MetaFilter posts tagged with iPad

Current quest: saw a leg off the period table

NoraReed — Sun, 12 May 2013 23:59:58 -0800

Godville is a text-based "massively-multiplayer zero-player game" in which you play a god with rather tenuous control over a hero. Changes to the game, including quests and items, are crowd-sourced and voted on by the community The game is playable in browser and via Android and iOS apps. Official game wiki.

App Art

Orb — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 07:12:56 -0800

Invisible Hieroglyphics: iPad screen smudges as art.

Screenwriters on screenwriting

dobbs — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 10:57:20 -0800

The Q&A With Jeff Goldsmith is an irregularly released podcast where Mr. Goldsmith interviews, at length (each episode runs an hour or more), working Hollywood and foreign screenwriters. The most recent episode is a panel conversation with the year's Oscar-nominated screenwriters. You can listen to the podcasts on his site or subscribe in iTunes or on Android.

Goldsmith is also the publisher of the terrific screenwriting magazine Backstory--currently only available for the iPad but coming (eventually) to the web and Android. You can download the first issue (which is wonderful, and contains full length scripts along with the interviews and stories) for free.

iDon't Believe It

MuffinMan — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 10:08:33 -0800

A German store hires an ace salesman to sell its iPads (SLYT)

Apple, Transparency, Maps, and Made-in-USA iMacs

The Deej — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 07:42:18 -0800

Tim Cook's Freshman Year: The Apple CEO Speaks Prior to his death on Oct. 5, 2011, Steve Jobs made sure that the elevation of Tim Cook—his longtime head of operations and trusted deputy—to Apple chief executive officer would be drama-free. “He goes, ‘I never want you to ask what I would have done,’” recalls Cook. “‘Just do what’s right.’ He was very clear.” ... In his most wide-ranging interview as CEO, Cook explains how Apple works now, talks about the perception that he’s “robotic,” and announces the return of Apple manufacturing to the U.S.

Sun sets on The Daily

brentajones — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 05:55:21 -0800

The Daily, much-lauded iPad-only news operation is "ceasing standalone publication" on December 15. The News Corp publication launched Feb. 2, 2011 with cooperation from Apple and its nascent Newsstand app. Previously.

Free full-screen music discovery, on your screen or on your tablet

Rhaomi — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 17:34:28 -0800

We last discussed music discovery site TheSixtyOne back in 2009, but it's changed pretty radically since then. Out with pages of spare, Facebook-like charts, in with gorgeous full-screen imagery peppered with photos and information about each track and the artists behind them. Anybody can submit music to the site, where community listens and ratings elevate the best to the top, and users can directly tip their favorite musicians with purchasable credits. Explore by mood, by Creative Commons tracks, indulge in some gamification with quests (in the top bar), or follow development on the official blog areasixtyone. Returning soon: user-created listening rooms for dedicated playlists or topics. And if you own an iPad, don't miss the free companion app Aweditorium, which sprawls the site's entire collection into an endless grid of playable audiovisual fun.

Sandpaper not included

Artw — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 17:31:23 -0800

Today saw Apple has enter the competitive 7" tablet market with the iPad Mini. But what if your tablety desires run to something larger, not smaller? Sony has you covered with a 20-inch, 11-pound "tabletop PC".

Bill Hill, digital typography and e-book pioneer, died Wednesday.

Berkun — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 10:30:26 -0800

Bill Hill, digital typography and e-book pioneer, died Wednesday. A pioneer in using science to explain how our brains let us read, he was at Microsoft in the 1990s, and was one the inventors of ClearType, a technology for improving online reading on Windows. His passionate and entertaining lectures include Homo Sapiens 1.0 (transcript) which advocated that programmers need to learn as much about how their user's brains work rather than just OSes and programming languages, Why you only need one space after a period and the section of that talk on Why underlining hurts your brain. He died Wednesday from a heart attack.

To the heavens and hell

paleyellowwithorange — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 00:28:17 -0800

If I Fly a UAV Over My Neighbor's House, Is It Trespassing? "The wide availability of UAV technology (combined with HD video) scrambles my sense of what is right. Specifically, it points out how much of our sense of privacy is intimately connected up with our expectations of our property rights. Drones - as flying, seeing objects - scramble our 2D sense of property boundaries, and along the way, make privacy much more complicated." Also, Everyone Who Wants a Drone Will Have One Soon. "Let me posit this: Drones will make traditional fences as obsolete as gunpowder and cannons made city walls."

The iEconomy

zarq — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 19:52:45 -0800

The iEconomy: Apple and Technology Manufacturing. Since January, the New York Times has been running a series of articles "examining the challenges posed by increasingly globalized high-tech industries," with a focus on Apple's business practices. The seventh article in the series was published today: In Technology Wars, Using the Patent as a Sword. Related: For Software, Cracks in the Patent System and Fighters in the Patent War. Part 1: "An Empire Built Abroad" (January 12, 2012) * How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work (Previously on MetaFilter) * Motion Graphic: The iPhone Economy Part 2: "A Punishing System" (January 25, 2012) * In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad * Graphic: Compliance by the Numbers * The Lede Blog: Chinese Readers on the ‘iEconomy’ / Voices of Chinese Readers on the 'iEconomy' * Poll Finds Consumer Confusion on Where Apple Devices Are Made * The Lede Blog: Questions for Li Qiang of China Labor Watch * Economix Blog: Facebook Chat About the 'iEconomy' Series Part 3: "Protecting Profits" (April 29, 2012) * How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Global Taxes * Apple’s Response on Its Tax Practices * Graphic: Shrinking Corporate Tax Rates * Graphic: One Technique Apple Pioneered Video: Charles Duhigg and David Kocieniewski Respond to Reader Questions and Comments Part 4: "Retailing's King" (June 24, 2012) * Apple’s Retail Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay * Video: Video: David Segal Responds to Reader Questions and Comments Part 5: "The Impossible Made Possible" (August 5, 2012) * In Wooing of Nissan, a Lesson for Tech Jobs? * Graphic: Evolution of a Manufacturing Supply Chain * Slideshow: An Automaker Migrates to Tennessee * Room for Debate: Should the U.S. Seek More Tech Manufacturing? Part 6: "Artificial Competence" (August 19, 2012) * Skilled Work without the Worker: A New Wave of Adept Robots Is Changing Global Industry (This article is linked in this post.) * Video: The Robot Factory Future * Video: Business Day Live: Nissan's Lesson Part 7: "A System in Disarray" (October 8, 2012) * In Technology Wars, Using the Patent as a Sword. * Graphic: For Software, Cracks in the Patent System * Graphic: Fighters in the Patent War

The Work Anywhere Theory, in Practice

gilrain — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 07:52:53 -0800

A year ago, programmer Mark O'Connor decided to swap his MacBook for an iPad and a Linode VPS (Virtual Private Server) development environment. Today, he discusses the success of his experiment.

Stockholm Syndrome

misha — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 08:36:51 -0800

Please visit Stockholm. We need more iPads. (SLYTHDTDT*) *Single Link YouTube "How do they DO that?!" post.

How about that youngster?

ersatz — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 11:25:48 -0800

New Star Soccer lets you create a football player, choose his nationality and lead him to glory from the age of 16 until he retires. You can play it on your computer (Kongregate), on Android or on iOS. Critics love it and half a million downloads have drawn further attention to the game and the reasons for its success. (Eurogamer, Edge) Interview with Simon Read about making the game, cutting features and profitability. The computer version is free with occasional ads, the Android version is free and the iOS version is a free download with a purchase to unlock career mode. You can train to improve your stats, negotiate contracts, handle your relationships with your manager, team mates, fans, girlfriend, and sponsors or you might rather negotiate better contracts as your "star rating" increase and splurge on items. Help mode is brief and helpful. In a word, properties increase your recovery after each game, drinks help you recover energy and possibly increase your skills or happiness while boots increase your stats for a few games. Your actions expend energy and your heart rate controls the number of chances you get, which are also influenced by your relationship with your team, and how quickly you tire out. The music can be muted from the options in the main menu. NSS is the little brother of New Star Soccer 5, which is a different kettle of fish.

The memo platform is burning

infini — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 08:49:40 -0800

iPhone Caused “Crisis of Design” at Samsung (Memo) “Influential figures outside the company come across the iPhone, and they point out that ‘Samsung is dozing off.’ All this time we’ve been paying all our attention to Nokia, and concentrated our efforts on things like Folder, Bar, Slide,” Shin wrote. “Yet when our UX is compared to the unexpected competitor Apple’s iPhone, the difference is truly that of Heaven and Earth. It’s a crisis of design.” Complete text of the internal memo submitted in the Apple vs Samsung case. Those are the more ugly points of the memo, which seems to bolster Apple’s lawsuit stating that Samsung infringed upon a number of Apple’s patents. Apple asserts that Samsung has “slavishly copied” Apple’s iPad and iPhone devices, and is seeking $2.5 billion in damages. So any more ammunition that Apple can get to make it look like Samsung attempted to actively rip off Apple’s products is only a good thing for Apple’s case. And the memo is rife with ammunition.

My First Prototype Post

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 15:03:50 -0800

Prototypes are usually the missing links in the evolution of human technology, the dead-ends of ideas that give way to the refinement of the final physical product. Prototypes aren't just for Darth Vader. While the legal back and forth between Apple and Samsung continues, a treasure trove of prototype designs for Apple devices has been released to the public, showing insights into various design approaches and feature enhancements, including larger form-factor iPads with and without kickstands and landscape ports and iPhones that parody the Sony logo, show a different layout for camera elements, and look remarkably like fourth-generation models, as far back as 2005. On the other hand, some have made prototypes into the end goal itself, such as the folks at Dangerous Prototypes, a site which features a new open-source electronic hardware project each month. Some are just gratuitous fun, while others are a bit more practical, such as one project that recycles old Nokia displays and another that provides access to infrared signal, useful for hacking together remote controls for all sorts of IR-based devices. Other prototypes of tomorrow's technology are less concerned with shrinking down the guts of the invention itself, to make it disappear, but rather on how we interact with and integrate physical representations of these ideas into our daily lives. Above all else, prototypes are always forward-looking and are therefore inherently optimistic expressions of human creativity: Even children are getting into imagining the world of tomorrow.

Reading Rainbow 2.0 (& every single episode of Reading Rainbow available on YouTube)

flex — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 08:30:40 -0800

Reading Rainbow is back (includes video interview with LeVar Burton, ~4.5 min.) - "rebooted as an app for tablet computers" (Android? yes, soon); reviews from Gizmodo & Engadget. Here's a recent convention Q&A with Burton where he announces the app (video, relevant part starts at 3:30). But if this announcement is simply making you nostalgic for the television show, all 155 episodes of Reading Rainbow are available here on YouTube (neatly sorted into playlists by season, or you can just start here for every single episode in order). (previously: LeVar Burton goes behind the scenes of Star Trek: The Next Generation in a Reading Rainbow episode - Reading Rainbow ends its 26-year run)

Commuter Reading

netbros — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:57:21 -0800

What’s a Readlist? A group of web pages—articles, recipes, course materials, anything—bundled into an e-book you can send to your Kindle, iPad, or iPhone.

Heartless Machines

griphus — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:36:46 -0800

Christopher Locke makes Analog Tele-Phonographers out of salvaged brass intruments and machine parts. It all began with the The Zurich (video)... The Ides of March (video) Full Tilt (video) LowFlow (video) Tiny Dancer (video) Parish Property (video) Big Trouble (video) Frump (video) The Crossroads (video) Harvey Wallhanger (video) HissyFit (video) Madder Horn (video) Silver Stallion (video) Triple Trouble (video) Sonny Trombono (video) Cullen's Trombone (video) Silver French Horn (video)

Apple and the Big Five

Artw — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:50:15 -0800

The U.S. has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and five of the largest publishers, alleging a conspiracy to rig the pricing of e-books. Simon & Schuster, Hachette and HarperCollins have agreed to settle, though Macmillan, Penguin and Apple continue to contest the charges. Some background from WIRED: Bigger Than Agency, Bigger Than E-Books: The Case Against Apple and Publishers

A single creature with the power of three beasts

not_the_water — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:34:51 -0800

If Nicholas Carr is right, and consuming words on a screen is a "more primitive way of reading," then the iPad is a little bit Neanderthal and a little bit Prometheus. Its potential for creative ways to interact with literature makes it more than just an e-reader. And while it took more than a year and a half since the iPad's launch, some publishers are beginning to experiment with that potential. Last year saw several forays into innovative literature apps, most notably T.S. Elliot's The Waste Land; Atlas Shrugged and On The Road also received the "enhanced" app treatment.
Laura Miller (Salon.com co-founder, NY Times Book Review columnist, author) and Maud Newton (writer and critic for The NY Times Book Review, Granta, The Awl) have both written extensively about digital reading and publishing and they've launched The Chimerist, tagline: Two iPad lovers at the intersection of art, stories, and technology. Newton writes:

The Chimera of Greek myth was a fire-breathing abomination, part lion, part goat, and part snake or dragon, that “devastated the country and harried the cattle; for it was a single creature with the power of three beasts.” A lot of readers I know and respect look at the ebook and other art that makes use of technology as just this kind of dreadful mutant, threatening not just to storytelling and intellectual discourse, but to civilization itself. Although I’m not by nature an optimist, I have more faith than that in our ability to adapt, to use our new tools to create art and stories that are profound and beautiful. And I know Laura does too, which is the reason we decided, after more than a year and a half of talking about it, to start The Chimerist.

So far they've covered Maurizio Cattelan For Ipad, the Strange Rain app, and lockscreens. They're also looking for screenshots of your iPad. (Laura Miller previously on The Blue.)

All apes love their apps

Philosopher Dirtbike — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 03:04:15 -0800

Orangutans playing with iPads! It is well-known that our ape cousins are highly intelligent. When they are in captivity, it is critical to give them ways to enrich and entertain themselves. As it turns out, Orangutans love using iPads. The Apps for Apes program is trying to get donations to buy more iPads for Orangutans. They hope, eventually, "to offer bored orang-utans online 'primate play dates.'"

fuck you mom and dad for not getting me an iPhone fuck you, FML

desjardins — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:52:48 -0800

Didn't get that Apple product you wanted for Christmas? Jonathan Mann, with the help of Twitter, composed a song for you: WTF?! I wanted an iPhone! If that doesn't quite rock your world, Mann composes and performs a song a day, so there ought to be something you like.

But will it make people feel guilty when they play angry birds?

delmoi — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:07:13 -0800

New App Lets iPad Users Play With Real Live Pigs

Amazing sixth grader gives TEDx talk

PapaLobo — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 09:31:25 -0800

Sixth grader codes iOS apps, gives TED talks, and - generally - makes me feel like I've been lazy my entire life.