It’s Friday, and in many corners, cubicles, offices and other spaces, employees are merely pretending to be working. We’re here to make that process a little easier by providing some worthy distractions for your last day of the week. Up first is Tube Downloader, an app that lets you download and save your favorite YouTube videos to your iOS device. Piictu, our second app, is a photo-based social network that sets itself apart by allowing its users to create contests from within it. On the games front, there’s iDaTank, a 3-D game in which you control a robot as it cruises around small asteroids, looking for aliens to shoot and resources to gather; and Meganoid, a 2-D platformer that’s easy to learn and very tough to master or even be good at. We’ve got the full details on all four below.
Tube Downloader (iPhone, iPad) $1.99
Sure, YouTube videos are nice. They’re often hilarious, they usually load up pretty fast and they’re highly accessible – provided you have an Internet connection. But what if you want to download those videos to your iOS device to watch later, while you’re offline, or just to own and enjoy at your leisure? Tube Downloader makes that possible, by connecting with numerous video social networking sights and allowing users to download the videos they see to their iPhones and iPads to take on the go.
Tube Downloader lets you download as many files as you want, and you can run up to 10 downloads concurrently using the app. It’ll also export your videos to your device’s Video Roll, as well as allow you to watch it from Tube Downloader. You can also set passwords on videos to keep them private and protected.
Piictu (iPhone, iPad) Free
Picture-based social networks seem to be more and more the rage on Apple’s iOS platform, so apps that are capable of separating themselves from the pack with cool features often become the post popular. Piictu doesn’t pack cool filters or slight editing capabilities like Instagram does, but it does have one thing: user-created photo contests, in which people in the network can compete with one another.
Piictu lets you quickly post anything you take within the app to Facebook and Twitter, and it also provides users with unlimited file storage for photos. Like other social networking apps, you can view other people’s photos and leave comments on them. But the coolest part of Piictu is the ability to create contests for users. Just lay down the law in the title, and set rules (like no photos of screens, for example) and step back and let the network bring you images from users hoping to win your competition.
iDaTank (iPhone, iPad) $1.99
You’re the tank in iDaTank, or more aptly, you’re a sort of quadruped robot tasked with wandering around asteroids, blasting enemies and gathering power stones to complete objectives. In each of iDaTank’s 3-D levels, you’ll be scouting meteorites for resources while fighting off aliens with your turret. Earn enough points from blasting bad guys and you’ll be able to upgrade your equipment to make your tank more effective.
Touch controls steer your robot, and iDaTank comes with 26 levels to play through. It also includes four weapon upgrades and 51 modifications and perks you can apply to your tank to make it better for combatting vicious aliens, so there’s a lot of strategy involved in how you play and upgrade your tank.
Meganoid (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
If you love the game League of Evil, you’ll have a good time with 8-bit side-scrolling platformer Meganoid, which has a similar setup to League, as well as a similar degree of difficulty. Aliens are attacking Earth, and you’ve been dispatched to run around in levels and avoid being killed, apparently. Each stage is timed and filled with collectible, hidden diamonds – the idea is to grab as many diamonds as you can in each stage, and finish before the time limit is reached to gain the highest score.
Meganoid includes 70 levels and two difficulty settings, the harder of which is unlocked by playing through the game. Developer OrangePixel also pledges to make more levels available in future free updates. The game also packs OpenFeint support, providing it with leaderboards to track stats against friends, and achievements.
Download the free Appolicious iPhone app
