Episode
This Week in iPad #18 with Jesse Tayler and Edwin Cruz
Thursdays at 5pm PDT
This week we have Jesse Tayler, CEO and Founder of Object Enterprises Incorporated and Edwin Cruz, Co-Owner/Head Bartender, Tlapazola Grill. For more information, show notes, and an upcoming schedule, go to www.thisweekin.com. This episode was sponsored by Gazelle.com and the PressReader app for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.
Introduction
Big show this week so we wanted to get right into it after a few words about our amazing sponsor, PressReader!
PressReader from NewspaperDirect is the ONLY app that brings over 1500 full-content newspapers and magazines from 90 countries in 47 languages to your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. For a limited time, download the PressReader app and get your first 7 newspapers FREE!
- 99 cents per title in the App Store
- $9.99 a month for 31 downloads
- $29.99 a month for unlimited downloads!
Follow them on Twitter @PressDisplay!
Planet of the Apps: Mixology, Cocktail and Bartending Apps
We discussed five apps, aided by the expert advice of Tlapazola Grill bartender Edwin Cruz.
COST: $4.99
PRO
- Essentially a thorough cocktail making book with hyperlinks
- Wide variety of cocktails
- Search by name or ingredients
CON
- Do better with established cocktails than classic or niche ones. The Ward Eight but no Negroni?
- No easy way to slide between cocktails. You have to hit the “next” button.
- UI is a bit awkward. Have to scroll through pages of the book, find the cocktail you want, then highlight it, then X it out to get to the next one. Much easier ways to organize.
COST: $0.99
PRO
- Accurate recipes
- Based on the work of master bartender Gary Regan
CON
- A very barebones app
COST: $3.99
PRO
- Video instruction guides for each drink
- Cool menu that lets you combine various cocktails to “make your own”
- The videos themselves are great, though a bit elaborate…they really just need to be guides to making the drink
- Some of these cocktails even stumped Edwin!
- Most of the recipes seemed accurate and tasty
CON
- Only 60 cocktails TOTAL! Even if it didn’t have the videos, at least written instructions would be nice
- Really hurts the overall concept to have so few drinks. If I choose vodka as an ingredient, I only have 7 drinks to choose from. Most combinations don’t work together, which is frustrating
COST: $4.99
CON
- Many recipes seemed dubious
- Ingredients list often didn’t match actual instructions
- Attempt to copy UrbanSpoon “spin” feature but not done particularly well
COST: $1.99
PRO
- This was the most highly recommended app by Edwin and the hosts
- A very thorough list of cocktails
- Recipes are very accurate and easy to follow
- All information was cited to classic cocktail resources and books
CON
- Not a lot of “newer” cocktails; focus is on classic cocktails
Lon then discussed sponsor Gazelle.com. Nearly 100,000 people have used Gazelle to safely rid themselves of unwanted gadgets and earn some cash while doing it. Gazelle accepts products in 20 categories, representing more than 200,000 unique items. (The list includes old phones, video game systems, video games, computers and more!)
Follow them on Twitter @Gazelle_com!
Interview with Jesse Tayler, CEO and Founder of Object Enterprises Incorporated (OEI)
Jesse’s company specializing in creating high-quality iPhone and iPad apps. He’s the creator of the forthcoming ThisWeekIn iPad app, which should be arriving in the App Store soon.
Jesse discussed with Lon and Jacob some of the complications and joys of working on iPad apps for content sites like ThisWeekIn. He showed off some of the features of the new ThisWeekIn app, including the ability to stream shows immediately after they are posted on iTunes and YouTube. The app also features the ability to browse show notes (including browsing hyperlinks) without leaving the actual show page or pausing the episode video. It also includes the ability to easily view the video in full-screen.
Jesse hinted that a future version of the app may include the ability to stream the shows LIVE though this will not be included in the 1.0 version.
He said that designing iPad apps was fun, because people enjoy them, as opposed to his old job of developing payroll systems.
To find out more about Jesse’s company, or get in touch with him, check out OEInc.com!
App Review: Hulu Plus
Lon took a brief look at Hulu’s new “Hulu Plus” app, which for $9.99 per month, allows you to watch a wide variety of streaming TV shows on your iPad.
He praised the app’s interface and the beautiful high-resolution videos. The app is fast and intuitive, and provides for a great viewing experience (possibly superior to that of a desktop computer).
However, he felt that there are currently too few shows available for view to make it worth the price. As well, he noted that some of the advance hype (which touts that “full series” are available on the Plus service) was a bit deceptive. Though some shows (such as “30 Rock” and “Arrested Development”) are available in their entirety, many other current series, such as “House,” “Persons Unknown” or others, only have certain episodes uploaded. And other shows that are viewable on the desktop version – such as “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Last Comic Standing” – are not viewable at all on the iPad.
News
Well, it’s almost September, which means a new batch of rumors about the upcoming new products from Apple. Among the most common Internet rumors this week was word of a possible iPad Mini.
According to a rumor posted on iLounge, Apple plans to reveal a seven-inch iPad for late 2010 or early 2011 release. Other rumors in the same post included an iPod Touch 4 with a flash camera, a new iPod Nano and a touch-screen iPod Shuffle.
Satellite TV provider Dish Network plans to bring live TV to the iPad for subscribers. An app, planned for launch in September, would allow Dish Network subscribers to watch programming directly on their iPad. The app would connect over the Internet to a set-top box that will utilize Slingbox technology – so if you bought a Slingbox set-up for about $300, you could essentially hook in to your home Dish TV connection from anywhere.
(There is a catch, though…if someone at your home is using your Dish Network box to watch something, you’d be stuck watching that too from wherever you were located unless you bought a special box that allows you to watch or record multiple channels at once.)
According to Gizmodo, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad devices are highly susceptible to a new hack that requires only that users visit a single web page in Safari and load a PDF file. The hack exploits the same security bug that allows iOS 4 and iPad devices to be “jailbroken.”
If a user visits the address and loads the PDF document, a small piece of code hidden in a font can enable a remote user to delete files, transmit files, install programs that monitor your activity and all sorts of other nefarious doings.
To avoid the hack, Gizmodo recommends you not access any PDF links directly or load PDF’s from an untrusted source.
Apple has yet to comment on the situation. Is this the sort of inevitable bug that’s just going to happen to popular technology? Is Apple being lax in responding? Is there something else people should do to avoid this?
Also, does it seem like Gizmodo is being overly critical of Apple these days? Is this perhaps blowback from the whole “stolen iPhone 4″ debacle?
- Alex Mau
- jtayler
