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Daily iPad App: Picturebook
Picturebook is a free app that lets you create illustrated stories. It's geared for children, especially those that can read and write. I tested it with my 9-year-old daughter and the app was a big hit. Picturebook has a simple, uncluttered interface that's easy for children to use. It launches to a main screen that has all your books on the left and a template to create a new book on the right. The app ships with a few sample titles so you will have content to read when you first launch the app. One of the sample books is a how-to guide that'll teach you how to use the app if you feel you need some help. The first thing you'll want to do is create your own book which you do by tapping the large "Make a Story" button. The book editor opens and you can give your book a title and an author. From there, you can add pages for the book and fill them with images and text. The app includes a small set of images for your books. Extra image sets can be purchased within the app. The premium sets include farm animals, cinderella, pirates and school. They range in price from US$0.99 to $2.99. You can also buy different covers for your book if you want something besides the default grey color. Once you create your book, it is saved in your virtual library. You can read the book and edit it again if you want to make changes. You can even share it with a friend. The share a book feature requires you to register your device and your email with Maplekey, the company behind Picturebook. Once you confirm your email, you can send your book to a friend, but there's a catch. Your friend must also have an iPad with the Picturebook app and a registered email to be able to download and read your book. There's no option to convert the book to a PDF or any other format for sharing. Picturebook is a very good app for creating illustrated stories. It's easy enough for kids to use and can be fun for parents who want to create a book for their child to read. It can also be used as a digital sticker book for the younger ones who can't read. Kids five and under would have a blast playing with the clip art and dragging the pictures on and off the pages of the book. Picturebook is available for free from the App Store. It's a universal app so it'll work on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
Daily iPad App: Doodle Jump for iPad
Doodle Jump, created by Lima Sky, is one of the first indie success stories to emerge from the App Store. It's a simple tilt-based vertical jumper that has you navigating your Doodler up a series of platforms without falling. Doodle Jump has enjoyed great success as a time-waster and, after a long wait, the classic iPhone game has been ported to the iPad. So how does this tablet version compare to the original? The gameplay on the iPad is refreshingly similar to the iPhone. The tilt-play, familiar characters and scenes are all there. Gamecenter support is present, too. The biggest difference is in the iPad itself. The larger tablet device provides a wider playing field, but is unwieldy to hold and tilt for any period of time, especially since you have to play in portrait mode. There is no landscape. Eventually, you do get accustomed to the size, but I have to admit that I prefer the smaller size of the iPhone. Besides the size, there are two other differences between the iPhone and iPad game. First, the iPad includes an exclusive submarine level that's not present on the iPhone version. Second is the use of cheats. The common ones used on the iPhone do not work on the iPad, so there's no Easter bunny level. For fans of the game, Doodle Jump for the iPad is an excellent companion to the iPhone version. It's exactly what you expect - a version of Doodle Jump for the iPad. That's not bad as most of what you know and love is now available on the iPad without having to double the pixels of the iPhone version. Doodle Jump for the iPad is available for US$2.99.
Daily iPad App: Netter's Anatomy Atlas
Any medical student or professional will instantly recognize the name "Netter." Frank H. Netter was a physician and artist who drew over 500 plates, or individual medical illustrations, covering virtually every aspect of human anatomy. Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy, the book, is a classic in the field of medical reference. It outshines Grey's Anatomy, not only in its depth and accuracy, but also because of the detail of the images (not to mention, they're in color). If you're a medical student, Netter's is a must. However, the biggest problem with Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy, as with most medical reference books, is medical students might break their backs carrying the book around. It's a tome that weights close to ten pounds. The extra weight has now been alleviated however, thanks to Elsevier Health Sciences finally bringing Netter's Anatomy to the iPad. Netter's Anatomy Atlas for iPad offers users all the benefits of the book and more. Because it's an app and not an ebook, Netter's Anatomy Atlas offers interactivity that could never be obtained in paper format. You still get all 531 Netter plates, but the app also gives you the ability to bookmark individual plates, add notes to the plates, customize and toggle labels, and offers a search functionality that allows you to quickly find a plate by plate number or keyword. The app also features some cool extras, like an additional 40 Netter plates once you register the app. Though I'm glad Netter's is finally available on the iPad (my copy of the 4th edition is literally falling to pieces), there is one major drawback to Netter's Anatomy Atlas for iPad. In a baffling move, the app only works in landscape view. You can't look at the images in portrait orientation even though that's how they were drawn. This means you're scrolling a lot through some of the taller images. I imagine this landscape-only limitation will be addressed in a future update (at least, I hope it will be). Besides that landscape orientation problem, the rest of the app is solid and I highly recommend it for anyone in the medical field. Like the book, the iPad app isn't cheap. Netter's Anatomy Atlas for iPad costs US$89.99. But there is also a free sample version, Netter's Anatomy Atlas Free, for those of you who want to try out the app first. If you do buy the full app, be warned: because of all the highly detailed plates it takes up a whopping 1.35 GB of space on your iPad. %Gallery-134922%
Daily iPad App: Demibooks Composer
One of the great Apple products many years ago was HyperCard, which allowed non-programmers to easily build interactive "stacks" with many linked pages (cards). Now a new iPad app, Demibooks Composer (free) brings a similar capability of easy creation to anyone who would like to publish an interactive iPad book and sell it on the App Store. You can learn the basics of Demibooks Composer in just a few minutes through a built-in tutorial. Once you're done with the tutorial, looking at the three built-in projects is a great way to learn even more about how certain effects were accomplished. The sample projects include two interactive children's books and a chess puzzle game, all using sound, graphics, and element physics in different ways. While HyperCard required some coding to achieve fancy effects, Demibooks Composer is completely code-free. Objects are moved and resized through standard gestures, and at any time during development of a project, you can preview how things are going to look or act with just a single tap on a preview button. For people who are thinking of developing a lot of projects, Demibooks Composer thoughtfully provides Dropbox support for online backup or sharing of project files. Once your project is completed, it can be published on the App Store through an upcoming service called "PrintShop." Prices will vary depending on the level of service you want, starting at US$499. You'll also need to have an Apple iOS Developer account. There's a overview video of the app below that shows just how easy it is to use Demibooks Composer to create interactive projects, but the best way to get familiar with this powerful creation app is to download it. It's available for free during the introductory period, so get it now and see if it's right for you.
Daily iPad App: 123D Sculpt
123D Sculpt is a virtual sculpture program designed by Autodesk, a software company known for its 3D business software like AutoCAD. Though Autodesk has a rich history of creating professional applications, 123D Sculpt is designed to the artist inside all of us. The iPad application lets you sculpt a 3D model out of a lump of virtual clay. It supports multi-touch so you can use all your fingers to mold thel clay into any shape you like. For the beginning artist, 123D Sculpt includes several pre-defined shapes that include animals, objects like cars and shapes like a cube. Once you decide on a shape, you can use a suite of tools to manipulate the clay by pulling, smoothing, pushing, pinching, flattening it and more. You can even apply textures and add color to each creation. And if you want a personal touch, you can import a photo from your camera or photo library and use it a custom texture. When you 're done with your sculpture, you can export it to a transparent PNG. It's unfortunate the app does not let you export the creation to a 3D file format. Though I am not an artist, I found 123D Sculpt to be very easy to use and enjoyable. The interface is intuitive and the app has a nice help section to explain what each tool and menu bar contains. A multiple undo feature lets you backtrack when you realize you've made some design mistakes. If you are a budding Michelangelo, then you should check out 123D Sculpt. It' s available for free from the App Store and ships with 15-20 clay models. Additional models are available as an in-app purchase.
Daily iPad App: Ghostwriter Notes
Ghostwriter Notes for the iPad is a note-taking solution that'll let you scribble your thoughts or jot down the highlights of a lecture on your tablet device. The app uses the idea of a virtual notebook to store your writings and lets you create an unlimited number of these notebooks. You can customize these notebooks and the pages within by naming them and changing the backgrounds with paper templates or background images. Writing on each page is simple and easy - all you need is your finger or a stylus. The text is predictably large when you use your finger, but it can be scaled down to normal size using a magnification view (shown above) for writing. When you choose a pen, a box appears at the top of the page and a magnified view of that region appears at the bottom of your display. You can write in this zoomed-in region and the text appears at the top. It's a little awkward but it does help you write more clearly and lets you use the entire page of the notes. This magnified view only works with the pen. If you choose the text box, markers or highlighters for writing, then you will write on the full page without any magnification. Ghostwriter also supports PDF files, so you can easily annotate and save these files. When you are done writing or editing, you can sync your notes to Dropbox or Evernote. You can also send them via email or print them wirelessly. Ghostwriter Notes is a great replacement for the traditional notebook. It would work well for students, work meetings or conferences. The magnification view is helpful for writing and its nice to have a variety of tools to use for writing, highlighting and drawing. The only negative is the interface which is good, but could be better. You get used to the controls quickly but I had to search to find the eraser under the "Pens" menu and was surprised when the up/down arrows at the top let you import and export your notebooks. I expected to jump to the top or the bottom of the page. There's also no support for the swipe gesture to turn the page. There's a little slider to move back and forth through pages, but it's not as natural of a motion as swiping. These few drawbacks take away from the experience but they don't diminish my enthusiasm for the app. The developer has a support page and is very responsive to customers so hopefully these quirks will be addressed in future versions. This responsiveness, in my opinion, means the developer is serious about the app and will work hard to improve any deficiencies and add new features. Ghostwriter Notes is available for US$4.99 from the App Store.
Daily iPad App: Skillz
Skillz for iPad is a rhythm game for existing and wannabe digital DJs. It has two turntables and lets you mix, cross-fade and scratch your way to DJ stardom. The gameplay is similar to Tap Tap Revenge and requires you to control both left and right album decks, the sampler and cross fader. When you are ready to play, you can select your DJ avatar and adjust your audio settings in the options. You can also download extra DJs and tracks, though the choice is still limited. There are several gameplay modes including Custom Play and Career Mode.There's also a nice tutorial that steps you through all the moves. After you have selected your mode, you can chose the venue, the song you want to sample and the difficulty level. Once the game starts, you have to respond appropriately to notes, rhythms, scratches and crossfades coming down the sampler track. It's a complex series of motions that takes two hands to complete. Achievements are rewarded as fans, and the better that you do, the more fans you will earn. Your fan level is important as it'll let you unlock new levels, characters, and achievements as you play. The crowd also responds to your performance and will cheer wildly when they like what they hear. Skillz for iPad includes 25 tracks that span a variety of hip-hop and dance genres so you have a good starting selection. The game also supports OpenFeint so you can share your achievements and post them on OpenFeint's leaderboard. Skillz is an enjoyable and challenging game for anyone who enjoys this genre of music. The gameplay is fast-paced, even on the easy level. The two-handed play definitely keeps you hopping. The music is decent and the graphics are bright and lively. The only complaint is that the effects are subtle. When you scratch, it's sometimes difficult to hear the scratch sound that you're making because of the background music. The same applies to the notes and cross-fading. This takes away a bit from the gameplay, but you can tweak the audio settings to find that your preferred balance between music and effects. Skillz for iPad is available for US$5.99 in the App Store.
Daily iPad App: Mini-Monsters
Creepy and fascinating are two words that come to mind when I think about 3D4Medical's new iPad app, Mini-Monsters. The app is a photographic journey that reveals the creepy crawly side of common insects. You can get a close look at the proboscis of a mosquito, the stinger of a bee and more. The app is a large gallery of over 500 insect images taken with a scanning electron microscope and then colorized. The detail and the colors are stunning. Each image also has information about the habitat and the behavior of the insect, a nice feature that makes Mini-Monsters both educational and enjoyable. You can browse or search for images using the insect name or category like herbivore or carnivore. Other filters include the biological class (like arachnid, the one category I avoid) and insect characteristics like the number of legs, the ability to fly, etc. Once you've found an image that you like, you can zoom in to get a closer look or save it to a favorites list. All your favorites can then be displayed as a slideshow. Mini-Monsters is the perfect app for the large display of the iPad. And it only costs $2.99 which is a reasonable price for 500 stunning images that'll both delight and gross you out.
Daily iPad App: Build a Train
Build a Train is a train simulation application for young children from one to six-years old. I happen to have a few kids at home and tested it out initially with my four-year-old. The Build a Train game is optimized for children. It has large buttons, bouncy background music and bright, colorful graphics. The child begins the game by choosing their train, cars and map before entering the track. There's a variety of trains that you can build and ten different maps. Five of the maps are available at the start and the other five can be unlocked by earning points within the game. Additional bonus content like helicopters can also be unlocked. Points are earned just by playing the game and within ten minutes, my daughter had enough points to buy a new map. After you pick your train and map, the game opens to the track and the train is pushed to the track. The train is put in motion with an on/off switch and the speed is controlled by a slider on the side of the track. The speed adjustments are perfect. The child can make the train go really slow or super-fast which is the speed my daughter prefers. Each track has several switches that the child can tap and change the direction of the train. Besides your standard circle, some of the switches direct the train off the screen or into a tunnel. My daughter squealed with delight when her train disappeared off the screen and re-appeared on the other side. To amuse your child, there's also a train whistle and a bell on the side that the child can tap whenever they want. The only problem I encountered is demand for the game. My six-year old couldn't help but touch the screen when his little sister was playing the game. When I turned it over to him, he was equally enthusiastic about playing the game, but disappointed he didn't have his own profile. Even my two-year old enjoyed tapping away at the game, though he had no idea what he was doing. He just liked the sounds and the movement of the trains. After watching my children play the game over the course of a few days, I can honestly say that Build a Train is an entertaining app for younger children. It would be great for car rides or anytime you want to entertain your children with an imaginative game instead of a movie. The Build a Train app is available for both the iPad and the iPhone. The gameplay is the same, but the iPad version is better for younger children as the large size of the screen makes it easy to tap the controls. Build a Train only costs $1.99 which is very reasonable for a child-friendly game of this caliber.
Daily iPad App: Machinarium
Machinarium is a charming game with an arresting and engaging art style; it debuted on the Mac and PC platforms a couple years ago. It's very similar to the point-and-click adventure games that saw much popularity in the late 80s to early 90s. You must guide a robot character through a rusted, run-down cityscape populated entirely with robotic characters and cybernetic animal life, solving puzzles along the way in order to advance the story. The art style and music, both of which are among the best I've seen in any game from any genre, combine with an eccentric storytelling method (told entirely without words) to deliver a unique and unforgettable experience. Machinarium was incredibly fun (and challenging) when I played it on the Mac last year, and at the time I thought to myself that the game would be a perfect fit for the iPad. Fortunately, Amanita Design thought the same thing, and Machinarium is now available for the iPad 2. I specifically mention the iPad 2 for a reason; that's the only iOS device that has enough horsepower to run Machinarium. Playing through Machinarium on the iPad 2, you might wonder why a 2D adventure game like this will only run on Apple's most powerful iOS device while heavy-duty 3D games like Infinity Blade or Rage will run on the original iPad and iPhone 4 just fine. As it turns out, Machinarium was originally built entirely in Flash for desktop platforms, and it's been ported to the iPad 2 via Adobe AIR. This enabled the developers to deliver mostly the same experience as the desktop version, but it also meant that the iPad 2 was the only device able to run the game to their satisfaction. "The memory limitations of iPad 1 (which are somewhere around 115 MB RAM per app) are just quite challenging," the developers said in response to complaints about the app not being available for the original iPad. "You have to have it running around 80-90 to keep it stable and the app has tons of timeline animations, the sources are 1 GB, all compiled into one single SWF file + some assets. The app was originally made for PC and upgraded for tablet devices. When you start creating tablet apps from scratch it's a whole different story. The game is now made with 'no compromises' compared to the desktop version and that keeps it unique." Having played all the way through Machinarium on both the Mac and iPad 2, I'll say that the iPad version does come fairly close to the developer's "no compromises" claim. I compared screens from the iPad version and Mac version side by side. Apart from minor differences in some UI elements and a lack of multi-layer, faux-3D "foreground" elements on the iPad version (something I didn't even notice on the Mac version until comparing them), Machinarium on iPad 2 is in nearly every respect identical to the desktop version. The game's art style is a perfect fit for the iPad, and you'll almost certainly find yourself entirely absorbed into the game as you hold it in your hands. However, while Machinarium on the iPad 2 runs very well and delivers an experience that's definitely worth the price tag, the app does demonstrate a few of the perils associated with porting Flash-based games onto a touchscreen device. Machinarium's Flash-based desktop iteration consumes around 70 percent of CPU resources on my MacBook Pro, a device with approximately 4.5 times the overall computing power of my iPad 2, so it's no surprise that only Apple's most powerful mobile hardware can handle the game even after porting it. Porting the game into a more iOS-friendly format made it so Machinarium could run (and run well, without a hint of lag) on the iPad 2. However, the game is still very demanding on battery life; my iPad lost over a third of its charge after two hours of play, about the same amount of battery charge a turbo-3D game like Infinity Blade would consume. Perhaps more frustrating is some interface elements for Machinarium's desktop version have been lost in translation on the touchpad interface -- another common caveat about porting Flash games to iOS. Controls in the desktop version of Machinarium were largely context-based; hovering the mouse pointer over certain areas of the screen would give users clues about what elements they could interact with and how they could interact with them. That context-sensitive interface is almost entirely gone from the iPad version of Machinarium, meaning that at some points the only way to progress is by tapping blindly on the screen and hoping something happens. Additionally, the game can sometimes be confused about which action you're trying to take. One particularly frustrating example of this was on a screen where you have a choice between pushing a crate or climbing on top of it. Several times in a row the game thought I wanted to push the crate instead of climbing on it, and each time this resulted in a solid minute of animation from pushing the crate to the next screen over and back again. On the Mac version, with its context-sensitive and mouse-based controls, this was never an issue. As another example of how the desktop interface was somewhat lost in translation on the iPad, the game's built-in hint system relies on a minigame that was easy enough on a Mac with keyboard controls, but the same controls on a touchscreen made it frustratingly difficult. None of these issues are knocks against Machinarium itself or its developers, but rather something to keep in mind when playing (or developing) any game that wasn't initially designed with a touchscreen interface in mind. One more thing worth noting: while the art style may make it seem as though the game would be perfect for younger children, unless your kids are packing some serious brainpower it's likely they'll become frustrated by the game's challenging and sometimes elliptical puzzles. Heck, the same goes for adults; if you don't find yourself hurling four-letter words at the game during at least one of Machinarium's many puzzles, then submit your application to Mensa right now, brainiac. Those complaints aside, Machinarium on the iPad 2 is definitely worth your time and your five dollars, especially if you never played the Mac version. Though the interface isn't a perfect translation to the iPad, the game's art, music, and charming story are each worth the price of admission on their own. When they're put together, five bucks feels like a bargain. Don't just take my word for it; as of this writing, Machinarium is the top-selling iPad app.
Daily iPad App: PlayTime Theater
Every parent who has taken a long car trip or flight with offspring in tow knows that the difference between a pleasant journey and a stressful, tiring marathon may come down to one key factor: can you keep the kids entertained (and fed) through it? If so, everyone's happier. This task is dramatically easier in the age of the iPad than it was before, but it's still not easy to find apps that appeal to kids of different ages and interests. The margin between a good children's app and a great one may be narrow, but when you see kids on a long trip getting engaged with an app for solid stretches -- without flipping back to cartoons, without taking Angry Birds/Peggle/Call of Atlantis breaks, and with a high degree of creativity and enthusiasm -- chances are you're dealing with a great app. The $2.99 PlayTime Theater doesn't have a high degree of visual polish, and its interface can be somewhat quirky and confusing; nevertheless, I think it's one of the most impressive kids' apps for the platform that I've seen in a long time. The concept of PlayTime Theater is simple, and that's what makes it so effective. The app presents a castle 'set,' complete with drawbridge, catapult and other necessities. You can populate the set with virtual puppets (knights, princesses, dragons, the entire medieval menagerie), assign them props, change their costumes and looks (including custom faces built from your photo library), and position them where you want. Once your backstage preparations are complete, you start the show. Switching into Record mode and clicking the big red button allows you to populate one of twelve show slots with a two-minute puppet show that you control. Move the characters around the stage as you (and your kid sister) give voice to each role; tap the puppets to activate their props, use the other controls to play sound effects or music, and more. Once the play is done, you can watch it with the voices and sounds perfectly synchronized to the action. Like I said, it's a simple idea, and there's nothing fancy about the visuals, but I've rarely seen an app that so completely captured the attention of my 10-year-old and six-year-old daughters in a matter of moments. I didn't even introduce it to them -- they found it, and they were off. You might have to clarify the button functions for younger kids the first time through, but they will be composing epic shows in no time. It's not just fun for the younger set, either; the friend who introduced me to the app says he uses it to create mini-epics by animating snippets of business conference calls. The app thoughtfully includes a link to the developer's YouTube channel with demo videos and sample recordings; these do help clarify the interface. You can read more about the app at the PlayTime Theater website, where it's noted that future versions will offer more backgrounds and additional varied characters. If your kids enjoy creative play and storytelling, you can't go wrong with PlayTime Theater. There is no bigger bargain to be had on the App Store than trading $3 for hours of peaceful traveling children who will be eager to show you their seatback masterpieces. Hat tip to Myke L.
Daily iPad App: Solar Walk
Want to tour the Solar System? Solar Walk is a just-updated universal iOS app that allows you to do just that. The new version has support for 3D, so you get some rather stunning renditions of planets and satellites that are more realistic than what's available in a 2D presentation. I reviewed the app in 2010 and found it to be very educational. Solar Walk would be very nice for teachers, who could plug it into external monitors in the classroom. As near as I can tell, the app doesn't support the high end 3D method that uses shutter glasses or polarizing filters, but instead uses the tried and true red/blue anaglyphic glasses that became popular in the fifties. They are cheap, and easily available from suppliers like Amazon. Note: A late email from the developer says you can use the app with a 3D TV although it is not noted in the app help. Here's how to do it if you have a 3D TV.: 1. Connect your iPad with an HDMI adapter to the 3d TV 2. Switch on 3D function in Solar Walk Menu. 3. There will appear a question what type of 3D you want to use anaglyph glasses or 3D TV. Choose 3D TV. 4. On you 3D TV screen there will appear two pictures on a screen. 5. Switch 3D mode on a TV. 6. Put on 3D glasses and enjoy. You can also see the 3D images just fine on the iPad. Solar Walk includes very detailed graphics and information about our solar system, and this new version adds some movies (in 2D) on tides, circles of latitude, and the zodiacal constellations. My favorite 3D view was of Saturn and its moons. With 3D glasses on, the planets and artificial satellites come alive. It was interesting to watch things like the Hubble Space Telescope in its proper real time position slowly gliding over the earth far below. You can navigate to any view that you like, using finger gestures, and you can zoom in and out as well. There is an option to listen to music while you use the app, but I found the music forgettable and distracting. Screen captures are supported and background stars are rendered in their proper positions. Solar Walk is very educational, but as before, the textual information is still a bit thin. I always found myself wanting to read more. Perhaps some links to NASA or Wikipedia would be in order. Still, the new features are worthwhile and the app is a reasonable US$2.99. This app was created by the team that made the much praised Star Walk app. This app is of equal quality and the graphics are sharp and very attractive. There are some (2D) screen shots in the gallery below. %Gallery-132539%
Daily iPad App: EDGE Extended
One of my new favorite games for the iPad is EDGE Extended. In it users control a color-fluctuating cube by continuously tumbling it backwards and forwards, left and right. The goal is to get the cube across a platform of raised buttresses, moving tiles, traps, and enigmatic mazes to the other side where it transports off to the next level. If the concept of the game sounds simple that's because it is, but what makes this game stand out is its art direction, physics, and ingenuity. EDGE Extended offers beautifully simple controls. There is no virtual joystick or pad. Just place your finger anywhere on the screen and drag to tumble the cube in any direction. The game is designed as an homage to the simplistic-looking arcade games of the 80s. But the simplicity is deceiving, because the developers obviously put a lot of subtle detail into it. As the cube tumbles over, you really get a "feel" every time its flat surface plops to the ground. Its 8-bit score and sound effects compliment the game's 44 levels without getting annoying. And its puzzles, levels, and traps are varying enough so you don't get the feeling of "I've played this level before." EDGE Extended is my new addiction. And for US$0.99, I think it's going to become many peoples' addictions. Best of all, for that $0.99 you get a universal game that plays on both the iPad and iPhone.
Daily iPad App: Highlights
Today's daily iPad app is Highlights, an app that lets you find new and interesting places around you based on crowd sourced recommendations from check-in services Gowalla and Foursquare. The app works by scanning Gowalla and Foursquare reviews and then processing them through Highlights' ranking systems. The results are then presented to you on an interactive Google Map. By default the app works by using your current location, but you can enter almost any address on the globe to get recommendations. This is especially handy for when you're planning a trip to another city. Highlights also features a "recommend in this area button." When tapped you'll see a list of the top spots in your currently viewed area divided into categories like culture, religion, arts, education, entertainment, food, hotels, nightlife, great days out, and more. As with other apps that spotlight cool areas around you, Highlights lets you narrow your search by category. It also offers basic translation of reviews into some other languages -- a nice feature for international travelers. Also besides the ability to search and browse places around you Highlights offers a planner feature that allows you to save those places to an itinerary. It even offers you pre-made itineraries via Gowalla Trips. Highlights' user interface is clean and easily navigable with large icons representing the categories of discovered venues. The app is also universal, so it runs on both the iPad and iPhone. The only immediate improvement the app needs is the ability to convert kilometers into miles. Though the metric system is far superior and easier to use, many in America may be put off by only having distances measured in kilometers. Highlights has found a permanent spot on my iPad and iPhone home screen. It's available in the App Store for US$0.99.
Daily iPad app: Converse
A few weeks ago I wrote about tips while traveling with your iPad. Today I want to tell you about an app that might be useful for those traveling to other countries where they don't speak the native language. Or, it might be useful once it gets fleshed out a little more. The idea behind Converse is great. It's an app which allows you to IM a foreign speaker face to face using a split-screen dual keyboard layout. Each user can select their language and type messages to the other. Those messages are then displayed on the receiver's side of the iPad app, translated into their native tongue. As I said, the idea is a good one, but the app as it is right now is somewhat limiting. For example users can only choose from seven languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Dutch. But what's more frustrating is that the translations are almost word for word and don't take syntax into account. That means your translated message might read like a two year old wrote it. Furthermore, the iPad app requires an Internet connection to work, which means if you're standing on the side of the road in Porto desperately trying to find where the next train to Lisbon is, Converse is going to be no help in asking your question to someone who doesn't speak the language. Another issue: Converse has no way of entering numbers, which are universal, so you have to spell them out and that takes more time to type (and due to the lack of syntax can add to some confusion). I write about this app because I think if the developer flushes out some bugs, works on syntax, and integrating dictionaries into it so it doesn't require an Internet connection, it'll be a good one to have while traveling. Also, if the dev can find out a way to make it an iPhone app that would be great, though admittedly it might be hard to fit two keyboards on an iPhone's screen at the same time and remain usable. Converse is US$4.99 in the App Store.
Daily iPad App: 7notes handwriting recognizer lets you take notes with one finger
7notes is a note-taking/handwriting recognition app for the iPad. It costs US$8.99; there is also a $4.99 iPhone version, along with feature-limited free versions. I spent several hours using the iPad paid version (7notes Premium) and found it did an excellent job of recognizing both my cursive words and individual letters, all done with my finger on the iPad screen. Handwriting recognition is not a trivial task, and 7notes has a very smart recognition engine. The app also has a predictive engine which worked quite well, figuring out my scrawl and giving me some words that matched the context of what I was writing. When there is more than one guess, you just tap the word you want. As you write, you can also add freehand graphics, with some choice of color and thickness of the stroke. I was able to easily add arrows and other simple symbols or diagrams. You can convert your words to recognized text at any time, on a word by word basis, or full sentences or an entire document at one time. The app allows you to write in 2 or 3 column format. You can save your document or send to email, or export to Evernote or Dropbox; you can save as a PDF, or if you are equipped, you can print directly to a local printer. When I tried printing everything worked as expected, and the graphics appeared within my text just where I wanted them. The app allows you to bring up an on-screen keyboard at any time if your words aren't being recognized, but in point of fact, I did not have to use it. In a way, 7note fulfills the promise of the Newton from back in the 1990s, only 7note works better and has a lot of formatting options the Newton never had. When I first started to use the app, nothing worked, but I pretty quickly learned to adjust my fingers to the screen and then recognition got very good. The app has a lot of icons on screen that aren't always readily obvious in purpose, but I quickly learned them; built-in help is available at any time. You can try a free version of the app to get an idea if it will work for you. It won't convert your handwriting to text, but it will give you a good introduction. I did not try the iPhone version, and the smaller screen might be more of a challenge. 7note works with a stylus, and that might be a preferred method of input. 7note provides a support page where you can get questions answered, and read what other users are saying about the app. If you are a note-taker and just can't get excited about the software keyboard on iOS devices, 7note may be for you. Remember that it will take some time to get used to writing with it, and you'll need to learn the purpose of the on-screen icons. You can see some screen shots in the gallery below. %Gallery-131597%
Daily iPad App: Elements 2
Elements is one of many text editors available in the App Store. It supports Dropbox, Markdown and TextExpander which makes it popular among iOS users. It's available for the iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad, but the iPad version really shines as a text editor. Version 2 was just released and adds several notable features for editing and exporting documents. The iPad version uses the entire screen and the large onscreen keyboard, which makes it easy to create a text document or markdown file from scratch or edit an existing one on the fly. I don't have a Bluetooth keyboard and was unable to test this functionality in the latest version of the app. All documents can be uploaded to your Dropbox account and synced across devices. Even when you are offline, the file changes will be saved and uploaded when you connect. Elements uploads files to a default /Dropbox/Elements/ folder and you still can't change that location. Variety is the spice of life and Elements has a bunch of export options that let you save your file as an HTML or PDF document. You can export the document to Tumblr, Facebook, Dropbox, Evernote, iTunes, and email. The editor UI has also been tweaked with a new dealt font of Museo Sans, a new Markdown preview view and appearance settings that are now available from the within the app. Elements 2 also removed the ability to change the background color setting, a change that users of the earlier version may find annoying. Elements is a very capable text editor for the writer or coder that uses their iPad regularly. It's a universal app available for US$4.99 from the App Store.
Daily iPad App: Pocket Zoo HD
Parents and educators looking for a fun way to teach the young ones about zoo animals -- and have a bit of fun in the process -- now have an iPad app that fits both criteria. Pocket Zoo HD (US$3.99) gives kids of all ages a chance to learn more about some of the animals they might find in zoos (or the wild) and even see the creatures in real time through embedded webcam video. Launching Pocket Zoo HD takes you to a "zoo map" that looks remarkably similar to one of those that you'd find at a top-tier location like the San Diego Zoo. It has the animals grouped by biome on the map -- Australian critters like the platypus and Tasmanian devil occupy one area, sea creatures are in an "aquarium" in the center of the map, and so on. Tapping on the image of an animal displays informative text about the animal under a detailed photo, and tapping on the photo plays a high-quality recording of a sound that the animal makes. %Gallery-131036% In many cases, there are short videos associated with the animal as well. These videos are all from YouTube, so in some cases the soundtrack can be a bit annoying, but it's fun to see zoo animals in action as seen by the video cameras or smartphones of people at the zoo. The best feature, though, is new -- the ability to watch many of the animals in real time through zoo webcams. Not every animal has a webcam feed, and for those who do, the feed can be shut down from time to time to give the animal some "private time." While the animals are online, it's a lot of fun to watch their behavior in action. The live cams feature a camera button for taking stills of what's going on, as well as email and Twitter buttons for sharing the action with friends. Pocket Zoo HD is a perfect example of an app that can be both fun and educational, and the addition of the webcam feeds makes it even more of an enticing way for anyone to learn more about the animals we share the planet with. The developer, Tiny Hearts, also donates 1% of all proceeds to animal conservation, so you can help preserve wildlife while enjoying the app.
Daily iPad App: Storyist for iPad
I know what you're probably thinking: "Steve's blogging about a writing tool and it's not even NaNoWriMo time yet!" As true as that may be, there's a version of the powerful Storyist writing app now available for iPad, and I just had to write about it whether or not November is near. Storyist for iPad (US$9.99) isn't as robust as the $59 Mac version, but I found that the app is perfect for my creative writing. If you're a novelist, a script writer, or just someone who wants to hammer out your own creative thoughts, Storyist for iPad is going to make your day. Launching Storyist on your iPad brings up a My Projects page. To aid new users in the process of figuring out the app, Storyist includes a Getting Started document consisting of a 21-page guide, novel and screenplay example files, and a handful of images included in the examples. Like its desktop sibling, Storyist for iPad provides a powerful outliner and an "index card" feature for organizing your thoughts. There's an amazing amount of control over line indentation and paragraph and line spacing, and a full palette of fonts to choose from. Images can either be inserted into your document from the project folder or from your photo library. The editor supports rich text, comments, footers, headers and style sheets. For manuscripts and screenplays, the text is automatically formatted into the generally accepted formats for submission. When working on a manuscript project, special pages for plot, character and setting descriptions are created for authors to reference when they've forgotten the details. The app syncs with Dropbox with a tap, and the files are compatible with Storyist for Mac. Other import and export formats include RTF, Plain Text, and Final Draft v8. Since many writers would gag at the thought of having to crank out a novel or screenplay on a virtual keyboard, the app works seamlessly with Bluetooth wireless keyboards. For doing updates to manuscripts and screenplays on the run, I can't think of a better writing tool, and for ten bucks Storyist for iPad is a bargain.
Daily iPad App: Delivery Status touch, A package tracker
Delivery Status touch is a package tracking app that's compatible with more than 30 delivery services worldwide including UPS, FedEX, and DHL. The app tracks multiple packages from multiple sources and looks great on the large screen of the iPad. To use the app, you must have packages with tracking information. Entering tracking information is done manually, though the App does support vendors like Amazon and Apple. With these stores, you have to give login credentials and an order number before the app can pull down the tracking numbers. If you prefer to keep your login information private, you can select the delivery company and add the tracking number directly. Delivery Status touch also syncs to Junecloud's website which lets you manage your packages via a web interface. The main screen of the iPad application lets you view the status of all your packages in one handy location. It even counts down the days until the package will land on your door step. The app packs a lot of information about each package. You can view the package's location on a map, find contact information about the carrier and even pull down order information if your package was purchased from an online merchant and you have linked back to that account. You can also use Delivery Status touch to send a tracking update to yourself or someone else via email. This email sharing is done manually and is not triggered by a change in tracking. Delivery Status touch has almost everything you need to track your packages as they make their way from warehouse to your door step. The only missing feature is native notifications that alert you when there's a change tracking information. You have to launch the app to see if a package has been delivered or delayed. The iPad app does not seem to support iOS notifications and there's no way to setup automatic email or text message notifications from within the app. The solution for notifications provided by Junecloud requires you to have the Mac version of the app running and Junecloud sync account to send notifications to your iOS device. Delivery Status touch is available as a universal app for the iPhone and the iPad for US$4.99.
