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If you’re a male, chances are pretty good that you’ve heard of Pinterest, the social network where you “pin” items to a virtual wall, but there’s a chance you haven’t used it much yet — but your girlfriend or wife definitely has. That’s because Pinterest is the hottest social network going right now, particularly among women — some estimates put the percentage of female users close to 70%.
As a man myself, I do see the value of Pinterest, and even though I don’t use it as much as my female friends, it’s still a place I go to check out what’s new and cool. Up until Wednesday, there was only a Pinterest client for the iPhone, and it’s pretty neat. But now there’s an iPad version of Pinterest. How does it match up? Let’s find out. (more…)
Google Chrome is one of the most popular browsers out there and probably the app of choice for quite a few of our readers. It came as somewhat of a surprise when Chrome for iOS was announced on day two of Google I/O, in between demonstrations of extreme sports.
Taking on Safari in it’s own territory is a bold move from Google, although it signifies the company’s commitment to other platforms than it’s own and will likely put a smile on some die-hard Chrome users’ faces. In this review, we’re going to take Chrome for iPad out for a spin and provide some thoughts on how it stacks up to the native Safari. (more…)
Recently, I’ve been spending quite some time with my iPad in a web design context for a few articles over at Tuts+, and had the chance to use some fantastic iPad apps that are disrupting one of the core stereotypes of the iPad, its uselessness for content creation. I’ve came to the conclusion that the iPad is the perfect device for planning projects like web design, acting as a great canvas for producing and sharing plans, prototypes and ideas.
Adobe Proto is an app that’s leading the way to disrupting this meme of a tablet not being fit for productivity. The app is all about planning and prototyping ideas in wireframes consisting of a number of stock elements and even adhering to popular CSS grid systems.
If you’re a Mac OS X user and involved in the web design/development scene, you’ve probably heard of the indie developers Panic and, more specifically, their product Coda. Coda is an all-in-one web development enviroment that pulls together multiple tools such as visual CSS generation, file transfer and reference together with a text editor supporting a range of languages. Last month, Panic released Coda 2, a signifcantly updated version of the software.
Alongside the release of Coda 2, Panic also released Diet Coda, an accompanying $19.99 app for iPad that’s already disrupting the long-term stereotype of an iPad being useless for productivity. Diet Coda combines a text editor with a powerful FTP-based file manager making editing your files stored online a pleasant and productive experience. Let’s take a look…
The range of Twitter clients out there on the App Store is pretty extensive (for a comparison between some of the most common ones, check out my roundup from last October) and picking between them is quite difficult seeing as each one offers a different range of features, interfaces and customisation possibilities.
My favourite one (and the one I’m using at the moment) is Tweetbot as it offers such great variety in terms of features (including iCloud sync with my iPhone, which is an absolute lifesaver) and its generally simplistic yet powerful functionality. But now, in such a saturated market, there’s a new kid on the block.
Quip, which was released on May 31st by developers Glasshouse Apps (who are also the creators of The Early Edition, one of my favourite iPad news readers) is a new kind of Twitter client which focuses on your conversations and condenses your timeline down into a more manageable format.
I was lucky enough to snag a promotional code for Quip so let’s dive straight in and see whether it can knock Tweetbot off that top spot.
In 2008 Apple opened the iOS gates to third-party developers, but its strict App Store policies severely limited app creativity. App Store submissions were rejected if the app duplicated core functionality of iOS native apps. This meant that the quality of the web browsing and emailing experience was solely controlled by Apple. Web browsers were some of the first applications to slide past Apple’s restrictive policies, and several excellent notables clawed their way above the rest.
Phillip reviewed Grazing a few months ago, and reading the review left me hungry to try it. Unfortunately, I found myself less concerned with flexibility of browsing and sharing and more concerned with download management, something that both Mobile Safari and Grazing lack. This led me to iCab Mobile, a powerful browser by Alexander Clauss.
How does iCab hold up to the competition? Can it counter Mobile Safari’s native advantage?
You love scouring the web for reading material, but you just can’t find the time to read everything on the spot. Perhaps you’ve already run into popular “read later” apps such as Instapaper, Readability, and Safari’s own “Reader” feature.
One could certainly be perfectly satisfied with what those apps have to offer, but just how much would you be missing out on if you pass on Pocket (formerly Read It Later)?
Yes, the World Wide Web has unleashed a flurry of information on us all and we now have the World’s knowledge at our fingertips. I think we can all agree, that is awesome. There is, however, one problem.
The amount of information available on any topic imaginable is daunting, and we gravitate to sources that have some resemblance of organization and credibility to locate what we’re looking for. Wikipedia has become this source for a lot of people and we turn to it as the place for reference material or just to wander and learn. Wikibot is an iPad application that takes the core Wikipedia experience and attempts to add some functionality to make the resource even more useful. Let’s take a look at Wikibot and see just how successful it is.
The range of Twitter clients for the iPad is numerous and, as a new iPad user, you can often get confused on which one you should download for your shiny new device. A few months back, I looked at several clients and compared their features with one another and I found that Osfoora HD is a pretty decent offering when it comes to tweeting on your iPad. It’s the brainchild of independent developer Said M. Marouf (there’s also an iPhone version as well) and features nearly everything you’ll want (and has a few tricks hidden up its sleeve!).
All sounds great doesn’t it? Let’s have a look at Osfoora HD in a little bit more detail.
The alternative browser market is starting to grow as more and more people are looking to branch out from the default Mobile Safari that ships with every iPad. After reading a review on Mac.AppStorm of the Mac version of Sleipnir I immediately downloaded the iOS versions, and I’ve spent enough time to get a feel for the ecosystem.
Will this mythological browser make its way onto your home screen, or should you avoid it like the eight-legged freak that it’s named after? Let’s find out.
