Ever find yourself talking to someone who suggests a new song or a band, but you have no idea who or what they’re talking about? Hound is for you. The app lets users speak to search for bands, songs and albums, and returns results like song previews and lyrics quickly and easily. It’s made by the developer that brought you SoundHound, and it’s our leading Fresh App this Friday. We’ve also got a line on WordFoto, an interesting take on photo effects on iOS devices, and a couple of quality games to take you through your long weekend: first up, a big update to the phenomenal horror title Dead Space, and simple physics puzzler Ink Ball. Read about them below, and enjoy.
Hound (iPhone, iPad) Free
From the makers of SoundHound, comes Hound, a music search app that lets users speak their search terms into their iOS devices’ microphones. Hound fills in the gap left by SoundHound, which allows users to let the app “listen” to a song that’s playing and identify it. With Hound, the user can give the app information like the band name or album, and the app hits the Internet to bring back information about it.
Results returned by Hound include lots of info about the bands and music you search with the free app. Run a band’s name and you’ll get biography info and a list of albums; send through the name of a song and the lyrics will pop up. Hound also pulls up videos and even previews of the music you search.
WordFoto (iPhone, iPad) $1.99
Image-editing app WordFoto takes an interesting approach to altering photos using iOS device. It uses an internal algorithm to add create typographical art out of your photos, using a few choice words you choose to actually build the images. If you’ve ever seen a photo mosaic – a larger image built out of hundreds or thousands of much smaller ones – you’ve got something of the idea.
WordFoto lets you save and crop images you import from your camera roll. It includes eight different presets for automatically filling words into your photos, and you can fine-tune the look along the way with the apps controls. And along with the eight presets, you can create your own custom looks for how WordFoto adjusts your images. Once you’re done, you can share them by email or post them to Facebook.
Dead Space update (iPhone, iPad) $2.99
One of the best games available on Apple’s iOS platform, and potentially the scariest (and probably goriest), just got even more involving. Electronic Arts and developer Iron Monkey’s Dead Space follows the story of a space station infested with bloodthirsty monsters, and in order to work through the story of the game, players have to fight them – using various sci-fi tools and pieces of mining equipment to cut off their limbs to defend yourself.
The new update to Dead Space adds an entire new game mode to the proceedings: Survival mode, in which you’ll have to hold your own against wave of enemies. The mode is challenging in and of itself, but it also carries an added incentive of awarding players with credits that can be used to buy new weapons and upgrades in Dead Space’s single-player campaign. The update also brings some new guns to the fore to help you blast through monsters and survive the horror of the game’s sci-fi setting, and an amped-up Nightmare difficulty setting for the truly hardcore player.
Ink Ball (iPhone, iPad) $0.99
Ink Ball is an interesting take on popular iOS physics puzzlers. Built with a simple ink graphical style, the game’s premise has the player placing objects around each stage to help roll ink balls toward a bucket. The objects can be rotated and have different properties, like being solid or bouncy, to make a path to the end of each stage, but things get difficult along the way, with obstacles to avoid and balls constantly dropping.
In fact, speed and precision are key in Ink Ball – as soon as you touch an object, a short timer counts down and ink balls start to drop from a specified point into the level. In order to get the best score available in each stage, you’ll have to avoid losing ink balls down pits or into blots on the level. The more ink you get into the bucket without losing any, the more stars of three you’ll pull down for each stage.
