This week’s update to the Google app for iOS adds keyboard shortcuts if you have a physical keyboard for your iPad. This is what I see if I press and hold the Command key on an Apple Smart Keyboard when viewing the default Google start screen. If you are in the search text box, Command L cancels the search.
Command L = Quick search
Command Y = Recent pages
Command O = Voice search
This is one of those apps that I really want to like. It’s content is useful (mini app reviews), it provides useful curation (best of apps in categories) and I tend to agree with the app picks. Unfortunately, the app crashes a lot and it’s navigation is a bit too sensitive. I find myself thrown pages I didn’t intend to go to or, worse, sent to the App Store with its relatively long startup time. I uninstalled it for now but will revisit it sometime in the future.
Comic Book News HD for iPad is a featured app in the iTunes App Store this week. So, I decided to take a look at it. The app provides brief summaries of new comic books from most of the major publishers. One big hole in list is DC (Superman, Batman, etc.).
The app crashed when trying to select a publisher the first few times I used the app. However, it eventually let me choose publisher categories without crashing. Bringing content down from the net takes a long time for every action. I found the app was too slow overall for me and uninstalled it.
Tower Madness HD for the iPad is a free tower defense type game. The object is to place weapons in the path of the invading aliens to protect the sheep (sheep?). My problem with it is too difficult at the very first level. It seems to want to force you to make an in-app purchase (using real money) to buy better weapons.
Addictive games tend to be easy in the beginning to let your learn the rules and draw you in. Addictive games also provide enough interactivity to keep you interested and engaged. Tower Madness HD simply runs on automatic pilot for wave after wave after wave of invading aliens after you place the weapons on the playing field. I’m surprised it made it so high up the iTunes iPad free apps list (it is currently #4). I’m uninstalling it from my iPad. Next!
Here’s a summer time tip for iPad owners: If you have an iPad and wear sunglasses with polarized lenses, you should only look at your iPad in landscape mode with your sunglasses on. Smartphones like the iPhone and Nexus One have displayes polarized at 45-degrees. However, for some reason the iPad’s screen appears to be polarized vertically (in relation to its portrait orientation). So, if you have polarized sunglasses lenses like mine with horizontal polarization, you won’t be able to see the iPad’s display in portrait mode.
So, if you look at your iPad with polarized sunglasses, be sure to look at it in landscape mode.
Check out my video demo above. This is one of those things that is easier to show than explain.
I recorded three short (1 or 2 minute long) mini-podcasts this year. But, I haven’t recorded a longer form podcast since December 2009. This podcast drought ends now. Frank McPherson and I sat down several thousand miles apart to spend 15 minutes talking about the iPad. Frank bought his iPad 3G last week. I’m the old-timer having owned an iPad Wifi-only model for well over a month now.
Here’s what we discussed in Podcast 42:
– Frank describes his first few days with the iPad 3G and trying out the $15 per month 250MB 3G data plan
– We also briefly discussed Apple’s iWork components which I’ve bought and Frank is planning to buy
– Dropbox/Sugarsync for iPad
– I discuss my failed (so far) attempts to stop playing “We Rule”
– eBook reading experience on an iPad
This podcast was a little short because I was trying a completely different way to record it. I usually use a Mac running Audio Hijack Pro and a Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000 headset. I didn’t want to lug around a 13-inch MacBook just to record a podcast. So, I hauled around a netbook running Windows 7, MP3 Skype Recorder, and a LifeChat ZX-6000 wireless headset to create this podcast. I thought the resulting podcast sounded “ok”. Not great, but acceptable. I should probably try to find a better USB microphone.
Frank and I have a lot more to say about the iPad. We’re going to try to schedule at least one iPad app podcast per month. We’ll also try to record a second monthly podcast about other topics (though the iPad is sure to dominate for a while). So, stay tuned!
– You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
– You can see a list of previous podcasts in an iTunes web view(no need to install iTunes)
– You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
– You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your phone.