An application called iMockups came recently to my attention as I was going over the drawing and diagramming tools available for the iPad.  This is an interesting application that is designed to let you quickly create sketches of interfaces for Web, iPhone and iPad applications. While I hadn’t really considered it before, the iPad does seem like a good option for conducting a one on one session for doing an early application sketch along with an application user.  In fact Endloop Systems, the creators of iMockups position it exactly as a tool for quickly creating the first rough sketches of...

In this third iPad wallpaper post I am including two totally different images which were both created from pictures taken at the same place.   The incredibly clear water you see in these images are from a cove by the old prison ruins at Porth Arthur in Tasmania. The island of Tasmania is an Australian state which I had the pleasure of visiting several times in 2006 and 2007.  These particular pictures were taken in January of 2007 when I was visiting the Port Arthur ruins with my family and some good friends. #1 #2 If you like these wallpapers feel free to save the full sized images and to use...

Recently I published a post commenting on the fact that Flipboard was an interesting App to check out, if you were able to.  As the application was released there was such an influx of people downloading it and wanting to use it that their servers were overwhelmed.  At that point I had watched their demo video, but had not yet been able to try out the App. Now, they seem to have gotten things under control, even though you need to go through a registration process that lets them have better control on the number of people putting demand on their  back-end services. A couple of days ago I finally...

Recently I decided to take some pictures I’ve taken of different places over the years and turn them into iPad wallpapers.   I will be making available some of these through iPad Watcher so that those that like to change their backgrounds every now and again can try them out. This first wallpaper was created from a picture I took during a visit to San Francisco in 2008.  It was part of a very nice looking  Japanese style garden I went to.  I’ve actually created two variations from the same picture and they both look nice in the background though I personally prefer the first. Variation...

Approximately at the same time that the iPhone 4 was being released, Apple released a new version of iBooks for the iPad with PDF support.  This was not the first application for reading PDFs on the iPad, but it brought PDF support to what is almost a built-in application for the iPad, despite the fact that you need to download it. I don’t imagine that many iPad owners skip on downloading Apple’s free ebook reader application. While  PDF support in iBooks doesn’t still have all the features that you can use on EPUB books, it is certainly a welcome addition and makes the iPad still...

Recently I’ve had several people ask me whether they should buy an iPad now or wait for the second generation that is sure to come next year.  That is certainly a question that anyone that is considering buying electronic devices faces and there are already some consistent indications of areas in which the next generation of the iPad should improve on the current one. The current generation of the iPad is a great device for doing many things.  In fact, I’ve noticed that it made me a lot more productive at several tasks I do regularly and after a couple of weeks using it I discovered that...

In April, just as the iPad had hit the streets I wrote a post about how accessories set the iPad a world away from the competition.  That was based on the number of accessories that had been announced in the two months that had gone by since the device had been first introduced by Steve Jobs. There was already a large number of companies making myriad models of cases, stands, bags, etc.  All of this was happening even before the device was available for purchasing. All this came back to mind today as I read a post on GottaBeMobile which described how the author had spent some time in an Apple Store...

It was reported earlier today by Boy Genius Report that they had received a leaked document providing guidance on how Apple Store staff should treat complains about bad reception on the new iPhone 4.   This documents makes it clear that Apple is well aware of the reception issues and that it is sticking by the “it’s-normal with mobiles” position that was first championed by the Steve Jobs in one of the short emails he has been sending users of late. The following is the full set of instructions contained in the document as published by Boy Genius Report: Keep all of the positioning...

The Apple Core blog on ZDNet has just published a post with information from a supposed Apple leak stating that the company is gathering information about all FaceTime calls being placed on the new iPhone 4.   According to the person providing the information and that seems to claim to be an Apple employee the company would be gathering information on who is calling who and from where. I see no purpose for Apple to gather this information, but then I can see no reason for Google to be collecting information from WiFi networks when their Street View cars where filming streets, so… Who knows?...

Just yesterday Apple announced the sale of its 3 millionth iPad, after 80 days of sales.  Now that Apple has taken the iPad international it seems that sales are picking up the pace.  While impressive, considering that initial sales were already high, this shouldn’t really come as a surprise as it continues to be hard to just walk into an Apple Store or Best Buy and find the exact model of iPad that you want. Let’s have a quick look at how sales progressed.  It took Apple just 28 days to sell the first million iPads, which was quite impressive.  It then took them 31 days to sell the 2...

In a press release Condé Nast, publisher of several magazines including Wired and several Web properties announced that it would be launching a Gourmet application for the iPad, bringing back the brand of the Gourmet magazine that was discontinued last year. The brand has a lot of recognition and some comments made by people with past relation to the magazine suggests that a good deal of content for the iPad application may come from the archives of the original printed magazine, instead of being newly created. With the huge sales success of the first issue of Wired for iPad I imagine that Condé Nast...

Apple released yesterday iOS 4, the new version of its iPhone operating system and in its wake iBooks, its eBook reading application.  Being a compulsive reader I set out to try the application just as soon as I could and was a bit disappointed. I did my testing on an iPod Touch upgraded to iOS 4, which is a requirement of the iBooks application.  Upgrading to iOS 4 will take a while, so if you are interested in trying out iBooks for your self, set a side at least an hour and a half for the upgrade, up setup and customization. It took me pretty much that time to go through the process with roughly 12...

Apple issued in a press release a statement about iPhone 4 sales in the first day of pre-orders.  In the statement Apple states that more than 600.000 phones were sold in the first day, which far surpassed their expectations leading to problems with the ordering systems of some partners. (One of which seems to have been AT&T in the US.) The following is  the entire statement: Yesterday Apple and its carrier partners took pre-orders for more than 600,000 of Apple’s new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated,...

Over the past week I’ve been trying out Osfoora HD, a Twitter client of which I had never heard of until I pretty much stumbled on it in the App Store. If you are in a similar situation read on as it turned out that this app is really interesting. In the past I have used several different Twitter clients and I tried a couple of them out in the iPad but none gave me as good an experience as Osfoora HD.  At first look it seems a bit like a cross between Twitterrific and TweetDeck, but it feels like an improved version of what this cross would look like. Let’s start from the beginning, with...

In the first nine days of sales Wired Magazine’s iPad edition has sold over 73,000 units, while its printed monthly sales are of about 80,000 units.  If Wired is capable of maintaining such incredible sales numbers after the novelty wares off, it might signal other publications that they should put more effort into their digital editions. Gone through Wired’s first iPad issue I have to say that despite the underlying technology not being that great, it looks pretty good.  They better do something about the half gigabyte size issues before people start to run out of storage in the iPads,...