Many moons ago I posted about trying to develop and release an app for the iPad, well it took longer than I hoped, but I finally have an app in the store for the iPad. It is called Date Ranger.
The app is a date calculator for quickly add/subtracting date ranges. It is an off-shoot of my first iPhone app NextRx. Averaging 75 downloads a day. In future updates I hope to add the ability to only count business days, and take into account holidays. Might also try to give include a calendar view at some point.
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One of my favorite iPhone (and now iPad) apps, Star Walk, is marking its 2 year birthday today. In celebration of this event Vito Technology is having a 24 hour sale of their two other “walk” apps, Geo Walk and Solar Walk (detailed review forthcoming).
Vito Technology was also kind enough to give iPad Corral some promo codes for Star Walk to give away as well. We have 2 codes for the iPad Version and 2 for the iPhone.
To get your chance at one of the codes just send an email to info at ipadcorral dot com (or send a message via our about page), let us know which device you will be using to star gaze, and we select winners at random and notify them via email within 48 hours.
Once upon a time I worked at an architectural and engineering firm where we were always knee deep in Autodesk software. AutoCAD was, and is, the standard software package used and today’s official release of AutoCAD WS for iPad and the other iOS platforms made the retired cad monkey in me smile.
One of the holy grails of CAD is the ability to access, modify, and redline electronic drawings on the go. There were solutions that tried, *cough* DWF *cough*, but ultimately a plotted roll of drawings and a KOH-I-NOOR Rapidomatic* with red lead still did the majority of the work.
AutoCAD WS on the iPad may finally make the dreams of many architects and engineers come true.
*Still the only mechanical pencil I will use
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The initial honeymoon phase of iPad ownership ended just after a few weeks, and at that time I wasn’t necessarily regretting my purchase, but I was having difficulty recommending an iPad to everyone that asked about it. What prompted me to change my purchase recommendation to people was that I finally have found my iPad’s usage sweet spot, and it’s all about the Apps.
There are plenty of free applications available for the iPad, and that is what I limited myself to for the first month or so. During that time I used the iPad mainly as a web surfing device and it was during that time I also felt that I wasn’t using it nearly as much as I had hoped to. More times than not I choose to use my MacBook over the iPad if I knew I needed to do more than just surf the web.
It wasn’t until I loosened the purse strings and purchased a few paid apps that I saw my usage (and level of satisfaction with my purchase) of my iPad increase significantly. Specifically I purchase Toodledo to help me manage my to-dos; iTap RDP to access my windows machines, NewsRack as a feed reader, and TouchPad as a keyboard/mouse replacement for my computer in the living room.
To make the most of your iPad, you will probably have to spend some (more) money. iPhone apps, to me at least, are more of a connivance than a selling point. Not so with the iPad.
Personally I find that I am not using the iBook feature of the iPad that much. This might be due to my unwillingness to drop $10+ on an eBook. I’ve download a few free books, but I tend to surf my favorite web sites instead of reading another few pages from the free History of King Arthur. As an avid iPad user, I have yet to catch the ebook bug. Until I can check out an eBook from my local library, I don’t see the iPad replacing my printed books.
That said, I have seen an increase in my access of a web service called Books 24/7. I am a .Net programmer at my day job, and I can access many technical books through this service. Publishers such as Wrox and Apress make their books available through this service and I have a healthy back log of reading bookmarked in my account.
Do you find that you use your iPad as an eReader less than expected?
After 43 days, I have my first app in the App Store. It is called NextRx and it allows for quickly calculating when prescriptions can be refilled. My wife is a nurse and suggested this idea, so I ran with it as my first app. Right now it is mainly targeted for the iPhone, but I am looking for ideas how to improve and optimize NextRx for the iPad.
This has me thinking about how not every iPhone app, especially utility style apps like this, have an obvious gain in functionality by moving to the iPad. NextRx was designed for quickly and easy data entry, additional screen real estate doesn’t make the app any easier to use. As of right now, I think I will try adding a monthly calendar view that will display the start and end dates.
Beyond that, I don’t really know what else the iPad could offer NextRx. Still trying to get a handle exactly what the iPad offers developers.
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