Category: I-phone

Yesterday on the ComputerWorld blog Preston Gralla listed five reason why the Android app store will beat Apple’s. A more appropriate title would have been “Five reasons why the Android app store will have more apps than Apple’s”. Which, in my opinion, is a pretty ridiculous criteria for judging a beating. Any way, I would like to go some of the points Mr. Gralla made.

I don’t think “Big Brother Censorship” is necessarily a bad thing when it comes to an app store. Not curating the Android app store will indeed lead to there being more apps. The only problem with that is the Android app store is going to get slammed with terrible apps. It is already difficult to find good apps for Android thanks to no quality control. I would prefer to have someone filtering out the bad stuff rather than having to do it myself.

Android definitely needs to get their payment system straightened out. It was a pretty big oversight to use a system that does not account for impulse buys. A majority of my iPhone app purchases are bought on a whim and that is because Apple has made it easy to do. While fixing this is a step in the right direction you still have to offer great apps that people can easily find and want to spend money one.

Gralla says that Android is much more developer friendly than Apple because they do not have the red tape and roadblocks Jobs and company do. While this may be considered developer friendly it is far from end user friendly. From the standpoint of a user I think it is great that Apple doesn’t have an open gate policy. It makes it much easier to find great apps and keeps the overall quality of Apple’s product pretty high.

Over the past few months I have had the opportunity to use both an iPhone and an Android phone. While I tried my hardest to like the Android phone I found searching for apps to be nothing but a frustrating mess. I am sticking with Apple’s app store, no matter how many free apps Android developers want to throw at me.

It will be interesting to see the opinions of the Mobile Orchard community.

The iPhone ushered in an era of beautiful interface design unlike anything we’d ever seen on a mobile device. This trend is now being revived and pushed further than ever on the iPad’s larger screen and the results are amazing.

We’ve combed through the App Store to bring you 30 iPad apps with gorgeous interfaces. Keep in mind that the screenshots rarely do the apps justice and that you really should try a few out for yourself.

Flipboard

“Flipboard is a fast, beautiful way to flip through the news, photos and updates your friends are sharing on Facebook and Twitter. See your social media in a magazine layout that is easy to scan and fun to read. Share articles and photos, comment on posts, and like or favorite anything. Customize your Flipboard with sections created from your favorite people, lists and blogs on Twitter.”

Price: Free

AmpliTube

“With AmpliTube for iPad, you’ll have an entire guitar/bass rig at your fingertips, comprised of 4 simultaneous stompbox effects, an amp-head plus cabinet and a microphone. You will be able to choose between 5 amps (Clean, Crunch, Lead, Metal, Bass) with full controls, 11 stompbox effects (Delay, Fuzz, Overdrive, Wah, Envelope Filter, Chorus, Flanger, Phazer, Octave, Noise Filter + Distortion once registered), 5 speaker cabinets and 2 microphones (dynamic and condenser)”

Price: $19.99

Weather HD

“Weather HD, the most beautiful way to check for weather information on the iPad and the iPhone. See the current and forecast weather in stunning high definition videos. ”

Price: $0.99

iStudiez Pro

“A student’s life is a dizzying mix of activity and just plain craziness! Take charge of your schedule and put iStudiez Pro to work for you! Take advantage of iStudiez Pro easy navigation and never miss another course, lecture and lab, track tasks and deadlines, plan homework, arrange assignments and much more!”

Price: $2.99

Nota

“Nota is a set of indispensable tools for musicians at any level. It has a piano chord and scale browser, a piano and staff note locator, a note quiz and a reference library with over 100 symbols. Make sure you also check out Nota for the iPhone to take all of these tool in your iPhone or iPod Touch.”

Price: $7.99

Night Stand HD – Alarm Clock

“With Night Stand HD Pro, we’ve taken our bestselling hit for iPhone and the groundbreaking iPad version and rolled them into a single Universal app. With a stunning new NINTH clock theme, powerful new stopwatch, support for background alarms in iOS 4 and exclusive Retina Display optimization for iPhone 4 & iPod touch 4G, Night Stand version 1.5 is the best, most feature-complete time utility on the App Store.”

Price: $1.99

Things for iPad

“Things is a beautifully focused and amazingly intuitive task manager. Other todo applications either oversimplify or are too difficult to use. Things instead offers the perfect balance between ease of use and powerful features.”

Price: $19.99

iOrgel HD

“Have a music box on your iPad! Reminisce your old memories! iOrgel is a digitally-reinvented-music box for iPad. Simply wind the spring and enjoy beautiful songs. You can also create a new song and share it with rest of the world.”

Price: $2.99

The Photo Cookbook – Quick & Easy

“The Photo Cookbook for the iPad is like a private cooking course in your own kitchen with an experienced cook, who clarifies the preparation. Beautiful photography, which is displayed in high resolution on your iPad, illustrates every step.”

Price: $4.99

Evernote

“Evernote turns the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad into an extension of your brain, helping you remember anything and everything that happens in your life. From notes to ideas to snapshots to recordings, put it all into Evernote and watch as it instantly synchronizes from your iPhone to your Mac or Windows desktop.”

Price: Free

Articles

“Articles lets you easily read and discover Wikipedia Articles on your iPad. Just enter a search term and let Articles find the Wikipedia entry you are looking for. Use the integrated maps feature to learn about interesting places and historic events around your current location, or anywhere else in the world. Or simply shake your device and let Articles find an entry for you.”

Price: $4.99

Bento

“Organize all the details of your busy life in one iPad app! Bento for iPad comes with 25 ready-to-use database templates that can be easily customized to organize virtually any type of information you have. Manage contacts, track projects, plan events and so much more. Bento for iPad is a new version of Bento, the popular personal database from FileMaker – use standalone or synchronize with Bento 3 for Mac!”

Price: $4.99

Layers

“Want to doodle, draw on photos, or paint a masterpiece on your new iPad? Look no further! Layers packs in everything you need to be creative on the go. The pro edition of Layers provides more brushes, more layers, and more advanced layer operations than the standard edition. Enjoy more control over your brush tip using the brush offset option, and email your paintings as layered PSD files to transfer your work to the desktop!”

Price: $5.99

SousChef

“SousChef for iPad helps you find and save recipes more easily than you ever could before. And when you’re ready to cook, SousChef is the perfect companion to have in the kitchen.”

Price: $7.99

Yahoo! Entertainment

“Get an interactive Program Guide that lets you plan your TV viewing, watch up-to-the-minute video, plus get handpicked news and entertainment with Yahoo!® Entertainment on your iPad. Current news articles and photos: Stay on top of the news, with in-depth coverage in key areas.”

Price: Free

Calcbot — The Intelligent Calculator

“Never lose your place in a calculation again with the live as-you-type expression view. Simply swipe the keypad to the left to reveal advanced functions. See your past calculations in the history tape. You can even send old values and expressions back to your calculator or to a friend via email. ”

Price: $1.99

Delivery Status touch, a package tracker

“Delivery Status touch helps you keep track of all your packages, so you always know when they’re going to arrive. The main view shows the latest status of your packages, and counts down to the estimated delivery date. Tap a delivery for more information, and if you like you can view the shipping company’s web page, or see where your packages are on a map.”

Price: $4.99

Activity Monitor Touch

“Activity Monitor Touch is a handy activity monitor for your iDevice! Detailed usage information on disk space, memory, and CPU activity. Overview page showing device UDID, capacity, free memory, battery power, and network state.”

Price: $1.99

Pulse News Reader

“Pulse is a visual news reader for your iPad. It takes the news sources you follow, and instantly creates a visual mosaic of your news. Tap on an article, and you’re presented with a very clean view of the news story.”

Price: $1.99

The Early Edition

“Finally – your own personal, daily newspaper! The Early Edition takes all of the news sources that you enjoy and presents their content in a format which is familiar, stylish and intuitive.”

Price: $4.99

Yahoo! Sportacular HD

“Yahoo! Sportacular HD is your game day couch companion. Follow games, check stats or start times, get TV programming information and more in a single tap. Coverage currently available for NFL, MLB and college football.”

Price: Free

Keynote

“Keynote, the powerful presentation application for Mac, has been completely redesigned for iPad. It makes creating a world-class presentation, complete with animated charts and transitions, as simple as touching and tapping. ”

Price: $9.99

Pocket Informant HD

“Pocket Informant is an integrated calendaring and GTD-based tasks solution for the iPad. Our purpose is to fuse together best-of-class calendaring with best-of-class tasks into one great solution.”

Price: $14.99

iBooks

“iBooks is an amazing way to download and read books. iBooks includes the iBookstore, where you can download the latest best-selling books or your favorite classics – day or night. Browse your library on a beautiful bookshelf, tap a book to open it, flip through pages with a swipe or a tap, and bookmark or add notes to your favorite passages.”

Price: Free

ACCU WEATHER for iPad

“All the weather, no ads! This is the only weather application you ever need for your iPad. Get detailed current conditions, a 15-day forecast, hourly weather details, radar, AccuWeather’s exclusive lifestyle forecasts, and weather videos. This paid version is just $0.99 but there is an ad-supported free version as well.”

Price: $0.99

The Elements: A Visual Exploration

“You start off at a living periodic table where every element is shown with a smoothly rotating sample. To read about tin, tap the tin soldier. To read about gold, tap the gold nugget. Immediately you see the sample filling nearly the entire screen, photographed to razor sharpness and rotating around a complete circle in front of your eyes.”

Price: $13.99

Bills for iPad

“You always need a simple tool to control how much you want to spend this month. Essentially you need a big calendar to track how much money you have spent compared to how much you wanted to spend. You also need to generate lists of overdue payments, planned payments and check what has already been paid off. Bills for iPad are made to help those needs! Make your ongoing monthly financial planning an easy and pleasant task!”

Price: $3.99

Barrel Tones

“An amazing 3-D drum experience! Lay down your beats over top of home-grown jam tracks. These drums are the real-deal! Low latency, fully animated, made by musicians for musicians!”

Price: Free

WeatherStation HD

“The only weather application you’ll need for your iPad! Get current weather conditions and a three-day forecast for over two million locations across the globe.”

Price: $0.99

Square

“Quickly and securely accept card and cash payments for your business, service, charity – even to sell your couch. A free Square card reader makes payments even faster. Generate email receipts. With Square for iPad, add sales tax and a beautiful list of items sold. Sign on to squareup.com to manage your sales and receipts with an intuitive web-based interface.”

Price: Free

What Did We Miss?

That concludes our roundup of some of the best iPad interfaces we’ve seen. Leave a comment below and let us know which of the examples above were your favorites.

Also be sure to leave a comment about your favorite iPad interfaces that didn’t make the list. There are tons of examples of gorgeous interface design in the app store so I’m sure there are plenty left to choose from!

How would you like to use your iPad as a second (or third) display for your Mac? Now, how would you like to get a glimpse into what it would be like to experience OS X apps on a touchscreen? Finally, what would you say to using your iPad to draw in Photoshop and Illustrator just like a Wacom Cintiq?

If you answered “heck yes!” to any of these questions, read on to see how to make this dream a reality using only a single app!

The Goals

I recently purchased my first iPad. After a few weeks with it I’m absolutely addicted to the thing. However, as the initial “wow factor” begins to wear off I’m starting to transition the device from an amazing toy to something that can actually improve my workflow.

I set out on this task with two goals in mind. The first is screen space. These days I work primarily on a 13-inch MacBook screen after spending well over half a decade on a 20-inch cinema display. I have to admit, the size kills me.

At any given time I’m running a dozen different apps including email, a browser or two, a few Adobe apps, an ever-present Twitter app (Tweetie), occasionally Skype and/or iChat, a text editor and a few Fluid instances. Needless to say, on such a small screen, this leads to major clutter.

The palettes alone in Illustrator and Photoshop can easily eat up half my screen. Ideally, I’d just run out and buy a cinema display but since that’s not realistic for me at the moment, I was hoping my shiny new iPad could serve as a little extra screen space where I can offload some clutter.

The second function that I was hoping to achieve was to combine my iPad and Pogo stylus with Illustrator and Photoshop for an amazing Wacom-like drawing experience.

Searching For a Solution

Since I was much more excited about the second of these goals, I first set off in search of an app that mimics the functionality of a Wacom tablet (I already knew that there were several apps for using your iPad as a second display). Surely, I thought, since the iPad’s interactive multi-touch display would make for an awesome way to draw with vectors in Illustrator, there must be a bunch of apps aimed right at this market. I was wrong.

After searching the app store high and low and finally resorting to Google, all I found was other designers in search of the same functionality: no solution in site. Using Adobe Ideas for iPad, you can create a sketch, export it as a PDF and then import that as vector artwork into Illustrator, but this is a really round-about workflow that doesn’t give me access to the powerful drawing tools I’m used to in Illustrator or the robust brush system in Photoshop.

It amazes me that no one is directly targeting this market. When a Wacom Cintiq runs upwards of $1,000, you know designers would gladly fork out $10-20 to find a similar (though admittedly less effective) experience on a device that they already have lying around.

Unfortunately, after consulting Twitter, the app store, Google and everywhere else I could think of, I was forced to give up my Wacom emulating app search and move on to getting myself some extra screen space.

Eureka!

One of the first apps that I found for turning my iPad into an additional display for my MacBook was Air Display. At around ten bucks, it seemed like it did everything I wanted, possessed a no-brainer setup process and had great reviews.

One killer feature for me was that while using Air Display as a second display, you can take advantage of the iPad’s touchscreen and actually interact with your Mac applications almost as if they were iOS apps!

As I was excitedly thinking about what OS X applications I wanted to interact with directly, I thought back to my pervious search. Had I accidentally found the answer for both of my goals in a single app? As it turns out, yes I had.

Air Display

As I mentioned before, setting up Air Display is simple. All you do is install the app on your iPad and download the accompanying menu bar app for your Mac (Windows version available as well). As long as both devices are on the same network, they effortlessly connect without a single hitch.

Once you’ve got your connection up, Air Display works exactly like any second display: just drag your OS X windows off the side of your screen and they appear on your iPad.

As I mentioned before, in addition to using your mouse, you can simply reach out and touch anything that you want. Clicking and dragging works like a charm, which means when you fire up Illustrator, drawing works exactly like I always wanted it to!

There you have it, for a measly $10, you can turn your iPad into the ultimate OS X companion that works as a second monitor, allows you to interact with OS X apps via touch, and even use your favorite art apps like Photoshop and Illustrator in a very similar way to how you would use a fancy touch-screen Wacom tablet.

Closing Thoughts

Unfortunately, the solution isn’t perfect. When you make a big change such as moving a window, there is a bit of pixelation due to redraw time (very similar to using the OS X screen sharing feature).

The biggest downside for those looking to mimic a Wacom though is the lack of pressure sensitivity. There may be a way to set it up, but I’m simply not seeing it. A light touch with your stylus/finger and a heavy touch with the same are both interpreted as the same mouse click, no matter how much of your finger is used to touch the screen.

However, for the time being, I can gladly live with these limitations. I’m using OS X in a new and amazing way and rediscovering my love for Adobe’s drawing tools. This is by far the best $10 I’ve spent in a long time.

Having recently moved out of the family house, I’m experiencing independence like I’ve never felt it before; one of the things I like to do with this new-found freedom is cook.

Some of my friends believe that food is nothing more than fuel, and should not be romanticized; but if you are like me and believe that cooking is an art, not a chore, you’ll want to keep reading and find out about how you can get kitchen inspiration on your iPad, with Gourmet Live.

Getting Started

Before we get started, it’s important that you understand a few basics about Gourmet Live:

1. Gourmet Live is the current incarnation of Gourmet Magazine (RIP).
2. Gourmet Live content is only available on iPad.
3. Gourmet Live is free.

That being said, let’s get to business. Gourmet Live feels like a premium, magazine experience right from first launch. When you open the app, you are shown the cover of the latest issue as everything loads, which is usually a beautiful food-photograph, and a welcome to the featured chef.

When Gourmet Live is done loading, it fades seamlessly into a grid of the issue’s stories, with large full-color images and superimposed headlines. I’m struck by how well-conceived the typography is in this section; it’s truly a pleasure to look at.

Reading a Story

To read a story, simply tap on one of the pictures in the main screen; immediately, a progress spinner will appear, and after a few seconds, the article will fade into view. Stay at the top to admire the large photograph, and scroll down to read the story, and check out the included recipe!

Gourmet Live uses HTML and CSS to construct the perfectly elegant article-reading view.

Articles appear to just be normal web views, but they are styled so carefully that you wouldn’t know it: it feels just like you’re reading a real magazine. A lot of magazine and newspaper apps will go the route of custom text rendering (like Financial Times), or just using large images (like Wired, or any other iPad magazine app created in collaboration with Adobe); while this allows for more control over the appearance and layout of text, it can also result in unexpected user experience problems: users are confused about why they can’t select text, or the app takes up several gigabytes.

In the Gourmet Live article reader, you can adjust text-size by tapping the Aa button in the upper right-hand corner. Due to the great typographical choices, articles will continue to look good at any text-size, so feel free to make reading as comfortable as possible!

That’s why I’m so glad to see that Gourmet Live uses HTML and CSS to construct its article views: it shows that you can have a really good, iPad-specific user experience without compromising important factors like data footprint and user experience.

To mark a story as a favorite, just tap the heart-button in the upper right-hand corner!

Read Gourmet Live, Get Rewards

You may be wondering how issues of Gourmet Live are delivered. Indeed, there’s no standard in the iPad magazine community: some magazines deliver issues by In App Purchase, others have a separate application per issue, and presumably some deliver them through normal app updates. One of the benefits of Gourmet Live being completely free is that they didn’t have to come up with a complicated mechanism for issue delivery, while taking into account subscriptions and so forth (which are notoriously difficult to model using Apple’s In App Purchase system).

What happens in Gourmet Live is that when you read articles, periodically you’ll be “rewarded” with a new issue. The great thing about this is that it keeps me coming back! It’s always a pleasant surprise to be reading about a fascinating meal, or an interview with a top chef, and to be notified of one of these “rewards”.

When Gourmet Live rewards you with a new issue, you can choose to jump directly to it (by tapping View Now) or continue reading what you’re reading.

Browsing Your Issues

Gourmet Live wouldn’t be that useful if you could only view the current issue. Luckily, they have a great issue browser built-in, which lets you jump between any of your previously downloaded issues. What’s more, you can also view a grid of all the recipes you’ve marked as favorites! I love this especially, because often I’ll see something that I want to cook later. Now I won’t forget about it!

See a grid of all your previously downloaded issues, or thumb through recipes you have marked as favorite!

Areas for Improvement

Performance & Crashing

On the whole, Gourmet Live performs pretty well; stories take a little longer to load than I would like, but it’s certainly not a problem. Where things get really hairy is that Gourmet Live seems to suffer from some pretty bizarre hard-crashes. Rather regularly, when I’m loading a new issue, Gourmet Live will cease to respond, and the hardware buttons on my iPad become ineffectual. The only way to escape is to force the iPad to shut down (by holding the power and home buttons together simultaneously).

I’ve come across apps that crash, but this is something else altogether; an app should never come close freezing the entire device. I imagine that this has caused panic for many a user who is less experienced than I am in troubleshooting apps. I hope that this gets fixed really soon, since it is a blight on the face of one of my truly favorite iPad applications.

Social Game Mechanics: What Are Rewards Anyway?

When Gourmet Live first launched, the concept of “rewards” was a lot more confusing in the app than it is now, but the idea still leaves a lot to be desired. It seems like the “cool” thing to do in the corporate app-development world today is to incorporate “rewards”, “achievements”, “badges”, “goals”, etc. into everything. These sort of game mechanics can be sort of fun, but when applied to things that don’t need them, they just get in the way; I suspect that users will tire of this rather cynical approach to marketing, and the paradigm of simple non-social, single-purpose apps will be restored to its (in my opinion) rightful place.

I suppose I wouldn’t mind the “rewards” concept as much if it were really clear what I am being rewarded for: as it is, it seems like I am rewarded with new issues at arbitrary moments, by reading the magazine. I do like how it gives me reason to frequently open the app, but I feel that the use of the term cheapens the experience. Compare this to the paid Esquire app, where I am not bombarded with attempts at entering my personal, social life.

Social is good, but users want to be in control. Instead of having the option to tweet for me every time I am given a new issue of Gourmet Live, I would prefer to have the option to write my own tweets from within the app about specific stories that I enjoy, and think my followers would enjoy. Because Gourmet Live is free, I can see the importance of social marketing; if they are hell-bent on using “rewards” as part of their strategy, I think that it would make more sense to reward frequent tweeters with extra issues, and to make the regular issues be more “regular”.

The Lowdown

Gourmet Live, with its unmatched visual design, is one of my favorite magazines for iPad, and I think it will be one of yours. Condé Nast has done a great job at frequently updating the app, and responding to user suggestions. I’d like to rate Gourmet Live at 10/10, but given the rather frightening freeze-up issue and confusing rewards system, I feel more comfortable giving it an 8/10 at this point. I am very hopeful that the issues I outlined in the preceding section will be addressed soon.

In the meanwhile, go ahead and try Gourmet Live on the iTunes App Store, and let us know if you liked it as much as I did in the comments section below!

About a year ago a new task manager hit the iPhone. It was incredibly pretty, functional and played well with iCal’s tasks. 2do quickly rose in the charts of the Appstore and thanks to its continuing development established a solid user base among those in need of a task management app.

When the iPad was released, it seemed only natural that 2do should become an universal app. It has taken GuidedWays a couple of months, but the result is not just visually pleasing, but extends the core functionality of the app. I have reviewed 2do for the iPhone; follow me beyond the jump to see how it’s performing on the iPad.

Task Management with 2do

Everyone who has spend at least some time thinking about how to manage tasks will have encountered the different schools of thought present in that topic. The are the hardcore followers of the GTD method by David Allen and there are people who just need to keep track of their tasks their own way without adhering strictly to a particular method (but their own).

In that respect 2do of course needs to be compared to established apps like Things and Omnifocus, which are easily the most used GTD apps. While both of these apps will appeal mostly to people with a more rigid GTD approach, 2do allows for a more flexible way to manage tasks. In this respect, the learning curve of the app is also not nearly as steep as it would be with Omnifocus, allowing you to jump right into the thick of things. Granted, the features offered by 2do might not be as plentiful as those of Things and Omnifocus, but that might just be what some of us are looking for.

Integration with other apps & services

Before we can jump into all the interface goodness, let me address how 2do integrates with third party applications. Both Omnifocus and Things have desktop applications they sync with (not to mention iPhone counterparts). 2do is available for both iPhone and iPad (universal app, one time purchase), but I am sure many of us prefer some kind of desktop application that allows us to enter larger amount of data at the computer.

2do offers tight integration with Apple’s own iCal and Microsoft’s Outlook. Tasks entered there are synced via a small helper to your mobile device. It get’s even better. If you have Things or The Hit List (no, I haven’t given up hope yet) set up to sync with iCal, you actually have a full desktop GTD client that syncs with 2do.

For instant sync and accessibility everywhere, you can set up 2do to sync with the popular online service Toodledo (by setting the syncing method to Toodledo instead of Desktop Sync). It brings to 2do what so far only the much pricier and complex Omnifocus offers: real cloud based GTD.

And to be safe, you can email a full backup of your task database. If you happen to be on a firewall protected wireless network, the sync helper might not work. This can be your way around that hindrance.

The Face of 2do

When you open 2do for the first time, you will notice immediately that it differs from most mobile task managers. It’s not just much more colorful (even though you can tone that down to your liking), it utilizes the available screen estate efficiently by offering a multitude of information at once (contexts, tasks, calendar, summary of current status).

Your different calendars/contexts are shown to the left. Some contexts come preset with 2do – like a context for Done tasks – but you can of course add, delete and arrange them until they fit your needs.

Similarly, you can define colors for each category. In my example, 2do has taken the colors of the calendars/categories as defined in iCal. If you make changes within the app, they are synced back to the desktop.

To the right, while in landscape mode, you have the either the calendar view or the details of a selected task displayed.

In the calendar view, a concise summary of due and overdue tasks is being shown. For me personally, that is perfect to see where I stand at a glance. Nothing makes me more nervous than the red task count in Things even if tasks are not even overdue.

Managing Tasks with 2do

Now that we know our way around the interface, how do you get tasks into 2do and manage them?

You add a new task from anywhere within the app by simply tapping the plus sign in the upper right corner. From there, it’s simple: just fill in the fields which are relevant to you. In the app’s settings you can specify the order of the entry fields and if they should appear at all. For example, it makes sense to have the due date before the alarm setting. Setting the alarm to a relative date only works if the app knows when you want to be done.

There are a couple of options which make 2do stand out from other task managers. First of all there is the Action option. You can chose from 6 predefined actions and specify them with details. The great thing is that these selections will show up with an icon and color code in the task overview, giving you even more information at a glance.

Apart from the usual information like tags, prioritization or due dates, there are some other options to make 2do shine. One of them is the capability to add not just one but multiple alarms. Why? Well, I often want a reminder at the beginning of the day to know what awaits me, but I know I can’t do the task right away. Snoozing it multiple times is annoying, so I just set another reminder for the evening when I know I’ll have time for sure.

Wait, there’s more! You can choose between three different notification styles. Messages will just pop up discreetly on your screen; sounds will pop up a message and make a predefined sound and email is self explanatory (you only need to set up your email once).

On the iPad, alarm sounds can be disabled. This seems to be a limitation of the current OS. With the release of iOS 4.2 for the iPad, the developers promise that limitation will be lifted.

Another noteworthy feature is Location: right from within the app you can access Google Maps or just let your device find out where you are at the moment. So, if you come close to a location where you have to perform a specific task, you’ll be notified with an app badge. Maybe we’ll get location based alarms in the future?

The last feature in need of pointing out is Smart Calendars. Imagine you only want to see tasks which are overdue. Just make a search for them with the excellent in-app search (which will help you to define parameters quickly) and save that search as a new calendar!

Projects and Checklists

For most of us, listing tasks is nice, but we also want the ability to manage more complex matters in an elegant way. With projects, you can structure your tasks. Instead of having a couple dozen tasks cluttering up your context/calendar, putting them into project containers cleans up the interface and makes for a much more logical approach to managing tasks.

Tasks always show if they belong to a project. When creating a new task within a project, the project due date is automatically set as the task’s due date (which you can change) and the right context is preselected as well.

It’s similar with checklists. Just assimilate all the tasks which are closely related in a shopping list or a reminder list, for your next move, for example. In checklists, you cannot assign separate due dates to tasks. They all inherit the due date of the checklist itself.

Verdict

Most of the time, Things and OmniFocus get all the attention. It would be a mistake to disregard 2do though – it’s every bit as capable and powerful. The question of which of these options is the best depends on your workflow and personal taste.

2do offers a wealth of options to tweak until they suit you. It plays nice with external services and has a dedicated and communicative group of developers behind it.

For me personally, 2do is the go-to app for task management because it’s functional, beautiful and lets me manage tasks my way. Because, in the end I don’t want to manage my task manager, I want to keep track of my tasks. 2do works for me. What works for you?

The Apple App Store has revolutionized the mobile phone industry, and in the process, created dozens of copycats and changed the way people purchase software. But with all of the different pricing options, what really designates value? What makes a free app worth the download and an expensive app with lots of value too pricey? To find out, we decided to dig a little deeper.

The Free App Dilemma

The problem with some free apps is that they’re really a teaser; a gateway drug as it were, designed to hook you in to the paid stuff. Take one of the original big apps, Shazam. For the uninitiated, Shazam listens to music playing in the background and then tells you who the artist is, the title of the song, and a link to buy it either on iTunes or various other sources. Originally, the app was free, offering unlimited music tagging. But as time wore on, they saw they could make money from the app and crippled the free version to just five tags a month, then offered a paid version for $4.99. What was a great app supported by advertising is now just another example of App Store greed.

But that’s just one part of the free app problem. Then there are people just looking to make a buck through Google or iAds, and even compromise the product itself if it brings in money. Let’s take Craigsphone, for example. The other day, I was looking for a specific car and I figured that Craigslist was my best option. I opened up the app on my iPhone, typed in my search criteria, and then was presented with my options. But when I clicked on one of them, it pulled up “JamesList,” a competitor’s site that had nothing to do with Craigslist itself. Just another way to bring in money, without added value.

The 99-Cent App Dilemma

The lower the price of the app, the more popular it will be. This is probably the best place to be in the App Store, because it’s cheap enough to be an impulse buy, and will most likely sell a few thousand copies. It’s the Radio Shack principle of sales: Sell millions of a part that costs very little. Not every app at 99 cents has a lot of production value to it, but those that do will sell millions – See, Angry Birds.

For some consumers though, 99 cents is still too much. Some people balk at a price point that’s under a dollar because they don’t think they should have to pay anything for software. No matter what is put into it. In reality, 99 cents is a pittance to pay considering the months of development time that some Apps have into them.

The “Anything Over $4.99” App Dilemma

Here’s where it starts to get sticky. In the world of OSX, most pieces of big software run at least $50, because of the development time and resources put into them. Although it’s never really discussed this way, the more expensive the software, the more that’s assumed goes into it. If you buy Office 2011 for $199, you get a full suite of programs. If you paid $49, you’d get just one program in the suite, and so on.

So let’s put this into use. OmniFocus is an excellent task management program available for OSX, the iPhone, and iPad, and with the exception of screen real estate, they all have the same features. Buy one version, and you have most, if not all, of the functionality of the desktop version that retails for $79.95. The iPhone version runs for $19.99, and the iPad is $39.99, which many consider to be just too expensive. In reality, it’s a bargain, offering full-priced features for half the cost. The nature of the App Store is that cheaper is better.

Final Thoughts

The App Store has truly changed the way people do things, but it has also bred a system where the lowest priced apps win. Some developers even openly complain about the forced pricing structure that Apple forces them into, claiming that they need more value at their price point. The problem is that for developers to truly make money, they need to charge more to have that return on investment. The result is that you get either high quality apps that cost a lot of money, or low quality apps that just are trying to make a buck. There are exceptions to the rule, but it seems like the App Store pricing structure is just a race to the bottom.

Here’s an interesting post on what Steve Jobs thinks of the other competing mobile platforms out there. Though very insightful, I would not 100% agree on many of the viewpoints. They are obviously biased in favour of Apple

He spoke about Blackberry, Android, The Tablet Market, Nokia, Smartphones, etc etc. Here’s his full take…

On BlackBerry

“We’ve now passed RIM. And I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future. They must move beyond their area of strength and comfort, into the unfamiliar territory of trying to become a software platform company.”

“I think it’s going to be a challenge for them to create a competitive platform and to convince developers to create apps for yet a third software platform after iOS and Android.”

On Android

“Last week, Eric Schmidt reiterated that they are activating 200,000 Android devices per day, and have around 90,000 apps in their app store. For comparison, Apple has activated around 275,000 iOS devices per day on average for the past 30 days, with a peak of almost 300,000 iOS devices per day on a few of those days. And Apple has 300,000 apps on its App Store.”

“Google loves to characterize Android as “open,” and iOS and iPhone as “closed”. We find this a bit disingenuous, and clouding the real difference between our two approaches.”

“Android is very fragmented. Many Android OEMs, including the two largest, HTC and Motorola, install proprietary user interfaces to differentiate themselves from the commodity Android experience. The user’s left to figure it all out. Compare this with iPhone, where every handset works the same.”

“Many Android apps work only on selected Android handsets, running selected Android versions. And this is for handsets that have been shipped less than 12 months ago! Compare this with iPhone, where there are two versions of the software, the current and the most recent predecessor, to test against.”

“In reality, we think the open versus closed argument is just a smokescreen to try and hide the real issue, which is, “What’s best for the customer – fragmented versus integrated?” We think Android is very, very fragmented, and becoming more fragmented by the day.”
On the smartphone market

“I think right now it’s a battle for the mindshare of developers and for the mindshare of customers, and right now iPhone and Android are winning that battle.”

On Nokia (and developers)

“Nokia makes $50 handsets, and we don’t know how to make a great smartphone for $50. We’re not smart enough to have figured that one out yet, but believe me I’ll let you know when we do.”

“Most of them [developers] will not follow you. Most of them will say, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not going to write down a watered-down version of my app just because you’ve got this phone that you can sell for $50 less, and you’re begging me to write software for it’.”

On acquisition possibilities

“We strongly believe that one or more very strategic opportunities may come along, that we are in a unique position to take advantage of because of our strong cash position.”

“We don’t let it burn a hole in our pocket, we don’t allow it to motivate us to do stupid acquisitions. And so I think that we’d like to continue to keep our powder dry, because we do feel that there are one or more strategic opportunities in the future.”

On the tablet market

“I’d like to comment on the “avalanche” of tablets poised to enter the market in the coming months. First, it appears to be just a handful of credible entrants, not exactly an avalanche. Second, almost all of them use seven-inch screens, as compared to iPad’s near 10-inch screens.”

“The screen measurements are diagonal, so that a seven-inch screen is only 45 percent as large as iPad’s 10-inch screen… While one could increase the resolution of the display to make up some of the difference, it is meaningless unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one-quarter of their present size.”

“Every tablet user is also a smartphone user. No tablet can compete with the mobility of a smartphone… The seven-inch tablets are tweeners: too big to compete with a smartphone, and too small to compete with an iPad.”

“iPad now has over 35,000 apps on the App Store. This new crop of tablets will have near zero.”

Are you a Mac user who is excited about Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 devices? Or a Mac user who is being forced against your will to put away your iPhone and use the company-supplied Windows Phone 7 phone (and forgive me if that one sounds redundant)?

Well, you’re in luck. As promised, Microsoft has issued a beta version of Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac. This software allows you to sync certain selected content with not only “WinPho7” devices, but Microsoft Zune media players as well.

The download is available here — according to the notes you’ll be able to “Sync music, photos, videos and podcasts from your existing iTunes and iPhoto libraries to your Windows Phone 7.” Rock on, WinPho fans!

[via Mac Rumors]

Windows Phone 7 Connector Beta available for download by Mac users originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s new $99 Apple TV may be getting a lot more fans than its predecessor, but early reports from a number of users are indicating that the streaming video on the device sometimes skips frames.

As reported on 9to5Mac and relayed by several of our readers from personal experience, the issue may not be apparent to everyone, but can be annoying enough to those who know what to look for that they’d like to use the device for target practice.

An Emmy-nominated editor who sent 9to5 an email about the issue noted that the motion stops for a frame, then skips the next frame to catch up. The problem is most apparent where there is motion in a scene, and didn’t occur with the same video sources on the old Apple TV.

The issue is receiving a fair number of discussion forum entries on the Apple Support site, so there is hope that a future update to the firmware on the new Apple TV will be forthcoming to resolve the problem.

Have you experienced this issue? We’d like to know. Leave a comment below telling us about your experiences with the new Apple TV.

Is your new Apple TV skipping frames? originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Like a few commercial television networks before it, PBS has launched an iPad app designed to stream the network’s content to your iPad on demand. PBS for iPad is available for free right now on the App Store, and has full streams of lots of classic shows. There’s some new content as well — Circus is a show that’s been created just for the iPad app itself. But there’s also some Masterpiece Theater and Julia Child in there, as well as other well-known standbys of the government run and donation-supported broadcasting network.

The app also has schedule information about what’s on TV, as well as a DVR-style feature that will let you resume shows when you pause them while watching. There’s no iPhone or iPod touch version yet, but a (slightly different) version will arrive on those devices later this year.

Looks like a great app, and you can’t argue with the price of getting all that content on the iPad for completely free. At the risk of sounding like a pledge drive, we’ll say that if you enjoy the app here in the US, maybe look into giving your local affiliate a nice donation in return.

Free PBS iPad app allows streaming of the network’s content originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MacStories has heard an interesting rumor: that Apple’s recent work in location-based networking and “check-in” software will be used inside Apple’s retail stores, specifically to provide better service from employees there. Not a lot is known yet (and MacStories doesn’t reveal the source of the info, though presumably it comes from someone who works in or with Apple retail), but the rumor says that Apple would provide an app specifically to help coordinate the experience of visiting an Apple Store. A customer could check in and set up appointments directly from the app, get push notifications and even see photos of employees assigned to help them, and employees could also use the app to track customers in the store and what they were there for.

It all sounds very interesting — we know for a fact that Apple employees went through some training just recently for the upcoming holiday season, so this app could have been one of the topics discussed. Something like this would definitely streamline things at the Apple Store, and move from the very ad hoc way of splitting up customers and employees to a more directed kind of connection. We’ll have to see what Apple reveals as we move closer to this year’s holiday sales season.

Rumor: Apple retail app to offer “check-ins,” connect employees and customers originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Barely a week before NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) begins, the public preview of Scrivener 2.0 is out. This version is sans the project templates that will be available when the full version hit next week. In addition to the 2.0 preview, a beta version of the new Windows client is also available. We’ve been looking forward to the release of Scrivener 2.0 and will be putting the public preview through its paces in the next few days.

The public preview version of Scrivener is free to use until December 7. Any NaNoWriMo participants who achieve their goal of 50,000 words will qualify for a 50% discount off the full version of Scrivener 2.0. Those who do not make the quota can get 20% off using the discount code NANOWRIMO during purchase.

Scrivener 2.0 is $45 for a regular license and $38.25 for an academic license. A registered owner of Scrivener 1 will be able to update for $25. Those who bought Scrivener on or since August 1, 2010 will be entitled to a free update.

Scrivener 2.0 requires OS X 10.4 or higher and remains a Universal application, but there is some extra functionality with Snow Leopard. The full version is expected to be released a week from today.

Scrivener 2.0 public preview now available originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A 19 year-old Long Island yoga instructor and model is suing Apple and developer Samba Studios over racy photos of her that are featured in an iPhone app called eXtreme Cam Girls. The app, which has apparently been removed from the App Store, features self-portraits of Rebecca Battino in a scanty swimsuit that she took when she was 16 years old. She’s not quite sure how the photos ended up in the app when they were being stored in the iPhoto library on her Mac.

According to the scoop in the New York Post, Battino isn’t embarrassed by the photos; she’s just upset that she has never been paid for the use of her image in the app. In the copyright infringement lawsuit, Battino is asking for $1 million in damages from Apple and Samba Studios.

Samba Studios has a number of other sexually-oriented apps in the App Store, including eXtreme Sex Positions and Lesbian Kama Sutra Sex Positions.

[via MacObserver]

Model suing Apple over pics in iPhone app originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In my last post I wrote about Movie Vault, so I’m going to loosely stay with the subject, and suggest you take a look at the recently updated Leonard Maltin Movie Guide. We looked at the original version many months ago and I think the app is better now.

For US $2.99 you get the complete set of Maltin reviews and since the app is internet connected you get new reviews as they appear.

Here are the things I like: The app is quite fast, and when you start typing a title or a name it auto-completes. There are trailers for newer films out there. Names of actors and directors become hotlinks that you can click on and search on those names. There is very nice integration to Netflix. You can put a movie in your instant or DVD queue, or even move that film to the top of the list. There are also rental links to iTunes, and you can share reviews from this app via email. The app has welcome links to IMDB for really in-depth info and to Amazon if you want to purchase a film on disk.

Continue reading A complete movie guide on your iPhone

A complete movie guide on your iPhone originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The iPhone 4 has had its share of design-related issues. First, the external stainless steel wraparound antenna caused reception hiccups that resulted in the famous “antennagate” Apple event.

Now that a much larger number of the phones are in the wild, there was a brief to-do about the relative likelihood of the iPhone 4’s glass back scratching or breaking when the device is slipped into a slider case. gdgt’s Ryan Block later noted that Apple is preemptively working this issue from the engineering side, but that didn’t stop the Macalope from chastising his eagerness to declare a new -gate scandal involving the phone’s reliability.

What could Apple possibly do with future iPhones to prevent similar hardware issues — widely prevalent or once-in-a-blue-mood as they may be –from cropping up once the devices are out of the corral?

Blogger Raymond Wong at SyFy’s Dvice site gave this question some thought in a post this morning, and makes some suggestions about what materials the next and succeeding generations of iPhone might be made of. First, he thinks there could be a move back to plastic, since the material was used in the first three generations of iPhones, is transparent to cell phone signals, and is much more resilient to impacts.

Next, he thinks that aluminum is “off the table for good,” considering that it is opaque to cell phone signals and can be scratched, but he thinks there is a good chance that the materials made by Liquidmetal Technologies could be used. They remain scratch-free much longer than aluminum or steel, and could be used in an external antenna like that on the iPhone 4.

Wong thinks that titanium and carbon fiber are also out of the question due to cost. Carbon fiber is extremely light, but can crack under shock, while titanium is strong and light, but tremendously expensive.

What do you think the next generation of iPhones will be made of? At TUAW, we’re still waiting for the new models made from unicorn tears and rainbows, but we’d like to hear your ideas in the comments.

What will the iPhone 5 be made of? originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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