Crazy usage stats from Ngmoco

Ah, ngmoco. You wacky purveyors of “freemium” games. I love you so. If you have any doubts, check out my account. Oh yes. See? I’m there. Playing two different versions of We Rule on my phone, and a version on the iPad. Don’t even get me started on the Godfinger! Good heavens.

Turns out I’m WWDC, we met up with Jive DeVoe — he’s the developer behind the iPad. The app purports to be a zen garden simulation, and it works as exactly that — you can rake patterns in the sand, or put over 130 objects like stones, plants, or leaves on the ground and resize them as you like. In fact, everything in this app is “as you like.” Rather than a directed experience, DeVoe called it a “coffee table app” — something that you lay out on a coffee table, either with others or just on your own, and experiment with at whatever pace strikes you as right.

He’s added some features over time — one of the most requested was a meditation timer, and so the iPad app comes with an option for background noise, as well as a timer that will stop or even put the iPad to sleep whenever you want. DeVoe’s also put a few of his own little touches in the app: if you look closely at the screen while tilting it around, you’ll see the shadows underneath the objects move with the accelerometer, a very subtle effect that you’ll only notice if you look for it.

DeVoe has played around with prices quite a bit since his app hit the store one day one way back when. He’s been as high as US$7.99, and as low as $3.99 (which is where Hipstamatic isn’t a new app, but it is worth a look if you’ve never seen it before. It replicates the look and feel (and functionality) of those old point-and-click and even toy cameras that you might have carried around as a kid (depending on your current age of course). Nowadays, we can capture the world in digital, and soon HD, clarity, but Hipstamatic creates images the old fashioned way: with plenty of misbalanced levels, weird film coloring, and lots of dust and grit. You probably won’t see the picture better, but especially if you’ve got a nostalgic bent, it’ll probably make you feel it a lot more.

The app is currently US$1.99, and developers Synthetic Corp have added a few different “hipstapaks” for in-app purchase, which will update the various options available for cameras, flashes, and lenses. Give it a shot if you do lots of photography with your iPhone, and appreciate the retro.