Road Wars for iOS brings gamification to safe driving.

Most motorists know by now that texting and driving can be more dangerous than drinking and driving. And teens, who'd just as soon text as talk, are among the drivers most likely to have a texting-related accident.

The new Road Wars for iOS aims to keep drivers safe by gamifying safe driving. The app monitors your driving behavior, rewards you for safe practices, and penalizes you for speeding, swerving, and, most of all, interacting with your phone.

Created with teens in mind (but suitable for anyone), Road Wars (which appears in the App Store as RoadWars) bills itself as a way to improve safe driving skills. As you drive, it taps the iPhone's GPS and accelerometer to determine your location, speed, breaking, acceleration, and swerving. You get real-time feedback if you go over the speed limit, accelerate too hard, pick up your phone, and so on.

For every 10 minutes of "safe" driving, you're awarded coins. And you can "capture" individual roads just by driving safely on them. If the app detects any bad habits, you get "punished" by losing coins. The whole idea is to train away distracted-driving behavior.

There's a social element as wel... [Read more]

Google Play Music for iOS.

The mobile music war just hit a higher note.

Google on Friday launched its long-awaited Google Play Music application for Apple's iOS. The free application, which is available now in the Apple App Store, allows users to stream millions of songs and create custom radio stations. Unlike Apple's iTunes Radio and Pandora, there are no skip limits on Google Music.

Those who want to listen to their own libraries also can upload up to 20,000 of their own songs to Google's music cloud service and access those on other devices.

Google announced the Play Music app in May. At that time, the company promised it would be made available over the summer.

Despite missing that mark, Google has come through with other promises it made in May. The app's streaming function, Google Music All Access, includes the ability to download tracks locally for listening when away from a wireless signal. Google also has offered a 30-day free trial on All Access. After that period is up, customers will pay $10 per month for access to the streaming service.