By Frank Ling
There are enough apps to browse through on the iTunes store to kill more than a few hours of work productivity. Uh, not me of course, just some people I know. Apps are the lifeblood of our beloved iLife, and they do everything from help our everyday lives to entertain us endlessly. Don’t waste your time searching for the perfect app, though. These three apps will get you playing, watching and following with pleasure and style:
Get gaming
Here’s your chance to mix the best of Super Mario, Donkey Kong and a bit of Little Big Planet for good measure. Plus, Paper Monsters is filled with cute and cuddly. This arcade side-scrolling platform game offers an animated world that is made of “living paper.” You’ll find cardboard creatures, paper scenery, and cotton balls floating about as you try to save PaperLand from the evil minions.
Graphics for the game are in 3D but assimilate some of the 2D side-scrolling themes and gimmicks that are so popular in Nintendo Mario games. But instead of just jumping and collecting stars, your character can also ride vehicles, interact with and operate objects, manipulate scenery, and of course, fight boss monsters.
The game has 16 levels and four worlds that will help you pass a few minutes — or hours.
Paper Monsters is available for the iPad, iPod, iTouch and iPhone, $0.99 from iTunes.
Get rewarded for watching TV
Watching television shows can actually be profitable with Viggle. Thought you’d like that. The whole process is simple; download the Viggle app and start watching your favorite TV shows. Users then log on to the Viggle website to upload their TV activity.
Viggle points are awarded for watching TV shows and can be redeemed to earn rewards from Best Buy, Burger King, Old Navy, Fandango and other vendors. So when your parents or significant other constantly complains about you wasting time watching TV, you can finally say, “I’m working here!”
Viggle is available from iTunes as a free download.
All your friends' photos in one place
You like to tell everyone that you have more than 400 friends on Facebook. Not only that, there are another 102 loyal followers of you on Twitter, and you personally follow another 62 people, too. But there’s a problem: It’s overwhelming trying to keep up with the constant flow of new media that appears from all of your friends. They all post content at different times, on different platforms, which makes getting a handle on all of this new stuff a hassle.
The solution? Pixable. This cool little program consolidates all of your contacts on Twitter and Facebook and automatically feeds the newest photos and videos generated from them into one spot.
Photos and videos can be categorized easily into various listings and all you have to do is to tap and watch the “Photos of the Day” and other groupings.
The app has received some good reviews from the press and has been listed in CNN’s Top 50 Tech Tools for iPhone. If you want to keep up on the latest photos and videos from all your friends without breaking a sweat, Pixable is just what you need.
The download is free and is available on iTunes for your iPhone or iPad.
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Frank Ling is the SF Gadgets Examiner and has been a writer, professional photographer, video producer, video game QA trainer and video editor.