Why is the iPad's iBooks App a Download?

With the release of the iPad right around the corner, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the device itself. Yesterday evening, a friend and I were discussing some of the rumors that are surrounding the iPad. At some point in the discussion, he asked me if I had any idea why Apple made the the iPad's iBook application a download from the App store. When he said this, I had no idea what he was talking about, but when I went to the iPad page, this was stated very clearly.

The iBooks app is a great new way to read and buy books.1 Download the free app from the App Store and buy everything from classics to best sellers from the built-in iBookstore. Once you’ve bought a book, it’s displayed on your Bookshelf. Just tap it to start reading. The high-resolution, LED-backlit screen displays everything in sharp, rich color, so it’s easy to read, even in low light.

I couldn't understand why one of the iPad's main features would not be preloaded on the device itself. But after a few minutes of thinking, I was able to come up with a possible answer to the question. -- If you go into the App Store today, you will find several E-Book applications available for the current iPhone, which is exactly why Apple cannot preload the iBook App on the iPad.

As per Apple's current SDK agreement, developers cannot develop an App that competes directly with an Apple application that is standard on the device. If Apple preloaded the iBook App on the iPad, they would be forced to pull all of the other E-Book readers in the App store as per their own contractual agreement; making the iBook application "opt in" avoids this issue. This is purely speculation on my part, but I think this is a plausible answer to the question.  

Why do you think the iPad App is not included with the iPad?

Review: Tweetie for Mac

See More videos like this here.

Tweetie just has to be my favourite Twitter client that I have ever used, the interface is nice, and it has a lot of cool features like threaded replies and search.

You can download Tweetie for Mac & iPhone athttp://www.atebits.com/

TweetDeck for iPhone - Review

TweetDeck for iPhone

Price:£FREE
Description:Tweet on the go with all your favourite TweetDeck features on your iPhone.TweetDeck is your mobile browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now on Twitter from your iPhone or iPod Touch. TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organised and up to date no matter where you are.Create groups, search Twitter, manage multiple accounts and easily post your tweets or share photos, link and much more. Plus sync your existing TweetDeck columns between your desktop and iPhone. Nice and easy.
Rating:

The time has arrived! TweetDeck for the iPhone is upon us!

I've been a big TweetDeck Desktop fan for many a month now, and I'm really happy to wake up to see TweetDeck for the iPhone sitting on the AppStore just begging for me to download it. The best part is it's price. Free!

First Impressions:

Upon opening the app, you're presented with a page to be able to add your Twitter account. It's an incredibly sleek setup sequence with prompts for you to sign in to your TweetDeck account so you can sync your columns and what-not from the Desktop version straight onto your iPhone. the setup lasted about 30 seconds, and I was then straight into the application itself.

The first thing I saw was a somewhat familiar colour-scheme and notification. I was really impressed to see that they'd ported over the notifications feature to the iPhone version, because simply put, TweetDeck isn't TweetDeck without them! As you can see from the screenshot below, there is a set of settings in a sleek black bar.

The bar shows updates to your Twitter account, Refresh feature, Add Column, Settings and More. We'll look through each of these in detail, shall we?

Updates Button:

I was very impressed with this little feature. Not only does the Updates section of the bottom bar actually show how many updates you've missed, or are yet to read, but upon tapping it you're presented with a box showing exactly how many per column you're yet to have a gander at, and also a handy little feature to mark them all as seen!

Refresh:

Does exactly what it says on the tin.

Add Column:

This is one of the biggest features in the whole application. This allows you to add an array of different columns such as 'User Group', 'Twitter Search', 'All Friends', 'Mentions', 'Direct Messages' and 'Favourites'. This works in exactly thesame wayas on TweetDeck desktop. I currently have six columns set up on my installation of TweetDeck for the iPhone, and have had it crash just once due to receiving a large amount of updates all in one, whilst trying to scroll down. I'd recommend not doing that!

You also get the option to import columns from the TweetDeck server so that things are set up in the same way as they are on TweetDeck desktop. Clever eh?

Settings:

This opens a completely new screen for you to Manage your multiple accounts, Edit your TweetDeck account and change General settings.

Manage Accounts and TweetDeck account is very self-explanatory. Not much to talk about there, but when it comes to the general settings, there are a few that you can tweak around a little, such as Auto-Correct, Auto-Capitalisation, Picture Service (twitpic or yfrog), Sound Enabled/Disabled, Growl Enabled/Disabled (notification popup), Show Real Names and Shake to Refresh. As you can tell, there are a nice amount of settings to tweak TweetDeck to your liking.

If that isn't enough Tweaking, hold down on one of your 'decks' until they start to wiggle (like you would on your iPhone/iPod home-screen). From this you can re-arrange the way the decks are presented to you. Nowthat'scool, right?

'More':

From this sub-menu you get two new options to choose from. One being 'Quick Follow' and 'Sync Columns'. Quick Follow is basically a text box popup where you can input a users username and follow them instantly by tapping the "Follow" button. Saves having to find the user through the Search feature and following them form there.

Sync Columns basically does exactly what it says. It syncs your columns with the ones you've syncronised to TweetDecks servers.

Main Section:

The 'main section' of the application is where all of the tweets are displayed. you can either choose form the zoomed-out view where you can flick through each deck, viewing a maximum of 5 tweets per deck, or tap one of the decks to view the whole thing, allowing you to scroll through them all. You can still flick left and right to navigate through each deck whilst on the full screen mode.

Tapping a tweet will take you to a screen dedicated to that tweet, giving you the option to @reply, send a DM, retweet, email tweet and +favourite.

Tapping the user takes you to their profile. From here, you get the option to Follow the user, View their followers, View who they're following, @message them, DM then, see their recent Tweets and Block/Unblock the user. You can also see their picture, Name, Twitter UserName and their biography on this screen also.

Notifications:

These are somewhat very similar (actually a lot better looking) to TweetDeck Desktop. They pop up whenever you get a new Tweet, Mention, DM, Search etc. This obviously only occurs in the TweetDeck application itself, due to the iPhone's restrictions on background processes, but they are a nice little addition to the app itself, for that added sleekness/feature-rich application they were probably looking for.

API Call Information:

This is different for an iPhone Twitter application to have - an 'API Call Remaining' feature.

Let's Tweet:

Tweeting in TweetDeck for the iPhone is easy. All you need to do it tap the new tweet icon in the top right () and you're presented with a text box, the keyboard and the option to shorten a url, post an image and post your current GPS location to your Twitter profile or to Google Maps. It also appears that URL's are shortened through bit.ly.

Verdict:

TweetDeck for iPhone seems to be a very decent iPhone Twitter client, although could do with some touch-ups here and there, and the possibility of some new settings. I'd really like to see functionality to just have the zoomed out tweet view (below) as opposed to the full screened one. I like the look and feel of scrolling through each deck that way much better, and think it makes the UI look a lot tidier also.

In terms of keeping up with its sister on the desktop, they have done incredibly well. What sets this app apart from all of the others is a) free b) exclusive 'deck' UI c) pop-up notifications (in-app).

It's a very competitive app and will give all of the other iPhone Twitter applications a run for their money. I, myself have tried the majority, if not all, of the iPhone Twitter apps and this is by far my favourite and has found its pride of place on page one on my iPhone home screen!

A few snags though - it tends to crash on occasion when a large amount of notifications come in, and scrolling is rather rugged compared to other apps such as Tweetie and TwitterFon. By this, I mean it doesn't scroll smoothly and jitters just a tad.

Other than that, I've found no problems as of yet!

Definitely recommended to anybody with an iPhone and likes to Tweet.

You can find me on Twitter at @LewisBeechey

Hulu Desktop

Hulu, the TV show media catalogue has now released a desktop application to its labs testers. Hulu Desktop enables you to watch your favorite TV shows on your desktop, whereas before you needed to visit the website before you could watch them. Hulu Desktop is the express way to watch your favorite TV shows stored on Hulu.

Further information can be found here and a video demo is featured below from SoliderKnowsBest.

Jonny

My Blog, Twitter and Youtube

Update on May 28, 2009 at 10:36 PM by Michael Sherlock

Why watch the walkthrough above when you can watch the one produced by a writer of this site? This complete, HD video walkthrough covers everything there is to know about the app including the auto-playing featured video, the menu structure of the application, and the ability to control the application with a remote control. Enjoy!

This follow up was brought to you by Michael Sherlock, for more of my content why not subscribe to my youtube channel?

Kindle For iPhone

Late on Tuesday, Amazon released Kindle for iPhone application, which you can get for free, from the iTunes Store.

The app does exactly what says. You can download Amazon e-books and read them right from your iPhone. And, while I have only had the application for a few minutes, I can say that it works surprising well.

There are a few drawbacks however.

- You cannot download books directly from the iPhone

-You can not sync any subscriptions to newspapers and/or magazines that you may have from the Amazon store.

-The iPhone app does not have and of the highlight/search features that you will find on the Kindle.

Honestly, I am perfectly okay with that. As someone who was ready to spend the $350 to buy a Kindle, I have no problem with Amazon having a few "Kindle exclusive" features.

I must say, that the timing of this app surprises me, being so close to the Kindle II. But it does send a clear message. Amazon interest is selling content, not Kindles. And by releasing this iPhone app, they are well on their way to making the Kindle store a huge success.

Job well done Amazon!