Taps Review: A Game of Numbers

Lately, I’ve been on a puzzle kick, and I recently found my next game to play too much: Taps.

In Taps you’re tasked with transforming a grid of 0s into 1s, 2s, 3s, and so on. Of course, you’ll do so through taps, changing tiles in your 6x6 grid to match the one placed above you. Every tile you tap increases its value by one while also increasing the number of the tiles adjacent to it – if you tap a tile in the bottom right corner, it’ll change from 0 to 1, as will the ones above and to the left of it. Below is a demonstration of what this looks like in practice:

Early in the game, you’ll be matching 0s and 1s, but Taps gets tougher as you work your way through its 200 levels. I’ve found that the longer I play, the more time I’ve needed to build out a meaningful strategy before I start attacking my board; too often during the levels, I’ve had to walk back almost all my decisions to make sure I get a 2 in the right place.

Taps is reminiscent of a modern-day Minesweeper, and it’s just as addicting – watching the top board change color as you match its patterns is so satisfying, and the gameplay makes it easy to work through a couple of levels in no time. With standard, advanced, and custom levels to explore, Taps won’t feel completed for many, many hours. And with a timer tracking how long it takes you to complete levels, you can always race yourself to find a faster solution.

Taps came out just a month ago, but I’m surprised it slipped by me for this long. I’ve had a lot of fun playing it in the couple days I’ve had it on both iPad and iPhone, and I’m looking forward to investing more hours over the long weekend.

You can pick up Taps in the App Store for iPad and iPhone for $1.99.


Weather Atlas: Weather Mapping for a Modern Day

One of the app categories that’s always receiving new entries – and that I’m always pleased to try a new take on – is weather. Often weather apps share the same data sources, but their design and customization options make them stand out. The developers at Contrast are no strangers to the crowded weather app market, as creators of the now-retired Perfect Weather. But with the help of developer Greg Pierce, Contrast is introducing a fresh take on the modern weather app with Weather Atlas.

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Apple Announces September 12 Event

As first reported by Marques Brownlee, Apple has announced a media event for September 12, 2017 at 10:00 am. The event will be held at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino.

Based on widespread speculation, Apple is expected to introduce new iPhones, including a redesigned model with an edge-to-edge OLED screen. Rumors in recent weeks also point to the introduction of a 4K-compatible Apple TV, a new LTE-enabled Apple Watch, and perhaps other products.

In addition to hardware, Apple is expected to announce release dates for updates to its operating systems, including iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra. As in the past, Apple should release a Golden Master of iOS 11 and High Sierra shortly after the event with a public release date within about 10 days.


Nest, Philips Hue, and Libratone Zipp Product Announcements

The market for smart home devices continues to heat up with new products and updates being released almost every day. Of note today are a trio of announcements:


Ramp Champ Joins Other Classic iOS Games With iOS 11 Support

The last update to Ramp Champ added retina graphics – for the iPhone 4. The beloved iOS arcade game sat untouched for nearly four years, until now. An update released yesterday by SocketFace Games adds 64-bit support, ensuring iOS 11 compatibility, along with several other changes including:

  • Additional retina graphics
  • Updated physics
  • Updated sounds and music
  • iCloud syncing
  • Game Center leaderboards and achievements
  • Force Touch icon support

Some classic games will inevitably be lost as a result of the transition to 64-bit apps, but it’s heartening to see some of the very best classics updated in recent weeks.

The update to Ramp Champ is available on the App Store.



Apple Releases Developer Guidelines for ARKit Apps

Apple’s developer site now contains Human Interface Guidelines for augmented reality apps. The guidelines are not hard, fast rules for developers working with ARKit, but more “best practices” Apple suggests for an ideal user experience. Guidelines that stand out include:

Use audio and haptic feedback to enhance the immersive experience. A sound effect or bump sensation is a great way to provide confirmation that a virtual object has come into contact with a physical surface or other virtual object.

To the extent possible, provide hints in context. Placing a three-dimensional rotation indicator around an object, for example, is more intuitive than presenting text-based instructions in an overlay.

Favor direct manipulation over separate onscreen controls. It’s more immersive and intuitive when a user can touch an object onscreen and interact with it directly, rather than interact with separate controls on a different part of the screen.

Suggest possible fixes if problems occur. Analysis of the user’s environment and surface detection can fail for a variety of reasons—there’s not enough light, a surface is too reflective, a surface doesn’t have enough detail, or there’s too much camera motion. If your app is notified of insufficient detail or too much motion, or if surface detection takes too long, offer suggestions for resolving the problem.

ARKit is a brand new technology that opens up a world of possibilities to app developers. But alongside its potential for magical, immersive experiences is the potential for user frustration as developers learn the hard way what works best. Apple’s guidelines – though released later than I’m sure many developers would like – should help minimize those frustrations.

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ETA Update Automatically Calculates Calendar Event Travel Times

In the past, I rarely added locations to my calendar events unless I was going someplace I’d never been, but that’s changed since I started testing the update to ETA that was released today. The reason for the switch is a powerful new feature available as an In-App Purchase in ETA, which uses locations associated with events in your calendar to tell you when to leave for an appointment and how long it will take to get there.

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Connected, Episode 157: Your Legacy Chooses You

Federico is back from the Genius Bar and joined by Stephen to discuss Time Machine and iCloud Backups, Apple’s push with Swift education and SMS filtering in iOS 11.

A fun collection of topics on this week’s episode of Connected. You can listen here.

Sponsored by:

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  • Crimson Mesa: Announcing Shokem Nimai, The Ancient Game of the River.
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