Tiny Tower | Free

As the 2011 Apple ‘Game of the Year’ this app hardly needs an introduction, and was therefore a shoe-in for our inaugural choice of iPhone App of the Week. For those who aren’t familiar, Tiny Tower lets players create a residential and commercial tower and control the lives of its inhabitants, known in the game as “bitizens.” With its elegant use of pixilated graphics style, easy to use interface, and seamless Game Center integration, this app is truly addictive. Whether an iPhone / iPad / or iPod touch this free app is a must download from iTunes.

Android

Dropbox | Free

If you do not yet have a Dropbox account…get one! Dropbox is a quick and easy way to keep all your files from one computer organized on all of your devices. Here’s a quick intro video for those who are’t familiar. If you need a little more convincing that this newly revamped app for android will definitely do the trick. With its new bulk uploading, file renaming and sharing tools it’s even easier to keep you files organized on any android device. The fact that its free makes this app a must download for all Android users.

Come back and visit us every week for our new Apps of the Week!

iPhone / iPad

Tiny Tower | Free

Android

Dropbox | Free

If you do not yet have a Dropbox account…get one! Dropbox is a quick and easy way to keep all your files from one computer organized on all of your devices. Here’s a quick intro video for those who are’t familiar. If you need a little more convincing that this newly revamped app for android will definitely do the trick. With its new bulk uploading, file renaming and sharing tools it’s even easier to keep you files organized on any android device. The fact that its free makes this app a must download for all Android users.

Come back and visit us every week for our new Apps of the Week!

Mmmmusic to My Ears
Whoa. That’s food?
Yes. Sort of. In 2008 the Texas State Fair voted this treat the most creative (and possibly caloric!) food served at the fair. Ann Pinson reported it as the creation of Desperados Mexican Restaurant’s Mike and Jake Levy. The concoction It is a deep fried apple iPie served on two delicious scoops of vanilla icecream. So deep fried is it that it may outlast the new iPad for generations to come.

Petit Fours Apps Italian App Cake – So Cute!
We’re in the business of building apps, and think these little cakes at Blogodolci are a sweet idea. If you had your pick of the plate, which one would you choose?

Please Eat Any Key
This amazing keyboard is a techno-smore waiting to happen. Marshmallow and chocolate keys tucked inside a graham cracker bezel.

Oh, BlackBerry!
This one is confirmation that you can build just about anything out of sugar and dreams. Toxel.com brings you twenty-five marvelous cakes ranging from this gorgeous BlackBerry, to a supercool Nikon camera are sure to have you drooling.

Apps aren’t just for teens and commuters, anymore. Parents interested in raising bilingual children will be interested in a wide variety of applications designed to familiarize infants and children with phonyms and word association crucial to developing multi-linguistic aptitude. We’ve found a few that are sure to be entertaining for the young and, shall we say, more experienced users.

Tap the Bunny
Traditional storytelling just became more interactive. Night and Day Studios’ Peekabo Barn allows touch phone users to tap on barn doors to hear animals in English and Spanish. Suitable for preeschool aged children and up. $1.99

Chinese Chicken
Ana Lomba, a multicultural education advocate, chooses storytelling as a vehicle to help kids pick up language. Her free ipad app, a Chinese/English version of The Little Red Hen, is beloved of children and adults. free

Shake It Up, Baby
Shake The Animals is an immersive iPhone app is sold by Rosa Barranco de Helfrich. It pairs sweet vector graphics with the appropriate name for a given animal. An audio playback accompanies text so kids can work on making the abstract connection between sound and print. Choose from English, Spanish and German. $.99

Which mobile device will you buy for your loved ones this holiday season?
It’s a tough call. Recent news reflects the release of Gingerbread and Android’s steady gain of market share. JR Raphael of Computerworld offers an optimistic analysis. The innate versatility of the Android OS makes it appealing to developers and consumers alike – especially in China Preston Gralla reports, where half of all smartphone sales in the prior year were Android-based.

When the going gets tough, it’s always a good idea to return to the Classics. The term “Android” is derived from the Latin term for a robot with “the appearance of a man.” The definition also hints at the human habit of anthropomorphizing our objects. When we look around us, we like to see reflections of our being echoed in other folks and objects.

We are very attached to our mechanical pals. humanoid, or robotic. Prior to the construction of that little Android handheld device we all know and love, western science fiction witnessed the emergence of many androids and gadgets. Fritz Lang’s 1920s-era Metropolis heralded the continuance of the Biblical Eve archetype in a robotic girl named Hel. After six episodes of Star Wars, it would be hard to forget the bumbling yet loyal C3P0. Blade Runner, Bicentennial Man, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Matrix Trilogy and the anime Ghost In The Shell each gave us man-like machines and software whose struggles toward humanity and acceptance make us question the boundaries separating us from our technology.

With these metal folks in mind, let us return to our little green Android pal. The appeal of the Android OS is its delightful versatility. Shockoe.com builds mobile apps for a variety of platforms. We enjoy creative freedom, no matter what the platform is. Speaking as developers we are having way too much fun making Android widgets to worry much about which platforms are superior (or Christmas shopping, for that matter). We are interested in tweaking code to grow amazing programs to do what you need – we don’t play favorites, and will create you what you like for any platform.

Our narrative exploration of mechanical subjectivity sometimes leads us into dystopic situations with ambiguous results. However, our apps and devices, like our stories, always reflect something of ourselves. Current Android gadgets and consumption of mobile app technology reveals much about who we are, what we value, and how we communicate and interact. The profusion of handheld technologies points to a cultural dynamic geared toward instantaneous access to information and communication, as well as the accessibility to personal entertainment and customization. Many of these divide our attention. Some of them bring people together, as our own app, Suite Tips has done for the extended community of Adobe students and instructors.

This holiday season, make a checklist. Don’t hesitate to bring a little Android into your home. Before you take the numbers verbatim and hit the shops (or your keyboard) keep in mind that there is no perfect solution or right answer this holiday season – only informed decisions. Ask yourself how the device and its available apps should resonate with you, and you’ll discover the answer you need. If you’ve looked around and just can’t find the right app anywhere, give us a call! We would love to custom-build you an Android app!

(By the way – with regard to the little robot graphic, portions of this page are modifications based on work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License).

Which mobile device will you buy for your loved ones this holiday season?

It’s a tough call. Recent news reflects the release of Gingerbread and Android’s steady gain of market share. JR Raphael of Computerworld offers an optimistic analysis. The innate versatility of the Android OS makes it appealing to developers and consumers alike – especially in China Preston Gralla reports, where half of all smartphone sales in the prior year were Android-based.

When the going gets tough, it’s always a good idea to return to the Classics. The term “Android” is derived from the Latin term for a robot with “the appearance of a man.” The definition also hints at the human habit of anthropomorphizing our objects. When we look around us, we like to see reflections of our being echoed in other folks and objects.

We are very attached to our mechanical pals. humanoid, or robotic. Prior to the construction of that little Android handheld device we all know and love, western science fiction witnessed the emergence of many androids and gadgets. Fritz Lang’s 1920s-era Metropolis heralded the continuance of the Biblical Eve archetype in a robotic girl named Hel. After six episodes of Star Wars, it would be hard to forget the bumbling yet loyal C3P0. Blade Runner, Bicentennial Man, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Matrix Trilogy and the anime Ghost In The Shell each gave us man-like machines and software whose struggles toward humanity and acceptance make us question the boundaries separating us from our technology.

With these metal folks in mind, let us return to our little green Android pal. The appeal of the Android OS is its delightful versatility. Shockoe.com builds mobile apps for a variety of platforms. We enjoy creative freedom, no matter what the platform is. Speaking as developers we are having way too much fun making Android widgets to worry much about which platforms are superior (or Christmas shopping, for that matter). We are interested in tweaking code to grow amazing programs to do what you need – we don’t play favorites, and will create you what you like for any platform.

Our narrative exploration of mechanical subjectivity sometimes leads us into dystopic situations with ambiguous results. However, our apps and devices, like our stories, always reflect something of ourselves. Current Android gadgets and consumption of mobile app technology reveals much about who we are, what we value, and how we communicate and interact. The profusion of handheld technologies points to a cultural dynamic geared toward instantaneous access to information and communication, as well as the accessibility to personal entertainment and customization. Many of these divide our attention. Some of them bring people together, as our own app, Suite Tips has done for the extended community of Adobe students and instructors.

This holiday season, make a checklist. Don’t hesitate to bring a little Android into your home. Before you take the numbers verbatim and hit the shops (or your keyboard) keep in mind that there is no perfect solution or right answer this holiday season – only informed decisions. Ask yourself how the device and its available apps should resonate with you, and you’ll discover the answer you need. If you’ve looked around and just can’t find the right app anywhere, give us a call! We would love to custom-build you an Android app!

(By the way – with regard to the little robot graphic, portions of this page are modifications based on work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License).