Open Table

While sitting here starving, literally munching on a bag of Munchies Cheese Fix, I remembered the app. Open Table. My cousin told me about it this past summer when he was going out to dinner with his wife and parents. They decided last minute to head out to dinner in the North End in Boston on a busy Friday night. My cousin downloaded the app, booked and table and within thirty minutes they were seated at a gourmet Italian restaurant. There was a line at the door but they went straight up and got their table for four. When the app. opens you are able to find and open table near your current location or even select a new location.

Near current location pulls a window where you enter date, time and the party size.

Find a table brings up an array of restaurants with available seats, their location and miles away from you.

Clicking a restaurant shows you the details and times available. If you are unfamiliar with the restaurant, it will tell you the type of food, price range and even details on parking.

You too can check out the diner reviews in order to receive some personal feedback on the restaurant. 

I personally enjoy this app. for being able to look into places you never would have thought of before. One downfall is not being able to plug in the specific food you would like to find but other than that it is fantastic!

Lumosity

Finding my next app. was difficult compared to the last few. Usually my friends or co workers had directed me to a certain app. but lately I was having to go a physically search for a while. Yes, it may be simple, only a few click to get to the app store but when I download an app. and dont find it interesting, I refuse to blog about it. Finally, I came across the app. Lumosity under the category education. The name sounded familiar from a commercial on TV or on my Pandora while running at the gym. I had to set up an account and it asked some basic question to get me started and then brought me to basic training.

After the basic training, I was brought to todays session on shapes, memory matrix and lost in migration. Shapes brought me to a game where I would see a shape such as a triangle then a square and then another square. I could answer match or no match in between each and it then gave me my results.

Memory matrix was watching a pattern appear and then disappear and I then repeated the pattern.

Lost in migration was a flock of five six birds all pointing in one direction and you would have to say what direction the middle one was going in but while you were timed

I found the app. to be really interesting because it kept my mind continuously thinking. I tried taking screenshots of the actual game but I was already doing horrible at them I had to keep my focus! I recommend this app. to anyone who is interested in keep their mind active on something on than a hungry hippo! 

Flow Free

Since I found myself addicted to the “Hungry Hungry Hippos” I could not help but look for another gamer to pass the time and I came across “Flow Free”. What drew my attention were the bight lines of colors. When the app. is opened up it introduces you to the flow. Here you can free play, time trial, settings, about and more games. All of this is pretty much self explanatory.

After clicking free play, you are brought to the level pack, here there are a variety of levels at which you can choose to play. I personally started with the regular pack and quickly proceeded to the 13th level. You have the option to start at any level but it obviously is not that hard to advance.

Bonus Pack takes you to the selection level again and here the game progressively gets harder.

8x8 Mania is a bunch of smaller circles and a larger field to deal with.

Jumbo pack is made for the iPad and you can see why on your phone, the field is huge and is quite complicated to connect the colors.

In the end, I deleted the app. I was not really impressed with it and the only thing that ever kept my attention was the colors

Hungry Hungry Hippo

As I sat in the library this week to study for midterms, I did everything and anything possible to distract myself. From Facebook to Twitter, it just was not enough! I looked on the games section of the app. store and scrolled and scrolled until I cam across “Hungry Hippo”. As a child, I went to my aunts house frequently and the highlight of my visit was getting to play “Hungry Hungry Hippo”, therefore you will not believe the excitement that overcame me in the library. After instantly downloading, I am 100% hooked! Upon opening the app. it brings you into jungle where the hippos are located and you get a 360 degree view. The options are single hippo, Hippo VS Hippo or Hippo VS Comp.

Before playing the game you are able to select from four different hippos, Sweetie Potamus, Veggie Potamus, Hungry Hippo and Bottomless Potamus! All adorable in their own way!

Single hippo allows you to play just by yourself and the time does not run out until your hippo has eaten everything in sight! There is another hippo but it does not move, so just like when I was a child and no one would play with me, it is quite boring.

Now hippo vs hippo is where it get intense. You can play with a friend on your iPhone! Trust me, it gets quite competitive and bit too noisy for the library!

Hippo Vs Comp. is the usual, the computer wins!

This app. is one I highly recommend to those who played it as a child!

Waze

“Waze” is another app I happened to fall upon this week. It is basically an app designed to help navigate through traffic but it has extra features such as gas pricing and hazard alerts. Now the deal with this app. is that it is user generated. Therefore, if you want the app. to work to the fullest potential, you must join in on the reporting of information. When the app. opens if brings you to a map, very similar to that of your average gps. I am the triangle.

From this point, if you were driving the map follows you along but if you would like to search a route prior to leaving you can scroll around the map.

In doing so, you are able to see people who have joined the app. driving around and when they joined the app. This I tend to find a tad creepy because what if I rolled up at a stop light next to someone who too was on the app. Awkward.

Furthermore, you can pinpoint traffic.

Getting back to the user generated aspect of the app. If you click on the bottom left of the screen, a menu pops up

You can navigate: 

Meet up, this is to specify you location so other waze users know where you are:

My waze which is basically you profile for others to view:

Reports is a simple way to see what is going on in your area and the settings and switch off are self explanatory.

On the bottom right is where it allows you to report any incident in order for the other users to view.

Overall, I find the idea of the app. to be creative and unique but I do feel it needs more of a following to reach its maximum potential!

iPhone Secrets

I have not heard of any intense apps this week so I decided to go onto the app store and see what was under the “Free” section. This is where I stumbled upon “iPhone Secrets”. When the app first opens up it is just an information screen of how to use the app. Scroll across for the tips and scroll up for more information on a particular tip.

As I scrolled across I noticed that the tips were pretty basic, ones I had already known such as a screen shot. At the top if the screen you are able to “like”, “dislike”, comment, email, and favorite a tip.

Below is the tip page, categories, favorites, top and search. Categories allows you to go into an array of selections from applications to troubleshooting.

Favorites is obviously what you have placed in there and the top is today, monthly and all time. Unfortunately, the top section would not load and it is the only fault I found in the app.

Overall the app. is very interesting but I did realize after I downloaded it, the app. is directed towards the iOS5. I personally, updated to the iOS6 but the tips I have been looking at still have been matching up. I recommend this app. to anyone who is that tech savvy. I try to call myself one, but half the time I have no clue what I am doing. The iPhone has a ton of hidden features and this app. will definitely help you to discover them!