Daily Bits

ipad apps

Playboy Apple iPad App Doesn’t Cut It

by

The Apple iPad is perhaps the coolest e-book reader-other-gadgets combined you can ever have. It is not a surprise that many vendors and publishers are jumping into the iPad app bandwagon – they can reach so many more people by doing so. And, even the most conservative sectors cannot deny or stop the fact that providers of adult content are going to be part of this boom.

When it comes to adult content, perhaps there is no other better known brand than Playboy. If you didn’t know already, though, the brand has been encountering problems due to its being outmaneuvered by competitors. Struggling it may be, it is not giving up.

It recently launched an app for the iPad, but to the disappointment of users, it didn’t deliver. It may not be all Playboy’s fault – Apple has a strict policy when it comes to content for its apps. Indeed, content which Apple considers “obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory” is banned from the App Store. By definition, Playboy already gets x marks.

The result is predictable: users are frustrated about the whole set up. They have to pay $4.99 for the iPad app, and they want more than “articles.” (Yeah, for those countless individuals who have repeatedly said that they buy Playboy for the articles, where are you now?) I suppose that if the app were free, or at least priced more reasonably, the complaints would not be as bad.

Bottom line: it does not look like Apple will change its policy anytime soon. Maybe Playboy ought to take a look at its strategy – that is, if it wants to stay afloat.

Guys: would you pay $5 for this app?

iPad Official Numbers are Out, 450,000 Units Sold

by

Just before Steve Jobs announced the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0, he also presented some official information about the iPad, one week after it was made available. The numbers although not that impressive are interesting enough and worthy of a second look from us.

According to Apple, around 450,000 iPads were already sold. First day sales figure was officially at around 300,000 units. While the iPad was able to beat the opening weekend sale of the first gen iPhone (around 250,000), the iPhone 3G however managed to get a sale of around 1 million units when it first came out in July 2008.

The iPad 3G versions won’t be coming out until last week of April. So we don’t know yet whether it would add up to the iPad’s current sales performance, or even perhaps whether it could match up the sales of the iPhone 3G. But then, these two Apple devices are different from each other so it’s not likely that the iPad could match with the sales performance of the iPhone. And both devices have their specific target consumers as well. But we have yet to see. Perhaps there are more buyers who are waiting for the iPad 3G.

Moving on to the stats on iPad apps. Apple was proud to report that about 1 million iPad apps were already downloaded from the App Store on the first day. Right now, total apps downloaded stand at around 3.5 million.

Now here’s the more interesting bit, there were 250,000 books downloaded from the iBookstore on the first day. And this increased to 600,000 downloaded books today.  What the numbers don’t say though is how many of these books were free and how many were paid. If Apple could determine these and present the figures, we would know whether the iPad is really a serious to Kindle and other e-readers.

5 Cool iPad Games that I’m Dying to Play

by

Reports had it there are already more than 3,000 apps available on the iPad Apps Store. Most of these apps are probably games ported from the iPhone to the iPad. Since I’m won’t be receiving my iPad until a couple of days more, I’ve scoured the iPad App Store looking for games that I will most likely play on my iPad. Look what I’ve found? Old iPhone favorites making their way to the iPad. I’ve got five of them listed.

Glyder 2 for iPad

I loved this game when I played it on my iPhone. The game environment is beautifully rendered, the animation was flawless and the graphics is definitely colorful. Can you just imagine how great it will look on a 10-inch HD display of the iPad? The game’s exclusive features for the iPad include – enhanced graphics, multiple controls, enhanced navigation, 3D world viewer and Facebook connectivity. (Price: $4.99) iTunes link. [Read more…] about 5 Cool iPad Games that I’m Dying to Play

TweetDeck App Fully Optimized for the iPad

by

With the large screen real-estate that the iPad offers, I wasn’t really quite surprised that the first adopters among application developers would be those with mobile Twitter client apps. If you checked the iTunes iPad App Store right now, you’d find several Twitter apps for the iPad – both new and old ones ported to the new platform. One of these Twitter apps which happens to be also my favorite on mobile phones is TweetDeck.

Thankfully, the TweetDeck folks didn’t just ported their mobile TweetDeck app to the iPad platform but build a new application instead. In fact they’ve build two new interfaces – for portrait and landscape modes. TweetDeck for iPad also takes full use of the device’s multi-gesture features.

Feature-wise, TweetDeck for iPad lets you do practically everything that you can with its mobile phone versions. The app lets you fully manage all your Twitter accounts, check web pages from within TweetDeck, use columns to manage your real-time feed, sync your data with the desktop and iphone client, iPad gesture based navigation, geolocation data and map interface, and of course all the basic Twitter functions such as composing tweets, retweeting and sending DMs.

And guess what? TweetDeck for iPad is a free download. Get it from the iTunes iPad App Store once you received your iPad.

Or watch this video showing the TweetDeck for iPad in action.

Top 4 Educational Apps for Toddlers

by

We’ve heard all the horror stories about children left unsupervised racking up enormous bills via the iTunes App Store. While that may turn off some parents from giving their kids free rein when it comes to the iPad or iPhone, there is no doubt that these gadgets can serve as useful educational tools. My two nephews – aged 8 and 2 – have made impressive strides in learning in the past years, and I cannot deny that having access to the iPad has played a huge role. Judging from what I hear from other parents, the same thing has happened with their kids.

Parents already have so much to think about – school, not to mention after school care, eating habits, health issues, tantrums, safety (online and offline), etc. – that adding iTunes bills to the list should really not be. With proper supervision and the right choice of apps, you ought to be able to take advantage of what technology has to offer. To help you with that, here are my top 4 educational apps for toddlers. Give them a go, and see how your kid/s get along! [Read more…] about Top 4 Educational Apps for Toddlers

Full Metal Jacket Diary

by

Full Metal Jacket Diary iPad App
Full Metal Jacket Diary

Full Metal Jacket is one of the iconic movies of its time, and movie buffs will tell you that if you have not seen it yet, you simply ought to stop what you are doing right now and watch it. It’s Monday morning anyway. You probably won’t get much work done! ((Disclaimer: I have only seen it in bits and pieces myself.))

If you appreciate the movie as most people who have seen it, then you will love the new iPad app that Matthew Modine has released. The star of Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film decided to release the app, dubbed Full Metal Jacket Diary, because of the amount of material he had collected while keeping an actual diary as they filmed the movie.
[Read more…] about Full Metal Jacket Diary