Reading Tweets on a mobile device can be a cumbersome experience. I have noticed that most of the mobile Twitter clients score poorly on either the feature set or the user experience.  I am happy to report that HipTweet comfortably scores in both these areas. It packs in a complete Twitter feature set and also delivers a sleek experience enabled by a combination of large font styles and appealing colors.

To start using this application you need to login using your Twitter credentials. The home screen is neatly organized into three major sections. The Twitter action icons section at the top of screen, your Twitter time line section at the center of the screen and ‘Options’/'Refresh’ icons section at the bottom of the screen. The UI design is simple and yet very striking.

If you click on a Tweet, you get options to ‘Reply to the Tweeter’,'Add Tweet to Favorites’, ‘Re-tweet’ and ‘Send a direct message(DM) to the Tweeter’. In this view, you can browse through your time line by swiping your finger across the screen from right to left.

If you are in a mood to share your thoughts, you can click the ‘What’s happening’ icon. You can enter your thoughts in the text area and you can also tag friends by using the ‘@’ icon in the image below. This screen also provides you an option to upload photos.

By clicking on the ‘Options’ icon, you can access your Twitter details such as ‘Mentions’, ‘Favorites’, ‘Retweets’ and ‘Lists’.

Through the settings menu you can enable location scanning, modify timeline refresh period and select data connection options.

Another interesting feature in HipTweet is the location based search. Using this feature, you can search for Tweets or people near your current location. The application uses the built-in GPS receiver in your smartphone to pull out your location. In the screen shot below, I searched for all Tweets mentioning ‘Nokia’ in ‘White Plains,NY’.

As I said earlier, the user experience in HipTweet is great. The speed and responsiveness of vertical scrolling can be improved.  Owing to the large fonts, the number of tweets you can browse is limited. The user could be given an option to browse through older tweets by organizing the tweets in multiple navigable pages. Overall, I am extremely impressed with HipTweet. It provides an easy to use interface for both content creation and consumption.

HipTweet is free to download from Ovi store.

HipTweet was developed by Silicon valley based HipLogic. Apart from HipTweet, they have also developed another social networking app called Spark. Do check out the Ovi Daily App review of *Spark beta here.

Editor’s Note: Today’s guest review is written by Dan Carter, who runs the World Of Nokia blog. As it turns out, Dan has been a long-time fan and user of the service AudioBoo, so when we asked him if he’d be willing to review the new AudioBoo app for us, it was an easy decision for everyone involved. Read on to see why Dan thinks you should Boo, too …

AudioBoo is an application which allows you to record audio updates to share with friends and family, but also for use on your own blog or website. Think of it like an audio blog.

I first heard about AudioBoo over a year ago and started using it in Germany when touring a Carl Zeiss factory I was visiting thanks to WOMWorld/Nokia, but at the time the only options available were via a web browser or a beta service by making a phone call (it almost seems quaint today). There was no application for the handset at that time. But, that has changed with the AudioBoo app published by the Bolser Agency, which is a free download from Ovi Store.

To get started, the best thing to do is sign up for a free account on the AudioBoo website.

Then, you will simply need to sign in when you install the Qt-based app on your handset. The screenshot below shows you the icon to look for:

From there you can listen to random recordings (known as a “boo”) as well as record and publish your own. Normal accounts can record 5 minutes per boo, which is normally more than enough for your standard usage. I was lucky enough to be given an extra option from the developers, and now have 20 minutes per recording.

Once you have recorded your own boo you can tag it, give it a title – even use a picture – and then upload. Just a word of warning though, you cannot save your recording locally, once it has been recorded you have to either upload it or record a new boo, but this will wipe the previous recording.

This is a service I used at Nokia World in London back in 2010, and also at Mobile World Congress this year, and it was really handy in getting quick instant news out to everyone without needing to use different applications to post from. If you have your own site or blog you can even use a free widget on the sidebar to share your recordings from your account.

You can hear an AudioBoo that I recorded during a recent test of the app while working on this review.

Having this application on your Nokia smartphone is perfect for mobile blogging as you can keep everyone updated from a single app, and also use it to automatically post links to your recordings on Twitter or Facebook if you enter the login details on the website.

Using AudioBoo is completely free of charge both on your Nokia device and on the website, which means anyone can get started without any setup costs. Note however that because the application transmits recorded audio files, it is highly recommended that you have a decent data plan on your handset unless you are able to just use Wi-Fi instead.

AudioBoo is free to download from Ovi Store.

About the guest blogger

My name is Dan Carter and I run World Of Nokia which is a Nokia news and reviews website based in the UK, but with a reach all around the world. My aim for that site is to help promote the brand to the world and help Nokia truly ‘Connect People’. You can find me at www.worldofnokia.co.uk and by following me on twitter @worldofnokia.

Do you want all your apps neatly arranged in multiple screens? Do you love customizing your home screen with new and different styles? Then, you must give Voyager Home Screen, a handy – and free – home screen UI management app, a try.

I have been using this application for some time. I have enjoyed exploring and trying out the rich feature set of this app. Before I walk you through it, let’s see the application in action in this video created by Arunay, who blogs here.

After installing Voyager Home Screen on your Nokia smartphone, you can activate the application by going to Applications > ‘vHome’. Here you can perform several actions including starting the application and modifying the look and feel of the home screens within the application.

The ‘Home Skin’ selection menu gives you three options to select your main home screen. The options are: Classic, V Style and Retro Clock. The ‘V Style’ is my favorite as it creates a tile view, which partly resembles the user interface of Windows Phone 7 devices.

Below you can see the ‘Retro Clock’ home skin, which resembles the UI experience on some HTC devices. All variations of the home skin have some common functions such as a Twitter link to tweet from the home screen, a news feed, and a local weather feed.

Once you start the application, all your applications are neatly organized into several screens. You can scroll through them by swiping across your phone screen. This look is similar to that seen in iOS devices such as iPod Touch and iPhone.

If you wish to explore other settings of Voyager Home Screen, click on the ‘Home Settings’ icon. To quit the Voyager Home Screen application, click on the ‘Quit vHome’ icon. This screen also provides one-click access to toggle between ‘General’/'Silent’, and to activate or deactivate Bluetooth.

If you are not satisfied with the arrangement of app icons on your screens, you can move them around by enabling the ‘Edit Mode’. To enable this mode, you can either click the ‘Edit Mode’ icon or press and hold any icon. Once you enable the ‘Edit Mode’, all your application icons start shaking. You can now move an application around to any position on any screen.

Additionally, in this mode, you can uninstall applications by simply holding and dragging an app icon to the trash can icon at the bottom of your screen (See image below). To disable the edit mode, click on your phone’s menu key.

In the settings menu, there are additional customization options. For example, you can enable the ‘Auto Start’ option, which will start Voyager Home Screen automatically after a phone restart. You can also choose from several different grid formats to arrange your app icons.

I organized my applications in a 3X5 grid and I love the way my screens look!

While testing this application, I did notice some display lag on few occasions. Also, when I installed a new application on my N8, with Voyager Home Screen enabled, I could not see the application installation status bar. So, if you are about to install an application on your phone, I would recommend exiting the Voyager Home Screen application before starting the installation.

Apart from these areas of improvement, I am pretty impressed by the features packed into this application. For those of us who need a great and easy way to customize the UI experience on our Nokia phones, Voyager Home Screen is a must-have.

Voyager Home Screen is free to download from Ovi store.

What could be more intriguing than a Japanese legend with a majestic dragon helping a goddess find her lost lute? The first thing that struck me with Cubix Dragon’s Lore by HeroCraft was the beautiful Japanese-style art work, ornate dragon, distinct characters and magical story that draws the user into an underwater journey traversing the islands across the sea.

Before you know it, you are under the spell of this game and hooked for what could be a very long time. Although a user who has strong self-restraint could easily play one level and then exit the game or continue later.

There are different modes to the game that enable the user to play in a preferred manner and that makes the game appealing to a wide variety of audiences.

If you prefer the game to be like a mystical journey through a book you can select the ‘Story’ mode and you’ll discover a wonderful story with beautiful illustrations of dragons and characters.

The characters include the goddess Benten who lost her lute, Kirin the wise dragon offers to find the lute for the goddess and he starts with Ninge the mermaid. If you play long enough, you’ll eventually have the pleasure to meet the sea lord, Syatihokio as well.

There is an introduction leading the user into the story and then you are greeted with this beautiful underwater board with colored cubes. The objective of the game is to match pieces of the same color by adding cubes. Once three cubes of the same color are grouped, they disappear from the board. The goal is to clear the board of colored cubes. This is also how you score points and earn money to spend in the store on items that will help you in your journey.

If you like the added pressure of a competitor, that’s an option in the arcade mode. You need to move quickly in this mode as you are on a timer and have the potential to upgrade yourself to a hero.

If puzzle mode is your preference you’ll find that you have to think a bit more for the best solution to different riddles.

Another mode is Infinity, and like the name infers, it has no time limit. The game only ends when there are no longer moves to play.

Finally, there is a Hot Seat mode that you can enjoy with other friends.

The cubes in the game are three dimensional and the board can be stacked up to three cubes high on most squares. The fireball helps to break through challenging areas with bigger impact than a single cube. Sometimes there are blockades that you must work around or burn with the fireball.

This short video trailer from the developers at HeroCraft show the game in action:

The user interface of this game is nothing short of beautiful and engaging. I really enjoyed playing this game and got caught up at times, which is not typical for me. While I have been exposed to a number of mobile games, I’m not an avid game player so I am convinced that this is something that can be quite addictive for just about anyone.

I played Cubix Dragon’s Lore long enough to island hop half way across the sea. I will admit that toward the end of game play I was looking for a little more challenge. However, I may have encountered new challenges in strategy sooner if I had saved my games instead of starting over from the beginning a couple of times. Progressing through the levels of the game did motivate and engage me so I would suggest saving your play and continuing to progress through the different levels.

There are plenty of levels to play as the game offers more than 100 of them! I was sufficiently hooked more than once for long periods of time trying to clear different boards of the game. The competitive games against the enemy and timed games do provide additional challenge at the higher levels. This game is definitely a thumbs up and a must play in my opinion. It will be one of the games that I return to when I have some time to spare and am looking to entertain myself.

Cubix Dragon’s Lore is available for $1.99 (USD) in Ovi Store; and there is also a free trial version that you can try before you buy.

Little things mean a lot, and Indonesia-based Agate Studio got a lot of little things right in their development of their game Dilemma for Nokia touch smartphones.

Dilemma is a fun trivia game with a touch of adrenaline, available for free in Ovi Store, and compatible with Nokia smartphones with a touch-based interface. I tested it on my Nokia N8.

Game on

Dilemma at its core is a timed trivia game: answer questions quickly to score points. As you score more points the questions get harder and faster. The fun comes from rushing your brain, and Dilemma never dulls the rush by distracting your brain with complicated controls or inputs. Each dilemma (question) is presented with two possible answers. You touch the left or right option to decide.

As you think through the trivia question, a train is hurtling toward your character: answer quickly or you die. That’s the dilemma.

Simple controls keep your focus on the dilemmas.

Game on phone

When you’re deep into a mobile game it’s easy to forget that your game device is also your mobile phone. It’s probably your e-mail device, Twitter interface, and Facebook updater as well. Handling that interaction between game and multitasking mobile computer is another thing Agate Studio gets right with Dilemma. When I first installed the game, I was reading the opening screen and listening to the soundtrack when my N8 received an e-mail message from my Microsoft Exchange service; my N8 sounds a notification ping when that happens. Not only did Dilemma allow the notification to come through, it managed the hand-off with grace. The soundtrack on Dilemma faded out, I got my notification ping, then the soundtrack faded back in. Quite slick.

The hand-off is managed differently for an incoming call. In this case the soundtrack ends immediately, my screen switches to the phone mode (with caller ID), and then switches back to the game when I’m done with the call (or if I reject the call).

The only problem I had with Dilemma behaving well when suspended occurs if I lock my N8 while in a game. The game sometimes hangs when I do this. To be fair, I don’t know how much of this handoff is the result of great programming by Agate Studio and how much comes from a solid Symbian platform and development framework (the game was developed using Qt). All I know is the result is great.

Back to the game

Trivia games need fun questions that keep you challenged. Dilemma includes a clever mix of math puzzles, pattern recognition, and word play. Here’s a sample:

Simple math puzzles get more complicated as your level increases.

Pattern questions include how many of a shape or of a color.

Text questions can be straightforward ....

... or deliberately tricky. When you're in a hurry, scanning "coffee is cold" seems like a problem.

A little encouragement, and little harassment

Dilemma tells you immediately whether your answer was correct or not. Well, “tells you” is not adequately descriptive. The game heaps praise on you for correct answers, and gets a bit in your face for wrong ones.

Praise accompanies a correct answer.

Scorn and derision await your failures.

Dilemma adds a few additional twists to keep it interesting. Every once in a while it throws in a question for which either answer is correct. You can gain extra lives for your character by answering fast enough. And of course there’s a high score tally.

If you’re looking for a fun diversion with clever graphics and just enough adrenaline to keep it interesting, check out Dilemma for Nokia touch-enabled smartphones. The game is free in Ovi Store.

Yes, the new animated movie “Rio” opens today, and – as you have likely seen – the new version of Angry Birds tied to the movie concept is available in Nokia’s Ovi Store. It is Angry Birds Rio, and while it certainly brings you everything you might expect from the fiesty feathered friends, the game does a great job of incorporating ideas from the movie, without feeling like you’re simply looking at an advertisement or promotion for the flick.

The game by Finland’s Rovio includes 60 levels of bird-flinging fun – which are divided into chapters that each have their own goals and challenges. If you’ve played one of the earlier versions of Angry Birds – is there anyone left who has not yet tried it? – you will recognize the supporting cast of birds that are available to you to do battle in the jungles of the Brazilian rainforest.

You play the game in landscape mode (it opens that way automatically), and the first 30 levels, in two sets of 15 stages, introduce a great twist to the game. It is your job to rescue other birds that are caged in a giant warehouse through a variety of complex and cumbersome contraptions that are certain to confound, but will still keep you coming back for more.

A couple of observations about the screenshot above – you can see the two sets of stages that are available when you first download the game. As usual, you will need to successfully complete the first set of 30 levels before you can unlock the next set of 30. Also – notice the dates within the picture … more levels are coming soon and throughout the year it appears. And, in this new one, you can earn Awards for all your hard work, too (here’s a hint: keep an eye out for pineapples!).

When you first begin the game, you will get a nice graphical overview of WHY the Angry Birds have migrated south of the border … As usual – no words – just great animation:

The game is visually stunning and self-explanatory, as you would expect – the ideas of the movie Rio seem to be well integrated in subtle ways. The warehouse level  – known as the “Smuggler’s Den” is dark and moody, with loads of random bits for the birds to smash in to – or off of …

And, like usual, you can’t go wrong with this game, that is, if you screw up a level, and fail, you can go back and try again. And again. Until you get it right.

In some recent play with the game at home, I was struggling to get through one of the levels in the Smuggler’s Den set – and I finally did it. At which point my teenage daughter asked if she could try. I handed her my Nokia N8, thinking ‘good luck’ and she promptly freed the captive birds in one shot. She smiled and let me know she had just demolished my previous high score for that level. I asked her how she did it – and this is the good part – she said “Domino Theory” adding, “You know ‘Ergo hoc, ergo propter hoc.‘” To which I said something slightly smarter than “Huh?” She’s been taking Latin in school, and she explained that this means “Therefore this, therefore because of this.” Somehow that explains Domino Theory, and why she is able to kick my butt at this game. If she says so.

Diversion done … back to the game. As you will see – and hear – when you play the game, the level of detail is really a treat. The sound effects include the usual bits associated with the various Angry Birds, but added now are the sounds of the jungle – and in the case of the level where you are working to rescue and save other birds, the sounds those birds make are fabulous. (If you listen closely, you may occasional hear one of the birds says “Pretty Bird.”)

If – and when – you manage to get through the first 30 levels … hang in there, you can do it … your hard work will be rewarded with a big golden (animated) trophy – and of course, it will unlock the next round of 30 levels for you to test your skills.

In the new levels the original, more destructive world of the Angry Birds seems to come back. In “Jungle Escape” you are not blowing away pigs … but rather some annoying, chattering ring-tailed monkeys. They sit there on assorted perches in the middle of the jungle just taunting you! They are a feisty bunch of monkeys – and watching them fall is quite satisfying. This set of levels seems to be a bit harder than the first round where you free the birds, but you do want a challenge, right?

Angry Birds Rio is available for $1.99 (USD) in Ovi Store. There is also a free version available to try – but trust me, you’re gonna want the full game.

And of course, if that isn’t enough, the new version of Angry Birds Seasons – just in time for Easter! – is available now in Ovi Store, too.

The increasingly sophisticated cameras built into Nokia phones – consider the Nokia N8, with a pro-quality 12-megapixel sensor – call out for increasingly sophisticated photographic software, and HDR Photo Camera is exactly that. It’s an app that exploits the N8’s high-end camera to produce often-striking images.

The Qt-based HDR Photo Camera app is a serious piece of photographic technology, and it’s priced accordingly. It sells for $9.99 on Ovi Store. But we can see the software appealing to anyone who is serious about making photos with their N8.

The name HDR stands for high dynamic range, which refers to a technique that can overcome an innate limitation found in virtually all cameras. No matter if they use film or a digital image sensor, most cameras are limited in their ability to record extremely dark and extremely bright areas in the same photograph. Thus, when shooting a sunlit scene, you can capture either details within the darkest shadows or details in the brightest areas, but not both.

A large collection of HDR photos, some of them quite stunning, can be seen at the Web site of something called Smashing Magazine. And there are more, and a complete tutorial in HDR, at a site called Stuck in Customs. These images show how the HDR technique can make cloudy skies look almost surreal in their texture while also showing the details of darker objects on the ground, for instance. HDR shots frequently show up in advertising, precisely because they are so eye-catching. And with digital cameras – or, now, a Nokia N8 smartphone – applying the HDR method is much easier; with film, a fair amount of darkroom manipulation was required.

A slightly more technical explanation of HDR: Suppose the scale of brightness in that sunlit scene ranges across a scale of 15 tonal steps, from 0 in the total black of a deep shadow to 15 in the total white of a woman’s white dress in the full sunlight. A camera’s light-capturing ability, however, might extend across only 10 steps, which means that it can capture only one extreme or the other, but not both at the same time.

The HDR technique manages to cover the full breadth of this wider range of tonal values by merging several images, each made at a different exposure. In the case of this app, three exposures – light, medium, and dark – are made of the subject and these are then “fused” together, a process that can take as much as 1 minute. This means, of course, that this app is not the one to use for shooting your pals at a party or making snaps of your child playing soccer or football. HDR essentially works only with static subjects such as landscapes, buildings, and street scenes.

If you look around the Web, you’ll find lots of examples of HDR photography. Many of the images are quite spectacular, with impossibly bright colors and remarkable tonal ranges. From what we could tell, HDR Photo Camera doesn’t reach the extreme heights of what’s possible in HDR photography, but it does a superb job considering it’s running on a smartphone, not a powerful desktop computer working on images shot with a professional camera rig.

Here, for example, is a shot we made with the app (that’s our foot in the foreground):

And here are the three separate exposures that the software fused to make this HDR photo. The first one captures some detail in the TV screen at the far left while the next two let that screen go completely black and reveal more detail in what’s visible through the window at far right.

More examples of photos made with this HDR software on an N8 can be seen at the Web site of the developer, Intellsys, a Brasov, Romania-based company. As you’ll see, the app can produce images that look slightly otherwordly, with skies that are unnaturally dark and color palettes that are too soft and grayish. Contrast can easily be lost, making the images look a bit dull. Such results just show that HDR is not magic, and it is certainly not be the best way to shoot every photo.

Moreover, obtaining the optimum results may require some adjusting of exposures and other parameters. And HDR Photo Camera offers a fair number knobs to twiddle, so to speak, if that’s your thing. Its Settings menu lets you adjust exposure times, image quality, and three advanced settings: contrast, saturation, and “exposedness.” We admit, we did not try out all of these to see what effect they have on final images, but the app’s Help screen, available by tapping on the icon showing two gears, is fairly informative, as are Intellsys’ support pages on the Web.

Some things to think about: Because this app shoots three photos and, in effect, merges them into one, it’s critical that the camera is not moved during the initial shooting. Alas, the N8 does not have a tripod mount, but we found that holding the camera as still as possible –  or even better, bracing our elbows against our legs, while sitting, or against a wall or table – produced good photos nonetheless.  In a night-shooting situation, though, hand-held HDR photography might be a challenge. (Perhaps, it occurs to us, one could strap the camera’s flat body to a standard tripod with a good-sized rubber band.)

Here, for fun, is another HDR image we shot with our N8:

Granted, it’s not the most exciting photo ever made, but notice that the sky shows some late-in-the-day color and that there is lots of detail in the parking areas to the right. Now, check out the normal, undoctored photo that the N8 makes of this same scene, which lacks those details:

In this case, we might actually choose the “straight” photo as the one that captures the light of the moment most accurately. But chances are, with some tweaking of the HDR app’s controls, we’d be able to produce an even better HDR image than the one we show here, which we made in a jiffy using the app’s normal settings.

Be aware that this app does soak up CPU cycles in your phone, and memory, too. To keep it from choking the N8, Intellsys limits the size of photos it can handle – but only a little. The firm also recommends shutting down other apps in the phone while engaging in HDR processing. And it offers the option of handing off the three preliminary images for fusing on a desktop PC, with more processing oomph. This requires a pieces of software that the company has said it will make available in early 2011 – any minute now, in other words. This approach strikes us a good idea for handling the CPU-intensive image-fusing process, although it does mean you can’t see the results until you get home from shooting out there in the big bad world.

There you have it, HDR Photo Camera, a piece of software that will keep your N8 seriously busy but also producing some striking images that are not possible otherwise. If you’ve got any interest in photography, this is definitely an app you’ll want to try out. (In the name of completeness, we must note that another app recently reviewed in this blog – Harald Meyer’s Camera Pro for N8 – also includes HDR functionality in its broad menu of features.)

HDR Photo Camera is available in Ovi Store for $9.99 (USD).