Pastry Panic is an arcade high-score game where you help your little friend the green monster to clear all the bolts, nuts and springs that accidentally fall on the conveyor belts of a pastry factory. Our hungry hero — possibly Yoshi's cousin — will also take good care of the sweets and doughnuts as they come out of the oven. The master baker doesn't mind it as long as the metal scraps are removed from the line as quickly as possible.

The same premise comes with two modes that help to extend the game's replayability although they follow essentially the same rules. In Mad Dash you move around three conveyor belts trying to collect everything while in Tongue Tied you remain static in the centre trying to grab everything with your chamaleon-like tongue. Pastries eaten count towards your high-score, with a series of combinations to boost your numbers.

Some special pastries act as power ups and mess a bit the game as it ramps up in speed. Every now and then you get the chance to collect letters to form the word 'sweet', which may be a wink to the classic Tony Hawk 2 collecting the word 'skate'. Is this just me?

Tractor Trails is a classic puzzler where you plant trees on a field trying to obtain the maximum yield. You ride your trusty tractor Red and leave behind an impressive kind of tree that grows instantly — unfortunately blocking your way and forcing you to move only forward. This is a new take on the typical gameplay were you have to cover a maze without crossing your own path.

This premise allows for a very strategic gaming experience where you'll find yourself planning ahead, experimenting and replaying levels lured by the high score. There's a bit of memorisation involved and some swiping skill as your movements need to be extra-tight in medium and advanced levels to obtain all the rewards. 

Each game finishes the moment you're stuck and plant a fast-growing tree under the tractor (with an amusing animation), complete every bit of soil available or crash your machine. Tractor Trails isn't particularly punitive and will allow you to progress to the next stage even without every star, obtained for driving over a mole, planting a set number of trees and for doing so in the required time limit.

The game comes with corn collectibles that are the soft currency of the game. These are available in every level can be spent on tractor upgrades. As you imagine, you can also buy some more corn with real money. Without being too exaggerated, I felt the game was balanced until halfway through, where getting a third star to complete the level might require investing in vehicle upgrades.

Commuting in London is a forced activity that many have to cope with but for me, it's the perfect opportunity to put apps to my advantage. Bus Checker has become an excellent ally for my bus journeys, giving the information of the live departure boards the way I need. In my original review I commented about the interface with a mock bus stop sign, the pseudo departure boards with the dot matrix display and the surprisingly well done customisation of the map. 

"I found very convenient that [the map] shows the letter of the bus stop, specially in those very close to each other. It can get slightly confusing to zoom in and tap on the right one, as you'll normally have another bus on the other side of the road doing the route on the other direction."

After some months of polishing, I'm really happy to see the new version 2.0.5 addressing some of my initial criticism. In the build I previously tested, I found quite confusing to have a blinking dot suggesting the app is continuously updating. For me it looks like the blinking dot in the corner of the display of the Brita jar — pretty much it only counts seconds.

After some clarification from the developer about the meaning of it, the new version has implemented an actual countdown text that explains what's really going on. The dot is still there but at least you know it might have something to do with the "Refresh in 25s" text below.

Hit the updates icon on the App Store and if you are using Instacast on your iPhone you'll see the the version 2.0. Yes, the podcast app that everyone has been talking about this week for the good or the wrong reasons. I want to get stress my position before I even start describing what's new: I don't have any problem with developers asking for money to support a product. I think it's perfectly understandable that the work that goes into preventing things going obsolete has to be paid. 

The new Instacast update brings some new graphical elements, functionality and new ways interacting with your podcasts. If you're new to this app category, Instacast champions a better way to download, utilise and enjoy podcasts without having to launch iTunes or the local Music app. There are other alternatives with their vision of what this type of app should be — think of the one-man-dream Podbay — but Instacast seems to have a strong following in this iOS niche. 

Perhaps it's this combination of very vocal users what has given it some buzz recently, but I honestly think it has more to do with breaking the habits of it's seasoned supporters. Instead of introducing new features and tweaks slowly, developer Vemedio decided to go for a shockingly huge release. This is an important time for Instacast, an app that's growing up with growing pains.

Going through the release notes it's probably better than launching the app you use daily and see that things have changed while you were away. The one you notice immediately is the inclusion of a launch screen with the Instacast logo (the name on a fat serif). Just like Apple says, adding a splash screen with a background different than the app's main view will make it feel slow. And it does. The inclusion of this logo on the top bar is also questionable as it only adds a bit of branding. 

Back to the feature list, the interface has been revamped to include new hierarchical tabs to filter information and a bottom bar that summarises what's happening instead of changing the way information is presented. We can refer to it as the old Reeder sliding menubar. This is now gone. The 2.0 main view feels a bit heavier but with the continuous testing I've given the app this week on my daily commute I've grown used to it. 

Super Lemonade Factory by Shane Brouwer wants to be another unmissable retro platformer game for your iPhone library. Set in a post World War II scenario, you help the protagonists — newly weds Andre and Liselot — to inherit this lemonade factory. Romantic? The compound is full of hazards and will remind you more of Koopa's castle than an industrial compound. The goal is to navigate through the warehouse, the factory itself and the management office avoiding obstacles and co-workers, who also play as enemies in the game.  

Andre and Liselot have different abilities and play as a tag team duo. Andre can break large crates that may block your way and piggyback his wife without much effort. Liselot, more agile, possesses the valuable double-jump and can talk to people. Combining their skills is fundamental to complete every level, with Liselot usually helping her husband to reach high platforms and the man clearing the way to the end of the level.

In addition to the simple task of finding the exit of the short levels, there are two sub-objectives to complete: collect a soda bottle and a sugar bag to unlock extra content later on. Apart from the gory nature of deadly pits and walls with spikes, the game doesn't include any weapon as such. The work atmosphere is so poisonous that employees will kill you with the minimum contact. A sad realisation, since you talk to them but won't even need to stab you in the back to kill you. 

There is a recurring discussion topic with people that defend the iPad as a content consumption device versus content creation. This usually leaves behind one of the richest — and certainly most profitable — areas thriving in the iOS ecosystem: productivity, organizers and task managers. I'm thinking of all the GTD tools that you can find on the App Store that thanks to the magic of the cloud allow you to synchronise your desktop with your mobile phone and tablet. 

Less than a year ago, however, we've been told about the post-PC era we're supposed to be living in, which questions the way we use most of these GTD apps. Can the iPad be an standalone device to organise your life? Short answer is yes. At least I want to think so. These productivity suites we're both thinking of seem engineered to tie you in their own system, their own cloud. Maybe this is the reason why I was quite excited to finally test an iPad app that syncs not only with OS X, but also with Windows and Ubuntu. 

Pagico Plus by Pagico Software is the iPad incarnation of its task planning and project management tool for desktop. The app uses a single account ID to synchronise the data across devices, but you can use the iPad app on its own too — that's what I've done for this review.

The app is laid out in a very familiar way including a calendar view, inbox and workspaces that are used as a project and collaboration folder. I really like the choice of launch screen, allowing you to view what's next in the week. There's even a little icon hinting the option to add an item on that particular day without having to navigate through the menus. I can see this being very useful adding a reminder or a note for an appointment while you're on the phone, for example.

There is also a nifty flowchart view that displays the tasks completed and upcoming appointments in your calendar using some colour codes. I couldn't find a way to customize it other that weekly, monthly and quarterly but the items are actionable directly on this view. 

A couple of weeks ago I got in touch with Korean design studio KON Story & Matter (Knock of Neverland), creators of the unique universe of Jambo Island, to realise this genre is still current. Over here in Europe these characters aren't really that well-known but most of us are familiar with manga expressions and story telling from our Satuday morning cartoons. Jambo Island are short hilarious videos, 3D characters, merchandise and now of course, it has its own iPhone game. 

Jambo Jump isn't simply a direct clone of the aforementioned title: it's gone through an extreme makeover and includes complex modern touches that add to the original idea. And for fans of Korean and Japanese manga, the the game is completely re-themed with the awesome characters from the studio. Exciting!

Let's cover first the few new things you will encounter. The game is split, for instance, into two categories. You can either play  the single mode, which is the arcade type that you already know, or go for the championship mode, where you compete with friends and other players for rewards. This is the social twist where you play the same level that your friends have played, watching their ghost shadow as you complete your run. Potentially, this mode can be a deal breaker for groups of friends, office downtime and silly competitions alike.

There's something bordering ingenuity and naïveté every time a creator goes public and shares the idea that will change the world. The cynic not so deep inside me tells me they will never succeed; I think it will be an embarrassment, not worth the time. If I have the chance, I give my early opinion to avoid all that trouble later. 

Then there's people that simply have a dream. They know what they want and they'll find a way to get there. When that goal is measurable it gives the project some sort of realism, something tangible, a benchmark to look forward to. In this situations I move from being a critic and align with the creator. Working towards a goal, no matter how revolutionary or irrelevant it might be, is something I want to get behind. 

Only a couple of weeks ago I got in touch with Shahruz Shaukat, one of those dreamers I'm referring to. His idea was bold but measurable: to create the fastest podcast client on a mobile device. 

Let's go back and do some background work. In the mid  noughties Apple had in the iPod an important line of hardware sales and in iTunes the perfect companion (desktop) app. Podcasts were thrown in as a free alternative to paid music and why not, to tackle the chronic absence of radio on the gadgets until very recently.

His goal was to find a quick way to start listening podcasts. He wasn't happy with the options available and decided to create his own

It's fair to say that it was in Apple's interest to nurture an podcast ecosystem available to download to every iPod owner. The focus on the music player business has since transitioned to mobile phone and then to post-PC devices while the whole architecture hasn't evolved at all. As far as Apple is concerned, downloading a podcast in 2012 is the same as doing so six years ago on an iPod video. 

Cannon Cat by Loqheart is simple action game where you rescue floating goldfish in the sky from the hands of evil birds — emus and penguins in this case. This is the main excuse for having your feline friend propelled from cannon to cannon until reaching a warpgate. The goal of he game is completing the journey from point A to B using those cannons as your transportation method. 

At the beginning of every level you simply appear teleported to the first of them. These cannons are either static, rotate or move on their own, giving you little chance to control the direction of your jump. This is one of the greatest gameplay achievements, since the simple mechanics enable a super simple one tap control scheme. The cannon fires whenever you tap and will rotate or move automatically following a repetitive pattern. 

I find difficult to categorise the game since the start is really easy and it gets more puzzle-ly as the levels progress. The experience is similar to Cut the Rope in the sense that you need to plan several actions ahead before making a move, usually with some form of synchronised timing.