Who doesn’t like free? And who doesn’t like great iPad apps? When the two come together it’s good stuff. With that in mind, we’d like to share our Best Free iPad App of the Week here every weekend.

This week’s pick is Frequency. Frequency is described on its App Store page as ‘your personal video service’. It’s another excellent, social and highly customizable video app for the iPad. This is rapidly becoming a category where iPad users are spoiled for choice – and that’s a very good thing given how crummy the selection is on TV these days.

Frequency claims to offer ‘more video from more places than anywhere else on the internet’ – I imagine some rival apps might have something to say on that, but the range and amount of content in the app definitely looks impressive.

Here are some of the app’s key features:

- Follow any of your favorite online video channels
- Stay up to the minute on all the topics that are trending right now
- Get every video your friends post on Facebook and Twitter
- Quickly access anything you are following in your personalized TUNER.
- Get highlights from all your channels in My Feed
- Go full screen or use AirPlay to watch on your TV

(…)
Read the rest of Best Free iPad App of the Week: Frequency (512 words)

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iPad Insight

Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday, and whether you’re cheering for the New England Patriots or the New York Giants, it’s easy to follow all the action right on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. You can stay up to date while away from home and on the road, or get all sorts of extra information while you’re watching live.

NFL Live for Verizon iPhone

If you have an iPhone on Verizon, you can take advantage of their exclusive NFL Mobile app to stream Super Bowl XLVI straight to your mobile device. It’s a universal app, though it doesn’t specifically say that live video will also be streamed to the iPad version, so if you want to be absolutely certain you see it, keep your iPhone handy. Both versions should give you the latest news, videos, as well as all the information you need to stay in the big game.

• Free – App Store link

NFL.com Super Bowl XLVI site

The NFL also has a full site up for Super Bowl 43, complete with history, events, visitors guides, live feeds, trivia, and much, much more. The mobile experience won’t quite be up to that of the desktop — which is why they made the apps — but if you want to make sure you’ve got everything covered, launch Safari on log onto NFL.com. And if you’re not on Verizon and need to watch live, you can do so from here with your Mac or Windows PC.

• Web site link

Super Bowl XLVI Guide

The official NFL Super Bowl 43 guide app will keep you up to date with maps, local happenings, and more. Whether you’ll be attending the big game in person or watching from the comfort of your home, the Super Bowl XLVI Guide is the best way to navigate through the multitude of Super Bowl events and and keep up with all the social media buzz that’s sure to be generated by millions and millions of fans.

Super Bowl XLVI Guide is compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and is available in the App Store now.

• Free – App Store Link

Super Bowl XLVI Commemorative App for iPad

By NFL Magazine, the Super Bowl 43 commemorative app for iPad brings you the full story of how the New England Patriots and New York Giants made it to the big game, key stats, and bonus features like video, interviews, stadium shots, and more.

• .99 – App Store link

More Football is More

If that’s not still not enough Football for you, you can also check out our Top 5 NFL Football apps for iPhone. Whether you’re interested in play by play commentary or managing your fantasy leagues, we’ve got you covered.

Now here’s the big question — come tomorrow, who’s going to win?

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

Another fun contest. Thanks to all of you who took part. It sure is clear that you guys and gals are very impressed with the Flowfold iPad Sleeves – judging by all the great comments we had.

Here are our two lucky winners:

Rebekah and Robin

Winners – please keep an eye on your Inboxes and spam folders, as I’ll be emailing you very soon to ask for your shipping details.

Now for some great news for everybody who didn’t win and for all of our readers: thanks to the very kind folks at Flowfold all of you (and all our readers) have got a chance to grab one of these excellent cases at 15% off.

Just head over to http://www.flowfold.com/products and enter discount code: ipadinsight during checkout for 15% off your order. If you have any issues with the discount please e-mail info@flowfold.com. The offer is valid through Tuesday February 8.

Great stuff. Huge thanks to Flowfold for all of their generosity.

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Every week a few of us from team iMore will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they’re fair game.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

The White House — @andrewwray

Looking for a great way to keep tabs on the Obama administration? The White House for iPhone is your best pick, giving you access to news, photos and video of what’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

Not only will you have direct access to their blog, which is more of a news source than anything else, but you’ll also be able to browse through archived photos, video and more. I was able to watch the State of the Union address in its entirety earlier this week without strapping myself down to a desk or television. Instead, I just whipped out my iPhone and within a few minutes I was watching the livestream — no questions asked.

Next to the plethora of content, media and information about The White House at your fingertips, you can also setup push notifications to be notified of any major news stories going on in the political realm. Overall, it’s a great resource and the livestream feature is a lifesaver.

• Free — App Store Link

Zite Personalized Magazine – @sethclifford

Flipboard is the app that everyone likes talking about, but there’s actually a few new apps that are doing stylish news aggregation pretty well. One that I’ve really been enjoying lately is Zite, which takes a similar approach to Flipboard, but allows you to customize your reading experience over time by voting stories up or down and then learning what it is you prefer to read and giving you more tailored content.

The setup for the app is pretty simple, and I really like the clean UI. There’s really not much to get in the way and the content really takes center stage. I feel like it’s easier to browse than Flipboard, and while the Flipboard UI conventions are cool, don’t get me wrong – after a while, I feel like I’m really working to see new content, and I don’t feel like I can scan as quickly on my phone (which is a prime criteria for consuming news on the go). Zite feels like it allows me to do that more easily.

The customization aspects are cool too – you basically give stories a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, and Zite will remember what it is you liked and in the future return more content like it. There’s a lot of detail here as to how this is all accomplished, and since I’ve only been using it a short time, I can’t speak to its accuracy yet. Also, the type of feeds I’m looking at (tech stuff) usually have a bit of overlap, so it’s hard for me to tell right now. I’m less concerned with teaching the app though, and more concerned with the quickness of information and scanning, and it definitely succeeds there. But the app’s main draw is the personalization of content, so don’t let my particular use-case dissuade you from trying it out. It’s free and a really nice way to get your news.

Zite Personalized Magazine – Free – iTunes link

Messages+ – @iMuggle

I can not explain how happy I am to have a jailbreak on my iPhone 4S. Along with a new jailbreak comes tons of updated utilities and applications for iOS 5. I’ve been using IntelliscreenX and with it comes Messages+. I’ve been a long time fan of BiteSMS but I’m really loving the tight integration Messages+ has with iOS. There’s no separate application or icon, it just works. There’s really nothing to configure. Just set up a quick reply action via Activator and you’re good to go.

You can view images and files right from the quick reply window and then dismiss them. The UI blends perfectly with the default UI of iOS so it looks like something Apple themselves would have made. If you’re jailbroken and haven’t checked out Messages+ yet, I’d give it a try! If you already have IntelliscreenX, you already have a license for it and it comes built-in. If you don’t, you can buy Messages+ separately.

.99 – Cydia Search Link

Squrl – @Bla1ze

I don’t watch a lot of TV and the shows I do want to watch are usually found on iTunes or Netflix but there isn’t a lot of good stuff out there these days any how in my opinion. For filling that void, I often scour the web looking for good online content to watch when I have some spare time but keeping track of that stuff has proven to be a difficult task over time. For Christmas I got an AppleTV and found Squrl. Squrl basically aggregates a lot of popular online video sites and various other content providers and provides a beautiful UI that allows for tracking videos, saving them for later viewing. Couple that with an AppleTV and you can amass plenty of content to watch in place of television shows. Social network integration as well as netflix, it has become a key resource of entertainment for me and it’s available for free in the iTunes App Store.

• Free – App Store link

Rdio – @jdipane

Music is a huge part of my life, and the ability to have almost any song at my fingertips without eating up all the space on my iPhone is a huge plus for me. Rdio is a subscription based service similar to Spotify, but I find that more songs that I enjoy to listen to are available through Rdio. Whether I want to select a certain song, album or just listen to a particular artists stations I can do so with a few simple clicks from within the application. I have various playlist’s set up, one for work out, one to relax, and I can add and remove songs with ease. Rdio also ties in with my home Sonos system which is great as I can listen to the music through my headphones, the speaker of the device or through the Sonos to keep me motivated. The application is free, but the service is paid, hit the link below to start your free 7 day trial!

• Free – App Store link

Doodlecast Pro

My day job is teaching two Intermediate Algebra courses at my local community college and this semester I’m experimenting with making videos for my students on new or difficult topics. Doodlecast Pro for iPad has turned out to be the best app to help me accomplish this. It records both my voice and handwriting and allows me to export and upload my videos directly to YouTube. If I made some mistakes along the way that I want to edit out, I can export to my Camera Roll instead and edit in another application like Avid Studio or iMovie. My only complaint is that the handwriting strokes are not really that great. I would love to see Doodlecast match the quality of handwriting to apps like Penultimate and Noteshelf.

• .99 – App Store link

LabTimer – Joe (Reader’s Choice winner – Comment #22)

My favorite right now is Lab Timer. It’s a free universal app that gives you 16 timers. They’ll count up or down and will sound an alarm. It’s handy for work so I can have a break timer, a lunch timer and can time how long a process is taking all from the same app. It’s especially handy for the iPad since there is no built-in clock app.

• Free – App Store link

Tell us your pick, enter to win a iTunes gift certificate!

Those were our picks, iMore Nation, so now it’s your turn! Tell us your pick of the week below. Give us the name of your favorite app, site, or accessory, and tell us why it made your life more productive, more informed, more entertaining, or just plain more fun. We’ll pick one of you and send you a shiny iTunes gift certificate so you can start stocking up for future picks! Contest starts now and ends next Friday, January 13 at 12pm PT.

So what are you waiting for? Jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

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

Former Apple product manager, Bob Brochers, recently gave a lecture to students about how the original iPhone was realized by a small team of engineers that Steve Jobs put together. MacNN went over some of the talking points:

“What’s interesting is that the challenge Steve laid out for us when we created the iPhone wasn’t to make a touch-screen device that would play apps and do all of this stuff,” Borchers told students. “His [charge] was simple. He wanted to create the first phone that people would fall in love with. That’s what he told us.” [...] “Now if you’re an engineer, like I am by training, you’re like ‘what the heck does that mean?’,” he said. “But he was right. The idea was, he wanted to create something that was so instrumental and integrated in peoples’ lives that you’d rather leave your wallet at home than your iPhone.”

Brochers went on to talk about how Apple’s idea of success with the iPhone was initially rooted in a small handful of tightly focused concepts, breaking the rules of the game while paying attention to detail and helping people “think differently” about the way they associate with their smartphones. It wasn’t about wiz-bang capabilities of the device like GPS or ground-breaking apps from the App Store, but instead simplicity in design and overall usability and user-experience.

But the hardware and software combination wasn’t the only thing they changed about the business. Brochers described how Jobs and his team wanted to setup a different relationship with their customers — a direct relationship — instead of allowing the carrier to control the rules.

“[We said] ‘no, we don’t want to do that,’” Borchers said. “We want to be able to sell the iPhone. We want to be able to talk directly to the customer. That was a big, big change for the industry.”

Another interesting aspect of the discussion was the oft-heard story about Apple making the switch from a plastic touchscreen to a glass display after Jobs confronted the team with his own iPhone screen, scratched by the keys in hit pocket. They called up Corning and convinced them to jump back into their abandoned Gorilla Glass efforts shortly before the iPhone was announced — a great pivot at the last minute. (Interestingly, while Gorilla Glass is a feature now touted by many rival manufacturers and devices, neither Apple nor Corning to this day will confirm its use on the iPhone.)

The discussion was recorded and uploaded to YouTube, however it has since been removed. Overall, it’s a great look into how Apple brought the iPhone to the world and ended up changing the way we thing about our smartphone.

Source: MacNN

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

Get in on a Mac App Store beta but not sure how to install the beta app? There are several apps that have iPhone and/or iPad versions as well as Mac versions these days, and if you’re beta testing the iOS version, you might need to set up the Mac App Store version as well. No worries, as long as you gave them the proper hardware UUID for your Mac, getting the app set up easy to do. In fact, it’s just as easy, and very similar to, the process for installing iOS beta software on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

Install the provisioning profile

1. Download the file to your Mac.
2. If the file came zipped, unzip it. (Yeah, obvious, but we try to be complete.)
3. Double click the .provisionprofile file
4. System Preferences will launch; click on Install
5. When prompted, enter your admin password
6. The provisioning file should then show up in your profiles

Install the binary

1. If you have an older version of the app already on your Mac, play it safe and trash it
2. Drag the beta app to your Application folder

That’s it. If you have any trouble — it’s a beta app, after all — check with the developer. You made need to trash some other, previously installed files, or do some other configuration first. When you do have it working, enjoy.

The Mac App Store isn’t the only way to distribute software on OS X, so many developers may never need to send UUID-locked beta builds. But if the Mac App Store is the only way the developer intends to distribute their software, this may well be the beta road they take.

• More tips and how-tos
• Mac help and discussion forum

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

Rene, Georgia, and Seth talk about Macworld|iWorld 2012, the latest iPad 3 rumors including quad-core and LTE, and what it all means for iPhone 5. Plus, new retail boss John Browett, Steve Jobs quotes, and Jailbreak troubleshooting. This is iPhone & iPad Live!

• Subscribe via iTunes: Audio | Video
• Subscribe via RSS: Audio | Video
• Download directly: Audio | Video
• Show notes

META

• February is fitness month at iMore and Mobile Nations! [iPad 3 giveaway!]

Macworld|iWorld 2012

• This was our Macworld
• Complete Macworld coverage
• What new hardware are you most looking forward to from Apple in 2012?

iPad 3

• Could Apple release a separate 4G LTE iPad 3 and Phone 5 in select markets?
• Supposed debug leak shows iPad 3 with quad-core A6 chip and LTE
• Foxconn plans to build five additional iPad production plants in Brazil

iPhone 5

• 40,000 petition Apple for “ethical” iPhone 5 manufacturing
• Tim Cook speaks out against claims of factory worker mistreatment
• iPhone 5 counter claims: not going into production yet, not going to be longer or wider

Grab bag

• Apple posting Steve Jobs pictures, quotes at Cupertino Campus
• Apple appoints John Browett as Senior Vice President of Retail
• China Telecom aiming to launch iPhone 4S in February
• Apple’s iPad not affected by Amazon’s Kindle Fire

Jailbreak

• How to troubleshoot common jailbreak issues on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
• How to take a screen recording on your iPhone or iPad [Jailbreak app for that]

Hosts

• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)
• Georgia (@GeorgiaTiPb)
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)

Credits

You can reach all of us on Twitter @iMore, or you can email us at podcast@imore.com, or leave a comment on the website when the show goes live.

We’re here every Wednesday night at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern, 2am GMT at www.TiPb.com/live

For all our podcasts — audio and video — including iPhone and iPad Live, ZENandTECH and Superfunctional, Iterate and Girls Gone Gadgets and more… see MobileNations.com/shows

If you haven’t already please subscribe to all our shows in iTunes and leave a rating. It helps people find the show and means a lot to us!

Thanks to the iMore iPhone Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

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

class="size-full wp-image-134003 alignright" title="On Sale" src="http://media.idownloadblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/On-Sale.gif" alt="" width="200" height="198" />The App Store is filled with hundreds of thousands of apps for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. At iDB we keep an eye on the best apps available to see when they’re available for the best price.

These apps are currently available for a great discount, and some of them are even totally free. We recommend jumping on these hot deals while they are available. Act fast before it’s too late!(…)
Read the rest of href="http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/02/03/hot-dealsfeb32012/">Free and Discounted Apps for Friday, February 3

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“ href="http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/02/03/hot-dealsfeb32012/">Free and Discounted Apps for Friday, February 3” is an article by href="http://www.idownloadblog.com">iDownloadBlog.com.
Make sure to href="http://twitter.com/iDownloadBlog">follow us on Twitter, href="http://www.facebook.com/iPhoneDownloadBlog">Facebook, and href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/111910843959038324995/">Google+.

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A set of recent Changewave surveys show that the iPad is still the clear leader when it comes to customer satisfaction. Their latest survey focuses quite a bit on the Kindle Fire and Fire owners’ intentions of buying on Amazon – but it includes some details on customer satisfaction levels found in recent surveys as well.

These show that no less than 74% of iPad owners are very satisfied with the device. Only 54% of Kindle Fire owners say they are very satisfied, and for owners of other tablet devices (a catch-all category for all the sad sack would-be rival tablets so far) the score is 49%.

I tried out a Kindle Fire for a few weeks back in November of last year, and based on that experience I’m really not surprised that its customer satisfaction levels are not that great, and well below those of the iPad. It’s hard to see how the Fire can maintain its sales momentum if these ratings stay at these sort of levels.

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iPad Insight