Recently in iPad Category

This American Life is my favorite radio program. It finds real people doing interesting things and tells their story in a compelling way within the confines of a one hour weekly broadcast. The producers build the story against a compelling infusion of music always perfectly suited for the events unfolding throughout the course of the hour and there's always a sense of identity that makes you care about the story being told, even if the point of view isn't something you identify with.

Or in the words of the show's creators, "It's a weekly show. It's an hour. Its mission is to document everyday life in this country. We sometimes think of it as a documentary show for people who normally hate documentaries. A public radio show for people who don't necessarily care for public radio."

I almost never remember to tune in when the show airs, because the timing doesn't fit my schedule. Having the option to subscribe is perfect, because it supports the show and I get it on demand.

"Is there an easy way to take an iPad screenshot without installing a screen capture app on my iPad?"

Starting with iOS 2.0, Apple made it easy to take iPhone screenshots without additional software. Taking an iPad screenshot is just as easy because the steps are identical. You simply need to hold down the home button, the press the sleep/wake button at the same time. Once you grab the iPad screenshot it will appear in your Photos on the iPad. Once you have the iPad screenshot emailing is just as easy.

iThoughtsHD I use mind mapping to organize my thoughts for all kinds of projects. From outlining the contents of an ebook project to trying to pull together all the ideas of a project plan, a mind map helps me visualize how various pieces fit together. I'm finding I really like mind mapping on my iPad, because the touch screen allows me to interact with my mind maps in a completely different way. iThoughtsHD is by far the most feature rich mind map app for iPad. I can quickly build my mind map of interrelated items, color code sections, as well as add icons for visual presnetation. iThoughtsHD supports the iPad VGA adapter, which means the iPad works for mind mapping presentations. Dropbox support is built in, so you can share files easily to your desktop, with version control. TextExpander allows you to insert frequently used phrases and URLs into your mind map. iThoughtsHD supports all the major mind map formats, including Freemind/Freeplane, Novamind 4 and 5, MindManager 6+, XMind, iMindmap, Mindview 3, ConceptDraw, MINDMAP 6, and OPML files, so you can easy take your work back to a desktop application. As I said recently on Twitter, iThoughtsHD is currently my favorite iPad app.

"I did a restore on my iPad and lost all my apps. When I go back to the iTunes App store it says that I have to buy the same iTunes apps I already purchased. How can I redownload my iTunes apps that were previously purchased from the iTunes store?"

The iTunes App store assumes you will sync your apps with your computer when you connect your iPad. What they don't do is make that process automatic by enabling app sync by default. This translates to a situation like yours, where you purchased a bunch of iTunes apps, restored your iPad, and then realized you didn't have any of your apps. Fortunately, there's a solution that will get you the apps you previously purchased, without spending any additional money.

My 17-month-old daughter, Geneva, has shown a great deal of interest in the iPad ever since I brought it home. She delights in poking virtually anything on the screen, to the point that I needed to enable every possible app password to prevent accidental deletion of data. To channel some of that curiosity into a more positive direction, I started looking for toddler friendly iPad apps. While this is by no means a comprehensive list, here are a few that are current favorites.

A number of people have asked me how I like reading on the iPad. My response is usually something along the lines of, I like it, but I like reading on the Kindle better. The reason I like reading on the Kindle better is it reads more like paper, but let me explain a bit more about what I mean by that.

"I downloaded a bunch of apps for my iPad and now the screen is full of icons. Can I rearrange the icons on my iPad or am I stuck with where they show up after I download new apps?"

You can rearrange icons on your iPad in a number of ways and as soon as you get the iOS 4 update for your iPad, you will have even more options. For now, you are limited to sorting them on individual screens by dragging the icons where you want them, but icon groupings will also be supported in iOS 4.

"Is there a version of GarageBand for iPad? I'd really like to make music with my iPad and I love GarageBand on my Mac."

Apple currently does not make a GarageBand for iPad or for the iPhone either. If I were to guess at why this isn't on their radar yet, it would be because all that music sampling material they provide in GarageBand takes up a ton of space and would quickly eat up available storage on even the 64GB iPad. Depending on the type of music you want to make on your iPad, there are a couple of solid options to choose from in the music recording space, although nothing quite as elegant as GarageBand for Mac OS X.

"How do I edit Google Docs on my iPad? I know I can view Google docs in Safari and there are a bunch of apps that read Google Docs, but I can't find a Google Docs editor for iPad. Any ideas?"

Safari for iPad currently lacks some necessary features for editing Google Docs on an iPad, although reading them looks pretty great. My favorite PDF editor for iPad, ReaddleDocs, also works great as a Google Docs reader, but doesn't support editing. In fact, to date, I can only find one app that actually works acceptably for editing Google Docs on my iPad.

Is there a Windows Remote Desktop Connection for iPad users? I use my iPad for everything, but occasionally I need to access a file on my computer. With a computer I use Remote Desktop Connection, is there something similar for iPad?"

There are a number of solutions that allow you to use an iPad to connect remotely to Windows. Some of them rely on proprietary connections, some use VNC, and a handful use Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to take advantage of the Remote Desktop Connection feature in Windows. Just be sure you choose the right one.