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September 15th, 2011 at 8:00 AM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
As the iPad is now well known among both users and developers alike, we are seeing more apps that take advantage of the full abilities of the tablet. One of these newer apps that give you a combination of entertainment and education is Solar Walk 3D. With this particular app you can navigate around the solar system with just the touch and drag of a finger.
When you open the app, you are immediately blown away as you travel through a sort of star tunnel to arrive hovering just outside a digital display of our entire solar system complete with all the planets as they are lined up, in rotation around the sun. You can touch and drag anywhere you would like to better get a look as to where one planet is to another and how the diagram looks from up top, or below or at any other angle you’d like. Of course this isn’t just a digital diagram. Tapping on the magnifying glass on the bottom left of the screen will bring up a menu that allows you to look at a whole host of different interstellar objects. Planets, stars, places and even satellites are all viewable with just a little scrolling.
Of course once you’ve selected a place or object to take a look at you can press the “I” button and get some very specific information on select places in the solar system. The bottom right of the screen offers another menu and when you click on this you will find a bunch of other features to keep the app refreshing and new. Through this menu you can choose whether to view objects to scale or Orrery (basically meaning you can zoom in or out.) You can also arrange the screen the way you would like and then take a screen capture that can be placed on your Facebook, or Twitter or emailed to whomever you would like.
The Starwalk 3D app also offers several animations that can do anything from showing you just how big or small one planet is to another to how the tides on the earth are affected by the moon and the surrounding planets. All of this is set to a nice relaxing musical accompaniment that can be turned off if you choose to stare in awe in peace and quiet. Of course because this is Starwalk 3D, we’d be remiss if we talked about the app without mentioning the 3D part.
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September 14th, 2011 at 11:38 AM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
Remember when Sprint was the odd man out when it came to the iPhone and the iPad? It appears that new rumors have the cellular company jumping into the iOS device family something fierce later this fall. While rumors that Sprint would be able to offer its own version of the iPhone 5 when it hits the market in October have been persistent, rumors about a Sprint iPad are brand new.
Being new doesn’t mean being wrong. Sprint has said it will allow unlimited data on the iPhone 5 as something that will set them apart from the other phone companies. Offering 4G data transmission could do the same for the company in regards to the iPad. The iPhone 5 has been reported to be available on October 7th and it would only make sense that if a Sprint iPad is coming, it would be released right along side the phone. Sources are claiming that the Sprint iPad will be completely different from the CDMA version that is currently offered with Verizon, truly making this model Sprint’s own.
Of course, the most enticing part of the iPad coming to Sprint is the possible return to unlimited data, even if they don’t go the 3G route. AT&T originally offered unlimited data plans for their iPads, but discontinued those plans in June of 2010. With Sprint’s willingness to offer unlimited data plans on the iPhone, it seems like a pretty good bet that they would be willing to offer the same sort of plans on their iPads.
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September 14th, 2011 at 8:25 AM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
While the iPad is mostly viewed as a mobile device that will let you play all kinds of fun little games, Apple’s tablet is capable of so much more. One app that truly shows what the iPad can do is How to Photograph an Atomic Bomb. The app combines some animation with sparkling black and white and color photos and plenty of back story to really show the user what it was like to be at the birth of the world’s deadliest weapon.
History buffs will love this app because it documents a period and a place that has seemingly been glossed over by other historians. The app isn’t skimpy either. How to Photograph an Atomic Bomb for iPad brings you 136 pages of stunningly clear photos all taken with the best photographic technology of the time. This particular app shows just how photographers back in the 1940’s recorded not only what the bomb going off looked like but – in one stunning representation – how the power of the weapon literally changed the landscape. Going through over 200 photos that are included in the app, you get a real feel for what these people were trying to do and that should be something everyone gets themselves familiar with.
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September 13th, 2011 at 4:25 PM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
While the iPad itself is an incredibly popular device (with nearly 70 percent of the tablet market) peripherals are getting more popular by the day. The peripheral accessories you hear about most often as cases that allow you to either offer big protection for the iPad or that offer some sort of keyboard. Joysticks are also peripherals that are gaining even more popularity as users realize just how difficult it can be to play some games using just a touch screen.
Sometimes the joystick peripherals are ones that can be stuck onto the touch screen itself like the Fling or Logitech joysticks that use a suction cup. Other joystick peripherals are far more elaborate. The iCade has been out on the market for a while now and while the device allows you to use a separate joystick to play certain games, its popularity comes from looking like a miniature old timey arcade game.
Now Atari has released its own accessory that has a joystick. The Atari Arcade Duo Powered Joystick (not quite as catchy as the iCade) is a space age looking device that will connect to the iPad (supposedly either in Landscape or Portrait mode) and allow you to blast away on some of Atari’s greatest hits. There isn’t much known about this new device just yet (including when it will be available or how much it will cost) but the joystick looks like an old timey joystick. The devices panel also has four buttons you can mash on and Atari’s greatest hits app was just recently updated to be able to work with the device so it is presumably coming soon.
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September 13th, 2011 at 7:24 AM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
Some of the most popular games on the iPad are those that are based on well known and well loved board games. Electronic Arts has done a good job of porting a ton of the board games that have spent time in living rooms for decades. Monopoly, Battle Ship, Scrabble and Risk all provide hours of run on the iPad. One game that seems to miss the mark when it comes to its iPad app is The Game of Life. I really tried to enjoy this game, but there just seemed to be something missing.
The graphics and interaction are all there to make a pretty good game. The fact that you can both play against the computer or in a pass and play mode with friends should make the game that much more fun. For a short period of time it probably does. Maybe it is just the fact that the Game of Life, like no other board game I played back in the day, doesn’t seem to lend itself to a digital version. I remember thinking when I was playing the board game version of Monopoly that I would have liked a computer to keep track of how much money I had and what the rent for my individual properties were. The Game of Life was a board game where you were actually seeing your little car, suddenly loaded down with a wife and kids, tooling around the board. That translation just doesn’t seem to make it for me onto the digital form.
The Game of Life is also a game that doesn’t have a distinct ending. Of course you can go around the board once and then retire and count up your money. But in the board game, the funnest part was going around and around, changing jobs and having more kids and taking in even more money. The digital version seems to take a little fun out of this. The app is actually quite nice looking; the animation is done well and sticks very much to the theme of the game. But there is just something that is left lacking. I liked being able to move my car and decide which turns it was going to take more than when I was playing any other board game.
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September 8th, 2011 at 2:38 PM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
It’s time for your daily iPad 3 rumor/news, this time from 9to5mac.com. Apple has long been rumored to be awarding the chip making for the iPad 3 to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and those rumors have now been all but confirmed by TSMC itself. The Taiwanese manufacturer will be mass producing the A6 chip some expect to be running the iPad 3’s processor. This A6 chip will be produced using the TSMC 28-nanometer process and are set to begin mass production early next year. According to the company’s head of research and development, production of these chips will have the plant working at full capacity.
TSMC also appears to be hoping to keep a relationship with Apple well beyond 2012. Chiang also said that his company was soon going to begin working on coming up with a 14-nanometer chip process in the near future. The 14-nanometer nodes are expected to begin production in 2015. TSMC and other component suppliers are recognizing a rift between Apple and Samsung, which has been the chip supplier for almost all Apple products for the last few years. The fact that by all accounts they won’t be working on the chip for the iPad 3 speaks volumes on how much that relationship has deteriorated.
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