Expanded Apps

Browsing the App Store this weekend?  Here are fifteen new or updated apps for the iPhone and iPad worth taking a closer look at if you are: This is a choose your own adventure book, where you’re provided with a series of options at a particular point, and your decision affects the outcome of the story.  $3.99.  US-Only. Access 20,000 music videos from Vevo’s own catalogue from 7000 different artists, watch them on your iPhone and share them over Facebook or Twitter.  Discover new material, create playlists and read trivia too!  Free. US-Only. Another line drawing game, but here you must help swimmers out of the water in order to avoid become a snack for Jaws!  There are 10 levels and since this is an official app, the famous theme tune too!  $2.99/£1.79. A new variation on the tower defense game, this time with viruses instead of aliens/vikings/grandfather clocks.  You’ve got nothing to lose by trying this one, as it’s free!  Free. A collection of 16 guitar lessons on the iPad, based around Blues and Jazz.  A video accompanies each lesson and there are pitch notes to make sure your own guitar is tuned correctly.  $1.99/£1.19. Complete your everyday tasks, earn XP and level-up your character!  Yes, EpicWin turns your life into an RPG game with battles, avatars, rewards and treasure to discover.  $2.99/£1.79. Do you forget things?  Are notes useless to you?  Then try this, an app that lets you send a message to be delivered at a future date, reminding you of something at the right time!  Free. The latest update to this impressive application that merges two pictures together to create one stunning shot, now supports the iPhone 4’s front and rear camera and has a new UI and social networking features.  $1.99/£1.19. More tower defense fun, this time with aliens and yep, rednecks.  The graphics look great and there are plenty of weapons to gather and improvements to be made to your home.  $0.99/£0.59. An iPad only app for creating and sending your own eCards.  You can choose the premade backgrounds or import your own, then add pictures and text to personalize your card.  Share via Facebook, Twitter or email.  $0.99/£0.59. A line drawing game with a action twist, you must avoid being eaten by the zombies until the rescue helicopter arrives.  $0.99/£0.59. The official app of one of the best known music magazines in the world.  Read More

If you, like me, were a big scifi/fantasy reader at a young age, you probably remember the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series. It was a series of books in which, every chapter or so, you could make a choice that affected the story, and you were then prompted to turn to a certain page to continue the story after that choice. Edward Packard was the original author of that series, and he's now teamed up with an iPhone app company to create U-Ventures, a throwback iPhone application that works as an interactive, e-book style Choose You Own Adventure. The first book is called "Return to the Cave of Time" (after the first book in the original series), and just like the old series, it offers up a set of second-person branching paths. Unfortunately, at US$3.99, the app is pretty expensive. Reviews say that there are only about 15 minutes of content to go through here, and while the old books were short, there are a lot of other interactive storytelling options on the App Store in the form of games and other e-books. But as a retro return to the old form, it's a nice taste of what's possible. I'm hoping that Packard will update the idea a little bit and make it a little more iPhone-friendly next time. Or, ... you could just roll your own. Our own Victor Agreda wrote about iPod-friendly CYOA books a long time ago. Download some of those onto your iPod, and you could be right back in those old pre-video game days of interactive storytelling. [via Slashdot] Read More

You Can't Always Get What You Want ( US$4.99 until the end of August, to celebrate Jerry Garcia's birthday), is one of the best Rock and Roll books I've ever read. It is written and read by Sam Cutler, the tour manager of the Rolling Stones and later the Grateful Dead in the late 60's and early 70's. The centerpiece of the book is the free concert at the Altamont Speedway in Northern California that took place on December 6, 1969, which was made into a gripping documentary film titled Gimme Shelter by Albert and David Maysles. The line up included: Santana, the Jefferson Airplane, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead, who later decided not to play since it was too dangerous. What most people remember about the concert is that during the Stones performance, quite near the stage, Alan Passaro, a Hells Angels member, stabbed and killed Meredith Hunter after Hunter pulled out a gun. Although horrible and headline grabbing the full story is much more gripping and is only one part of the book. Sam Cutler, is a gregarious guy who was smack in the middle of the rock scene at the time. He's a great story teller, and has the perfect voice to tell his story. He reads his book in a grizzled and sometimes tired English accent that gives instant credibility to his words. He knew everyone and remembers everything in amazing detail. Naming the cast of characters would go on for pages, but Sam was there at the start of arguably every English rock and roll band at the time and later knew just about everyone in the San Francisco music scene. Sam is a wonderful writer who not only gives you the backstage stories, but beautifully details all the background in an opinionated and wildly entertaining manner. After hearing about the mountain of drugs consumed and the endless supply of groupies available for the taking, it's amazing that he remembers anything. In reading his blog, he talks about being regressed by a psychologist and in further reading you can tell that he is a natural writer with a huge vocabulary, who revels in stories. The only small problem I had with the book is that Sam is very polite and censored himself from getting into the really juicy bits. He considers the people he writes Read More

If you are a Rolling Stones fan, you have absolutely no reason on earth not to have this app on your iPhone. More times than not, fans are the hardest people to please, but I don’t think that they will have any complaints with You Can’t Always Get What You Want by Sam Cutler. This iPhone eBook comes to us courtesy Expanded Apps, and I must say that just the format itself is impressive and appealing enough to get even a non-Rolling Stones fan to read it. Previously printed in 2008, You Can’t Always get What You Want is written by Sam Cutler, and is the story of when he was tour manager of the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead at the end of the 60s and early 70s. The 50 chapters of the book are an account of the escapades and colorful tales that make up the life of one of the most famous bands in rock and roll history. The app is not meant only to be read but also to be listened to, for it has Cutler narrating it for us. We are at liberty to forward, reverse or pause the narration at any time. The app is made more interesting by a gallery of 20 exclusive pictures with descriptions. You Can’t Always get What You Want also features a video gallery where we can view clips from Altamont, and also interviews with Cutler. We can customize our reading experience by adjusting the font type and size. If we want to read at night in the dark, that is possible too, as well as bookmarking certain pages. I haven’t read the entire book yet, but both in terms of content and presentation, there are no disappointments. It should be interesting to see how the iPhone is utilized to bring such more books to our palms. As for this one, grab it, is what I say. Read More

You Can’t Always Get What You Want is a magnificent account of the life and times of Sam Cutler with the Rolling Stones, then the Grateful Dead in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As tour manager for the Stones he played a pivotal role at a watershed moment in American history: the infamous concert at Altamont Speedway, where a young man named Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death by a Hells Angel in front of the stage. There has never been an official investigation into what actually happened at Altamont. Cutler has recorded for posterity the political build up to the free concert, and the aftermath of the fateful occurrences there. The release of You Can’t Always Get What You Want is intended to finally “set the record straight” and his lucid backstage and onstage account is undoubtedly the book’s centerpiece. But, he adds, “there’s more to my story than Altamont. This is the story of his life on the road with two of the world’s greatest bands.” Read More

By Chris Hall on July 26th, 2010 "You Can't Always Get What You Want", the memoirs of Sam Cutler, the manager of the Rolling Stores and the Greatful Dead, has just dropped in the App Store. Exanded Apps have just released “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, an “interactive book and audiobook app recounting the memoirs of The Rolling Stone’s and The Grateful Dead’s manager, Sam Cutler.” It includes Cutler’s time with the Stones and the Grateful Dead in the late 60′s and early 70′s, and covers “the infamous concert at Altamont Speedway, where a young man named Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death by a Hells Angel in front of the stage.” The app includes the complete book and audiobook, three 40 minute interviews with the author, and a 20 page photo gallery with “never before published photos of the Stones and the Dead”. The Rolling Stone said of the book, “”[Cutler's] memoir of his time with first the Stones and then the Grateful Dad brings to life hippie-era delights (lots of acid) and an encroaching darkness . . . he unleashes one killer road tale after another.” Be sure to pick “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” up if you are a Stones or a Dead fan. And if you can wait til August, it’ll be on sale for $5.99 to celebrate Jerry Garcia’s birthday. $9.99 iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad Released: 2010-04-06 :: Category: Books Read More