iPad Free App of the Week: Fwix

With Fwix you can read news articles and blog posts that are relevant to a certain region.  So far about 200 cities in the U.S.,Canada. Ireland, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand are available. 

Fwix selects news sources and blogs that it thinks are related to each city, and also uses automated algorithms to determine when other content might also be relevant. Fwix has also recently tweaked its algorithm and offerings to include “nearby” local content features. So content on Fwix displays relationships between both topics and nearby location.  Very handy and easy to use.

The app is sort of like reading your local newspaper, when it was good.  A couple more features.  Fwix’s app allows you to view news stories in a map format, showing you the exact geographic location of news. You can access news by your location and then filter stories by subject (i.e. sports, arts, politics, crime). And you can share all content on Facebook, Twitter or via email.

It's news, it's local, and it's free.  What more can you ask for? 

iPad Free App of the Week: Social Islands

It's strangely addictive and time consuming.  Is that a good or bad thing when it comes to a free iPad app?  My wife love Social Islands, a free app from Doug Peterson.

The premise is simple.  You are standed on a deserted island and you can send and receive messages by a bottle.  Communicate by drawing pictures, putting them in bottles, and throwing them out to sea. You never know what is going to float up on your beach! Social Island is a social drawing application. You receive drawings from other people and can either add to them and throw them back into the water for someone else to add to or you can burn them. A fun no hassle app that will have you plucking bottle after bottle out of the water to see what is inside.

Different, but fun.  Give it a try.