I really like playing Labyrinth on Android (it is also available on iPhone). However I’ve found though that my son, who is almost three, loves playing ‘ball in the hole’ as he calls it even more than I do. The levels were a bit difficult for him to navigate so I’ve started using the ‘my levels’ feature to make some levels that are easier for him to play. Usually, these don’t have many holes on them but just weaving walls to get around.
Labyrinth Screenshot
I’ve build several of these levels and gradually added a few holes which are easily avoidable and then some trickier levels later on that I help him with. I’m hoping I can share these as a pack for other users to use.
I’m pleased to see that the they are launching Labyrinth 2 (on the iPhone initially) with some fun extras like cannons and magnets. Looking forward to that coming to the Android phone too.
I’ve been using Seesmic for Android for a while now to tweet. It has a really good interface and makes it easy to switch between different accounts.
Seesmic for Android
I’ve found uploading images can be a bit hit and miss as it takes a while to generate the shortlinks and if you try to post before they are ready it will give you an error. I also found the widget which scrolls through your twitter messages just a bit to small to be useful, it would be good to see different sized widgets available. Otherwise I think it is an excellent app.
Scan the barcode below with you android device to download from the market…
Really enjoying Wordfeud which is a Scrabble lookey-likey for Android. You play against friends or against remote players from around the world. You can take up to two days to take a turn which means games start off reasonably fast but can then last for several days.
I really like the fact that you can set up push notifications to tell you when it is your turn to play. They have recently made some updates to fix some of the bugs but there are still occasional times when you can’t zoom in to the board.
A couple of applications on the market have got my attention recently.
The first is ‘Talking Tomcat’ which I know has been around for a while. My son (two) loves playing with this app. Particularly giving the cat a glass of milk. Only downsides are:
It is too easy for him to accidentally hit the ads at the top and launch a browser
If you tap the cat it ‘punches’ him (very funny but doesn’t teach good animal husbandry – we have a real cat ;-))
Another app that got my attention is ‘Noise Alert’ which can be used as an impromptu baby monitor. I wouldn’t rely on it but I can see it might be useful as a backup if you were staying over at someones house and hadn’t taken your normal monitor with you.
I’d love to see Baby Go / Super Baby Go ported to Android. This has to be my son’s favourite app on any platform (he doesn’t spend his whole day on mobile devices I should point out!) but is only available for the blackberry at the moment. One nice feature of this is it totally locks the device out so your child can’t accidentally make calls or launch other apps. you can unlock it using a key + password combination. (Once they can work out how to unlock they are probably too old to be playing with the app :-) !).
There have been a few interesting articles recently (including this on in the Guardian) about how Android could affect the gaming market. I really hope that Android opens the gates for some talented game developers who don’t have access to bags of cash but who can market through the Android Marketplace. It would be nice to see a return to an environment where you don’t need several million pounds and a load of graphics experts to launch a successful game.
However, Handango have also been mentioned in reference to Android so it sounds highly likely that the Android Marketplace won’t be the only point from which people can access software. I’m personally not a huge fan of the ‘grim’ Handango’s way of dealing with developers or customers. So I hope Google treats people with more respect.
A more worrying trend in mobile gaming is in multiplayer games using GPS. From what I can understand of this phenomena, this could lead to it becoming a normal day to day experience to see geek types spontaneously jumping on each other and battering the cr&p out of each other with their mobile phones. Whilst i’m sure Darwin would approve, I’m not sure what the police will make of people on tube platforms taking sniper shots at each other with their G1′s.
I’m sure the tabloids would also have a field day with titles such as Slashwars [cached link here] where random punters are meant to attack each other by swiping their phones in the air (presumable simulating knives). I guess if they keep their cameras switched on then this could create a whole new genre of ‘happy-slapping’.
Great article here about how Apple has approached applications that are competitive or ‘too silly’. If this proves to be the thin end of the wedge then this approach could prove too dictatorial for even the biggest iPhone fanboy. The fact that even Microsoft’s ‘Mr. Mobile’ – Jason Langridge is pointing to this as a step too far is a worrying sign. At least Microsoft treats its app developers ‘fairly’ by producing a similar product, including it for free and then using its weight to market the hell out of it – thus crushing the competition slowly..
This is an area where Google hopes that Android’s ‘openness’ will shine. The idea being that the Google marketplace will be a democracy rather than the App Store’s dictatorship. It could be argued that this will lead to a lower quality threshold but hopefully the voting system on the market place will help wade through some of the rubbish. I would forsee that users could also access applications via other sites and will not be restricted to just the Google market site.
Great article over at VentureBeat.com that is a more upbeat commentary than we’ve seen of late on the future of Google Android. I agree with a lot of the article although I also agree with some of the comments on the article that the work estimate table (below) is a little bit too vague.
The article describes how operators are moving away from walled gardens to try to provide users with more choice. It also mentions the T-Mobile App Store equivalent, although interestingly T-Mo have said that they won’t be supporting Android with their first iteration of their App ‘program’. This presumably won’t be too big an issue as Google plans to have its own Android Market.
