A couple of months ago, I stumbled across the iPhone section at Dealmac.com.  At least once a week, they have an article that lists apps in the AppStore that used to be paid but had reduced their price to free.  Follow the link, setup an account, and tell it to mail you any time there’s a new posting in that section with the word “free” in it.  More often than not, the stuff that’s been put into that category is not so great.

So, I decided to put together some reviews of the stuff I’ve downloaded and if I found them to be worth its regular price or not even worth it if they left the price at free.  With my hectic schedule, I can’t promise I’ll get these reviews to you in time to get the apps while they’re still free.  Most are only free for that day, some only for a few hours (which is why I have it send me the e-mail alert).  But, hopefully, I’ll be able to steer you away from apps that now cost money that I wouldn’t pay for.  So, let’s get started!

Philosoraptor

A static drawing of a velociraptor dispenses random snippets of “wisdom”.  Some are humerous, some are stupid, some have horrible grammar and spelling (but, in fairness, the raptor does predate such concepts).  And, there aren’t a whole lot of them.  I think, in total, I’ve seen at most two dozen different sayings.  I don’t know what the original price of this app was, but I intend to delete it now that this review is over.

iTalk - Scifi Pickup Lines

Similar to Philosoraptor, a static drawing of a bulb-headed robot dispenses pickup lines that are supposed to be perfect for geeky girls at scifi conventions or movies.  iTalk adds the additional feature of being able to speak these lines in a heavily synthesized voice.  Also similar to Philosoraptor, there’s a very small number of lines (I think I counted about 12), almost all of them bad.  The screenshot shows the only one that’s even close to funny.  On the whole, if you’re having trouble picking up women, I would avoid this app.  It would only make your chances worse.

Cardstar

Man, was I hopeful for this app’s usability!  I absolutely HATE shoppers club cards.  I hate having dozens of them in my wallet, and never being able to find them. Cardstar claims to provide a solution to this by allowing you to enter the infomation about your various cards and it will present the barcode onscreen when you need it.  Their claim is that it works reasonably well with hand scanners and not at all with swipe-type scanners.  Honestly, had it worked, it would’ve probably become my most favorite app.  That spot remains unchallenged.  I tried this with four different cards at four different stores and not a one worked.  Perhaps you’ll have better results than I, but I can’t imagine how.  Since it was free, I’m going to keep it for now, and continue to try…

Tony Karakashian - iPhonetunes.net