iPhone Applications

After a long wait for the disappointing Last Stand 3, I've been desperately trying to find a fun and addictive new free zombie game. I originally dismissed Zombie Lane as a lame Facebook app that forces you to spend money to play, but it has grown on me over the last week (especially after the Christmas update which added new missions and stuff to buy). The only problem is Zombie Lane is not the best time passer. It's a great game to have on your phone for random bits of procrastination, but having to wait five minutes to perform one task can get kind of tedious.

Infected is more of the fast paced kind of game I've been looking for. It's a fun twist on the tower defense genre where you use police officers as torrents to defend citizens from zombies. The app can even access your Facebook friends turning them into the helpless victims. Like any tower defense game you can upgrade your torrents, buy better armed police agents, and use random weapons to bomb zombie hordes. The game has a good mix of free upgrades and features an online multi-player mode.

Apple announced their picks for Best iPhone App and Game of the Year on Thursday. Instagram beat out VidRhythm and Band Of The Day for Best App of the Year, and Tiny Tower topped Tiny Wings and Touchgrind BMX for Best iPhone Game of the Year.

The Best iPad App honors went to Snapspeed, and Dead Space won Game of the Year over Contre Jour HD and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. Angry Birds, Pages and GarageBand were some of the top selling iPad apps of the year.

Check out the iTunes 2011 Rewind here. It's like the Oscars for Apps!

Flipboard CEO Mike McCue said an iPhone Flipboard app was the number one request from iPad users. Too bad all 4.2 million of them decided to download the app on its first day, leaving newer non-iPad owners wondering what all the fuss is about.

The popular iPad app is so popular on the iPhone, that it crashed the Flipboard servers making it impossible to create a new account. New users are receiving an error message that reads: "Couldn't build your Flipboard. Please check your internet connection and try again."

Flipboard tweeted "Due to high demand, our service is currently down, we are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible."

Version 1.7 turns your "social-network posts, photos and videos into a magazine-like visual experience" on your iPhone. Well, according to USA Today it does. I have to take their word for it because like many users I can't get Flipboard to work on my iPhone 4S.

Apple's universal reader app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch has just been updated to version 1.5. The new iBooks adds several new features including a nighttime reading theme to ease eye strain when reading in a dark room. Some studies have shown that viewing LCD screens before bedtime can keep some people from falling asleep quickly. Maybe the new iBooks will help.

Apple has also added several new fonts including Athelas, Charter, Iowa, and Seravek for your reading pleasure. For those who may have been irritated by the book-like graphics that take screen real estate away from the text, Apple has added a full-screen mode to remove distractions.

Two popular zombie games have made their way to the Apple App Store this week. Activision released the popular Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies, and developers Digital Chocolate have made their Facebook hit Zombie Lane available on the iPhone and iPad. The newest Call of Duty app is $6.99, and offers 50 levels of zombie killing madness. You can play solo or on teams of four via Call of Duty’s new interface which features Voice Chat for the first time ever. There is also a new unlockable arcade-style top-down shooter mode called "Dead Ops Arcade" with Game Center leaderboard support.

Zombie Lane is free in the iTunes App Store, but it's one of those annoying Facebook type games that forces you to pay for upgrades. You're tasked with rebuilding your neighborhood by smashing and shooting the undead, rebuilding fences and growing crops. There are plenty of missions to complete, achievements to gain and extra things to do if you're willing to pay real money for the honor of doing so. If you're not willing to shell out the cash, you will find yourself standing around a lot unable to perform any tasks.