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Posts tagged with "iPad"

Merriam-Webster Dictionary Hits The iPad

The comprehensive and appreciated Merriam-Webster dictionary is now available in an official iPad optimized app for free. The iPad app, built upon their iPhone app, has been redesigned to take advantage of the iPad’s screen and brings a few new features.

The main new feature is a scrolling index which, when the iPad is orientated in landscape, appears on the left of the screen, and lets you scroll the entire dictionary in alphabetical order. It is largely pointless, but pretty cool – did you know the word turmeric is the immediate word before turmoil in the dictionary?

Just like the iPhone app it has voice search powered by Nuance, synonyms and antonym support, audio pronunciations, example history and pretty much everything else that a dictionary app needs. The app does have banner ads at the bottom of the screen, but they are fairly unobtrusive and considering you get an entire dictionary for free, it is well worth it.

Miro 4.0 Available Now, Miro For iPad Coming Soon

Miro, the open source media player and organiser, was today updated to version 4 and it heralds in some significant improvements and feature additions. Most notably it has taken on the role of being iTunes for Android devices, challenging others such as DoubleTwist with its media syncing capabilities.

It allows Android users sync the typical music, movies and podcasts but will even allow them to download Android apps from either the Google Android Market or from Amazon’s Android app store. The other significant addition is a home sharing feature for content stored in Miro. Using the iTunes DAAP protocol, it lets users stream their Miro Library to any other DAAP or vice versa, letting you play content from other DAAP clients, even a NAS drive on your network.

The New York Times is also reporting that the Miro developers, the non-profit group The Participatory Culture Foundation, have also been hard at work developing a Miro app for the iPad, which will launch within three weeks. The app will likely support the streaming features introduced in Miro 4.0 as well as focusing on podcasts, which was the original appeal for Miro.

[Via The New York Times]

The Daily for iPad Nearing 1 Million Downloads

The Daily, the iPad-only magazine built by News Corp. with help from Apple when the two companies unveiled iTunes app subscriptions in February, is about to hit 1 million App Store downloads, TechCrunch reports. At the TechCrunch Disrupt panel entitled “Disrupting Publishing from Tablets to Links”, The Daily publisher Greg Clayman said the app is nearing the important milestone of 1 million downloads, though he didn’t provide any details on the number of people that decided to subscribe to the app since late March, when The Daily started charging for content after an initial free run sponsored by Verizon Wireless. The Daily currently comes with in-app subscriptions priced at $1 per week or $40 per year; a report from April suggested The Daily, both because of paywall and editorial choices, was seeing a decline in popularity in spite of Apple’s heavy promotion on Apple.com and the App Store homepage. Others suggested the same when News Corp. confirmed 800k downloads in 3 months and a $10 million loss over the last quarter to run The Daily operations.

However, 1 million downloads is a notable milestone that, in the words of Clayman, puts The Daily “in the large pantheon of large news apps.” Our first impressions of the app still hold true today – The Daily isn’t the fastest news app available on the App Store and not even the iPad 2’s beefier processor managed to make The Daily run smoothly without crashes of sorts. The Daily is expected to become available on more devices later this year, including the Android tablets that have been rolling out in the market in the past months.

Daedalus Touch for iPad

I’ve started to shy away from the bulk of text editors that hit my inbox since few bring something different to the table. There’s only so many ways you can rewrite a text editor, and while I’d love to cover everything the ones I really want to showcase have to offer something truly unique for me to sit down and crank out a review in TextMate. It’s terribly difficult to find something that stands out, but I think those disappointed with the App Store’s current offering may find something of interest here. Daedalus Touch for the iPad is different in part because of how it allows you manipulate documents in a hybrid stack & coverflow style that takes advantage of gestures, and not lists, to organize your ideas. There are no lists or hierarchy of folders, but rather stacks of sheets that contain your text. Of course it has Dropbox and TextExpander support (a must nowadays), which means you don’t have an excuse not to check Daedalus past the break.

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Kickstarter Project: SoundJaw - An iPad Sound Booster

Here’s a simple yet great idea over on Kickstarter for an iPad accessory - the SoundJaw, by Matthew McLachlan. It’s an iPad accessory that redirects sound, giving it a louder and richer tone (all without batteries). It makes an incredible difference according to Matthew. The SoundJaw is very portable, so you can keep in your pocket when not using it. He also says that it makes the biggest difference when you are outside or somewhere with a lot of background noise.

Besides sound quality, he also wanted it to compliment the slimness of the iPad with a slim accessory. The SoundJaw works with the iPad in either landscape or portrait mode, no interference with your hands. It also works with a Smart Cover as well. Matthew even says that a future, more flexible version will also work with an iPhone 4, truly making the SoundJaw a universal accessory.

Promo video after the break. Read more

Apple Updates Logic Pro, Logic Express and Adds GarageBand for iPad Import

Apple updated Logic Express and Logic Pro to version 9.1.4 a few minutes ago, improving overall stability of the apps and fixing issues reported in the previous versions. More importantly, the updates bring compatibility with GarageBand for iPad, allowing users to import GarageBand projects into Logic Express and Logic Pro.

Changelogs below:

Logic Pro 9.1.4

This update improves overall stability and addresses a number of minor issues, including the following:

  • Support for opening projects imported from GarageBand for iPad.

Logic Express 9.1.4

This update improves overall stability and addresses a number of minor issues, including the following:

  • Support for opening projects imported from GarageBand for iPad.

The new versions can be downloaded on Apple’s website, or the Software Update panel. Full list of detailed changes available here (Logic Pro) and here (Logic Express).