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The iPad 2 is one of the most eagerly awaited Apple announcements coming up this year. Most predictions place its arrival sometime in the next few months. If you’re like me, you already own a first generation iPad and will soon be faced with a very big decision of whether or not to upgrade.

I’m considering selling my iPad on Ebay when the 2nd generation model comes out to help cover the cost of the new one, which will inevitably contain multiple features that I simply can’t live without despite being perfectly happy before I knew they existed. I’m sure several of you will either follow suit or be perfectly happy to own both models!

Many discerning customers however have been patient and chose to wait for the second model before purchasing their first iPad, others are completely apathetic about the device and make no plans to purchase. Today, we want to know where you fall. Do you own an iPad yet? Regardless of the answer to that question, will you be purchasing an iPad 2?

Once you cast your vote on the right, leave a comment below and let us know your logic. If you’re waiting for the second version, tell us why you passed on the first. If you’re not interested, leave a comment about why the iPad just isn’t for you.

We’re back with another roundup of great new titles on the App Store!

We love your suggestions for upcoming titles, so keep them coming while you browse over this week’s picks…

Supastar

Supastar

Here’s an odd one. Supastar is probably one of the most valuable apps you’ll ever spend money on — I mean that literally: the amount of content stuffed into this single-dollar app is nothing short of incredible. There are no fewer than 6 individual full games to be had in here and there are more than 15 different challenge types on top of that too.

This variety makes it hard to describe, but essentially the title is a collection of minigames that are centred around a cute character called Supastar. Each of the games feels solidly crafted and shows a good attention to detail and balance. The downside is that they’re all also fairly familiar…Asteroid Jump is a lot like Doodle Jump, etc. That being said, each has been tweaked to give it a unique personality and you may actually find yourself preferring the Supastar versions.

With the sheer quantity of gameplay in here, Supastar would be easy to recommend even if it wasn’t as tightly polished and charismatic as it is. With all things considered, it’s a no-brainer.

Price: $0.99
Developer: eBatallion
Download: App Store

Dark Break

Dark Break

On the darker side of things, we find Winking Entertainment’s intriguing 3D shooter, Dark Break. Somewhere between an on-rails shooter and a flying game, Dark Break is a solid combination of several Eastern action RPG elements.

Gameplay is controlled via accelerometer input, touch, or onscreen joystick, and the primary goal is to make your way through each level and defeat the numerous enemies. The story is delivered through a series of extremely well-illustrated on-screen graphic novel panels, and especially on the retina display you’ll want to spend time admiring all the detailed artwork.

Though the style may not appeal to everyone, those who appreciate this type of game will find it engaging, and the quality of the art and sounds helps seal the deal.

Price: $0.99
Developer: Winking Entertainment Corporation
Download: App Store

Treasure Seekers 2: The Enchanted Canvases

Treasure Seekers 2: The Enchanted Canvases

Treasure Seekers 2: The Enchanted Canvases is one of the better hidden object games in recent memory. As per usual, the storyline is fanciful. In this case, involves saving your brother from imprisonment in a large Romanian castle by traveling through its magical paintings (Castlevania, anyone? Or even Mario 64?) to progress.

Treasure Seekers 2 sets itself apart with sleek and seamlessly integrated animations, beautifully layered motion elements in each scene, and an exquisite level of detail in the artwork. Played with headphones to best appreciate the excellent music and sound design, it’s one of the most immersive games on the platform. The developers have also kindly provided two difficulty levels, one casual and one advanced, to cater to all kinds of players.

If you haven’t yet tried a hidden object game but are curious about them, do yourself a favour and pick Treasure Seekers 2 as a starting point. If you’re already a genre fanatic then you’re probably halfway to the App Store by now.

Price: $4.99
Developer: G5 Entertainment
Download: App Store

Flying Hamster

Flying Hamster

Prepare yourselves. Every once in a while a game comes along that’s so charming and well produced that it wins over all who try it. Flying Hamster is the latest entry in this small list of titles. Like Cut The Rope and others before it, Flying Hamster wins you over from the moment it launches with a hilarious little note about buying games. From there, the opening cutscene introduces the premise: your hamster buddy has been carried off by an evil bird and it’s up to you to fly to the rescue!

Gameplay couldn’t be simpler to pick up, which is always a good thing. You control your hamster avatar by touching the screen to move up, down, slower, and faster. As you fly, you press a button to inhale and then let go to spit out projectiles. Inhaling nothing but air will give you the basic small projectiles, but sucking up everything from seeds to bee hives to juice will grant you all sorts of interesting firing patterns and weapons. It feels a bit like a cross between Kirby and your favourite space shooter, in fact, and the combination works surprisingly well.

There’s a hard mode that you can unlock if you become addicted (it’s only a matter of time), and an extensive list of achievements, leaderboards, and absolutely spectacular art design will keep you coming back either way. Well worth the premium price tag.

Price: $5.99
Developer: Game Atelier
Download: App Store

The Blocks Cometh

The Blocks Cometh

It’s been a while since we’ve featured a retro game, so let’s fix the problem by mentioning The Blocks Cometh. This port of a popular web game has made a very good transition to the iOS platform, offering addictive and challenging gameplay wrapped in a familiar 8-bit inspired aesthetic.

There isn’t a whole lot to the gameplay really, your goal is simply to make your way as high as possible on a tower of blocks as more and more fall and pile up around you. You are able to slash at and destroy them if they get too close, and you can jump around to avoid being crushed, but once you get past the beginning the game becomes very challenging. Never unfair though, which keeps it from getting frustrating.

Compete for highscores through either the Game Center or OpenFeint, and then share them on Twitter or Facebook with your friends!

Price: $0.99
Developer: EdisonGame
Download: App Store

What Have You Been Playing?

If you’re somewhere where the snow’s still falling, then you’ve no doubt got some extra time on your hands to enjoy these fine games. If there are others that have been keeping your attention, then give them a mention in the comments!

In this Quick Look, we’re highlighting Further Beyond Fighting. The developer describes Further Beyond Fighting as following: Battle your favorite 3D characters from 4 different venues in Further Beyond Fighting. The fast, exciting gameplay, detailed graphics and super-charged fighting action is enough to make your iPhone rumble whenever you’re injured.

Enter the arena – Face to face with your enemy! Match your skills against 3 difficulty levels and see if you can survive long enough to make it to the leaderboards.

Read on for more information and screenshots!

Screenshots

Further Beyond Fighting

About the App

Here are the top five features you can expect to see in the latest version:

• Entire game is completely 3D
• 8 ‘punchy’ characters
• 4 game modes: Arcade, VS, Survival, Training
• Individual moves for each character?: Make up to 8-hit combos – freely combine punches, kicks, special kicks, defense moves, dodging and smashing
• Online high scores

Requirements: iOS 3.0 or later
Price: $1.99
Developer: PJS-Coding, S.L.

Vote for a Review

Would you like to see us write a full review of Further Beyond Fighting? Have your say in our poll:

Would you like to see Further Beyond Fighting reviewed in-depth on AppStorm?customer surveys

Quick Look posts are paid submissions offering only a brief overview of an app. Vote in the poll if you think this app is worth an in-depth AppStorm review! If you’re a developer and would like to have your app profiled, you can submit it here.

We all have a favourite News source. One that appeals to our political sensibilities, our sense of what is important, or simply our desire for readability. The most discerning of us probably check at least one more source (even if it is The Onion) and this can be a pain, requiring you to open a variety of Apps or, heaven forbid, a site on mobile safari…

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was an App that could amalgamate all your favourite News sources and present them to you in a supremely accessible form? ‘Yes’, I hear you say, ‘but it would have to be brilliant for me to actually change the way I get my news…’

I’ve got an App you might like. It’s called Pulse News Mini.

Design & Interface

It’s worth prefacing this review with a reminder that Pulse is free, includes no adds, and appears to want the best for you. The overall design of Pulse is great and immediately made an impact. It uses greys extremely effectively to frame each news source while highlighting the design with a very complimentary light blue colour. It’s use of photographs to make up the bulk of its visual content is excellent and grabs your attention every time you open the App.

Pulse

Pulse’s interface is based on a layout used by several other news Apps (notably BBC News) but this is far from a criticism! Laying out the interface with three sources vertically, and three stories horizontally, is the best approach to mobile news that I have seen. Pulse has its priorities correct and fits in as much content as it possibly can – only keeping a small header for itself. Its icons are clear and intuitive while I must admit I like the simple nature of the Pulse logo – displayed in lower case and in a colour that works brilliantly with the chosen grey neutrals.

Your News

Adding Your Favourite Sources

Pulse quickly and easily guides you through the process of adding and organising your favourite news sources using its tips section and an array of quirky sketches! It’s a good touch and much more enjoyable than being left to figure the App out on your own (not that it would be particularly difficult).

Pulse Tips

It’s definitely worth reading through the tips in order to get the most out of Pulse!

You can edit the existing sources and add new ones by touching the setting icon in the top left corner and hitting the + – or you can quickly jump to adding new sources by scrolling to the bottom of your feeds and pressing the footer bar. Either of these options take you to a window that gives you a variety of options for adding new sources, including:

• Featured
• Categories
• Search
• Reader (Google)
• Bump

Featured Sources

The Featured sources are chosen by Pulse and selected due to their popularity and because they will display perfectly within the App. To find a specific source, you can search by keyword, user name, or url. Pulse attempts to keep ahead of the competition by including several crossover features including integration with Google Reader and the ability to use Bump to share your sources with a friend.

Google Reader and Bump

This Is The News

Now for the actual functionality of the App, does it make reading the news and keeping up with your RSS feeds easier?

For reading Pulse’s featured news sources it works really quite well. The photos are shown on the home screen and selecting a story takes you to version of the feed nicely formatted by Pulse. If you like you can select the story heading at the top to take you to the site/blog itself, which is then shown as formatted for mobile safari but from within Pulse.

TechCrunch

The slight problems begin to crop up when trying to view sources not on Pulse’s featured list. Even with a source such as the BBC, Pulse often struggles to find the photos to go with the stories – marring the beautiful potential of the home screen. Even worse however, is that Pulse often only displays the very first paragraph of a story and requires you to open the mobile (or heaven forbid full-size) version of the story to read the rest! It is also unfortunate that there are a lot of sources (including many major ones) that fall in this category.

BBC News

I’d love to say that these criticisms are minor and don’t really affect the experience of using Pulse but they really do! It’s frustrating to read a BBC news story awkwardly within pulse when the experience is so much better when using the BBC’s native App. The redeeming fact is that pulse is new to the game and does look great when everything’s working smoothly, over time the amalgamation of information from the vast array of news sources may significantly improve but for now there are shortcomings.

If you own an iPad, check out the original Pulse News Reader. The experience really is much better on the big screen!

Final Thoughts

It must be said that I just can’t fault Pulse’s interface design, but it does have some problems when it comes down to pure functionality. I really want to have Pulse as my sole source for news and articles but it isn’t currently in a position to completely outdo the competition.

If the idea of having all your sources in one location appeals to you then certainly don’t hesitate to take Pulse out for a try, you may find it works beautifully with all your favourite sources, but it hasn’t quite done enough to take the top spot for me!