Our Rating: 8.1/10

[Screenshots]

Version Reviewed: 1.2.1
Developer: Readdle [iTunes Link]
Price as of Review: $4.99
Current iTunes Rating: 3.5/5
Size: 3.8MB

PDF Expert is a very professional PDF document reader though it mutli-functions as a small wireless harddrive, and other document readers.  Unlike other PDF reading or eBook applications such as Stanza [iTunes Link], PDF Experts allows for nearly full support on PDF’s.  This means that you can read a PDF and it will look almost exactly like it would on your computer, I mean, on a 3.5″ screen of course.  Although you can pan, pinch to zoom in and double tap to focus using the iPhone’s multi-touch capabilities.

The interface is extraordinarly simple, but very effective.  PDF Expert acts as a thumbdrive, you can place your PDF’s or other files on your iPhone via wi-fi or your free 512MB of storage on Readdle. When reading you can create bookmarks, search the document, read the entire table of contents, send the document to a friend and even rotate your device to landscape mode and read in a different orientation.  If you get interrupted and leave the app it will save your reading progress and open the next time.

There’s a few glitches in the app that can make for an annoying experience, a few noteworthy ones as follows:

• When double tapping to focus, it generally zooms too far and cuts off text.
• No menu in landscape mode.
• Crashing unexpectedly.

All in all PDF Expert is still an exceptional reading application, with the next update hopefully this business app will become a gem.  This one will be staying on my device.

Final Ratings:

Usefulness: 7.9/10 – Being able to read PDF’s and other documents without Internet access is a great concept.

User Interface: 8.3/10 – Pretty awesome, some glitches that knock this down some points.

Price: 7.1/10 – $4.99 is suitable.

Technology: 8.5/10 – Great job on online syncing and of course the Wi-Fi access.

Execution of Concept: 8.7/10 – Pretty good job on Readdle’s part.

Overall Rating: 8.1/10

Further Improvements:

• Fix noted glitches.
• Quick access to Table of Contents when scrolling through documents
• Ability to search titles and contents when scrolling through documents.
• Access to popular online office web apps such as Google Docs and Zoho

Screenshots of PDF Expert on the iPhone App Reviewer Flickr Page.

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Our Rating: 7.5/10

[Screenshots]

Version Reviewed: 1.0
Developer: Readdle [iTunes Link]
Price as of Review: $0.99 (On Sale)
Current iTunes Rating: 2.5/5
Size: 3.8MB

Penetrator is a flight obstacle avoidance game similar to the iPhone hit iCopter [iTunes Link].  The goal is to get as far through the tunnel as possible without hitting the boundaries of the tunnel or obstacles in between.  To control your vehicle simply tap the screen to fly upwards (gravity pulls your plane down towards the boundaries).  Along the way you’ll encounter many power ups that will benefit or destroy you. Penetrator contains three difficulty levels (two and three needing to be unlocked) so this app provides an addicting challenge.

The game itself is pretty small – there isn’t much to do, in fact without the addictive gameplay many would probably delete this application the day after purchasing.  The app is extremely quick to load and gives you a great pick up and play paradigm.  This allows you to just get right in the game, an since a game can take mere minutes – even seconds, fueling your addiction.  To motivate you, there’s a local high score board – which unfortunately is only local, no online mode to compete against others.  Given that this app has been created by the programming gods at Readdle, an online high score board should probably be implemented soon.  No guarantees of course.

Penetrator’s graphics provide a perfect arcade style, it sets the theme for a ship going through some sort of tunnel.  Everything is at the perfect resolution and is really detailed.  Each level will provide a refreshing new background (was excited about the new stuff that came in Level 2 when I finally beat Level 1).  There isn’t much sound in Penetrator, a few sound effects and no background music.  You’re able to double tap the home button to play your own music without the app crashing so it’s still acceptable.

All in all, if you’re a fan of iCopter you’ll definitely like Penetrator for a refreshing new change that’s a little more challenging than the iCopter series.  $0.99 is the perfect price but unfortunately this is only a sale selling point, I wouldn’t pay much more for it.

Final Ratings:

Gameplay: 8/10 – Short. Sweet. Awesome.

Enjoyment: 7/10 – Can’t complain – awesome pick up and play game.

Graphics: 8/10 – Sets a great theme.

Sound: 6/10 – Nothing annoying, unfortunately lacking.

Technology: 8.5/10 – No stability problems or glitches.  Online scoreboard would be nice.

Replay Value: 7.6/10 – Fairly addicting.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

Further Improvements:

• Online leaderboard
• More levels
• More power-ups
• New gameplay modes

More screenshots of Penetrator on iPhone App Reviewer’s Flickr Page.

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Our Rating: 8.2/10 Thumbs Up! [Screenshots]

Version Reviewed: 1.5.2
Developer: Readdle
Price as of Review: $4.99
Current iTunes Rating: 3.5/5
Size: 2.9MB

If you want to take your files to go with you on the iPhone, Readdledocs pretty much eliminates all other competition.  With a large assorted variety of ways to sync files Readdledocs can manipulate and organize files on any platform, and anywhere.  You’ll need an Internet connection to sync and even download files, but after that, your files will be on your iPhone’s harddrive wherever.  Need to back them up?  You can copy them to your computer just like you would with a normal folder (using the iPhone’s wi-fi disk feature) and even sync them to the 512MB storage space Readdle provides for free.

With Readdledoc’s abundance of settings, it’s sure to get the job done right.  The files can be stored with a complete file hierarchy and any format can be saved (though not every format can be read).  It can be used as a PDF reader and then email them to co-workers and friends.  Readdledocs uses the standard way to read things, panning and pinching to scroll around the file.   Unlike most apps, even when viewing a large file Readdledocs does not slow down, and even if it does crash, it’s saved for later!

Unfortunately this isn’t an all-in-one office app; it lacks the ability to edit and write to files.  Basically the concept of Readdledocs is to retrieve files from anywhere, anyway, and to read them wherever.  The execution of the concept was simply brilliant, the programmers over at Readdle are doing a fantastic job, really showing off the iPhone’s capabilities as a replacement to your Palm Handheld or Crackberry.  The user interface is smooth and stable.  Now we just have to wait for an update and hopefully they’ll add some new features – perhaps something with the 3.0 features?  Only time will tell.

Final Ratings:

Usefulness: 8/10 – Until the concept is expanded to a complete documents app, it’s only good for reading files.  Readdle will definitely do a great job on anything they expand the app to.

User Interface: 9/10  – I come across the odd glitch but the user interface is nearly as good as BeejiveIM

Price: 6/10 – Office apps are usually expensive, this one doesn’t break that paradigm, but it could…

Technology: 8.2/10  – Great so far but I can think of more features

Execution of Concept: 9.6/10 – Readdle’s developers are some of the best I’ve seen.  Bravo.

Overall Rating: 8.2/10

Further Improvements: (Note to the developer!)

• Background Running – How about an alert popup when a new file is ready to sync?
• File editing!!
• Basic image editing.
• Fix some glitches – mainly performance with network drives.
• Display settings for those reading an eBook or long documents.
• Monospaced formatting for shared code.

More screenshots here!

Other reviews on Readdledocs for the iPhone and iPod Touch:

• Readdledocs review on iPhone World
• Readdledocs review on The iPhone Blog
• Readdledocs review on Mac Life
• Readdledocs review on The iPhone App Blog

Why does iPhone App Reviewer link to other reviewing sites?  Because if you’re not 100% satisfied with the quality of our review, then we encourage you to go elsewhere.  The point of iPhone App Reviewer is to give you an honest, open opinion of the application.

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