Mixel: Simple, and Addictive, Collage Creation

If you’re an iPad owner you no doubt understand the joy that you get from simply interacting with the device. It’s a fun device to use no matter what you’re doing. While the iPad was pegged early on as purely a consumption device (I won’t dispute it, it’s pretty amazing at that), the touch interaction allows for so much more – there’s a growing crop of applications exploring just that.

A seemingly logical interaction with the iPad is creating art. There has been mixed reception with applications in this category so far. Some work well, but most can agree that while very cool, it isn’t exactly a perfect experience. Mixel carves out a niche in the art application category and allows you to create and share art. It’s intentionally extremely simple. On the surface this seems like a good angle, but let’s see how it actually works.

Read the full article on iPad.Appstorm.

Take Control of Your iTunes Library with TuneSpan

The latest iteration of the Macbook Air was released this year and it caught my attention immediately. It was such a beautiful device. I found myself going to the Apple Store website over and over to look at pictures and mull over the specs.

I felt like this version of the Air covered almost all of the shortcomings I saw with previous versions. In fact, it was a more powerful machine than my current Macbook. The one factor that kept making me hesitate was the hard drive size. Would it be enough for me and for future growth? Can I work around the limitation? Should I work around that limitation? These were the questions bouncing around in my head. I decided the constraint would be a good thing and I’d figure out ways to work around it as needed. Enter TuneSpan.

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PixFit: A Simple and Elegant Measurement Tool for Your Mac

While we have all of this information and inspiration at our fingertips, it’s often a little difficult to pull quantitative data from what we’re seeing. Mac OS X has some built-in measuring abilities, but they’re fairly limited and stuck inside the screenshot function. Fortunately, there are some third party tools available in the form of browser plugins and stand alone applications that aide in acquiring some actual data that can be useful when working on your own project or just to quench your curiosity.

Many solutions are often a little odd to use or just not there when you need them. PixFit aims to remedy that situation. PixFit is a very quick and simple menubar application that lets you measure anything that is displayed on your screen.

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Camera+: High Quality Photo Taking and Editing

Taking photos is easier than it has ever been with nearly every mobile phone touting a camera of some kind. Taking high quality photos with an iPhone is particularly easy especially if you own an iPhone 4. The ease of use combined with the convenience of having the device always with you make it perfect for taking photos for a lot of people.

The built-in iOS Camera app has seen some improvement in recent updates, but ultimately it is very basic. Sometimes we need a little more. Camera+ claims to be that little more and does so quite well. Let’s run through the application and see how it works in this role.

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StockTouch: Incredibly Visual Stock Market Monitoring

The stock market in the last few weeks has been volatile to say the least. The week prior to writing this review saw 200 to 800 point swings in a matter of twenty-four hours. StockTouch is a stock market monitoring tool that is incredibly visual in nature so this temperamental behavior has created some interesting and quickly changing visuals.

StockTouch gives you a visual representation of individual stocks and the market divided in sectors and also as a whole. It makes stock and market research quite entertaining, but is it actually useful?

Read the full article on iPad.Appstorm.

Tweed: Recommended Reading From Your Twitter Friends

Sharing in 140 characters or less is the name of the Twitter game. The platform simply exists and the users make it whatever they want it to be. We’ve seen a wide variety of uses as Twitter’s popularity has increased, from breaking news to sharing pictures of your dog (and everything in between). It’s safe to say that we are still discovering ways to utilize Twitter.

I’ve been a Twitter user for couple years and I’ll admit that I’ve had moments in the past were I wasn’t sure I really understood what Twitter should be used for. I was always looking for what it should be used for. I just went with it and continued on in my semi-active, mostly observational state. After a while I began to notice how much less I was using my RSS reader and instead going to Twitter for some Web reading. I was following people that interested me and they shared a lot of links to things I found interesting as well.

You may have heard the argument that Twitter is going to kill the RSS reader. Now, while I don’t think that is necessarily true, I do think that it can fill a need for a lot of people. Tweed is an iPad application that brings us a step closer and attempts to cut out the fluff and just deliver those links. Can it replace my RSS reader? Let’s find out!

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iWork for iPhone: Keynote

They say that the best tool for the job is the one you have with you, and when it comes to giving a presentation, that’s what Keynote for the iPhone is all about. Instead of lugging your laptop all over the place just to handle a presentation, instead all you need is your iPhone and a projector adapter cable and you’re good to go. Plus, your amazing technical skills could really impress the boss.

In this, the final installment in our iWork on the iPhone series, we’ll get into just how functional Keynote for the iPhone is, and whether or not its made the transition to the mobile arena well, or if there are still a few more kinks to be worked out. Find out after the jump.

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Jing: Create and Share Screenshots and Screencasts

An explanation for a task in an online world can be a tricky thing to pull off. It’s just difficult to explain how to do something on your computer without actually showing how to do it. Wouldn’t a screenshot with some notes be helpful? Or maybe a screencast to really offer a complete explanation? Jing is a piece of software that is able to accomplish the basics of these tasks in an elegant and completely functional way.

Jing takes screencast recording and screenshot taking down to its nuts and bolts. There are certainly more robust options out there (in fact, the company that develops Jing is also the developer of the insanely robust Camtasia), but Jing has found a sweet spot in my regular workflow and has been my go to tool for snapping a quick screenshot or recording a short screencast for a couple years now and I’m not sure I could do without it.

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Zite: Personalize Your Reading Experience

Zite calls itself a “personalized magazine” and we can safely say that this is true. It is essentially an RSS reader at its core, but the hardware that is the iPad has enabled that type of service to be wrapped up in such an attractive package that Zite is very much like a magazine – incredibly different from any RSS experience you’ve ever had.

It goes without saying that there is an abundance of great content freely available on the Web. The problem is that it can be difficult to organize it and to keep track of it. RSS readers have filled this void for a number of years, but we’re now stepping into a new era of reading content on the Web, and Zite is right in the middle of it.

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Our Choice: Looking at Books in a New Light

We are still exploring uses for our mobile devices and cellular and WiFi networks, but one feature or function that has always been hanging around is this notion of content consumption. As devices get better and networks get faster, the possibilities and opportunities continually change.

Reading from the web is certainly a big portion of this content, and companies, publishers and individuals are constantly exploring how to best get their content to their consumers and how to monetize it. The world of book and magazine publishing has been especially shaken up as our mobile devices have become increasingly more powerful. The idea of simply trying to re-create the physical experience on a mobile device is a path that many established publishers, arguably incorrectly, are heading down.

Push Pop Press is looking at this from a different angle: they are looking at book publishing essentially from the ground up. Their thought is to look at the devices we currently have access to and the conditions in which they reside and then build a platform using those capabilities to create the best possible experience for the user. It is a book, but at the same time, it is something completely different. Our Choice by Al Gore is their first book utilizing this new platform. Let’s take a look and see how it works.

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