Happy birthday Apple! If you didn’t already know, we’ve set up a new twitter account for Deals, it’s @MacStoriesDeals. We’ll tweet the daily deals there as well as exclusive weekend deals too. Help spread the word! Here are today’s deals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em while they’re hot!
Posts tagged with "iPad"
#MacStoriesDeals - Friday
The Onion iPad App Now Available
Right in time for April Fool’s Day, The Onion – “America’s Finest News Source” – has released its first official application for the iPad, available now for free in the App Store. The Onion delivers hilarious fake news, stories and reports every day, and releasing the tablet app today, with all those pranks and not-so-clever fake stories that are floating around on the Internet, seems more than appropriate to us. In fact, we love The Onion and reading its articles directly on our iPads is something we’ve been looking forward to.
The app is very simple: it lets you read, share articles on social networks with a few taps and watch videos without leaving the app. It’s also got support for Instapaper and Google Reader, among others. The interface design doesn’t look exactly beautiful, but all the content from The Onion is there. It should be enough for now.
You can find The Onion for iPad here.
More Than 75,000 iPad Apps Are Now Available
Back in December, we ran a story about the incredible rise of native iPad software in the App Store: in nearly 260 days since the release of the original iPad in April 2010, third-party developers created more than 50,000 apps specifically for the device. As the iPad was a relatively new device in 2010, that was quite an accomplishment. Especially considering that the iPad App Store had “only” 20,000 apps in August, and 10,000 in June. By the end of 2010, Apple closed with roughly 60,000 native apps available for iPad owners.
In the past months, however, many interesting things happened in the tablet market: Apple announced and released a successor to the iPad after much speculation, Google unveiled a version of its Android OS meant for tablets, Android Honeycomb. Motorola was first to release a Honeycomb-based tablet, the Xoom, which is capable of running Android apps built from scratch for the tablet form factor – rather than blown up versions of smartphone apps. On the other hand, RIM will release its BlackBerry PlayBook onto the market in a few weeks – this one is also capable of running Android apps alongside native BlackBerry apps. Other manufacturers will follow throughout 2011 with their own vision for “the tablet”.
Back to the initial point, anyway. If there’s one segment (let’s just forget about tech specs for a minute) where Apple has a huge advantage over its competitors, that would be the App Store. Since our report from December, the iPad App Store has grown to accomodate over 75,000 native apps – even more than the ones mentioned in Apple’s press releases. Compared to 20 apps available for the Xoom, I think we can all agree that’s a huge advantage for Apple. And even if geeks can say “most of those 75,000 apps suck”, the numbers still hold true: 75,000 apps are available, the 100,000 milestone will be reached in a couple of months. And Apple will make a strong remark about that figure at their next public event. Perhaps at the WWDC itself where, and everything falls into the place, a new version of iOS will likely be announced and demoed.
75,000 apps for the iPad doesn’t come as a surprise if we consider Apple’s powerful marketing machine and the iTunes Store infrastructure. But to think the iPad came out 365 days ago and now we can choose from a selection of 75,000 different apps – I believe that says something about the current status of the tablet market.
#MacStoriesDeals - Thursday
If you didn’t already know, we’ve set up a new twitter account for Deals, it’s @MacStoriesDeals. We’ll tweet the daily deals there as well as exclusive weekend deals too. Help spread the word! Here are today’s deals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em while they’re hot!
Apple Patent of the Day: Spaces for the iPad
Spaces are crucial to my daily workflow on my MacBook (I never was a ⌘⇥ guy), and the prospect of using Spaces on my iPad as a virtual workspace is amusing. While Spaces will still exist in Lion alongside Mission Control, Spaces itself is sort of taking a backseat in terms of what we traditionally think of in Leopard and Snow Leopard. The patent suggests that Apple has been toying with the idea of Spaces on the iPad – shown running a version of OS X in the patent files – and suggests that multitouch gestures could manipulate items on screen and bring Spaces into view. Just like the desktop, gestures have been submitted which give users the ability to push a window to an adjacent space by dragging applications to the edge of the screen, and to drag windows between virtual the virtual desktops. The gesture to open Spaces is noted as a pinching gesture at the corner of the display, a perfect choice in that it also mimics the hot corner features in OS X. The patent was filed in Q3 of 2009, and give us a little insight into how Apple may incorporate a new multitasking system in iOS. I don’t think the multitasking bar is as nimble as HP’s Card view when it comes to multitasking on webOS devices, and mulling over a patent like this reminds us that Apple may make some big changes in the next iteration of iOS.
[via Patently Apple]
Photoshop For iPad To Be Updated With Support For Layers
Photography Bay got to go hands on with an updated Photoshop app for the iPad, which will bring support for layers and new features to compared original and edited photos. Recently, the Photoshop app was updated to its second version which included multitasking support and an update to utilize the Retina Display on the iPhone. Back in November, Adobe’s John Nack offered some insight as to what features would arrive in future app updates after a brief survey. Electronista notes that an updated Photoshop would, “help address the lack of content creation, one of the most commonly cited flaws of the platform.” Maybe the author hasn’t been paying attention, but while Adobe is updating Photoshop, many other photo editors such as Photogene, Masque, and PhotoForge have existed for a while. An update to Photoshop is still, however, a welcome addition to the iPad. While the Photography bay was able to snap some blurry demo photos and video, the video hasn’t been published online and has been noted to be published later tonight.
[Photography Bay via Electronista]
#MacStoriesDeals - Exclusive Wednesday
If you didn’t already know, we’ve set up a new twitter account for Deals, it’s @MacStoriesDeals. We’ll tweet the daily deals there as well as exclusive weekend deals too. Help spread the word! Here are today’s deals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em while they’re hot!
Music Labels Bringing “Enhanced Albums” To The iPad
Remember iTunes LP? It’s an experiment from Apple that never really took off in popularity (although Apple doesn’t disclose iTunes Store sales numbers) that aimed at offering a richer experience for consuming music by adding graphic elements to albums like artworks, lyrics, photos and videos. For a few dollars more than the usual iTunes price, the LP version of an album comes with additional content – but the big problem is, aside from desktop computers this content can’t be viewed anywhere else. Not on the iPhone, not on the iPad or Apple TV. It’s a locked format that, in spite of Steve Jobs’s promises, failed at catching on among iOS users and consumers overall. Still, is the idea of a “rich music experience” dead among music labels? Not at all.
The New York Times reports Universal and EMI have been experimenting with music albums sold as apps for the iPad at a higher price. The obvious trick is, these apps have extra content and visuals to justify the expense: once again, it’s all about photos, videos, lyrics, and so forth. Released by the EMI music group last week at $9.99, “Until One” for iPad gives you access to Swedish House Mafia’s latest album, including a photo gallery, documentaries and written accounts from the band. The whole package is touted as “highly interactive” and meant for multitouch. On top of that, the app also includes 2 full-length music videos and links to the band’s Twitter and Facebook profiles. So for 10 bucks and a 659 MB download, you get a music album with lots of videos, photos, and other stuff. Not a bad deal if you’re a fan of the band, but something most users in the App Store will likely ignore. That’s why EMI and others are looking to extend this concept to a wider catalogue of artists and albums.
The Universal Music Group has teamed up with a video company, Eagle Rock Entertainment, to create iPad versions of films about classic albums like Nirvana’s “Nevermind,” with social networking features that allow fan commentary. This month, Bjork announced that her next project, “Biophilia,” will encompass “music, apps, Internet, installations and live shows.
“This is very much a test of a really new and exciting technology platform that will push the boundaries of what you can do on a tablet,” said Cosmo Lush, the company’s vice president for digital business development.
I can’t stress enough how much I believe this is one of the paths to follow to deliver music content in this new mobile era, especially to owners of new devices like the iPad. The coffee table + music + photo gallery concept has always intrigued me as one of the most interesting ways to add real value to an audio-only product – that sense of “owning your music” that got lost somewhere during the CD-to-MP3 transition years ago. Perhaps these music labels will fail hard at reinventing the genre on the iPad because “it’s too little, too late”, but I’m still one of those waiting for Apple to show us that iTunes LP and Extras can make a lot of sense on iOS devices, and especially on the iPad.
Gamer Develops Homebrew iControl App For A-10 Flight Simulator
In succession of the wireless hack we found this morning, this afternoon brings us another case of the iPad being modified for new and awesome things. Flight simulator DCS A-10C is virtual combat simulator for the A-10C Warthog, giving wannabe pilots the opportunity to take to the air in the one world’s most advanced (and vicious looking) combat fighters. Use of Multi Function Control Displays (MFCDs) in the game (those fancy on-screen controls in the cockpit) would traditionally take the eyes of the pilot off of their environment in-game, but an iPad mod utilizing the game’s API brings the MFCDs to the iPad’s display, giving the pilot an additional monitor to work with alongside the joystick and throttle. The iPad provides a way to tap into different displays and control sets in the cockpit, all the while the gamer can continue to control the plane and move the pilot to check the wings and and surrounding environment. It’s incredibly impressive, and Electronista notes that a final version of the controls may make its way to the App Store so everyone can have access to the digital overlay. You can check out video of the DCS iControl in use after the break.
[Shacknews via Electronista]