the most part the gameplay remains the same with a couple of notable changes. You can now buy custom balls with your points; challenge friends and view score tracking, achievements, and leader-boards on the Plus network; and they've added an entirely new prize system with (you guessed it) pictures of every prize in a nice-looking loot room. Though not as involved as some of the other games I review here, this latest version of Skee-Ball is a great casual game to kill time and collect funny prizes.

This week's apps include a new image capture app and a 2D survival shooter with all the right stuff to keep you playing for a long time.

Use the level aid to make sure your shot is lined up correctly.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Snapture ($1.99) offers a unique way to take pictures with your iPhone with some added features to make sure you get the perfect shot. Instead of a button at the bottom of the interface like the iPhone's regular camera, you can simply touch anywhere onscreen to take a shot. An onscreen level aid helps you make sure your shot is perfectly level. You can choose between four image sizes (800x600, 1,280x960, 1,600x1,200, or 2,048x1,536) before you take your picture. The zooming feature lets you reverse-pinch to zoom up to 5x. You can also toggle between single shot or multiple shots so you can take three consecutive pictures with only one touch of the screen. When you're done, you can quickly send your picture to a friend with an integrated e-mail option or just save the picture to your photo library; images are only saved when you're happy with the shot.

I think part of the charm of Snapture is the unique interface. Once you take a photo (or multiple photos) the last four shots show up as thumbnails on the left side of the screen. You can touch and hold a thumbnail to make it zoom to its original size (with a smooth animation) or you can slide the image across the screen to bring up options for e-mailing or deleting the image. The zooming feature is also a nice touch, letting you pinch or reverse-pinch to zoom to just the amount you need. Overall, Snapture might be a little too precise for regular picture taking, but if you really want to perfect specific shots, this app has some nice features to help you make it happen.

You'll need to switch weapons quickly to handle the onslaught of meteors.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Meteor Blitz ($1.99) is a challenging 2D survival shooter arcade game with smooth graphics, tons of cool power-ups, and great gameplay. Like many games of this type on the iPhone, Meteor Blitz uses dual onscreen joysticks, with the left one to move your ship and the right to fire your weapons. A double tap on the left joystick gives you a momentary burst of speed to help you get out of particularly sticky situations. Just over the right joystick is a button to switch between three weapon types: regular cannons, a flame thrower, and ice bullets--all of which can be upgraded by spending rings you collect in the game. Each weapon type is more effective against specific enemies (ice bullets for red meteors, flame thrower for ice meteors, etc.) so knowing how to quickly switch between them becomes part of the challenge as well.

Meteor Blitz has two game types. An arcade mode challenges you to fight your way through several levels of mayhem with a boss at the end of each level. In Survival mode your mission (obviously) is to stay alive as long as possible as more and more aliens and meteors try to take you out. But in addition to the incredibly intense gameplay of both game types, I really liked that I could watch my global ranking rise as I played the game. Knowing where you are in the global high-score list as you play gives you even more incentive to survive the endless onslaught of aliens and different types of meteors. Overall, Meteor Blitz is an excellent game for fans of this classic arcade genre with plenty of power-ups unique enemies to keep you coming back for more.

What's your favorite iPhone app? Do you like the simple, but challenging gameplay of Skee-Ball? Is Snapture the photo-taking app you've been looking for? How high in the global rankings have you gotten in Meteor Blitz? Let me know in the comments!

FoodScanner for iPhone is a calorie counter's dream come true.

When my eating starts getting out of control, I usually fire up the Lose It app to keep tabs on my calories for a few days.

Of course, it's a hassle to have to manually enter the foods I eat. Enter FoodScanner, a new app that scans package bar codes for quick and easy calorie logging.

Does it work? It does. Is it just as cool as it sounds? It is. Will it earn a spot in one of Apple's "There's an app for that" commercials? Almost certainly. It's just that slick.

To use FoodScanner, just tap the little lightning bolt, then point your iPhone's camera at a UPC bar code until it's centered within the arrow guides.

In a matter of seconds, the app scans the bar code and presents the matching food (complete with a thumbnail picture). I found the scan process remarkably fast and accurate, especially compared with the somewhat unforgiving scanner in the pic2shop app I mentioned yesterday.

Once you've looked up your food, you can review its nutrition label or tap "I Ate This!" to record it in your daily database, which keeps a running tally of your caloric intake.

Of course, restaurant foods and other non-packaged items (like most fruits and veggies) have no bar codes--but FoodScanner also features a search option that ties to developer DailyBurn's database of more than 200,000 foods. So you can look up just about anything you can't scan.

No bar code? No problem. FoodScanner lets you search for non-packaged foods.

Speaking of DailyBurn, there's an eponymous app that's much more robust at tracking your calories, exercise, weight goals, and the like. FoodScanner is kind of a companion app.

Thankfully, it can sync with your Web-based DailyBurn account, which in turn syncs with the DailyBurn app. It's unfortunate that FoodScanner wasn't just built right into DailyBurn, but ultimately the data lands there.

The DailyBurn Web service and app are free, while FoodScanner costs $2.99.

If packaged foods make up a sizable portion of your diet, you're sure to find the convenience of bar code scanning (to say nothing of the off-the-charts cool factor) well worth the price.

The Snapture (app) is upon us! No more jailbreaking required. Instead, $1.99.

For more than a few iPhone owners, homebrew apps like Snapture--which endows the iPhone camera with extra features--were reason enough to jump through jailbreaking hoops.

Thankfully, that's no longer necessary, at least for this particular app: Snapture has gone legit. It's available in the App Store for an introductory price of $1.99.

Snapture provides a wealth of handy camera tools, starting with full-screen shutter action: tap anywhere to capture a snapshot. That makes self-portraits a lot easier than trying to nail the Camera app's tiny shutter button.

You also get zoom and pan capabilities: just reverse-pinch your fingers to zoom in up to 5x (keeping in mind that photos will turn seriously blurry at that level, though perhaps less so with the 3GS' higher-resolution sensor), then drag your finger to pan around. Very cool.

Speaking of fingers, Snapture's clever Touch Zone gives you the option of tapping and holding the screen, then releasing when you're ready to shoot--the idea being to reduce the blur that results from "shutter tapping." And if you slide your finger out from the blue circle that appears beneath the Touch Zone, it cancels the shot.

I particularly like Snapture's multishot feature, which can fire off three shots in rapid succession. As you shoot, thumbnails appear along the left (or right) edge of the screen for easy review. Tap and hold a thumbnail to get a full-size look, or swipe it to the opposite edge for Delete and Email options.

Having trouble keeping your shots level? Just toggle Snapture's Level Aid, which overlays a simple reticle. Want to shoot at a lower resolution so you can save memory? Snapture gives you a choice of three image sizes.

The app normally sells for $7.99, but Snapture Labs should give serious consideration to making the $1.99 introductory price permanent: Competing app Camera Genius offers many of the same features for just 99 cents.

But two bucks is a very reasonable price to pay for an app that overcomes most of the camera's shortcomings and adds several worthwhile features. I think it's safe to say Snapture has earned a permanent home on my 3G.

Update: Snapture Labs is offering a free upgrade to those customers who purchased the jailbreak version.

(Credit: Apple, Inc.)

The iPhone Camera Roll can cause increased backup and restore times in iTunes if not properly managed. It's easy to mismanage the Camera Roll if you--like me--use it store media for showing later to friends or family. Apple did not intend the Roll to be used this way, however, and recommends that users use the Photo app, instead, for storing media you plan on showing off later.

Per this support document, whenever you sync or perform a restore in iTunes, the app creates a backup of the contents of your iPhone. The more pictures, screen snapshots, or video you have stored on the Camera Roll, the longer a backup or restore takes.

The solution to the problem is easy: Make sure that you regularly import the contents of your Camera Roll, delete that content, then sync the content that you must have in your pocket back to the iPhone using iTunes. I had nearly 200 media files in my iPhone 3GS Camera Roll and deleted all of these after syncing and importing using iPhoto on my Mac. I used iTunes to restore content that I needed into the Photo app and I saw an immediate decrease in the time it took my iPhone to back up. Apple provides detailed information on performing these tasks in their support document for Mac OS X, Windows XP, and Windows Vista.

Moving Wiener dog photos and videos of my new puppy to the Photo app from the iPhone Camera Roll improved my backup times.

(Credit: David Martin)

This simple housecleaning effort will reduce the number of media files in your Camera Roll and significantly improve backup and restore times in iTunes. It certainly did for me and it is possible that properly managing your Camera Roll would resolve the issue I wrote about previously where users were plagued by missing photos on their iPhones.

It remains to be seen whether iTunes 9, annouced today, will help resolve this problem in a more elegant manner. Stay tuned.