The Bob Clark

Flipboard – the brilliant and popular social news magazine iPad app – has had a major update today. The new version is 1.5, and one of the biggest additions in it is a new Content Guide.

The Content Guide is described as an easy way to flip to anything that interests you at anytime. It’s implemented as a red ribbon at the top right of Flipboard screens; you tap on it to search for people, topics, or blogs you’re interested in. Or just browse through the built-in Flipboard sections and suggested content. You can also now add any section you enjoy as a favorite with a single tap.

Another notable new feature in this 1.5 update is Linked In integration – offering access to more than 30 industry feeds and more from the leading business-focused social network.

Here’s the full change list for this latest Flipboard update:

★ Content Guide. Tap on the red ribbon to instantly access all your social networks, favorite sections, and a wide range of beautiful featured content. You can also search for any people, publications, websites or topics, such as National Geographic, Design or Ashton Kutcher.
★ Favorites. Save any section as a Favorite on Flipboard, even after you’ve filled up your first two pages. You can access the entire list in your Content Guide.
★ LinkedIn. The largest network of your trusted professional contacts is now on Flipboard. Add LinkedIn to create an industry magazine for reading what your contacts have shared, as well as news from over 40 industries with LinkedIn Today.
★ Popular. Popular stories are highlighted, making it easy to discover great articles being read on Flipboard.
★ Speed. Flipping is faster and diving into stories is more streamlined. A single tap gets you to the article, social interactions are now at the bottom of the page, and now you can flip from one story to the next to keep reading between articles, photos, and updates from friends.

I’ve only just applied the update a short while ago, but the new Content Guide stuff looks very nice. Flipboard in an outstanding app, one of the most innovative and iPad-like apps released on the iPad App Store. This update just helps cement its deserved reputation as the best iPad news / magazine title we’ve seen yet.

Here’s an App Store link for Flipboard; it’s a free app.

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Post tags: Flipboard, iPad Apps, iPad magazine apps, iPad news apps

iPad Insight

The iPad App Store has hit a major milestone this week, as the folks at MacStories discovered via the store itself. There are now more than 100,000 iPad apps available.

That’s a huge number considering the iPad has still only been out for around 15 months. It’s also an enormous number when it comes to competitive advantage over the wave of rival tablets being released this year. That’s an awful lot of catching up for them to do. And it shows how much developer support the iPad has.

Happily, there are also a lot of outstanding apps among those hundred thousand plus in the App Store, as you can clearly see if you browse our iPad App Reviews section a bit.

What’s the bet on how long it takes to see 200,000 iPad apps?

© patrickj for iPad Insight, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: iPad App Store, iPad Apps

iPad Insight

Pastie.org is a place where you can type or paste anything. There’s no user names or profiles, what you type or paste gets placed in chronological order with the other entries. If you’re a fan of the service, you’re going to love this next jailbreak tweak. Glue enables you to paste content to Pastie.org directly from the iOS Notes application.

Now instead having to open up Safari or another 3rd party application to access the Pastie service, you can simply upload from your Notes app with a single tap. This could save frequent users quite a few steps… (…)
Read the rest of Glue: Jailbreak Tweak Lets You Share Text with Pastie From the Notes App

“Glue: Jailbreak Tweak Lets You Share Text with Pastie From the Notes App” is an article by iPhone Download Blog. Make sure to follow us on Twitter and friend us on Facebook.

iPhone Download Blog

Tomorrow the iTunes Festival 2011 will kick off in London. iTunes Festival London 2011 is the iPad and iOS app that provides the ideal way to catch some (or even all) the great live performances during the festival without having to get yourself to London.

The festival runs for 31 nights and 62 artists will be playing at The Roundhouse in Camden during it. The lineup is super impressive, with artists including Adele, Coldplay, Bruno Mars, Foo Fighters, Linkin Park, Paul Simon, My Chemical Romance, Moby, and Manic Street Preachers.

The iTunes Festival London 2011 app lets you watch all the shows live. Great stuff. And it’s got AirPlay video support as well, so if you’ve got an Apple TV you can catch the shows live and fire them up to a big HD TV screen. Sounds like big fun to me.

Here’s an App Store link for iTunes Festival London 2011; it’s a free app.

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Post tags: iPad Apps, iTunes Festival London 2011 app

iPad Insight

Today, June 30, is supposedly the deadline for apps like Kindle to remove buttons or links to their external web stores or risk expulsion from Apple’s iPhone and iPad App Store. Originally, Apple was requiring developers to not only remove external store links but also match any external sales and pricing with identical in-app purchase options (which would require giving Apple 30% of the price). Apple quietly stepped back from the content and price matching provisions earlier this month, but not the prohibition against external links.

So will Amazon update the Kindle app today with the Kindle Store button removed, will Apple “Sony” the Kindle app, and pull it from the App Store after the deadline expires, or will the Kindle app keep the button and stay in the store (either with Apple’s permission or convenient silence)?

Apple makes and markets the competing [iBooks](http://www.tipb.com/tag/ibooks] and associated iBookstore for iOS.

If you close your eyes, you can almost see the transport ship racing towards the blockade lines…

TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch blog

So Google+ has created a huge buzz this week, at least among lots of early adopter / geeky types that I like socializing with on the web. It’s Google’s latest effort at ‘social’, a potential Facebook rival that Google says is not trying to be one; and maybe a potential replacement for the greatest underappreciated social network, Friendfeed.

There were certainly lots of Friendfeeders jumping onto Google+ last night – and that was big fun to see and to be part of. Google+ looks good so far, though I’ve only just got started with it last night (thanks to Louis Gray for the invite). One of its core ideas is that you don’t always want to share things with everyone, you may want to share different things and discuss certain topics, only with specific groups of people. To help you do this Google+ uses Circles. Circles are holders for people you want to interact with on the service. By default you have circles for Family, Friends, Acquaintances, and Following (people whose streams you want to follow), and you can add more of your own.

I spent most of my time with Google+ last night on my Mac, but I also had a quick look at using it on the iPad. There’s no native iOS app yet, so I accessed it via Safari at m.google.com/plus. The mobile site for Google+ is OK, serviceable for now; but definitely not great. You can see your stream, comment on posts, and share new posts, but you can’t upload photos yet. You can switch over to Desktop view and things look much nicer, but you can’t comment or create a post if you switch to that mode.

Have you tried Google+ yet? If so, what do you think of it? If you want to catch up with me on there you can find me under my full name, Patrick Jordan.

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Post tags: Google+ on iPad

iPad Insight

We know JailbreakMe is right around the corner. Comex keeps dropping hints at an imminent release but unfortunately there always seems to be bumps in the road. This time though, it appears that Comex is almost done ironing out the kinks of JailbreakMe.

In a tweet sent a few hours ago, Comex said he’s running out of bugs to fix, which seems like an indication that we might finally see an iPad 2 jailbreak sooner than later… (…)
Read the rest of Comex Running Out of Bugs to Fix in JailbreakMe, Release Imminent?

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iPhone Download Blog

How do you bolster recruiting for the armed services in a country where men already have to do two years of mandatory military service? By promising free iPads for new recruits apparently – or at least that’s what Singapore officials are hoping. They’ll start issuing iPads to new recruits in November.

The defence ministry said it will provide “about 8,000″ iPads to new recruits and is currently planning to issue the devices to other serviceman next year.

Troops will use the iPads to take photos and video when they’re in the field, to be uploaded to an online database; and also to carry out post-mission assessments. Here’s another interesting intended use for the iPads:

The forces are expected to create their own apps so that they can message each other in real-time, but also carry out group discussions, no matter where they are located.

Wow, they’re expecting their recruits to have some app skillz. Will there be any time for marching and such, or are these guys going to spend all their time hunkered down in bunkers creating apps and playing Angry Birds? (I guess the latter might be considered combat training)

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Post tags: iPad at work

iPad Insight

Fring – the self-described ‘utimate video chat app’ – has been updated this week to offer full iPad optimized version. The update to Version 5.1.1.2 makes it a universal app.

It is also hailed as the first group video calling app for the iPad – offering video chat over WiFi and 3G, with up to four people.

I haven’t yet tried this newest version of Fring on the iPad, but I have tested out its video calling on my iPhone 4. I actually wasn’t too impressed. Video chat worked but it was not great quality video or audio compared to Skype or FaceTime.

I’ll give the iPad version a shot soon and share thoughts on that.

Here’s an App Store link for Fring; it’s free and it’s a universal app designed for both iPad and iPhone.

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Post tags: Fring for iPad, iPad Apps, iPad video chat apps

iPad Insight

Facebook for iPhone received an update today, and despite being absent from the release notes, profile pages have received a UI change. The change brings uniformity to the app in that you will find Share Photo and Write Post buttons across the top of profile pages. These are similar to the Photo, Status, and Check-in buttons on the news feed.

Here are the traditionally cryptic release notes that Facebook did include with the update:

• Various bug fixes
• Improved security

I am always bothered when Facebook doesn’t inform us exactly which of the many bugs have been fixed, so if you’ve discovered what some of them are, please let us know!

What do you think about the new profile pages?

UPDATE: @SohrobN has let us know that you can now save photos with the Facebook app! Just tap the arrow while viewing a photo and tap Save Photo.

[Free - iTunes link]

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