Posts tagged with "iPad"

Note Hub: Notes, Drawings, Maps, Calculator, Tasks and a Browser…In A Single App

Some apps do one thing exceptionally well and some try too much just to miserably fail in the end. Either you’re a great note taking application or you’re a sketching software, but surely you can’t aim at doing both just fine. Note Hub wants to break this convention by being the app you come back to for anything related to…well, a pretty huge amount of things: notes, maps, browsing, drawings, tasks. It’s even got a calculator.

Note Hub wants to be the app you use for your note taking needs, but after some tests I have to say it’s more an app geared towards “visual” people who need to work with rich media on a daily basis and would like to organize content in a user-friendly interface. Read more

IMDb Releases Improved iPhone and iPad App

Movie, TV and celebrity database IMDb released earlier today a brand new version of its official iOS app for iPhone and iPad.

Version 2.0 of IMDb for iOS brings a lot of bug fixes and overall performance improvements, a redesigned dashboard with the latest news from a variety of media sources, support for movie showtimes in 13 more countries including Canada and UK, possibility to rate movies and TV shows using your IMDb account.

As TechCrunch reports, IMDb released an iPad app shortly after the iPad came out and it was very successful. The 2.0 update (universal for iPhone and iPad) anticipates the major redesign the website is undergoing at the moment.

IMDb for iPhone and iPad is available for free here. Check out the full 2.0 changelog below. Read more

Zuckerberg Is Right, The iPad Isn’t Mobile

Mark Zuckerberg, at Facebook’s mobile event today in Palo Alto when asked if Facebook was building an iPad app:

“I don’t want to be rude to Apple – we all love Apple products – but this is a mobile event and we want to stay focused on that. The iPad isn’t mobile in the same way.”

This can mean quite a few things, so instead of opening Tweetie for Mac to write that the Zuck’s an asshole, let’s just think about the nature of the iPad as a device. We often refer to it as a “mobile device”; now I’m asking you to think of that 10-inch piece of aluminum and glass as a “device”.

Is it mobile? Read more

Elements 1.5: Sub-folders, Markdown Preview, Better File Saving

Second Gear’s Elements for iPhone and iPad has been updated to version 1.5 today, a major revision of the popular Dropbox-based text editor that adds lot of new (and much requested) features together with a plethora of bug fixes. We previously covered Elements here and here.

First off, Elements now supports sub-folders and Markdown previews. Sub-folders are really a huge deal for many users out there, as now you’ll be able to hook Elements up with other Dropbox-based apps that organize their documents with a similar structure, such as Plaintext. The family of Dropbox text editors keeps on getting more connected and better integrated.

For me, however, the really huge deal is the improved Markdown support: the app can now view Markdown formatted files (.md, .markdown, .mdown, .mdwn) and open Markdown files from external applications that support the “Open in…” feature. Similarly to Second Gear’s own MarkdownMail, Elements can now generate a live HTML preview of Markdown formatted text for you to instantly check on. Read more

Newsday’s New iPad Ad Doesn’t Really Impress

This is what happens when Apple legal forces you to take a genius commercial down and release a more “normal” one. In case you missed Newsday’s story, they once released a clever commercial in which a man killed a fly using an iPad instead of a regular newspaper. The iPad, of course, was shattered.

That ad was aimed at proving that tablets are anything like old media, and you shouldn’t think of them in that way. Like I said, a clever advertisement that went viral. But Apple didn’t like and Newsday was forced to take the ad down (copies can still be found on Youtube, though).

Now Newsday is coming back with a new ad, but it doesn’t really impress much. There are some trippy animations here and there, as RazorianFly also notices, but the style and cleverness of the first attempt is far, far away.

This is exactly what happens when Apple legal messes up with your stuff. We’ve embedded the old ad below. Read more

Project Sword Renamed “Infinity Blade”, Coming This Holiday

Remember Project Sword by Epic Games? Yes, that impressive tech demo we saw at Apple’s last music event on stage, the one that made our jaws drop due to that stunning graphics, light effects and animations. The same day, we were also able to download a demo of the demo, called “Epic Citadel” and based on the same graphic engine (the Unreal Engine 3 for mobile devices) but limited to a single town without any people and / or enemies.

Today Epic Games announced the final title of the game, which is now dubbed “Infinity Blade” and will be available on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch this holiday season. Infinity Blade will feature both a single player and a multiplayer mode based on Game Center, RPG elements, even better graphics than before and free updates with new features in the next months.

The developers worked hard for 4 months on the development of Infinity Blade and, hopefully, we’ll enjoy the great results of the Unreal Engine 3 together with an equally great gameplay in a few weeks.

Check out the press release, screenshots and the old demo video of Project Sword below. Read more

John Gruber On The Idea of iPad Apps Running on Mac OS X→

John Gruber On The Idea of iPad Apps Running on Mac OS X

I can prove it, practically, that iPad apps aren’t going to run on the Mac as a standard feature. iOS apps do run on Mac OS X, today, in the iPhone/iPad emulator that ships with the iOS developer kit. Ends up they’re just not that pleasant to use on a Mac. Gestures that are natural and fun with direct touch are awkward and clumsy using a mouse or touchpad.

And we thought this idea of iOS apps running as “widgets” on the desktop had been buried in the darkest corners of the blogosphere. Turns out some people are still claiming it’d be a “great addition to OS X”. Too bad Apple is not Adobe, and they don’t care about “cross-platform interoperability” as much as they care about “single-platform excellence”.

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Dribbblr: Elegant Dribbble Client for iPad

I wanted to write about this app before, but I couldn’t manage to get it working properly on my iPad running iOS 4.2 beta. Luckily enough, the Tapmates developers worked hard on releasing a compatibility update, and here I am testing Dribbblr on my iPad running iOS 4.2 GM. Dribbblr is a free client for Dribbble.com, a gallery of great works submitted by popular and new designers who managed to get an invite to the website. It’s a great place to discover new talents and, why not, new apps coming out on iOS and OS X.

You can browse Dribbble from your iPad without an account, but thanks to the recently opened API Dribbblr adds native features like a completely redesigned interface and navigation that wraps Dribbble’s screenshots around a polished and minimal iPad interface. The app is free, but you can upgrade to a Pro version via in-app purchase ($2.99) that removes all the ads, although they’ve been cleverly integrated in the “timeline” and they’re good-looking enough to not get in the way all the time. Read more