TUAW has posted an interview with Brent Simmons, the developer of the popular RSS application NetNewsWire. If you’ve been browsing the App Store you may have noticed that NWW for iPad was out on the launch day, and from what Simmons says, it’s been a very successful launch.
Posts tagged with "iPad"
Brent Simmons Talks NetNewsWire for iPad, App Store Pricing
Feeds Reading on the iPad: Is Headline The New Reeder?
Many applications try to take the minimal approach nowadays, and a very few manage to achieve it and combine it with an actual usability. Fortunately, these very few apps are indeed some of the best apps around, and if you take a look at the App Store you can see plenty of them in the top paid and top grossing charts. I’m talking about apps like Reeder, Simplenote, Taskpaper: applications that didn’t aim at empowering the user with tons of features and graphical goodness, whose developers just focused on elegance and usefulness. Sure there are applications like Pastebot that mix custom, rich graphical elements with a real purpose, but I thank God every day for apps like Reeder.
But what about the iPad? If you look at the apps out now, you’ll see that most of them try to follow the user interface guidelines suggested by Apple, just like with the first iPhone apps that came out in 2008. Then, after some months, designers and developers started to explore new ways of designing mobile apps, and I bet the same will happen with the iPad. But then again, there are some differences between the launch of the iPhone App Store and the iPad one: it turns out that some devs have already started experimenting with their apps, trying to break the rules established in Cupertino by introducing custom, different and non-native looking UI elements in their apps.
Now back to Reeder, there’s a reason why I mentioned it: today I’m going to take a look at Headline, a feeds reading app for the iPad which, in my opinion, might be the “new Reeder” for iPad.
Too soon to tell? Let’s take a look.
Google Releases “Google Mobile” for iPad (P.S. It’s Ugly)
Google has released an update to its Google Mobile application, making it compatible with the iPad. Guess what, the application seems to really sucks, as it doesn’t take advantage of any new feature of the iPad and only cares about putting the same old iPhone things on a bigger screen.
From the App Store page:
- My Location - avoid typing your current location when searching for nearby businesses;
- Google Suggest - tap suggested web search queries and local businesses that appear as you type;
- Search history - quickly search again for queries you recently performed;
- Vertical search - search Google Maps, Images, News, and Shopping
The very same old stuff. Check out the screenshots after the break.
Working With Evernote for iPad
I haven’t been an Evernote user for a long time. I remember tried this popular service many months ago for the first time and while I was impressed by the tons of features it offered, I was seriously disappointed by the official Mac client. It didn’t feel native to me, and the UI was a mess. Even after I applied some custom elements from Susumu Yoshida, I wasn’t happy with it.
But I’ve got an iPad, and I heard the optimized version of Evernote for the new device was worth checking out. Still, I had my doubts. I mean, going back to the service I tried and didn’t like? Having to deal once again with that Mac app? After putting some thought on it, I decided that I had to try it again, anyway. New platform, new app, new interface - perhaps Evernote would have done better this time.
Evernote on the iPad is very good. So good that I’ve been writing my posts on it for 5 days now.
Need To Take Beautiful iPad Screenshots? There’s An App For That
Remember iPhone Screentaker? It’s that useful app from developer Fabian Kreiser that allows you to take a screenshot on your iPhone, move it to your Mac and embed it into a great looking iPhone template. This is a must have for bloggers who want to include beautiful iPhone screenies in their posts.
We covered the app a while ago here, and that’s just been updated to a new version.
Pictures of Windows 1.01 and Rhapsody Running on the iPad
Seems like iPhone developer Steven Troughton-Smith is on a roll these days. After managing to install the iPhone clock app on the iPad, he installed and run Windows 1.01 and Apple’s Rhapsody using Bochs on the iPad.
Sure they’re buggy and crash, but it’s a good achievement nevertheless. Not just because he managed to run Windows 1.01 (I mean, who wants to use it anyway?) but because this opens many possibilities, like trying to run Chrome OS on Apple’s new device. Stuff that geeks and hackers love, basically.
We’ve included the pictures after the break.
NewsRack Brings Feeds Reading to the iPad. Reviewed.
In my review of Twitterrific, I wrote that one of the first things I did when the iPad App Store went public was to search for good Twitter clients. Guess what, right after I settled with Iconfactory’s app I started looking for a decent RSS application. At the moment of writing this, there are not so many feeds readers available for the iPad, but I can say there are a few good ones. I bet it’s just a matter of time for Google Reader clients to come out, as developers are finally working on real devices now.
To better understand the situation, we should make a step backward and recap what’s going on with the iPhone and feeds readers. Reeder 2 is the application I’m now using every day to catch up with the news while I’m on the go and I have time to read something. It’s an elegant, minimal and polished piece of software. But, we at MacStories have reviewed many Google Reader clients before and I’ve been switching back and forth between different solutions myself, until I decided to keep Reeder 2 on my home screen. There’s this other application for iPhone though, which is very popular among users, that sports a good amount of features geared towards power users of Google Reader: Newsrack, previously known as Newsstand.
The iPhone Clock App Gets Installed on the iPad
I do miss the original iPhone clock app on my iPad. I miss the possibility to set alarms on this awesome new device, just as I miss the simple weather application. Fortunately, developer Steve Troughton-Smith has found a solution to this. Sorta.
Windows 95, Running on the iPad
Remember Windows ‘95? Sadly, I do. Well it turns out that a team of russian developers have managed to run Windows 95 on the iPad, using an emulator called BOCHS, modified for the iPad.
Be sure to check out the video after the break. How long before a Linux distribution for the iPad?