Internet radio has been an App Store staple ever since it first debuted two years ago, sparked by the huge success of Pandora’s free app. Ever since, thousands of internet radio apps have come out. So why review another new internet radio app?

Because this one has a lot going for it. It’s called Livio Car Radio, and after using it for a few days it’s found its way to the front of my app selection. There are some extra features in Livio’s app that help enhance your experience:

• Variety of stations: Over 42,000 AM/FM stations as well as internet-only streams with RadioTime
• Optimized for vehicle use
• Background listening: port your station into Safari so you can listen while using other apps on the iPhone
• Direct Tune: If you can’t find your favorite station, Direct Tune lets you put in a unique code or address to begin streaming that station
• Find local stations based on current GPS location
• When searching for a specific station or song, the listing will show the program or song currently being played on that station
• Find plenty of podcasts

At first I had a hard time getting used to the user interface, but as soon as I dedicated a few minutes of my time to actually learning it I found it to be a rather easy experience. Sure, it still has its share of UI quirks, but not more than any other internet radio app out there.

The issue I’ve always had with internet radio apps on the iPhone is that there never seems to be one that does EVERYTHING I need it to do for me; but to be honest the Livio app is the closest I’ve found that gets me all of my podcasts, specific radio stations, and particular programs that I always enjoy listening to, all on the same app.

My favorite part of the app was the fact that I can port my current station over to Safari so that I can multitask — be able to send emails and listen to my podcasts at the same time. This to me is a necessity for any app of this category, and Livio nailed it.

Be sure to check out the Livio Car Radio app on the iPhone. The app typically is available for $4.99, though it is on sale for Memorial Day weekend for $1.99 until midnight Monday.

Here is a press release giving a few details on the app:

Many of us with cars will be travelling somewhere for the weekend. We all know how painful it can be to find a good radio station, only to have it fade out as we drive out of the tower’s range or how difficult it is to find a station playing the genre of music I enjoy.

This is where the Livio Car Internet Radio app comes in. The app provides access to over 42,000 AM/FM and internet-only radio streams from around the world, covering all genres of music and news.  Just browse and choose the genre of your choice to tune in to any one of a wide variety of broadcast stations, or just swipe your finger to find a recommended station of a similar genre.

Here are a few of the feature highlights:

- Optimized for the Vehicle: Designed for use in the car, with large preset buttons and horizontal or vertical positioning.

- Biggest Variety: More than 42,000 AM/FM and Internet-only radio streams from around the world in partnership with the RadioTime® radio service.

- Direct Tune: Input a radio station’s unique code to begin streaming the broadcast.

- Easy Search Options: Browse available stations by genre, location, or language, and search by station call letters or keywords. Find local stations based on current GPS location.

- Station Recommendation: Swipe a finger across the on-screen dial and the app will tune to a station of a similar genre.

- Listen in the Background: Stream music in the background on the iPhone while using other applications (via Safari).

- Share with Friends: Post favorite stations for your Twitter followers.

Chances are, you know what TD is all about. You build towers that have different types of attack powers to any enemies that may walk past you, and the more enemy kills you have the more towers you can build and upgrade to higher powers. Slug Wars, in contrast, is a side-scrolling game in which your “towers” are actually slugs.

There’s three lanes that your slugs can enter on. Your slugs come in from the right, your opponent comes in from the left. The goal is to get three of your slugs all the way over to the far left side before your opponent can get three of theirs to your side of the screen. Each type of slug has different attack powers, so there is definitely some strategy involved in exactly how you can overwhelm your opponent and push them back far enough to get your slugs through the left side.

I found Slug Wars to be an enjoyable game, and I was entertained throughout the whole experience. I was, however, concerned that since it involves slugs, the gameplay itself turned out to be rather slow. I kept hoping the slugs would start crawling faster, attacking faster, etc. It also lacks multiplayer over WiFi or 3G, which I’m hoping will be resolved in a future update.

Overall, I found the $1.99 price tag to be fair given the level of gameplay, entertainment value and challenge. It’s certainly worth a look, so go grab it at the App Store or click on the button below.

Check out the teaser site here, but all that’s there is a large graphic and this preview video, as seen below:

As usual, no real word on release timeframe or price, if any.

Super Monkey Ball (SMB) became so popular on the iPhone, in fact, that it generated massive amounts of revenue through App Store sales and ended up becoming one of the first apps to spark a “Gold Rush” for thousands upon thousands of developers to try their hands at making a fortune as well.

So if the first one is so successful, why not come out with another one? I was fortunate to receive a copy of the game and had the opportunity to play it.

I have played SMB on the Wii and also tried the original game on the iPhone. When the original came out, I found it rather difficult to get adjusted to the accelerometer in such a way that I didn’t roll off the edge of the level within a couple seconds of starting it. The original game was a little too sensitive for my taste. Some people also reported major bugs that caused the game to crash. My biggest worry about the sequel was that I would have same problem with the accelerometer, not to mention some other random bugginess, that the original game had. Fortunately my worries went away after playing the first couple levels.

The game itself is very smooth to operate. No glitches have been encountered, and the accelerometer controls have proven to be easy and fun.

SMB2 GamePlay Options:

Single Player campaign

Some SMB games on major video game consoles have a single player campaign with a story, where at the end of each world you are required to fight that world’s boss. I couldn’t find any relevant story to this particular version of the game; I got through the first two worlds and have just determined the only goal is to unlock the remainder of the worlds as you go along.

With that said, the concept and feel of the campaign is precisely the same as just about every other version in existence: you roll down each level trying to pick up as many bananas as possible and not roll off the edge of the level. Thing is, though, we don’t play SMB for any other reason besides the mini-games, which I’ll get into in a moment. If the levels played any other way, the game would no longer be Super Monkey Ball. So there’s no shocker there.

I found the levels to be pretty easy to navigate around with my iPhone, given the natural abilities of the built-in accelerometer. I’ve also played SMB on the Wii and it was roughly the same concept, but the iPhone is just very simple to play on because all you have to do is tilt your phone in the direction you want to go, and move up or down to accelerate/brake.

The campaign, if you’re at about my skill level, will guarantee a long amount of playtime. The first world has 20 levels (in comparison, the whole game has 115), and it took me around 2.5 hours to complete it.

Multiplayer over wifi

The game gives you the opportunity to play multiplayer with other iPhone users — up to 3 others — on the same WiFi network as you. Basically you race each other through the various levels that have already been unlocked.

Minigames

If all 3 minigames were available, this would likely be a great feature. As of this writing there is only one minigame available, Monkey Bowling. It does provide some good entertainment, but does get old after a while. The other two minigames (Monkey Target and Monkey Golf) are “coming soon”, according to the game’s menu; likely we’ll see a future update that enables these games sometime in the coming months.

It makes me wonder if Sega’s strategy in this was to spend more time on the main campaign, get the game released, and then work on the minigames while it takes most users a couple weeks to finish the campaign. Whether this is true or not, the one minigame included is decent enough for a few entertaining tries, but certainly will not be the reason most people buy SMB2.

Currently Super Monkey Ball 2 is available for $4.99 at this writing, which is half the price it was introduced at. For $10 it would’ve been an okay purchase, but for $5 this game is definitely a must have.  Have you played it? What have your experiences been like?

Several new apps featuring voice input have been popping up in the App Store recently. Dragon Dictation is one such example, allowing the user to speak their texts or emails instead of bothering to write them. The same goes with Google and Bing apps that enable voice search.

So for the life of me I can’t understand why I haven’t seen any games (such as trivia games) integrate this into their apps yet. In theory it seems like it would be easy enough. Let’s say, for instance, you are writing a trivia game for the iPhone that uses answers besides multiple choice. It seems as though the only way to input answers right now is to use the keyboard and type it out, which would take too long and cause the game to go much slower. But wouldn’t it be much nicer and easier to just speak the answers as if you’re playing a live game show?

My only guess is that it’s harder to come up with this feature than meets the eye. Perhaps the problem lies in producing a certain API that a developer can use to enable smart voice input, much like Dragon. But once somebody develops an API for it, I assume it would be a huge moneymaker for them as they sell it to countless devs out there wanting to integrate that feature into every type of app imaginable.

Let me hear your thoughts on this. Am I off my rocker, or is this a legitimate concept that would add yet another level of sophistication to the iPhone user experience?

This just barely came down the pipeline, folks — looks like the game you’ve all been waiting for, FIFA 10 by EA Mobile, has just become available for sale in the App Store for $9.99. Go ahead and download it now!

At the end of August we will have another iPhone app for children; this one in particular is called “Farm Friends” and very closely resembles a See and Say toy.

According to the press release, Farm Friends is a clever twist on the popular toy. Tap the arrow and the spinner spins, but which animal will it choose? When the spinner lands on one of the eight different barnyard animals, the animal makes a humorous noise.

The app is made by Clever Twist in conjunction with DDH Software.No price has been announced but I don’t see it being any more than 99 cents.

Courtesy PitchEngine

The biggest advice that Myst has to offer when downloading is to make sure you have 1.5 GB free space on the iPhone before the process begins. It’s going to take a lot of space, so be sure you can handle it!

So it certainly is one of the more creative names we’ve heard. But according to its website, a new music tuner app is coming soon to the App Store, called Tuna Pitch.

Essentially Tuna Pitch acts as a pitch pipe and chromatic tuner combo.

On the site it lists a few features the app can do. Check it out:

• Chromatic tuner that can detect any pitch from 40 Hz to 2 kHz, or notes from E1 to B6.
• Uses the built-in microphone, line-in, or headset on your device.
• Select from 8 different notation systems (letter notes and solfège).
• Pitch pipes that can play tones for tuning by ear.
• Select from 10 different instrument tunings and 4 different waveform tones for the pitch pipe.
• Level meter shows you decibel levels of incoming audio.
• Target-style display shows not only whether you’re flat or sharp, but also how confident the tuner is of the results.
• Accuracy of ±0.1 cent (100 cents = 1 semitone) and of ±0.1 hertz.
• Tuner displays the note name, detected audio frequency, and percent and cents out of tune.
• Customizable A4 (middle A, normally 440 Hz) from 400 Hz to 500 Hz in 0.05 Hz increments.
• Twelve-tone equal temperament tuning.
• Supports upside-down display rotation.
• Real-world tested on pianos, guitars, and other stringed instruments.

Sounds like a real mouthful, and also seems to combine a whole bunch of music-related apps into one. Needless to say, I’m a bit anxious to check this one out.

Potential beta testers: beta testing appears to be closed, but check out this blog post and comment to it in case they open it up again.