Posts tagged with "iPad"

JotAgent for Dropbox: 5 Promo Codes Up for Grabs

JotAgent is a neat little utility for iPhone and iPad that lets you quickly save notes in Dropbox with literally two taps. I reviewed it here a few weeks ago:

The concept is simple: you link the app to your Dropbox account, you fire it up and start writing. With the tap of a button, the note gets quickly saved in Dropbox. That’s it. You can then browse all the notes you saved, or simply write a new one.

JotAgent is not a tool for professional writers: it’s a lightweight app to “jot” down an idea and have it stored on Dropbox, which runs on your iOS devices, the web and Mac. It’s a great way to save random ideas, thoughts and pieces of text in a service that works anywhere, on any device.

The app is available at $0.99 in the App Store, but in case you haven’t bought it yet we have 5 promo codes up for grabs. Jump after the break, check out the giveaway rules and good luck!

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3D Rotating Molecules On The iPad Will Blow Your Mind

Speaking of cool webapps running just fine on the iPad and iPhone: check out this cool demo of molecules rotating in 3D on the iPad (where the jaw-dropping effect is guaranteed), iPhone and any other browser that supports 3D transformations. Everything is accomplished through CSS, the developer says.

To accomplish this in CSS, we take advantage of a technique called “billboarding”. Billboarding involves rotating an object (in our case, each of the colored balls), in such as way that it remains facing directly at the camera at all times. This is a fairly common technique in the world of 3D gaming, used to render things such as trees and grass — and in our case, it gives the illusion that the circles are really spheres.

Try it yourself, it’s impressive. Yet more proof that the open web is more than welcome on iOS.

Running iPad Apps On The Mac→

Running iPad Apps On The Mac

Dave Winer:

Why didn’t I see this? One of my first wishes when I got my iPad was that this software would run on a Mac. I forgot that, and Uncle Steve said it the other way. The store is coming to the Mac. The store is coming to the Mac. That’s the sleight of hand. What he really meant to say is that IOS software is coming to the Mac. Or maybe it’s the IOS hardware I’m writing this on is running Mac software, kind of the way Carbon ran old lifeless legacy Mac apps. Which one is the “real” OS and which one is running in a compatibility box? I have a funny feeling that right now, as I type this on an AirBook, I’m using the compatibility box. Right?

The iPad can run apps from another iOS device, the iPhone. Will the Mac be able to run apps coming from iOS, even if the Mac is a machine running OS X? We don’t know. The thing is, if iOS is actually OS X coming back to the Mac after 3 years of mobile adventures (and if Lion is “OS X meets iPad”), then Winer’s option could make sense. Developers could adapt iPad apps to bigger screens with relative ease, though I don’t know how you’d be supposed to run apps requiring tilt controls on a desktop computer.

In the end, it’d be a cool feature – as long as you don’t pay attention to the trade-off.  Mobile apps don’t make any sense on the desktop, not as we think. Perhaps Apple will prove us wrong. The way I see it, Jobs simply wants to reinvent the way Mac software is discovered and distributed; a Mac App Store doesn’t necessarily mean the App Store is coming to the Mac.

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Chalk: Sketching Webapp for iPad by 37Signals

We have already seen what can be achieved with the power and knowledge of open web technologies on iOS thanks to our buddy Steve Streza’s Swearch for iPhone. A webapp that lets you search on a variety of different search engines without requiring you to go look for the app in the App Store and wait for Apple to approve updates.

Great things can be achieved with HTML5, Javascript and a few lines of CSS.

37Signals unveiled today a side project they’ve been working on “just for fun”, available as a free webapp for iPad users at chalk.37signals.com. Chalk is very similar to 37Signals’ Draft (which is sold in the App Store) but it’s entirely browser-based and you can add it to your homescreen to get a nice icon and easy web access. As the name suggests, Chalk allows you to sketch on a chalkboard: you can use white and red colors, pick up the eraser, turn off the lights to focus on what you’re sketching and saving the result to your image library. All within Safari. Read more

Grazing for iPad Reaches 1.1: Sharing Menu, Smoother Browsing

Grazing is, in my opinion, the best alternative web browser for iPad which I reviewed here back in September. By combining a fast engine with a polished UI and a minimal (yet powerful) feature set, the developers of Grazing managed to release the finest example of what it’s possible to do with a 3rd party web browser on the tablet.

Today Grazing for iPad gets even better with a 1.1 updated aimed at improving overall performances and introducing a couple of new features highly requested by early adopters of the app. In the Settings, you can now turn on Ad-blocking, which works on domain basis and you can enable or disable at any given time. Also in the Settings, a TV Out option that allows you automatically output web pages when the iPad is attached to an external monitor or TV. Read more

Penultimate 2.1: Now With More Natural Ink, Smoother Pen

We reviewed Penultimate for iPad when it first came out in April, a few weeks after the release of the tablet. Back then, Penultimate had a huge success and was one of the finest sketching apps for iPad which, thanks to the “fresh” factor of the iPad, managed to gain thousands of users.

Over time, though, many sketching applications came out with more complete feature sets and integration with online services. For instance, I’m using Noteshelf as my default handwriting / sketching app.

A new version of Penultimate was released last week, which doesn’t add support for additional online services but brings finer and smoother pens. The app’s digital ink now feels more natural, almost as natural as Noteshelf’s. Penultimate has come as long way, but I’m still waiting to see it bringing all the options and functionalities available in other applications.

Penultimate is available at $3.99 in the App Store.

PDF Expert: PDF Reader and Annotation Tool That Fits In My Workflow

As you may know, I try a lot of apps every week. Perhaps that is wrong, as one may be tempted to constantly jump between different softwares just for the sake of having something new to play with (like kids are always attracted by new toys), but I’m firmly convinced I’m doing this because there are hundreds of indie developers that don’t have the resources or the knowledge to virally promote their apps, yet they deserve attention.

That’s why I’m doing this. And thanks to this “method” (or habit), every once in a while I discover gems that redefine and refine my workflow. New apps that set new standards and raise an already high bar. It’s not easy. But it’s possible. Read more

Rumor: Microsoft’s iPad Team

Microsoft is currently distributing 4 apps in Apple’s App Store: Bing, Wonderwall, Windows Live Messenger and Tag Reader. Plus, Office for Mac 2011 came out last week with much anticipation. According to a tidbit by iPhoneDevCamp founder Raven Zachary, Microsoft has a “dedicated” iPad team in one of its offices in California.

As Electronista also speculates, it’s not clear whether the Microsoft employees Zachary heard talking at a bar (oh, these bars in California) were referring to a development group for iPad or a product team focused on building a Microsoft alternative to the iPad. The former option is more likely, as we heard rumors of Microsoft developing software for Apple’s tablet before and, frankly, I think an iPad version of Office would sell like hotcakes. With Apple growing strong in Enterprise, a full-featured version of Office 2011 for iPad would be huge. Read more