If you miss the old YouTube app on your iPhone, the Video Tube app may be just what you are looking for. Video Tube allows you to watch YouTube videos with an interface that is similar to the original iOS YouTube app. Though similar, Video Tube has a few extra features that may be of interest, but it also falls short in some important places.

When you open Video Tube you are presented with the “Features” on YouTube. Other tabs, “Popular,” “Downloads,” “History,” and “Search” are available. The “Search” function is simplified and has no auto-complete capability. The “History” tab shows your recently opened videos.

Once you open a video one of two things can happen, you are prompted to play the video and it changes to fullscreen mode, or the video begins to play automatically in smaller form. There is no consistency or a way to tell what the app is going to do. If it is a video that can only play in fullscreen mode, you cannot view the video and read the info/comments simultaneously. While the video is in smaller form (whether playing or paused) you can view the video “Info,” “Related” videos, “More from” the use, and “Comments.” Unfortunately, you cannot log in to YouTube to rate videos or leave your own comments.

At the top of the screen you have options to share the video by sending a link via email, sharing on Facebook, or sharing on Twitter. Also, you have another option to to download the video to your phone. Some videos are not available for download and you will get a message on screen that states that you do not have permission to download the video from YouTube.

Video Tube has ads at the bottom of app at all times, and they can become very intrusive when you are trying to read the video info or comments. A premium version of the app is available for $2.99 to remove the apps.

PROS

• “History” tab that allows you to reopen your recently viewed videos quickly.
• You will like it if you prefer the original iOS YouTube app interface.
• Option to download videos.
• High quality videos and sound.

CONS

• Large ads at the bottom of the viewing screen that makes reading info and comments more difficult.
• Cannot log in to YouTube to rate and leave comments.
• Issues with enlarging videos. If a video can play while viewing the info and comments, then you must tap the enlarge button to watch the video fullscreen; you are not able to turn your phone to enlarge the video. On the flip side, some videos you cannot watch in smaller form, you can only watch in fullscreen.

Video Tube has a lot of useful features and great potential to rival the new Google YouTube app, but the cons are too large to ignore. It does not seem worth purchasing just to remove ads, when you still cannot log in to your YouTube account. Video Tube may never have that functionality, however. Since it is not the official YouTube app, the restrictions on what the developer can do may be holding Video Tube back.

Download and try Video Tube for yourself here.

The post Video Tube iPhone App Review appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Tentacles: Enter the dolphin is a crazy new platformer with very original controls and a bizarre title.  The game makes about as much sense as the company associated with the development of Tentacles, Microsoft.

Gameplay

You play as a…well, I’m not entirely sure what you play as.  An anomaly of nature, named Lemmy.  Lemmy has three tentacles and a claw used to eat eyeballs.  Lemmy adventures through the body of a professor, after getting there by a crazy accident in the first place. Tentacles, is difficult, very difficult.  The control scheme is one that is very easy to use, but also very hard to master.  You tap the screen once to send out one tentacle to where you tapped, again for the second and once again for the third tentacle.  The movement is very fluid and precise.

There are dozens of death traps just waiting for you to come along as well.  These obstacles are very annoying  and in order to avoid them you must tap in the exact spot you want Lemmy to move to, a centimeter in the wrong direction could mean certain death.  Part of the time I found myself just tapping three times rapidly to send Lemmy flying towards the wall or corridor I was trying to survive. In this aspect, Tentacles can be an extremely frustrating game,  I was already cursing it before I reached level 12.  On the other hand, after level 20 or so, I began to feel pretty comfortable with maneuvering Lemmy through the nightmarish hellscape of the professor’s body.

Each level has three objectives, get all the pickups, complete a challenge, and get to the end without dying (yeah right).  The challenge one I find to be the most fun, there are two different types of challenges found in the different areas, speed challenge and damage challenge.  The speed challenge requires you to blast through a section within a time limit, which is tons of fun.  The damage challenge asks you to survive an area without getting hurt even once.  This one is a bit tougher.  Speaking of tough, the bosses in Tentacles are quite difficult as well, they are well designed and made to make you suffer.

Seriously, I hate this guy.

As the levels progress, the difficulty does not steepen as much as I anticipated, while this could be considered a good thing, I found that the later levels were actually quite a bit easier than the mid 20 – 30 levels.

Graphics

The graphics are gorgeous, even if they are gross. The colors are vivid and the backgrounds are very detailed.  If you thought Lemmy was ugly, check out some of the creatures he has to face.  Some of the creatures are just eyes,  in order to defeat them, Lemmy grabs their eye with his claw and eats it.  Some pretty grotesque stuff.

Overall

Pros

• Fantastic fluid controls
• Good level design
• Plenty of gameplay to justify a one dollar price

Cons

• More difficult early on rather than towards the end
• No storyline really
• Repetitive

Tentacles is a very enjoyable adventure through a fictional body and well worth the 99 cents. Download Tentacles from iTunes.

The post Game Review: Tentacles: Enter the Dolphin appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Google Translate might not be the most sophisticated or powerful translation app out there, but it has quite a few useful features, especially when you stop to consider that it is entirely free. Google recently updated the app to version 2.5, introducing several keys features that further improved an already impressive app. What is new in 2.5? The biggest changes include a new picture-to-text method that is useful for translating objects like signs. How does Google Translate 2.5 hold up, especially when compared to similar apps like Words Lens? Let’s take a deeper look and put Google’s language translator to the test.

Before we get started, it’s worth noting that the app is available for iOS and Android, though the specific version under review is the Android app.

Translating By Voice And Text

Google Translate has an extremely easy to use interface, which means popping it up and translating text quickly is a breeze. When inputting language, Google can “autodetect” or you can simply put in the exact language you are speaking or typing. As far as translating it to a different language, there are tons of options- this not only includes the usual suspects like Spanish, French, German and Chinese but a wide variety that extends to languages such as Afrikaans, Hindi and Bulgarian. In total, Google utilizes the ability to translate to and from over fifty languages.

Once you have your translation, you can either simply read it, or even have the app play it back to you in the translated language. Ultimately this makes Google Translate’s basic text and voice features ideal if you need a quick phrase to say to someone while traveling abroad, even if the translations are far from perfect.

With more common languages, Google does a terrific job creating understandable phrases that wouldn’t sound odd or out of place if you said it to someone of a different language or culture. At the same time, some of the less common languages are prone to minor misinterpretations during translation. As an example, the language Basque often confuses “get well” with “improve”. Either way, you should still be able to get the gist of what is being said in most cases.

The bottom line is that Google Translate has had a solid voice-to-text and text-to-speech service for a while now, and Google Translate 2.5 doesn’t change all the much in this aspect. The only significant change to this part of the service is that you can now type words like “hello” and instantly the tool will give you a translation on-the-fly, similar to searching a term through Google’s search engine works.

Picture Translation

The most significant change in this update is the new picture translation feature. This feature allows you to take a photo of an object, like a sign, and get a translation. How well does it work? First off, you need to be careful how close you are to the words that you want to be detected in a picture. The angle of the picture matters too. I tested this out by browsing several websites for things like signs in foreign languages. Sometimes I had to take pictures a few times before Google would recognize that there were potentially words in the picture to translate.

Overall, it wasn’t hard to make this work, it just sometimes took two tries, though either way it only took a few seconds of my time. Once you take the picture, you simply rub the words you want translated and Google translates them. In contrast, Word Lens uses augmented reality to create an instant translation without any further interaction from the user. Google’s method works well enough, even if it isn’t as seamless as the Word Lens approach.

I noticed that the actual translations on basic and common signs sometimes turned out great, but other times were just a little off.  For example, a German sign read “Drachenfliegen nicht gestattet”, and showed a picture of a kite with a line through it. Logic dictates that it meant “No kites allowed”, or something like that. What was my translation? “Dragon Fly not allowed”. On the other hand, many other signs like “Stop” worked just fine. More than 75% of the pictures gave me logical text translations, but even when the signs weren’t quite right, they were still understandable.

Conclusion

There are some strong positives in Google Translate, but it does have its less-than-stellar aspects, too.

Let’s start with the downsides to the app:

• The Google Translate app uses Google servers for all the translations, which means you will need an international data plan to use this abroad. If you don’t have an international data plan or access to Wi-Fi, the app will essentially do absolutely nothing.
• Google’s new picture translation service isn’t as seamless as alternatives like Word Lens, but it does a pretty solid job in giving us reasonable translations.
• Translates aren’t always quite right, though they still are pretty darn good.

Picture translation might not be perfect in Google Translate 2.5, but it’s totally free! It’s hard to complain when you get so many excellent features without any charge. In contrast, Word Lens has AR translations that might be (a little) quicker and more visually appealing, but the language packs cost $5 a piece, and there aren’t nearly as many language options provided for that platform.

As for the positive:

• Compared to the last version of Translate, the new update really makes translating quicker and easier than ever.
• The addition of instant translation as you type words is very handy and works great.
• This is a free app with no adds, hard to beat that.
• Overall translate quality might not be perfect, but at the price of free, you can’t complain either.

The bottom line is that Google Translate 2.5 is rather accurate, has an easy to use interface and is free with no adds. If you don’t want to use a premium app, and have basic translation needs, you can’t go wrong with Google Translate. You can snag the app for free by heading over to Google Play.

The post App Review: Google Translate 2.5 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.