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Confirmed: The mythical "iProd" is the real-world iPad
Last summer, the Apple web was abuzz with the discovery of a mysterious "iProd" device in the iPhone's USB identifier list. Leaving aside the obvious jokes, and noting with some astonishment that Erica actually presaged the name back in 2006, we now can say for sure: the iProd was, in fact, the iPad. Full explanation after the link below.
First Look: Foto Brush Pro on iPad
One of the more popular genres of iPad app appearing close to launch time seems to be artistic or photography tools. The video above shows Foto Brush Pro from Bobby Software running on an iPad. The app has been available for iPhone and iPod touch under the name Photo Brush for quite some time, and is now expanding to fill the vast pixel space of the iPad. The video shows how the app can be used to paint blank canvases or photos, add text, and otherwise enhance or create art. The bigger screen is definitely a benefit for this kind of app -- having a little extra room for tools and gestures helps a lot, we'd imagine. As of the time this post was published, the app was not yet available in the App Store for purchase, so be sure to check back often if you're interested in this creative app for iPad.
First Look: Hurricane HD for iPad
Do you enjoy tracking storms? Ilene Jones, CEO of Kitty Code was kind enough to send over this preview of her Hurricane HD application, a bigger, updated version of the current iPhone version. It offers both Atlantic and Pacific storm tracking. You'll be able to check wind speed, direction and pressure as storms develop and dissipate. The application also offers satellite images, forecasts and advisories among other data. This is a pretty exhaustive video (it runs over nine minutes) and showcases pretty much every storm-related feature you might imagine, all presented using the iPad's extended screen space. We haven't heard anything about a price yet, but it looks like storm trackers will have software to run on the iPad right away.
First Look: CourseNotes for iPad
CourseNotesApp developer Jon Klein was kind enough to send over this video of his upcoming iPad app. Aimed at students, this app not only simplifies iPad note taking, but helps keep those notes organized by time and subject. I showed this video around to a student-heavy group and the video received an overwhelming thumbs up. "I think the most exciting thing about the iPad is that it's like the iPhone but it's bring it into new areas, where the iPhone wasn't practical," Klein told me over the phone. "Education is a perfect example of that. The iPhone OS will be a great platform for taking notes but the iPhone form wasn't there." With the iPad-based CourseNotesApp, now it can be.
First look: Air Harp turns iPad into instrument of the muses
While there's no shortage of musical "instruments" for the iPhone, the relatively small size of its screen makes string instrument apps gaudy because you don't have the room to strum the strings appropriately. The iPad is going to change all that by allowing the app size needed to strum (virtually) to your hearts content. Developer touchGrove has previewed one of the first string instrument apps I've seen on the iPad. Called Air Harp, it turns your iPad into a 15-string harp. Now you can finally get down with your inner muse and strum to your Hellenic heart's content. The Air Harp app is pretty cool, though in no way as cool as the actual air harp, but until that Air Sitar app comes along, we'll take what we can get. [via TechCrunch]
First Look: Mag Canvas for iPad
Here's a video of a sweet little iPad application that was sent over by Ken Matsui of mkftr. It's for kids, based on those old magnet drawing toys. There's not much to it, but what there is looks simple and easy-to-use. This seems like the perfect type of application that works better on a bigger screen like the iPad -- while there are a few of these available for the iPhone already, having a larger touchscreen to create some temporary art on will be a big benefit for the new device. I know my littlest guy would have fun using it, and if you've got small kids and a long car ride, Mag Canvas may entertain for as much as five or ten minutes. That might not sound like a lot, but to parents, those few minutes can be a really blessed break. Mag Canvas should be available for the iPad right at launch.
First Look: Game Table for the iPad
Here's some screenshots for another upcoming iPad app called Game Table. The app brings Checkers, Chess, and various card games onto Apple's tablet with detailed graphics and an "intuitive" interface -- the developers claim it's like carrying full board games around with you, but without all the little pieces and doodads. Unfortunately, that also means that you don't actually "play" any games on the device -- it's just a series of boards and interactive pieces for them, so it's up to you as the player to determine how you want to actually move them around. That could be either a benefit (if you have a weird variation of poker or chess that you like to play that wouldn't normally be found in a mobile game, there you go) or a hindrance, if you'd rather your board game action be a little bit more guided. But the price is right -- the Game Table is set to release for just 99 cents. Game Table will be available on the App store at launch. %Gallery-89336%
First Look: Sudoku Real Edition
According to its developers David Jones and Amy Burton, Sudoku Real Edition offers a game play experience that aims to be "as real as possible, almost as if you bought a Sudoku book and sat down at a table to play." As this sneak peek video shows, that goal is not too far off the mark. Priced at $2.99, this new iPad app was built using real world graphics that were digitized for game play. If you're into Sudoku, you'll probably be impressed by this application's beautifully designed interfaces. It's nice to see how thoroughly the developers created a custom iPad experience. One discordant note is that they used standard Apple switches (ON-OFF buttons) in their Settings dialog instead of creating a custom choice control that better matched their other UI elements. Also, it's not clear whether you'll be able to use full screen play in addition to the tabletop presentation in the video; it seems like a natural transition for landscape to change into a full screen portrait view. That having been said, it looks lovely. I particularly liked their sliding bookmark element, that keeps track of an on-going game. All in all, it looks like a beautiful game and a worthy member of the new iPad App Store community.
First Look: Neon Wallpaper for iPad
Newly "Beta 5 approved" according to AppVision Product Director Mark Chamberlain, Neon Wallpaper for iPad lets you create backdrops for your new device. As this video shows, you can combine elements of pictures and text to build your own personalized wallpaper. This, like so many App Store offerings, is going to be a "matter of taste" application. Either it does exactly what you want, namely to create strongly styled images, or it does not and you'll give it a pass. The reason this video jumped out at me is how the AppVision developers took advantage of the iPad's large screen space to lay out a complex tool space. There's nothing really novel in terms of their choice of interactive elements (also called "controls") -- they are quite standard SDK offerings -- but the app showcases how many of them you can put onscreen at once while keeping the interface relatively uncluttered. Is this an app that I'm dying to start using? Honestly, no. I did, however, appreciate the peek into how this workmanlike application made the jump into the iPad design space, and I thought that you might too. There are 9 million custom wallpapers in the wild, according to their marketing material (no word on actual install customer base) due to Neon Wallpaper, so who am I to pass a call on taste?
First Look: dPad drum sequencer for iPad
I'm not a big drums person. I have no rhythm. I wouldn't know a drum kit if I tripped over one. Overly complicated interfaces confuse and scare me. Nevertheless, I thought I'd bring you this sneak peek video from Stu Helm, who ex-TUAWian Dave Chartier tells me is renown for "Agile and International Mac Podcast fame." I know that a certain subset of you (1) wear jeans with dark, rock & roll-themed tee-shirts, (2) do have some sort of functional relationship with music and rhythm, and (3) will actually enjoy playing with a dark, minimally designed, overly-complicated series of dots to build drum sequences. Although it's pretty feature-limited for an app that's supposed to debut at US$3.99, the developers promise to keep enhancing the app going forward. They are looking to add in-app purchases for drum sound packs, a left-handed use mode, sequence saving and loading (apparently you can make sounds now, but you cannot save them), and recording to audio files. Let me end by consulting my dictionary of "Hip Phrases for Young People(TM) " and adding, "Er,...rock on, good chaps, rock on."
First Look: Ship Finder HD for iPad
We had a rather in-depth discussion about Ship Finder HD over in the TUAW back channel this morning, trying to decide whether or not to feature it in our First Look series. In the end, we determined that the cool functionality outweighed the iffy design and that it was just really a neat thing to be able to track ships around the world in real time. And that's exactly what Ship Finder HD does. It uses AIS coverage from across the globe to position ships on maps. Lee Armstrong of pinkfroot, a small iPhone OS development house, was kind enough to share this video showing Ship Finder HD in action. He writes. "[T]he new iPad's form factor enables the app to be much more functional for just the casual user and the professional mariner." Obviously, the application would benefit from the touch of a graphic designer, especially for the ship icons. The popover views could use a makeover as well. But leaving the pretty-factor to the side, this functionality is compelling and will provide a better fit to a larger interaction screen. The iPhone version of Ship Finder retails for $4.99 on iTunes. No word yet on the price or date of availability of the iPad "HD" version. Interested in an plane-locator version? A second video follows after the Read More...
First Look: Carter's Encyclopedia of Health and Medicine for iPad
When I first heard about Carter's Encyclopedia of Health and Medicine, I thought: "Why aren't they just publishing this on the iBooks store?" After all, what can an app offer that an actual iBook won't? This video offers some answers. Instead of just a static book, this app provides searchable interactive skeletons (cute touch!), a topic-specific search history, and of course, all of the medical detail that a hypochondriac could wish for. The video shown here was provided by Keith Ahern, the CEO of mogeneration, an Australian development company. I'm a little surprised that so many developers are going head-to-head with the iBooks arena, but with a niche area like a medical reference, it looks like Carter's has a chance to stand its ground. This encyclopedia offers a beautiful reference work, but it may struggle with its relatively limited feature set when compared to a normal iBook offering. Carter's Encylopedia will debut at a $9.99 price point on the iPad App Store.
First Look: iMockups for iPad
Developers often carry around notebooks, which they use to sketch out their brilliant ideas for the next million-dollar iPhone or iPad app. The folks over at Endloop, a Canadian iPad development company with a few projects under its figurative belt, have been "coding like madmen" recently for their latest product, iMockups for iPad. The idea behind iMockups is to give devs a way to quickly create wireframes and layouts for iPad, iPhone, and web apps. Any project can have multiple sketchbook pages associated with it, and developers can quickly add elements from a pad at the side of the screen. Details about the app are very sketchy (no pun intended), so there's no word on when the app will be released to the App Store, what the price will be, or if there is any way to export or print the mockups that are created. However, iMockups looks like a good tool for those of you who are tired of carrying around that sketchbook, pencil, and eraser for capturing your app ideas.
First Look: Tweeting from your iPad with Twitepad
In the rush of iPad apps that we've been hearing about for the last few days, the genre that seems to be missing is Twitter clients. They're very popular in the iPhone App Store, so it's surprising that we haven't seen more screenshots or videos of Twitter apps for iPad. One of the first Twitter clients to be available on iPad (as of Saturday April 3rd) will be Twitepad, an app from InfoXenter that has already been approved by Apple. The larger screen of the iPad gave InfoXenter an opportunity to build in an integrated Web browser, support for multiple columns of tweets or an unlimited number of Twitter accounts, and other features that look pretty darned good! Check out the video above for a quick look at Twitepad. Hopefully, TUAW will have a review of this early iPad client for Twitter in the near future.
First Look: Kobo for iPad
Here's yet another iPad app that caught my eye via a video preview. KoboBooks takes advantage of iPad-style design to offer a simple, elegant eBook reader. I love how all of the attention to detail (from bookmarks and page views, to brightness, font, and background settings) really exemplifies how apps can work on the iPad. Check out those gorgeous pop-up menus! Long time TUAW friend Jim Dovey sent over this video for us to look at. It's unclear whether Apple is going to (or, really, should) give this app a green light. KoboBooks is in direct competition with its iBooks reader and their support for Project Gutenberg eBooks. Though, if Apple does reject it, that would be a shame. Kobo is beautiful to look at. It is designed with obvious love, and a clear simple feature set. This is another app that I'm looking forward to trying, assuming that it makes it to App Store.
First Look: SketchNotes for iPad
When I first heard the idea for SketchNotes, I wasn't really that intrigued -- until I watched this video. Combining a text editor and a drawing tool, SketchNotes brings a nicely conceived idea to the table. On a platform that supports both text entry (via a physical or onscreen keyboard) and touch-based drawing, unifying these two concepts comes more naturally than I would have thought. Developed by Amanda Rosler of ZombieCatSoftware, SketchNotes looks like it will offer a simple but pleasant utility that will come in handy both when taking notes on the go and while sitting down at a desk or (more likely) table at Starbucks. It's yet another application that I look forward to trying out on a real device.
First look: Ambrosia's Mondo Solitaire and Aki Mahjong for iPad
Ambrosia Software CEO Andrew Welch kindly sent over these sneak peaks at two of their upcoming iPad titles, namely Mondo Solitaire and Aki Mahjong. As you can see, both titles have been written exclusively for the iPad to take advantage of the larger screen size. I haven't personally played either game on the iPhone but after watching these videos, I'm definitely looking forward to trying them out -- especially the solitaire app. I think the table-based pick-the-game interaction is a little inelegant but the actual card play looks appealing. As for the Mahjong game, which follow in the Read More section, it addresses my biggest issue with iPhone-based tile games, namely size. Game play is going to be so much better than on the cramped iPhone screen. Although there are several excellent Mahjong offerings currently on App Store, I never felt comfortable using those games with so few pixels. Both card games and tile games will really benefit from the iPad's better geometry and it's ability to approximate real-world sizes of these tangible objects. How will these to play in real life? These videos give a taste of what's to come.
First Look: Snagit for Mac Public Beta
Switchers were elated earlier this year when TechSmith, developers of the fabulous Camtasia screen recorder application for Windows, finally shipped their flagship app for the Mac. Those switchers were probably also wishing that TechSmith would create a Mac version of their screen capture application, Snagit. Well, their wishes have been granted! TechSmith has announced the public beta version of Snagit for Mac, and a first look at the application shows that it's a worthy screenshot snapper for the platform. The company has made the beta available for feedback on operation and features, so this is a perfect time to download the program and give it a try. After installing the application and launching it, all that is visible is a small "tab" that pops out from the side of the Mac screen when you hover over it. The tab has a drop-down for choosing the capture mode and a red button for taking the screen shot. There are two capture modes -- all-in-one capture and window capture. Window capture mode displays all open windows Exposé-style, and you click on one of the windows to select it for capture. Once captured, it appears in a screen where you can annotate the screenshot in a number of ways, or add effects. At this time, there are no effects and the app shows that the feature is coming soon.
How to cram the entire Internet Movie Database into your iPhone
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb), an Amazon.com company, has just released a free iPhone app [iTunes Link] that puts the power of the huge repository of movie facts, fables, and trivia into the palm of your hand. I use IMDb regularly, so when I saw that the app had been released, I downloaded it immediately. Upon launching, the app will ask if you wish to let it use your location -- this is used to display show times and movies for local theaters. While IMDb doesn't exactly have a beautiful interface, it's perfect for navigating the huge amount of information that is available. The first page of the app displays three major areas: Movies, TV, and People. There's also an Application area, which is used only to display information about the App. Movies is subdivided into Showtimes, Coming Soon, US Box Office Results, MOVIEmeter, and the Top 250 Movies. Tapping Coming Soon brings up details about upcoming movies releases, including trailers that can be viewed on the phone. I love the Top 250 Movies, which is a list of the movies rated highest by IMDb readers. It's a treasure trove of information about many of the classic movies of all time. IMDb's TV section is split into US TV Tonight, which is a schedule of upcoming shows on the major networks, and US TV Recaps, which provides full text synopses of what has happened on top TV shows during the previous week. Under the People heading, there's both STARmeter, which shows a listing of the top 25 stars as measured by the number of times that they've been searched for on IMDb, and Born Today, which lists actors (living and dead) who were born on the current day. If you love movies and TV, or searching trivia about roles, actors, and directors, then you probably already spend a lot of time with IMDb. The iPhone app is just the icing on the IMDb cake, and as a free app it should be on the home screen of every movie fan's iPhone. Check out the gallery for screenshots of IMDb in action. %Gallery-79882%
First Look: Get airborne with Aera for iPhone
Aera is a new flight game [iTunes store] from iChromo with beautifully rendered graphics and some challenging game-play. I wouldn't exactly call it a flight simulator, as your control of the aircraft is limited. You can't bank left or right, but you do control your up and down pitch. The game is priced at US$2.99 for the iPhone and iPod touch. Think of Aera as a 2D shooter with exceptionally good graphics and addictive missions that can draw you deeply into the game. There are several different mission types. In some, you collect points by flying the plane into floating objects, and in others you need to avoid those floating objects. There are also missions where you have to do both, as well as dogfights and aerobatic flights. Because the controls do not work in the way other flight games work, it's helpful to go through the quick in-game tutorial so you know how the game works. If you try to exit the tutorial and just start playing, you'll be brought back to the tutorial until you have finished it. It really is necessary, because you'll never be able to fly successfully without going through it. The game also features multiplayer options for other owners of the sim who are on the same wireless network. Aera also features video replay, allowing you to watch yourself crash and burn.
