Filed under: Fun, Games, Holiday Gift Guide, iPhone
The best apps to put on the iPhone you're giving - Holiday Gift Guide
If you're giving an iPhone or an iPod Touch as a gift, like thousands of other people this season, you might want to think about personalizing it with apps that your beloved giftee would enjoy. The iPod/iPhone has become a failsafe present: you don't have to know someone particularly well to know they'll enjoy it. Throwing some music and a few choice apps on there adds a personal touch and gives them something to play with as soon as they unwrap the gift. Here are a few of my favorite picks:RjDj (iPhone only) is a reality-hacking music experience that you have to see and hear to believe. RJDJ takes different musical "scenes" and incorporates the sounds of your surroundings into a unique, immersive composition. The developers pride themselves on creating "a digital drug which causes a mind twisting hearing sensation," and artists are creating new scenes all the time. RjDj is a great way to show off the possibilities of that new iPhone to the person you're giving it to. ($2.99)
Spore Origins (iPhone or iTouch) is one of the big showpiece games for the iPhone. It encapsulates the first stage and the creature creator from the popular evolution-themed game Spore. You play the initial "cell" mode of the species you design, starting out in the primordial ooze. The iPhone is well-suited to creature creation, and the ability to drag and pinch makes the creatures more fun to play with than in the desktop version. Spore Origins has arguably the best visuals of any iPhone game so far, and it's a good value for what it costs.
(Thanksgiving special offer: $5.99, regularly $10)
Bloom (iPhone or iTouch) is a fantastic music generator, masterminded by world-famous producer Brian Eno. You can use it to create your own ambient music, or just hit listen and let it go. You can tap the screen to add new tones, represented by pulsing colored dots. Several different moods are available, setting the overall feeling of the music. Eno has been obsessed with music generators for years, and this is a functional one that fits in your pocket. I previously covered Bloom in more detail here on Download Squad. ($3.99)
Shazam (iPhone only) is a tool for discovering new music. You can let it listen to a few seconds of music, and it will identify the song with impressive accuracy. It's great for those moments when you fall in love with a new track at the coffee shop, and you need to find out what it is and download it immediately. Another great showcase for the versatility of the iPhone. (Free!)
With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Eric said 3:12PM on 11-26-2008
Are you also going to give them the account you purchased the apps and music with, so they can continue to use them?
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Rizzle said 4:21AM on 11-27-2008
How do you "surprise" someone with an iPhone 3G and have it so that they can keep their original cell's number, since it requires a contract when you get the phone at the store?
Is there a way to delay activation until a certain time/date?
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Chris said 1:15PM on 11-30-2008
And I thought it could only be synced with one computer at a time, so unless you steal their computer, I don't see how you'd be able to transfer everything over.
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Jay Hathaway said 1:22PM on 11-30-2008
I guess when I wrote this, I was kind of imagining the iPhone as gift to a kid or a spouse/significant other. Someone who you might reasonably share a computer and a phone bill with. It is kind of silly that Apple/AT&T make iPhones tough to buy as gifts. i gave an iPod Touch last year, though, and that worked out amazingly well. I preloaded it with music (apps weren't out yet, last Christmas).
Ball Lightning said 7:48PM on 12-06-2008
Heres a Spore Origin Trailer:
http://sporedum.net/2008/11/26/spore-origins-iphone-trailer/
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