Round-up of the latest LEGO-related iOS apps
Posted by Huw,There's been something of a surge of LEGO related apps in the Apple AppStore lately, and I haven't been able to keep up with them all. Here's a quick round-up of the best.
LEGO App 4+ is an official LEGO app with, it has to be said, a bit of an undescriptive name.
It's very simple to play and designed for kids of, er, age 4+. Basically you drive a vehicle along a rolling landscape picking up 1x1 round plates. As you progress through the game you are given more sub-assemblies to build your vehicle from, some of which are quite amusing.
I actually quite enjoyed it, despite being at least 10 times the target age. It's certainly worth every cent (it's free) and it looks great on an iPad.
LEGO Super Hero Movie Maker is new this week and lets you make movies on your iPhone. I haven't tried it myself so I'm hoping someone who has can tell me if it's any good. Unfortunately it's not a Universal app, so doesn't look good on an iPad, although I believe it does work if you have a iPad 2 or 3 with a camera.
LEGO Minifig Creator 3D is an unofficial app that lets you customise a minifig, then view it from different angles. You can choose leg and body colours, heads and hats and hair. It's fun for 5 minutes, but I'm told by the developer that he has big plans for it so maybe future versions will be more involving, and have some practical use. It costs 99c/69p and is iPhone only.
I have left the best until last: A World of Bricks is a free universal app written by Brickset user Cyril in France that makes use of the Brickset public API to provide a very quick and efficient way of searching and browsing for sets and then viewing official LEGO instructions on your iDevice.
The iPad is the ideal device for viewing instructions while you've building and this app simplifies the process of finding and flicking through them. It's incredibly quick, looks fantastic and is easily the best iOS app I've seen that uses the Brickset API. Download today! (Please note that you need to search for 'AWOB' for this app).
Android user? Don't despair, there's a Brickset app in the pipeline. Stay tuned for more news!
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Might be me, but I can't find A World of Bricks on the App Store...
I could not find it either, then I looket closely at the icon, and tried awob as search term in App Store, and there it was, available to download :)
The super heroes movie maker works with an iPad 2
^^ Thanks for that, I should've mentioned it. The images link to the AppStore so if you're browsing on your device presumably the AppStore will open when you click on them.
My 3 year old loves the Lego App 4+ on my Android Tablet. Been playing with it for about a week now.
Hope LEGO makes some more for Android devices and tablets. :)
Since the launch of iPad 2, I've been loading it with PDFs of Lego instruction and my son could look through and learn the ideas of different sets while playing. The screen size is very usable and in my opinion iPad + Lego is quite a good combination! But the biggest drawback is to browse the Lego official site using iPad, they just don't cater to the users of iPhone iPad and the site is full of Flash making it unusable on iDevices. And they have stopped Lego Club video podcast from iTunes since Mar2011. I've emailed them about it and they didn't plan to continue supporting the podcast. Well.. thus I browse brickset most of the time (which is not a bad thing at all..). :)
^^ I have an Android and I can get the Lego 4+ App; it's very fun!
Hmm, I have a sister with an iPod Touch 3G...
The Lego DC Universe Movie Maker App is great. I made a video with it, and I think it reviews the app better than I can. :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jpqnNcaCmw
We have an API?
Brickset is bigger than I think...
^ We do indeed, and it's been enhanced just today, to better support AWOB and the Android-app-in-the-making.
^^ Impressive that it was accomplished on an iPhone! I bet it took ages, despite being only a few seconds long.
Not be rude, but you forgot the HERO Factory Breakout game as well as Creationary, Creationary Halloween, LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4, and LEGO Photo Booth.
I forgot about Creationary too. Fun game. I wish the time between each piece was slower though. By the time I figure it out, I lose :(
We've discussed them ages ago...
Oh, okay.
Unfortunately the apps A World Of Bricks and the Movie Maker can't be installed on my iPhone 3G. Always hate it when I'm excluded of buying apps just because I don't have the latest model of my phone! Too bad :-(
I have the Movie Maker on my mums I Pod Touch. Will post links to videos later.
AWOB seems pretty useful. It would be great if you could specify your country and see things like UK RRP for example.
I'm still dreaming to have LDD available on the iPad. That is the perfect platform for this kind of application : moving parts all around with the fingers :)