April 3rd: It’s iPad Day

It’s April 3rd 2010 and that can only mean one thing for Apple fans. It’s iPad day.

Well, in the US at least. Those lucky Americans are getting their mitts on the iPad today while the UK – and the rest of the world – is mocked with a release date of “late April”.

ARGH!!!! Just release it in the UK already!

Anyway, I’m not a bitter person, so moving on. Will the iPad be as big of a hit as the iPhone? Well, the queues won’t be as big, that’s for sure. Apple has the ability to draw up huge amounts of interest by doing pretty much nothing and it’s fairly common for customers to queue for hours or even days to get the newest Apple products.

Flight Control HD for iPad – now with video!

Flight Control was one of my all-time favourite iPhone games. It was simple, beautifully designed and, with over 2,000,000 copies sold, incredibly popular. The aim of the game was to land a selection of aircraft at an airport by dragging a route with your finger from the plan to the runway. More and more planes and helicopters came onscreen, making it more difficult to land them without causing a crash.

Tweetdeck for iPad

Twitter applications are hugely popular on the iPhone and PC/Mac and, of course, we’re seeing a whole gaggle of them hitting the iPad. Today, just a day before the iPad’s US launch, Tweetdeck have revealed their latest effort. And it looks bloody impressive.

The increased screen size of the iPad over the iPhone is really proving to be it’s ‘killer app’, with developers being able to show multiple panels and windows at once; on the iPhone this just wasn’t possible. Anyone who used Tweetdeck for iPhone will be aware that while three columns of tweets are viewable at once, it’s not great.

The iPad was made for apps like this. Great use of space

Simple and Smart Games: Sudoku and Game Table

Regular readers will know that I’m always banging on about how iPhone and iPad games should be simple, fun and easy to get stuck in to. I don’t want to see Call of Duty or Gran Turismo on a portable device; I want a game that’s fun, quick to launch and simple enough to play for 5 minutes while I wait for my bus.

Games like MX Mayhem and Flight Control stuck to this theory on the iPhone and as a result I play them far more than the more ‘serious’ games such as Brothers in Arms, an overly complicated first person shooter.

Clean, simple and it looks real. I love it

Amazon Shoots Itself In The Foot – with added eyestrain

Last week Amazon announced their Kindle application for iPad and, in doing so, may have shot themselves in the foot and consigned the Kindle hardware to an early grave.

The applications looks very nice indeed, all glossy and Apple-like showing a brightly-coloured bookshelf, easily readable text and in-text colour photos. All things that can’t be had on the Kindle ebook reader. Oh dear.

Twitterrific for iPad

Twitterrific, with their blue feathered mascot, Ollie, have always been one of the all-time favourite Twitter applications for iPhone and Mac. They even sell t-shirts and plastic models of the famous blue bird, and now have a Twitter client for the upcoming iPad,  providing a comprehensive, fully-features application with a neat, clean user interface.

Twitterrific: clean and simple

iPad Cases: Which is Best? And Which is a Bit Camp?

With the iPad going on sale in American this weekend, case manufactures have been busy producing a huge range of bags, stands and protection for our beloved new bits of shiny Apple goodness.

iLounge have posted a comprehensive list of their favorite cases and protectors here and the range available for a product that isn’t even out yet is very impressive. No matter what your style or what your needs are, I’m sure you can find something suitable to carry your new best friend around in comfort.

Why Less is More: Words with Friends HD

Words with Friends is a hugely popular iPhone game from the folks at Newtoy, allowing users to play a game of scrabble online via their iPhones and today an ‘HD’ version for the iPad has been announced.

Great UI design: look no further

Just look at it; it’s gorgeous and shows how the extra space of the iPad can really make for a brilliant UI. Compare this to the post about Twitepad below for a visual education in good and bad design.

Twitepad? More like Shitepad

Here is a lesson in how NOT to design an iPad application. Just because the screen is bigger it doesn’t mean that developers need to fill the damn thing with more windows and options than we know what to do with.

I'll just tweet this...wait. What?

Mixr – A DJ Application for iPad

With the iPad hitting US stores this weekend, I thought I should probably kick-start this applications blog into life. I’m in the UK, so sadly won’t be getting my hands on an iPad until ‘late April’ and we still don’t have a price confirmed, but that won’t stop me from providing information about the iPads killer content – it’s applications.