Posts tagged with "iPad"

Mailboxes Comes Back To Offer The Best Gmail Wrapper for iPad

In the past months, I’ve tried a lot of iPad apps to access multiple Gmail accounts. Sure, I could use Apple’s Mail app to manage them. The problem is, Apple Mail doesn’t let me access most of the features of Gmail and I love the Gmail web UI for iPad. Also, Google has been busy updating Gmail to make it play nicer with mobile devices (smoother scrolling, better selections in the left panel) and these native “wrappers” provide a way to quickly switch between accounts with the tap of a button.

So far I’ve tried Mailboxes, MailWrangler, MultiG and Mailroom on the iPhone. On the Mac I use Mailplane (which is simply amazing) and on the tablet I’ve sticked with MultiG for several weeks. Until Google changed something on its backend, MultiG stopped working and the developer didn’t release an update. I had to change, and I went back to Apple Mail because of all the alternatives I had tested none of them managed to top the excellence of MultiG. Read more

Someone Haz An iPad Game for Cats

Soon after the iPad came out in April, early adopters had fun trying to make their pets interact with it. As usual on the Internet, cats videos made the rounds. I mean, they’re just so adorable, right?

Wait, because someone actually developed an iPad game for cats. Not to be used by humans. Seriously, it’s real and live in the App Store for free. All your lovely cat haz to do? Chase teh mouse on screen.

Check out the video below. I want Steve Jobs demoing this on stage at the next Apple event. Or maybe the Apple Design Awards. [via Laughing Squid] Read more

Fast PDF 2.0 Offers A Solid Alternative To iBooks

When I reviewed the first version of Fast PDF (universal, $2.99) in late June, I called it “what iBooks for PDFs should be”. It was a few days after Apple released an updated version of iBooks with PDF support, which many – including us – didn’t really like. That version of iBooks (1.1) had poor PDF support as it didn’t let you highlight words, flip through pages or organize documents in collections. iBooks 1.2, released last week, still doesn’t let you highlight or flip through, but at least it’s got the long-requested collection feature. Plus, Apple optimized the engine to make opening large PDF files faster. I noticed that last week.

A few days ago the App Store saw the release of Fast PDF 2.0 as well. A major new version of the app I reviewed in June and used as the default PDF reader on my iPad for months. How does it compare to iBooks 1.2? What’s new? Read more

FolderEnhancer for iPad Makes Folders Faster, Bigger

FolderEnhancer is one of my favorite Cydia tweaks for the iPhone which brings several additional functionalities to Apple’s implementation of folders in iOS 4.x. It makes opening folders faster, full-screen (above the dock) and allows for infinite apps inside each folders. You can also enable scrolling and pagination.

FolderEnhancer was updated to support the iPad a few days ago, but it’s not quite ready yet. Most of all, the tweak won’t let you put more than 22 apps in a folder (otherwise, the iPad will crash) and the landscape view isn’t ready. Pagination and scrolling haven’t been updated for the tablet, either. Still, the tweak in portrait mode makes opening folders a breeze, and I like the larger view that it offers. I usually put a lot of apps in a folder, so having a bigger view for “just a few icons” is not a problem to me.

FolderEnhancer for iPhone and iPad is available at $2.49 in the Cydia Store.

Meet Hikari, The iPad Controlled Robot [Video]

Some say the iPad is a device for content consumption, many iPad owners are firmly convinced it can be used for content creation, too. After watching the following video, you’ll be wondering if, actually, the tablet was meant for content disruption.

Without getting too technical, there’s a robot controlled from an iPad which uses an app (TouchOSC) to send commands to a PC. The robot is connected to the Windows machine and can be controlled through the Open Sound Control (OSC) supported by the aforementioned app. It’s quite complex, but it works. Hikari – the robot – can walk and stand up, move and even attack. On the author’s Youtube channel, there are other videos when Hikari even learns to dance.

Check out the video below. [via TUAW]

Does The iPad Make You Less Masculine?→

Does The iPad Make You Less Masculine?

From a piece on The New York Times:

Call it the male iPad dilemma: too large to slip into a pants pocket, too stiff to be curled up like a magazine and too precious to leave unprotected. With its rigid tablet shape, Apple’s iPad has raised an awkward consideration for many men: how to carry it in a manner that is practical and yet, well, masculine.

Perhaps it’s a cultural difference, but I didn’t have any problems carrying my iPad inside a Tom Bihn Ristretto here in Italy. It’s actually pretty cool.

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Rage HD Update: Game Center, Gyroscope, Play It On Your TV

Together with Epic’s Infinity Blade, John Carmack’s Rage HD is the app that really shows what gaming on iOS devices has become: an experience that, technically speaking, is at the same level of consoles such as the Wii or the PlayStation 2. Rage is impressive, and the latest update (1.11, approved last night) adds a lot of new features to make it even better.

First off, you can now play Rage on your TV (or an external monitor) using an iPhone or iPad as a controller. You can output the game at 480p with the official Apple Component cable (Amazon) or 720p with the official Apple VGA cable (Amazon). This is neat, and reminds me of The Incident, which added a similar TV out functionality in its last update. Rage HD on a TV must be fantastic.

The app now comes with Game Center integration, but there’s no online multiplayer option. Instead, the developers implemented leaderboards and achievements. If you feel like unlocking them all, you have 50 new achievements to add to your list.

Other features include gyroscope controls for iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4th gen, mirror mode and (finally) a Museum Mode to explore the levels without mutants.

Rage HD 1.11 is a great update. As the app description says, “the update you’ve been waiting for”. Go download it here.

First Unofficial WikiLeaks App

You can think Julian Assange should have been TIME’s person of the year or not – we’re not here to discuss Assange’s (and his team’s) actions. There’s an unofficial WikiLeaks iPhone and iPad app in the App Store, and it was released earlier today. It’s available now at $1.99.

The app sports a nice and clean interface design, and allows you to check on the latest WikiLeaks’ updates from Twitter or the organization’s website. Both the tweets and the website are formatted for the iPhone and iPad. WikiLeaks App can automatically forward to the latest mirror and access the CableGate page.

WikiLeaks App for iPhone and iPad is available here at $1.99.

There’s A New Text Editor On My iPad: Writings

The iPad. The perfect writing device, right? The tablet surely doesn’t miss apps meant for writers, quick note takers and bloggers alike. There are hundreds of text editors available in the App Store, not to mention the word processors and apps meant for more specific tasks such as novel or screen writing.

The iPad has the writing tools.

One may wonder whether all these tools actually have something in common or are all single pieces of software based on fundamental differences and unique features. It is undeniable that the trend amongst most text editors for iPad is to come with Dropbox sync capabilities. Of the “writing tools” mentioned above, the text editors rely on sync nowadays. And to good reason: it was a pain to save a post or note as a .txt file and manually manage it. Now everything happens in the cloud, in the background, automatically.

The Dropbox trend has lead to great apps: PlainText, Elements, IA Writer – just to name a very few. Writings, a new app released today by Italian developers Ludovico Rossi and Vito Modena, shares a feature set similar to other writing applications available in the Store, but comes with new functionalities and interaction methods that have made it stand out from the others on my iPad.

Writings makes composing text on the iPad a real pleasure. Read more