Tinker Tool Review

Developer: Marcel Bresink Software

User Interface: 10/10

Stability: 10/10

Reuse/Replay: 8/10

Overall Score: 9/10

File Size: 2.0 MB

Version Reviewed: 3.96

Release Date: August 28, 2009

Kind: Mac OS X (DMG)

Ever wanted to tweak or change all the small, but noticeable things on your Mac OS? Well that’s exactly what the “Tinker Tool” by Marcel Bresink Software allows you to do. Tinker Tool is a set of additional preferences you can use to change or customize a few settings on your mac. This free app gives you a great control over many of those hidden Mac OS or app settings. When you first open up the Tinker Tool app, you are greeted with a nice and simple control panel. In the control panel, there are 9 different main preferences grouped into tabs.

Koi Pond Review

Developer: The Blimp Pilots

Version: 2.5 

File Size: 9.4 MB

Category: Entertainment

Price: $0.99

-

Integration: 10/10

Stability: 9/10

Features: 9/10

Reuse/Replay Value: 8/10

Overall Score: 9/10

Relaxing, soothing, and ambient are a few of the many words you could use to describe Koi Pond by The Blimp Pilots. Koi Pond completely transforms your iphone into a peaceful pond with koi swimming around your screen. Features include touch reactive, dynamic water simulation, virtual fish, and many display options.

As far the integration goes, The Blimp Pilots did an amazing job. With it’s easy-to-use interface you won’t have any trouble navigating to the many features this app offers. To use it, simply drag your finger across the screen and watch the water ripple as the koi swim away. While using this app, I actually have fallen asleep before because of nature-like sounds.´

Considering the file size is only 9.4 MB, you could say that this app is really stable. It never lags, freezes, or crashes, so all in all this app does great job with stability.

The features this app comes with are excellent. First of all, it comes with a pretty decent amount of customizations that allow you to change what your koi pond looks like. To customize something, simply tap the bottom right corner of the screen and then the display options pop up. You can customize the color of your water, the amount of koi in the pond, and how many lily pads there are in the pond. You can also change the surface of which the koi are swimming over. Lastly, you can even customize the nature-like sounds playing in the background.

Another feature is that if you shake your iphone, then koi food will appear on your screen and then multiple amounts of koi will swim over to the food.

The Reuse/Replay value of this app is really high. If you’re one of the people who have a hard time falling asleep, this app is probably something you would use a lot. Not only because of the koi pond itself, but because of the ambient sounds in the background. Like I said before, they’re really soothing and calming.

To summarize everything up, if you like ambient applications, I highly recommend you buy this application.

Talking Japanese Phrasebook Review

Developer: Coolgorilla

Version: 1.3

File Size: 6.6 MB

Category: Reference

Price: $0.99

-

Integration: 9/10

Stability: 9/10

Features: 8/10

Re-Use/Replay Value: 8/10

Overall Score: 8/10

With over 500 professionally translated words and phrases, this app is second to none. Whether if you’re traveling to Japan or just want to learn the basics of the Japanese language, this is the app for you. This app not only shows you the written English to Japanese translation, but it also brings out two more features including a professional text-to-speech voice translation along with “romaji” (a phonetic way of reading something).

When you open up this app, you are greeted with a list of categories containing the words and phrases you would need if you were learn the essentials and basics of the Japanese language. If you’re like me and you’re not actually visiting Japan, I would still consider buying this app if you ever wanted to learn a bit Japanese.

The developers did a great job integrating a phrasebook into an iPhone app. It comes with great features, and an easy-to-use interface. Each word or phrase is packed with a written Japanese text translation, a text-to-speech voice translation, and romaji. The text-to-speech audio capabilities are probably my favorite feature. Its as if an actual Japanese person with a Japanese accent is reading the word to you. Another great feature is the romaji. This is a great tool in learning how to pronounce something. For example, lets the use the word “hello”, in Japanese romaji that would be “konnichiwa”.

As far as the stability goes, this app is does a pretty good job. Since it’s just a small 6.6 megabytes, you won’t have to worry too much about it crashing. It hasn’t crashed on me before, and every thing in the app is fully functional.

The re-use value for this app is pretty high. Again, if you plan on visiting Japan you would probably want to use this app as a reference everywhere you go.

All in all, this app is a great phrasebook. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn the essentials and basics of the Japanese language