Mini Reviews: Stick Click, Doodle Buddy, Take Conversation

Whether you are a stick figure that just wants to be ignored, or a fake doctor calling in to give the latest test results, the iPhone has become the place for free iPhone applications with a little ingenuity. 

Stick Click

There seems to be a new iPhone application genre emerging.  In this new iPhone application genre you are
simply told not to do something, and as you continue doing it there are more
clever and entertaining responses.  Much of
this was originally popularized by button applications that you are told not to
press, and once you continue doing it the application will continue insulting
you.  Now this function has now been
united with the iPhone developer obsession with stick figures.  Stick Click gives you a stick figure that
just stands there.  When you touch it then
the stick figure will tell you to stop. 
If you continue it will explain how much it does not like you.  Later it will hide in a box, shrink itself,
going invisible, climb the walls, sit in a chair, duplicate itself, and so
on.  This is all done while verbally
assaulting you and egging you on to continue. 
Beyond this it really does nothing else, but that is not really its
point.  Stick Click does lose interest
very quickly, but it is hard to compare it against some free iPhone
applications that you will use on a regular basis.  Instead, Entertainment iPhone applications
are really just meant to be passively amusing. 
This means that applications like Stick Click are somewhat designed to
lose interest after a short period of time, but what it does it does fairly
well.  It is a free iPhone application,
so you do not lose much by trying it out. 
It does repeat itself after only a few minutes of use, so it could
include more to at least justify the time it takes to download it and sync it
onto your iPhone.

Doodle Buddy

The iPhones' touch screen has opened up the window for
drawing applications that can work easily. 
This is also added by the ability to take screenshots of your image to
use it for an iPhone wallpaper.  Doodle
Buddy, a new free iPhone application for drawing, allows you to have a number
of different options for drawing pictures on a blank white canvas.  You have the ability to add colorful cartoon
emoticons, and even alter the backgrounds to things like blank bricks or a
beach scene.  You can do a direct save to
the Photo Album so you can use the image as an iPhone wallpaper or email the
image.  With all of these features Doodle
Buddy does not stand out too greatly except as a pretty standard and adequate iPhone
free drawing application.  You do have
the ability to draw with another user by pulling them from your Contacts List.  This is more difficult than it is worth and
is really just utilized to make it appear as though there are more features to
Doodle Buddy than there really are in any practical sense.  They did not need this as Doodle Buddy does
what it does well enough to make it casual fun.  It is never going to stand out as one of the
best of the iPhone drawing applications, but for young users and those who like
to 'doodle' quickly then Doodle Buddy will be a worthwhile free iPhone
application.  The one thing that does
detract from Doodle Buddy on top of this are advertisements that you often have
to go through when opening it up.  This
does not happen all of the time, but when it does it is a major distraction.  There is a pay 'Holiday Edition,' but the free iPhone application version is the way to go.

Fake Conversation

The iPhone has been a main source for software developers
who have strange ideas that are hard to explain in a practical sense.  One of these are iPhone applications that
fake phone calls.  Fake Conversation is
one of these and will give you a number of options for this, but you first have
to decide exactly why you want to have fake telephone conversations.  Fake Conversation gives a whole menu of
different types you could have.  In the
'Select Fake Conversation' area you have so many different options for faking a
conversation that you will have trouble deciding.  In 'My Conversations' you can select a people
like Doctor or situations such as 'Animal in the House.'  Once you assign this you can hit the Place
Fake Call button and you will get a phone call.  When you answer it you will have a voice on
the other end that will actually engage in a conversation as prescribed by the
situation or caller.  You also have the
ability to buy more Premium Conversations for $2.99, and there are even more
here that get specific and complex. 
There are some conversations that are built for speaker mode, excuses to
leave, and even those from other languages. 
You then have the ability to set a time delay for the conversation so
that the call will come in when you want, or even a special ring tone for
it.  On top of this you can assign the
name you want to come up, which you can align with the type of caller you have
set up.  Fake Conversations is a strange
idea for a free iPhone applications, which is found in the Social Networking section
of the iTunes' App Store for some reason, but it is the best of this
function.  If you have ever wanted
something like this on your iPhone then Fake Conversations is going to be the number
one choice.