iPadThoughts

Two million iPad sales in two months, quite impressive! Visit Apple’s PR pages for the full article

It is worth exploring your iPad – check out Accessibilty options in Settings / General, where you will find the “White on Black” option: This option simply inverts all colors, resulting in a very strange home screen: But reading iBooks at night might be easier on the eyes: Also in Accessibilty, you can set clicking [...]

I found another excellent fun game to play on my iPad: Marblenauts which recently appeared at a perfectly reasonable $0.99 and runs on both the iPhone and iPad! In the game, from Crescent Flare, you simply have to destroy blocks so that the Marblenauts can get to their appropriate colored exit squares – easy, no?! [...]

I’ve already written about the “official” iBooks App (and the issues I had with it), and about Amazon’s Kindle App. Quick reminders: The iBooks App is perhaps the nicest looking and most usable, with a fully integrated book store and the “book shelf” library theme: In portrait mode, a single page is displayed: In landscape [...]

An interesting read over on Bart Busschots’ website: I’ve been saying for a long time that the iPad looks cool, but that I wouldn’t be buying this first incarnation of apple’s tablet … but I do now own [which he was given, not purchased] I absolutely hate to say this, but there really is something [...]

I wondered today, just how much money I’ve spent in the App store since I bought my original iPhone, and it turns out to be (to me) a surprisingly low number, less than $200! I’ve surely spent many times that amount on software for my desktop computers, it definitely helps that so many Apps are [...]

After

News coverage all over, but I liked this Bloomberg / Business week article: Apple IPad Outshines Mona Lisa Hundreds queued up at the Apple store in the Carrousel du Louvre shopping center in the museum complex … “I tried to buy one in Seattle when I was there, but they were sold out; so waited [...]

A quick reminder about Atomic Web Browser. My habit when web-surfing is to visit a site (TUAW, Google News, whatever), and open all interesting links in a new tab, while reading the main page; then I can go to those other tabs to follow the links I opened. This works fine in Safari on my [...]

While the iPad is mostly great and reliable, there are still curiosities now and then. The worst is the WiFi connectivity issue, where suddenly you lose connectivity and get the dim screen and “connecting” message in Safari; I find that it always occurs twice in a row, then all is back to normal again. Sometimes [...]

Unless you have ultimate patience, steer clear of this App! The loading screen announces “made with GameSalad”; not so interesting but you stare at it for about TEN SECONDS! This is not a big complicated game, but it’s slow to load and slow to switch from screen to screen; no doubt this slowness is part [...]

Finally, we get to see the iPad version of WIRED, at an unpleasant $4.99 (especially as I already pay for the print version). So far, it’s good – but not perfect. The whole App works nicely in both portrait and landscape mode; it’s been properly created with layout altering subtly so that it views sensibly [...]

Although there are Flash limitations on the iPad, Google successfully created a Pacman game that works fine on the iPad as well as on other targets, for the games 30th anniversary! iMac plays Google Pacman (keyboard arrow keys to move): iPad plays Google Pacman (touch to a side of Pacman to move): Hopefully Google will [...]

Constantly since the iPad was launched, we’re reading about Adobe Flash, both positive and negative in relation to the iPad. Famously, Steve Jobs says that Flash is too buggy, and “New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win“, so … let’s see how the iPad does with HTML5! There’s some [...]

I’m still looking for a good, simple, Space Invaders type game. But while Space Strike looks good, it just doesn’t play very well. Space Strike has some lovely graphics, with multi-colored aliens hovering left/right above you, and pretty backgrounds – but notice that line down the left edge with the red blob on it … [...]

I really hate this “game“! It’s the first time I would like my money back – thankfully, it was on sale for just $0.99, but I still feel I wasted my money. I hardly feel right calling it a game; basically your dragon character travels left to right at faster and faster speed (or the [...]

Of course iPad OS V3.2 is the first release for the iPad so I guess I should be surprised how few problems there are … but there are definitely problems. The most annoying is the WiFi issue where the iPad loses connectivity for a short time. This display for example I caught just a few [...]

Even if you don’t own a BMW, you should check out the BMW magazine App. Unlike other magazine Apps I’ve tried, this one has a really quite good user interface and behaves much closer to what I was hoping for when I got my iPad. The App works best in portrait mode; load it up [...]

It sounds unlikely, but Apple Insider reports on a claim that Apple are selling loads of iPads – maybe to the detriment of Mac sales! Also claimed is a total of 8 MILLION iPad sales for the year; an amazing number if true, we will have to wait for official news from Apple to see [...]

Kindle for iPad offers a quite different experience to iBooks, with a less elegant interface – especially in landscape mode: The same page in landscape mode – a big waste of display space, not as nice as the iBook “two up” display: Using the Kindle App is nowhere near as simple as iBooks either; you [...]

I flew back from Orlando to Boston last night; before my flight I’d got a rental of the movie 9 from iTunes on to my iPad (with slow Internet it took over 4 hours to download!) and on the flight it was a very good experience to watch! I did find the screen too dark [...]

I haven’t done much reading yet on the iPad, but before my flight home I thought I’d check out what’s available – and sadly there’s not so much really! But I was interested by Craig Ferguson’s American On Purpose, promoted on the front page of the iBooks store today: So I downloaded it, read the [...]

Further to my initial thoughts about Herod’s lost tomb for iPad, I’ll conclude by saying that the game is too short / easy! I’ve finished already … There’s only six “chapters” (areas) to play, and each has between 12 and 36 items to find; it doesn’t take long to finish them all – especially considering [...]

With the iPad available in England and Europe in just a couple of weeks, a Guardian article discusses whether or not to buy, with an English twist: If you already own an iPhone or an iPod Touch and wish it had a much bigger screen, the answer is probably yes – if you can afford [...]

I’ve found a way to save money on my iPad! Tap “spin” lots of times, instead of dumping coins into a real slot machine Fruity Slots Deluxe from Mobile Amusements is an attractive slot machine simulator that offers lots of chances to win! As well as being a fun way to waste a bit of [...]

Not really, but some of the ideas put forward in TABLET: THE PERSONAL COMPUTER OF THE YEAR 2000 (via PC World) are surprisingly relevant to the iPad today: Any design represents a compromise between conflicting goals, and the design of the computer of the year 2000 is no exception. We seek something which fits comfortably [...]

I’m thrilled that my favorite iPhone puzzle game, Marple, has been updated for the iPad with full size crisp graphics and the same challenging game play (the iPhone version was 2x playable, but this is much better!) The game has a good descriptive help section, but it’s best really to play a level while using [...]

Down the gopher hole HD could be a psychedelic trip down a “gopher hole” tunnel, tilting left, right, up, down to avoid various nasty obstacles and reach the end of the tunnel before the clock runs out! It’s really quite a simple game, with too short tunnels, too few tunnel choices (only two), and not [...]

Just now, I almost had to use my desktop machine to post a weblog entry on GBMINI.net; I needed to “right-click” to get the address of an image, but no way to do that on my iPad! But a quick App search gave me IHTMLplus which easily displayed the raw HTML from my Gallery page, [...]

I’m a fan of hidden object games – nothing too challenging, and sometimes you learn too! Herod’s lost tomb for iPad from National Geographic is one of those games, and at a reasonable price too. The game loads up with a number of objects to find in various locations; as you clear each location you’re [...]

This game doesn’t quite seem to know what it’s called – Go Ladybug Go is the loading screen name, but the App is called LadyBugfree and in the App store it’s called Buggies HD free; whatever it’s called, it’s free, quite cute, but too much of a pain for me to keep playing! When the [...]

I wanted to like God Finger HD – and maybe I would if I was in to all the “online / social” aspects, but … I’m not! So, it’s not for me. First, you *have* to create an account before you can even check out the game. Second, there’s adverts The game itself could be [...]

This App was one I downloaded and wrote about early; it doesn’t do much except display memory statistics, battery remaining (which you can see on the top status bar of the iPad if you configure it) and a few other things. But it’s main downsides (overrun with mini adverts and portrait mode only) have been [...]

OK, I admit it’s quite warm and sunny here in Florida, and the iPad is “wrapped” in a dark iPad case, but even so – it’s not too hot for me, but it is too hot for the iPad! My iPhone, in the same location and also wrapped in a black case, has not shut [...]

A fascinating article at Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, reviewing the weird, wonderful and inconsistent ways that Apps are creating user interfaces – I hopes such articles are “heard” by App authors, and Apps to come work more obviously! In different apps, touching a picture could produce any of the following 5 results: Nothing, Enlarging the picture, [...]

I’m still interested in magazines on the iPad, but apparently it’s still too early … I decided to check out How It Works Magazine, as it sounded really interesting. Luckily, it’s free to try, including one issue … it begins badly, by displaying instructions on how to access the pages, including how to zoom in [...]

Apparently Stickbolt is “extremely addicting” – but it lasted only a few seconds on my iPad! It was free to download for a while (thanks AppShopper), but it was awful enough to immediately get deleted! Maybe it’s a great game, but I couldn’t get past the poor quality user experience – clearly it’s been quickly [...]

Previously, I liked The Guardian Eyewitness, but it’s first update has basically trashed it! There was always the issue that, after first downloading it and enjoying all the photos, you get only one new one each day – but at least you can look back, and keep favorites. Well, after the update, you can’t: Apparently, [...]

If you like Soosiz (which I do!), you might like iBlast Moki HD too – it’s not frantic at all, and somewhat challenging; not as cute as Soosiz, but still quite entertaining … When you start the game, there’s a set of islands to play; within each island there’s a set of similarly styled levels; [...]

A nice discussion at PC World as to how long 250MB of 3G data from AT&T actually lasts – the answer, if you use your iPad as usual, with WiFi disabled … 3 days! … even just Web browsing can eat up bandwidth fast … Facebook is usually 1 to 2MB … GelaSkins.com’s online store [...]

I tried out Photopad a few weeks ago, but now ZAGG has released a new version of Photo Pad and it’s quite significantly improved! My original review mentioned the odd way to control cropping, as well as a general lack of features. While the odd cropping control is still there (but I guess you’d get [...]

First … I’m not a cook, but I like food! My next door neighbor does like cooking though, so we checked out Epicurious; start it up and it opens with a list of featured recipe categories: There’s lots of ways to find a recipe – I fancy “decadent desserts”, so touch the tab and you [...]

Did you think maybe that the iPhone was a camera too? Well, the iPad doesn’t agree! If you connect the iPhone to the iPad via the USB camera connector, then the iPhone isn’t powered, and doesn’t appear as images in the iPad – as you see above, both devices just ignore each other

If you were hoping to use the USB camera connector to transfer files between iPad and USB stick, forget it! This is definitely something that should work – there’s discussion that the whole approach to document handling that Apple has taken is poor on the iPad; I think there should be some central file storage [...]

This is stupid! While the iPad camera connection kit works fine with my iPad, it won’t work with my iPhone, running the same OS! That’s just annoying, Apple In case you were wondering, the iPhone doesn’t work with the old iPod kit either!

I finally received my camera connection kit today, and immediately set about testing it for it’s “official” purpose of getting photos in to the camera … Problem #1, the SD connector doesn’t fit nicely with the iPad case – maybe my iPad case is poorly cut, but the SD connector is a tiny bit wider [...]

The first one million, I guess … “One million iPads in 28 days — that’s less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in a statement released Monday. “Demand continues to exceed supply and we’re working hard to get this magical product into [...]

An amusing little App I tried today, because it’s on special offer FREE for the weekend, Calc & Draw; you’re offered a “blank slate” (slate, green, or lined), and a set of colored “pencils” to draw with – you can adjust the line thickness – as well as an eraser; you simply point on the [...]

We’ve had a lovely day here in Gloucester today, and I sat outside with the iPad for a couple hours – happily the screen is pretty usable, even in the strong sunlight we had today; the screen is easier to read than this picture suggests (I guess the eye is better than the camera at [...]

I’ve looked at the first issue of TIME Magazine before, and I wasn’t particularly impressed – too expensive ($5 per issue), and a whole new App for each week … Well, there’s a new TIME Magazine App, and it fixes one of my complaints – it now offers in-App purchasing of each weeks issue, so [...]