tapatalk
Latest
BBC Studios really wants to know who leaked 'Doctor Who' footage
Someone recently leaked a clip from Doctor Who's latest season online, and now the BBC is asking California courts to help find the perpetrator. Why California? Because that's where Tapatalk, the message board app where the leaked footage was shared, is headquartered. BBC Studios said that it "will strive to protect our program-makers, audiences and license fee payers from any breaches of security -- ensure Doctor Who fans enjoy the final and fully completed version of the episode when it premieres."
TUAW Best of 2011: Vote for your favorite iPad social networking app
The nominations are in, and the poll is ready to go! The TUAW Best of 2011 awards are all about you -- the readers -- and what you think is the cream of the crop of Apple or third-party products and software. To vote, select one entry from the top nominations made by readers. We'll be announcing the winner in just a few days. Vote early and often! TUAW is asking for your votes for the best iPad social networking app of 2011. Once again, we got only a few nominations in this category, meaning that most readers may use their iPhones more than their iPad for their social networking. In addition, several readers nominated apps that run on the iPad but are not designed specifically for the platform -- they've been disqualified. As a result, I took a quick poll of a number of tech writers and bloggers to get their take on iPad social networking apps. The nominees are: IntoNow, a rather innovative free app that "listens" to what you're watching on TV, and then provides information that is relevant to the show. It also links to Facebook and Twitter, tells you when friends are watching the same show, and more. Echofon (free, also a US$4.99 Pro version), a powerful universal Twitter client. Tapatalk Forum App ($2.99), which works to bring online forums using vBulletin, phpBB, and other systems to iPad users. Skype for iPad (free), which supports not only voice calling but video calls and instant messaging as well. Blogsy ($4.99), probably the most powerful blogging tool for the iPad, supporting WordPress, Blogger, and Posterous. You have a couple of days to vote, and the winners will be announced on January 3, 2012. Let the voting begin! %Poll-72412%
TUAW TV Live at 5 PM EDT: The pre-Lion iPad app episode
We're all hanging around the TUAW newsroom waiting for Lion to drop. When that happens, there will be a flood of posts about Apple's newest Mac operating system, and I'll finally be able to devote a TUAW TV Live episode to OS X Lion. Until then, the NDA is still in place, I have my lips sealed, and the closest to a Lion you're going to get is that adorable lion cub photo. So what do I talk about until Apple's biggest cat hits the Mac App Store? iPad apps, of course! Today on TUAW TV Live I'll be demonstrating a pile of iPad apps that have been making their way into the coveted home screen on my 'pad. Whether it's Tapatalk for navigating your way around online forums, Readdle's nifty new PDF Converter, the surprisingly good Puffin browser, or a number of other iPad apps, I'll be showing off some of the best of new software coming out for the best tablet on the planet. You'll also see some new hardware that has made it to the TUAW labs for upcoming test and review. As usual, I'll be starting the show at 5 PM EDT (2 PM PDT / 10 PM BST) sharp, and we'll take a few minutes to chat before the demos start. To join in on the chat and watch the live streaming video, drop by TUAW about five minutes before the start time to get your instructions on how to participate. If you're unable to join us for the show, remember that you can always subscribe to the video podcast and watch the show at your leisure in iTunes or any other favorite podcatching app. The past shows are also available on the TUAW YouTube channel.
TUAW's Daily iPad App: Tapatalk
Although Internet forums are the illegitimate offspring of the old dial-up Bulletin Board Systems and the Web, I find myself using them a lot. Whether I'm checking with fellow cruise enthusiasts over at Cruise Critic or looking for tips about hardware issues over in the MacRumors Forums, these online discussion groups can be a lot of fun and educational as well. Tapatalk (US$2.99, universal) works with all of the standard forum software, including the big two names, vBulletin and phpBB, to bring iPad ease of use to forum participation. Since the iPad first shipped last year, I've found it difficult to use many of the forums because of some incompatibilities with Safari. For example, I had to discover by accident that I could scroll a text entry field by using a two-finger swipe, a "feature" I then passed along to my forum-frequenting wife. That still didn't make using forums a pleasure... The way I found out about Tapatalk was through the aforementioned Cruise Critic forums. As I entered the forums one day, a pop-up appeared telling me about Tapatalk, which I promptly purchased. Since then, I've been using Tapatalk to easily navigate my way around forums and I think it has actually resulted in an increase in my forum activities. %Gallery-127922% Tapatalk requires that the forum operator enable mobile access from the server, but once they do (and over 16,000 forums worldwide are already set up this way) you can use the app to enjoy your forums. Not only does the app include a way to automatically log into forums that you frequent, but there's a search tool for finding new Tapatalk-compatible forums. Once you're found them, it's easy to register from the app to participate in a new forum. If you're a forum moderator, Tapatalk includes a way to delete, unapprove, lock, or stick posts. For the rest of us, it's a breeze to add photos from the iPad's Photo Library, maps, or links to any forum post. Tapatalk has very good ratings on the App Store and for good reason -- it's a well-executed app that makes forum participation from an iPad easy and fun.
