iPad Apps Buzz

Clash of the eBook Titans: Kindle for iPad vs iBooks

The Kindle app was one of the first off the blocks for the iPad, bringing with it access to the vast (500,000+ item) library of Kindle content. Unlike the iPhone, however, Kindle on the iPad has competition and probably the fiercest it is possible to have on the iPad – direct competition from the mothership itself, Apple.

Apple’s new iBooks application is debuting on the iPad and is one of the key selling points of the device. The sleek interface is front and center in the iPad marketing campaigns and rightly so – it’s downright gorgeous and just another in a long line of interfaces that set the bar.

eBook reading is also one of the most intuitive uses of the iPad, and Apple keenly knowing this has polished iBooks to a mirror finish. Quality oozes from every finely detailed user interface element and makes it a joy to use.

So how does the Kindle hold up in Apple’s newly annexed promised land? Does it still cut the mustard in 10″ of colour?
Read more

Instapaper for iPad: How it will change how you read blogs

UPDATE: More pictures, more links, oh my!

So the iPad application Instapaper has been getting a lot of coverage on Twitter and around the design blogs for being possibly the first iPad killer application. But if you’re like me, the phrase “killer application” is so overdone it rings the cynic bells almost straight away. So is the hype justified?

For the uninitiated, the idea behind Instapaper is to provide a really simple system for taking webpages you want to read and archiving them on the Instapaper website for reading later.

You sign up for an account and click the provided bookmark in your browser, saving pages to the cloud for reading later.

Then, on your mobile device you open the Instapaper app and the articles you previously saved are now visible in a list. Simple idea, but you may be asking (and rightly), is this actually useful?

Read more