iPad

All of the apps that we have reviewed that have iPad support and are available to use natively on the iPad. If an app is in this index, you won’t have the 2x iPhone app interface.

Entertainment / Reviews
Padd

Turn your iPad into a Star Trek PADD

 

If you're a Star Trek fan and you have an iPad you'll get this App no matter what I say :) You can stop reading now and just click the link below. Now for everyone else, the Star Trek PADD App is actually one of the first Star Trek Apps that I've seen that actually has some useful features (most are just sound effects and pretty pictures). I remember years ago buying the Interactive Star Trek Encyclopedia for my computer and I thought it was cool to be able to launch an Application and search for all those little Star Trek bits of knowledge that I wanted to read about. If you're a Star Trek fan then you're familiar with the PADD (Personal Access Display Device) used throughout the later series and the movies. PADDs were literally as common as pads of paper on the show. People used them, but also had no problem handing them to others to use and I would assume keep. Pretty much like you would write something on a piece of paper and hand it to someone today. On the show the PADD seems to be much like the multipurpose iPad today. It was used for communicating, reading, and access to the main ship's computer (LCARS). 

 

PADD for your iPad

This App is much like the Star Trek encyclopedia on my computer that I remember from years past. Of course the App takes advantage of the iPad's touch screen and you get all the familiar Star Trek sound effects. You can either browse the information from the database or do searches. Many of the search results have picture associated with them, but surprisingly some don't. It literally says "no image available". The search is useful for those times when you hear a term on Star Trek and you want to quickly look it up. You can also browse info from the Star Trek  Facebook and Twitter feeds.

 

What's missing?

The one thing that I'm most shocked by is that there is no voice control. After all, we are talking Star Trek here. I would expect to be able to at least use voice control for my searches. It just seems odd to see the big iPad keyboard come up and cover most of the Star Trek interface while you hand key in your search terms. It may be a little thing to some, but I just can't seem to get past this omission. However, for the sake of the review, I'll move on. The App only works in landscape view, which again is actually the opposite of the way I remember seeing (smaller) PADDs used on the show. On the show the smaller versions seemed to be in portrait orientation while the larger ones were landscape. I guess if you consider the iPad to be the larger one then a landscape orientation makes sense. The content is also organized by category. This way if you're interested in say the ships you can just tap the Ships button and see all the ships every used on Star Trek. Once you're in a category you'll have to either scroll or tap a letter to jump to the first entry matching that letter.

 

The Bottom Line

While I do think this is the best Star Trek iOS App I've seen to date, I think that even the most diehard Star Trek fans will become bored with it when the novelty wears off. Let's hope that they continue to add more features to it and integrate some more 23rd Century technology or ideas to it as we go. How about some video chat? Voice Control would be nice. Perhaps the ability to record log (blog) entries with a voice recorder (yes there are other Apps that do this, but it would be nice if this one did it too). There's lot's of room to add more "functionality" to this App besides just a database. Let's make this App as useful as a PADD!

You can get the Star Trek PADD App for $4.99 here from the iTunes

News
TiVo

TiVo FINALLY brings their App to iPhone and TiVo Series 3

I've enjoyed the TiVo App since day one on my iPad. However, it came at a price. In order to use the original TiVo App you had to not only have an iPad, but also a TiVo Premiere (Series 4) box. I bit the bullet and upgraded to a TiVo Premiere XL, but many loyal TiVo customers were quite ticked off that their perfectly working TiVo HD Series 3 boxes weren't supported. Also it was kind of a pain not to enjoy some of this TiVo remote love on the iPhone/iPod touch. 

TiVo aims to make almost everyone happy this time around

TiVo not only updated their App making it a universal App for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, but they also added limited support for TiVo Series 3 boxes. The first question I had was "what are the limitations on the iPhone and TiVo HD boxes? Since I have an iPad and a TiVo Premiere I can use all of the functions of the App. However, I do also plan to use this on my iPhone and I still have a couple of TiVo HDs.  Here's what you can and can't do:

If you have a TiVo Series 3 or 4 you will be able to see your programming guide, schedule recordings , and control your TiVo remotely while on your WiFi network. However, if you have a TiVo Premiere (series 4) you'll also be able to access your Season Pass manager, ToDo List and browse the list of recorded shows. iPhone users will not be able to start the playback of shows via the remote.

While it would be nice to have all the features on all platforms, it's nice to at least have some functionality for almost everyone.

You can get the TiVo App for Free here from the iTunes

Photography / Reviews
Tiltshift-Generator

TiltShift for iPhone and iPad

Since I bought my iPhone, mobile photography has become more and more a part of my every day life. I think this is because of a couple of reasons. First, the camera on the iPhone is a whole lot better than it was on my last phone (Blackberry Storm), and secondly, the photography App quality and variety far exceed that of any other mobile platform that I have ever tried.  TiltShift Generator is a prime example of that quality. Allowing exacting control over blur, vignette, and a myriad of other adjustments, this App is an important part of my mobile photography workflow and it should be a part of yours too.

 

What I love…

When I downloaded TiltShift Generator for my iPhone, I was just looking for vignette control. I like to add a little bit of vignette to a lot of my images but I like to do so in a soft, natural way. The majority of the Apps that I have tried tend to distort the vignettes and make them look unrealistic. There is precise control over the vignette amount and the App automatically feathers it very nicely.

Adding a nice blur is something that I have found myself wanting to do recently as well. The "tilt-shift" of this tilt shift generator is the blur effect. They have done a really nice job with the control within the App. Not only are you able to chose between blur amount, and placement, but you are also able to change the shape and size of the blur as well. This really gives you a lot of control when adding this effect.

 

Other Control

Not only do you have tilt shift capabilities, and vignette control, but you also have the ability to control saturation, brightness, and contrast. Most of the time I add my color effects in another App but you could do some adjustments with these sliders if you wanted. To be honest however, I feel that the sliders are a little heavy handed. I haven't been able to get them to really add or subtract to an accuracy that I have been happy with so I really don't use them.

Within the settings tab, you will find the option to work on your image in different resolutions. They range from 480X640 to 1200X1600 or original(if it's larger than 1200X1600). I generally work in the largest available to me. I don't want to cut off any more pixels than I have to.

A Couple of Tweaks and It's Perfect!

I only have a couple of things that I'd like to see different on this App. First, no matter how you close the App, or shut it down, it retains the settings from your previous edit. This means that if you have adjusted the saturation, brightness, or contrast at all, you have to readjust them just for the image to look normal. This is a bit of a nuisance. I'd like to see all of the sliders "back at zero" as with most photo editing Apps. Also a lack of an undo button seems to both some but for me none of it is permanent so I don't see a need for one. The last thing that I would like to see is a few more options on output. Currently there are the big two Facebook and Twitter, as well as superpop cam but I'd like to see the addition of Instagram, Flickr, and even 500px. I know that's a little nit picky but I can ask for anything can't I. :)

 

Concluson

The bottom line is you can't go wrong with this App. If you enjoy adding vignettes or the tilt shift look to your images, TiltShift Generator does one heck of a job.

 

You can get TiltShift Generator for you iPhone or iPod Touch for $.99 from the iTunes store here: iTunes

 

You can get TiltShift Generator for your iPad for $2.99 from the iTunes store here: iTunes

Photography / Reviews
DIDirect-SkinSoft

DI Direct iPad Apps Not Only Teaches You Photoshop, but Actually Performs the Steps Wirelessly Too

 

You can never learn all the possible combinations of what can be done with Adobe Photoshop. While you can certainly learn the tools and the menu commands, the combinations of how these tools work together offer an infinite number of possibilities. This is why even though I've been using Photoshop since version 2.0 in the 90's, I still learn something new every time I watch someone else use Photoshop. There are tons of books, online tutorials, online classes, YouTube videos, etc. offering to teach you Photoshop. However, Photoshop CS 5 now offers a remote connection capability that includes the iPad. This opens Photoshop up for Apps to drive it. The folks over at Dark Glass Media have taken advantage of these new hooks in Photoshop and have begun offering digital magazine/tutorials that not only walk you step-by-step through various tasks, but also at the tap of an onscreen button the app can drive Photoshop and perform the task for you!

Learn Skin Softening, Pro Sharpening, Tint & Tone and More

I bought a couple of these Apps to try out and I was really impressed with how well they are put together. Once you enable Photoshop CS 5 (5.1 or 5.04) to allow remote connections, you can then launch one of the DI Direct Apps and connect to you copy of Photoshop via your WiFi connection. Then you can proceed with the lessons and whenever you want to have the App perform the task in your copy of Photoshop just tap the button. The App can even transmit and open up the same sample image that you see in the App to your copy of Photoshop so that you have the exact image that you see in the tutorial. Of course you can use your own photos too. 

This opens up a whole new door for learning software and this is a great example of how a developer can exploit the new Photoshop CS 5 Remote Connection hooks. The Apps work as advertised and when you rotate to landscape view you can see a gallery of different effects to try. Awesome App! My only ask would be a mode that allows me to try an effect, but do it step-by-step instead of running through all the steps instantly. Let's say an effect takes 5 steps, I'd like the option to tap a manual mode and apply each step one-by-one so that I can see the effects build up. Currently when you try one of their gallery effects it just does it all in one swoop. Otherwise, I have no complaints. The App is well designed, works as advertised and is cost effective! Each App focuses on a single area of Photoshop, so if you're looking for an end to end class, this probably isn't what you want. If you're looking to learn a technique here and there, then you'll love these.

 

You can get DID SkinSoft for $2.99 here from the iTunes

You can get DID ProSharp for $2.99 here from the iTunes

You can get DID Tint & Tone for $2.99 here from the iTunes

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Photography / Reviews
CloudAlbums

CloudAlbums syncs your photos to Dropbox

If you've ever read any of my iPad portfolio App reviews here then you know that I usually ding them all on one thing I'd like to see and that is syncing with Dropbox.com. I love Dropbox and use it all the time for all kinds of things. I pay for their top tier (100GB of space) and have been very happy with the service to date. One of my uses for it is that I use one Adobe Photoshop Lightroom's features called "Hard Drive Publish Service" and this allows me to publish and update a select number of photos to a folder on my hard drive. That folder happens to be in my Dropbox folder. This way I can use sub folders for each subject of my portfolio (beauty, fashion, etc.) and that folder is then sync'd to not only all my computers, but it's also available via the Dropbox App on iOS and Android. What I would LOVE is a portfolio App that not only can load photos from Dropbox (which most do), but actually keep them in sync!

CloudAlbums answers this request

CloudAlbums is NOT a portfolio App. It doesn't have all the cool features of the dedicated portfolio apps such as customization, music, slideshows, transitions, etc., but what it does do is the one thing that the dedicated portfolio apps don't. It can actually "sync" your Albums with the photos in your Dropbox folder. This is great and it's exactly the feature I've been asking for from several developers. The problem is is that it's in the wrong app. :) Don't get me wrong, CloudAlbums isn't trying to be a portfolio app, so it's not their fault. CloudAlbums is an App that designed for ANY user that is tired of having to manually sync photos between your iOS devices and your computer via iTunes. While Apple is promising some cloud photo syncing features with iCloud, CloudAlbums is delivering this functionality today!

How does it work?

Once you launch they App you will be prompted to sign in or create a FREE Dropbox.com account. You can then create your Albums in the App and add photos to those albums via your existing photos on your device. As you might expect this is creating folders (one for each album) in an "Albums" folder in your Public folder. The minute you tap the sync button those photos will be uploaded to your Dropbox folder. While that's great, the real magic is when it works in the other direction. Now you can just drop photos into that folder from your computer and the next time you tap the sync button those photos will be added to your album in CloudAlbums. It's this two way syncing that all the other Apps lack.

As you would probably expect, there is photo sharing via email, Facbook and Twitter right in the App. You can also save images to your Camera Roll to be used by other Apps. There is one catch. While the App is FREE, you only get ONE Album for Free. If you want multiple Albums you can unlock unlimited Albums via a $1.99 In App Purchase. Once you've made the In App purchase you'll be able to easily create additional albums either on your iDevice or on your computer by just creating additional folders in the main Album folder.

 

The Bottom Line

CloudAlbums does EXACTLY what it claims to do and nothing more. The App is targeted towards a broad user base of iOS users that want to easily and wirelessly sync their photos to their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. If you want more in terms of presentation of those photos then you're going to be disappointed. You can see your photos full screen and swipe between them and that's about it. It would be nice if you could rearrange the photos in an Album but I didn't see a way to do that. Lastly and probably most surprising is that there doesn't appear to be any support for landscape orientation and I find that to be very odd for ANY App designed to sync and display photos full screen. 

If you're looking for a way to "sync" photos with Dropbox.com and display them on your iOS device, this is it.

You can get CloudAlbums for Free here from the iTunes

You can sign up for a FREE Dropbox.com account here.

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