Joe Wikert's iPadHound Blog

Bloomberg Businessweek+

2011-06-06T09:05:00.000-04:00

The Bloomberg Businessweek+ app is a must-have for print subscribers, mostly because it's free. If you're already paying for the print edition you can quickly get free iPad app issue access by providing your account number. If you're not a print subscriber I'm not sure you'll find the $3 per iPad issue much of a bargain. You're probably better off signing up for a $20/year print subscription with free iPad access instead.

As far as features are concerned, there's nothing unique or special here. You'll find the print content in digital format without a lot of bells and whistles. So while the app is simple and effective, it's not pushing the envelope of what's possible in the digital world. Heck, you can't even download an issue in the background, so don't bother hopping to another app while waiting for this week's issue to appear.

Although you'll also find all the requisite social networking options at your fingertips, can we think bolder? Let's start with the simple: A dictionary is built in to almost every ebook reading app these days, so why not do the same with a magazine app? I still come across a word or two every so often I'd like to look up; am I asking too much to be able to do that right within the magazine's app?

One feature I have to give them credit for is the "Related" option in most articles. There you'll find links and summaries for companies and industries related to the one you're currently reading about. This is all done with a slider frame, so it's unobtrusive but there if you want to explore. Nicely done. But if you're going to offer access to content within the Businessweek empire, why not also let me grab the same type of related links from the Wikipedia or Google News from within the app? Turn it into a one-stop news portal, not just an gateway to Businessweek content.

It might not look like it, but I'm trying to encourage more functionality and not necessarily complaining about the app itself. I plan to keep my $20/year print subscription alive but this is one of those few situations where I'll probably read it almost exclusively via the iPad app. Bloomberg, you've done a decent job up to now, but please keep adding new features to help me broaden my horizons!

Hitpad

2011-05-23T09:14:00.000-04:00

I spend a lot of time trolling the likes of Google News, Techmeme, Digg and countless other news sites and apps. I'm always on the lookout for something new, especially if it turns out to be a reliable resource and timesaver. That's exactly what I've found with the Hitpad iPad app.

Hitpad is a terrific visual way to quickly see what's hot. It offers six categories of news: top stories, entertainment, business, sports, technology and the ever-important Canadian news. (Yeah, I don't spend a lot of time on that last one.)

When you select one of those main categories you'll see the the subtopics within them that are trending today. Touch any of those subtopics and Hitpad displays columns with the latest news, tweets, videos, websites and photos related to that trending topic. It's the iPad user interface at its finest. Facebook, Twitter and Instapaper support are all built in, of course.

My one complaint about Hitpad is that the main categories are pre-defined and can't be changed. So if you want to add a new main category you're out of luck. It also doesn't offer personalized recommendation content like Zite, so I find myself using both. The Hitpad developers include a link to what they're working on for the next version though (nice touch!) and it includes saved searches and better personalized content support. I can't wait.

Hitpad is yet another one of those wonderful free apps. Perhaps they're just trying to hook us now and planning to charge for an update later. That's OK with me. I'd gladly pay $4.99 for this one. Do yourself a favor though and get it now while it's free!

TuneIn Radio Pro

2011-05-02T09:15:00.000-04:00

There are quite a few radio apps for the iPad out there so how do you know which one to download? I vote for TuneIn Radio Pro. It's earned a coveted spot on my home page for plenty of good reasons.

First of all, there's the breadth. The app claims it offers access to more than 40,000 stations around the globe. I don't know the exact number but I can tell you I've never searched for something specific and came up empty. All the stations I care about are here...at least so far.

Next, and this is by far my favorite feature... I can record stations and listen to them later. Yes, it's like a DVR for radio. I never thought I'd care for something like this but I'm discovering regular radio programs that are on at inconvenient times, so I just queue them up via TuneIn's recording feature and listen later.

Be forewarned that there are some glitches with TuneIn's recording capability though. Every so often I'll set the app to record a station and it doesn't. I haven't been able to narrow down the culprit but it seems to be tied to whether TuneIn was the last app running before the recording is to start.

TuneIn Radio Pro is a universal app, so the 99 cents you spend on the iPad version also gets you the iPhone app. The iPhone app is even more quirky when it comes to recordings. You have to make sure your phone is plugged in or it won't record; that's not a problem with the iPad app as I've made plenty of recordings without plugging it in.

This one's a steal at 99 cents. Even if you don't think you listen to much radio today you'll discover a whole bunch of interesting stuff you've been missing out on...and you'll be able to record and listen when you have time. Highly recommended!

iPad Lessons Learned After One Year

2011-04-11T10:44:00.000-04:00

Was it really a year ago that I got up at the crack of dawn, stood in line at the local Apple store and left with my new favorite gadget, a 32G wifi-only iPad? The last 12 months have been an interesting period and I thought it would be fun to share the iPad lessons I've learned in that time:

iPad is great for consuming short-form content... -- In fact, it's unbeatable when it comes to browsing websites, reading articles, etc. When I think back to the "old days" when I used to subscribe to The New York Times on my Kindle I shudder in horror. I can't believe I was paying $14/month for that Kindle service. It was awful and remains awful, for that matter.

...but it's not the best for long-form content -- I've definitely rethought my original assumption of my iPad replacing my Kindle. For almost 12 months I ditched my Kindle and did all my long-form reading on my iPad. The result: OK, but not exceptional. I still do a lot of long-form reading on my iPad but I also recently bought a new Kindle and use it as an accessory for my iPad. The combination is a terrific solution, or at least till Apple does something with their proposed patent on a hybrid eInk/LCD display.

Content consumption? Yes. Content creation? Not so much -- I haven't been able to ditch my laptop on road trips. It's just way too awkward typing on the virtual keyboard for more than a tweet or two. I've also tried a Bluetooth keyboard but it's less than optimal constantly having to move your hand from keyboard to screen and back. Maybe a Bluetooth keyboard with a built-in touch pad would work...

Some of the best apps are free -- Zite is a great example. It's a fairly new app but it's quickly become one of my favorites. Thanks to Zite I'm finally at a point where I can see my iPad replacing the daily paper.

Instapaper is a must-have app for every iPad owner -- 'Nuff said.

MLB knows their At Bat app users are addicted -- Why else would they charge $14.99 for the iPad version and another $14.99 for the iPhone edition? Yeah, I was a sucker last year and bought both but this year I limited myself to just the iPad version. I'm using one of the many free ESPN apps for MLB updates on my iPhone.

My battery isn't as strong as it was on day one -- I haven't closely measured this but I'll bet my battery only holds a charge for about half as long as it did when I bought my iPad. Speaking of which, does anyone else find it odd that reading an ebook (with the Kindle app) sucks the battery dry faster than, say, watching a movie for the same length of time? Btw, you can't blame multitasking for the battery issue. I noticed the drop-off before the multitasking iOS update ever arrived.

Discoverability is still a huge issue in the app store -- That's why one of the last things I do each night is check out the new releases that day. There's got to be a better solution (and I'm afraid the genius feature isn't it).

I have no use for the iBookstore -- It all comes down to content use on a variety of platforms. I buy all my ebooks from Amazon because I know they offer reader apps for all platforms. Why would I buy an ebook from Apple knowing that they'll only let me read it on one of their devices?

Why upgrade to iPad 2.0? -- I certainly don't see a reason to. Yes, it's thinner and offers cameras but I'm quite happy with iPad 1.0, thank you very much.

Zite

2011-03-14T09:14:00.000-04:00

The Zite app has won a coveted spot on my iPad's home screen. It's only a few days old and quickly became my most-used app. I spend anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour or more a day in Zite.

So what is Zite and why do I love it? The app is described as "a personalized magazine." The personalization comes from your Twitter account and/or Google Reader feeds. I configured Zite to pull from both on my iPad.

Zite pays attention to what you read and suggests more articles in those same areas. The more you use it the more it learns about you.

I gave up trying to stay up-to-date on all the RSS feeds I'd gathered over the years but Zite is a great way to dip back into that stream. I know I'm not catching all the feeds but I'm reading from them a lot more than I used to and it feels like I'm coming across significantly more relevant content than I did using an RSS reader.

Zite is terrific but far from perfect. It tends to be slow and often refreshes itself when it probably doesn't need to. If it just checked my feeds 3 minutes ago there's really no need for it to refresh them again now. This should be a user-configurable setting not something that automatically happens all the time.

My bigger complaint has to do with the customization options for new content sections. There's a box where you can "enter your own" section but that's misleading. In Google News I have a bunch of custom sections set up to search for specific phrases. You can't get that granular with Zite. If your search string isn't one of their existing sections you're out of luck. That means I still have to use Google News to track all these other items. I hope they'll let you create truly customized sections in a future release. It's a huge opportunity to make this an even more compelling app.

Zite is a must-have app for pretty much everyone. Best of all, it's totally free. I wouldn't be surprised to see them offer a premium version for pay. Heck, if they'd add that full custom section feature I'm looking for I'd be more than happy to pay $5 or even $10 for this one. Highly recommended.

Why I'm Sticking with iPad 1.0

2011-03-06T13:24:00.000-05:00

I couldn't be happier about Apple's iPad 2 announcement. I was worried they were going to show so many killer features I'd have to spend at least $500 upgrading. Whew. Thankfully for me and my bank account, I consider this new product more like iPad 1.1 than iPad 2.

Thinner? Nice. Dual cameras? Don't need 'em. Smart covers? Need 'em even less. iOS 4.3? I'll take it, but I don't have to upgrade the hardware to get it.

Honestly, I've been wrestling with the notion of switching from Apple to Android in a few months and I was sweating the thought of having to upgrade my iPad so soon. My iPhone contract is up in June and everyone I know who has switched from iPhone to Android seems to love the latter. Now I can wait till this summer, knowing both my iPhone and iPad will be more than a year old and I won't guilty about switching so soon after a major purchase.

I am looking forward to iOS 4.3 though. iTunes Home Sharing will be nice. I've purposely kept all my music off my iPad so that I'd have more memory for videos, books and apps. As a result, there have been countless times when I've sat down to read, wanting to listen to some background music but couldn't. When iOS 4.3 hits I'll be able to just stream all that music from my Mac. Nice. I'm also looking forward to the new version of Safari that comes with 4.3. Then there's the ability to customize the side switch's function. Like many, I never understood why Apple decided to take a dedicated screen lock button and turn it into a mute one instead. It's so easy to just turn the volume all the way down with the rocker switch, why take away my ability to quickly lock the screen orientation? I'm glad they're righting that wrong with iOS 4.3 and letting the user decide what the button should do.

Finally, if you haven't already seen it, be sure to watch the hilarious short iPad 2 ad from Conan O'Brien:

This Day in Led Zeppelin App

2011-02-28T09:08:00.000-05:00

I wish all my favorite bands had iPad apps like this one. I'm talking about a wonderfully rich product called This Day in Led Zeppelin. The title makes it sound like all you get is a Zeppelin-themed calendar but it's much more than that.

For the bargain price of $2.99 you get all the Zeppelin trivia you can handle as well as a quiz to test your knowledge. Then there's my favorite part, the Zeppelin song notes. Every song from every album is covered here. The Rain Song is one of my favorite tunes and I just learned it was inspired by George Harrison. In fact, the first two chords of the song are similar to the opening of Harrison's wildly popular Something.

I never made that connection, but was immediately able to do so within this app. That's because This Day in Led Zeppelin looks through your iTunes collection and knows what Zeppelin songs you own. If you're reading the song notes for a tune you own you'll be able to play it within the app (while you're reading the notes). The app also knows which songs you don't own, so it features a "buy" button on those notes screens taking you to the track's album in the iTunes store. Very cool.

Additional links in this app take you to sites where you can buy Zeppelin sheet music and merchandise. I wish they'd just open up within the app but unfortunately you have to visit those pages via Safari.

If you're a Zeppelin fan you need this app. And if you just want to see an example of how a great band app is constructed, spend the three bucks on this one. You won't regret it.

P.S. -- In addition to all these entertaining features, as the app's name says, it also includes notes about what happened on this day in Led Zeppelin history. For example, did you know that on this day (February 28th) in 1970 the band played a gig in Copenhagen under an assumed name because Eva Von Zeppelin, a relative of the airship designer, threatened to sue if the family name was used in Denmark? You'll need to buy the app to see how that interesting story ended for the band...

The Daily App

2011-02-14T09:07:00.001-05:00

I've had The Daily app for a week now and as a free service I'm sure I'd use it from time to time. As a paid one, and even for the low, low price of $1/week, I don't feel it's worth it.

For every cool user interface feature in The Daily there's one that gets on my nerves. For example, their use of the cover flow option to scroll through the pages sounds nice but quickly becomes frustrating. What should really be a nice, smooth scroll is painfully choppy.

But it's not really the UI features that turn me off. The content is so-so, and to be brutally honest, I find Google News is a much better solution for my needs. And, of course, Google News is totally free.

And here's the kicker: If I ever feel I'm missing anything from The Daily I can always just go read it via this nice (free) Tumblr index. Now if I could just automate Instapaper every day to grab everything linked to off a page I could pretty much replicate The Daily app experience for free...

Rediscovering TED

2011-01-31T09:10:00.000-05:00

The TED website has been one of my favorites for several years. You'll find videos of many of the most popular TED talks there, all available for free viewing.

TED also offers video access through an iPad app I downloaded awhile back. I hadn't used it much till I discovered a very important feature: the ability to download and save TED talks locally on your iPad. I always figured I could access TED videos on their website as easily as through an app. There's also an option to download the talks from their website but the "Save Talk" button in the app is a much more convenient solution. I wound up downloading about a dozen talks initially, queuing them up at the same time and setting my iPad aside while they came in. I've only had time to watch a couple but it's nice knowing they're all with me and immediately viewable regardless of whether I'm online.

TED also recently announced another new extension you might be interested in. TEDBooks is a collection of short non-fiction works in digital format. The first three are being distributed via Amazon's new Kindle Singles program.

Warning: Don't Buy InvisibleShield from Zagg

2011-01-14T17:18:00.000-05:00

Shortly after I bought my iPad last year I bought the only screen protector that was initially available. It's called InvisibleShield and it's from a company called Zagg. Here's a link to the original review I wrote about it. As with so many consumer goods, everything was fine with it...until I made a replacement request.

You may recall that InvisibleShield was very high-priced (and still is). I hated all the smudges on the screen and was willing to pay the premium though, particularly since they hyped a lifetime replacement warranty. Earlier this week the protector got scratched and now needs to be replaced.

I just tried to get a new one and discovered two annoyances with their replacement policy. First, they charge you the full amount, as if you're a totally new customer, and then promise to reverse the charge a day or two later. Huh? I asked the customer service person why and she had no reason. It's just how they do business. Second, and even more aggravating, they insist that you to ship your torn protector back to them.

No, I'm not going through the hassle of making sure my credit card charge is reversed and then running to the post office to send them a torn piece of plastic. It's much easier for me to just stop by Fry's and get a new screen protector for $10. (Btw, I neglected to mention that Zagg also charges $4 shipping for warranty replacements.)

Very disappointing. I can't get my $30 back but hopefully I can convince you to not buy anything from Zagg. They won't get another nickel from me. These guys could really learn a customer service lesson or two from Zappos.

Revisiting the ESPN Mag iPad App

2011-01-10T10:06:00.000-05:00

Now that I've had the ESPN Mag app for a few months I figured it's time to clean things up and delete some of the older issues. After all, I don't hang onto the print editions after I'm finished with them and I certainly don't want them hogging up memory in my iPad.

I spent a few minutes poking around the app and couldn't find a way to remove an issue. Rather than waste more time searching I decided to send their customer support an email about it.

Guess what? It can't be done. That's right. Every issue you download has to stay on your iPad. They sent me a nice enough reply, saying my suggestion "will be forwarded to the appropriate department for review", but this is a a feature that should have been in the app from the start.

I suppose one workaround would be to delete the app from my iPad, re-download it and start over. That seems silly though, don't you think?

Instapaper App

2011-01-03T08:46:00.000-05:00

Offline Pages was one of the first apps I bought for my iPad. Everyone raved about Instapaper but I stuck with Offline Pages...until recently. Both apps offer roughly the same functionality and are each priced at $4.99 (although there's a Pro version of Offline Pages selling for $9.99 which includes the ability to save entire web sites, not just individual pages). Instapaper has at least one significant advantage over Offline Pages though: it lets you save pages in folders rather than just dumping them all in one bucket.

There are two features I'd love to see both of these apps add though. The first is the ability to sense when an article spans multiple pages and to grab them all. I can't tell you how many times someone has sent me a link to an article and I click the "Read Later" button on my browser only to discover later (usually when I'm out of a hotspot) that the link only goes to the first page. To avoid this problem you have to scroll to the bottom of the article in your browser to see if it's all on that page or not. If not, you typically need to use the Print option on the web page to have your browser render a version with all the content and then click your "Read Later" button. Why can't these apps scan the page and see if the telltale signs like "Page 1||Page 2||Page 3" links are there? If so, they could at least warn me that I'm about to only save a portion of the article. Better yet, they'd have the ability to find the Print option, render the full article and then save it off for me.

The other feature I'd love to see involves marking up articles and sharing them. I recently read a great article about the news industry that I wanted to annotate and share with others. I put it in Instapaper and the whole time I read it I kept wishing for options to highlight excerpts, insert comments, etc. How about we start there and add the ability for me to make notes to myself like this in the version I see in Instapaper?

But let's take it a step further and give me the option to share that marked-up version with my friends. Either within the Instapaper app or somehow in the version of the web page my friends load, I'd like them to see my comments about that article. Yes, this request is a bit more challenging than the multi-page one mentioned earlier, but it's quite achievable and something that would add great value to the offline reader app. What I'm getting at is the need to enable more social networking functionality with these offline readers; not just sharing links but including someone's additional notes about it. It's a great service to customers wanting to share content as well as publishers/authors of that content who would benefit from the increased visibility.

Guitar World "Lick of the Day" App

2010-11-22T09:02:00.000-05:00

I don't know how to play the guitar but this app makes me wish I did. I'm talking about Guitar World's "Lick of the Day" iPad app. It's a freebie that comes with a handful of samples; you pick from one of three subscription options to get more licks.

The top part of the screen shows the pro playing the lick and the bottom has two panes showing the frets and a musical scale. The fret/scale is animated to keep time with the pro's video. You can play it at full speed or half speed.

Everything described up to now applies to "video" mode. There's also a "practice" mode that ditches the pro's video and gives you more control over the playback speed. In practice mode you can choose anywhere from 10% to 100% of the original speed. You can also turn looping on (to keep playing the same lick over and over) as well as turn the instrument audio off so that you can just hear yourself while you watch the fret/scale animations.

This is one of those apps that really plays to the strength of the iPad interface. As I mentioned, I'm no guitarist but I'm tempted to sign up for a subscription because it's so fun watching these guys play!

Rush Time Machine App

2010-11-14T14:33:00.000-05:00

Despite being a big Rush fan, I've only seen them in concert once and that was about 6 or 7 years ago. I noticed the band recently launched an iPad app for $4.99 and, given all the 5-star reviews it garnered initially, I figured I ought to give it a shot.

The app is loaded with a bunch of Rush tracks. Then again, if I want to listen to their music I'll dial it up on my iPhone. And since most of the people buying this app probably have all or many of the band's CDs, I'm not sure it made sense to load the app up with all these songs. Nevertheless, even though Apple still hasn't released the multitasking iOS update for the iPad, at least Time Machine keeps playing the tunes while you explore other areas of the app.

Time Machine pulls all the band's news and tour info together. Of course you could just get all that from their website. In fact, one of my biggest complaints about Time Machine is that the news feature often doesn't say much about a story and tells you to go to rush.com for more info. So if I want to enter a drawing for some sort of "screening", the app tells me to go to rush.com; I have no idea what sort of screening this is since the news entry is so brief it doesn't even say! Other news items include links. Bear in mind there's no way to view those links within the app and they're not even real links you can touch and launch Safari; they're just text on a screen you have to copy and paste into the browser. Pretty lame. At the very least they should put the news in this section, not just a bunch of urls.

Although the news feature is weak, the tour date feature, "Caravan", is pretty slick. Caravan shows you where all the band's shows take place. Unfortunately the current tour is over, so this feature isn't all that useful, but it shows potential for future tours and other bands. Caravan offers links to buy tickets (via Ticketmaster), directions to the venue (from Google maps) as well as other buttons for food, travel and points of interest. Sometimes the maps are rendered within the app and other times they're launched via your browser; I wish they'd let you configure this and enable all the maps/links to render within the app.

Another noteworthy feature is "Weapons", where the app provides lists of all the gear this musical trio uses on the road. That image I included at the top of this post shows an overhead shot of Neal Peart's drumkit and the list on the right provides all the specifics.

Time Machine probably isn't worth the five bucks unless you're obsessed with the band. And since I'm not sure how many times I'll go back and use this one again, I can't say I'm all that thrilled with it. The key will be whether they add more features in the future and if I'll get free updates along the way.

Movies, Books & Battery Life

2010-10-25T09:46:00.000-04:00

Today's blog post covers three iPad-related areas: Movie rentals, ebooks and battery life. On the movie front, my beef here has to do with the rental model. I don't ever see myself buying a movie from iTunes. I'm strictly a rental person. If I like a movie well enough I'll probably buy the DVD, not the iTunes version. Why? I'm worried about platform lock-in. More on this in a moment.

When I rent a movie via iTunes I have 30 days to watch it and I have to finish it within 24 hours of when I start it. I sometimes rent 2 or 3 movies when I have a stretch of back-to-back trips, just to make sure I've got something to watch on the road, in the airport (e.g., redeye's, delays, etc.) or during a long flight. After all, downloading a movie isn't something you can do very easily on the fly and certainly not via wifi. I don't have a problem with watching it within a 24-hour period from start to finish, but the 30-day limit is silly. Why should I have to watch it within a month? I've had one expire on me, only because I couldn't find the time to watch it in that 30-day period. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth and will cause me to avoid future rentals. Is that really the model Apple is trying to create? If they can't turn 30 days into, say, 6 months, a better option would be to extend the rental period, just like my local library. Even if I had to pay 99 more cents to get an additional 30 days it would be a better option that the current model.

Next up, ebooks. As a Kindle owner I couldn't wait to start buying books on my iPad. I figured I'd leave Amazon's platform behind and focus only on the iBookstore. How wrong I was. I've only bought one book in the iBookstore; all my other ebook purchases on the iPad were made for the Kindle app. Why? Again, it comes down to platform lock-in. I figure there's about a zero percent chance Apple will ever offer e-reader apps for non-Apple platforms (like Amazon has done). I'm looking forward to Google Editions getting off the ground one of these days as that's probably the only other place I'll go to buy ebooks for the time being.

Finally, battery life. Maybe it's just my imagination but I'm not able to go as long between charges as I could the first few months of iPad use. I'd often go several days without a recharge but now I find I can rarely go more than one or two days in between. I don't think it's the mix of apps I'm using now but I do find it interesting that the battery meter drops faster when I'm reading a book than when watching a movie. Either way though, I'm finding the battery life isn't as good now as it was 6 months ago.

The New York Times App

2010-10-18T09:21:00.000-04:00

I used to pay $14/month to get The New York Times on a first-generation Kindle. In fact, I subscribed to the Kindle edition of the Times for more than a year. It took me that long to realize the service was never going to be as good as it could be; the Kindle edition didn't include all the print content and, of course, the visual impact of the photos in grayscale was less than inspiring.

I mention all this because I hoped it would be different with the iPad. As you may already know, the NY Times app was available for the iPad when the device launched back in April. It's a free app but it only included a subset of the Times content, hence the name "Editor's Choice." The Times recently upgraded the app though to include all the sections of the paper. It's still free but the word on the street is that a paid subscription model will appear shortly.

In some respects, I've found the new Times app to be a better experience than the one I used to pay for on my Kindle. I see that the Kindle edition that used to cost me $14/month is now $20/month. I'd pay $20/month for the Times app but only if they add a few key features:

I want the content to come to me, without having to manually download it every day. That's one area where the Kindle still shines. As long as I was within cell range I knew that day's paper would be on my Kindle when I opened it up each morning. My iPad, on the other hand, is almost always connected via wifi, so there's no reason the service couldn't be automated here as well.
There's no way to save an article or an entire day's paper in the app. Even the Kindle app used to hold all the editions till I deleted them, so the iPad app needs to do the same. I can't be sure I'll have time to read the paper every day but I want the ability to go back and see if I missed anything.
This app is little more than a quick-and-dirty print-to-e conversion. I love it that I'm getting access to more of the Times content through it, but it certainly doesn't have a rich, digital-first feel to it. I get the impression I'm just reading the same content that appears in the print edition. That's an important part of the equation but far from the complete solution. Just as a boring periodic table can be made exciting through an app like The Elements, the Times needs to think about how the news they report could become much more engaging and interesting on the iPad.

I'm excited to see the Times add so much content to this app but now they need to start thinking about the user experience. If they can address these issues they'll win me back as a paying subscriber. For now though, I plan to take full advantage of the free service they're offering with this enhanced app.

ESPN Magazine, the iPad App

2010-10-11T12:12:00.002-04:00

I'm an ESPN Mag subscriber, so I was excited when they announced plans to release the Mag as an iPad app in September. I was even more thrilled to hear the app content would be free for print subscribers. Great idea. The app arrived a bit later than anticipated, but now that it's here I've got to say I'm disappointed with it.

ESPN violated one of my biggest rules for magazine/newspaper apps: They don't include all the content from the print version. You'll find the app editions only include the longer articles from the print magazine. The app is also missing some of the great visuals I look forward to seeing in the print edition. I absolutely love those full-page, oftentimes close-up, vivid images towards the front of the magazine. They've also done a great job with some interesting visualizations in the last page article in the print edition. None of those can be found in the app editions. And can you believe there's no search capability in the app?! How in the world do you offer a content app without search? Unbelievable.

On the flip side, the app includes some content you won't find in the print editions. That's nice, but I figured I'd be able to take my print subscription with me on the road with the iPad app and that's simply not the case. Instead I'm forced to read through the app articles then flip through the print edition to see what the app didn't include. Does that make sense to anyone?

Although the app doesn't cost me anything today (since I'm a print subscriber), in order to obtain full app content/issue access I had to give ESPN my credit card so they could charge me the "prevailing rate" for automatic print subscription renewal. I interpret that to mean the inexpensive rate ($10!) I paid for this year's subscription will go up next year. That's bait-and-switch. They told me I'd get free app access as a print subscriber but what they're really doing is locking me in to a higher-priced renewal rate than I could probably get on my own. That certainly leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I'm also wondering why the app editions don't show up before the print versions show up in my mailbox. In fact, the latest print edtion arrived Saturday but it's nowhere to be found in the app. Disappointing.

I'm a sucker for ESPN so I'll probably just bite the bullet if they charge me more next year. I like the fact that they've built a model where app content access is free for print subscribers but I wish they would have been more honest about the missing content and the higher-priced subscription renewal requirement. I'm also keeping my fingers crossed that ESPN will fix all of these boneheaded shortcomings in a future version of the app.

AppAdvice

2010-09-27T09:23:00.000-04:00

Every night I end the day by heading to the App Store on my iPad and using the Release Date option to scroll through all the new apps that were released that day. (Yes, I lead a fairly dull life.) Weekdays typically have the largest number of new apps, but even on a big day there are only a few dozen new ones to scan.

Surely there's a better way to see what new apps have been released, right? I haven't found one, but at least AppAdvice helps me find the diamonds in the rough. This $1.99 app has a nifty interface that starts by loading a couple of screen's worth of news. The news isn't just limited to apps though; you'll find tidbits on everything related to the iPad. Touch one of the article summaries to see the full story. Once you get to the bottom of the second screenful of summaries the app loads more news; on and on it goes, with a seemingly endless list of interesting stories to read. My favorite feature is AppFresh Daily, a summary of "the very best apps from the last 24 hours."

There's also iPhone version of the AppAdvice app and your $1.99 buys both. While the iPad's user interface it nice, the iPhone app interface is even better. The developers did a terrific job making use of all the available screen space. For some reason the iPhone app has more features than the iPad one. For example, the AppMovers option lets you see which apps are gaining momentum on the iPhone, but there's no equivalent option in the iPad app. I'm hoping these iPhone features are added to the iPad app soon, but even without them this one is a must-have.

Noterize

2010-09-20T09:09:00.000-04:00

I ditched my trusty old notebook shortly after I bought my iPad. It's one less thing to lug around and the Penultimate app is a great replacement. When a friend of mine told me the Noterize app is even better I didn't hesitate spending the three bucks to check it out. What I'm finding though is that I really need both apps.

Noterize is great at a lot of things. You can write on a document (better with a stylus than your fingertip), highlight portions of it and even drop in the digital equivalent of a PostIt note. The killer feature for me though is the audio recording capability Noterize supports. If you're in a classroom, business meeting or any other place you'd like to record the audio, just click the microphone icon and relax. I've been wondering when the iPad will offer Livescribe Smartpen functionality and Noterize is about as close as it gets (so far). The key Livescribe feature that has yet to be replicated is OCR, or the ability to convert your written words to machine-readable ones.

Noterize is also able to import PDFs and PowerPoint slides. I love this because it lets me mark up documents and send them to others for review. I put Noterize to the test right away by reviewing and annotating a 40-page research report I received at work. It was a great experience as I was able to put all my notes right in the PDF and then email it to a colleague. The process was a bit quirky and Noterize isn't totally bug-free. It looks like it's possible to press "send" when emailing a doc before the doc is actually loaded and ready. I've run into this problem a couple of times now and it's pretty frustrating; just be sure an image of the document is displayed in the email message body before you try to send it. (Note to Noterize: Hey guys, how about simply graying out the "send" button till the doc is loaded?!)

The other beef I have with Noterize is that it doesn't feel as responsive with a stylus as Penultimate does. Maybe it's all in my head but I find it easier to take handwritten notes with a stylus in Penultimate than in Noterize. And don't believe what either of these apps tell you about "Palm Protect", or the ability to prevent your palm from making stray marks on the document, as Noterize refers to it. They're both far from perfect here and I often find myself erasing unintended palm marks.

For the time being, Noterize will be my document mark-up tool of choice but Penultimate remains my notebook replacement.

P.S. -- I'm still puzzled why Livescribe continues sitting on the sidelines. Someone will eventually add OCR functionality to one of these apps and Livescribe will watch tablets eat their core business. Just because they ignore the business opportunity doesn't mean everyone else will!

CBS Sports Pro Football App

2010-09-13T09:33:00.000-04:00

I'm a big sports fan and am always on the lookout for the latest sports-related apps. MLB's AtBat was a favorite of mine on the iPhone and the iPad version has gotten better throughout the season. I use it each week to check scores and periodically watch a simulated game while I'm doing something else.

The NFL generally gets high marks with fans but don't look to them for a great mobile app. If you want something like AtBat for the NFL your best bet is the CBS Sports Pro Football app. It's got everything the pro football junkie needs. Besides a league-wide scoreboard you can get all the details on any game in progress or completed. Previews are also offered for upcoming games. And if you're into fantasy football and happen to use the CBSSports.com service, you'll find links for your account in this app as well.

Sometimes it's the little things that make the difference though. For example, I missed the Steelers-Falcons game but was able to catch a summary of it via the CBS app. I was curious about the scoring drives so all I had to do was pick a quarter and then touch one of the on-screen arrows representing team drives in that quarter. The app displayed a nice summary of what happened on that particular drive, so my questions were quickly answered (Go Steelers!). Then there's the RapidReports crawler at the bottom of the screen. It lets me do something I've always wanted the ability to do with crawlers on my TV: rewind or speed them up.

Photos and videos are hard to find in this one. I assume that's because the NFL is working on it's own app with more functionality. It's amazing they didn't release one before the season kicked off, but for the time being CBS is offering a terrific alternative...and it's free!

Top100Apps

2010-09-07T09:26:00.000-04:00

Sometimes a name truly says it all. That's the case with the Top100Apps iPad app. I'm constantly searching the App Store for new iPad apps but I'm also interested in what's hot. If you're looking at individual categories you can use the iPad's App Store app but it only shows 10 entries at a time in the Top Charts view. I'm easily annoyed having to press the "Show More" button 10 times to see the top 100.

That's where Top100Apps comes in. It's a freebie that downloads summary info for the top 100 apps overall or any genre, same as what you see in the App Store app. But rather than having to download information on each batch of 10 separately, Top100Apps shows them all at once. So I'm quickly able to see what the top 100 apps are in the Books or Sports genres, for example. You can quickly flip from Paid to Free apps and I've found that each new selection (e.g., going from one genre to another or switching between Paid and Free) takes 5 seconds or less, considerably faster than App Store access for the top 100. App Store links are built in, of course, so you're just a click or two away from from viewing an entry in Top100Apps to downloading it.

As useful as this one is, it could very easily be made redundant by the App Store app itself. If Apple ever adds a setting to let you change between "show 10 apps", "show 20 apps", etc., all the way up to "show 100 apps" in their lists there would be no need for Top100Apps. In the mean time though I'm sure I'll continue using it regularly.

iPad Magazines

2010-08-30T08:46:00.000-04:00

After much disappointment with Amazon, and their inability to offer a comprehensive magazine portfolio on the Kindle, I had high hopes for the iPad. And while the iPad is still fairly new, the magazine experience up to now has been pretty disappointing.

Like so many others I tried the first issue of Wired in their iPad app and I haven't been back. (I have a print subscription, btw.) I've also tried Zinio and subscribed to PC Magazine in it. Nothing remarkable. I was optimistic when I downloaded the Sports Illustrated iPad app but there again, I'm sticking with my print subscription and see no reason to pay for the same content in the app.

Over the weekend I saw an ad in a recent issue of ESPN The Mag saying they're "going mobile in September." More importantly, the ad says the products will be "available to everyone, free to ESPN The Magazine/ESPN Insider subscribers." That's consistent with this recent article on Ars Technica. Magazine publishers are wrestling with Apple to determine who owns the customer, whether Apple should get a cut of the transaction, etc.

I realize there are some dangerous precedents that could be set here and I admire the fact that ESPN is willing to reward their existing print subscribers with free access to the same content on their iPad. In fact, according to that same Ars Technica article, it looks like Time is about to offer the same deal on many of their magazines, including Sports Illustrated.

That's great, but what's not noted in all of this is how long print subscribers will get free e-access. I don't expect that to last forever and neither should you. Here's why: Right now these iPad magazine apps are simple, quick-and-dirty conversions of the print format. A couple have tried some clever tricks but I have yet to see one that's considerably different than the print edition. That will change over time. At some point the magazine publishers are going to realize they'll have to make the investment in richer content on the apps. And when they do, they'll be able to charge for them, above and beyond a print subscription rate.

So although I refuse to pay Wired, Sports Illustrated or any of the other magazines more for the privilege of app access to the same content I'm already paying for in print, I'll gladly open my wallet further if they add more value to that app content. For now, though, it will be nice to not have to lug some of these print editions on the planes I find myself trapped in every month!

MiTube: A YouTube Video Downloader App

2010-08-16T09:39:00.000-04:00

The good news about the MiTube app is that it solves a legitimate problem by letting you to quickly and easily download YouTube videos for later viewing, like when you're not connected to the web. The bad news? MiTube is no longer available in the app store.

I was one of the fortunate ones who managed to download MiTube before it was yanked. Although I haven't had too many reasons to use it yet, when I have it was nice to know it was there. You simply search for the video you want to download, decide whether you want a hi- or low-res file and the retrieval process begins.

The fact that this one is already unavailable reminds me of a habit of mine that I recommend for all iPad owners: Look at what's new in the App Store each and every day. MiTube caught my attention so I downloaded it the day it came out, and I'm glad I did. Even though there are now 20,000+ iPad apps in the Store, it's very easy to quickly look at what was added today: In the App Store app just go to the Featured area and select the Release Date tab. All of the day's additions appear there in alphabetical order. Keep paging through till you reach one with yesterday's date and you'll know when to stop. I do this every night and it takes less than 5 minutes.

App Layout: An iPad App Prototyping Tool

2010-08-09T09:20:00.000-04:00

Everybody has at least one idea for a killer app, right? So how do you go from concept to interface prototype? App Layout is a tool to get you started.

App Layout comes with a variety of controls you can drop into an iPad or iPhone app design. And if you can't find what you're looking for in the built-in control set, you can always import an image of your own (so you can quickly "borrow" user interface elements from other apps). It's easy to select, drag and drop all your controls into place. And when you're finished, you can save or email your work of art.

OK, now for the warts... Saving/emailing is great, but how about reloading a project and letting me continue editing it? Any prototyping you do with App Layout has to be done in one session. There's no way to reload a previously-saved file and continue tweaking it. That's a huge problem. Also, there's no way to use typical iOS gestures (e.g., pinching) to resize controls. You're forced to press zoom/shrink or contract/stretch buttons till your fingers hurt. Why in the world didn't these guys implement a feature as standard as spread/pinch?!

All that said, I only paid $2.99 for the app, so I can't complain too much. It now costs $4.99, so I must have benefited from an introductory price (the app was just released on 8/3). For $2.99 it's not bad, but I think they could get $9.99 if they'd address these shortcomings.

iPad App Discoverability

2010-08-02T09:31:00.000-04:00

Can someone help me understand what that image on the left side of this post does for me? It's a screen shot of appstream, a free tool that I mistakenly thought might help me with the problem of iPad app discoverability.

As I write this post I see there are now more than 18,000 iPad apps in the App Store. Wonderful. Now how do I find the truly great ones? The same problem exists for iPhone apps, only it's ten times worse because there are a lot more of those apps out there than iPad ones.

I was looking for some help uncovering some of the better ones when I recently stumbled upon appstream. What you see on that screen shot is pretty much what you get though. It's a largely unfiltered look at what's currently available in the App Store. What I need is something that offers me a filtered look at all those apps, not a raw feed of them.

How about settings that let me see only those apps with at least an average of 4-star reviews? Or how about only those apps with 4-star reviews in the utility category? How about 4-star reviews, in the business category and released in the past week?

If these guys would go back and add this sort of functionality to appstream they could convert it from a free app that serves almost no purpose to one I'd pay five dollars for. That's right. Five bucks, which means it would join an exclusive club on my iPad. I've only paid that much for Wired (initial issue only; no way I'll pay that much for newer ones...not $3.99 either, especially when I can get an entire year in print for $10!), The Elements (worth every bit of $13.99) and MLB's AtBat 2010 (an app that I'm unlikely to buy next year, although I'll continue buying the iPhone edition).

Discoverability is the largest issue plaguing the app ecosystem. It affects both buyers and sellers. Sure, Apple lets you filter apps in a few different ways and the Genius feature is nice on the iPhone (but where is it for iPad apps?). Those are still minor attempted solutions at a major problem. Something like appstream could be a better alternative, but not in its current state.