This week we look at ABC, our national broadcaster’s official iPhone app and Geared, a frustratingly logical puzzle game.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Reviewed by Rémy

When it comes to digital distribution, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is so far ahead of their ad-infested free-to-air brethren, it’s ridiculous. Even while Foxtel struggles to understand why a crippled, time restricted, Windows only, non-transferrable proprietary media player that they have the nerve to call “next generation” won’t catch on with the market they’re targeting, the ABC has been serving up free videos on the internet through iView and free audio/video podcasts on iTunes for months. Taking all this into consideration, it makes sense for the ABC to create an app, too – something us iPhone users should be pretty happy about.

On this free (of course!) app, Aunty gives us an iPhone optimised look at their latest headlines, plus some of the latest television shows to air on ABC1 and ABC2. The selection of television is basically the same as that of the podcasts available from iTunes. It’s limited to the latest episode here, but it’s still pretty nice to have quick access to last night’s Media Watch or ABC News. The same goes for the Radio selection in the app. A ‘more’ menu shows a bunch of different news categories – unfortunately there’s no ability to drag them into the menu bar for quicker access upon launch.

The biggest annoyance of the ABC app? “Larger” (read: almost all) video is limited to Wi-Fi connections only. I can understand why this is the case – after the SlingPlayer debacle in the US, Apple seems to be hellbent on rejecting data hungry apps that don’t care if you’re not using Wi-Fi – and with some shows heading into 100MB+ territory, most users will find themselves with rather hefty bills at the end of the month after a few shows. Even so, it’s disappointing to see it mostly restricted to Wi-Fi. Plus, to add insult to injury there’s a particularly ugly warning message that appears throughout the app telling you about this restriction, using up valuable screen real estate. It would be much neater to have a dialog box pop up when you try to view a video on a 3G connection.

There’s huge potential for the ABC app. If streaming iView content is on the roadmap (despite being encoded in Flash on the website), this will be a seriously awesome app. Right now, it’s definitely a worthy addition to your home screen and a great resource to have on your iPhone.

Version Reviewed: 1.1
Price: Free
Developer: Australian Broadcasting Corporation
App Store

Geared

Reviewed by Rémy

Geared has a pretty simple premise. Place movable gears in place on the screen to connect the rotating gear to the non-rotating gear, and you’re done. Do that eighty times (each level becoming more and more infuriating), and you’ve finished the whole game. Does that sound exciting to you? It didn’t really do much for me, but maybe, just maybe, you’ll love it. Maybe.

It’s difficult to write a full review for Geared, because there’s hardly anything to write about. There are a few little tricks that appear in the game (one of which blanks out a particular part of the screen for placing a gear, making it harder to connect them directly) but the concept became very tired and fairly boring after the first couple of levels. I wondered if I was being too cynical about Geared. Perhaps my short attention span has led to my potentially unfair review, I thought. So I let a friend of mine play with it for a few minutes, and he put it down at level four.

Having reached level sixty, I think I’ve seen more than enough of the game. As I proceeded to the next level each time, I hoped and prayed the game would become more interesting – and as I did, I just became more disappointed. One day, when I’m aimlessly browsing through the 100+ application collection on my iPhone, I may end up attempting level sixty one – but I have a feeling that day may never come. It’s just not interesting enough to hold my attention. At $1.19, you’re not losing much if you don’t end up liking the game at all (and if you like spending hours on end solving crosswords and spot-the-differences, you’ll probably enjoy the game more than I did) but if you’re looking for an exciting iPhone game at that price point, try Doodle Jump or Minigore instead.

Version Reviewed: 1.0
Price: $1.19
Developer: Bryan Mitchell
App Store

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