One Nice Bug Per Day
i don't do bad sauce passes
todays bird
Claire Keane
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
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DEAR READER
KIROKAZE
Cosimo Galluzzi
sheepfilms
roma★
izzy's playlists!
Love Begins
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Keni
will byers stan first human second
JVL
we're not kids anymore.
tannertan36
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@ipadarcanum-blog
Simply stunning, the new iPad’s brilliant screen combined with high speed LTE internet access refine the iPad to a degree where it’s hard to even imagine a viable competitor for the next 12-18 months.
Throw in the great dictation software that is the backbone of Siri and you have a revolutionary device that lives up to the hype.
“Avid Studio is the clear winner.”
I completely agree with Leanna’s excellent piece. This is Proof that if you know your stuff and make a quality product, you can compete with Apple even on their own device.
"What I didn’t know was how easy Apple would make it for anyone to create these interactive books, using video, audio, Keynote presentations and even simple-to-create quizzes, that’s where iBooks Author for Mac comes in."
A great initial tour of the new tool that is the centerpiece of Apple's next attempt at market disruption, given by RJ Jacquez, former Adobe Senior Evangelist.
This entire initiative really strikes me as similar to the paradigm that iTunes created with independent artists self-publishing over iTunes and to a lesser degree the advent of Podcasts as an alternative to independent radio. The true test will be in findings ways to properly curate the content so that the quality rises up.
Play Hard with... TV Forecast HD for iPad
A Nielsen Company survey earlier this year indicated that most of us (70%) are using our iPads while watching television. Of course it makes perfect sense, the iPad is an extremely portable, couch-friendly device that fits in well with about any activity.
Unless your one of the 30% who don't mix iPad and TV use together, you're likely to find TV Forecast HD for iPad a pretty handy companion. The premise itself is simple, the app provides you with an smart, personalized guide to the shows that you tell it you are invested in. It will then provide you with a complete episode list of your shows and give you a synopsis of upcoming shows and tell you when they air. When will Fringe come back from mid-season break? A quick check of the Calendar view shows me it is next Friday, 11 days from now.
Additional features like bookmarking allow you to mark the last episode that you have watched so you can remember easily where to pick back up. It even offers an iCloud storage feature so you can keep your show list synched between devices. However, it loses points in my book because it isn't a universal app, if you want to have the app on your phone and iPad, you're buying them separately.
As stated, this is a simple but elegant app that allows me to easily track the shows that interest me without a lot of the clutter of unwanted information that I find other apps include. I recommend it if this functionality appeals to you.
TV Forecast HD for iPad [$1.99]
Put simply: you do not have to manage background tasks on iOS. The system handles almost every case for you and well written audio, GPS, VOIP, Newsstand and accessory apps will handle the rest.
This is the takeaway that will suffice for most new users, however if you would like to understand more about how your iPad handles apps "in the background", then I highly encourage you to follow the link and read Fraser Speirs's post.
Regardless of business size, getting proficient with the iPad is becoming increasingly important.
If you are also new to iOS, then these will likely be helpful to you.
The 3 best (and worst) iPad 3 rumors
With Apple's overall popularity at an all-time high, you pretty much will find the rumor mill associated with their products in full-swing year 'round. However, as we quickly approach the spring time period where the first two iPad versions were released, it seems that rumors of what may be part of the iPad 3 are especially active.
Here are the top 3 I think are likely to come true:
Siri for the iPad - Clever hackers have already jailbroken Siri and got her to run on other iOS devices, so it does seem that Apple's decision to launch Siri exclusively for the iPhone 4S may be related purely to driving sales of that product. Regardless, Siri is definitely a hit (from both an functional and marketing perspective) and will almost certainly be part of future Apple iOS releases.
Improved Camera - Let's face it, the iPad is not nearly as handy to take snapshots as the iPhone and iPod Touch are. That said, it would seemingly take very little effort on Apple's part to upgrade the iPad camera and enable shots that it does take to be of a significantly higher quality.
Retina Display - While it would obviously impact Apple's cost to produce it (as well as causing existing App developers to retrofit their apps to properly support it), there seems to be enough smoke on this one to indicate that there is some fire. I wouldn't be stunned if they decided to pull back from this step, but I do think it is more likely than not to be included.
And here are the Top 3 most unlikely rumors that I've seen circulated:
No bezel edge - In my opinion too many people neglect to consider the value of that bezeled edge to the overall tablet experience. Try this: Put your left thumb somewhere on the home screen as you hold your iPad (not on the edge, but the screen) and then use your right hand to try to launch an App. It won't work until you remove your left thumb from the screen. Now image holding the iPad without that bezeled edge that provides the system with a "dead zone" so you can grip it without it having to decide of that touch is something that is actionable or not. While it may not make the system more attractive to look at, that edge serves a valuable purpose.
No Home Button - With the inclusion of multi-task gestures in iOS 5, it's very true that users have options that make them significantly less likely to need or use the Home button if they choose to do so. However, the Home button is an established element of the iPad paradigm, as well as a helpful physical component that can be used (in conjunction with the power button) to reset the device in the event of an application crash/freeze.
Thunderbolt port to replace the iPad's standard iOS port - While contemplating this inclusion can immediately get you thinking about periphreal "what if" scenarios in regards to what type of external devices that iPad could interface with, it also strikes me as unlikely due to the increased burden that it would put on the battery performance. I doubt that Apple would be willing to trade battery performance for increased third-party hardware interaction.
Play Hard with... Words with Friends HD
You work hard, and hopefully you get to play hard too. Each post in the "Play Hard with..." series will focus on at least one way that you can do the latter.
Words with Friends HD is the premium version of the game that puts a familiar turn-based board game on your iPad. Yes, for those that follow pop-culture, this is the same game that Alec Baldwin found so addictive that he allegedly got belligerent with an American Airlines crew and kicked off the plane rather than stop playing.
The "killer-feature" that Words with Friends brings to the table is its support for something called "asynchronous play". What this essentially means that after you take your turn, your opponent will be notified that it is their turn and the game will wait on them to make their move. This could happen instantly if they are available to play, or it could be that they don't get to it for a day or two... the game won't mind. While this does mean you may not have the immediacy that you get with a table-top board game, it does empower you to make a move during a break in your busy day and then close the app and go about your busy day.
Now your first thought after reading that may be, that sounds boring if I make a move and I'm done until someone else makes theres. Words with Friends avoids this potential tedium by allowing you to have multiple simultaneous games in progress at once. After you have 5-6 games running at once, you'll find that most times when you open the app at least 1 or 2 of those games will be waiting for you to make a move. The ability to quickly generate multiple games is helped by the ability to hook your Words with Friends player list into Facebook, so you can see who of your Facebook friends are playing the game. Doing this will also bring in their Facebook profile picture, which adds a nice personal touch when you are navigating among games. If you don't use Facebook or want to play with your friends, you can also seek out opponents at random for a quick challenge.
Another change from the traditional Scrabble game that it is obviously inspired from, is what I feel is a better designed board. Whiles the differences initially may seem subtle, the orientation of Letter and Word bonus tiles enable you to get multiple bonuses much easier than you do on the classic board. This makes for more exciting gameplay and introduces a lot more strategic positioning of letters as you maneuver to make sure that if you can't get a big bonus title for your word, neither hopefully will your opponent.
As fun as it is, there are some areas where Zynga could really stand to improve the experience. While you can see the results of your last completed games, there is no tracking of your overall record. This means unless you personally track it separately, there is no way for you to see what your overall winning percentage is, or how you are faring against a specific rival. Similarly, in an effort to keep you within their own Zynga ecosystem, it doesn't provide support for Game Center, which is really unfortunate because through it Apple has provided an easy way for app developers to incorporate these social features into their games.
Words with Friends HD [$.99] / Words with Friends HD Free (Ads) [Free]
This is a very easy recommendation for all newly initiated iPad users. The folks at AppAdvice.com have put together a great App that answers a lot of questions that you're likely to have with regards to "what apps should I get to do X".
Whether you are looking to tap into popular social media tools, want to turn your iPad into a portable home theatre, or simply want to check out some popular magazines, this is a great place to get started with exploring all that your iPad can deliver. To top it off, it's completely free, so go grab it!
AppStart [Free]
Work Hard with... "Photogene for iPad"
You work hard, and hopefully you get to play hard too. Each post in the "Work Hard with..." series will focus on at least one way that you can do the former.
Photogene for iPad is an photo editing program that has been designed for touch interface of the iPad. With it you can browse, crop, edit, make adjustments, and then export your images either back into your iPad photos or push it up to various external sources including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Dropbox, FTP, and more.
If you have never used your iPad for photo editing, one of the first things that will jump out at you is how intuitive most of the functions are to the format. For example, when cropping an image (as pictured above), you drag the control-points of the crop area to your liking (the exact resolution of your cropped space dynamically adjusts as you change its size) and press the CROP button and immediately that section becomes your new image. You can then continue to make tweaks to it until you are satisfied, and then export it. When exporting your given the option to adjust the size/resolution further, in case your trying to conserve space and would like a smaller image output.
Your options for sharing your images is one area where Photogene really shines over the competition like snapseed (iPad App of the Year 2011), which supports exporting photos to email, print, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter. Photogene gives you all of these while also adding support for a custom FTP location, Dropbox, Picasa, as well as allowing you to copy it to your clipboard. The UI and design of snapseed is admittedly slicker than that of Photogene, but when it comes to the capabilities where it counts, Photogene is the clear winner.
Another area where I feel Photogene really shines is in extra features like the ability to retouch your photos with "Heal" (which will help hide blemishes and rough content transitions and "Red Eyes", which from my experience is extremely effective at quickly eliminating the dreaded red-eye effect that is common in personal snapshots.
While the app itself is $2.99, there are three In-App purchase options that extend the product in various ways. If you are a professional media developer who finds themselves frequently using Photogene, the "GO-PRO" option ($7.99) allows for a lot of specific features that may be attractive to you, such as the ability to add personal watermarks, JPEG export quality control, the ability to define your own IPTC sets and more.
I think it's fair to say that most media professionals are not going to replace their desktop/laptop tools of the trade with an app that costs 1/10th (or more) the price and runs on their iPad, however it is a very powerful app that may allow certain tasks to be done with a few taps of your finger while on the go.
Photogene for the iPad
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Sir Arthur C. Clarke
We are all magic-users.
One more day!!!! - Opening December 26th-ish, 2011
That's right, just one more day and the iPad Arcanum get started with helpful iPad information, app reviews and more. Check back sometime on Monday! In the meantime, enjoy the holidays with your friends, families, and iPads and see you tomorrow!