Emily is a freelance writer who loves discovering new apps whenever she can pry the iPad away from her children or husband. You can contact her via Twitter: @whatwentwrite
It’s more than just another iPad stand — Swivl really moves. This device includes a motion and tracking platform that will support an iPad (as well as an iPhone, DSLR camera, or Android device). Swivl is sleek and sturdy; it’ll look good in the boardroom but is tough enough for an outdoor photo shoot. With its successful Kickstarter campaign nearly complete, Swivl should be ready for market by mid-summer 2013.
Hundreds is a new iOS puzzler that strives to unite clean design with challenging gameplay. It’s definitely at home in the “minute to learn / lifetime to master” category.
The game includes 100 puzzles, and the goal in each level is simple: earn 100 points by tapping the circles. The round ends if the circle the player taps touches any other screen item while it’s red. It starts off easy enough, but turns full-tilt tricky before long.
Whether you want to create a book to commemorate a special family event or to show off all the great photos you and a friend took while snorkeling in the Bahamas over winter break, Presstomatic may be just the app you’re looking for. Thanks to a recent upgrade Presstomatic made the leap to the iPad. It’s now a universal app, and, best of all, it’s still free.
Don’t let the term “scrapbook” put you off. Presstomatic bears little resemblance to the fussy, sticker-laden pages whose supplies dominate craft store aisles. Presstomatic is more like a photo-centric, mobile blogging platform that bundles a user’s creations in a neat package that can be shared publicly or with just a few friends.
According to InteractStudios‘ Ezra Weinstein, “You don’t need to be a programmer” to create a mobile app using the InteractBuilder 3.0 platform. Anyone with an iPad (or even a desktop or laptop) can use InteractBuilder 3.0 to create a wide range of interactive materials including games, kids books, photo albums, greeting cards, and presentations that will function on a variety of tablets and smartphones. InteractStudios hopes that a successful Kickstarter campaign will help bring Interact Builder 3.0 to market.
We at PadGadget are lucky, lucky people because so many wonderful apps cross our digital desktops that we can’t possibly review them all. In this month’s installment of the Kids’ App Roundup, we include 10 can’t miss apps that will please animal lovers, future stylists, and scientists-in-training.
Did we miss anything? Please share the name of your favorite newly released edu-apps and games for kids.
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Anyone can drink a bottle of wine, but it takes a wine snob to choose it, right? Not so fast. According to Wine Simplified, another Inkling/Open Air Publishing collaboration, a few tips can help any wine buyer make more informed choices. Did you know that most wines sold today aren’t meant to be cellared? Do you think you only like one kind of wine, most often described as “red” or “white”? If so, Wine Simplified is for you.
Using a combination of interactive text, video, and slide shows, Wine Simplified’s approach banishes jargon, explains wine-speak terms such as “body,” “oaky,” and “tannin,” and gives the vast majority of wine drinkers the knowledge to choose their next bottle of wine with confidence.
Just when avid iPad owners begin to think we’ve seen it all, an app like Foldify‘s release excites us with its simplicity and novel use of iOS.
Foldify allows the user to customize then print a digital template that when folded becomes a 3-D object. This iPad-only app is an analog offering in a digital universe that uses the iPad to connect the user to something tangible and outside the virtual world, plus it promises to appeal to a range of ages and artistic skill levels.
Parents are charged with many duties to their offspring, not the least of which is teaching kids how to handle money. A child can’t even begin to make smart financial choices until she can count coins and make change. How else is your darling entrepreneur going to run that Lemondade Stand she’s always begging to set up?
Splash Money, which is part of the Splash Math series of iOS apps created by StudyPad Inc., gives students a chance to learn money basics, practice skills, and earn rewards.
Whether you want to prepare for inevitable power outages or charge an iPad more sustainably, WakaWaka Power, an approved Kickstarter project, offers tablet and smart phone owners a way to keep a device charged using only the power of the sun. The project is so popular on Kickstarter that it has already hit its first stretch goal, enabling increase from 2200 mAh battery capacity to 2750 mAh capacity.
Does the idea of trying to chiffonade mounds of herbs or chop onions for the Christmas stuffing fill you with dread? Do you wish you knew how to gut and skin a whole fish? Did you ever wonder why some knives cost hundreds of dollars while others can be had for so much less? Kitchen Knife Skills: Essentials for the Confident Cook promises to address these questions, and many more, through its interactive and intuitive digital interface.
With holiday dinners fast approaching, the home cook is especially keen to improve her knife skills, and Open Air Publishing’s Kitchen Knife Skills serves up all the skills one needs to select, use, and care for kitchen knives. The app includes 36 video tutorials covering both the daunting (carving a turkey, prepping pineapple) and the mundane (carrots, lemons).
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