This is why it’s refreshing when something like the Vivi In Stile app comes along. Created by Peroni, it is an app that isn’t centred round the beer itself but a culture that Peroni is seemingly part of – its name for a start simply translates as ‘Live In Style – Peroni’.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what Peroni’s makers Nastro Azzurro are trying to do with the app – it’s basically a neat brand association tie-up, allowing the user to browse the latest fashion, culture and food advice and this all slips down quite nicely with an Italian twist.

The app is easy to use – but you must be 18 or older to access the content within. This has nothing to do with it being of an adult nature but as this is the drinking age for alcohol, this isn’t an app for minors.

Once you have selected the nearest city to you, the app offers up decent buying advice and allows you to share this content with your Facebook contingent.

What’s surprising about the app is the lack of Peroni in it – if you didn’t know it was created by the beer maker you would think you’re just in an app that’s primed for the style crowd. This is great as the last thing you want is to feel like you are reading one big advertisement.

It’s great too that the content seems fresh. The majority of it is written for the app and there’s the promise of bi-monthly updates too, so this should be an app you will want to visit again and again.

The two main sections of the app are Stile – where you can create your own fashion wishlist – an Esplorare, this area that acts like your own city guide.

Easy to use and dripping with cool, Vivi In Stile – Peroni definitely isn’t for the stuffy ale drinker looking for a bargain boozer. But if you are fashion focused then you’ll find the app fizzes with decent content and is not just there to entice you to buy a bottle of lager.

We just wish the app was a little more friendly for tablet users – but fingers crossed that update is on its way.

Download Vivi In Style – Peroni now

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The Prince, having released the Sands of Time from an oversized egg timer, is now being pursued by a beast called the Dahaka. On consulting an expert, the Prince finds that anyone who releases the Sands of Time must die, so the Dahaka must restore the cosmic balance by killing him.
And it looks great. Despite being a port of a six-year-old game, the rich grandeur of the exaggerated Persian architecture looks particularly dramatic on the iPad’s superb screen. Within this environment, you play out a balanced mix of platforming and combat.

The Prince can run, jump, roll, run along walls, climb, clamber and swing his way across almost any obstacle, stringing together moves in spectacular fashion. The same is true of his combat skills. Wielding blades, the Prince can hack, slash and lunge through enemies as well as string complex combos together.

The only downfall is the controls. Acrobatic movements can be tricky to pull off because it’s hard to ‘feel’ the virtual stick. But even with this problem, it’s another great iPad game.

Download this app: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within HD for iPad

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Review courtesy of Tap!

Print n Share breaks through these limitations by allowing you to print to any printer attached to your Mac or Windows PC. And once you’ve set it up, you can even print via 3G as well as Wi-Fi. Setting things up is a little more complex than the built in system. You need to install a small piece of software on your Mac or PC, and if you want to be able to print attachments you need to set up Print n Share to check your email account.

You can print any document from Print n Share (although of course you have to add them to it), or print direct from any device which supports Apple’s built-in printing, as Print n Share effectively appears as a printer to iOS.

Download this app: Print n Share for iPhone

Best iPhone apps | Apple iPhone 4S review

Review courtesy of Tap!

Moving further into the app, it becomes apparent that Savage Interactive is keen to maximise the iPad’s abilities. It’s taken the ‘let’s innovate’ approach into Procreate’s core feature – its brushes. At first, we felt disappointed with only eight, admittedly practical, brushes to choose from, until we tapped further into the editing options. You can modify the way each brush behaves, changing parameters such as Shape, Grain and Speed. What this all adds up to is an adaptable brush set that can create various marks and textures, and with a few tweaks and a bit of practice you can almost overcome the lack of pressure sensitivity on the iPad by linking properties such as reduced opacity and line weight to the speed of your finger gesture.

Procreate’s powerful brush features don’t stop there. From the Brush editing pane you can also import images from your Photo gallery to create customised brushes, defining both the shape and texture of a new brush based on the tonal properties of your selected photos. This takes Procreate into a deeper level of digital painting: brushes can become stencils and texturisers, and you can create a brush that imitates the appearance of a certain traditional media, or something that’s totally abstract. If you’re not familiar with customisable software brushes, we go into more detail in the tip section below. It adds another dimension of fun to creating digital art and is a unique aspect to emerge from painting with pixels.rnrnThis versatile brush set can also be used with Procreate’s Smudge tool, which perfectly complements the Brush tool when painting in software. Used subtly, smudging can help you merge hues and brush marks together, and switching between both will help you build up a smooth and blended finish. Procreate handles the rendering of brush marks and blending very well, with no noticeable lag, and merges colours neatly. While we’re on the subject of colour, the Color pane is also an extension of Savage Interactive’s ‘no fuss’ approach, with a single colour-picker window showing the values of your selected hue, accompanied by three simple sliders to edit hue, saturation and brightness. Once you’ve applied colour to your painting, you can sample from local hues simply by holding your finger over them. Very intuitive.

This release is not without its flaws, though. After the clever move of adding sliders to the interface, why not include one for colour editing? Having one more slider for artists to toggle between hue, saturation and brightness would help maintain momentum, and there’s room within the interface to include one. Also, layers are limited to Opacity only, but again this is where we can’t help but admire Savage Interactive for listening to community feedback – version 1.5 promises to include familiar layer options such as Multiply and Screen, helping to expand on established digital painting techniques. The canvas size is limited too, but the update will include an HD resolution 1920×1408 pixel canvas.

So far it’s impressive stuff from Procreate – its dependable performance and editable nature mean we’ll keep an eye on it as it continues to evolve.

Download this app: Procreate for iPad

Best iPad apps | Apple new iPad 3 review

Review courtesy of Tap!

However, rather than a dreary path of 3D icons, you get tappable dots moving along circular paths while a pulse beats outwards, collisions signifying the right moment to hit the screen.

Successful tappage causes an explosion of colour from under your digits; failure results in a discordant sound that may as well be a sample yelling œyou’re rubbish, you unrhythmic fool.

This is frequent in later levels, which introduce chords (multi-finger taps) and off-beats. But Pulse is short and lacks Game Center support, despite being a high-score game.

Download this app: Pulse: Volume One

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Review courtesy of Tap!

Despite all this, Puckerz! is a blast. This is mostly, we suspect, down to the glorious destruction that happens each time you fire your puck around the screen and watch it bounce about, smashing obstacles and racking up points.

There’s a little strategy, mostly in avoiding holes and trying to snag power-ups, but much of Puckerz! is fling-and-hope. The reason it works is because the objectives are reasonable and the difficulty curve slight. Despite the random nature of the game, you always feel the number of obstacles you must destroy within the time limit is achievable.

Download this app: Puckerz for iPhone

Best iPhone apps | Apple iPhone 4S review

Review courtesy of Tap!

Controls are simple – you tap to fire, drag to aim – and the physics model means that the ragdolls flop in a relatively convincing fashion. Different cannons fire different types of doll, but annoyingly, there’s no limit to the amount of said toys you’re allowed to send into the ether, so you can usually spam your way to victory through trial and error.

There’s also the option of a handy in-app purchase – a 69p rocket-powered ragdoll that solves any level – but it’s not pushed too hard, and is by no means essential. It sums up the games as a whole, really: decent enough, but with little to recommend it over anything else in the genre.

Download this app: Ragdoll Blaster for iPhone

Best iPhone apps | Apple iPhone 4S review

Review courtesy of Tap!

There’s already a host of Euro 2012-centric apps on Google Play, but crucially this is app has the backing of UEFA which means news and information database is fed from the UEFA.com website. From the homescreen you will be able to see the latest Euro 2012 news, details about the upcoming matches and the ability to set favourite teams giving you quick access to the team’s fixtures, squad and current group table standings. You can set a maximum of three favourite teams, so you are out of luck if you want to keep an eye on teams from all four groups.

There’s also pictures and video which are again taken from the UEFA.com website and also covers Champions League and Europa League content, but you will have to pay to access it all with prices starting at £1.99.

The app also works as a notification service, so you can set alerts for kick-off times, goals, video highlights and news about your favourite team.

If you are heading out to Ukraine or Poland, there’s a section dedicated to both countries with information on the stadiums, fanzones, other attractions and really useful information in terms of travel which includes bus and train services to get to the matches.

Updates prior to the tournament should see the addition of geo-location and an augmented reality feature which means you can see points of interest through your smartphone camera and a particularly handy people finder to keep tabs on your friends.

The official EURO 2012 app is easy to get navigate around and has a nice clean interface and we’d say there is minor differences between the Carlsberg EURO 2012 app which offers many of the same features.

A UEFA.com Android app already exists on Google Play which gives access to UEFA EURO 2012 details but doesn’t have the individual player profiles or the extra functionality for supporters travelling out to the tournament. It would have been nice if images and video were of a higher quality and we did notice that it consumed some decent CPU power, but in terms of usefulness for supporters going to the Euros this is a decent free app that will help you get around Ukraine and Poland as the Euros in the pocket swiftly vacate your pocket.

The problem is that the space yaks are having none of it. As Tsuyu does his dance, yaks move in, trying to butt Tsuyu into oblivion. But while Tsuyu is non-violent and refuses to repel yaks by means of, say, a massive gun, he can at least leap over them; and with cunning timing, he can have them butt each-other, providing extra raindance/tree-growing time.

Despite the game’s Unity Engine-powered visuals (which are very pretty when in motion), the game’s very old-school in feel – run/jump/rinse/repeat – and short. But it’s also quite captivating, so we considered it 69p well spent anyway.

Download this app: Rain, Sand, Stars

Best iPad apps | Apple new iPad 3 review

Review courtesy of Tap!

Where Apple offers separate apps to create text documents, spreadsheets and presentations, Quickoffice bundles the three together. If you need to use two or more Apple apps, you’ll make a tidy saving by going for this instead. Further, while the latest versions of Apple’s own office tools can export in Microsoft formats, they still default to their own native file types, so if you’re using iCloud to synchronise documents with a Mac for which don’t own the equivalent OS X apps, you’ll have to convert them first. Quickoffice uses industry standard formats from the off, so there’s no extra step to go through when sharing your documents.

It’s up to you where you store your work. When you have no net connection you’ll naturally work locally, but if you have a 3G-enabled iPad or a Wi-Fi connection then you can work directly from a remote server. At the time of writing, the options were Google Docs, Dropbox, box.net, MobileMe, Huddle, SugarSync, Evernote and Catch. Apple has announced that it will be discontinuing the MobileMe iDisk service so we would expect to see this option disappear in an update, but that leaves us with six diverse alternatives offering a range of benefits. Business workers with Google Apps accounts can work directly on documents shared with other team members, while Dropbox subscribers with the desktop client installed on their Mac or PC will enjoy simple integration between their working devices, with documents created on the iPad showing up on their home machine and vice versa. Files can be organised into folders within the app itself.

The editing environment is clean and easy on the eye, with a number of smart navigation tools. Run your thumb down the right-hand edge of a text document and its constituent pages are shown as expanding thumbnails. Work on a spreadsheet and as you switch back and forth between its various pages they’ll curl up and down like pages in iBooks. Equally neat is the way that you align cell data in the spreadsheet app: it presents you with a tic-tac-toe board about which you drag sample text to align it left, right and centred at the top, middle or bottom of the cell. Overly long entries can be wrapped, if you choose.

It’s not a complete desktop replacement, of course. The choice of fonts is limited to seven rather pedestrian options in sizes ranging from 8pt to 72pt, and while there’s a library of 18 shapes ready to be dropped into your presentations, none of the modules has the layout abilities of Numbers, Keynote or Pages. It is, however, more than up to the job of taking a project from concept, through notes to final polished product ready to be emailed or printed directly. At £13.99, it’s nothing short of a bargain – a fact that helps soften the blow of realising you’ll have to shell out an extra £6.99 if you want it on your iPhone, too.

Download this app: Quickoffice Pro HD

Best iPad apps | Apple new iPad 3 review

Review courtesy of Tap!

The basics are fine: your lone ship sits within neon geometric shapes, and aliens menacingly advance from the points. Hold and move your finger to rotate your ship and fire, a system that in particular works nicely on the iPad.

But when you’re 20 levels in and haven’t been challenged, you’ll wonder what’s going on. By the time the screen starts spinning back and forth and the rate at which enemies approach quickens, it’s a bit too late.

Download this app: Quantasm

Best iPad apps | Apple new iPad 3 review

Review courtesy of Tap!

You can vary the interval between shots, choose from different effects, and lay them out in a grid.

The results are remarkably effective. Whether you shoot an image of something that’s moving or just a statue, the results can be magical.

Download this app: QuadCamera for iPhone

Best iPhone apps | Apple iPhone 4S review

Review courtesy of Tap!

At least this is a knowing kind of mental. The dev claims Puzzlejuice will “punch your brain in the face” and an oddball sense of humour pervades throughout, with you being told about your ascension to the “next level of sexytown” on unlocking one of the power ups, which just about helps you retain your sanity while battling the game itself. This involves sorting falling blocks, Tetris-style, to make solid lines; but instead of disappearing, they become letters from which you make words that subsequently explode, taking out nearby blocks. Success depends on you balancing shifting blocks and unearthing words in the chaos, and Puzzlejuice never lets up for a moment.

To help you along (or add to the confusion), groups of three or more like-coloured blocks can be tapped to reveal extra letters, and there’s a chain-based score mechanic to master, along with two additional modes: ‘Euro Extreme’ only allows words with five or more letters to explode, and the contrarily named Zen is a frantic time-attack nightmare. Less impressive are the controls, which aren’t quite tight enough when you’re under pressure, especially on the iPhone’s smaller screen. You’re limited to dragging across words, and we wish the dev had pilfered SpellTower’s tap-to-select system.

Nonetheless, this is a game you’ll cherish and curse in equal measure, before collapsing in a heap and recharging for another go. And while Puzzlejuice wears its influences on its sleeve, it still feels fresh, engaging and new, although we suspect the uncompromising, demanding attitude will be too much for anyone who prefers their word games a bit more straight-laced.

Download this app: Puzzlejuice for iPhone

Best iPhone apps | Apple iPhone 4S review

Review courtesy of Tap!

This app offers geometric monochrome (above), coloured dots, pixels made of isometric cubes, and more.

The results won’t be to everyone’s taste, but while the interface is sparse, pxl. is a diverting enough way to muck about with your photos and create some abstract wallpapers; competitor Pixl is worth checking out, though, too.

Download this app: pxl. for iPhone

Best iPhone apps | Apple iPhone 4S review

Review courtesy of Tap!

For those who didn’t pick up the third person shooter first time around, the gun-toting action is set in New York with former detective Payne hell bent on clearing the city of the drug gang responsible for killing his wife and daughter.

Picking off the enemy with a series of weapons is at the very heart of the gameplay with a some platform and puzzle-solving  action thrown in for good measure all of which is knitted together with the once again excellent voice acting work and the comic book presentation which pushes along the story.

Graphically, we were never expecting Infinity Blade visuals, and it’s important to remember that this game is over ten years old. Textures certainly don’t age well, but the Retina Display makes up for some of the visual shortcomings. Having tested on the iPhone and the iPad, the game ran relatively smoothly with some very minor lag issues.

Controls are perennially a stumbling block for most console ports and it is no different here despite the fact that you can move the virtual controls anywhere on the screen to make it as comfortable as possible on an iPhone or iPad screen. In the heat of the battle we were disappointed at times by the responsiveness of the shooting, while simply opening up draws and lockers felt poorly executed and at times irritating.  The Aim-assist option can take some of the fun out of precision shooting, but without it, the task to get through levels is tough, particularly on a smaller screen.

If you can get past the initially frustrating touchscreen controls which took us about twenty minutes to get to grips with, the narrative and gameplay still stands the test of time. For those obsessed with stats Rockstar has also added Social Club support where you can also unlock cheats. Until the action turns to Brazil, Max Payne mobile is a more than decent warm up for the main event in May.

Buy this app: Download Max Payne Mobile iPhone app now

Addison Lee is one of the biggest providers of taxis in the country, so it makes sense that it would have an application on most platforms – although the Windows Phone option is the best out there.

The reason isn’t the fact you can simply select a cab from loads of locations in the UK – it’s the additional functionality on top too.

The main, winning feature in our eyes is the Live Tile, where once you finally book the taxi a little map sits on your home screen showing the location of the cab as it winds its way to you.

If you’ve got an account with the firm already then it’s as easy as pie to book a cab and be on your way – a few taps to enter the location (or select from your current position on the map using GPS) and the cab is booked and on its way.

In short, there’s not much we could think of that we’d want in a cab app – perhaps the chance to rate your driver, but that’s being really picky.

If you’re after a slick service, this is the app to be picking up when you want picking up.

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It’s not the world’s most in-depth applications, as it’s simply a place to activate Wi-Fi, data, Bluetooth and Flight Mode.

The key comes with being able to set the Live Tiles to activate each connection separately – only Wi-Fi and data are able to show the current status of the switch, with Bluetooth unable to repeat the trick.

Windows Phone doesn’t make it easy for applications like this, as you can’t switch things on and off from the home screen – but that doesn’t mean things aren’t made a lot easier by installing this app on your phone.

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So that’s why apps are such a key part of this area of life – giving you the information to hand when you need it. While we wouldn’t recommend only busting out this app when someone is choking, there’s a lot of solid information here.

However, while the likes of CPR, Heimlich manoeuvres and recovery positions are covered here, there’s not a lot more depth on offer. The instructions are rather hard to follow in places as well, with each step not superbly laid out.

It’s also clearly a translated app, with such helpful information as how to shout for help (‘Shout Help’, apparently) and many captions in another language.

But it’s free, contains the right information (once you get your head around what’s going on) and could help save someone’s life… it’s just there are better options out there on Windows Phone Marketplace.

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The game play is as fun as ever (despite the annoying start up movie that’s a MINUTE long but can thankfully be turned off) and offers up a simple golfing game that comes with a variety of modes and settings, from Instant Play (a short tour through a few courses) to a longer Career mode.

The gameplay is simple enough – aim using the map to see where the ball will land, select a club (using the clever club selection wheel) and start your shot. Accuracy is gained through tapping the power at the correct points and can be achieved pretty easily when you get used to the game.

The only real problem we’ve found is properly getting the accuracy on the direction of your shots – the touchscreen doesn’t seem to register as well as we’d hope it would and you do have to spend a fair amount of time messing about when it comes to elements like putting.

The cost is high, but there are a wide range of achievements (although word is some of them aren’t achievable, so we’ll be looking to see that updated) and Leaderboards are a nice touch to enticing further game play.

A fun title that offers gameplay that mostly offers the correct level of fun for the cost – but it is a lot cheaper on rival platforms.

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Fuse is one of the better RSS readers we’ve come across, with a range of themes to choose from and all of them make it easy to check up on the stories you want to see.

You can easily add in feeds from Google Reader – although if you have them separated into groups, it’s not possible to collate them all at once, meaning you have to jump in and out of the different subjects you’re after.

Each theme offers an easy way to swipe back into the main menu – with Ipsum certainly our favourite from an aesthetic point of view.

If the article requires further reading (meaning the author is stingy with the words) then it simply bounces you out to the relevant internet page – it’s all very slick and easy to use.

Live Tiles will update a specific group when you’re not looking at the app to give you a feeling  of what’s going on in the background and constantly pull you back into the app – all worth it for a quid.

The only slight downside is the lag we encountered from time to time when it was updating and we were swiping through, but there wasn’t too much of that during our review.

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