Last month we brought you news of TouchFire: the Screentop Keyboard for iPad, which, during its short time as an open Kickstarter project, has swiftly reached, and then far exceeded, its funding goal. The TouchFire has obviously struck a chord with Kickstarter backers.
I spoke to Steve Isaac, TouchFire’s creator, about what he’s hoping to achieve with this iPad screen overlay, and what it’s like to be a Kickstarter superstar.
Last night, PBS aired their documentary on the life of Steve Jobs. This well put together piece, titled ‘One Last Thing’, covered Jobs’ career and highlighted his impressive life’s achievements. The documentary features a number of interviews with prominent personalities who share their own experience with Jobs and tell how the Apple co-founder changed the world.
In case you missed the documentary last night, you’re now in luck as PBS has put the entire one hour TV episode on their website for viewing.
The first-ever authorized biography of Steve Jobs is set to be released next week and Steve Kroft with 60 Minutes will have a sneak peek on Sunday when they interview the author, Walter Isaacson.
The book is a culmination of over 40 interviews with the man himself over the last two years. Originally set for release in March of 2012, the publisher first bumped delivery to this November when Jobs retired from Apple and later to October with news of his death earlier this month.
There is nothing like going down in history as the guy who fired Steve Jobs. In an 1983 recruitment pitch that went on to become legendary, Steve Jobs lured John Sculley away from ‘selling sugar water’ as president of PepsiCo to leading Apple as their CEO.
By 1985, the dynamic duo became entirely more dynamic and entirely less of a duo when Sculley forced Jobs away from being the head of Macintosh and into the position of being Apple’s chairman, stripping him of any product responsibility. The Board of Directors supported and empowered this move, issuing statements to the press at the time indicating “We have put our individual egos aside and are putting teamwork in place.” Jobs had seemingly spiraled out of control with his vision taking a backseat to his unreasonable demands.
Former First Lady Laura Bush recently revealed that her husband was addicted to his new iPad. In an interview with Deborah Roberts for Yahoo! News and ABC News, Mrs. Bush said the former President enjoys reading The Wall Street Journal everyday first thing in the morning before the paper edition is even delivered to their door. President Bush also enjoys playing games on his iPad, his current favorite is playing Scrabble when his busy schedule allows.
It seems that the iPad has also rubbed off on Mrs. Bush. She dropped a hint that she’s hoping she’ll get an iPad for her birthday next week. The former first lady is no stranger with high tech devices, she loves her Blackberry and she enjoys reading on her Kindle. Mrs. Bush particularly likes the ability to increase the font size while she’s reading to help make it easier on her eyes.
Man do I feel sorry for those Gates kids! Now before you fall out of your chair shaking your head asking how I could say something so unfathomable, hear me out.
Yes their dad is Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and the richest man in the world with a net worth of over $54 billion. And sure their mom and dad are great parents and have built the largest transparently operated charitable foundation in the world. So with a loaded mom and dad, you’d think getting an iPod would be an easy thing, right? Nope. Momma Gates has a strict ban on all Apple products in the Gates household and you won’t find any of their kids walking around with white headphones stuck in their ears.
How many of you out there use your iPads to entertain yourselves during boring meetings at work? If you’re willing to admit it, you’re not alone. Apparently, Presidential staffer David Axelrod is known for sneaking his iPad into meetings in the West Wing.
Axelrod was asked about his iPad use during today’s Google/Politico Election Preview. He admitted the iPad is “really actually very useful because you can keep track of what is going on.” Axelrod has lots of political apps, most news organization and a few sports apps. More specifically he uses it to follow his Cubs with MLB Live, google information and play a little Pac-Man (his own personal vice).
Regardless of your political preference, hopefully we can all agree that Axelrod’s choice in gadgets is spot on.
Hello Everyone! Welcome back to our common talk section, PadGadget – Apps Interviews. A place where you can find out a bit more about apps and developers. I recently spoke to the folks from EffectiveUI, about their iPad experience, their Ideate app and their future plans. I had the chance to talk to Juan Sanchez, an Experience Architect at EffectiveUI.
PadGadget Question: What are your initial impressions of the iPad as a device from a developer’s perspective? What about from a user’s perspective?
From a development perspective, we had to really understand how the device will be used – how it will be held, handled, etc. When we developed Ideate, EffectiveUI’s sketching application for the iPad, the device wasn’t actually available yet, so we created a mock-up out of wood so that we could really understand the full user experience while we were creating the features and functions of the application. Building the Ideate application was a learning experience, for sure.
We purchased our iPads, updated our blog and finished at our first stop. After a short drive up the Dallas North Tollway, we arrived at the Apple Store in Frisco. Although we heard it was very busy early in the morning, things had calmed down by the time we arrived.
We found out last week that the team from Newtoy Inc., the creators of “Words with Friends” and ”Chess with Friends,” is also located in our area. We got to meet up with them and talk briefly about their morning. They were all at the Stonebriar Centre Apple Store purchasing iPads and passing out t-shirts and Promo codes for their apps. Based on what they told us, it didn’t take long before they were out.
During our conversation they mentioned another app, “We Rule.” We’ll check it out soon and post a review.
Weeks of hype and excitement have all boiled down to this moment. The big day has finally arrived! Our PadGadget team is in front of the Apple Store in Plano, TX waiting to pick-up and purchase the iPads we reserved several weeks ago. With our Starbucks in one hand and Visa in the other, we’ve taken our place in line to begin the wait behind 40 others. Lots of die hard Apple fanatics join us in line and a buzz is in the air.
They are dividing the line up into two groups; those with reservations and those without who hope to get one early.
We will be posting off-and-on the entire morning so check back periodically for updates. Our next stop is the Apple Store in Frisco.
Hello Everyone! We recently introduced our common talk section, PadGadget – Apps Interviews. A place where you can find out a bit more about new apps to download for your iPad. I recently spoke to the folks from Mobile Simplified about their iPad experience, their upcoming apps and their future plans.
Hi Everyone! I’m happy to introduce what I hope will be common talk here at PadGadget – Apps Interviews. We plan to bring you up close and personal with all of those creative companies out there whom are as excited as we are with the iPad. We’ve recently talked to some cool companies to see what they think of the iPad, get details about their apps and their future product plans.
To start us off, I spoke with Rob Banagale, CEO of Neutrinos, to discuss his thoughts about the iPad and their upcoming launch for the Rock Show app. Rob was extremely nice to us and they indeed have some cool stuff for all of you with their upcoming iPad app.
On TapCentral
By 
