With St. Patrick’s Day just around the corner, Fox affiliate KBTV’s Mike McNeill stopped by Spec’s Liquor Store in Beaumont, Texas, to discuss the various alcoholic options available for properly (and responsibly) celebrating the holiday. In the video, McNeill claims he shot the entire report using only the camera in his new iPad 2.
“All the experts who know how to shoot these kind of stories are out on real stories,” says McNeill in his report. “So, I just grabbed my iPad 2 and decided hey, you know what, we’re Fox 4, we’re innovators.” Moments later, McNeill points the camera at his iPad 2 box as evidence that he’s using Apple’s new tablet to shoot the story.
This is the first known broadcast created using an iPad 2. Keep reading to see the video.
The iPad 2’s new hardware and its popularity has led to speculation that tablet devices will soon replace consoles. Rovio Mobile’s Peter Vesterbacka is the most vocal champion of this position and recently claimed during a South by Southwest panel that console games are “dying.” Vesterbacka points to the lower price point of mobile games and their ability to be updated rapidly as two factors that will push mobile gaming ahead of consoles.
While Vesterbacka talks smack about consoles, former Sony executive Phil Harrison takes a much more balanced approach towards this subject. Harrison acknowledges that tablet hardware is evolving so rapidly that tablets could rival that of the console. The Apple tablet has more than doubled its performance in a year, while the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 remain unchanged after five years.
Though the hardware evolution may outpace the consoles, the gaming experience of a tablet will be different than that of the console. “I think while there are clearly some compromises in terms of user interface and user experience on a tablet, the touch screen interface will enable other forms of game experience and game design that you couldn’t do on a TV-based console,” said Harrison, “so I think there’s going to be a tradeoff. But I think the pads/tablets market is going to be a very vibrant market for games.”
Harrison points out the strength of the tablet gaming market comes from the diverse business models available to mobile game developers. Developers can choose to generate revenue from free, ad-supported applications, games with in-app micro transactions and paid games with value-added features like social networking. “These are 21st century business models that are going to prevail,” says Harrison.
The iPad is a great tool for brainstorming and wireframing design mockups. It’s not the tool you’d want to use to create the comps you’ll convert to HTML and CSS, but a fantastic place to get the ball rolling from the comfort of a couch, or by the pool with mojito. Here are five apps that help you create mockups, wireframes and get brainstorming.
iMockups
iMockups, as the name implies, is a tool made specifically for mocking up web designs on the iPad. All the stencils you need to lay out interfaces are included with the application, and as shown in the screenshot, the app allows you to align elements in a pixel-perfect fashion despite the often clumsy nature of touch screen interfaces.
OmniGraffle
OmniGraffle for the Mac is a popular choice for initial wireframes thanks to its strong library of included and third-party stencils, and the speed with which it allows you to work. The Omni Group have brought OmniGraffle to the iPad, and if you’re a designer who uses the desktop version the ability to work on your wireframes in either version of the software is useful.
SketchyPad
SketchyPad is another app that’s designed specifically with web layout and app interface wireframing in mind. You can link your mockups together for sites with multiple layouts (for instance, index and blog post views), and it comes with 56 stencils.
Penultimate
Penultimate is more of a pure sketching app. It’s not built around the idea of using stencils like the apps above, but emulates a real notepad. You pick a type of paper, customize the color and thickness of your pen and get drawing. Great for more free-form wireframe sketching.
Moodboard
Moodboards are great tools when used in conjunction with layout wireframes. Moodboards are a way to gather images, colors and ideas together on a board. It’s great for collating visual ideas so you can gain inspiration and develop a solid artistic direction for the project.
When you go to Photoshop to create the final comps, the wireframe gives you the layout and the moodboard helps you determine what sort of imagery to use, which colors to include in the palette and what sort of textures would be appropriate to make the site pop out visually. You can create moodboards on your iPad using the appropriately named Moodboard app.
Three Little Pigs and the Secrets of a Popup Book (US $3.99) from Game Collage LLC brings something new to interactive children’s books on iOS. The original book was published in 1904 and illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke, a popular illustrator of the time. Along with the usual wheels, tabs and spring loaded animated object that move things around, they included X-Ray Goggles (really a tappable button), that lets you see the gears, clockwork, springs and pulleys that make the animations work on most of the pages. This fits in well with the tone of the book, since it was originally published during the second Industrial Revolution.
Just when I thought that publishers had run out of new ideas for this genre, this wrinkle arrives with a lot of fun. Outside of the well-known story, you are given a faux backstage peek of how it all works. Sure, it’s a gimmick, but it’s exceptionally entertaining, even for “older kids.” Often seeing how items are affixed to a gear gives you a good idea of what the page can do, providing a better experience playing with the movable objects after viewing the schematics. There are a lot of objects that can be manipulated either by pushing them around or tilting the screen and having the accelerometer do it.
There is a lot to see. On one screen, instead of a few objects, there are 20 apples, all connected to strings and a tab that feed out or pulls in the brightly colored strings. Looking at the X-Ray, you’ll find pulleys and gears that raise and lower the apples when you push a tab up or down. Another tap brings you back to the story. I would consider this a real benefit for kids who invariably ask “why.” You can compare the graphics and the X-Rays in the gallery below, and then hit the “Read More” link to read the rest of the review and see a whimsical video of how the book was developed.
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Your new iPad—and old too, with iOS 4.3—has a new hidden feature that Apple doesn't want you to know about: Extra multi-touch gestures that completely changes the iPad experience—for the best.More »
