There’s a new website called “Free App A Day” that has something new and free every day for your iPhone.

Unlike other sites that just promote what is already free, the “Free App A Day” site apparently requires developers to submit their application for the daily giveaway. Plus the website has a decent criteria for featuring an application. The rules say that… “applications must be polished apps to be promoted by FreeAppADay.com… needs to have at least 3 stars with at least 20 reviews from users… [and] always a plus if your application was reviewed by other iPhone websites or featured by Apple.”

Not bad!

The applications are only featured for 24 hours, so if you see something you like, grab it before the price jumps back to what it was before.

Here’s the link to the “Free App A Day” website and here’s a link explaining who they are and their mission statement.

TL;DR version : Voltron was fun, but overpriced and a bit too repetitive for my tastes.

Long version : I just got around to getting some games on the iPhone, and one of the recent ones I picked up was “Voltron : Defender of the Universe”

The game really is fun… for awhile. The controls for the game are overlaid NE, NW, SW and SE buttons and there’s also a missile button, a special attack button, and a “swipe” button. The cutscenes are actual clips from the original cartoon, and there’s a real kick in being one of the main lions, running around defending planet Alura from bad guys.

Voltron 02

You have unlimited missiles and each lion has a special attack to use. And after every lion completes their mission, you are treated to a cutscene of  Voltron forming just like the original cartoon series had. Then you get to be Voltron and stomp all over that level’s Robeast. The game even stays true to the original cartoon storyline with the Robeast sequence and Voltron’s semi-evolution.

But the whole game gets repetitive real fast.

There’s no real change in being any of the lions. Each level has you a one of the lions needing to fulfill a particular task and then get to a “finish” marker, but the levels can be beaten by just racing to the finish marker most of the time.

Although you have unlimited missiles, they often fly off target and completely miss who you were shooting at. You can “swat” away enemy missiles and bad guys and can beat just about everyone without firing a shot, but you better be facing the right direction at the right angle or otherwise the “swat” won’t work and your lion will take damage.

About midway through the game, the designers drop in a completely unnecessary tool for the bad guys… lasers from space. You can’t shoot the orbital laser ship down, and they never run out of power. They randomly target an area around your lion and fire at you. About 8 hits and you’re dead. Believe me, this gets annoying very quickly.

And then, when you are Voltron, the game turns from an overhead view to a Mortal Kombat style game. You can duck, block, strong attack, weak attack and special attack your opponent. But you can’t move anywhere. And most of the bad guys can be beat with constant button mashing.

Voltron 03

You do get awards you can post on facebook for various things you do in the game. Plus you can go back and be a robeast you have defeated in the Robeast arena later on.

The nostalgia value is great. But those damn lasers and repetitive actions make the replay value pretty near zero for me. The game is priced at $3.99, but I think it’s really worth $1.99.

Overall: 3 out of 5

Back in December, I posted an article about how Dragon Dictation, made by Nuance Communications for the iPhone, seemed to have a pretty serious privacy problem.

I just got around to reviewing their updated application today, and found that there is now an option NOT have every contact and name in your address book updated to their servers.

That’s a great improvement on respecting the customer’s privacy! Great job Nuance!

On their website, they say that “when you install the application, you will be presented with a screen asking you if it is OK to add your names to the vocabulary, after accepting the EULA… If you click ’NO’, Dragon will not read your address book and will not upload any names to the server. When you dictate, Dragon may have a harder time understanding phrases or sentences that contain names and spelling of names. And Dragon will not upload names in the future unless you change the settings.”

Perfect! That’s exactly what I wanted!

The “yes” part of the agreement is still what it was before…

“If you click ’YES’, ragon will read only the names from your contact list, not email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, or other personal information. Dragon will upload these names to the server, where they will be associated with the unique, anonymous 40-character device ID (UDID) from your iPhone. Whenever you dictate, Dragon will use these names to improve accuracy and spelling when you refer to friends, colleagues, etc. in your dictations. When you use Dragon, it will periodically synchronize names in your contact list to the server unless you change the Settings.”

I’m now going to try the application this weekend and see if it really does what it says it can do.

Sometimes my iPhone will refuse to “see” any WiFi connections. I’ll go to SETTINGS and choose WiFI, but no wireless networks will ever appear. I know the WiFi is good in the area because my laptop sees and connects to them, but for some reason, the iPhone doesn’t want to be nice and go out to play.

There are some times on the iPhone when I can go to GENERAL, then SETTINGS, then RESET and then choose RESET NETWORK SETTINGS. After the iPhone reboots, sometimes the WiFi comes back. Sometimes.

But when that doesn’t work, there’s one trick that always does.

I power off my iPhone. Put it in a Ziploc bag. And put the bag on the top shelf in the freezer.

About an hour or two later, I take it out and let it sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes. Then power it on.

Every single time, the WiFi works afterwards. Not kidding!

I think it has something to do with the heat the iPhone generates. I have a 1st generation iPhone, and when I play games on it or do anything fairly CPU intensive, I notice it gets pretty warm. Usually, that’s right before the WiFi goes out. I have no idea how to fix this myself, but the freezer trick works great for now!