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Posts tagged with "iPad"

Gorillaz iPad Album Now Available for Streaming

As announced by Damon Albarn in November, the new Gorillaz album “The Fall” is now available online for streaming and will be released as digital download tomorrow, December 25th. What’s so special about The Fall that we’re covering it on MacStories? It was entirely recorded on an iPad.

Albarn first told the NME:

I’ve made it on an iPad – I hope I’ll be making the first record on an iPad. I fell in love with my iPad as soon as I got it, so I’ve made a completely different kind of record.

The Fall contains 14 new songs and it was recorded using apps such as SoundyThingie, AmpliTube, iOrgel HD and iElectribe. Full list of songs and apps used in the album is embedded below. You can stream the record for free now by hitting this link, which requires you to subscribe to the band’s mailing list. From a first listen, it all sounds pretty…digital and electronic. Perhaps different from previous Gorillaz records, but interesting nonetheless considering the setup being used to produce it. Check out the video of “Phoner to Arizona” below.


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Because Everyone Needs A Second Monitor, We’re Giving Away 10 Copies Of DisplayPad

Thinking about buying a monitor for the holiday? How about a multi-touch monitor that doubles as a computer when it isn’t sitting in a dock next to your iMac? DisplayPad for the iPad was reviewed yesterday as the multi-touch champ that is drop-dead simple to set up. Who doesn’t want a whole second monitor dedicated to iTunes or Reeder for OS X? DisplayPad is currently on sale for $.99 in the iTunes App Store, but Christmas penny pinchers may want to click past the break for a MacStories-to-Ten chance to win DisplayPad for your iPad.

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iPhones and iPads Take Over The Italian Parliament

In spite of the major conflicts and debates going on right now in the Italian Parliament, it seems like every member agrees on one thing: getting an Apple device for Christmas. As noted by iSpazio, members and senators from PD, PDL (Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi’s party) and FLI are all getting iPads from Santa.

It is unknown whether the devices will be gifted as a “bonus” for personal use or will be deployed for work purposes in the Parliament. We read about the iPad being used by congressmen at the U.S. House of Representatives before, and at the White House, too. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Italian Parliament coming up with its own apps to check on daily appointements, logs and activities.

As iSpazio also notes, members of FLI will be able to choose from iPads and iPhones. Not bad!  Why not giving away some Macs as well at this point? I think members would enjoy an awesome app like Screens.

Skyfire for iPad Now Available

As noted by 9to5mac, Skyfire for iPad is now available. As previously reported, Skyfire takes advantage of the iPad’s larger screen to integrate more social features in the app and allow users to constantly share items on Twitter, Facebook and Google Reader (or send over to Pinboard, Instapaper and Read It Later) with the app of a button. Most notably, Skyfire for iPad comes with a series of buttons in the bottom toolbar that let you check on your Reader feeds, Twitter timeline and Facebook wall, together with the possibility to like every page with a universal Like button and see only updates from friends who shared links.

Social features aside, Skyfire for iPad has the same on-the-fly Flash video conversion technology seen on the iPhone version. If the iPhone app is to be trusted, Skyfire Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool is pretty awesome, and it converts video to an iOS-compatible format in seconds. One could ask why Flash videos are needed on iOS when most of web video has iOS-optimized fallbacks now, but still. Skyfire for iPad also comes with additional functionalities such as a new tab design, desktop option to avoid loading websites in mobile versions, private browsing a.k.a. “porn mode”. Also, guess what kind of websites still doesn’t provide iOS-compatible video. I think I know why Skyfire is selling all those copies.

Skyfire for iPhone made $1 million in its weekend in the App Store. With the App Store charts freezing tomorrow until the 28th, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the app having a tremendous success on the tablet as well. Go download it here at $4.99, and check out the demo video and feature list below. Read more

Project Mag Goes Free Tomorrow, New Issue Coming On January 7

Remember Richard Branson’s Project for iPad? In case you have forgotten, it’s Virgin’s first attempt to build an iPad-only magazine “about creative people, for creative people”. While the first issue of the app wasn’t that revolutionary or feature-rich, there was some potential in there, for sure. The animated cover looked nice and content was pretty good, too.

Today Virgin has announced that users will be able to download Project Issue 1 for free starting tomorrow (December 23) until December 29. Project Issue 2 will be released on January 7, although no further details have been provided.

In early 2011 Virgin will also release an entirely crowd sourced issue of Project, with a new animated cover that’s been selected from a contest held in NYC three weeks ago. Videos of the selected cover and the contest featuring Richard Branson have been posted online, check them out below. Read more

DisplayPad Turns Your iPad Into A Touch Friendly Second Monitor

As a compliment to your MacBook, your iPad often becomes the getaway for reading, playing games, and couch surfing the Internet. Though we readily find uses for the iPad such as turning it into a giant trackpad for controlling a Mac Mini underneath your TV or for remotely controlling Dropbox shares, one use we occasionally struggle with is utilizing our iPad as a second monitor when the extra screen real-estate is necessary for getting work done. DisplayPad by Clean Cut Code is one of many apps that turns your iPad into a remote monitor, perfect for extending your desktop like we do when covering Apple events.

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An iPad App and Something Else - Meet Flipboard, Again

In case you missed it, Flipboard received a huge update last week. The new version, which I guess you’ve been using extensively, adds support for more services than the initially implemented Facebook and Twitter. Those two got a facelift, too, but Flipboard 1.1 is all about making the app the ultimate social magazine that can fetch articles and media from Google Reader and Flickr – something that loyal Flipboard users have been asking since the first version was released in July. In case you missed Apple’s 2010 roundup of the best apps from the App Store as well, Flipboard is now featured as the iPad App of 2010. To me, it’s an absolutely deserved position and I would have been surprised if Apple had chosen another app.

Before focusing on the new features and the interactions implemented in this update, I want to make my point clear: I do think that Flipboard is the iPad app of 2010, but not because of popularity, success or media coverage. Not because of the Apple commercials or the rave reviews it got on blogs and the App Store. Flipboard is the iPad app of the year because, in my opinion, it perfectly sums up the essence of the iPad as a consumer electronic product: it’s an app everyone can use, it looks simple and straightforward on the surface but if you want – you can make it go deeper on many levels. Flipboard, like the iPad itself, can be seen as something simple, an app for non-geeks, for the non-tech savvy audience that wants an aggregator of social content. I’m sure thousands of users think of Flipboard that way, and use it that way. Just like I know millions of people see the iPad as a simple and enjoyable alternative to the most complicated notebook. But a question has arisen between me, my followers and co-workers lately: does simple mean casual?

Better: does simplicity represent a weak point of a certain product? Read more