Category Archives: iPad (all)
Star Walk and Solar Walk apps now track the Space X Dragon
The two bestselling astronomy apps, Star Walk and Solar Walk for iOS, can now find and track the Space X Dragon, the first commercial vehicle to visit the International Space Station.
The Dragon was launched Tuesday. When you search for the spacecraft, you’ll see it’s current position. As I write this, it’s in orbit next to the ISS. Using the augmented-reality feature, you likely can find the Dragon when it is in a good position overhead.
I didn’t try to find Dragon in the night sky, but it was easy to find on my iPhone. I could use the search command to find by name, or I could look on the last 30-day launches list. It appears centered on the screen in the correct orientation to the ISS and the star background. You also can get some specifics on the Dragon position and a bit of history.
Use AirPlay mirroring and an Apple TV, and you can get it on the big screen, great for teachers or sharing with friends.
Satechi Bluetooth Multi-Media Remote for iPhone, iPad [Video]
For those exasperating situations when you just can’t be bothered to get up out of your seat and reach for the iPhone or iPad you’re using to watch video or listen to music, accessory manufacturer Satechi has just the answer.
It’s the Bluetooth Multi-Media Remote Control (US$39.99), another product that seems to be the definitive answer to a nonexistent problem. As with the person in the photo above, you too can use a Bluetooth remote to control an iPhone that is within grabbing distance.
One feature is rather cool — the ability to use the remote as a shutter button for taking photos with an iPhone up to 33 feet away. Of course, just make sure you’re not on a cruise when you leave your iPhone unattended for photographic purposes.
Some of the other intended uses for the Satechi Bluetooth Remote appear to involve controlling a docked iPhone or iPad that is pumping out music or your favorite action flick. For some reason, I thought that beaming tunes or movies to your Apple TV from the iOS device would do the trick, but obviously I’m not a Satechi PR person.
Credit card-sized stylus in the works at Quirky
Quirky is a design shop that uses ideas from a crowd of contributors and influencers to create new products. In the past, it’s come up with some incredibly useful Apple-related accessories like the US$12.99 Power Curl, which has made its inventor almost $80,000 in royalties. Now the company is evaluating a new idea — a touchscreen stylus called the Cipher (expected price $4) that fits in your wallet like a credit card.
That’s because it is a credit card, made with a capacitive material that acts just like your finger or a more traditional stylus. When you want to draw on your iPhone or iPad, you grab the Cipher from your wallet and go to town. There’s less chance of losing the Cipher like a regular stylus, and the fact that it will be sold in a 2-pack means you can always have at least one in your wallet.
The TechCrunch iPad app is slick and simple
If you’re looking for an app-based TechCrunch experience on your iPad, here it is. The iPad app is a streamlined experience over the site in Safari, presenting a simple list of categories to choose from, and 3 basic feeds: the main river (which can be narrowed using those categories), trending stories and curated tweets. There’s a lot more under the hood, however.
Commuters will be pleased to know there’s a “Save for later” option when clicking the “Share” icon. You can, of course, also share stories via email or social media, and the app allows you to tie your Facebook account in (TechCrunch uses Facebook comments, primarily). My favorite feature is the easy access to Crunchbase data alongside each article.
Yahoo! Axis delivers synchronized browsing for iPad and desktop
Want your desktop browser pages to show up on your iPhone or iPad, so you can keep on browsing where you left off? There are a few products already offering this feature, including the capable Firefox Home, but Yahoo’s mobile product team didn’t want to stop with a simple sync engine. They decided to deliver a new search plugin for the desktop, and a new browser for the mobile space: Yahoo! Axis.
Billed as “a new way to search and browse,” Axis aims to give your searches more flexibility and flair with predictive results, swipe-to-view search thumbnails, and the aforementioned synchronized recent pages. The overall result is pretty easy to use, if not exactly pretty-pretty — the theme is very dark gray, compared to Safari’s lighter look.