With or without a snicker or two, once you get past the iBlow! name you will discover it’s a virtual bubble blowing app designed to show off all the useful features of the iPhone in yet another pointless but purportedly entertaining way. Developers, The Game Creators, liken it to apps like Koi Pond and iSteam and while iBlow! is laden with cutesy sound effects, backgrounds and other graphical delights, it is neither amongst the best or the worst apps of this type.

When you first open iBlow! bubbles begin to appear from a bubble stack. You can also blow into the microphone on your phone to create more bubbles. (note: iPod touch users will need a microphone or blue tooth headphone plugged in to use this feature.) There are four different options available that make iBlow a bit more interesting than just blowing and popping bubbles.

The settings option in iBlow allows you to change backgrounds, which are quite colorful and visually pleasing, as well as change or shut off background music. Two options are available to “dress up” the bubbles including a choice of different images to encase in the bubbles and the option to change colors. Each image, ranging from a teddy bear to a flower to the yin yang, will elicit a different sound when you touch the bubble to pop it.

When first checking out the bubble blowing feature, what I initially envisioned was someone sitting on a subway or a bus blowing on their phone followed by the looks that would get. But from what I can tell, if you’d like to avoid this unwanted attention, the bubbles appear to flow freely without the need to blow. The ultimate question is whether you find virtual bubble blowing an entertaining way to pass the time.

One remaining feature of iBlow! that is pretty cool is the ability to select a picture from your photo menu to fit inside the bubbles. You can fill a bubble with a picture of your cat, toddler, the guy next to you on the bus, or whatever you like and watch it float around the screen. Though unusual, this feature works without complication.

Clearly an app that was designed to take advantage of the iPhone’s various features — tilt, touch, sound, graphics, camera and all — it remains a simplistic value. iBlow! does a good job of showing off these features with rich, colorful graphics and fairly well-thought-out sounds and it is definitely more interactive than some of the other “Look-at-Me” apps. However, after the initial “ooh, ahh, and awww,” most users won’t revisit it. If you happen to be completely taken with other “popping” apps, like BubbleWrap, then iBlow! is a way cooler version of that.

See iBlow in action on YouTube:

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category: Entertainment, Misc Entertainment, Worthwhile Apps