Ben's Blog World: TiPb Picks of the Week

Every week a few of us from team TiPb will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they’re fair game. To see what [...]

TiPb Picks of the Week is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

4oD – @chrisoldroyd

This weeks pick is hot off the press and is a TV catchup application for UK readers. Channel 4 has had an online catch up service for a while now but it uses evil Flash technology!

Luckily Channel 4 has seen fit to launch an iPad app called 4oD that now gives us access to the past 30 days of shows as well as select complete seasons. As mentioned, this is UK only due to archaic media laws; but let’s not get started with that one!

Anyway what more could you want from an app that currently has the second season of “The Inbetweeners” ready to stream.

[Free - iTunes Link]

Word Search – @skeetobite

My pick of the week is actually my daughters pick of the week. At 7 years old (almost 8, as she reminds me) she enjoys playing with the iPad quite a bit. Some of the games I have reviewed are ones that she plays, but she also loves word search games. She used to play these all the time in restaurants, but when we saw this for the iPad, we just had to try it. She loves to choose the animal word lists, but you can choose from random “English” words, to SAT words, to names, weapons, and even foreign language words. I don’t know how large the actual dictionaries are, but we haven’t have much overlap.

The puzzles are fun, and selecting the words is easy (just using your finger to trace them). Unfortunately it isn’t a universal binary, but there is an iPhone version as well. I wish they had ways for people to complete the same puzzle (as a race) but they do time you to complete a puzzle. It’s a fun game for kids, that can also serve as a useful distract for adults.

[$1.99 - iTunes link]

Cadence and Cadence.FM – @andrewwray

Cadence is an incredibly brilliant music app that plays selected tracks at your desired BPM (beats per minute) rate. It’s the perfect app to fire up when you’re at the gym or working out because it knows which songs match up to your workout speed. Cadence allows you to use your own iPod library as well as the streaming radio station powered by SoundCloud. The app taps into Echonest to pull BPM data for your own music if you don’t already have the data in your iTunes library. They also have a nice BPM analyzer for Mac and Windows that will scan your iTunes library and update BPM information accordingly for syncing to your iPhone.

Additional features include a nice swipe-to-control screen that lets you navigate music using gestures. This is really convenient during heavy workouts where you can quickly jump to the next song or raise the BPM level when things start to get intense. When you use Echonest as the BPM data source you can even edit this information on-the-fly, right from your iPhone! They also offer a lower priced app called Cadence.FM that just streams music from SoundCloud without the option of using music stored on the iPhone itself. If you’ve been looking for a powerful workout app to help keep you going then this is the one for you. I’ll be giving out promo codes for Cadence and Cadence.FM throughout the day, so make sure you’re following both myself and @TiPb so you can get it for free!

[$5.99 - iTunes Link]

Comic Life – @reneritchie

If you’ve ever used Comic Life on the Mac, then you’re probably not even reading the rest of the sentence but have already leapt over the App Store and bought Comic Life for iPad. So we’ll just assume anyone left following these words hasn’t heard of the quintessential photo sequencing and captioning app, the one that put the fun in functional. You poor, joyless few, here it is in a nutshell:

You take your photos. You use them to create comic book-style panels and captions, effects and story flows, and then you show them off to your friends and family and make them think you are way more talented at sequential art than you have any right to claim.

Really, your kids, pets, and assorted photo subjects deserve to be the stars of the next Planetary, the next We3, the next Watchmen, the next Kickass (well, er, no, maybe not that but you get the idea.)

Go grab it true believers, and make with the mighty marvelous masterworks!

[$7.99 - iTunes link]

FaceTime for iPad 2 – @llofte

When FaceTime on the iPhone was released, I thought it was cool and all, but never used it. Even when my daughter was born and the grandparents wanted to see her over video chat, we always opted for iChat over FaceTime. Since the release of the iPad 2, however, I have yet to open iChat. Using FaceTime on the big screen makes it easy for my daughter to recognize faces and show genuine interest. It is also very easy to allow her to “chase” my parents around the room while I keep the iPad just barely out of her reach. The cameras on the iPad 2 have received a lot of bad rap, but I am so grateful they are there for FaceTime.

NBA Jam – @ch__ad (Reader’s Choice)

NBA Jam is a fun, fast-paced sport game. It is pretty over the top when it comes to slam dunks and the fact that you are able to shove the other players to steal the ball. In my personal opinion, it is my favorite 2-on-2 NBA game out there, although, it’s probably the least realistic.

You can unlock old NBA starters like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. There are in game challenges to unlock different things within the game such as players and balls, and it is not a game you can just blow right through because some teams are pretty difficult.

[$4.99 - iTunes link]

Infinity Blade – @GeorgiaTiPb

If you’re not familiar with Infinity Blade… wait, everyone is familiar with Infinity Blade, right? It’s the hack and slash game with the Epic Unreal 3 Engine where you play succeeding generations of warriors, carving your way through enemy after enemy, mastering armor and swords and rings, until you stand victorious over the deathless kings themselves? Ring a bell?

Maybe not. I never really got into Infinity Blade until iPad 2 came out. Then I couldn’t put it down. The 3D graphics and textures are just flawless and while the game play is limited, the animations are incredibly smooth and the mastering all the gear is a nice addition, as is the generational element.

If you haven’t tried it yet, and have an iPad 2, give it a try and tell me what you think. (And if you don’t have an iPad, don’t worry — it’s a universal binary so you can buy once and play on all your iOS devices!)

[$5.99 - iTunes link]

BBC iPlayer for iPad (UK Only) – @JorjLim

BBC iPlayer for iPad is an amazing way of catching-up with BBC shows. The app has a complete list of all the shows available, which you can filter by ‘genre’, ‘date’ or ‘channel’. There is even a timeline view so you can check what show was on at the time.

After watching several programmes, the BBC suggests more shows you may enjoy as well. You can even save shows as favourites, and it will show you the latest episodes when they get released. Most shows come with subtitles and a high quality option.

Personally, I use the app for TV shows, but there is a Radio catch up option as well. It’s a perfect way to catch up on all your favourite BBC shows, when you don’t have a computer handy.

[FREE - iTunes link]

Your pick?

You’re part of the team as well, so we will be choosing one reader to make a submission each week! Just look for the announcement on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/llofte] or our Facebook page each weekend for a chance to be picked! In the meantime, jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

TiPb Picks of the Week is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog