Monthly Archive for June, 2010

iPad – Apps To Consider

28.06.10. 0 Comments

A bit late to the party, here are the key apps that I use and recommend. I’ve omitted a number of apps, and have yet to find a great IM app, and I’m not a huge gamer… Read on!

Multimedia

  • Air Video ($2.99) – Wonderful streaming app that runs a server on your PC/Mac and transcodes all of your video and streams to the iPad AND iPhone. Worth. Every. Cent.
  • SlingPlayer ($29.99) – If you have a Slingbox, this expensive iPhone app lets you watch it on 3G or WiFi. Not designed for the iPad, but it works.
  • iBooks (Free) – You cannot buy books yet in Canada, but it now views PDFs very well. Better than GoodReader, which I bought and do not recommend.
  • ComicZeal 4 ($7.99) – You can get Marvel and DC apps (awesome), but this views all CBR and CBZ files. Syncing requires conversion, but it’s worth it.
  • Zinio (Free) – You can buy some good magazines here. Neat app for consuming interactive mags on the go, and comes with a few free ones to start.
  • Dropbox (Free) – Dropbox is a must-have in my life (and should be in yours), and the app allows you to view your cloud-synced documents easily.

Continue reading ‘iPad – Apps To Consider’

iPad: Are You Appy?

28.06.10. 3 Comments

App Store

Well, I’m really loving the iPad. It really has taking over my non-creative tasks at home, and really makes consuming all content very much fun.  I really do recommend it.

I will be interested to see how apps do in the iPad store in general. While fun to use, they are a tad pricey. And I’ve bought far too many myself already. But I wonder what their future holds. I think the key reasons the iPhone apps are more revolutionary and perhaps compelling are (not counting creating a revenue model to incentivize developers):

  1. The iPhone, like all phones, has very constrained screen real estate, unlike the iPad
  2. They re-orient web apps to be touch friendly (something the iPad needs arguably less of due to its screen size)
  3. They utilize the phone’s hardware features very well (GPS, accelerometer, voice input, etc.)

While the iPhone benefits from all of these, the iPad benefits from some of #2, and definitely #3. Some compelling use cases have presented themselves to me (reading magazines is GREAT). The iPad has a great opportunity to make use of features that are non-standard on traditional computing platforms (GPS, touch, etc.), and I look forward to the innovation that will come. I don’t think we have yet seen its killer app. But, ultimately, will iPad app sales end up being more like desktop apps than iPhone apps?

What do you think?