Over the past 10 days, I’ve been giving a tonne of new apps a go. Some of my favourites so far.
Reeder - Every bit as slick as its iPhone sibling, I’m bowled over by Reeder. It’s not as fully-featured as new contender Mr Reader, but Reeder experience is far more Apple like1. Reeder feels as though everything that’s included in the app is there for a reason, and not simply aiming to be the catch-all RSS reader (if there can possibly be such a thing). It’d be nice to see Reeder feature the ability to manage feeds, but I’m not really that fussed - I don’t tend to subscribe to RSS feeds on the iPad anyhow.
Articles - Another iPhone favourite, I’ve already reviewed that version of this Wikipedia app. Articles’ design is slick, and every bit as delightful to use as you’d expect. The animations are just right, and it makes reading Wikipedia incredibly easy on the eye.
Ego - I’ve long been a fan of Ego for iPhone, and the iPad version continues the style and function of the pocket companion. It’s a great way of not only seeing the at-a-glance stats for Twitter et al, but actually logging into the relevant services. My only gripe - Ego for iPad only displays in landscape, forcing you to rotate the device when in portrait mode to use it.
World of Goo HD - Picked up a while back whilst on sale, this and long-term favourite Carcassonne are the only two games on the ‘pad at the moment. I’ve tried Tiny Wings on the iPad, as recommended by Gedeon, however as with all the other iPhone games I’ve tried the upscaling (or playing at iPhone resolution) simply isn’t enjoyable.
iA Writer - Vying for a homescreen spot alongside current docked app Elements, iA Writer is a great app. However, whilst its extra keyboard buttons are brilliant, Writer is somewhat nixed by the fact that I can’t put documents into folders. I appreciate the simplicity of not worrying about folders, but I have two folders set up for Elements - one for this blog, the other for notes etc for the day job.
Numbers - Something of a surprise purchase (I loathe spreadsheets), Numbers has been pretty handy to work on the über-spreadsheet I’ve concocted for planning our wedding. It’s not perfect (more on that soon), but so long as you’re keeping the spreadsheet on the iPad it works incredibly well.
This post is part of my weekly app reviews. You can read more reviews from the series here.
Granted, Reeder (unlike Mr Reader) is post-1.0.0, however Mr Reader isn’t as easy to dive in and out of. Modals overlays when syncing are my nemesis: Mr Reader blocks me from doing anything whilst it syncs. I’m also not a fan of the icon, but that’s a purely personal taste thing. ↩
Posted on Tuesday April 5th, 2011
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