Zoom! Now you never know if it is a Hot wheel on a carpet with tracks all over it, or an electric go-kart. But more recently, it could have been a car on an iPad.

I know I mentioned it before and gave it an account, but know that it is actually out, this is a review after I tried out the game (if you do not owe the physical toy, like me, it is possible to play with two fingers and a, icon named “Paper Lightning”). The introduction is here. Also, the MAT in AppMATes is a acronym for “Mobile Application Toys”.

As I was saying, I, owing an iPad, decided to check out the new application by Disney that pairs a physical toy with the iPad. I found it entertaining, but there are a few minor problems.

One, was that the car moves the fastest in the middle of the screen so the backdrop can move. But the problem is that humans have a natural tendency to push objects to accelerate its speed. When you do push the car, a voice tells you to move it back to the center, and sometimes glitches.

Another minor problem is that the game is slow. Because it has to load so many collisions, and graphics, it make the gameplay glitch up a bit when it is loading many tasks. This only occasionally happens, but is still a bit annoying.

Lastly, the arrow that points you to places you want/need to go leads you from A-B directly. It discourages you to use the roads, but go on top of buildings, cars, signs, etc. This is fine, except that I personally like following the road.

This is a great idea and come as a surprise to me that no one really took the advantage of being able to blur the line between physical and  digital objects with the iPad and other iDevices. But then again, it didn’t come to me either. But blurring the lines of reality isn’t new at all. For one, there’s the SMART Board (an interactive white board).

The app is available here (US and CAN, iPad 1 and 2)

The cars are available in the US Apple store, US Toys R Us, and Disney store (20 bucks for 2 cars).

Overall, I like this concept of blurring the lines using everyday products we actually (normal citizens) have. I believe more and more companies will start to do this. I suspect that in 50 years, we won’t know what’s real or what’s fake. I wonder  what life will be like then…