Must Haves: Oldbooth, Tioti TV+, Dropship and Alphabetic

Posted on January 1st, 2009. Written by Arron.

Happy New Year! We thought we’d kick off 2009 with our ‘Must Haves’. A small selection of apps which for one reason or another have instantly become for us ‘must haves’. Like these lot …

I’ve highlighted Oldbooth, Tioti TV, Dropship and recently released Alphabetic as being iPhone and iPod touch must haves. Hit the jump to find out why I digg them so much, and why you won’t want to neglect from having them in your own growing App Store library …

Oldbooth [App Store]
Designed by Piotr Bialkowski and published by Luga, Oldbooth acts as an old photo booth for your iPhone. Take a picture, choose your gender, and using the 14 built in face templates you can travel back in time. The app allows you to transform a modern picture, into that of an antique and is great fun to have a mess around with.

In order to ensure the final result is as realistic as possible, Oldbooth also allows you to raise or lower the overall brightness of your photo. The results can be pretty laugh out loud, and I just think it’s a great app to have a laugh about with.

Current status: Recommended

Reviewed at: v2.0
Reviewed on Firmware: 2.2
Download size: 11.7MB
Released on: 22nd Dec 2008
Retails for: $1.99 [On Sale - Usually $2.99]

Compatible with: iPod touch Gen 1 & 2 / iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G

Tioti TV+ [App Store] [Official Site]
Another TV guide? – Well, one for the UK at least. I recently told you about TV Plus [Our Review] the TV guide which incorporated My Sky‘s Remote Record functionality. Basically the service allows anyone who owns a Sky+ or Sky HD box the ability to send a special package to the box to request it to record a certain programme.

You’ll be glad to know Tioti TV+ also has this functionality … but there’s more … Not only is Tioti TV+ a fully-fledged UK TV guide for Freeview, Freesat, Sky, Terrestrial, Top-Up TV and Virgin packages, it also offers up BBC iPlayer functionality too! Shows with this ‘catch up’ functionality are marked with the BBC iPlayer logo, simply tap ‘Watch Previous Episodes’ and you’ll be switched out to Safari where it will load up the iPhone-friendly version of BBC’s iPlayer, and the exact show you wish to watch. If you wish, you can also ‘Mark’ a show for viewing later.

No yearly subscription charges to keep the listings up to date,
just a one off payment of £1.79. Bargin.

Current status: Recommended

Reviewed at: v1.0
Reviewed on Firmware: 2.2
Download size: 11.7MB
Released on: 05th Dec 2008
Retails for: £1.79

Compatible with: iPod touch Gen 1 & 2 / iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G
Support included for: UK

Dropship [App Store]
After hearing about Dropship back in early October 08, it was pretty clear I was going to like this game a hell of a lot – and when I got my hands on it, I did.

User interface design by Tim Omernick and published by KPCB iFunded corporation ngmoco, Dropship is a futuristic shooter with extremely innovative controls. Touching one side of the screen will control the direction in which you move, and touching the other side will control the direction in which you shoot your weaponry.

“Currently on Sale to celebrate the release of upcoming title Rolando, Dropship offers two game play modes; Free Play and Campaign. Free play is just as it suggests, an arcade-styled mode which allows you to free play. In this mode you will battle through levels of increasingly difficulty. In order to progress to the next level, you’ll have to save several members of your crew stranded within various parts of the course, and on top of all this, each level you play will be played against the clock. Turrets, tanks and interceptors, your side cannons won’t get a rest on this mode. To make things even more interesting your ship will lose energy on impact. To revive yourself, collect the glowing debris created when you kill any obstruction.”

Got an iTunes gift voucher? This is definitely worth a look.

Current status: Recommended

Reviewed at: v1.0
Reviewed on Firmware: 2.2
Download size: 8.7MB
Released on: 09th Dec 2008
Retails for: £0.59 [On Sale - Usually $1.99 / £1.79]

Compatible with: iPod touch Gen 1 & 2 / iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G

Alphabetic [App Store]
Indie developer Dennis Sijnen’s latest creation brings the very concept of the alphabet to the touch platform. Published by No Monkeys the app features a jumble of letters. Your aim is to find and touch the alphabet (in order) in a given amount of time.

Each time you manage to touch a letter, the next animated jumble of letters will confuse you again. Match all 26 letters in 26 seconds and you win. Each letter you correctly matched adds more precious seconds to your overall time.

It’s a pretty unique concept for a game, and a very well designed app to boot.

Current status: Recommended

Reviewed at: v1.0.0
Reviewed on Firmware: 2.2
Download size: 1.5MB
Released on: 20th Dec 2008
Retails for: £1.19 [50% Sale - Usually $1.99 / £2.99]

Compatible with: iPod touch Gen 1 & 2 / iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G