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Skype for iPad now available

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Social Networking, Free Apps,

After a false start this morning, Skype today released its official iPad app.

Skype for iPad is now available for download in the Apple App Store. The free app is compatible with Apple tablets running iOS 4.0 or higher.

"Skype for iPad is beautifully designed and optimized for the iPad. It offers the best of both worlds for users who want a larger Skype experience, on-the-go," Skype said in a blog post. "The large iPad screen is perfect for bringing Skype video calls to life, in either landscape or portrait view, and because it is on the iPad, Skype video calls can be made at the beach, in a car or even lying on a couch."

Skype promised several iPad-optimized features, including two-way video calling for those with an iPad 2. Connect with other Skype users on PCs, Macs, or iPhones and Android phones with front-facing cameras.

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Bartleby’s Book of Buttons for iPad free through WWDC

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Books, iPad Apps, Sales, Free Apps,

Bartleby Book of Buttons

One of our favorite iPad apps for children, Bartleby's Book of Buttons: Volume I, is now being served up for free thanks fo the folks at Monster Costume. They're prepping Volume 2 of the storybook, and have decided to make Volume I (which typically sells for $4.99) free through WWDC 2011. If you've got an iPad, you should have Bartleby on it. Why? See our Bartleby's Book of Buttons review.

Read More | Bartleby's Book of Buttons Vol. 1

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Ancestry app surpasses 1 million downloads

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Reference, App Store News, Free Apps,

Ancestry app 1 million

Ancestry.com on Tuesday announced that its mobile app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch has received over one million downloads.

One-third of those one million downloads occurred in the last two months alone, and over half of the app users are new to Ancestry.com.

"We've been pleased with the early adoption of our iPhone and iPad apps and believe we are just getting started," Eric Shoup, senior vice president of product for Ancestry.com, said in a statement. "It's a natural extension of the Ancestry.com service and another way to help our members discover, preserve and share their family history."

Ancestry.com Inc., the world's largest online family history resource, has nearly 1.4 million paying subscribers, who have created more than 20 million family trees with over 2 billion profiles. In the past 14 years, more than 6 billion records have been added to the site.

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Bing launches magazine-like iPad app

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Reference, iPad Apps, New Apps, Free Apps,

Microsoft knows the importance of the mobile audience, even when it means taking advantage of a competitor's mobile platform—in this case, Apple's. Since late 2009, iPhone users have been able to download a Bing app that offers voice search, local shopping, scrolling image search, maps and directions. Now iPad owners get a Bing app that adds a new trends feature, which lets them explore the trending search topics of the week.

The new app, which is available in the iTunes App Store starting today, sports a homepage featuring the trademark (and often stunning) Bing photo of the day, along with tiles showing local weather, news, maps, movies, and trends. The interface makes a lot of use of the swipe touch gesture, especially in image search. A dropdown menu offers all these choices plus Images, Videos, Shopping and History—that is, your search history, not the school topic.

Trends shows tiled images for the week's major current events. It can almost be thought of as a lightweight replacement for an app like The Daily or Flipboard. Touching one of its images opens a search page showing news and images about the topic, like MLB Opening Day. Some topics get a slicker treatment rather than just a Bing search results page: touching through an entry about "30 Rock's" Tina Fey labled "Ms. Bossypants" displayed a grid of stories that somewhat resembled the New York Times' Web site layout. After reading a result page, you can swipe left-to-right to get back to the trends page.

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TiVo iPad app now available

TiVo on Tuesday unveiled an iPad app that will allow TiVo Premiere owners to use their Apple tablet as a remote and TV guide.

The TiVo Premiere App for the iPad provides access to all the content available on the set-top box - from TV listings and your DVR queue to show information and social-networking link-ups.

The app will provide access to live TV and DVR recordings; to watch, just swipe and the show will start playing on the TV. When you're away, use the app to set up a TiVo recording.

The bottom menu includes several options, including Info, Guide, My Shows, Browse, and Manage. For more info about a show or celebrity, the TiVo app lets you explore biographical information without interuppting the show on the TV. To discuss what you're watching, the app provides a link to Twitter and Facebook.

There is also an advanced remote icon, which brings up a traditional remote interface. Slide your finger along the bottom of the screen to fast forward or rewind TV content.

To access, download the free app from the App Store and enter the key from your TiVo box. Users must have a TiVo Premiere or TiVo Premiere XL box and an active, paid TiVo subscription.

Read More | TiVo App

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Today I Die Again for iPhone available free today only

Posted by Drea Avellan Categories: Games, App Updates, iPad Apps, Sales, Free Apps,

today i die again app

In conjunction with Free App A Day (FAAD), Atakamalabs has released the popular IndieCade Jury Award winning title rewrite, Today I Die Again by Daniel Benmergui, completely free. Today I Die Again  is a thought provoking adventure using words as means to action.

The scene opens underwater with the body of a dead woman floating lifeless in the dark. The rock tied around her waist suggests that her demise was no accident. A poem floats above her: “hopeless world / full of shadows / today I die”

Players must use the floating glowing words or reveal hidden ones to help you transform the ever-present poem in order to progress through the game. All along the way you battle the dark creatures from the depths in effort to break through to the surface. The oddly creative music score sets the mood perfectly as you are immersed deeper into this pixelated world. Today I Die Again is truly a unique game unlike any other, exploring new ways to express emotions through a video game experience.

Today I Die Again is available free on the iTunes store for iPhone and iPod Touch.

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Are magazine and newspaper apps doomed?

Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Editorials,

Fred Wilson, a known venture capitalist, put up a post this week arguing that magazine and newspaper apps are not a viable strategy for content publishers. It's no secret that the print industry has been in decline, with print companies shutting down. As information moves to the web, some of the core principles they could rely on before, exclusivity and scarcity, are no longer available to them as anyone can easily blog about everything in this link economy. The arrival of the iPad made many magazines and newspapers jump on board, because with apps, there's an illusion that these core principles exist again.

Whereas it soon became clear that most people were not willing to pay to have access to a web site, they thought that it would be easier to get these same people to pay to download an app which has basically the same content, with some 'pretty' layer on top of it. With recent figures showing that sales of those types of apps have been declining recently however, Wilson argues that this is only temporary. Instead, he sees the mobile space heading more towards the web model, where information want to be free, and with billions of devices accessing mostly free content.

Read More | AVC

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Flipboard receives major update, now includes Google Reader, Flickr integration

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: News, App Updates, Free Apps,

Flipboard, one of the best iPad apps for reading through your Facebook and Twitter feeds in a magazine format, just received a major update that brings  a bunch more features to the table. You can now view your Google Reader subscriptions, Flickr feeds and groups, and the app also boasts more features for Facebook and Twitter as well. You can use the app not only to check out all the content that's out there, but now it's easier to add your own updates, photos, and articles back into your social networks as well. Hit the video for a look. Flipboard is completely free.

Read More | Flipboard

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BBC iPlayer coming to the iPad

Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: News, iPad Apps,

bbc iplayer ipad

When the BBC launched it's iPlayer service, a way for people to listen to shows from the BBC radio and TV stations from the past 7 days, it was hailed as a great step forward. With more than 139 million requests in October, it's currently the largest VoD service in the UK, comparable in scope with Hulu in the US. Unfortunately, the iPlayer service has been limited to UK citizens only. Now, the BBC has announced that it's coming to the US with a subscription based model, initially as an iPad app. The iPlayer app will allow people to watch popular BBC shows on demand like Dr Who. So far, the only way people outside of the UK has been able to get some of the BBC shows was through third party services like iTunes, or from networks who bought the rights to redistribute shows on their channels. Now, a single app will allow the BBC to provide that content directly to users for a monthly fee. The service should be live at some point next year.

Read More | PaidContent

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The state of newspapers on the iPad

Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: News, Editorials, iPad Apps, Free Apps,

washington post ipad

This week, the Washington Post is the latest of the big, well known newspapers to add itself to the growing list of digital apps available on the iPad, alongside other well known names like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Globe and Mail, The Times and more. But are these worth your time? Do they replace their paper versions, and do they deliver a good value for the price?

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