Notable New iPad Apps: Beethoven’s 9th Symphony

Beethover's 9th Symphony iPad app

Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is a wonderful new iPad app celebrating this famous and loved piece of music. I’ve never been a big fan of classical music but something about the look of this app grabbed me and I decided to give it a look.

Wow, I am so glad I did. This is just a fantastic app, even for someone like me who’s not knowledgeable about the music. Here’s a bit of the App Store intro for it:

Beethoven’s 9th Symphony for iPad presents four of Deutsche Grammophon’s legendary recordings of this iconic work, with the amazing ability to switch instantly between each performance at any point in the piece. As you listen, you can watch the synchronized musical score, be guided by expert commentary, follow Beethoven’s 1825 manuscript or immerse yourself in the hypnotic graphical BeatMap of the orchestra, precisely highlighting every note. The app also includes a treasure-trove of specially filmed video interviews with musicians, writers and great conductors discussing Beethoven and his masterwork.

Here’s some of the app’s features that I’ve found gripping:

– The music itself of course. The app offers four of the ‘legendary’ performances of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony – and you can switch between these as you listen with just a single tap.

Ferenc Fricsay’s first stereo recording of this work from 1958 with the Berliner Philharmoniker; Herbert von Karajan’s famous 1962 recording with the same orchestra; the widely loved and charismatic maestro Leonard Bernstein’s video recording from 1979 with the Wiener Philharmoniker; and the ground-breaking 1992 recording on period instruments conducted by John Eliot Gardiner.
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Google’s Hangouts App for iPad Is an Ugly Mess

Hangouts iPad app

At yesterday’s Google I/O event Google announced the very promising Hangouts app, a sort of unified messaging app / service for iOS, Android and web. And the Hangouts app for the iPad and iPhone was released yesterday too.

The iPad app is a horrible, ugly mess. There a number of very good iPad apps with simple, basic user interfaces. But Hangouts has a drab, clumsy UI that looks very much like it was slapped together with little to no thought or effort.

That’s one of the app’s main screens above. It’s just sad looking right? Hit the break for a couple more screenshots of the app in all its glory.

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Watchup iPad Video News App Updated: Lots of New Channels

Watchup iPad App

The Watchup iPad video news app has been updated this week – adding a number of good new channels.

The update, issued yesterday, takes the app to Version 1.10.1. New channels added for the US include Chicago Tribune, The Motley Fool, KXAN (Yay Austin), Moyers & Company, TechCrunch and more. There are also a great number of new international channels added:

• Latin America: NTN24
• Argentina: C5N, Canal 7
• Brazil: RedeTV!, SBT, TV NBR, Ulbra TV
• Colombia: Canal Capital, Noticias Caracol
• Ecuador: RTU Noticias
• And many other channels for Australia, Canada, the UK, Mexico, Ireland, Hungary, France, Italy, Lithuania, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Venezuela and many others.

Watchup is great, simple app for keeping up with daily news via video from a strong, curated list of sources. It’s a recent pick of ours for Best Free iPad App of the Week.

Here’s an App Store link for Watchup; it’s still a free app.

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1Password for iPad Updated: Lots of 1Browser Improvements & More

1Password iPad app

The ever-excellent 1Password app for iPad and iOS has been updated again this week, to Version 4.2.

This is another big update for 1Password, with a slew of new features and enhancements for its 1Browser inline browser. A big new feature, apparently based on user demand, is sharing. You can now share 1Password items via email and Messages. The search function within the app has also been beefed up – it now searches URLs as well as item titles.

Here’s the full (full!) change list for this latest version:

1Browser
* Added Go and Fill bookmarks in 1Browser on iPad.
* Added the ability to use Strong Password Generator in 1Browser on iPad.
* Added the ability to auto-submit on login filling.
* Added fill animations to make it easy (and fun) to see where fields are filled.
* Added Copy to Clipboard in the Share menu to copy the current URL to the clipboard.
* Closing the last tab will now direct you back to vault mode.
1Browser Settings
* Added 1Browser settings menu.
* Added the ability to adjust auto-submit and fill-animation defaults.
* Added the ability to clear the Web Data (eg. Cookies) from 1Browser.

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Notable New iPad Apps: Write for Dropbox

Wrtite for Dropbox iPad app

 

Last week Write for Dropbox, iPad edition hit the App Store. It’s another good text editor app for the iPad, with Dropbox sync and strong Markdown support.

The app’s full title in the App Store is Write for Dropbox – A Beautiful Note Taking App (iPad Edition) – but I’m just going to refer to it as Write from here on in this post.

To say that this app is feature-packed would be an understatement. Here’s its App Store feature list:

  • Write opens to a new blank note to quickly jot down things on your mind
  • Automatic Dropbox Syncing
  • Full background support for uploading notes to Dropbox. Notes will continue uploading to Dropbox even if you close the app
  • Clean distraction free interface
  • Create, edit and view text files on your iPhone and iPod Touch
  • Folder Support (upto 1 level deep)
  • Full Markdown support with ability to preview markdown even while writing
  • A special markdown toolbar to make writing in markdown easy
  • Insert images with absolute image URLs from your Dropbox account
  • Full screen writing and reading
  • Ability to click on links and phone numbers when in view mode
  • An exclusive cursor trackpad and swipe selection

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Notable New iPad Apps: The Loop Magazine

Today Jim Dalrymple has released The Loop Magazine for iPad and iPhone in the App Store. This magazine app is a new extension of the popular The Loop website, and will cover similar ground. Dalrymople is known for his straight shooting approach on all things Apple, music, Heineken, and other topics. He’s not a man [...]

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