Greetings folks! I figure it is about time we start providing written previews for our AppSlappy audience, enjoy! Welcome to the light-hearted society of Rinth Island from Chillingo Ltd, the story of a displaced people whose homes have been destroyed by a natural disaster. The solution for their plight could be characterized as a puzzle 2D-ish platformer. Each level you come across is circular and your goal is to get to a specific point on the map, you do that by avoiding certain areas, moving boxes, that kind of thing.

First thing you’ll notice is the arrow legend on the lower-left, it’s essentially a d-pad you’d expect on a standard controller. You do have the option of changing the control scheme to “Touch Only”, which seems like having areas to touch in quadrants but in the full area of the screen rather than just the control pad. I tried this option for all of five minutes until I got frustrated enough to the change it and never go back. But even then, unfortunately, I found the controls to be not as responsive as I’d like.

Another thing that I should note is that I was playing this on an iPod Touch. I’m not sure if they were anticipating that most people would be playing this on iPhone or iPad, but there were plenty of times where the game started chugging to the point of it no longer being playable. After a few seconds it seemed to work itself out, most of the time. Rinith Island is free for today only, and if you’re following AppSlappy on Twitter then you already know that. Good for you.

In another active effort to making people feel like we’re all doomed, I bring you the Ugly Meter, which, from now on I will call the “Confidence Builder”. The Confidence Builder is designed to rate how attractive or unattractive you are by taking your photo and scanning it into the application. And, in further effort to not commit suicide, you can then post it to everyone you know via Facebook, Twitter, the usual culprits. The app itself has been around for a bit, but the recent pro-version update has garnered a lot of attention, even from Howard Stern.

And now Confidence Builder is boasting over “5,000,00″ users, and a hearty congratulations goes to them for their hard work.

The folks at Halfbrick were kind enough to publish an in-depth preview of the version 1.3 update to Jetpack Joyride, and it was officially launched yesterday. So far it’s looking like a really substantial update, more 15 gadgets set up in tiers. Basically as you buy the gadgets new tiers will open up for the player to buy. At any given time you can have two gadgets equipped at a time depending on how you’d like to play. Also, it’s been said before, and it’s worth repeating, Barry Steakfires remains the best character name in existence.

Did I mention it’s free? It’s free.

Here’s the the breakdown of the new gadgets from Halfbrick:

SECTOR 1: RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Air Barrys (3500 Coins)
Leap gracefully over obstacles with these designer sneakers.

Nerd Repellant (2000 Coins)
The patent-pending formula is so potent that the whole laboratory had to be abandoned.

Insta-Ball (2000 Coins)
Bounce off the floor instead of going splat. Great for traveling a few extra meters.

SECTOR 2: FRINGE SCIENCE LAB

Gravity Belt (5000 Coins)
Makes the ground come at you a lot faster than usual. Be sure to bend your knees when you land.

Missile Jammer (5000 Coins)
Replaces the missile guidance program with pictures of kittens downloaded from the internet. Only works if the kittens are particularly cute.

Token Gift (5000 Coins)
What do you give someone who has everything? A free final spin token, of course!

SECTOR 3: PSEUDOSCIENCE ACTION GROUP

Freeze-O-Matic (3000 Coins)
There’s no better way to cool down after a hard run than being snap-frozen in a solid block of ice. It also helps you slide a few extra meters.

X-Ray Specs (4500 Coins)
This high-tech eyewear is both fashionable and functional. Now you can look inside vehicle pickups and other places you’re not supposed to see.

Gemology (6500 Coins)
A special blingification technique that converts coins into high-value gems. For some reason it only works on coins minted in 1985.

SECTOR 4: FUTUROLOGIST LOUNGE

Ezy-Dodge Missiles (5500 Coins)
If you’re going to play a game of chicken with a missile, make sure it’s an Ezy-Dodge!

Magnetic Tokens (4500 Coins)
Every token is fitted with a super-strong magnet. They are easier to collect, but will probably wipe your credit card.

Flying Pig (6000 Coins)
This highly-unstable coin transporter was designed by a scientist with a particular fondness for physical comedy.

SECTOR 5: TESTING ZONE

Free Ride (5000 Coins)
Stop off at the motor pool before smashing through the laboratory wall. Why didn’t Barry think of this earlier.

Coin Magnet (6000 Coins)
Once you get used to the feeling of being endlessly pelted with coins you will start to wonder how you ever lived without it.

Lucky Last (5500 Coins)
Your final spin token is forged from fortunium, the world’s luckiest element.

A while back I posted a bit about the Dragon Shout App. To recap, it’s designed to keep track of any equipment you have left behind and where you left it. And seriously, that is a really invaluable tool in a world as big as Skyrim. Yesterday, the official Dragon Shout app twitter feed posted that Bethesda has asked for them to take down the application due to copyright infringement, a rather unfortunately turn of events for anyone still using it.

I am reminded a bit of the much higher profile story involving the “Scrolls” name infringing on the “Elder Scrolls” license between Bethesda and Mojang, a case that was resolved amicably with Mojang still being able to use the name. I’m not sure what Bethesda’s specific claim is other than just general infringement, but whatever. The app is still up for the time being, so get it while you can.

One of the more common practices these days is for a major video game to be released along side a companion iOS app in some form. Whether that be a portable version of the game itself or an app to support different functionality. Just to refresh our collective memory, here’s a quick rundown of some of the more recent releases:

Burnout CRASH
Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies
EA Battlelog (Battlefield 3)
Mass Effect 3 Data Pad
Mass Effect Infiltrator
Max Payne Mobile
Minecraft Pocket Edition
Soul Calibur
SSX Ridernet
Star Wars: Old Republic

It’s weird, I almost view these apps akin to the release of a companion video game released along side a major film release. It should be noted that most of these games are consistently in the top paid or free apps on the iOS app store. But the point of this is to get a gauge of how our community feels about them, if anything. How do most people feel about these games? Do you only pick these games up if you enjoy the main game they’re associated with? Usually useless or generally okay?

For anyone interested in dabbling in felony stalking, look no further than the Girls Around Me app. Unfortunately for those folks, as of last Saturday the app has been pulled from the iOS store. Here’s how it works, it uses geolocation to point out “things” of interest to the user, in this case those “things” are “girls”. As you being the app it simply shows a local map with various pictures and locations of men and women of your choosing. You may ask the question, so these people volunteer this information? The answer in an emphatic “No”. It is using any public data from Facebook and Foursquare in order to acquire pictures, gender, and exact location.

So whether it is due to laziness or ignorance, each of these people haven’t really locked down who can see what about themselves publicly. It’s an old topic, but the real problem here is how Facebook and Foursquare chooses to expose it’s API to third-party developers. The developer of Girls Around Me, I-Free, has issued a very long statement regarding this issue to the Wall Street Journal of all places. I pretty much stopped reading when I realized they were trying to justify this thing to everyone, oh wait…

You remember that game that everybody loved pre-Draw Something and pre-Hero Academy? It’s coming with a sizable update soon. It may even give people a reason to play again.

True Lies

According to PC World, the new iPad battery actually needs an hour longer charge than the indicator represents. This means that the battery indicator says 100% when it’s actually 90%, which is roughly an hour less of usage. On the other hand, Apple warned users that they should not leave their iPad charging unattended (really?) or charge overnight because it will risk ruining the battery life. Obviously most people believe that Apple should probably fix the battery indicator as well as making the iPad stop charging once the battery is full.

For those with new iPad’s, take care not to overcharge it.