Hosts
Jacob Burch
Lon Harris

Guest

Cyril Moutran, Co-Founder of Oecoway (Makers of the Friendly Facebook Browser app)

Introduction

We’re celebrating 25 episodes of “This Week in iPad” with an iPad giveaway! Details at the end of the episode (and bottom of this post)!

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App Review: VLC Media Player

Lon and Jacob both took a look at the app. They agreed that, while it has a lot of promise as an all-in-one video player, it has some drawbacks at present:

- Bugginess: Not all compatible files will play perfectly. Lon noted that some .avi files he was viewing had sound issues, and would occasionally freeze or get distorted. As well, the “volume control” on the iPad is invisible in the VLC Player. The volume goes up or down, but you can’t see the levels on screen.
- Few features: The app is spare and bland.
- Complicated: It’s irritating that all the app’s real functionality is controlled through the “App” screen in iTunes, rather than in the app itself. You can’t even erase a video file from within the app.

Still, the hosts felt that, with an update or two, the VLC Player could be solid, and may one day match the desktop version’s versatility and popularity.

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Interview with Cyril Moutran

The interview covers background on the company Oecoway, and their decision to move forward with a Facebook app. Moutran also discusses his opinion on the future of iPad development, some theories as to why Facebook has thus far neglected to design its own iPad application and his predictions for the forthcoming iPad 2.

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News

RIM Tablet Coming Soon

According to a Wall Street Journal article, Research In Motion’s new BlackBerry tablet may be unveiled as early as next week at a developer’s conference in San Francisco. The device – tentatively titled the BlackPad – is scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of 2010. Early rumored specs include a 7-inch touchscreen, Bluetooth and Broadband connections powered through any BlackBerry device and one or two built-in cameras.

iA Writer for iPad Debuts

A new word processing app from Information Architects has received a lot of hype since its release on Tuesday. It may be the first word processor designed from the ground up just for use on the iPad. The key to the design is the concept of “Focus.” Most of the basic aspects of formatting your writing are ignored or taken care of for you automatically, with the notion that you can just focus on getting your ideas out on paper. There’s even “Focus Mode” which ignores things like spellcheck and cut and paste that you can presumably take care of later.

I’ve been playing with it, and it genuinely does help you to write a bit faster. Plus the keyboard has been redesigned to be more intuitive for use on the iPad itself. There are also a few other little bells and whistles, like Dropbox integration and a “reading time” feature that estimates how logn what you’ve written will take someone to read.

A desktop application is also being promised by iA, though they went with the iPad first because of its unique ability to “drag you in and make you forget the world around you.” The app costs $5 and it’s available now.

The tablet will allegedly eschew the BlackBerry 6 operating system in favor of a new platform built by QNX Software Systems. It’s said that this new OS may become standard for future BlackBerry devices.

SI in Landscape Only

The latest edition of Sports Illustrated for the iPad doesn’t work in portrait mode. If you hold your iPad vertically, you will see a message asking you to please turn your iPad around for optimal viewing experience.

Guest editor Josh Quittner explained the reasoning behind the decision:

- Landscape mode is optimal for reading a magazine
- It allowed them to provide some neat new features, such as a special “reveal” view for large photographs
- The file is smaller and can be downloaded faster
- It’s cheaper this way

Quittner hits this last point in particular, noting that if the iPad allowed SI to sell real subscriptions like they want to, it’d be possible to pay for more designers and offer both portrait and landscape viewing.

iPad Paintings

Each week, we’re going to pick out our favorite iPad-related video from the Internet. This week, it’s a particularly impressive portraiture done using the Brushes app. Let’s watch.

Planet of the Apps

Topic: Productivity/Task Management apps

iThoughts HD

COST: $9.99

- Nice little “mind mapping” application that lets you easily make flowcharts
- Not sure how useful this would really be for laying out anything too terribly complex
- One of those cases where we’ve maybe invented a complex technological way to do something that pen and paper or a whiteboard handle really well already

Things for iPad

COST: $19.99

- Jacob loves this all-in-one task manager that keeps him organized
- Adding helpful tags to your individual tasks
- Tasks organized based on due date and priority
- Simple but elegant interface

Contest Details!

To participate in the iPad giveaway, just tweet a thank you to one of our sponsors!

Hover
PressReader
Gazelle.com!

We’ll pick one tweet from the next week that thanks one or more iPad sponsors and includes the hashtag #TWiiP! That lucky viewer wins a free iPad! Good luck, everyone.