Occasionally I like to let the App Store Genius recommend apps to me, based on my past purchases. Some recommendations are very hit and miss, but it can uncover some gems at times. I quite like apps that let you create yourself in cartoon form. These can be useful for using on forums as avatars, or using as Contacts pics on the iPhone.

A few nights ago Uface was recommended to me, based on my WeeMee app purchase. With one touch, Uface Unique Face Maker can make professional looking sketched faces. The interface is very nicely designed and easy to use, with 240 male/female character items, backgrounds, facial expressions and more. Here’s just a few I created of myself…

You can also see one of them that I created in action on my About page. Perfect for people who perhaps don’t want to upload their photo to social networking sites but want to create a profile pic that gives a rough idea of what they look like. You can upload your finished sketched mugshots to Twitter or Facebook, or alternatively save them to your iPhone photo album, assign to a contact or email them.

Uface is a great app – and an absolute steal at just 59p/$0.99 for a limited time only. Grab it on the App Store.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Weeks before my iPad arrived I downloaded several apps to get me up and running, one of which was Twitterrific for iPad. I really wanted to love the app, but there were so many features absent that I simply wasn’t enjoying the tweeting experience from my new gadget. I checked the app store daily for a replacement and on Saturday I found it in the form of Osfoora HD.

This is the Twitter app that the iPad has been waiting for. Elegantly designed and tons of features which now makes tweeting from the iPad a pleasure rather than a chore. Check out the mammoth list of Osfoora HD’s features and screenshots from the app. As you can see it’s pretty impressive. Aside from all of it’s bells and whistles, Osfoora HD is FAST, really fast.

There isn’t a huge selection of Twitter apps for the iPad in the app store at present and with no word on when we can expect the official Twitter for iPad , Osfoora HD is the nicest and most elegant way to experience Twitter on the iPad.

Osfoora HD costs £2.39 in the iTunes App Store.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

One of the things I love about many of the iPhone apps out there is the way you can interact with others via online multi-player with Cocoto Kart, for example, or games that have Plus+ built in. Plus+ is a social play network for the iPhone and iPod touch, bringing you, your friends and the rest of the world together so you can all challenge eachother.

One of my recently bought games, Skee-Ball by Freeverse Inc., has Plus+ built-in. Skee-Ball is super addictive – a game I used to love playing at the funfair as a child. It’s totally relived in this fantastic game which is just 59p/99c on iTunes. With Plus+ being a feature of this app, I can see what score my friends have on Skee-Ball and compete against them, aswell as check out their Awards and what other Plus+ enabled games they are playing…

With another Plus+ enabled game, Charadium, not only can I once again challenge my friends in a similar way as Skee-Ball, but I can also play against them (and the entire world) as it’s a pictionary multi-player game. If I choose to play against my Plus+ friends only then I can create a room…

…where I can then invite my friends to join me for a game of Charadium…

Charadium is priced 59p in the App Store. Other games that have the Plus+ feature are Rolando 1 & 2, Worms, Topple 2 and many more.

Feel free to add me to your Plus+ friends list: purplelime

Thanks to severe back pain for the past 10 days, I haven’t had the opportunity to get a post out about festive gifts sooner than this. So the ones I’m about to recommend for the geek in your life won’t arrive in time for the big day, but we all love a New Year surprise, don’t we?

iPhone App Coasters

www.iphoneappscoasters.com (not taking any more orders currently)
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

I ordered a set of these at the end of November as a surprise gift for a friend. A week later I received the news that they wouldn’t be shipped in time for Christmas so a replacement gift was ordered. Less than a week after that, they arrived unexpectedly. So, they became a me-to-me gift.

The cost of a set of six was just £12.99 plus postage and packing, which in total came to around £15. The quality of the images on the coasters are very good and they’re also very well made, with cork backing. Having seen similar coasters in the US for double the price, these are well worth it and the perfect gift for any iPhone fan.

Twitter Mousepad

Meninos

I currently can’t give a rating on this item as I’m still waiting to take delivery, since I only ordered about 10 days ago. But, as a Twitter addict I am so looking forward to having my Magic Mouse glide across it. I’ll give a full review upon receiving mine, but if you are someone you know/love is a Twitterer then they’ll love this. Facebook mousepads are also available and pretty much everything that Meninos sell is Geek Paradise. The Twitter Mousepad cost approximately £12.50 with shipping which is bargainous.

Throwboy Pillows

Throwboy.com
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I wrote about Throwboy Pillows earlier in the year – you can see my review here.

These are perfect gifts not only for the Mac Geek, but now they have a bigger selection to choose from including RSS and Chat Pillows, so every geek is catered for. They’re fantastic quality, great to snuggle up with or have on display. Priced at $29 each (+ $8 shipping to the UK).

Now we’ve covered the hardware, what about some great software for your computer and particularly the iPhone to keep you entertained when festivities are over?

CameraBag Desktop for Mac and PC

NeverCenter.com
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I reviewed CameraBag Desktop a couple of months ago – full review. It’s making my recommendations list again because originally I gave it a 3/5 rating due to no trial period being initially available, so it was somewhat a blind purchase. However, having used it frequently in recent months I have no regrets about purchasing it. Here’s a couple of photos I’ve taken recently and edited in CameraBag Desktop.

CameraBag is also available for the iPhone and is one of my favourite photo editing apps.

Ramp Champ

RampChamp.com | iTunes: £1.19
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

RampChamp is one of the most addictive games I have played on the iPhone – combining great game play with beautiful design. Recently they released a free festive ramp called North Pole which you can download within the app by going to to the add-on tab. After you’ve knocked over fun and colourful characters and objects with the 9 balls you are allocated for each game, you can redeem your tickets for prizes and loot.

I’d have given a full 5 stars to Ramp Champ in my rating if the application was a little more stable. Even after recent updates the app still crashes my iPhone occasionally which is a little frustrating when all you want to do is throw balls at the freaky characters in the Clown Town Ramp! Once these little issues are addressed then it’ll get full marks from me.

Doodle Jump

iTunes: 59p
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Having read the rave reviews, I decided to download this app last week. The warning was that it was insanely addictive. A bold statement, one that it definitely lives up to. The aim is to get the Doodle Monster to jump onto each platform and basically go as far as you can, with springs, trampolines and rocket packs assisting you on some of the platforms you land on. The newest update gives it a snow-mode so it’s fun and festive at the same time.

Outside

Outsideapp.com | iTunes: £1.79
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

The standard Weather app on the iPhone is okay, but it’s a bit limited and a bit boring. I’ve searched for a while for a replacement weather app and last night I found it, Outside in the App Store. Not only is this a very polished and elegant application that uses GPS to find your exact location but it also comes with Push Notifications which will tell you what you want to know, when you want to know it such as when the temperature drops below a number you set, when rain is forecast and more.

You will receive 4 weeks worth of free push notifications and if you want to subscribe for longer then it will cost just 59p for 90 days worth. This has instantly replaced Weather.app on my home screen and seems to be pretty accurate so far.

American Greetings eCards

iTunes: Free
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

If, like me, you are a little behind on posting out cards this year by the deadline, then you might be wanting to send an eCard to a friend to wish them a Merry Christmas or Happy New Year. American Greetings eCards has a bunch of categories to choose from and you can even build your own card and e-mail it to a friend.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp.com | iTunes: 59p
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

This is an app that is definitely up there on my Festive Survival Kit list. I can’t speak highly enough about this one which just keeps on raising the bar with every update it releases. If you have an iPhone and your contacts have an iPhone then this will replace SMS for you. I wrote a review of it a couple of months ago, but recently it has received some extra features which make this a must-have for your iPhone.

Version 2.3 brought us the ability to send pictures, video (for the 3GS users) and voice memos to others with the application. I use WhatsApp to keep in touch with several of my iPhone using friends and this is particularly useful when one of them is overseas. Sending an SMS/MMS to him would cost me money via the data network. However, with WhatsApp it’s absolutely free. Fantastic application to keep you in touch with friends over the festive period.

So, that about concludes my must-haves for this Festive Season. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Because of the wonderful and almost frighteningly simple way one can spend money online these days, I have always written down my outgoings into a notepad on my desk. However, with the frequency of buying apps and music from the iTunes Store, sometimes these little purchases going unrecorded and the balance in my bank differs from the balance guessed on my notepad.

So, a few weeks back I felt I could do with an application to keep me on track with my budget for online transactions. I browsed through the app store and came across Cha-Ching. Not only can I manage my finances there but I can also sync it, via wifi, with the Cha-Ching Mac application, which is currently free in beta. The best of both worlds.

I firstly put in my budget for online spending and then whenever I make a purchase online I tell Cha-Ching and it will then show me my remaining balance. Plus, I get to keep a record of the purchases I’ve made which is very useful to have. This has made me so much more conscious of what I buy, but more importantly spend. Instead of having to go through the tedius task of checking my bank account each day for my balance, Cha-Ching keeps me on track.

I’ve been using Cha-Ching for about one month now and I’m pleased that it hasn’t been a novelty purchase that I’ve used for a few days and forgotten about. Because I have it on my iPhone and Mac, I have Cha-Ching where I need it so when purchasing an app over the air on my iPhone I don’t have to wait until I’m back at my Mac before entering this transaction, which I’d likely forget about. Now I can just open up Cha-Ching, enter it, sync it and forget about it.

The Cha-Ching iPhone app [iTunes link] is just £1.79 and as mentioned above, the Mac application with which it syncs beautifully with is free in beta.

Fruit Bytes Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I’ve been trying to find the perfect push notification iPhone-2-iPhone messaging solution. An app that falls between instant messaging and SMS, without the cost of SMS. The two top ones on the App Store are Ping! and WhatsApp. I reviewed Ping! recently, but I just had to try out WhatsApp to see how it compared.

WhatsApp differs from Ping! in that it uses your phone number and your contact list rather than a PIN/username, so there’s no signing up or having to pass a username onto friends – and no need to add new contacts – your whole iPhone contact list is available within the app. If you have friends with an iPhone then all they need to do is download WhatsApp [iTunes link] which is currently absolutely free, then when you open the app you’ll see which of your contacts already have the app installed by looking through the Favourites list. You also have the option to send an invite to your other friends so they can download the app and interact with you.

The advantage WhatsApp has over Ping!, for me, is the timestamps are correct. You’d have to take a guess when a contact had sent you a Ping! message as the timestamps would read whatever they wanted at any given time. The UI in WhatsApp is also far more attractive than Ping! – and the icon is a lot prettier. That matters. On sending a message you get a little notification tone, much like in the default SMS app on the iPhone. You can also see when one of your contacts is online and composing a reply – ‘typing’ will be displayed under their name at the top of the messaging window.

In WhatsApp you can set a status from the ones given as default such as Available, Sleeping, Busy, In a Meeting and many more, or you can create your own such as ‘iPhone docked and charging’ – a status which indicates that I am unable to reply right away…and something I find myself using a lot! In the settings you can switch status notifications on so that you will get an instant push notification when one of your contacts changes their WhatsApp status.

I can see many people using Ping! alongside WhatsApp. Ping! is the better alternative for chatting to online friends who perhaps you don’t feel comfortable about giving your phone number to, but WhatsApp is probably more suited to those that you do know and trust enough to share your vCard with.

WhatsApp is currently free so there’s no excuse for you and your iPhone friends not to check this one out.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Tweetie 2 (iTunes) was released to the App Store last night, shortly after developer Loren Brichter announced to the masses on Twitter that it had been approved. The buzz about it on Twitter felt very similar to that which accompanies the release of a brand new Apple product. It was THAT good.

After I wrote a little about Tweetie 2 a couple of weeks ago, I read some pre-release reviews which confirmed that there were no themes in Tweetie 2, just the one simple theme. I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to feel about that as Chat Bubbles has been my theme of choice since day one. I didn’t like the thought of having that taken away from me. But, the list of features kept my interest fully there, so I wasn’t going to pass judgement until I had the app infront of me.

Let’s just say I’m now thinking “Chat Bubbles? What Chat Bubbles?”. The simple clean white theme is gorgeous. Simplicity and absolute elegance. The screengrabs of the theme don’t do it justice. See it on your iPhone and you’ll feel the love. I have barely put my iPhone down since I bought Tweetie 2 last night. There’s features I haven’t touched yet – still so much more to play with which is what I love in an iPhone app. Having everything there and fully functional, but still managing to find something even more cool on closer inspection.

My favourite bits of Tweetie 2 so far are the “pull down to refresh” feature which gives that satisfying little pop sound when it’s done, threaded conversations and the little blue neon markers underneath unread tweets, @’s and DM’s. The ‘nearby’ feature is also particularly beautiful. I’m also a huge fan of the new simple silver icon. I think, like the application behind it, it’s simple and elegent. It sits on the opposite side of the same row as my Camera app on my iPhone’s home screen – and looks right at home there.

Rather than do a full review of every feature, I am going to hand you over to the Cult Of Mac who have done a sterling job on that front. One more thing I will say, however, this is worth £1.79 ten times over. I seriously do mean that. I believe fully in supporting developers when they create beautiful applications like this which change the way I use my iPhone and Twitter on a daily basis. £1.79 just doesn’t even begin to cover my appreciation.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Tweetie 2 – iTunes [£1.79/$2.99]

One of the first apps I bought in the App Store was Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D (iTunes link) and it provided hours of fun. I really enjoy driving games, but the fun karting ones not the serious souped-up sports car ones.

When I read a review of Cocoto Kart Online (iTunes/59p) at Touch Arcade yesterday, the words ‘online multi-player’ was the deal maker for me. At only 59p I felt I had nothing to lose. I played in single player mode and found it much more enjoyable than Krazy Kart Racing that I’d paid five times as much for recently.

Cocoto Kart Online really comes into it’s own in multi-player mode. To play against others, simply go to the games menu and select Play Multiplayer, then choose a character to represent you. Once you’re back in the menu, select Choose Table. This will show you various races, some in progress but some empty. You can join a race with others or create your own by pressing one of the empty available Race 0 Players cells as shown below…

And this is the message once you have entered yourself into a race…

I did this for the first time the evening and asked my good friend Tom to meet me in there. Less than a minute later Tom joined me and we were able to battle it out against eachother. This is the first time I have experienced online racing against a friend and it was terrific fun! I was delighted to be the victorious one in our first race against eachother, but of course I did let him win a couple after that

For 59p, this game is an absolute bargain. What makes Cocoto Kart a winner for me is being able to race against people you know if you arrange a meet, rather than just random strangers you pick up in the race rooms! I hope Tom and I will be able to race against other friends if they decide to buy this game. If you have already bought Cocoto Kart then let me know your nickname and I’ll look out for you in the race table, or we can arrange a specific time to meet and do battle. I’ll be gentle, I promise.

My Cocoto Kart Online nickname is purplelime. See you there.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Yesterday I downloaded a messaging application called Ping! from the app store, following a recommendation by a friend. Earlier in the day I had been looking at WhatsApp, but since I wasn’t too keen on sharing my phone number with online friends, I gave Ping! a whirl.

Above is a shot of a section of my iPhone home screen. As you can see, Ping! is there. My home screen is reserved for my favourite and most opened apps only. You can see where this review is going.

Ping! is an iPhone to iPhone messaging app, oh and the iPod touch. A cross between IM and SMS. Unlike the latter, it doesn’t incur any additional carrier charges. It works over wifi and 3G on the iPhone and wifi only on the iPod touch. A friend sent me a Ping! notification via GPRS yesterday. Worked a charm. Ping! works with push notifications so that messages can be delivered anywhere in the world, instantly.

The great thing about Ping! is you don’t have to share your phone number with anyone. Once you’ve downloaded the app you simply pick an ID (choose carefully, this can’t be changed currently) then tell your iPhone/iPod touch using friends about the app and once they install it you can send messages to eachother for free.

One of the refreshing things about this app is it’s unique notification tone. A lot of apps out there use the default text messaging sound which can cause confusion, but Ping! gives us a lovely “ping ping” sound which I have recorded especially for you to sample, here…

I’ve been messaging a few of my iPhone using friends over the past 24 hours and it’s a great way to keep in touch or just send a reminder to eachother. Nicky notified me via Ping! when the news about Tweetie 2 broke, since I wasn’t going to be at the computer, so as soon as I heard my Ping! I knew he was bringing good news.

I wouldn’t say the app was perfect just yet, but I expect future updates will change that. I had a couple of app crashes when deleting a typo and the timestamps aren’t reliable. But, all the time I was using it, the server status remained green and OK. There appears to be a character limit per message but at the moment I’m not entirely sure what that is. I sent a message more than around 200 characters to a friend last night but was told it got cut off at a certain point. I’ve e-mailed the Ping! developer to ask what the maximum character limit is and I’ll report back once I get a response. So, to be on the safe side don’t natter for too long, like me

[UPDATE]

The character limit per message is 150. In the absence of a character counter within the app, you’ll have to rely on guesswork. I hope we can expect a character counter in a future update.

Overall I am absolutely and totally impressed with Ping! It’s currently free for a limited time only, so head over to the app store and grab it today.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

As a huge advocate of Tweetie for iPhone and Mac, I was excited to hear what developer Loren Brichter was going to announce today, regarding the next version of the iPhone client. Some people were anticipating an update to the Mac version which was released back in April, but I can’t say that there’s anything I’m waiting to be improved on that. It’s already way ahead of the other Mac apps for Twitter, IMO.

Loren has explained in depth what features will be coming in Tweetie 2, including video recording from the 3GS, drafts manager and threaded conversations like the Mac version – a feature I love and have been desperate for on the iPhone client. I’ll let Loren tell you about the whole heap of other features.

Tweetie 2 for the iPhone will be submitted to Apple this week and we’ll impatiently await the approval. Tweetie 2 is a complete rewrite and a whole new app which will cost exactly the same as it does now, just £1.79/$2.99, for new users and old. I have been following mentions of @tweetie on Twitter and have been surprised to see people complaining about having to pay for the new app. I have been using Tweetie on the iPhone exclusively for almost 10 months and I still can’t believe that this, my most used and loved app on the iPhone, cost only £1.79. That won’t buy you much, nowadays, but it will buy you the best Twitter app you’ll ever need on the iPhone.