This week, a leaked photo showcases what appears to be a next generation iPad or a current generation iPad with new firmware.

The screen shot reportedly shows an iPad in a “Video Calls Debugging” mode, which is a hint at video calling or more specifically, FaceTime.

The next generation iPad has been rumored numerous times over the last several months to feature a Retina Display, a smaller screen, and ... Read More]]>

This week, a leaked photo showcases what appears to be a next generation iPad or a current generation iPad with new firmware.

The screen shot reportedly shows an iPad in a “Video Calls Debugging” mode, which is a hint at video calling or more specifically, FaceTime.

The next generation iPad has been rumored numerous times over the last several months to feature a Retina Display, a smaller screen, and front-facing camera.

The latter rumor would make sense with the supposed video call debugging mode.

With the latest iPod touch featuring a front-facing camera that supports FaceTime, it seems likely that the next iPad will also feature a front-facing camera with FaceTime support.

[9To5Mac]

Famed political affairs magazine The Atlantic is now offering an iPad release of its tree-killer version, for $4.99 an issue on iTunes.

Aside from the usual articles found in the magazine, which almost always serve to simulate thought and discussion, the iPad version looks fantastic, with lots of navigational aids to move around with. You can simply click on the contents page replicated from the magazine version, or ... Read More]]>

Famed political affairs magazine The Atlantic is now offering an iPad release of its tree-killer version, for $4.99 an issue on iTunes.

Aside from the usual articles found in the magazine, which almost always serve to simulate thought and discussion, the iPad version looks fantastic, with lots of navigational aids to move around with. You can simply click on the contents page replicated from the magazine version, or hit an arrow and pop-up a handy bar along the bottom which features page thumbnails you can flick through.

On the large screen of the iPad, the illustrations are bright and clean. The only things I’d really slight the electronic version of The Atlantic for is that there’s no way to bookmark pages or highlight text. I’d also appreciate if they offered a subscription service for the electronic version, offering savings over paying 5 bucks per issue. Other than that, it’s a marvellous way of reading a great magazine. You can snag a copy on iTunes here.

Reading on your iPad in bed has its challenges. Actually, reading on it sitting on the sofa does too. It gets pretty heavy after a while and often requires contortionist feats to find a comfortable position to use it in.

Enter the iPad pillow from gadgetfreeway.

It’s a comfy pillow, with a soft tray-like edge to slot your iPad into, which then turns into a carrying case when ... Read More]]>

Reading on your iPad in bed has its challenges. Actually, reading on it sitting on the sofa does too. It gets pretty heavy after a while and often requires contortionist feats to find a comfortable position to use it in.

Enter the iPad pillow from gadgetfreeway.

It’s a comfy pillow, with a soft tray-like edge to slot your iPad into, which then turns into a carrying case when you’re on the move. Genius.

The website promises “whether you are in bed, on the couch, or on a plane the pillow will hold your iPad both vertically and horizontally…in…dozens of different angles”.

And for only $29, how can you resist? Will you buy one? Or do you have a better alternative? Let us know in the comments below.

Features (from the website)

• Easily add or remove your iPad
• Zippered pocket for storing your iPad
• Washable

Danielle Saul is a technical writer and all round geeky chick. You can follow her on Twitter at @GeekyCh1ck

Forecast the future, or the weather, and more, on your iPad.

Last week I wrote about some of the many iPad apps that help you be productive (Portable Productivity on the iPad). That article concentrated on serious-type apps — word processing, spreadsheets, remote computer management, and the like. To herald the last long weekend of summer, let’s have a bit of fun this time and look ... Read More]]>

Forecast the future, or the weather, and more, on your iPad.

Last week I wrote about some of the many iPad apps that help you be productive (Portable Productivity on the iPad). That article concentrated on serious-type apps — word processing, spreadsheets, remote computer management, and the like. To herald the last long weekend of summer, let’s have a bit of fun this time and look at some apps that will have you flying an airplane, catching up on the news, listening to tunes, cooking gourmet meals, laughing at comics and even divining the future.

Like last time, this piece was originally written for the online Vancouver Observer, and is the second part of a two-part series on how you can be both productive and creative with the iPad.

Tuesday, I’m heading back to school for the second year of my PhD program at Simon Fraser University. I’ve been trying out various note-taking and scheduling apps to see which ones will help me in the courses I’m taking and the ones I’m teaching, so next week I’ll give my first impressions of the iPad as a tool for graduate students.

In the meantime, Happy Labour Day everybody and here’s the link to my Observer piece on iPad creativity: www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/megabytes/2010/08/15/ipad-depth

So I bought Uno because it is a game that my kids and I appreciate and I hoped that we could actually all play it together on the new device.

The game has a very familiar look since it uses the same look as the original card game so we are in familiar territory. It offers a couple of game modes which I will detail below.

Single player modes

The ... Read More]]>

So I bought Uno because it is a game that my kids and I appreciate and I hoped that we could actually all play it together on the new device.

The game has a very familiar look since it uses the same look as the original card game so we are in familiar territory. It offers a couple of game modes which I will detail below.

Single player modes

The single player mode is interesting since it can happen often that the person wanting to play is alone for some of the games. You can choose from a Quick play mode which allows you to simply play a quick game or a full game with either tournament or custom rules.

I wish the game would allow the player to choose who is currently playing but as with many other games I have seen so far, the iPad is considered a one person device. If a different player starts playing Uno, they usually simply end up continuing where the previous player left off.

Multiple player modes

There are 3 different multiple player modes: online multiplayer, local multiplayer and single device multiplayer. The online multiplayer mode requires to register on the gameloft live site and unfortunately the registration from within the application crashed the app each time I tried it. Not very successful. And no, I did not try to contact technical support in this case.

The local multiplayer mode is supposed to let you create a local game with multiple devices over wifi. The drawback is that you need multiple devices to play and for the moment I had no access to more than one device.

The single device multiple player mode forces you to pass the iPad around between players and the receiving player acknowledges reception before his cards are shown. The main problem with that mode is that while you do not have the iPad in hand, you can’t look at your cards and strategize. You can also easily loose track of where other players are because you might not see everything that goes on while other players have the iPad in hand. In other words, the single device multiple player mode makes continuity a bit tougher. 

The interface and gameplay

When playing the game, selecting the card you want to play is a little difficult. That part of the interface really needs to be polished. The gameplay is sometimes a little difficult to follow since the computer moves faster than what a normal person might and you really have to pay attention to see what is going on because there is no social interaction. Another issue I have with the interface is that it forces the use of the iPad with the home button on the right which does not work well when using the iPad case folded so that it sits at an angle. The application does not rotate to match the angle at which you hold the iPad.

The Verdict

Uno in single player mode is entertaining although the selection of cards is little quirky, but for “local” multi player gameplay, I suggest that you simply go buy a deck of cards and play with the real thing, it makes game play that much better.

My rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Yesterday was one heck of a day for we, the unholy legion of Apple fanbois. New iPod Shuffle (only $50!), iPod Touch (near-feature-parity with the iPhone 4), iPod Nano (touch screen, 1.5inch squared form-factor, added to Christmas list), AppleTV (umm… it’s small), iOS 4.2 preview for iPad (at least we finally got to see it!), a shiny new iTunes with music/social integration, and the notable exclusion of my favorite, ... Read More]]>

Yesterday was one heck of a day for we, the unholy legion of Apple fanbois. New iPod Shuffle (only $50!), iPod Touch (near-feature-parity with the iPhone 4), iPod Nano (touch screen, 1.5inch squared form-factor, added to Christmas list), AppleTV (umm… it’s small), iOS 4.2 preview for iPad (at least we finally got to see it!), a shiny new iTunes with music/social integration, and the notable exclusion of my favorite, but now generally unloved, iPod Classic.

With all of that, what do I really want to talk about? Twitter!!! New hardware is fun, but new software is where it’s at, and the Twitter app, updated yesterday to include native support for the iPad, is a real doozie.

I’ve been playing around with the app for a while now and I developed some strong opinions pretty quickly. I’ll share them here, just so you know what you’re getting into before taking the $0.00 plunge of downloading.

Good…

An example hashtag search from within a tweet.

It’s free. That’s a big bonus for we poor folk. It’s also called “Twitter”, which is nice for when my brain craps out and forgets what the icon looks like (happens more than you would think). The UI is pretty excellent; it’s simple in most views, and doesn’t stray far from the Twitter for iPhone UI or the corresponding Mac app (still called Tweetie, wonder when they will get around to updating that). There are loads of cool gesture controls, such as reverse-pinch to bring up an overview of a particular user’s account, and a single-finger reverse pinch to get a list of replies with another user in the order they were tweeted.

Any tweet you tap slides in from the right side of your screen, which is a fairly novel presentation that I really enjoyed. If the tweet contains a link, Twitter will automatically start opening it in the in-app browser, which thankfully does not go to full-screen by default (but it is an option). If there was a hashtag, but no link, Twitter will open up a search for that hashtag below the tweet, and if there was no link or hashtag, Twitter will automatically load the overview of that user’s profile. I love that there is never any wasted space, and once you’re done reading a particular tweet, you can just slide it back off the screen and continue reading your timeline.

Also, there’s great integration with Textexpander, which takes user-defined snippets of text and expands them, saving tons of writing time, as well as the thankful inclusion of Instapaper, a service I am in love with and wrote about here.

Bad…

My experience wasn’t all roses and rainbows and unicorns, though. My first qualm was with the “compose new tweet” screen; while it was nice that it simply “pops” up, it made the screen seem a tad too busy for my tastes, and there was no way to add mentions or DM from within the compose window itself.

Just too busy.

My second, and much bigger problem, is when trying to do the reverse-pinch to view a user’s profile. If I didn’t reverse pinch both fingers aggresively, it often treated one finger as not moving and opened up a personal reply timeline with that user instead. If I pinched in too horizontal a way, it treated it as a swipe; not what I wanted either! When I finally got the motion right, I found it impossible to pinch to hide away the profile window. I had to tap outside of the box, which wasn’t what I wanted to do intuitively. I’ll get used to it, but I don’t want to.

Check the top-right corner. Now check the bottom-right corner. Deja-vu?

Last but not least – the window that comes up when you actually view a tweet. The only thing I didn’t like here was a biggie, and I can’t believe this is actually there; there are two of those little “arrow in a box” buttons; one on the top-right, beside the retweet button, and one in the bottom-right, beside the full-screen button. Why, oh why? What an infuriating UI choice. I get that one is for dealing with the actual link (open in Safari, send to Instapaper, etc), and the other is for dealing with the tweet itself (translate, mail), but, no, not acceptable.

From where I’m sitting…

After all that, what decision did I come to? Twitter claimed the last spot on my dock. I’m a shill for company-backed apps, I guess. But you should try it too; it’s free (iTunes link), and might well give your current client a run for its money.

Today, Apple has posted a new page on Apple.com previewing the features that iOS 4.2 will deliver to the iPad this November.

While the 4.2 update is geared mostly toward the iPad, the update is also for iPhone and iPod touch.

The new iOS 4.2 page highlights features such as Multitasking, Folders, Printing, AirPlay, Game Center, Improved Mail, Safari Text Search, Enhanced Enterprise Support, Accessibility Enhancements, and Keyboard ... Read More]]>

Today, Apple has posted a new page on Apple.com previewing the features that iOS 4.2 will deliver to the iPad this November.

While the 4.2 update is geared mostly toward the iPad, the update is also for iPhone and iPod touch.

The new iOS 4.2 page highlights features such as Multitasking, Folders, Printing, AirPlay, Game Center, Improved Mail, Safari Text Search, Enhanced Enterprise Support, Accessibility Enhancements, and Keyboard and Dictionary Enhancements.

iOS 4.2 is said to bring all of the iOS 4.1 features to the iPad that the iPad can support. The update is scheduled to arrive on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch in November 2010.

[Apple]

When Loren Brichter had his company Atebits acquired by Twitter, his app Tweetie morphed into the official twitter app and became free for iPhone users. As for iPad users, we’ve been waiting for a usable free app. Sure, there are some nice ones out there such as ShinyTweet and Flipboard.

Well, the wait is over as the official Twitter app for iPad has been released for free in ... Read More]]>

When Loren Brichter had his company Atebits acquired by Twitter, his app Tweetie morphed into the official twitter app and became free for iPhone users. As for iPad users, we’ve been waiting for a usable free app. Sure, there are some nice ones out there such as ShinyTweet and Flipboard.

Well, the wait is over as the official Twitter app for iPad has been released for free in the App Store! You don’t even need a login to check out the trending topics. I just downloaded it and the interface is excellent. It’s really easy to follow people, check out timelines, and it’s a gorgeous, well thought out design. Other iPad twitter apps have some catching up to do. I’m still waiting for the iPad version of SimplyTweet!

Well done to Loren and his team for pushing out this app!

Let me know how you like the official twitter app for iPad!

Click here to download [iTunes]!

[twitter blog]

This morning at Apple’s September music event, the company previewed iOS 4.2 for iPad.

In an unexpected move, this morning Apple provided a preview into the upcoming iOS 4.2.

iOS 4.2 is available for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad but the real focus is for iPad. Essentially, iOS 4.2 is bringing every single feature of iOS 4.1, such as folders and multitasking, to the iPad that the iPad can support. ... Read More]]>

This morning at Apple’s September music event, the company previewed iOS 4.2 for iPad.

iOS 4.2

In an unexpected move, this morning Apple provided a preview into the upcoming iOS 4.2.

iOS 4.2 is available for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad but the real focus is for iPad. Essentially, iOS 4.2 is bringing every single feature of iOS 4.1, such as folders and multitasking, to the iPad that the iPad can support. However, iOS 4.2 is also bringing some additional features to iPad.

Printing

iOS 4.2 is finally bringing wireless printing to the iPad in the form of “Print Center”. Just like on a Mac/PC, users can view their print jobs, cancel them, and manage them right from the iPad.

As an example, from within Pages, users can now select to print the document, select the printer and then manage the print job from a new “Print Center” app. Wireless printing has been a feature that users have been asking for and it looks like it’s finally coming!

AirPlay

For all three iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, iOS 4.2 is bringing a feature called “AirPlay” which is a renamed AirTunes but can stream photos and videos along with audio to your AppleTV from an iDevice over WiFi.

As AirPlay was demoed, users can be watching a video on their iPad and when they come home, they can stream the video from their iPad to their AppleTV with the tap of a finger.

Availability

iOS 4.2 is available for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad as a free download in November 2010.

Update: the preview page for iOS 4.2 is up on Apple.com!

This summer I had the best day of my university career. It was the first day of a summer class, students were arriving and pulling out their Macbooks or other net books getting ready to take notes, and I watched them all anxiously.

After almost everyone had their computers set up, I reached into my small shoulder bag and put my iPad on the desk in front of me. ... Read More]]>

This summer I had the best day of my university career. It was the first day of a summer class, students were arriving and pulling out their Macbooks or other net books getting ready to take notes, and I watched them all anxiously.

After almost everyone had their computers set up, I reached into my small shoulder bag and put my iPad on the desk in front of me. My professor’s eyes lit up as she spied the cutting edge technology. Other students gasped in awe, many too afraid to ask the obvious question.

One brave classmate piped up and asked in a tone of reverence, “Is that an iPad?” The class hushed to hear my response.

A silly question, really, since I don’t think there is a soul on the planet who couldn’t identify an iPad from a mile away. It’s thin, it’s light, it’s sleek and sexy with a massive touch screen. There is no mistaking it for another tablet.

I glowed with pride knowing that no one in that room had been this close to one before. I tried to remain nonchalant as I replied, “Yes,” and proceeded to pull out a very compact Apple keyboard dock and set myself up with a new Pages document in seconds.

Now that I’ve had that first class to get used to using my iPad for school work, I’m getting anxious again for the beginning of fall classes. New apps have come out to organize homework, buy textbooks online, and so much more! I’m looking forward to trying them all out and sharing my experiences with all you iPad lovers in Canada.

Any students out there with iPads ready for September? Post below with your experiences!