As the first major music service to offer caching on the iPhone, Rhapsody has managed to stay quite competitive in the mobile space. And although the company lagged a bit on getting its Android app out of beta, the final product is sufficiently impressive for us to forgive its trespasses in the timing department. Though it may not be as pretty as some other mobile music offerings, Rhapsody's features and performance on the Android OS should make it a top consideration for anyone interested in subscribing to an all-you-can-eat service (or all-you-can-listen-to, as the case may be).

Rhapsody for Android first launched in early 2010, but the service just dropped its beta label this week. The user interface and major features are largely unchanged, but the performance--specifically the speed and stream quality--offer a noticeable improvement. But more on that shortly.

As with any app, the first thing any user will notice upon launching Rhapsody is the look and feel. The interface is certainly user-friendly, with a main menu directing you into the principal features of the service. From here, you can search for a particular artist, album, song, or station; dive into the music guide; browse Rhapsody Radio; or check out your playlists and library. Navigation is straightforward and speedy, with a breadcrumb trail leading through the various offerings of the service.

Across every screen, Rhapsody includes a playback bar on the bottom edge. This includes a home key as well as play/pause and track skip controls. You can drag this "shade" up to view the playback screen, or tap the arrow on the right to pop it up or down. The playback screen features prominent album art as well as ID3 info for the current track. Below that is the queue, which you can scroll through from that screen. All pretty standard so far.

Things get a little more interesting when you invoke the tap-and-hold functionality of the Android OS. Any artist, album, or track hosts a variety of options depending on where it resides in the app. For example, tapping and holding a track may give you the option to add it to a queue, save it to your library, or purchase the track. Similarly, tapping and holding on a playlist gives you the option to download it for offline playback.

Naturally, Rhapsody offers caching on the Android, but it is slightly limited. You can save individual tracks and playlists, but we didn't come across any option to do this for entire albums or artists. This would be a nice feature to see in the future, as it just makes things even easier for the user. Plus, battery life is spared quite significantly if you play offline rather than stream, not to mention the obvious benefit of being able to listen to content on airplanes, underground, and other places where the network is unavailable.

In terms of features, Rhapsody is in line with its closest competitor, Napster. It must be said that Napster is prettier to look at, but Rhapsody takes the cake in terms of performance. Both are reasonably speedy with search and stream load time, but Rhapsody offers significantly better audio quality. It may not be good enough for serious audiophiles, but mainstream listeners will find it more than satisfactory.

As with any (legal) service that offers on-demand streaming and downloading, Rhapsody doesn't come free. A subscription will set you back $10 per month, but we think the cost is worth it for serious music lovers. Plus, you get the app for free, and that subscription price includes licenses for two other devices as well as streaming from the Web-based player and the desktop client.

Originally posted at Android Atlas

The big Apple news this week was the announcement that The Beatles music collection is finally available at the iTunes App Store, but that wasn't the only news to come out of Cupertino, Calif. iOS 4.2 for iPhone and iPad is extremely close to release, and we put together a slideshow of some of the new features across both devices. Check out our hands-on look at the iOS 4.2 Gold Master and the slideshows for each device here.

This week's apps include an image-editing app that offers a big list of useful tools and a castle defense game with RPG elements and a surprising amount of depth.

Perfect Photo (99 cents for a limited time) has been out for some time, but a recent sale has pushed it up into the top 10 at the iTunes App Store. At first, I was reluctant to review another photo app (and thought maybe the sale was the soul reason for its success), but once I tried some of the features, Perfect Photo changed my mind. This app lets you edit photos using several tools and effects. Simply snap a fresh picture or use one from your library, then hit the button in the upper-right corner of the interface to see a list of tools and effects. Under the tools tab, you'll be able to crop, adjust color balance, tweak brightness and contrast, and do many more things not found in other apps. Each of the tools gives you sliders to manually adjust each effect--a welcome change from other apps that only give auto-effects.

Perfect photo is not just limited to its long list of tools. You can also make your images look vintage; turn your images into pencil outlines; add black and white effects; and a few others. When you're finished with an image you can save it to your photo library or quickly send it to Facebook, Twitter, or via e-mail. As one of several photo-editing apps at the iTunes App Store, it's tough to choose the best one of them all. But Perfect Photo has a solid set of tools that will prove useful for "saving" images that didn't turn out the way you wanted.

Cartoon Wars 2: Heroes (99 cents) is the sequel to Cartoon Wars, featuring castle defense type gameplay with deep RPG elements. The object is to defend against an assault; in the first mode, you defend a castle using attack units and skills, and in the second mode, you need to destroy swarming enemies using your hero.

In the castle defense portion of the game, you use a mix of melee and ranged units to beat back attacking forces and make your way to (and ultimately destroy) the enemy castle. Each unit can be upgraded in between battles with money you earn by killing enemy units and destroying the enemy castle. There are several upgrades for units and you can even add more-advanced units once you earn enough cash. Frankly, the number of upgrades and new units is dizzying, and later in the game you're even able to buy air units (also upgradable) to rain down destruction from the sky.

Even with just the castle combat portion of the game, Cartoon Wars 2: Heroes would be worth the price of admission, but the game goes much deeper than that. The second mode challenges you to take on multiple forces using only one hero (chosen at the beginning of the game) in a frenetic dual-stick battlefield melee against several enemies. As your hero gains levels, you'll be able to add stat points for more attack power, better speed, and other advantageous options. You'll also be able to upgrade skills to give your hero better weapons and added spell-like abilities for difficult situations.

Heroes has been out for a few weeks, but it wasn't until I noticed its lasting popularity on the top apps list that I decided to check it out. At a glance, a game with cartoon in the title and stick figures didn't seem worth my time, but after playing I can say I am definitely impressed. The only issue I have is the infuriating control system for the castle turret, but mostly Cartoon Wars 2: Heroes is very enjoyable with challenging gameplay and surprising depth.

What's your favorite iPhone app? Do you have a better image-editing app than Perfect Photo? How do you like the two-part gameplay in Cartoon Wars 2: Heroes? Let me know in the comments!

It's been a huge week for iOS gaming. Yesterday witnessed the arrival of a dazzling new Star Wars title, and today I've got quick takes on five more noteworthy new games--starting with a just-in-time movie tie-in.

Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4  A near-perfect replica of the outstanding console game, Lego Harry Potter (which I previewed last week) loses almost nothing in its transition to the small screen. (And for now, it's only for small screens: the game requires iOS 4.1 or later, which leaves iPads out.)

Alas, there's no option for cooperative play, and using your finger (rather than a virtual joystick) to guide your character often blocks the onscreen action. But all the levels (40+ in all) are there, along with the game's witty cutscenes, 100-plus character choices, and so on. Definitely worth the $4.99 price tag.

The Lord of the Rings: Middle-earth Defense  When you think about it, "The Lord of the Rings" is a perfect match for a tower-defense-style game. And this is it--but with a twist. For starters, your "towers" are the adventure's beloved characters: Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, and so on. And instead of simply defeating an onslaught of attackers as they move along a fixed path, you must build barricades to create chokepoints and route Sauron's minions to their doom. Further stirring the TD pot are special Hero abilities you can deploy as the waves get tougher. The game isn't what I'd call a looker, but it's great fun to play--especially for Rings fans. It's $6.99 for iPhone/iPod, $9.99 for iPad.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit  It was 12 years ago that Hot Pursuit debuted on the PC, and to this day it remains a favorite. Regular racing games tend to bore me, but playing cops-and-robbers never gets old. EA's iPhone-flavored, Retina-optimized update keeps the thrill alive, but only half of it: you're limited to playing as the cop.

If you'd rather be the "chasee" than the chaser, your only option is 1-on-1 multiplayer. Sadly, multiplayer is local only (Bluetooth or Wi-Fi); a game like this desperately needs Internet support. Even so, it's an enjoyable outing for racing fans, and a decent deal at $4.99. 

Rage HD  First-person shooters are better on rails. There, I said it. Rage offers all the blistering action of your garden-variety Doom or Quake, but without all the pesky control issues that tend to plague iPhone FPS variants. It also serves up some of the finest graphics ever seen on the iPhone and iPad.

Unfortunately, the game is short, spanning just three levels and serving more as an appetite-whetter for the forthcoming PC and console versions. But I love the freakish game-show plot, money-driven side goals, and beautifully rendered zombie-apocalypse carnage. Rage HD costs $1.99; the less-attractive "SD" version for lesser hardware is 99 cents.

Rubik's Slide  Looking for a break from all that action? Try the considerably calmer Rubik's Slide. Don't let the name fool you: The game doesn't presume be a virtual Rubik's Cube for your iPhone. Instead, it's a variation on that theme, and a refreshingly original one at that.

Working with a 3x3 grid, you rotate and slide lit cubes in an attempt to make the layout match the solution (which appears when you hold down a button). It'll take you a run through the tutorial to get the knack, but from then on it's pure puzzle gold. Three game modes, with over 10,000 puzzles in all, make this well worth the $2.99 price.

Okay, so if you're buying only one game this week, which one should it be? No contest: Lego Harry Potter. It's that good, even if you're not a fan of boy wizards or building blocks.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments. And be sure to shout out any other noteworthy games you've discovered this week.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

An attempt to endow Web-based applications with a means of storing data on the browser's computer is at an end--at least as far as standardizing the technology is concerned.

The technology, called Web SQL Database, built the SQLite database into the browser, letting programmers use the common SQL technology to read and write data. That's useful for a variety of things, but the most notable probably is caching information so it can be retrieved when a computer isn't connected to the network. That's a big problem for many Web apps today.

But yesterday, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) deprecated Web SQL, meaning that developers are warned that they can't count on it and that they use it at their own peril. "Beware. This specification is no longer in active maintenance and the Web Applications Working Group does not intend to maintain it further," a prominent note said on the Web SQL Database specification page.

Web SQL had a promising start. Apple and Google were fans, and Opera implemented it, but Microsoft and Mozilla gave it the thumbs down. Instead, those two endorsed an alternative called IndexedDB, also sometimes called IndexDB.

Indexed DB isn't mature enough to use yet by most standards. It's only just arriving in some browsers right now, and the specification is in flux. It is, however, anointed by the W3C.

Web SQL isn't dead altogether. It's still built into several browsers--and not just desktop browsers but the mobile version of Safari in Apple's iOS. So while the technology won't be a standard, expect it to live on at least in some corners of the Web.

Originally posted at Deep Tech