By Eric Bauer
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: Ad Hawk
By: Sunlight Foundation
Price: Free
Platforms: Android, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Should you get it?: Only if you're not already turned off by politics

We're all sick of campaign ads.

But let's face it, for the next few weeks you won't be able to avoid them unless you disconnect your TV, radio, computer, and phone. Your best defense against this political blitzkrieg is to be aware and informed.

Or so believe the makers of Ad Hawk, a free app that identifies the campaign ad you're listening to and tells you who's behind it, where their money comes from, and where they stand politically.

It relies on technology similar to Shazam, the hall of fame app that identifies the song you're listening to, and using it couldn't be simpler.

By Dante Ramos
Globe Staff

Reviewing: Settle It!
By: Times Publishing Company
Price: Free
Platforms: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android
Should you get it?: Only if you're heroically optimistic about the ability of a little phone app to resolve profound ideological differences.

Sometimes, earnest isn't enough. While campaign truth-squad efforts like the Tampa Bay Times's PolitiFact provide a useful corrective to a political campaign - check out my previous post on PolitiFact's main mobile app - you tend to use them more out of civic obligation than because of the sheer joy of fact-checking claims about budget sequesters.

So to raise the amusement factor, PolitiFact repackages its content once again, this time as an app that purports to settle disputes about whether, for instance, President Obama really did go around the world apologizing for America, as Mitt Romney charges. The app designers presumably figured questions like that one would come up over family dinner tables and in ideologically integrated barrooms across America. Just search on "apologizing," and let the fun begin!

By Dante Ramos
Globe Staff

Reviewing: PolitiFact Mobile
By: Times Publishing Company
Price: $1.99
Platforms: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android, BlackBerry Playbook
Should you get it?: Sure, if you're skeptical enough about modern campaigning to doubt every statement a politician makes, but not so cynical that you think the truth or falsehood of campaign speeches is irrelevant.

As the election campaign intensifies, so, too, do the complaints that media outlets uncritically repeat claims that candidates make about themselves and one another - no matter how outrageous, disingenuous, or demonstrably incorrect some of those claims might be.

Enter the Tampa Bay Times (known until recently as the St. Petersburg Times), the Florida newspaper that started a project called PolitiFact to fact-check the substance of major claims made by candidates for high office, major lobbying groups, and even chain e-mails.