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DashPad (US$9.99) takes a unique approach to putting a Dashboard on your iPad. Instead of using an app, (which would never get approved by Apple), or jailbreaking, it uses Safari to serve an iPad specific page that contains eight widgets. More widgets will be coming, according to DashPad’s developer Pixlcreations.

Here’s how it works. First you’re taken to Paypal to tender your payment which triggers an email containing a username, password and a link to the site. After entering the information DashPad opens the Mobile Safari page where you’ll find eight widgets: Clock, Calendar, Calculator, Unit Converter, Sticky Note, Yellow Pages Search, Google Search, and Weather. This is presented just as you’d expect it, with the widgets on the bottom regardless of how you hold the iPad.

The rest of the screen is a white field. Just like Mac widgets, you tap on one to activate it and tap on it again to dismiss it. The widgets can all be moved around on the screen. A button shows or hides the widget bar. When you leave the app, it remembers the position of your widgets and the contents of the Sticky Note. It also allows you to put an icon on your iPad’s desktop for quick access, which of course you can do with any Safari page.

This is fine if you’ve become really accustomed to using widgets on your Mac and miss not having them on your iPad. It’s a really neat idea, but after using it, I found quite a number of limitations. You can’t install your own widgets, since they are a part of the Mobile Safari page, however when new ones come out, they will be there the next time DashPad is run.

After not using Dashpad for a day or so you will have to put in your username and password again. This, I’m told, is a security measure and they are working on a way to delay authentication longer. This alone kills the idea of a quick and easy way to get bits of information all at the same time and I would consider authentication at this frequency a deal-breaker.

You are only allowed one Sticky Note, which can be as long as you want and is scrollable. More will be coming, but one is what you get now. The Weather widget, which requires your zip code, doesn’t remember it upon re-launch. The Google Search isn’t useful since it does exactly the same thing as the search bar already showing in Safari. It brings up a new page. Of course hitting the usual icon brings up the screen showing your last six Safari pages and you can easily get back to DashPad, but this brings nothing to the table that you already don’t have.

It does have potential though and you might like it, but to find out you’ll have to pony up the $9.99. I consider paying first bad marketing, especially since it would be possible to let you try it out for a few days and if you didn’t pay up, the authentication would stop working. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth the price — but if you’re really enamored with your Dashboard, you might think differently.

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TUAWDashPad brings the Dashboard to the iPad, sort of… originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At an investor’s conference in Taipai this week, Asus CEO Jerry Shen announced reduced sales forcasts for the popular Eee PC line of netbooks. Why? Because people are buying iPads instead.

Digitimes reports that Eee sales fell from 1.6m units in Q1, to 1.5m in Q2, and are now expected to be 1.4m in Q3 . As the third quarter includes the lucrative back-to-school period, those numbers are moving very much the wrong way for Asus. Apple famously sold three million iPads in less than three months despite stock shortages, so whilst Asus is still outselling Apple, that’s likely to change soon.

Asus is planning to retaliate with its own own tablet computers running Windows Embedded Compact 7: Too Many Adjectives Edition, but Engadget’s writers weren’t impressed when they previewed it recently.

TUAWAsus is selling fewer netbooks because of the iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It must be the week for HDR app updates. Yesterday we reviewed a solid update of TrueHDR, and now we have another terrific update from Pro HDR.

Even if you’re not into HDR photography, this is one to check out. High Dynamic Range photography creates an image from multiple exposures that are combined to overcome the limitations of automatic exposure control in cameras. The technique can recover details that would be lost in shadows, and keep bright areas, like the sky from blowing out.

The update to Pro HDR, which has just been released, has a new fully automatic mode. Instead of taking two pictures with your iPhone, and manually pointing to the brightest and darkest areas, this new option analyzes the scene, sets the exposure accordingly, and then takes the two images without any user intervention. You can also use the manual mode if you prefer. The app also claims faster image capture and better alignment.

TUAWPro HDR gets an update for iPhone and leaps ahead of the pack originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How many TUAW readers have ever considered running a Windows server at home? I’m guessing not many. I’m hopefully going to convince you that’s a shame because they can offer many features not easily (or cheaply!) replicated with Apple’s own products.

Engadget reports that a new beta version of Microsoft’s Windows Home Server OS boasts considerably enhanced Mac support. Despite being a Unix-turned-Mac guy, I’ve had one of HP’s MediaSmart servers (pictured) in my house for almost a year now, and it’s neatly assimilated itself alongside my Macs thanks to HP’s secret sauce add-ons. I couldn’t be happier with it.

Read on for exactly how it’s all done.

TUAWNew Windows Home Server beta improves Mac support originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The recent issues at Foxconn haven’t actually slowed the company down, apparently — it has announced that it will be hiring 400,000 more workers at new plants in China, thanks to a 50 percent increase in revenue lately. The total number of people working at Foxconn will be estimated at 1.3 million. Just for comparison’s sake, GM employed about 244,500 last year. Foxconn is moving almost that many workers out of its Shenzhen plant — 170,000 of those workers will be sent to plants closer to their homes.

It’s crazy to think what the company must be like — not only are they handling ungodly amounts of people making ungodly amounts of electronic devices, but they’re doing it mostly for American companies like Apple, Dell, HP, and so on. This is the giant machine that’s pushing out all of those iPhones and Macs that Apple is breaking sales records with. Hopefully the new plants and relocations will help all of the issues that employees there have had in the past.

TUAWFoxconn hiring and relocating 400,000 workers originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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“Which Mac should I choose?” It’s a question I’ve asked myself and had posed to me countless times. It comes down to your needs and budget, but some customers still struggle. This week, Apple has added a new comparison feature to the online Apple Store meant to make the process a little easier.

The new service lets you choose up to three Macs to compare side-by-side, stat by stat. Users can scroll through the report with comparable statistics perfectly aligned, and even view environmental reports. It’s very handy and offers a clear picture of the differences both notable and minute.

Setting up a comparison is simple. Click the “Compare Macs” button and then select a machine for each of the three columns via a pop-up window. Kudos to Apple for developing and launching such a useful feature.

[Via The Loop]

TUAW“Compare Macs” option added to Apple Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not a done deal by any means, but the Australian government’s Classification Board is taking a hard look at games for mobile devices, which up until now have skated by the country’s regulatory requirements that mandate a pass for content and age-appropriateness — at a cost to developers of hundreds or thousands of A$. By November, we should know for sure whether or not App Store developers will have to choose between paying to have their games rated or pulling them out of the Australian market.

This issue came up as long ago as October of last year, in response to the infamous BabyShaker app. Aussie devs Lloyd Kranzky and Nick Lowe have weighed in on their blogs, and raise some good points: although it’s not necessarily a level playing field between the iDevices and other phones, and the console and PC games (which have been complying with the classification rules, in some cases leading to indie or casual/free games avoiding the Australian market), it’s also not completely fair to lump mobile games in with the big boys when Flash games and other online content are completely free and clear of regulatory burden.

Another stat of note: back in 2007/08, the board reportedly classified under 1,000 video games — a pittance compared to the thousands of games streaming out of the App Store and Android Market. It’s unclear whether the regulatory infrastructure is even prepared to deal with the new order.

Here’s a question for Mac, PC and console game developers: do Australian rules affect your decision-making when it comes to game releases, vs. the US industry-driven ESRB ratings system? Pipe up in the comments.

Thanks to Jarrod for sending this in.

[hat tip to Kotaku]

TUAWAustralian ratings board looks ahead to App Store crackdown originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last year, Mobile Mechatronics released the iTwinge snap-on keyboard for the iPhone 3G and 3GS. This week, industrial designer Altamash Jiwani has imagined what such a device would look like for the iPhone 4.

In Jiwani’s design, the keyboard is a part of a larger piece that wraps around the phone much like Apple’s Bumper case. The keyboard is on slider rails and can be moved out of the way of the home key. It also plugs into the dock connector, disabling the software keyboard entirely. Finally, a female dock port on the bottom allows the iPhone to be synchronized with the keyboard in place.

It’s a nifty idea for BlackBerry addicts, but I imagine sliding it back-and-forth every time I want to click the home button would get old very fast. But kudos to Jiwani for putting his thinking cap on.

[Via iPhone Savior]

TUAWSnap-on keyboard for iPhone 4 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Maybe I’m missing the point of Hulu Plus, but for ten bucks a month why is Hulu still showing me advertisements? I get that this new for-pay streaming video service offers full seasons (and past seasons) of current TV shows that would otherwise be limited to a handful of the most recent episodes. I get that the service works over Wi-Fi and 3G, and all the killer functionality that entails.

What I don’t get is why anyone wouldn’t apply their annual $120 somewhere, for ad-free services like Netflix.

TUAWHands on with Hulu Plus originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone 4 pre-orders have begun in Korea, and distributor KT Corporation (KTC) is reporting huge sales. Specifically, 130,000 orders were placed within the first 13 hours of availability. By comparison, it took 5 days to sell 65,000 units of the 3GS.

KTC reportedly had to expand their server capacity during the frenzied day as the initial surge brought service down. Customers were trying to connect from multiple locations, like work and home, in an attempt to make a successful transaction.

Pyo Hyun-myong, chief of KTC’s mobile business, shared his gratitude and apologized for the downtime some customers experienced via Twitter. “I really appreciate this enormous support from our customers, and I also apologize for the discomfort caused by the ordering system. We will do our best for flawless delivery of the product.”

There’s no definite release date just yet, other than sometime in September. Sales-killing antenna issue? What sales-killing antenna issue?

TUAWKoreans swamp servers as pre-orders begin originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you, like me, were a big scifi/fantasy reader at a young age, you probably remember the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series. It was a series of books in which, every chapter or so, you could make a choice that affected the story, and you were then prompted to turn to a certain page to continue the story after that choice. Edward Packard was the original author of that series, and he’s now teamed up with an iPhone app company to create U-Ventures, a throwback iPhone application that works as an interactive, e-book style Choose You Own Adventure. The first book is called “Return to the Cave of Time” (after the first book in the original series), and just like the old series, it offers up a set of second-person branching paths.

Unfortunately, at US$3.99, the app is pretty expensive. Reviews say that there are only about 15 minutes of content to go through here, and while the old books were short, there are a lot of other interactive storytelling options on the App Store in the form of games and other e-books. But as a retro return to the old form, it’s a nice taste of what’s possible. I’m hoping that Packard will update the idea a little bit and make it a little more iPhone-friendly next time.

Or, … you could just roll your own. Our own Victor Agreda wrote about iPod-friendly CYOA books a long time ago. Download some of those onto your iPod, and you could be right back in those old pre-video game days of interactive storytelling.

[via Slashdot]

TUAWChoose Your Own Adventure available for iPhone as U-Ventures originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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[via Macworld]

TUAWOfficial Star Wars shop selling R2-D2 case for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Going forward, the artists formerly known as SmileOnMyMac will now just be known as Smile. The name change reflects the company’s more diversified software offerings outside of the Mac, which now include an iOS version of its popular app TextExpander on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

In addition to TextExpander, Smile’s (wow, it takes a while to get used to the name) portfolio of Mac OS X apps includes PDF editor PDFpen, CD/DVD label designer DiscLabel, and its fax app PageSender.

Smile’s name change is similar to a move that Apple made. Citing its changing product portfolio, which included products outside of the traditional computing paradigm, Steve Jobs announced at Macworld 2007 (where the iPhone debuted) that the company would be changing its name from Apple Computer to Apple, Inc.

Accompanying the company’s name change is a new logo (sans the “on my Mac”) and a new URL (it has changed from smileonmymac.com to smilesoftware.com), though both URLs will direct you to the company’s site.

TUAWSmileOnMyMac is now Smile originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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