Ipad Apps

Pinball HD for iPad - app review

Pinball HD brings classic pinball arcade playing to the iPad. The graphics are beautiful and motions are smooth.

There are three tables included with Pinball HD: Wild West, The Deep, and Jungle Style. I find Wild West to be the least interesting table to play, but it will probably be great for a child who doesn't need a complicated and involved table. The Deep and Jungle Style are much more detailed and require much more skill to get a good score.

Pinball HD can be played in 3 different views. Holding the iPad in landscape will display the full table from a perspective view (the front is bigger than the back). In portrait, you can either view the full table or play with a "flying-table" view. The latter view follows the ball around the table and zooms in even closer when the ball is doing something interesting like bouncing around a bunch of bumpers or entering a special hole. The graphics in "flying-table" are very impressive; however, I find myself getting a little dizzy when playing in this view.

If you're a fan of pinball, Pinball HD will not disappoint. The physics are accurate and the gameplay is fun. For video and screenshots, follow us after the break!

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Netflix iPad app updated to support video output

Today the free Netflix iPad application was updated to support video output via Apple’s optional dock connector to VGA adapter. This lets you watch your video on a much larger display. It's a feature I have been waiting for since the application was available and a much welcomed addition to this app!

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Todo for iPad - app review

Appigo's Todo for iPad complements their existing Todo for iPhone app very well and if you already use Todo for iPhone, you will be quite pleased with the iPad version. If not, you'll certainly appreciate Todo for iPad on its own merits.

One of the first things you will notice is the aesthetic; Appigo went for a traditional three ring binder look and feel. You can change the color of the binder, paper and rings in the settings menu. Appigo promises more themes in a future update.

Outside of looking pretty, Todo gets the job done just like its iPhone cousin. You can create a your standard task, project, checklist, contact or website. If you are a Getting Things Done (GTD) user, you will be happy to know that @contexts as well as tags are supported. Holding the iPad in landscape gives you full view of all your task information. On the left side you have your lists, Inbox, Starred and Focus list. Let's discuss this in a little more detail.

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Fieldrunners for iPad - app review

Fieldrunners for the iPad, from Subatomic Studios, LLC, is a tower defense-style game, where the object is to obliterate the fieldrunners before they get to your base. To do this you place weapons on the field so that they will take out all fieldrunners before they get to the other side.

You start the game with 20 lives, which translates into 20 enemies that may pass through your defenses before the game ends. The placement of your defences is in real time, though after each level you do get a small amount of time before the fieldrunners start their attack. Strategy is paramount, as the towers you set up early in the game are still in play for later levels. You do not want to have to sell and move around towers as this will use up valuable resources (arms sales are not as profitable as they once were).

A large green ring indicates where your tower can be placed, a red ring indicates a illegal placement. The size of the ring shows you the range of the weapon which is very important for game strategy. Just clicking on the weapon will bring up the upgrading/sell options. Fieldrunners allows you to choose what difficulty you want to play in. So for veteran tower defense players starting on easy may be quite a bore, however as the game progresses each Fieldrunner you obliterate gains you more funds to purchase weapons.

The controls are very simple -- just point click and drag. You place your finger on the tower you want and then drag it to the location you want. All of the game options are also accessible through the game with a touch of your finger. You can also choose to put Fieldrunners into fast forward to accelerate the onslaught.

The game graphics are very clean and cartoonish yet not childish. Even the background of the game is beautifully rendered along with little bugs and flowers (not girly, I promise!).

Fieldrunners is really fun game for anyone who enjoys the tower defense genre. The increasing levels of difficulty keep Fieldrunners enjoyable and challenging. Well worth the price tag.

[$7.99 - iTunes Link]

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FlickStackr for iPad - App Review

FlickStackr for iPad is a Flickr browsing application. The interface is beautiful, intuitive, and a pleasure to use.

With FlickStackr, you can browse photos on Flickr, even if you don't have a Flickr account. If you do, then you can also browse your photostream, sets, favorites, groups, and contacts. FlickStackr also displays EXIF data, tags, and comments. The main feature that is missing from FlickStackr is the ability to upload photos. However, iPont promises to bring that ability in a future update.

In addition to the wonderful online photo viewing that FlickStacker brings to iPad, it also allows you to save photos locally for offline viewing. iPont calls this feature a "Stack". You can choose any photos from Flickr to save to your stack. It only saves the actual images, however, not the EXIF data that's associated with them.

FlickStackr is an excellent app for experiencing Flickr on the iPad, and for only $0.99, it's quite a steal!

[$0.99 - iTunes Link]

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Give away: Appigo Todo for iPad brings task management to the bigger screen

Appigo has just released Todo for iPad, and like Apple themselves, they've used the larger canvas for a more real-world inspired interface. Binders, pages, and pockets, oh my! For fans of Appigo Todo for iPhone, rest assured all your favorite features are here, they're just bigger than ever before. Appigo Todo for iPad currently on sale for $4.99 so if you've been waiting for it, jump on it now. [iTunes link]

All the features come fully loaded:

  • Sync with iCal (Wi-Fi required)
  • Sync with Outlook (Wi-Fi and Outlook 2003 or newer required)
  • Sync with Toodledo.com
  • Task reminder alerts (Wi-Fi or cellular data network required)
  • Projects and Checklists (subtasks)
  • Full Landscape Support
  • Notes on tasks with clickable phone numbers and URLs
  • Manage multiple tasks at once with multi-select
  • Full Calendar View for choosing Due Dates
  • Drag and Drop sorting
  • Contact, Email, SMS, Phone integration
  • Full Task Searching including notes
  • GTD support with Contexts and Tags
  • Repeating Tasks
  • Quick Add Task Entry
  • Task Sharing via Email (Import back into Todo)
  • Customizable App Badge
  • TextExpander touch snippet expansion support (SmileOnMyMac, LLC)

The great folks at Appigo have also been kind enough to give us a couple promo codes to pass on to you, so if you want in, leave a comment below telling us what's on top of your iPad to do list. Make sure to use a real email address, it won't be made public but we'll need it to send you a promo code. Also, promo codes still require a US iTunes account (Apple's rules, not ours).

More screenshots after the break!

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Gowalla for iPad - app review

Gowalla for iPad is a social app from some fine folks in Austin, TX that allows you to check-in to locations, see where your friends are checking-in, collect items and complete trips. Gowalla for iPad is available now in the App Store for free [Free- iTunes Link]

Gowalla is the newest entry into the whole "check-in" craze. Why check-in? With Gowalla the main goals are to see where your friends are and to collect items. However, this process is mainly reserved for the iPhone app. The iPad version of Gowalla provides beautiful access to view your activities (where you and your friends have checked-in), see what spots are in your area (spots are places to check-in) and your Passport (a summary of where you have checked in, stamps, pins and items collected.

This app is an excellent companion app to its iPhone cousin. The large screen really gives you great access to view where your friends are in real-time across the world. You can pinch and zoom from your city to the whole world in a breeze. You can learn more about a location or friend by tapping on their name on the map. Spots also dynamically appear when the map is moved to a new location, very slick.

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App Store search spam -- can we get a rejection for that?

Go to the iTunes App Store, search for an app you want, and get your results flooded with spam-apps. Its a growing problem as unscrupulous developers keep finding new and annoying ways to try and game Apple's approval process and scam users.

Marco.org highlights some of the worst offenders, but more importantly offers legitimate developers a way to take action:

When an app is infringing on your copyright or trademark, the proper procedure is to send a clear notice to appstorenotices@apple.com citing your intellectual property and which apps are infringing it (provide their iTunes URLs to eliminate ambiguity). As part of this notice for trademark infringements, you can request that apps not be allowed to use your trademark to market themselves in search results (keyword spam).

Hopefully Apple will save developers the frustration and

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Quick Review and give-away: Polyhedra XL for iPad

Polyhedra XL [$2.99 - iTunes link] is a fun little game that involves creating shapes and avoiding obstacles as you fill the screen. The graphics are beautiful and while the beginning levels are simple enough for a child, they progresses to be challenging for an adult.

The goal of Polyhedra XL is simple: create enough shapes to fill up 66% of the screen.

To create a shape, just hold your finger down on the screen. The longer you hold, the larger your shape becomes. The challenge is that there are enemies bouncing around the screen that will pop your inflating shape when they make contact. Once your shape becomes solid, however, the enemies will bounce right off. Rotating the screen will cause your shapes to be affected by "gravity" and you can use this to your advantage to trap enemies.

Polyhedra XL also features a "Toy Box" mode where you can just create shapes, admire the graphics, and relax. I imagine this mode would be great for kids.

I have really enjoyed playing Polyhedra XL and applaud Binary Hammer for creating such a simple, challenging, and beautiful game.

Now for the giveaway! Binary Hammer has kindly provided us with 3 promo codes to give to you. Let us know why you'd like to have Polyhedra XL on your iPad, and we'll randomly choose 3 winners. Contest begins now and ends Sunday, May 9th at 12pm PST. ( Unfortunately, a US iTunes account is required to enter. Apple's rule, not ours!)

Screen shots and video after the break!

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Another developer returns to iPhone post-iPad

Frasier Speirs, one of several well-publicized developers to leave the iPhone over objections to Apple's App Store policies and controversy surrounding app rejections, has decided to return, post iPad, and his reasons are intriguing:

I suspect that the days of everyone buying a MacBook to get online are soon to be over. I've already written about how I see our three-Mac family turning into a one-Mac, three-iPad family over the next hardware cycle and I imagine that scenario repeated industry-wide over time. Already the ratio of iPhone OS devices to Macs is 5:2.

He believes Apple can and will reject apps, and that the frontier days of computing are giving way to the mainstream, appliance future.

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