Cubix is an app that delivers the Rubik’s Cube to your iPhone. Solving a Rubik’s cube can be seen as a hobby, sport, or art depending on how good you are at solving them. Whatever you call it, seeing the jumble of colors on a mixed up cube transform into that "clean solve" (Rubik’s enthusiast slang for getting all the colors matched), is a wholly satisfying experience, whether real or digital.
Features
Touch a layer and move your finger in the desired direction to make a turn. Swipe outside the cube to turn the whole thing. This seemed like a better solution than icons or buttons to handle rotating a 3D object.
The timer at the bottom of the screen reminds you exactly how long you’ve been twisting and turning the cube. Whether this is a point of pride or of shame depends on your skill.
- Local and Global High Scores
See all the scores you’ve logged on your phone, as well as the top 25 solvers around the world.
Breakdown
The Good:
Rubik’s cubes have long brought people together through their “can YOU solve it?” appeal. This app is no exception to that. I have to admit that to feel like I was getting the full experience from this app, I had to solve the cube. To do that, I had to enlist my younger brother’s help - he’s absurdly good with these things. We worked together via videochat to solve the one on my phone, and it reminded me of the coaching he used to give me back when we lived together.
Aside from my skills or lack thereof, the app has a simplistic menu and interface that gives you the options you need, and then gets out of the way. I found this appealing, and I was glad the developer didn’t choose to include extra features that might either raise the price point or distract from the main reason I downloaded the app - the cube!
The Bad:
Unfortunately, the controls are sort of clunky. Since the target zones on each layer are so close together, it’s easy to make a move other than what you intended. I had to move slowly or risk making missteps. I can’t think of how else they might have implemented the controls, so I think it may just be that an electronic Rubik’s cube just can’t match the speed or accuracy of the real thing. I get the sense that my virtuoso brother would get incredibly frustrated trying to slow himself down to accommodate the app.
Including scoreboards was a good idea, but they seem to not be fully implemented. Only the top 25 global scores are available, which to me defeats the purpose of a leaderboard (which is to see where I stand compared to others).
Finally, the graphics on the cube itself seemed to be a little rough around the edges. Strangely enough, while the rear edges appeared serrated like a knife, the squares toward the foreground actually looked a little blurry. This didn’t detract from the gameplay, and most importantly there was no graphical slowdown. However, I still feel like going the extra yard for that little extra bit of polish is worth it, especially for an app as simple as this.
Verdict
All in all, the app works. It’s a Rubik’s cube, and I love those. It’s on my iPhone, and I love that. That said, the controls are limiting enough that I would prefer a real cube over this app any day. Since it’s cheap, I would go ahead and recommend it for the “hey, look what I’ve got on MY phone” effect. It might also work well for people who aren’t pros with a cube - if you’re not making turns at light speed, the app will probably suit you just fine. I look forward to seeing if an updated control scheme vastly improves the usability of this app.
