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Posts in iPad

Digits Calculator for iPad: Beautiful, Powerful, Simple

The iPad lacks a built-in calculator but there’s no shortage of 3rd party ones in the App Store. I’ve already reviewed Calcbot for iPhone and iPad and I’m loving it, but this one’s good, too.

Digits Calculator by Shift looks like a simple calculator app for iPad, with very large numbers and a surprising attention to typographic details. There’s a tape on the left side to retrieve all your past calculations, numbers and some buttons are at the center of the screen. Don’t be fooled by the looks of it: Digits Calculator is powerful. It’s a scientific calculator, with a wide array of options to customize the way it works for you located in the settings.

You can change the colors of the app, enable the currency and scientific formats, show labels and color total values. The app rearranges items on screen with a nice animation when you change orientation.

I’m no math expert, but I can spot a good calculator when I see one. If you already own Calcbot, you may want to give this a try anyway, especially considering that it’s just $0.99 in the App Store and will be available soon as Universal for free to previous customers.

Go download it.

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Flipboard - Revolutionary News App for iPad Available

Sometimes a new app comes around and reinvents a genre. A few times (a very few times, actually) a new app arrives and reinvents everything you thought about a device. I’ve mentioned the “second wave of iPad apps” before: I think that a new generation of applications for Apple’s tablet is ready to invade the App Store to show everyone, not just its 3 million users, what the iPad was meant to be since the beginning.

I think that the second wave starts today with Flipboard.

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Mailboxes: It’s Like Mailplane for iPad

Mailplane is a nifty little app for Mac OS X which wraps Cocoa around Gmail’s web interface and allows you to quickly switch between multiple accounts, drag & drop from Gmail to Mac OS X’s Finder, pick up contacts from Address Book. It’s got many other additional features, it’s one of my most used Mac apps to date and it was one of the first applications I reviewed here on MacStories.

So when I heard that Ruben Bakker, the developer behind Mailplane, had no plans to release an iPad version, I was kind of sad. Ok for the iPhone, we have Mailroom there. But on the iPad? It would be perfect on it. With the larger screen, Gmail’s iPad web interface and the magical factor of the device, I bet it would turn out to be awesome. Still, no Mailplane.

Luckily for me, for us, and for anyone else willing to configure 5+ Gmail accounts in a single app, there’s Mailboxes for iPad. Is it Mailplane? No. Does it let you switch between multiple accounts? Yep.

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The iPad: So Magical, It Does 3D Now

The iPad is so magical it even does 3D now. Sorta. Aircord Labs have released a video showing an iPad that outputs 3D images visible to naked eye thanks to a specially designed projector that beams images into a pyramid-like screen thing.

Take a look at the video below. It looks like those images are real, floating in real space and answering to human’s feedback like clapping hands. I don’t know if we’ll ever see an iPad doing this stuff by default or if this technology will actually turn out to be any useful in real life (maybe), but just the fact that it’s possible sounds great to me. I mean, think about tweeting in 3D. Or arranging icons. Or moving notes around.

You get the idea.

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Apollo News for iPad - It Could Have Been So Much Better

I’m just going to state this up front: visual news readers are the next (and current) big thing on the iPad. Pulse was featured in the The New York Times, then made its way to the iPhone, too. My Newspapers. The Early Edition. Blogshelf, featured in many other blogs.

But the thing that surprises me most, is that people actually keep on buying these apps. They’re willing to try something new. They’re spending their bucks every single week for the new kid on the block of visuals news readers just to, perhaps, change their habits again the next week. I have the feeling this kind of applications are what Twitter clients were for the iPhone in the early days: a goldmine. Just like people discovered that tweeting from a phone (from the iPhone, especially) could be a highly enjoyable experience (sometimes even better than on the desktop), now they’re looking for a better, new way to consume news. It’s the natural circle of things: a developer comes around and reinvents a genre.

It is a few ones’ job to fine-tune it, just look at how Loren Brichter waited to develop his Twitter client, eventually acquired by Twitter itself.

Developers are coming out with these visual news readers. Should we give them a new name? Let’s say visual feeds, because that’s what they are now. Plus some adjustments to browsing and navigation, that is.

Can Apollo News claim the throne of the best new app in this new category?

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Griffin Releases Loop - Best Stand for iPad Yet?

I still have to buy a stand for my iPad. I have a leather case, but I didn’t buy the additional keyboard - so I didn’t buy the stand either. But, a few days ago I was thinking about trying a keyboard + Simplenote setup, and a stand would be absolutely necessary for that.

I think I’ll give a try to Griffin’s latest release, Loop.

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Apple Planning to Charge for iOS 4 on iPad? Spoiler: No.

Earlier today Stuff reported that, according to their source, Apple is planning to charge for iOS 4 upgrade on iPad. This is the original report:

“The top secret plans were whispered to Stuff by an anonymous source. There are no details of how much Apple will charge for the upgrade, but we’d expect in the region of £5.

Asked how sure they were about the forthcoming iOS 4 charge, our source replied, “Definite.” And we don’t think they’re wrong.”

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TextExpander touch for iPad, Review and Giveaway

Mac users are always inherently curious about a few pieces of Mac software that always tend to make waves in functionality that they have absolutely no use for. If we look at products like Transmit 4, Launchbar 5, and especially something like TextExpander 3, the average consumer will have questions about its design and they’ll read really great things about the software. But, they’ll have absolutely no use for such software unless they’re power users or have a specific need.

TextExpander is probably the app that garners tons of attention. It’s really powerful, especially to customers who need to constantly implement snippets of text. But TextExpander touch becomes even more curious, as it’s implemented with similar functionality, sans the ability to directly apply snippets into any text based app. In effect, TextExpander touch for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad seems rather counterproductive in design. But I’ve found that while there’s an extra tap here and there, it’s incredibly useful for email, especially on the iPad. If you’ve been on the fence about TouchExpander touch, I suggest read on to find out how it may be useful in your workflow.

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Uzu for iPad, As “Played” By Non-iPad Users [Video]

Uzu is a kinetic particle visualizer powered by multi-touch technology. Sounds interesting? Actually, it doesn’t sound as good as it’s great when you’re using it. It’s one of those apps you have to try, and that’s why I decided to not write a review, but to shoot a video with my iPhone 4 - showing two friends of mine “playing” Uzu.

They never touched an iPad before, and were immediately attracted by the app. Check out the video after the break (Vimeo link), or go download the app here.

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