Pros: Split-screen view lets you monitor Twitter and Facebook accounts while surfing the Web; Toggle button allows full-screen Web view
Cons: Web browser lacks tabbed view functionality of some competitors
Buying Advice: It’s not full-fledged user controllable multitasking, but it is a nice way to get your ADD on until iPhone OS 4 drops this Fall
One of the bigger drawbacks to Apple’s iPad tablet computer is the lack of multitasking support in its iPhone OS 3.2. While OS 4 promises to fix that – to some extent, anyway – it won’t be available for iPad until Fall. Until then, iPad users are relegated to one task at a time use of our fancy pants multitouch tablets. Save for listening to iPod library audio tracks while using other apps, that is.
Some clever developers are out to solve our short-term multitasking ills with some iPad apps that offer stopgap multitasking, if you will, in the form of software that employs split-screen designs to offer access to more than one Web-based service at a time. Makiyama’s appropriately-named “Multitasking” is one such app I’ve had the chance to mess around with over the past few days. Multitasking offers a three-paned screen that combines Web browsing with access to your Twitter and Facebook accounts for a social networked slant on iPad multitasking.
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(Makayama promotional video)
Multitasking worked just fine in my testing, and I like that it offers the option between full screen Web browsing and three pane mode, as the browser window does get kinda small when it makes room for the other stuff. While neither the Twitter or Facebook windows provide the full functionality of their respective services, they do offer quite a bit of utility; Multitasking’s Twitter app is actually more robust than many stand-alone clients I’ve tried for iPhone and Android.
One small drawback is that Multitasking’s Web browser doesn’t offer tabbed windows like some of its competitors; instead, it uses the same multiple-window format as iPad’s native Safari browser. Still, the WebKit-based browser renders pages faithfully, and if you’re a Twitter and/or Facebook addict, Multitasking offers an easy way to keep tabs on your networks while getting other stuff done. So long as that other stuff can be gotten done in a (Flash-less) Web browser.
Makayama told me that they’re working on integrating an Email client into the next release of Multitasking. Stay tuned …
See Also: MultiTask ($0.99)
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White BlackBerry Bold 9700 headed to T-Mobile May ...
So, a few days ago I mentioned that T-Mobile and Vodafone UK were releasing the BlackBerry 9700 in white. As fast as this device has been spreading, we were all hoping it would eventually make it to the United States. Yesterday, a screen capture of T-Mobile internal systems revealing a white 9700 popped up. In the picture it states that the projected release date is May 5th. Nothing has been said about the pricing of this device but I don’t see why it would be different than the black version.
Does anyone on T-Mobile plan on picking it up? Sound off in the comments section!
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iPad App Review: Draw It!
Draw It! for iPad ($1.99) – by iPhonig
Pros: Drawing and painting app with multiple stock backgrounds and support for user photos as backgrounds.
Cons: Very buggy, sometimes unresponsive UI; Frustrating to use; Instructions screen is hard to read and plagued by typos.
Buying Advice: Skip it for now. Better drawing and journaling apps are available, and they cost less.
Finger painting goes digital on iPad. While apps like Brushes and Layers vie for the high-end drawing/painting market on the App Store, a number of lower-cost, shorter-learning curve apps are making iPad doodling quick and easy. I took a look at two of them, Doodle Buddy and Draw It! and came away with a pretty clear favorite.
Draw It! was kind of frustrating to use, and the fact that its price has already been dropped by 50% reflects the rather amateur style of the app. The program’s instruction screen is laid out in an oversized, hard-to-read font and riddled with typos (“taping” instead of “tapping,” etc.), which is never a good sign, either. A basic drawing program augmented by the addition of backgrounds – blank, graph & note paper, user photos -text notes, Draw It! straddles the line between drawing and journaling apps. Unfortunately it’s not nearly good enough at either task to bear recommendation.
The app suffered from lag that sometimes caused a short but noticeable pause between screen taps and responses from the program. Invoking the text note function made things worse: It’s unclear how to call up the QWERTY board for typing, text notes moved around the screen without warning and/or momentarily appeared in duplicate, and editing existing notes was possible though I couldn’t figure out how to do it with any certainty. In-app help outlines a tap-double tap-triple tap system for edits and erasing, but it didn’t do enough to make the program very usable.
The idea behind Draw It! is fine, but the execution is poor. Skip this one in favor of other drawing/painting or journaling programs.
See Also: Doodle Buddy (Free)
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iPad App Review: popplet lite
popplet lite (Free) by Notion
Pros: Easy to use mindmapping tool; Allows combination of text, drawings and photos; Free
Cons: Limited to one board (map) at a time
Buying Advice: Don’t want to drop fifty bucks on Omnigraffle? Play with popplet lite for free, instead, and hope that support for multiple projects comes in the next version. And soon. As is, it’s a great – if limited – app.
Like I said in my review of Pocket Note iP3:
I’m really excited about the prospects of using iPad as a brainstorming/mind-mapping/whiteboarding tool … I’ve been spending a few bucks and lots of time trying out some of the free and inexpensive apps that look like they might give me what I need to get my thoughts in order, iPad style. Two of the most intriguing options I’ve found so far are Pocket Note iP3 and popplet lite.
Pocket Note is a sort of digital journal/scrapbook meets whiteboarding meets idea organizer app. popplet lite, on the other hand, is a more traditional mindmapping app. Mindmapping is like flowcharting: You make a “Popplet” (resizable rectangle), write or draw or drop a photo in it, and then connect it to other shapes. As mentioned above, Omnigraffle is one of the premiere mindmapping tools out there, but it costs $49.99 in iPad form. Popplet Lite is free, attractive, easy to use, and lets you create a single, never-ending mindmap on your iPad. I particularly liked its clean look and light, functional, easy to learn UI.
The problem with popplet lite is that you’re limited to that one, single, never-ending mindmap. There’s no way to save your work and start anew – you have to wipe the slate clean, permanently, if you want to start over. Yes you can “save” your mindmap to your photo library, but you won’t be able to pull it back into popplet for editing later. Aside from that one (enormous) issue, popplet works pretty well.
Since this is only version 1.1.1, and the “lite” moniker would lead one to believe that there will be a paid “premium” version in the works, I have faith that revisions of popplet are soon forthcoming. Hopefully they’ll address some of my concerns while also adding other nifty functionality. As it is, popplet lite is a handy app for working out notes and ideas on your iPad, so long as you don’t mind keeping tabs on everything on one giant board full of popplets.
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iPad App Review: Pocket Note iP3
Pocket Note iP3 for iPad ($1.99) – by Y Lau
Pros: Easy combining of resizable photos & text notes with hand-drawing/writing on virtual corkboard; Quick access to multiple projects
Cons: Can’t duplicate or “Save As” for easy multiple iterations of same project
Buying Advice: My favorite virtual whiteboard for iPad to date – Not perfect, but it’s only two bucks
I’m really excited about the prospects of using iPad as a brainstorming/mind-mapping/whiteboarding tool. Often when I need to work out an organized strategy for something – be it a PhoneDog editorial project or some flight of creative fancy or another – I reach for a blank pad of paper and a pen to sketch out my ideas. What I really want, though, is a digital pad that will let me write, draw, arrange and rearrange, and attach photos and Web clippings … and then save my work and start in on a new iteration of the idea, often building off of some portion of what I’ve just done.
I’m hesitant to shell out fifty bucks for Omnigraffle, especially given all of the “this feels like Beta software” user reviews in the App Store. So instead I’ve been spending a few bucks and lots of time trying out some of the free and inexpensive apps that look like they might give me what I need to get my thoughts in order, iPad style. Two of the most intriguing options I’ve found so far are Pocket Note iP3 and Popplet Lite.
Pocket Note is a virtual corkboard, if there was such a thing as “dry erase corkboard.” The app lets you take a blank board and attach photos and text notes to it, and draw on top of the board, photos, and notes. You can move and resize your photos and notes, and rotate the photos via multi-touch gestures. Saved boards are easily called up from within the app for later review and editing, and you can also save them to your iPad’s photo library as images.
This is a great app for basic visualizing of information flow, and also is handy for mocking up edits to Web pages, photos, and other images, or general multimedia journaling. It’s great to be able to take an image and write/draw on it and tape notes up next to it. Pocket Note is somewhat hampered by iPad’s limited file system, as it’d be even better if I could Email a board to another Pocket Note user who could then make some edits/additions and send it back to me. As it is now, there is no native file export, only saving still images of your boards. Still, for two bucks, this is a nice-looking, easy to use app for pulling photos, text, and drawing/handwriting together onto virtual corkboards.
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