Some AIR Mobile Apps

One of the nice things about keeping a blog is that I get contacted by people from time to time asking me to take a look at their apps or pointing me in the direction of other successful apps written in Adobe AIR. Here’s a few that have come to my attention recently.

Picshop Pro

I’ve been meaning to write about PicShop for ages now but for one reason or another never got round to it. Thankfully a reader’s comment recently reminded me about it and the success it has had. PicShop is a simple and extremely easy to use photo editor for iOS, Android, and Blackberry. While it’s primarily aimed at casual users, there’s enough there (including HD image support) for even serious photographers to get something from it.

If you’re in any doubt about whether you can make money from Adobe AIR then take a look at developer Shawn Blais’ blog where he details the financial success of PicShop. As a side note, Shawn now works at TreeFortress Studios who are doing some interesting mobile work with AIR. Take a look at their blog for more details and a bunch of useful code libraries that they’ve been making available.

Creative Creature

Creative Creature is an iPad app that my buddy JP has been working on with Glasgow-based digital agency, Ping. It’s a great little social plaything where you team-up with friends on Facebook to create a creature. You start by drawing a head and pass it onto a friend who then draws the body. They then pass it onto someone else who gets to draw the creatures legs. The nice thing is that each person doesn’t get to see the other parts of the drawing until it’s all stitched together and ready for Facebook. It’s great fun and you’ll be surprised at the mad creatures that come from playing with it.

House Ball

Indie developer Tony Lahood got in touch recently and pointed me towards his latest iPhone game, House-Ball. It’s an addictive little puzzler where you guide a ball of electricity through a city, bringing power back to its homes. Making sure the electricity reaches its target isn’t easy and you’ll need to strategically position and flip switches to help change direction. Also, if you’re not careful, you can actually do more harm to the houses than good. With 100 unique levels there’s plenty to keep you going for hours on end. House-Ball is great fun and an extremely impressive feat for a one-man team.

Yorùbá 101

Developer Adebayo Adegbembo from Genii Games sent over his latest kids educational app, Yorùbá 101, which teaches your child the basics of the Yorùbá language. For those who don’t know, Yorùbá is a rich language synonymous to a large section of people from West Africa and the Americas. I was going to say “Adobe AIR Rocks!” in Yorùbá but I clearly need to spend a little more time with the app first 🙂 Nice work Adebayo!

GoTopo

I think of myself as having a good sense of geography but GoTopo by Kick Lensing has shown that to be completely untrue. Available for iOS and Android, GoTopo is a nice little app that has you racing against the clock to answer a series of different topographical questions. New maps and questions are added regularly and there’s even the ability to challenge your Facebook friends. I’m not completely useless however. I did manage to score 12/15 on the “Large British Cities” daily challenge. Thanks for sharing Kick and it’s great once again to see what a single developer can create with AIR.