Archive for the ‘ipad apps’ tag
New iPad backpacking app no comments
While it has no discernable relationship to ereading, a new iPad app from Trimble Outdoors and Backpacker magazine could make your iPad one piece of tech that you will be happy to pack along on your next trek through the wilderness.
Backpacker Map Maker is a new app designed to help hikers and backpackers plan their next trip to the wilds on the iPad. In addition to aerial, hybrid, street and terrain maps, the app provides access to more than 68,000 USGS topo maps stitched together and enhanced by MyTopo. The app utilizes the GPS of the iPad and includes a number of features and tools including a search function, waypoints, digital compass and the ability to save trips to a backpacker.com account.
Backpacker Map Maker is a free app at iTunes.
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New word game app from 84-year-old inventor no comments
Dabble – The Fast Thinking Word Game is a new word game app for iPad/iPhone invented by George Weiss, who is 84 years old and may be the oldest mobile app developer ever. The app is based on the board game of the same name that was invented by Weiss and went on sale earlier this year.
Weis has been tinkering in his Brooklyn basement workshop for 50 years and received his first patent in 1958. Dabble is the first of his inventions to ever make it to market.
Dabble has received numerous industry awards including the 2011 Game of The Year Award by Creative Child Magazine and the 2011 PAL Award for games that encourage language skills through fun play. The iPad version has also been getting good reviews. Available at iTunes for $1.99 for the iPad and $0.99 for the iPhone version.
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Penguin releases enhanced version of Kerouac’s On The Road no comments
Penguin has released Jack Kerouac’s iconic On The Road in an enhanced version for the iPad.
Pulsating with the rhythms of jazz, frenetic sex, illicit drugs, and the mystery and promise of the open road, On the Road defined what it meant to be "beat" and captured the impulses of a liberated underground America. Based on Jack Kerouac’s adventures with Neal Cassady, On the Road tells the story of two friends crossing the country in search of a new kind of experience and authenticity that they could not find in mainstream culture. It has become a landmark in the history of American culture, inspiring everyone from John Updike and Joyce Carol Oates to Bob Dylan and David Bowie. Expressing a quintessential American vision of freedom and longing, On the Road is a timeless tale that resonates with each new generation.
Besides the complete text of the book, this Penguin Amplified version also includes:
- Interactive map of the trips made by the characters in the book, replete with historical photos.
- Family photos from the Kerouac estate.
- Audio clips of Kerouac reading from an early draft of On the Road.
- Reproductions of the first draft of the book on the famous 120-foot scroll.
- Side-by-side comparisons of the original scroll draft and the published text, highlighting the parts edited out on the recommendation of the publisher’s lawyers.
- Slideshow of the cover art from the international editions of On the Road.
On the Road will be priced at $16.99, but through July 5, 2011 it is being offered for the introductory price of $12.99. Available at the App Store.
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Adobe Photoshop Touch apps now available on iPad no comments
Adobe today released three iPad apps based on its Photoshop Touch SDK. Adobe previewed the new apps last month.
From the press release:
Adobe Color Lava for Photoshop, Adobe Eazel for Photoshop and Adobe Nav for Photoshop unite the fun and interactive experience of touch devices with the power and precision of Photoshop by enabling users to create custom color swatches, paint directly onscreen and drive popular Photoshop tools from tablet devices.‡ These applications take advantage of the iPad’s touch screen for a truly immersive, tactile, on-the-go experience, and expand upon inroads made by Adobe in the mobile and tablet market initiated with Photoshop Express, Adobe Ideas and Adobe Connect™ Mobile.
Photoshop is a part of the recently announced Adobe® Creative Suite® 5.5 product family, enabling designers and developers to create for popular and emerging smartphone and tablet platforms. Current Photoshop CS5 owners can download a free update to enable new interaction between Photoshop and tablet devices.
The Photoshop Touch SDK makes development possible on numerous devices, including iOS®, Android® and BlackBerry® PlayBook®. Utilizing the SDK, developers will have wide access to Photoshop functionality with the freedom to innovate and create new apps or add capabilities to existing ones. Adobe has already engaged with a number of developers to incorporate tablets and other devices into creative workflows that empower Photoshop users in new and groundbreaking ways.
The three new apps:
- Adobe Eazel enables users to finger-paint on the iPad. The app also allows the blending of “wet” and “dry” paint. Artwork can be sent to Photoshop CS5 over a network connection of via email. $4.99 at iTunes.
- Adobe Color Lava lets you mix colors on the iPad with your fingertips and create custom color swatches and themes of five related colors. The swatches can be accessed in Photoshop CS5 via a network connection. $2.99 at iTunes.
- Adobe Nav lets you use the iPad as the input device for CS5 on your computer via a network connection. Allows you to customize the Photoshop toolbar on the iPad and zoom into up to 200 open Photoshop files. When disconnected from your own computer, Adobe Nav lets you easily share files with others. $1.99 at iTunes.
One of the interesting things about these apps is the way in which they integrate the iPad tablet with and in some ways make it an extension of the desktop.
Below is a promo video from Adobe for the Eazel app:
The second video is again from Adobe and was also released last month when Adobe previewed the new iPad Photoshop apps.
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Kobo app updates no comments
Kobo has again updated its iPad app. Most of the improvements are to Reading Life, but now links to web pages within ebooks and Instapaper articles are supported:
What’s New in Version 4.3
- See Real-time updates of your friends’ shared books, quotes, awards and more in the new visual Activity feed
- Get notified when friends comment on your own shared messages
- You can also update you facebook status directly from the Activity feed
- Open internet URLs from within a book including your Instapaper articles that include links to web sites
This is at least the second update to the Kobo iPad app that has been approved since Apple refused the Sony Reader app admittance to the App Store. I’m not sure if this signifies any change of policy on Apple’s part however, as the Kobo app seems to offer ebooks for sale through the app rather than open a web page when you click on the icon to shop for books.
Kobo has been aggressively updating its Android apps as well. There is now a Kobo widget available that displays the ebook you are currently reading on your home page, along with a progress bar that shows how far you have read.
The Kobo Android app is now also available at the Amazon Appstore for Android. But then, so is Wattpad. Not sure if B&N will put in an appearance.
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iPad – Safari Books app; Hands free page turning; More foodie apps no comments
Safari Books Online has launched a free iPad app, Safari To Go, that enables subscribers of Safari Books Online to read their ebooks on the iPad. Safari Books is an on-demand digital library with both books and video specializing in technology and business topics. Safari Books already has apps for the iPhone, iPod touch, Blackberry and Android.
The new app is a free download at iTunes.
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AirTurn has announced the BT-105, a new 
hands free page turning system for the iPad and Bluetooth-equipped Mac and PC computers. The system uses a foot peddle switch to turn pages and should work well for musicians who use one of the sheet music reading apps (such as forScore, MusicReader and unrealBook ) on the iPad.
The BT-105 can also be configured to work with programs such as Adobe Acrobat, MS Word, PowerPoint, Keynote and other document and presentation programs on a Mac or PC.
The BT-105 uses a rechargeable battery that has a life of up to 100 hours and is recharged via a mini USB port. Other features include automatic Bluetooth pairing with the iPad and a built-in debounce filter that prevents multiple page turns per peddle press. The BT-105 is available packaged with 2 footswitches for $124.95 or by itself for $79.
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There are a few new foodie apps for the iPad.
The Food Network has launched the In The Kitchen App that features 45,000 recipes from the Food Network, shopping lists, in-app timers, measuring unit converter and more. The In The Kitchen App costs $1.99 at iTunes and is available for the iPad or the iPhone and iPod touch.
Kraft Foods has released new content for its Big Fork Little Fork iPad app featuring recipes, tips and how-to videos from world-renowned chef Marcus Samuelsson. The Big Fork Little Fork app was designed to help parents engage children in the kitchen.
The Marcus Samuelsson content is $4.99 and can be purchased from within the Big Fork Little Fork app which is free at iTunes until Dec. 31, 2010.
Allrecipes.com, a Reader’s Digest company, also has a new cooking app. The Allrecipes.com Your Kitchen Inspiration app features access to the entire Allrecipes.com recipe collection and provides a lot of search options: by ingredient, cooking method, cooking time or by dietary restriction (vegan, dairy-free, low-sodium, gluten-free and more).
Allrecipes.com Your Kitchen Inspiration joins the bestselling Allrecipes.com Dinner Spinner at the iTunes app store. There is a free version and a Pro version that costs $4.99 and adds the following features:
- Browse the Inspire Me section by occasion and cuisine type.
- Sync to your online Allrecipes.com Recipe Box–save recipes and manage your Recipe Box with drag and drop organization.
- Create and share shopping lists–lists are organized by grocery aisle and automatically aggregate ingredients when recipes are added and removed.
- Recipe serving sizes can be changed within Shopping List and your shopping list will update on the fly.
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Ectaco releases language learning apps for iOS no comments
Ectaco doesn’t just make the jetBook ereaders. The company also makes a number of portable dictionaries, language translators and learning devices. Now the company has released a series of language learning apps for the iPad, iPhone and iPod.
The new Lingvosoft apps (software line from Ectaco) are also the first of their kind to incorporate the Language Teacher, U-Learn, Linguistic Crosswords and Audio Keyboard, leveraging the strength of the company’s portable learning brand across its entire language offering. The first release will provide users with the ability to learn any of the 39 languages, including English, on-the-go and hassle free.
Four apps will be released, each with their own individual learning curve. Each is fully interactive and all done in a real human voice and based on Ectaco’s Speech Recognition technology. The Language Teacher will focus around 4 features including alphabets, words, phrases and dialogues, with full picture to word and voice recognition. The U-Learn is specifically designed for on-the-go users and will have 7 levels of endless communication between the user and human-like interactive tutor who will aid in everything from pronunciation correction to verbal exams. The Linguistic Crosswords will put language learning into crossword puzzles for users to solve. The words are all clearly pronounced and users must solve a puzzle via hints and translations. The Audio Keyboard will be able to pronounce any letter typed in one of the 39 available languages fluently for users to blind type and hear pronunciations.
Ectaco is offering the new apps for free until Nov. 3, 2010 at iTunes.
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Sheet Music on the iPad no comments
Deep Dish Designs has released GigBook, a sheet music viewer and organizer for the iPad.
From the press release:
GigBook is an elegant and intuitive
organizer for all your scores, songbooks, charts, and lyrics sheets. It is a simple to use, but highly powerful app designed to help any musician, whether professional, academic, or novice.
GigBook’s main features include:
- Support for any sized PDF.
- Beautiful and elegant UI.
- Scores appear in full screen view.
- Unlimited organization for all your scores with custom binders.
- Powerful and flexible set lists; not only the ability to add scores and arrange them, but also the capacity to write charts, notes, stage directions and view them alongside your scores.
- Performance Mode allows you to seamlessly view your set list, notes, and scores in an eloquent and easy to read format from your music stand.
- Add score details to each score including: title, composer, genre, time signature, key signature, and tempo.
- Add and view notes for each score.
- Collections allows you to house all of your books, volumes, songbooks, handouts, or any large multi-score pdf in one place for easy access.
- Super Bookmarks allows you to pull out a single score from a multi-score collection to be used in your binders or set lists.
GigBook is ready to be used seamlessly at rehearsals, in the classroom, during private lessons and on stage. Load all your PDF scores into GigBook and head out to your next gig.
GigBook is available from today at iTunes for the introductory price of $3.99. The regular price will be $7.99.
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The Art Museum in Your iPad 1 comment
Art Authority is not a new app — it was available for the iPhone before the iPad was even released. But if you
have not checked it out yet, you should — it is well worth the price of admittance.
The Art Authority app contains hi res photos of over 40,000 paintings and sculptures by over 1,000 of the greatest western artists from the ancient world to contemporary times, turning your iPad into a virtual art museum.
The different periods are presented as different rooms in a virtual art gallery that group works and artists together by period. Art Authority sorts the artwork into eight periods: Early, Renaissance, Baroque, Romantic, Impressionist, Modern, Contemporary and American.
Within each period’s room, artworks are further broken down into subgroups. For example, the Contemporary room contains surrealist, minimalist, pop art, installation art, abstract and sculpture sections.
Individual works can be viewed hanging on the virtual walls of the gallery with a scrollable strip of thumbnails of other works by that artist to the side, or you can tap the screen to view the piece in full screen mode. In full screen mode you can pinch or double-tap to zoom in — a feature that will no doubt be appreciated by Dan Brown readers.
Information on an artist (via Wikipedia on a built-in browser) can be had by tapping on the artist’s name. You can search through the included works by artist or by period. Navigation around Art Authority is straightforward and easy to learn.
The 10GB of art in Art Authority is served from the developer’s servers (or authorized servers in the case of works still under copyright). Previously viewed works are cached in memory and can be viewed again while offline, but you can change the cache size in the app’s settings if you are worried about memory usage.
Other features include the ability to save any of the photos to the iPad’s Photos app, where they can be used for your iPad’s wallpaper or in a digital picture frame mode. You can view the artworks in a slideshow, to which you can add a Ken Burns motion effect as well. Art Authority also supports VGA output to external displays.
The iPad makes an excellent coffee table book, and Art Authority is perhaps one of the best apps for that purpose. But it is also a great reference and resource. The slideshow function is nice — I like to stand my iPad near my computer while I’m working and set up Art Authority to do a shuffled slide show.
Art Authority is available at iTunes for $9.99. I hope that the app publisher, Open Door Networks, will continue to add more contemporary artists, although copyright issues complicate this. Speaking for myself, I would gladly pay for add-on packs. I would also like to see a version of Art Authority that covers the non-western world. There is a whole rich world of Persian, Chinese, Indian and Japanese fine art I would like to explore as well as that from other countries and cultures.
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TED App Launched on iPad no comments
TED has launched an iPad app which will give you access to over 750 TEDTalks videos. The videos run from three minutes to thirty minutes each.
Some of the TED app features:
- "Inspire Me" button. Touching this icon reveals an elegant watch face and the question: "How much time do you have?" Dial up a time, choose the type of talk you want (Inspiring? Funny? Jaw-dropping?) and you’ll get a playlist of talks that fits your schedule.
- "Tags" breaks down TEDTalks topics into some 250 categories, from "insects" to "robots," from "happiness" to "fish."
- "Saved Talks" allows you to download and queue up several hours of TEDTalks for viewing offline.
- "Playlist Browser" lets you browse ahead in any playlist while watching a saved talk. It’s accessible by tapping the Info button.
TED is a global series of conferences formed to disseminate Ideas Worth Spreading. The TEDTalks feature many of the world’s leading thinkers and doers. The TED app is free at iTunes.
£149.00
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