2012年7月15日 星期日
50 Awesome Free iPad Apps
We all love getting something great for free! However, hunting down the good free iPad apps from the terrible ones in the jungle of the App Store can be a difficult job.
Fortunately for you, I’m here to help. We’ll try and keep a mix of old classics and new favourites, read on and stock up on fantastic free iPad apps!
Like the article? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to stay up on recent content.Flipboard is one of the most popular news readers for the iPad due to its fantastic, intuitive interface and its sheer ease of use. It pools various news websites (which you can customise) and displays them in an easy-to-read format. Best if all, it’s totally free to use!
Planetary
Planetary is a fascinating way to explore your music collection that’s only available on the iPad. It allows you to fly through a 3D universe dynamically created by information about the recording artists you love – you can lose hours here!
We recently reviewed Planetary and found it to be a simply stunning free offering for the iPad. If you love music, eye-candy, and your iPad, you need to download this app now. It’s about time we put that orange iPod icon to rest – and it’s free!
Zite
Zite is a great way to consume all kinds of news and articles, that gradually learns your preferences and what you like to read. It’s definitely worth trying out both Zite and Flipboard before settling on your favourite way to browse and enjoy the news.
The Onion
If you’re not already a fan of The Onion, you probably should be. The app is a great free addition to any iPad, providing amusing riffs on current events along with purely fictional hilarity. A few ads here and there is a very small price to pay.
IMDb
It’s been said many a time before, but if you’re a movie fan you can get no better friend than the IMDb app for iPad. The sheer wealth of information available, alongside new movie trailers and news, makes the IMDb app a must even for casual film fans – it’s free and beautifully designed, get it now!
Remote
It’s a pretty simple suggestion, but if you don’t already have Remote then you should get it right now. It’s the perfect way to take control of iTunes from your iPad, and fantastically useful if you own an Apple TV.
Paper
We recently reviewed Paper and, although it does require in-app purchase to unlock all of the tools, found it to be a superb app with a beautiful design aesthetic. If you love your iPad but miss the experience of filling real, physical notebooks, let me assure you that Paper is the closest thing to a real notebook outside of a real notebook. It’s just plain amazing software, from the accuracy of the handwriting to the drop-dead UI design. Nothing looks quite like or feels quite like Paper.
Bamboo Paper
Bamboo paper is a great way to turn your iPad into a paperless communication tool. It’s completely free so get stuck in and enjoy one of the best note-taking engines we’ve reviewed to date.
Pocket is a beautifully made cross-platform app that is the perfect solution for saving multiple articles, videos, and images for later – no matter where you are and what device you’re on. We reviewed it recently and loved it – giving the app a top notch 10/10!
Aweditorium
Do you ever feel a little disappointed that an app exists, purely because you wish you’d thought of it first?
That’s exactly how I felt using Aweditorium the very first time. It’s a beautifully immersive way to listen to and discover new music! Simply dive in and start exploring the vast expanse of organised sound that awaits you, Aweditorium even provides images, and text, to help occupy your eyes and keep them out of trouble.
Simplenote
For those who love minimalism, there’s no better note-taking app than Simplenote. It syncs seamlessly with your computer and all your devices. It’s extremely easy to use. For those who want more power, you can also use tags, pins, versions, and sharing.
Appetites
Appetites is one of our favourite recipe apps here at AppStorm, the concept and execution working perfectly to create a beautiful interactive experience.
You can get recipes from a variety of food bloggers and chefs and watch step-by-step video instruction, it’s almost foolproof. There are in-app purchases to get more recipes, but it’s free to download and try out the stock recipes.
SoundHound
Proven to be the worlds fastest and most-accurate music recognition app, SoundHound is a superb free offering and a great way to keep track of songs you like off the radio.
The depth of features in SoundHound make it a great way to find new music, plus it has the world’s only viable singing and humming recognition!
Guardian Eyewitness
The Guardian Eyewitness app is one that’s worth opening every single day. It’s effortless charm is down to its simplicity, it does one thing very well indeed.
It describes itself as:A showcase for the world’s most distinctive and provocative photographs, providing a daily, visual reflection of global events.
Square Register
While Square Register won’t interest everyone, it’s a simply stunning app for those people who can make use of it! A more robust, point-of-sale style solution from Square that allows you to take card payments and run your iPad as a centre for transactions.
Unstuck
Unstuck is a brilliant app for getting you through those moments when you feel completely stuck, through a series of diagnostic activities and tools tailored towards whatever the particular problem is.
We reviewed it back in February and found it to be a great way to alleviate any kind of creative block!
Flixter
Whether you’re trying to figure out what movie to go to at the theater down the street this weekend, or trying to find a good movie to add to your Netflix queue, having an application to help you through that process is fantastic.
Flixster may not be the most entertaining, elegant application, but it performs many functions quickly and easily – and it’s free!
500px
Getting inspired is vital for taking awesome photographs, and 500px is a beautiful way to do just that! Jacob gave it a solid 8/10 in his review, saying;
Enjoy the world’s best photos right at your fingertips. Discover exhilarating landscapes, cute wildlife moments, striking portraits and more.
Skitch
Skitch is an image annotator that makes sketching and sharing a snap. Point out objects in photos, mark up a design mockup, or annotate a screenshot. Evernote integration makes sharing easier than ever.
We reviewed it a short while ago and gave the a 10/10, it simply does one thing very well indeed.
TED
TED is an app that allows you to listen to a selection of talks from the TED conferences, which perhaps sounds a little dull. Let me assure you that it isn’t! TED gets in expert speakers to deliver concise and thoughtful talks across a veritable smorgasbord of subjects, there’s no better way to feed your mind in 5 to 20 minutes.
Wunderlist
Wunderlist is a brilliant, and free, cloud-sync task manager that also allows you to share task lists with friends and colleagues.
I love the gorgeous interface and the pure simplicity of the app, it’s effortlessly intuitive. I would heartily recommend Wunderlist to anyone who doesn’t need the extra functionality that an app like Omnifocus provides, or anyone who needs to share simple task lists with others.
Evernote Peek
Continuing on with apps that integrate beautifully with Evernote, Evernote Peek is a great little free app that allows you to create engaging quizzes and tests.
It works by virtue of the magnets in the Smart Cover, allowing you to test yourself by gradually revealing the question and then the answer. It’s a small but interesting app that makes use of the Smart Cover in an intriguing way.
Evernote
Now to Evernote itself. Much like DropBox, barely a week goes by without Evernote cropping up, but there’s a reason for that. It’s a powerful, insanely useful, and free service that’s ever expanding its features and functionality. While the underlying concept may not be up everyone’s street, for many, Evernote is an unmissable app.
Stuck on Earth
Stuck in Earth is a free app invented by the renowned HDR photographer Trey Ratcliff. The app’s name is modeled on his photography blog, Stuck in Customs. Ratcliff designed the app to help photographers and explorers find the prime spot to take a photo while on their travels. It works like a traditional map, except with community involvement and photo sharing that spreads the word if there’s a great spot somewhere near where you’ll be traveling. If you love to explore the great abyss and take photos while doing so, then check out our review to discover an app that will assist you with your endeavors.
Pepperplate
Pepperplate is a complete kitchen app which can help you manage your recipes, plan your meals, shop for the ingredients, and cook your meals.
We reviewed it in February and gave it a strong 8/10, if you’re looking for a free recipe manager, look no further.
SkyDrive
SkyDrive is an excellent alternative to Dropbox that allows you to easily access, manage, and share files on the go. You can also upload photos or videos from your iPhone or iPad to SkyDrive.
It’s been updated for the Retina display and also allows you to share using a simple link, something Dropbox only recently added.
Temple Run
As far as free games go, you can’t do much better than Temple Run on the iPad!
It looks and plays fantastically, and is alluringly addictive once you get into it – making great big swiping gestures has never been more satisfying than when trying to evade trees and escape those demon monkeys!
Wikipanion
If you’re a big Wikipedia fan, it’s definitely worth trying out Wikipanion for size. It’s feature-packed and even allows for bookmarking of individual sections within an entry. The interface is slick and aims to closely replicate the feel and style of Wikipedia itself.
Find My iPhone
While perhaps not the most interesting app ever, although I do like the magical feel of it, Find My iPhone is simply a vital addition to any iPad.
Once set up it allows you to find the location of your iPad from any computer connected to the internet. It’s fantastically useful, particularly if you’re prone to misplacing things.
HowStuffWorks
HowStuffWorks is a very informative and content rich app which offers an learning experience rarely matched. The articles contained within are very well written and reflect the company’s commitment to education excellence. Best of all, all this knowledge is totally free!
iTunes Movie Trailers
iTunes Movie Trailers is perfect for helping you decide on every aspect of the movie experience, from which trailers to watch to which theater is showing the movie you’re dying to see. Check out our review right here.
FLUD
FLUD is a reader that looks to add a social experience to your everyday reading by giving each user the ability to create their own “news personality.” It has a few issues, but is an intriguing prospect…
Wikihood
Wikihood is an application which pulls data from Wikipedia to give you information about the things around you; such as landmarks, geography, economy and so on. It’s free, so head to the App Store and give it a try!
If you can’t decide whether to upgrade, check out our review!
Facebook for iPad allows you to experience everything that Facebook has to offer. On your iPad. It’s easily the best way to browse the social network. Read our review of the long-awaited official app here.
AccuWeather
AccuWeather gives you a detailed weather forecast for the next few days and even features a nifty hourly forecast (modelled on a clock face), which tells you the temperature, weather conditions, and humidity at any given hour. You can also use the lifestyle section, which lists a number of different activities (e.g. grass growing, arthritis risk, and star gazing) and the app rates whether it is worth undertaking these activities based on the forecast. AccuWeather also integrates video weather forecasts into the application (although these are only for the US).
iTunes U
iTunes U is a powerful app that misses the mark with its faux-world interface, but offers a large variety of courses and materials for free.
With the cost of textbooks alone, not to mention transportation, tuition, and every other cost associated with learning, “free” is a breath of fresh air in a costly landscape. Sure, you won’t have a piece of paper with your name on it, but if you want to learn for learning’s sake you can do worse than iTunes U.
Wi-Fi Finder
It’s extremely useful to know where the nearest Wi-Fi hotspot is. Wi-Fi Finder’s database includes over 650,000 hotspots in 144 countries and automatically brings up all the hotspots around you based on your current location. This little free app could save you a lot of money.
Workout Trainer
If you’re not fully committed to getting in shape, but just want to test the waters, Workout Trainer could be for you. First off it’s free, and it features a clean and bright interface that’s in contrast with Fitness for iPad.
iMathematics
A powerful and surprisingly sleek looking app for delving deep into the world of math. The app features more than 120 topics and over 700 formulas – I’m imagining it’d be frowned upon in an examination…
The iPad interface has been designed specifically for the larger screen and even allows you to do calculations by hand on the screen!
Molecules
An amazing and intriguing free app that allows you to view and manipulate molecules on the iPad, bringing you closer to the chemical makeup of our world.
It’s a great way to get hands on with science, I’m always fascinated by the intricate shapes and patterns!
History: Maps of World
A wonderfully detailed and educational collection of high-resolution historical maps. Intuitive controls and the sheer fascination of these historical artefacts make this a thoroughly enjoyable learning experience.
Do bear in mind that it’s a rather large app, you’ll need a good connection and space on your iPad. The upside is that they’re all available for offline viewing!
Frequency
Frequency is your personal video service. It puts the entire world of web video at your fingertips. We took a look a several video apps a while back, and found Frequency to be one of the best – and it’s free!
Dragon Dictation
Dictating notes to secretaries has become office folklore, yet with Dragon Dictation the iPad can transcribe your speech to text with a remarkable level of accuracy. With its clean interface this app will allow any time-poor executive to get their thoughts on paper with ease.
If you don’t have the new iPad, this is a great substitute for the the speech-to-text feature.
Bloomberg
For anyone who needs to keep up with the financial markets, or who relies on getting the most up-to-date business news, Bloomberg is an absolute must-have.
It’s also a superbly useful app for tracking your own stock portfolio, should you be that way inclined.
Qwiki
Qwiki’s goal is to forever improve the way people experience information. By combining conventional snippets of textual information with highly interactive and engaging formats like audio, video, and images, the app offers an elegant and intuitive mode of learning.
We reviewed it back in June and found it to be a simply excellent way to experience the wealth of information available on Wikipedia!
Epicurious
A superb app for anyone who loves to experiment and discover new recipes, Epicurious is the perfect companion for any cook – and it’s free! It’s packed with functionality, including the ability to keep track of your favourites and build a shopping list. Not only does it have more than 30,000 recipes, Epicurious allows you to easily share your favourites with family and friends via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and more.
Tunein Radio
TuneIn Radio is a simply great app that brings the best radio stations to your iPad.
The best part about TuneIn Radio is that it caches the station if you pause it and then you can skip commercials and skip to the next song. You can even find stations based on your gps location. There is a paid upgrade but the free app works just fine.
Google Earth
Google Earth is a beautiful, and intriguing, way to hold the world in the palm of your hand. It turns your iPad into the perfect coffee table item, giving you access to incredible global satellite and aerial imagery at the touch of your fingers.
Fotopedia Heritage
Fotopedia Heritage provides a virtual passport to the hundreds of sites that constitute the world’s collective cultural and natural human legacy. It’s a stunning, and effortlessly engaging, app created in partnership with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and an essential for anyone intrigued by the mark we have left on the world.
The photographs are of the highest quality and help to immerse you in the absorbing content.
Jamie’s Recipes
Jamie’s Recipes is one of the best examples of a recipe app on the App Store, the photography is stunning, and the recipes are delicious. While it’s free to download, and you do get some taster recipes, the app functions doubly as a recipe store; allowing you to purchase new recipes and packs as they arrive. Check out the videos and stunning design throughout!
Your Thoughts
As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts – simply post a comment below! What is your favourite free app, did we miss one that you love?
Looking For More?
If you liked this article, check out one of these.
50 Fantastic Free iPad Apps
Google+ app for the iPad
It might not be the hottest virtual watercooler around, but Google is by no means giving up on its social darling, Google+. Quite the contrary: Google makes the leap onto the biggest iOS screen around with Google+ for iPad. The Google+ 3.0 release is universal across iOS devices, bringing Google+ Events, Hangouts, and embeddable Instant Upload photos to the iPhone version as well.
Sponsored Links
After downloading the app (available now in the App Store), you'll be prompted to make some choices about Instant Upload, the handy feature in Google+ that uploads your photos automatically so you can share them selectively later. You'll be whisked to a login page, where after entering your Google credentials, you can explore your stream, tweak your profile, cruise your Circles, and anything else you'd be capable of doing on Google+ for the web.
The app looks great on the new iPad's Retina display, which really lets the visual nature of Google+ shine. Photos are rendered at the full height of the app in landscape mode, making for a really visually striking experience if your stream is dotted with photographers. The visual nature of Google+ has always been one of its greatest strengths, especially compared to Facebook, which is still in the relative dark ages when it comes to a handful of photo sharing musts for semi-serious photographers — not to mention its disappointingly poor mobile apps. The experience of browsing a friend's pictures is still superior on Google+, and the iPad app has the feel of a digital magazine app like Flipboard, with large images and shared stories featured prominently.
Still, there are some problems. We noticed a strange jerkiness to scrolling in the app, which manages to detract from the otherwise refined experience of sailing through your stream. Since the iPad boasts the best scrolling on a tablet around, it was disappointing to run into such a basic issue. We also had problems navigating to the sidebar by tapping the upper left corner menu icon, which also detracted from the app's otherwise very elegant presentation.
Scrolling and touch navigation woes aside, Google+ for iPad is really fast and (mostly) really smooth. We hopped in a Hangout in no time, and the video and audio quality was great on our end. Even within an active Hangout, typing in names of friends to add was remarkably fast, with smooth animations that didn't at all distract from the ongoing video chat. We've seen Google+ Hangouts kick a MacBook into that telltale noisy fan-mode in the past, so it was a pleasantly fluid experience on the iPad. Hangouts on the iPad offer a great option for anyone looking to video chat across different kinds of devices. Unlike Facetime, which only supports Apple's ecosystem, you could ring up just about anyone with a Google+ Hangout from your iPad.
All told, the Google+ app's seams show every now and again, but the experience is otherwise so well-executed that the flaws mostly stand out in contrast. If you're a Google+ user, especially one with Circles full of people taking interesting photos, the iPad app will be a great extension of a service that you've already invested in. If you're not sold on Google+, Hangouts offer enough cross-platform utility to give the app a try.
This story originally appeared on Tecca.
More from Tecca
Google+ Guide: Everything you need to know about Google's social network
5 essential social media apps that your iPad can't live without
via usatoday.com
Google+ app for the iPad.
2012年7月13日 星期五
Interchangeable Lens for Next iPhone?
A recent Apple [AAPL] patent filing for replaceable lenses on the iPhone shows the company continues to focus on photography as part of its smartphone offering. This suggests the iPhone 5 will quickly become the most used camera on social services, including Facebook, Flickr and Twitter -- and hints on future developments for Apple Maps.
[ABOVE: Annie Leibowitz got a lot of attention when she praised the iPhone last year.]
Smile for the camera
iOS devices currently account for 47 percent of images shared via Twitter, Apple's senior vice president of iOS software, Scott Forstall, told developers at WWDC this week. Apple's iPhone 4 remains the most popular camera on Flickr, with iPhones 4, 4S, 3GS and 3G occupying the top four slots in the cameraphones category on that service.
It makes sense for Apple to pursue this advantage, hence the sharing features of PhotoStream and the iOS-wide integration of support for Twitter and Facebook in version 6. The iPhone 4S boasts an 8-megapixel camera capable of capturing HD video.
The next iPhone is expected to offer a 4-inch display. KGI analyst Mingchi Kuo, believes the iPhone 5 will also offer an 8-megapixel camera equipped with a maximum aperture of 2.4 rather than the current camera's 2.2, which should improve image capture.
Today we learn of a recent patent filing: "Back Panel for a Portable Electronic Device with Different Camera Lens Options". This describes a means by which will allow user to change their iPhone's camera lens for different shoots -- so you can imagine long range lenses, macro lenses and so on.
"It would be desirable to provide a structure for a compact device that allows the end user to reconfigure the optical arrangement of the device while retaining the benefits of assembling the device using a pre-assembled digital imaging subsystem," the filing reads.
[ABOVE: A schematic taken from the lenses patent filing, c/o Freepatents online.]
Moving parts? I doubt it
One element of the description rings false:
"A portable electronic device includes a digital imaging subsystem with a lens having an optical axis. A case encloses and supports the digital imaging subsystem in a first defined positional relationship to the case. A removable panel is coupled to the case and held in a second defined positional relationship to the case that covers the digital imaging subsystem without the removable panel being directly connected to the digital imaging subsystem. An optical component is supported by the removable panel such that the optical component is aligned with the optical axis and alters optical characteristics of the digital imaging subsystem. The device may include a power supply and an electronic control system coupled to the digital imaging subsystem and the power supply enclosed in and supported by the case. Electrical connectors may couple the power supply and the electronic control system to an electrical component on the removable panel."
The inclusion of this removable back plate exposes the camera optics, enabling lens changes on the fly. This doesn't ring true to me -- I can't imagine Apple would really choose to put such moving parts inside its phone.
Third-party vendors, including Olloclip, already offer lenses for existing iPhones, these secure to the device by a clip system.
A better connection come from BubblePix, which offers a clever little system which enables you to capture 360-degree images using an iPhone. This product ships with an iPhone case, to which the device clips.
How important is photography to iPhone 5?
While Apple doesn't seem likely to exploit the patented technology on future iPhones, its focus on photography (an industry Steve Jobs had his eyes on as another sector primed for Apple-led disruption) will continue.
That focus suggests that the iPhone 5 launch in September/October will be accompanied by other features to boost photography on iPhones. I'm predicting upgrades to Apple's iPhoto app, equipped with built-in Twitter and Facebook export and -- presumably -- the chance to make some images public and geo-tagged as available media within Apple's soon-to-ship mapping application.
Apple's iOS 6 beta's Maps app is currently attracting criticism for not offering the depth of detail of Google Maps. Driving data seems lacking -- Apple intends ceding some of this to third party developers -- and the quantity of included information seems scant, despite the Flyover function.
What's important to note when dealing with the Maps app as it is right now is that this is a beta version of the final product. Apple has a fleet of planes gathering new data, and the final shipping version seems likely to include more data and more visual representation than the beta includes.
(Though hopefully the Indian Ocean will no longer be situated in the Arctic Ocean, and the North Pacific won't be found in the middle of Africa.)
It does, however, seem appropriate for Apple to invite iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S users to share images of streets, tourist attractions and relevant local data via its mapping tools, in the same way as Google Earth. With Apple's devices clearly dominant across most online photo services, it seems likely many will also choose to share their pictures that way.
Also read:
WWDC 2012: Apple iPhone 5 details, Retina Display Macs
WWDC 2012: Apple's iPhone and the iRobot supply chain
WWDC 2012: Facebook integration, Apple Maps for Fall's iOS 6
Apple WWDC: iOS 6 says farewell to Google Maps
iPhone 5 release: Apple's September launch, what to expect
Computerworld's WWDC 2012 topic pageGot a story? Drop me a line via Twitter or in comments below and let me know. I'd like it if you chose to follow me on Twitter so I can let you know when these items are published here first on Computerworld.
Interchangeable Lens for Next iPhone?
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