Author Archives: Patrick Jordan

Father’s Day Gift Guide: Featured in the App Store this Week

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App Store Fathers Day Gift Guide

One of the featured app collections in the App Store this week is titled ‘Father’s Day Gift Guide’. So if you’ve got a dad in your life who’s partial to a great iPad app you may want to give it a look and get some inspiration.

The collection has 8 sections: Gifts for Music Lovers, Gifts for Photographers, Gifts to Get Stuff Done, Gifts for Foodies, Gifts for Casual Gamers, Gifts for Hardcore Gamers, Apps for Kids, and Games for Kids. Each section features 10 apps.

One notable thing about the collection is that it highlights a number of Apple’s own apps – including GarageBand, iPhoto, and Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

There are plenty of good app choices in each of the sections, so this collection should offer some good ideas for all the dads out there who aren’t looking for a new pair of socks or a fancy new drill for Father’s Day.

You can find the Father’s Day Gift Guide app collection right at the top of the App Store featured section, in the rotating set of images for featured collections.

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Say Hello to My Big (Neglected) Friend, the iPad 3

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iPad 3 home screen

I am a little ashamed to admit that I have been neglecting my iPad 3, a lot, over recent months. I got an iPad mini on its launch day morning last November and it quickly won me over with its wonderful lightness and form factor.

Like others, I was initially skeptical about the 8 inch (or near enough) tablet form factor, but after just a day or so with the iPad mini I was a big fan of it. All these months later, I still am and it’s easily my most used device. I’d say my usage pattern on tablets recently has been around 60% iPad mini, 30% Samsung Galaxy Note 8, and only 10% iPad 3.

This past Monday I wanted to get a multi-screen setup going while taking in Apple’s WWDC 2013 keynote event. I decided to view Apple’s live stream on the iPad, follow the Engadget liveblog in Chrome on my iMac and use Evernote on the iMac to take quick notes during the event.

The iPad 3 screen was the obvious bigger, better choice for watching the Apple live stream. It also served as an instant reminder of how fabulous the iPad 3’s Retina display is, and of just how much I’d been neglecting my big friend.

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Notable New iPad Apps: 2013 US Open Golf Championship for iPad

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2013 US Open Golf Championship for iPad

Today is the second day of this year’s US Open Golf Championship at Merion Golf Club and there’s an official iPad app for it: 2013 US Open Golf Championship for iPad.

The app offers a number of good features for helping you follow along with the second major of the year. These inlcude:

– Live Video of ‘marquee’ groups. I tuned in just a short while ago and the Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, and Rory Mcilroy group was featured. The live video is available in the US only and over cellular data as well as WiFi.

– Leaderboard – with stats leaders and some excellent breakdown views for individual players when you tap on their names.

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Quick Fixes for When an iPad App Won’t Open

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iPad Multitasking Bar

Here’s a problem that all iPad users have experienced at one time or another: you open an app and it closes right away and returns you to the home screen. Sometimes it’s just a fluke and the app opens properly when you try again, but sometimes the app just quits right away each time you try.

Luckily, there are several relatively easy potential fixes for this issue. Here they are, starting with the easiest and fastest method and going from there:

– Restart the iPad: Quite often that’s all it takes to resolve this problem and it’s quick to give it a try and either be done and good to go, or move on to the next possible fix.

– Open the Multitasking Bar and manually close the troublesome app. Double-press the home button to bring up the Multitasking Bar, which shows all recently opened apps. Tap and hold on any of the icons in the bar until you see the icons start to wiggle. Then tap the little red minus sign on the icon for the problem app.

– Delete and reinstall the app from the App Store. This is particularly appropriate if the problem has occurred right after you have installed the problematic app. This is another quick thing to try, at least with most apps – it will not be so quick with apps that have huge file sizes.

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Review – Quiz Apps: World Football for iPad

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Quiz Apps World Football iPad app

Quiz Apps: World Football is a World Cup trivia quiz game for the iPad and iPhone. I’m a huge football fan and I rate the World Cup and the Summer Olympics as probably the two greatest sporting events ever. So I’m pretty much always in the mood to tackle some World Cup and football trivia.

This game promises to be challenging and fun – here’s a little of its App Store description:

Are you ready for the challenge? Test your knowledge about football with Quiz Apps: World Football. World Football is a fun and fast game in which you can find everything about football including players, teams, coaches, goals, championships… 3 different game modes will challenge you whether you are relaxing at home or just need a short fun break on-the-go. The rich content will provide you with months worth of entertainment.

I was keen to see if the game is as challenging as it claims, and I gave it a try the other night. Sadly, this one doesn’t live up to the hype. Hit the break for an explanation of why it disappoints …

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Quick Thoughts on iOS 7 and the iPad

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As expected, Apple previewed iOS 7 at yesterday’s WWDC 2013 keynote event and announced that it will be released to the public this fall. iOS 7 is of course the next generation of the operating system for iPad and iPhone. I watched the entire keynote via Apple’s live stream, and looked on most intently during [...]

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Crazy iPad Numbers from the WWDC 2013 Keynote

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One thing you can always rely on at Apple events is that some crazy, large numbers will be thrown around. Today’s WWDC 2013 Keynote event didn’t waver from that tradition. Just in the first few minutes we heard that there are now 6 million registered Apple developers, 50 billion apps have been downloaded from the [...]

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