The Guardian has launched a new application for the iPad called “The Guardian Eyewitness” (available for free here) which, just like the Eyewitness series launched by the newspaper in 2005, focuses on news photography, one photo at the time.

From the official article:

“The Eyewitness series was launched in print at the time of the Guardian’s switch to the Berliner format in 2005, and consists of a daily full-colour, double-page spread devoted to the most compelling news photography. The decision to dedicate so much space to a single picture was a revolutionary move for a newspaper.

The Guardian’s head of photography, Roger Tooth, describes the philosophy behind the series as one that is devoted entirely to showcasing the world’s best photos in superb detail: “We want to hold your attention for more than two seconds … we want you to appreciate the work that the photographer has put into the image,” he says. “We’ve been waiting for a chance to replicate the scale and impact of the newspaper’s Eyewitness spread series on the web - and I think this is it.”

The app seems pretty simple, as its only purpose is that to showcase photos and describe them with a few lines of text. As you can see from the screenshots after the break, the application makes an interesting use of popover menus and thumbnails. Overall, it looks good.

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We’ve seen so many magazines trying to port the experience of “the real thing” to the iPad. And from the videos we’ve seen, most of them have miserably failed: they either tried to overload the experience with tons of advertising, or they simply thought it would be a good idea to put 5 videos and 10 audio tracks in every virtual page. As always, those who find a good compromise win, and AutoWeek is an excellent example.

The AutoWeel iPad app looks great, and there’s no doubt about it. Just take a look at the preview video after the break to get the hang of it. Thing is, from an editorial standpoint this application makes a lot of sense. It’s a rich experience, with pages and pictures, videos and interactive advertisement. You can interact with, say, the Opel brand and see the nearest reseller to give a test drive to a specific model. All with embedded ads and maps. It’s gorgeous, it’s fluid and it could be a terrific revenue model for publishers and advertisers.

Of course there’s some iPad-specific goodness like thumbnails, page effects and scrubbers, but I think the point is that AutoWeek showed us the way magazines should be ported to the iPad. Like I said, check out the video after the jump.

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I don’t have an iPad (yet), but Tidbits’s Adam Engst nailed it in his latest post:

“So what’s the difference between a Mac and an iPad? It’s that blank slate thing. No matter what you do on a Mac, the keyboard and mouse and window-based operating system make it impossible to ignore the fact that you’re using a Mac, and it’s often equally as impossible to ignore the fact that you’re using a particular program.

In contrast, the iPad becomes the app you’re using. That’s part of the magic. The hardware is so understated - it’s just a screen, really - and because you manipulate objects and interface elements so smoothly and directly on the screen, the fact that you’re using an iPad falls away. You’re using the app, whatever it may be, and while you’re doing so, the iPad is that app. Switch to another app and the iPad becomes that app. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.”

You’re not holding a device that runs apps. You’re holding apps that create a different device every time.

Comprehensive post over at Threepress blog regarding iBooks and books in ePub format. Seems like a pretty good start.

[via Daring Fireball]

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“While it has its limitations, especially for power users, it gets most of the basics right, and it excels at the most important tasks: viewing and composing messages, displaying attachments, and connecting reliably to nearly any e-mail server.”

Very good list of missing features as well. I can see most of them coming in a few updates.

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Please notice that at 0:44 the keyboard is still on screen.

If you had any doubts about the quality of the iPad’s keyboard, then you have to watch the following video.

Impressive.

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I thought I wouldn’t have said this until a few months from now, but it happened: the iPad is already jailbroken. It seems like MuscleNerd and other Dev-Team guys (the same guys who created the jailbreak tools for iPhone and iPod Touch) have managed to run a modified version of the Spirit jailbreak on the iPad, using root access. This means that, I’m telling you, we’ll be able to have a jailbroken iPad in a matter of a few weeks.+

Who said the iPad didn’t support “true” multitasking? Check out the video after the break.

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Do you remember the Etch-a-Sketch? The popular ’60s toy that allowed you to draw simple pictures on some sort of blank canvas with two side controls? Now you can have it on your iPad, with EtchPad.

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