Overview

Mr. Pinkerton goes for a walk is designed to entertain and educate kids with its charismatic overweight pig donning glasses. The app will cost you $1.99 and is ideal for younger children, beginning in kindergarten. The story is cute, colorful, interactive and educational.

Features

App Store ($1.99)

Upon launching Mr. Pinkerton goes for a walk, you’re introduced to Mr. Pinkerton and his story by the narrator. The starting page, spotlighting Mr. Pinkerton, provides two distinct modes to enjoy the book in Read and Sleep Mode.

When you select Read, the story begins as we learn Mr. Pinkerton is the fattest pig on the farm, but doesn’t seem to know why. The text is read aloud and the onscreen options provides a home button, a volume button and a navigational arrow to move to the next page. Within the barn, I found a pitch fork swinging from it’s hook on the wall and later in the story I found some additional physics based tilt features. When I tilted the iPad, the pitch fork’s swing also shifted, which is a cool feature.

To bring up the additional pages of the book, simply slide two fingers upward to display the pages. You’ll then be able to scroll through and quickly find and navigate to a page.

At the very end of the book, after Mr. Pinkerton’s journey, the app introduces a little touch and surprise interacton.Sleep mode turns the iPad screen black and reads the story to your children to sleep.

The Good

I really liked the inclusion of sleep mode, which would be ideal for children who enjoy bedtime stories. I also enjoyed the pleasant voice of the female narrator. The physics-based movements of objects are fun and the effects and the art and animations are pleasant. The $1.99 price tag seems very ideal, based on the similar apps on the market.

Room for Improvement

Though I appreciate the physics-based movements within this app, I believe children would further enjoy more touch and surprise interactions as a way to further engage with this storybook. I’d like to see a way to navigate with finger swipes in addition to the arrows. My other suggestion would be to provide a way to turn off the alarm sound once you click to the next page.

Conclusion

The app is a fun story of an inspired pig who found a way to fulfill his dreams and finding happiness. Mr. Pinkerton accepts himself for the way he is and appreciates his friends, even the mean spider. The story has a charming little character in Mr. Pinkerton and the narration is soothing to hear and would be ideal for a bedtime story with sleep mode.  For $1.99, the price is comparable to similar apps in the App Store. The app is educational in that the onscreen text will help children sound out the words.

To find additional educational iPhone and iPad apps for your kids, visit Punflay and don’t miss their latest iPhone app Measurement.

Overview

App Store ($2.99)

Andrew Answers is developed by children’s author and television writer Alan Katz and narrated by Marc Summers. The app is creative and interactive application designed for children in the 5 to 10 age range. It’s silly, funny and quite educational for kids. With this app, your children can choose to read along with the narrator or watch and listen.

The story is all about Andrew taking a trip to the principal’s office, the mayor’s office and finding himself standing in the White House.

Features

Upon launching the app, you’ll find the Begin Story button and an “i” for the informational menu. The i ultimately is your help menu that teaches you  how to use the app, with a Main Menu button and a button to visit the website. You can tap the i from any point in the story to access this menu.

To transition from page to page, simply swipe left or right to navigate back or forward. You can also tap the navigational arrow to turn the page.

The app offers two ways to experience the book. When you click Begin Story, you’ll find Andrew in Mrs. Wilson’s class at Dryden Elementary School. The story begins when Mrs. Wilson asks Andrew to name a word that starts with the letter N. Mrs. Wilson isn’t too happy with Andrews answers, so Andrew visits the Principal’s Office.

As the narration begins, children can read along with the provided text located at the top of the page. You have the option to hide the text by swiping in an upward motion. To get the text to appear again, just swipe down. The book features quite a few interactive elements and animations. By touching various objects, you’ll find surprises such as an apple getting eaten, a fish jumping, a globe spinning and so much more.

Andrew Answers takes advantage of the iPad platform by adding a gaming element within two pages of the book. The first challenge is to help Andrew get through a maze to find his way to the Principal’s Office. You can choose the diff

iculty level (Easy and Hard) or even choose to skip the challenge. The next challenge involves helping Andrew’s parents park in the school parking lot.

The Good

Andrew must provide a word for a different letter he’s given at each office he is sent, but it all comes together when the President lets Andrew speak for himself as he watches in amazement as Andrew uses each letter of the alphabet to tell the President his thoughts. I thought this was a creative way to tie it all together and a challenge for children to either attempt to memorize the phrase or make one of their own using each letter of the alphabet.

The app is very fun, silly and quite helpful for children learning to read. I like the blend of entertainment and learning this app provides. The gaming element is a pretty cool addition. The $2.99 price tag looks to be right on par with similar apps.

Room for Improvement

The app is well done and I could only offer a few minor suggestions. I would like to have a table of contents to quickly jump to a page I wanted, rather than swiping until I find the page. I love the response to the President, but am a bit curious whether Andrew says the words a bit too quickly for young children to read the words. The only other thing I’d like to see is for Andrew to take more trips to various offices and provide a word for more letters before the alphabet finale at the end.

Conclusion

As I previously mentioned, the app is very entertaining, educational and a joy to use. It takes advantage of the iPad platform with both the touch and tilt. It incorporates the gaming element, which kids will love. I foresee children using this app multiple times to learn the words, come up with their own words and to simply to play the two challenges. Parents could further use the app as a tool by challenging their children to create more words or longer ones than Andrew or even to create their own phrase using each letter of the alphabet. It’s a fun way to learn and Andrew Answers is definitely worth the $2.99 pricetag.

Below, you’ll find an interesting video from Alan Katz, along with a little intro to Andrew Answers.

Ruckus Media Group will soon be offering LITE versions of their storybook apps, which will give you a chance to try them for free before purchasing. They’ll also be launching The Three Little Pigs (narrated by Holly Hunter), Paul Bunyan (narrated by Jonathan Winters) and Thumbelina (narrated by Kelly McGillis) this month, so be on the look out for these exciting new storybook apps.

Browsing

I’ve tried six or seven different iPad browser and stuck with Safari…that was until Terra Web Browser (Free) was launched. Terra is the fastest web browser I’ve found and it has tabs, which save me quite a bit of time and frustration. I also tried SkyFire and it came nowhere close to Terra for me. Another form of browsing I do is app browsing. My favorite app for this is AppAdvice ($1.99), which provides news, app reviews, app lists, app guides and more.

Games

One of my most unexpected uses for the iPad has been gaming. I use the iPad to plays games daily. While I could easily list more than a dozen games I love, I’ll limit it to a few of the best. Infinity Blade ($5.99) uses beautiful 3D-like effects, adrenaline fueled battles and intuitive controls as you progress your character and fight your way to the top. The other two games I chose are ridiculously addictive in Plants vs. Zombies HD ($6.99) and Angry Birds HD ($4.99). PvZ has frustrated me with few updates and no new levels. I’d love to start playing the game again, but I beat it several months ago and have been waiting for an update. On the other hand, Angry Birds have some of the most active developers in gaming. Not only do they release new levels in updates on a regular basis, but they’ve also launched a holiday version of Angry Birds.

Movies & TV

One of the best uses for the iPad is to watch streaming videos. No app is more necessary to have than Netflix (Free), which lets you stream a large collection of instant watch movies and tv shows (Netflix account required). A nice compliment to Netflix is Hulu Plus (Free to download, $7.99 per month subscription). Hulu Plus offers thousands of tv show episodes to stream. I tried it for a month and will fully transition to Hulu Plus once I cut my cable bill.

Music

I use my iPad for music on an almost daily basis. In addition to the built-in iPod app, the apps I use most include Pandora (Free) to stream music based on the artist or song I choose, TuneIn Radio ($0.99) to listen to over 400,000 radio stations and podcasts and Vevo HD (Free) to stream and watch over 25,000 music videos.

Navigation

My app of choice for GPS is MotionX GPS Drive ($2.99). With MotionX, my 3G iPad is a suitable replacement for my TomTom. It provides six different map views, the ability to save current locations and favorites, a cool little iPod MP3 tool to listen to your music while navigating, Facebook Places integration, estimated time of arrival and more. Free updates are included with the app, but live turn-by-turn voice activation is either $2.99 for 30 days or $19.99 for a full year.

Note taking & ToDo

I’ve tried quite a few note taking apps, but always go back to the absolute best, Evernote (Free). With Evernote, you can quickly create text, photo and audio notes and auto sync them with your desktop and mobile phone. I currently have 76 notes in 9 different notebooks, with tags, photos and more. A quick and easy search lets me find the note I need. I also found the ideal Todo app for me. Awesome Note for iPad (Plus todo) ($4.99) syncs and integrates all your Evernote notes, gives you Todo functionality and also has a calendar view. It’s an all-in-one solution to help stay organized.

More Productivity

This list wouldn’t be complete without the mention of DropBox (Free). I use the free version of DropBox (2GB) to sync and share files between my computer, iPad and mobile device. By simply dragging files into my DropBox, they are instantly available from my mobile devices. You can share the folder by sending a link to someone and give them access.

Reading

I consider myself more of a news and magazine reader than a book reader. The iPad hasn’t changed this personal preference. However, iBooks (Free) and Kindle (Free) are brilliant apps that can replace your book collection. To read my news and RSS feeds, my absolute favorite app is Pulse News Reader (Free). Pulse offers a mosaic appearance for all your favorite sites along with the ability to share with Twitter, Facebook, email and Instapaper. With Pulse, my web browsing has significantly been reduced. My other favorite news reader is Flipboard (Free), which lets you flip through your your favorite sites, Facebook feeds, Twitter feeds and more.

Social

It took me quite some time to finally settle for just one Facebook app, but with improvements Friendly Plus ($0.99) got it right. Friendly is attractive in appearance, fully functional and the app that should should be Facebook’s official app. For my Twitter fill, I turn to Twitter (Free). Though I also like Hootsuite (Free) for its all-in-one Facebook, Twitter & Foursquare integration, Twitter is my go-to client.

Texting & Voice

The iPad doesn’t currently have phone capabilities, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create, send and receive text messages or listen, read and manage your voice mails. If you have a Google Voice account, you can grab GV Connect – Call & SMS Client ($2.99) to do just this.

What were your favorite iPad apps of 2010? Let me know what you think of those mentioned above.

I hope you enjoy the post and here’s wishing you have a Merry Christmas!

Overview

If you consider yourself a car enthusiast or one who simply has a curious interest in certain vehicles, CarBuzz may be just the app you’re looking for. CarBuzz features a total of 50 brands, 659 cars, 3k posts and over 78k photos. This frequently updated, magazine-like app offers the latest news, rumors and amazing pictures.

Features

Upon launching the app, CarBuzz quickly syncs the latest news. The landing page consists of a feature article and other recent updates, each with thumbnails aligned to the left. To navigate on the main menu, you scroll up and down to find the additional articles, then simple tap to launch a full article. Full articles are launched to the right and you slide your finger left and right to read each screen.

At the top corner of each page within the app, you’ll find a “Cars” button, which provides an option to setup your Facebook login, along with the ability to browse popular and buzz-worthy articles and a very useful “Manufacturers” section to find all the related entries by vehicle. Simply click on the manufacturer of your choice, then scroll left and right to browse through all the vehicle models or click “see models,” for a nicely organized horizontal list of vehicle images. You’ll then be greeted with all the specifications, featured articles and more as it relates to your selection.

HD-quality images are well blended in each of the articles and the last page of each provides both related articles and two sharing options in “Publish to Facebook” and “Send by Email.”

The Good

CarBuzz is ideal for car enthusiasts, providing all the latest reviews, editorials and news from the automotive industry. I found it very easy to navigate and find my way around the app. The HD-quality pictures are plentiful and content is frequently updated with approximately five or more entries per day.

The one click access to buzz worthy posts (popular, first look and upcoming cars) is very useful, as is the ability to quickly find the car that interests you most by drilling down by manufacturer. I also like that CarBuzz uses Facebook Connect, to quickly and easily leave comments, share, etc all without leaving the app. Of course, who can argue with the price. For being a free app, CarBuzz will be a nice addition to your Android, iPhone or iPad. The app isn’t available on the iPad, but the iPhone app looks good on the iPad.

Room for Improvement

Though CarBuzz is a well executed app, there is always room for improvement. I’d personally like to see the addition of a search button to quickly find content by keyword. Another thing I noticed on the Android was the bottom portion of the screen is utilized only for ads, so when no ads are displayed, you have almost an inch of space that’s not being utilized. I also occasionally noticed the Android app having difficulty loading some images, but noticed no such performance issues on the iPhone. A few other enhancements I’d recommend would be the ability to pinch and zoom and to add Twitter sharing options.

Conclusion

This free app should make a nice addition to your mobile device. I don’t consider myself a car enthusiast, but still enjoyed viewing all the stunning images and taking a look at some of the upcoming vehicles that will be arriving in the next few years. Though the Android version could use a few tweaks, there’s no doubt this app will delight car enthusiasts with all the news, rumors and detailed images. To get a nice preview of the app, take a look at the video below.

These App Store sales are mind blowing! A visit to the App Store during this sale feels a bit like a late Black Friday or Cyber Monday. EA originally kicked off sales of up to 90% off 70 titles for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Now, a few other game developers are following suit. However, these sales are only for a limited time, so start Gifting some great Apps or get your iTunes Gift Cards ready.

Each of the apps below are only $0.99 during the sale.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit $0.99 (was $9.99) 4 Stars, 249 ratings

This game has great visual effects and graphics, precision controls with your vehicle and pure racing fun. You can challenge a friend or go head-to-head with a Cop vs. Racer showdown using local Wifi.

SCRABBLE for iPad $0.99 (was $9.99)  3.5 Stars, 879 ratings

SCRABBLE lets you play up to 25 multiplayer games at one time, features HD graphics, Party Play Mode with up to four friends and the ability to connect and play with your Facebook friends. Play up to 25 Multiplayer Games at a time. You can play in both portrait and landscape mode.

SimCity Deluxe $0.99 (was $6.99)  3.5 Stars, 219 ratings

This classic game puts you in charge as a Mayor and City Planner and your job is to build and manage your dream city. SimCity Deluxe offers great visuals, HD graphics, realistic animations and great fun. You get up to 7 scenarios, 41 renowned landmarks and several natural disasters that will threaten your city.

MADDEN NFL 11 $0.99 (was $12.99)  3.5 Stars, 92 ratings

Madden has been recreated for the iPad and it’s ridiculously fun. The graphics are HD quality, the game has authentic stadiums with all the detail and offers head-to-head play, Vintage Voltage, Season and Playoff mode and of course all the stats and lets you make trades. Game features include Total Defensive Control, GameFlow and Hot Routes.

TETRIS for iPad $0.99 (was $7.99)  3 Stars, 259 ratings

TETRIS brings HD graphics, intuitive controls and some exclusive features to the iPad. The game include a D-Pad for maximum control, an endless Marathon Mode, Magic Mode and the original TETRIS music. Magic Mode features five power ups in Wrecking Ball, Minimizer, Bubble Wrap, Magic Crayon and Smashdown. You can track your stats and listen to your iTunes music while playing.

Need for Speed Shift for iPad $0.99 (was $9.99)  4.5 Stars, 43 ratings

Need for Speed Shift gives you a in-car cockpit point of view and a first person crash dynamic. You’ll get 28 cars, which include 8 iPad exclusive cars and 18 tracks. The game offers physics-based accelerations, responsive manual controls and much more. You can track your progress with Driver Profile, play in Career Mode, upgrade and customize your cards and race against your friends with local Wifi.

Mirror’s Edge for iPad $0.99 (was $9.99) 4.5 Stars, 27 ratings

Mirror’s Edge offers some amazing visuals, face-to-face with split screen, multiplayer action and iPad optimized race environments. You play as Faith Connors, an underground Runner, who must stop a deadly threat in a “perfect society” full of sinister surveillance. The game provides 14 levels of racing fun.

Reckless Racing HD $0.99 (was $4.99)  4.5 Stars, 65 ratings

Reckless Racing offers up to 16 tracks and 3 different modes of top-down racing fun. The graphics are HD quality and the ability to custom paint your vehicles. You can take on characters such as Otis, Lurlene, Cletus and Bubba.

Pictureka! for iPad $0.99 (was $4.99) 4 Stars, 95 ratings

This game is a bit different from the others. With Pictureka!, you quickly find and tap hidden objects in pictures with crayons. Based on the original board game, Pictureka! gives you an adventure mode on 5 islands, pass ‘n’ play with up to 3 other friends.

Tower Madness HD $0.99 (was $7.99) 4.5 Stars, 66 ratings

This 3D tower defense strategy game has been redesigned for the iPad. It includes split-screen multiplayer, a campaign progression system and 39 maps in diverse environments. You’ll battle against 17 different alien enemies with up to 14 weapons.

Take a look at five no BS free apps. No strings attached, no pay service, nothing. Just some awesomely free apps that you should download right now! And yes, the apps below are in order (based on how wonderful I think they are.

The Big Five

Pulse News Reader (4.5 Stars, 373 reviews)

If I had to choose only one app to help me catch up on all my news, my choice would easily be Pulse. Pulse lets you search and add all your favorite sites (up to 60 sources), repackaging them into a visual mosaic. Pulse features both viewing and sharing options, allowing you to save all your favorite articles into your “My Pulse,” and I love keeping tabs on the most Pulsed articles in “PulseMeMe Top Stories.” Sharing options include Facebook, Twitter, Email and Instapaper.

Pulse offers dual view, which lets you seamlessly switch between text and web, a dashboard layout view, offline sync and more.

Twitter (3.5 Stars, 2867 reviews)

If you use Twitter on your iPad, the mobile version of the site doesn’t come close to cutting it. Twitter, the official Twitter app, is my personal go-to Twitter client as I believe it’s the best free or pay Twitter option. You get real-time search, the ability to send and receive DMs, share photos and visit links without getting redirected. Now you can get push notifications for both your @mentions and DMs, save your searches and use geotagging.

The best part is viewing links without losing where you were. Instead, you’ll still have your stream with an overlying column displaying the linked website, profile, etc. A quick flick of your finger takes you back. This app also supports multiple Twitter accounts, located on the left sidebar. You can check each and every account by simply touching the icon to expand.

Evernote (3 Stars, 534 reviews)

No app has helped me with my production more than Evernote. With Evernote, you create notes on the fly adding a title, choosing the notebook, adding tags and either typing the note or recording your voice and/or adding images. You can then sync your Evernote with your computer and all devices you have it on. For example, I use Evernote on my computer, iPad and Android. Once I sync, my new notes are on every device. You can also print your notes from Evernote to your networked printer.

I have 73 notes, which include projects, ideas, appliance serial numbers and model numbers, Christmas wishlist and much more. The best part is the search function, which helps you find any of your notes in a snap with a simple keyword.

Hootsuite (3.5 Stars, 475 reviews)

HootSuite made the list for being an all-in-one social media tool that features the big three in Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. With this app, you can send and schedule Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare updates. Customize your dashboard by setting up columns of your choice. If you’re participating in a Twitter chat, such as #blogchat, I’ve found this tool to be the easiest Twitter option to keep up.

In addition to Twitter, you can update your Facebook Profile and Pages, checkin to Foursquare locations and even translate Twitter messages in 50+ languages. Hootsuite also uses Bump to let you quickly add followers. I use Twitter for daily use and HootSuite during tweet chats and when I want a nice changeup from the Twitter App.

Flipboard (5 Stars, 31 reviews)

Flipboard is an all-in-one beautiful reading dashboard that repackages all your favorite sites’ feeds, including Twitter and Facebook, and launches each into a magazine-like view. Share your articles/photos, comment on posts and like or favorite anything. Just open one of your sources and flip right and left to read your new magazine.

Did I miss any of your favorite apps? What do you think of those listed?