Play poker long enough and the cards themselves will fray, bend, and smell of solidified salsa. But the Bold Poker ($2) app shakes up the game by letting you and your buddies use iPhones instead of cards. An iPad serves as the dealer in the center of the table, while each player checks out his hand with his phone or iPod Touch. Grab an electronic cigar and you’ll be all set.
Undoubtedly you’ve lost your keys a few times in your life. Heck, we’ve lost your keys. But if you’re the owner of an iPhone 4S or iPad 3, you can kill that cruddy tradition with the Hone ($40), a Bluetooth accessory for your keychain that lights up and loudly vibrates to let you, ahem, home in on their whereabouts. It runs for six months on its included battery and it has a 150+ foot range. Oh by the way, we’ve also lost your remote control, luggage, and virginity. Twice.
Back in the day, we had to hear about the crappy music our friends liked directly from their faces. With Spotify, that entire process has been streamlined. Spotify updates via Facebook made us quite aware of which soon-to-be-unfriended friend was currently listening to Katy Perry or her aural equivalents (Smooth Sounds of Strangled Geese, for example). Now iPad users can take part in the conspiracy with the Spotify iPad App. The iPad offers an array of features and choices, including the ability to mirror Spotify to your TV, gapless playback/crossfading, and it plays this thing called “music”. The app also lets you follow an artist, to a similar artist, to a side project, and back again using the iPad’s swipe thingy. Spotify: it’s Pandora on ‘roids.
The Ides of March (Madness) are upon us. Time to make your brackets, place your bets, assassinate Julius Caesar, and pick up the NCAA March Madness Live app. The free app gives you access to radio streams of all the games and a number of social features; you can receive every tweet from only the most well spoken and articulate NCAA followers (not guaranteed). For a paltry fee of $3.99, you receive the deluxe premium package that allows live streaming to your phone. Now you can receive real time updates on how poorly you constructed your bracket.
Long ago it became cool for men to worship bacon–that’s nothing new. These days, however, if you wanna impress the hairy heteros at your local hangout, you can’t just polish off a pack of pork a week and expect a hero’s welcome. Win the superficial support of your friends by making your own with “The Better Bacon Book” ($5), the iPad-exclusive how-to guide to preparing, curing, slicing and frying your favorite meat. We’re gonna assume you can handle the eating part on your own. Tom Mylan, executive butcher at The Meat Hook in Brooklyn, takes you through 20 instructional videos, which is 19 more than we ever thought we’d see in our lifetime but 20 more than Tom probably thought he was getting paid for. You’ll also get bacon-loaded recipes from top restaurants and bars, like bacon jam and rye whiskey and bacon. Hey, what do guys think about this one: A bacon cheeseburger?! Take a few minutes to wrap your head around that concept.