Today's Best Apps: NewsGuru And MarcoPolo Ocean
NewsGuru by Proliphiq, Inc. (Free, 23.3 MB): This social media sourced news aggregator offers the latest events and information in an even easier to ingest format that won't clutter up your personal feeds. In other words, all of those headline and interesting article links that friends and trusted acquaintances mix in with opinions and such get shown as an easy to navigate newspaper-type collage. However, the efficiency and variety doesn't stop there as each subscription, dubbed a News Stream, isn't just a single source like RSS, it's up to 15 individual feeds, but focused on the same topic. Additionally, sources can be voted upon, further filtering the results as well as providing input about reliability to others. Lastly, if you feel so inclined, construct and curate a personalized News Stream of handpicked sources for all to utilize. Overall, the app features an easy to view and navigate image and excerpt highlighted collage-style pages, search, plus options to save articles for later and share them through your personal Twitter/Facebook feeds or email.
MarcoPolo Ocean by MarcoPolo Learning, Inc. ($2.99, 182.2 MB): Send your preschooler on an underwater adventure with this free play and puzzle game as the edutaining guide. The immersive experience first pays a visit to the coral reef, the semi-shallow ecosystem where many fish live. However, to learn more about it, the elements are washed away and your child will help rebuild the structure piece-by-piece as an interactive jigsaw puzzle, additionally being informed about key animal and plant life. Speaking of organisms, the next stage involves investigating many fish and sea mammals by placing the animal itself back together, while identifying the fins, gills, blow holes, and such before introducing several other creatures. From there, the tour moves onto ship and submersible building, going through the complex vehicles room-by-room and component-by-component. As a finishing touch, after reconstructing each item or set, the object or group is placed in the virtual ocean aquarium where kids can roam and interact freely to whatever end. The app features cartoony 2-D graphics, upbeat music and ocean sounds, five themed puzzles, no ads or external links, and a subtle as well as two-finger unlockable parental area consisting of a description, activity expansion suggestions, settings/preferences, and the privacy policy.
