Back in April we penned these words when reviewing the wonderful Alice for iPad, "Children's books have a special place in the history of print. When we have long forgotten the magazines, newspapers and school textbooks of yesterday, we will always remember our favourite children's storybook. For me, and perhaps for many of you, it was Richard Scarry's classic, 'Busy Busy World'. When TV shows and movies failed us with their fast edits and complex themes, storybooks provided the perfect pace and relaxed re-reading experience that our young minds required."

Alice for iPad introduced 2D physics based interaction to a classic story book, now The Pedlar Lady of Gushing Cross adds sophisticated 3D animated illustrations and text along with professional quality narration.

We have yet to play with The Pedlar Lady of Gushing Cross, but as soon as we do we will report back with a full review.

Further reading:  iPad, the potential to permanently polish off print

There is an increasing number of iPad apps in the App Store that can best be described as moving art. We looked at Uzu recently, the impressive kinetic multitouch particle visualizer, and we think Bubble Harp belongs in the same category.

The art that can be produced using Bubble Harp is geometric, however the compelling use of multitouch makes the act of creating the shapes and forms quite organic. Check out the video above to get a feel for Bubble Harp.

Further reading:  It's Jean Michel Jarre meets Yoda with a dash of Rolf Harris thrown in for good measure!

A couple of days ago we posted about how great the new iPhone 4's HD footage looked on the iPad screen.  If you wanted to show someone else how good the video looks or grab a frame from that great looking video you could try waiting until just before the right moment, press the Home and Power buttons at the same time, switch to the Photos app and check the frame grab to see if you were fortunate enough to capture the moment you were after.  If not, you have to switch back to the video start playing it again, wait for the right moment... and so on.

Or, you could spend £1.79 (or $2.99) on VideoPix for iPad [iTunes link] from See It With Us.  This app is an iPad specific version of the previously released iPhone app.  (Non-DRM) Videos on your iPad can be played back as slowly as 1 frame per second, giving you absolute control over the image that you then capture.  The app keeps recent frame captures in its own library and you can email up to 20 frames in one go for sharing purposes.

Once you have grabbed your frame you can then crop the image and add a few basic effects, i.e. Black & White and Sepia.

Source videos can be those already on your iPad (i.e. synced from iTunes), as long as they are not DRM'd, you can transfer video over Wi-Fi from another device, or alternatively import video via the Apple Camera Connection Kit.

720p is the recommended maximum resolution for this app, they don't recommend 1080p video due to concerns over slow performance, so if you do try this on your iPad let us know how it goes.

There are a number of uses for this kind of app such as grabbing frames from movies for your own personal uses (like wallpapers), the company cites the example of golfers wanting to analyse a video of their swing frame by frame to spot the point at which they wobble, etc. but really it is useful to us to grab a screencap from a video to illustrate a blog post or to play back a video in slow motion to see the detail captured in our HD footage.

If you have any questions about what you can do with this app and your iPad there is a very useful FAQ on the See It With Us website so take a look, and if you get this app and find it useful we would like to hear how you have used it. Let us know in the comments below.

The video below shows the iPhone app in use, but it gives a good idea of how the app works:

Today we have a special Guest Post from Paul Westlake, a Photographer and iPad user we have followed on Twitter and Facebook for a while now. Paul has just taken delivery of the Marware Eco-Vue iPad case, so we asked him if he would let us know what he thought of it. Paul's review, posted on his Tumblr, has been reproduced below with his kind permission.  Over to you Paul... 

I rest my case, in search of an iPad case

As lovely a design as the iPad is, from the first time I took it out of the box, I knew I would need to protect it in some way…

We recommend you check out Paul's Professional portfolio at SmugMug but he posts some great photos on Flickr too.  You can also check out Paul's blog here.

More Brushes painting animations, this time set to Flight of The Bumble Bee. The musical accompaniment works nicely. Watch as Robert builds the portrait by layering unusual colours. The end result is quite striking. The final image can be found on Flickr and it is part of the iPad Creative, Art and Design Flickr group. Great work Robert and thanks for sharing.

Further reading: Psycho Robot Vs. The iPad  •  Animal studies

We like creative use of technology, especially when it involves the iPad, and so we were intrigued to see the rather 'animated' band Gorillaz produce an iPad (and iPhone) app that ties in to the promotional ecosphere around their third album, Plastic Beach, released in March this year.

There is a lot of content on the Gorillaz site to draw people in to their slightly bonkers universe including games, music and video. Now they have managed to extend their reach to iOS device users with Escape to Plastic Beach for iPad.

It uses the glider vehicle concept to transport the band member Murdoch around Plastic Beach with a chase theme, hazards to avoid, a little bit of shoot-em-up and some puzzle solving too throughout the eight '3D' levels of the game.

What is clever about this though, besides the obvious band members featured in the game, is the soundtrack to the game which of course is Gorillaz' own music. Hearing it in the background can either bring in new fans or encourage current fans to listen again, keeping the Gorillaz brand fresh in their minds.  A nice way to keep people involved in the band's universe.

As far as the iPad visuals go, they look great and the game makes good use of the iPad's control system. For just £1.19 ($1.99) it is a fun and entertaining distraction, especially if you already like the band and their music.

There have been a few game tie-ins from other bands but none have come up with anything so original as a complete, animated environment to host their fans in, so hats off to Gorillaz for their inventive creativity on this one.

The video below from YouTube user stuartdredge gives us a look at the first few minutes of gameplay from first launch.  Take a look:

There are two things that are sure to go down well with the iPad Creative team, learning apps and special offers. Today, and for one day only as far as we can tell, the rather excellent 123 Color HD app is half price. 123 Color HD is all about sight and sound, colour recognition and numeracy with some language tuition on the side. Watch the video to get a flavour of 123 Color HD, it is not hard to see why 123 Color HD has proved to be so popular and now at half price you have little reason not to give it a try.

When capturing HD video the iPhone 4 holds more information per frame than the iPad is capable of displaying on its 1024 x 768 IPS screen. This means that iPhone 4 video look gorgeous. Surprisingly this mostly holds true even when viewing iPhone 4 HD footage via YouTube on the iPad either through a browser or the YouTube app. In our experience YouTube HD footage looks a lot nicer on the iPad than it does using Flash on a PC or Mac - something to keep in mind if you intend to shoot a lot of iPhone 4 footage.

At present there is one missing ingredient. iOS 4 currently has no option for uploading HD footage straight from the iPhone 4 to YouTube. Steve Jobs, in one of his midnight e-mailing sessions, has promised to fix this in a forthcoming update, but until then you can always use the rather lovely Pixelpipe app.

UPDATE: Hmm, looks like YouTube is acting up. It has played back fine on the iPad, but at the moment it seems to be showing up as unplayable.

Pour yourself a large mug of double strength Columbia coffee and step into the strange neon-lit world of Psycho Robot. There isn't a great deal of detail accompanying the video, but from what we can tell Psycho Robot appears to be a music video that has been created on the iPad using Brushes and nicely edited on a Mac using iMovie.

Werner Büsch and Axel Weiss we salute you! We love Psycho Robot and can't wait to see what you do next. Please get in contact if would like to give us the story behind Psycho Robot.

WebPad by Ignition Soft Limited is quite special. The premise is simple. You drawn on the iPad screen using the extremely simple painting tools and every brushstroke is played back in realtime to a web address that is forever linked to your WebPad account. We tested WebPad this morning, here is our WebPad live painting page, it's works a treat.

Before we got started we put the word out on Twitter, within seconds we had an audience of probably upwards of 50 or so viewers, we even took a request to add a cat to the castle scene, so in essence it was a collaborative work. As Mark Webster suggested via Twitter, WebPad could be used for 'lunchtime requests'. This got us thinking about the future of realtime collaborative art on the iPad. We would love to see Ignition Soft add a basic Twitter client to WebPad, or perhaps add a simple instant messaging client of their own making.

We can see WebPad being using for a huge range of applications. For example, a designer could sketch out his initial project ideas to a client whilst in conversation via telephone.

Follow us on Twitter as we are planning to do some live sketching over the weekend so you can see for yourself how the web viewer works.

We haven't had the chance to play with AmpliTube for iPad yet, however Music Radar have put this amazing app/hardware combo through its paces and was kind enough to share the results on YouTube.

It would take an extremely jaded old rocker to not be impressed. Game changer? We think so. Enjoy the videos, more on AmpliTube for iPad soon. Here is the free version of AmpliTube to get you started.

Further reading:  ThumbJam comes home, time to break out the Top Gun theme!  •  Friday Fun: iPad Guitar DJ Frame

The iPad goes on sale in nine more countries on tomorrow. We look forward to welcoming excited iPad users from all over the globe.

If you have just purchased your iPad and you are looking to 'get creative' with Apple's next wave of personal computing be sure to add iPad Creative to your home screen and bookmarks folder. We are doing our best to ensure that iPad Creative looks beautiful on your lovely iPad IPS display. If you have any suggestions on how we can make the site better then please do not hesitate to let us know.

My Own Diary HD by Appmaker brings a fully featured personal diary to the iPad. The key ingredients are here, password protection, a selection of handwritten fonts and simple image insertion. What makes My Own Diary HD the current king of iPad diaries are the details. The beautiful interface, mood icons that can be applied to each entry and the ability to export a password protected PDF put My Own Diary HD in a different league.

To really complete the experience we would love to see Appmaker add a Facebook and Twitter update options, basic sketch tools, in-app Wikipedia browsing and some form of hyperlinking between entries.

Though none of us here at iPad Creative keep a day-to-day journal, just keeping Twitter updated is hard enough, we would certainly consider using My Own Diary HD as a travel dairy.

What Zen Brush by Psoft Mobile provides is a simple but accurate simulation of an East Asian ink brush. While we wait patiently for the full ink and wash painting experience for the iPad, Zen Brush is a good start and with a choice of backgrounds/borders and the option to share your artwork on Twitter, we think Zen Brush will appeal to those looking to sharpen their ink brush skills. It's also worth noting that Zen Brush is a universal app, so it will work on your iPhone or iPod touch too.

Further reading:  Dear iPad, you've got a friend in Kyle Lambert  •  Impressive character painting with iPad, Pogo, Brushes and Photogene

We recently came across this nicely produced Brushes painting animation by Tuncay Erol, a turkish caricaturist and painter from Karlsruhe/Germany. Tuncay has been using his iPad to sketch animals residing at a nearby zoo. For more of Tuncay's art be sure to head over to the Erol Art website.

We can't get enough of these Brushes app animations, If you have posted your work to YouTube or similar iPad compatible video service please be sure to let us know in a comment below.

Don't forget to follow iPad Creative on Twitter. Don't worry, we only tweet newsworthy information.

Further reading:  Calling all iPad animators  •  Fire up the Kiln...

The Musical Box is a 19th century automatic musical instrument that derives its unique sound from a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder that pluck the teeth of a steel comb. Yes, it's a very old school iPod!

iOrgel HD from Allum Interactive takes its name from the Japanese word for Music Box, Orgel. iOrgel HD gives you 48 notes to play with. You can edit, save, reload and share your tunes from within this stunningly attractive iPad application. The user interface is lovingly crafted to appear as authentic as possible. Most importantly, the unique sound of the Music Box is here even when using the internal iPad speakers. In short, it's a real labour of love.

Another instrument to add to the iPad collection.

Further Reading:   ThumbJam comes home, time to break out the Top Gun theme!   •   NanoStudio for iPad inbound

On Saturday I introduced my wife to Let's create! Pottery HD for the iPad, a wonderful app that we had the pleasure of reviewing, the first review anywhere on the Internet, last Friday morning. It's safe to say that Pottery HD has become my wife's favourite iPad app. Watching her create pot after pot (see the images in this post), each one becoming more pleasing, got me thinking about what emotional triggers Pottery HD must be pulling in order to elicit such a response. I think I can narrow it down to three keys factors.

The Interface

Stretching and shaping the clay using the multi-touch display feels almost perfect. You simply could not replicate this sensation using any other user interface that I'm aware of. It's not 100% perfect, but it is close.

A Restrained Palette

Pottery HD presents a restrained palette of artistic options. On the face of it this may seem a cause of frustration, but the limited colour and pattern platte creates a framework upon which to build. Sandbox art apps like Brushes for example have far more potential for artistic expression but offer little in terms of inspiration or creative support. With Pottery HD even someone with limited artistic skill can create something beautiful.

Drama

When you come to auction your pottery the app emulates some of the drama of a real auction. The bids build with quite a sense of drama and the winning bid nearly always seems to be a fair price. The whole auction mechanic drives you to create better pottery as does the virtual email system. It's simple but clever stuff.

I think some of the many popular painting and music creation apps could take a leaf out of Pottery HD's book. Most of them capture the sensation of painting or playing a musical instrument for example, but often there is little narrative structure. As Pottery HD proves, the narrative structure does not have to be anything epic just something to promote experimentation and repeated play.

Pottery HD has made me reevaluate what a creative iPad application should be. We have seen some stunning examples of natural media and musical instrument emulation, but the very best creative apps will add layers of drama and story telling, sometimes through gaming elements but perhaps also by offering a framework, a helping help. In many ways think I have already alluded to it in my recent post about a possible Jean Michel Jarre synth app.

These first few creative apps are just the tip of the iceberg.

James Burland

Let's create! Pottery HD from Infinite Dreams is a pottery app for the iPad. Now iPad owners can recreate the famous Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore Ghost movie moment, but without all that mess and the cheesy soundtrack.

We fired up Pottery HD this morning and we think it's pretty special. It's a totally different experience from anything we have encountered on the iPad so far. It's not a game, but it does have game elements. It's not a painting app, but you will need some artistic ability in order to attain the more pleasing designs. It's not a stress relief app, but you will find it soothing. One word of caution, don't be put off by your very first clay shaping experience, it does take some practice. We found that pinching and pulling with two or more fingers on either side of the clay to be the most effective method. Also, portrait mode is more satisfying than landscape.

Perhaps the highest accolade we can give Pottery HD is that after having played it we feel inspired to purchase some clay and paints to see if we can bring any of our Pottery HD creations into existence.

Apps like Pottery HD surely go a long way to dispelling the often repeated and totally ridiculous adage that the iPad is for content consumption and not creation.

If you are planning on purchasing Let's create! Pottery HD, you will need this Righteous Brothers tune for the full experience.

Here's our first creation. No laughing please!

We haven't yet touched on the area of animation here at iPad Creative. Sure, we've mentioned animation in relation to games, but this is iPad Creative and we want to encourage animation creation. Recently we have been playing around with Animation Creator HD by Red Software, LLC. Though there are a few things that we would like to see changed in the next update, overall Animation Creator HD is fun iPad app that will appeal to anyone looking to test their animation skills.

We have included this fun animation video by jrk3150 as an example of what can be done with Animation Creator HD. We would love to see your iPad animations, please be sure to leave a link to your own animation in a comment below.

I few hours ago we caught a tweet that managed to distract us the excitement and rumours surrounding the Apple press conference tomorrow. The tweet from ThumbJam reads, "The next update will not only fix ThumbJam for iPod touches, but also bring in native iPad support!" Much loud cheering and group hugging ensued. ThumbJam is an iOS app that fulfils that fantasy of many a young lad and probably a few lasses too. In short, it can turn almost anyone into a Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai or Joe Satriani. The screen is divided into 'keys', and through skilful uses of scales, acceleration detection and multi-touch ThumbJam will have you pulling off crazy solo's with ease.

As you can see from the awesome video above -- thanks ElectricAlienCat! -- the current iPhone version scales up nicely on the iPad so we are expect big things from the universal version.

Be sure to follow ThumbJam on Twitter for all the latest news.

Further reading:   NanoStudio for iPad inbound   •   We want our iPad Jean Michel Jarre synth app, not excuses!