As much as we wanted to use it, we haven't bothered with Apple's iOS5 Photo Stream feature so far because we simply didn't want every app screenshot we take, or fuzzy shot of our foot, ending up on all our devices.

Now that Apple have released iOS 5.1 we can finally select an individual photo and delete it from the Photo Stream for our account. For us, this makes Photo Stream worth switching on at last.

Why is this a big thing for iPad Creative? The imminent release of the New iPad and its 5MP camera, of course! Not to mention the even more fantastic photo viewing experience we expect from iPad 3's sharper and more saturated 'Retina Display'.

Finally we can look forward to having a camera in the iPad that we are not embarrassed to share the results from, or that we do not have to dress up with numerous filter apps to make useable (although we will still be doing that, especially with the release of iPhoto for iOS - but more on that soon).

What do you think?

We would like to hear from you, are you already using Photo Stream? Has the new update prompted you to turn it on now? Or is it something you just find no use for? Let us know in the comments.

After taking last week off over the holidays we are picking up our regular series again this week, highlighting iOS created music tracks found on SoundCloud. This week we have got quite a mixture of tracks and we are kicking things off with:

Fluid by The Plastic Band

We are absolutely loving the Gorillaz-esque feel of this track from Italy's The Plastic Band, described as a "Virtual Tabletop Band" in their SoundCloud profile. Whoever the person/persons is/are behind The Plastic Band track they have done a great job with Retronyms' Tabletop app and the track is very well produced, as are all of their tracks. Impressive stuff and now one of our favourite SoundClouders.

2012 by Landero

This track, created by Julian Neumann from Mexico, with Korg's iMS-20 app, has a fast running almost U2, sound to it. We like it a lot.

Hope (For The Lost Boy) by TheOxfordAmbientCollectiv

David Smith from Oxford here in England, created this track in GarageBand for iPad. Recorded as a live improvisation using the on-screen Piano in GarageBand, based on his reflective thoughts of that moment, David has created a loose but emotional bare bones track. Check it out:

We want to hear from you

If you have joined the SoundCloud community you can submit your tracks to our iPad Creative group, from a computer by clicking on the 'Send us your sounds' link on the right of the screen, or on the SoundCloud group page you can click on the 'Share a Track' button.

We look forward to hearing your stuff.

You have probably seen the video below of Thomas Suarez, a 12 year old student from the South Bay of Los Angeles, who recently spoke at TedxManhattanBeach.

In his presentation Thomas speaks about how he loves computers, how he has been fascinated with them from an early age, how Apple's SDK resources helped him get going to create his first app and even how Apple staff at the App store have encouraged him.

Steve-like

Perhaps his greatest inspiration though can be seen in Thomas' on-stage mannerisms. Take a look at the video and see if you are reminded of anyone (recently departed and sorely missed at Apple) in the way he speaks, poses questions, and even the way he shrugs when the audience is laughing at his comment about students knowing more than their teachers.

Inspiration and Aspiration

Although we have to be honest and say that we probably wouldn't buy any of Thomas' apps (we're not really the target audience), we do think Thomas' approach and attitude is an inspiration, both to other students who are thinking of giving App development a go and to adults who have been dabbling or are doubting that they can do it.

Thomas is obviously a very bright and talented young man, with his own company CarrotCorp and big plans for the future. His example though shows that with a bit of creativity and a passion for developing, age is no barrier to what can be achieved.

Teachers / Educators also have another example to help support investment in subjects such as Computer Studies, App development and including IT in the Curriculum.

What do you think about Thomas' speech?

Our friends over at the excellent Music Apps blog in Brazil alerted us to this new video by (iPad) Musician and allround Superstar Ellen.

Covering songs used in Apple's adverts, it is a personal tribute to both Apple and Steve Jobs, created and recorded entirely on the iPad and shot with an iPhone 4. Ellen does it Once Again!

Be sure to check out Ellen's post for more on how she made the track and what apps she used.

'Apps for Art Lovers', that's the title of a link we just spotted on the featured section of the App Store. There's some cool stuff in there, much of it for free.

Highlighting Gallery Exhibition apps, classic Artist portfolios, Photography Book apps, Art creation apps (like ArtRage) and other really cool stuff it is a nice little collection to browse through in a spare moment.

Now we're struggling to squeeze even more apps onto our already over capacity iPads. Check out the collection.

Here's Apple's own iOS 5 overview to whet your appetite for the official release this Autumn. It is the usual high polish, and often parodied, affair with mostly Scott Forstall (naturally) talking up the new iOS developments.

We must admit to being quite excited about some of the new features, but we think one of the biggest developments for wider iPad adoption will be the independent activitation of the device. No computer needed. That's the future folks!

What about you? Is there anything you're particularly looking forward to following the iOS 5 and iCloud announcements?

Apple has always been a big advocate of creative apps, even back in the early days of the App Store Apple highlighted iPhone apps for painting, drawing, music creation and beyond. Today Apple updated its promoted section with a rather nice selection of creative apps for the iPad. Of the 20 chosen apps many are 4 and 5 star apps that belong on the iPad of any artist. It's well worth a look, if only to check that your creative toolbox is complete. Head on over to the App Store on your iPad to see Apple's promoted apps.

Ahead of tomorrow's iPad 2 official launch we take a quick look at one of the most touted innovations from the Announcement, Apple's Smart Cover, plus we note some of our observations and concerns about it.

You've seen Apple's new Smart Cover and you're thinking to yourself, "Yeah that's cool, but it is a lot of money for a few magnets and a bit of plastic, even if it is the stuff they make space suits out of." [or more expensive leather]. To be honest, it is a lot of money. We think that $10-$15 could reasonably be knocked off of each version of Smart Cover and they would sell a lot more of them, although maybe with marginal profit.

But we found it interesting that Apple seems to be going to great lengths to ensure you don't cover up the back of your iPad 2. Surely this is why we love our Apple products isn't it? They appeal to our aesthetic senses? Here's what occurred to us after the Smart Cover announcement:

• Apple did what no-one else was able to do with iPad 2, they changed the internal structure by adding perfectly placed magnets. Despite this iPad 2 is lighter and thinner than its predecessor.
• Apple really want their customers to benefit from the aesthetics of their devices, whether this is about their love of their design as seen in the final product or showing off their logo, we don't know.
• Their attention to detail in design goes as far as how the Smart Cover sounds when it is being attached, watch the video again and turn the sound up, notice how much emphasis is put on the VW-door-style clunk as the hinge attaches and the cover is laid down. What does that solid VW clunk indicate to the customer? Quality!

• As innovative as the cover is, the roll-up stand design is strikingly similar to the Incase Convertible Magazine Jacket. The difference, of course, is that the Incase original iPad design needs and uses an external case, covering the back of the iPad.
• We are curious to know how strong the magnetic attraction is on the far right edge, i.e. if you turn the iPad 2 face down and give it a shake, does it flap open? And if it is in your bag as it is, will it be easy to inadvertently lift the Smart Cover, turning the iPad screen on (this being one of the touted features)?

We really want to see one of these in the flesh before deciding on a purchase, but being in the UK, we won't be able to do this for a few weeks yet.

So, if you are in the US and are planning to get a Smart Cover with your iPad 2, be sure to let us know. We would also like to hear what you think of the Smart Cover whether you intend to buy or not, good or bad, just leave your comment below.

Just in case you missed it and are wondering what all the fuss is about, Apple have kindly posted the whole of the iPad 2 Keynote for you to watch/re-watch. Make sure you look out for the FaceTime, iMovie and amazing GarageBand demos. We can't wait to get our hands on these. Enjoy!

 

Sometimes it is all too easy to take for granted this amazing innovation in technology which we use day in / day out, but the iPad has become such an integral part of our everyday lives that we often do just that.

So we really enjoyed being reminded of the pure excitement and promise that the original iPad launch brought with it less than a year ago as we watched this video during Apple's iPad 2 Keynote. Take a moment and revel in what has been achieved in just 11 months, and get excited about what is coming up in 2011!

The iPad 2 is just hours old, but it already seems to us like the definitive iPad. While the original iPad was nipping at the heels of 'real computers', the iPad 2 looks like it will scare the life out of highend netbooks and even cause the mighty MacBook Air some sleepless nights!

What Apple did today was provide a near perfect upgrade to a near perfect device, they also paved the way for a relatively straightforward iPad 3 announcement next year.

Here is our first look at the iPad 2, we have had zero hands-on time with the new device (hopefully Apple will invite us to future iPad related announcements), but we can glean quite a bit from just the specifications alone.

Makes no mistake this is a serious hardware upgrade

9x 3D graphics performance. Apple made a very big deal about this massive boost in polygon pushing power and for good reason. A 9x increase over the iPad 1 puts the iPad 2 in broadly the same league as the newly announced (but not yet shipped) Sony NGP (or PSP 2), a device which Sony claims is almost as powerful as its PS3. The iPad 1 uses the same graphics core as the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS, the PowerVR SGX 535. The SGX 535 is theoretically capable of pushing out around 28 MPolys/s (polygons per second). Multiply that by a factor of 9 and you are looking at the best part of 252 MPolys/s. Remember that this is a theoretical peak performance figure and that real world performance is likely to be significantly less. Even so, the iPad 2 is a polygon munching monster!

The Sony NGP uses the SGX543MP4 (four cores) and can produce a theoretical 133M polygons/s. The only conclusion that we can form based on the available information is that the iPad 2 is using either the exact same GPU configuration as the NGP or possibly the higher specified SGX544MP4. Whatever the iPad 2 is using, is seems likely that it is more than equal to anything that Sony's new handheld console can muster. Game developers will not have to compromise polygon performance when choosing the A5 powered iPad 2.

As an aside, this bodes well for the iPhone 5 in June and the iPod Touch 4 in September. If they only manage half the polygon performance of the iPad they will surely produce home console quality graphics.

2x CPU performance. To be fair the iPad 1 is no slouch, it handles a variety of tasks with almost no slowdown, but there are an increasing number of applications that appear to push the A4 powered iPad 1 to its limits. Take ArtRage as an example. The A5 powered iPad 2 could reduce the painting lag in ArtRage by half or more, making for a much more natural painting experience. Every firsthand account of the iPad 2 suggests that it is 'blazingly fast'. More raw CPU power is never a bad thing, it will mean slicker multitasking, faster load times and a generally more pleasing experience.

Lighter and thinner. We have no problem with the thickness of the iPad 1, but it is a tad heavy. As the irrepressable march towards paper thin computers continues we can expect the iPad to get ever thinner and lighter. As long as this progression is not at the expensive of battery life you'll hear no complaints from us.

Cameras. The iPad 2 sports a front and rear facing camera. The front facing camera is for FaceTime, a stunningly simple video chat client, while the rear facing camera offers 720p video capture. As we have already mentioned the inclusion of these cameras was inevitable. We can only begin to imagine the possibility that a full 720p HD video camera opens up. Yes, we know the idea of using your iPad as a video camera seems slightly ridiculous, but honestly, we think many will do just that, especially as you can now edit and upload that footage using just one device.

HDMI out. There are many reasons why this is a big deal. We will return to this feature in a future post, but let's just say this for now, 1080p output with PS3 level graphics. Oh yes!

iLife is on its way, bit by bit

The announcement and subsequent demonstration of iMovie and GarageBand for iPad had us smiling from ear to ear. We have long believed that iLife would find its way to the iPad platform, but to see it reproduced to such an extent on hardware with such power was the highlight of the entire announcement. If there was ever a clear signal that Apple see the iPad as a content creation device, this is it.

But where is iPhoto?

Simple. iPhoto has been held back to form a significant part of the iPad 3 (or iPad Pro) reveal. What better application could there be than iPhoto to demonstrated a new Retina class display? iPhoto is coming, make no mistake, it will arrive at the same time as the iPad with Retina display, perhaps this year, but certainly before April 2012.

Cheaper iPads for everyone

Right now we are buzzing with the prospect of what the iPad 2 is capable of, but almost as exciting is the prospect of the iPad 1 becoming that much more affordable. At the time of writing the original iPad 1 is listed in the UK Apple Store at just £329, that's a wonderful deal for those looking for their first iPad. We have no idea if this will last, but even if it doesn't there will surely be plenty of iPad 1 units available on eBay for quite some time.

We have plenty more iPad 2 commentary arriving shortly. Stay tuned folks!

Photograph by Michael Tompert and Paul Fairchild

It seems to be 'Art Friday' here at iPad Creative. You may well have seen this already around the web, but it both fascinates and horrifies us so we thought we would make sure you knew about it too!

Digital artist Michael Tompert of Raygun Studio (a former Apple employee) teamed up with photographer Paul Fairchild to create a series of 12 photos depicting:

"iconoclastic details of devotionals of our culture...combining high-resolution photography, scanography and self-referential iPhone photography. The 12 images are large scale yet microscopic, providing a canvas for contemplating our relationship with fetish, fashion, freedom & bondage."

The images were displayed in an exhibition entitled 12LVE in San Francisco last weekend and are due to be shown in Palo Alto in December.

Given the attachment users generally have to their expensive gadgets, arguably more so with Apple devotees, the photographs are evocative and controversial. Comments on the various articles covering this series have ranged from appreciation for the message conveyed in destroying these modern expensive devices, to extreme anger at the cost and 'waste' plus disparaging comments about Mr Tompert's sanity.

Whilst it would take us personally a long time to scrape together enough pennies to purchase even one of these devices, there is a certain beauty to the images, and we take the point of Michael Tompert quoted in a very good LA Times article about this exhibition:

"the photography project was intended to be humorous and tongue in cheek. At the same time, he wanted people to think more deeply about their relationship to these ubiquitous devices."

What do you think about this? We would be interested to hear from you, let us know in the comments below. 

More information

Check out the LA Times article for more detail of the thought processes and discoveries that led up to this project.

There is a Facebook page for the 12LVE exhibition.

The original article by Cult of Mac about the 12LVE exhibition and another post featuring all 12 images with detailed information on each photo detailing how each device was destroyed.

We were thrilled to see Apple's iPad TV advert, 'iPad is Electric'. Within 30 seconds the viewer is informed that the iPad can assist them with the following: 

• Blockbuster movie purchasing and viewing
• Learning
• Constructing and managing emails
• Presenting
• Online purchasing of goods and property
• Gaming
• Music performance and creation

Apple manage all this in just 30 seconds without a single word of spoken dialogue. It's true that the viewer will not pick up all the details in their first or second viewing, but after multiple viewings, over the next month or so, the message will begin to hit home; the iPad is for content consumption and content creation.

The best part of the is new advert is the hat-tip to AmpliTube, the beautiful guitar effects processor.

Living on the doorstep of one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites (The Jurassic Coast), the iPad Creative team feel very priviliged and we are interested in anything that promotes this world-wide wonder, especially if it also involves our favourite gadget(s).

That is why we were intrigued to hear that Fotopedia in conjunction with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre have just released an update to their Fotopedia Heritage app, taking it to Version 1.2.

New and existing features

The 1.2 update brings with it some useful features including an updated navigation system but more importantly a quick and easy search function to your iPad (and iPhone).The search function enables you to quickly jump to any of the 890 UNESCO World Heritage sites and see some of the photos of that area from among the 20,000 contributed by Fotopedia members.

Other features of the app include access to information about the sites you are viewing, integration with TripAdvisor (potentially making the app a journey planning tool) and a browseable world map that looks like the Places module of iPhoto/Aperture.

Never ending story

More photos are being added all the time to Fotopedia's site and so the library of photos that you can browse will continue to expand beyond the 20,000 photos there already. Many of the photos are gorgeous to look at and all of this for FREE.

We have said it before, but we think the iPad is one of the best devices for browsing through and viewing photographs at their best and this app demonstrates that wonderfully.

"The biggest Coffee Table Book ever!"

Equally of note is the name behind this 'endless photo book' app and Fotopedia, former CTO at Apple and Steve Jobs' friend Jean-Marie Hullot.  If you have 30 minutes to spare, we highly recommend viewing Robert Scoble's interview with Hullot in the video below.

We found it really interesting and Hullot talks about the iPad being the inspiration behind the Fotopedia Heritage app experience and describes some of the key features and future developments for the app. There is even a mention about working with Steve Jobs thrown in the mix:

We mentioned Sort Shots a few months ago when discussing the absence of professional level photo management software like Photo Mechanic on the iPad.

At the time the big issue was that Sort Shots could not pass any Tags or Rating metadata added in the app, back to your computer, or even import what you had already added in say Lightroom or Aperture.  This meant you had to double-up on your Tags and Keyword entries.

With the release of Sort Shots 2.0 the developers have gone some way towards addressing the issues around adding and editing EXIF data to images using the iPad.

Sort Shots have added Metadata import from and export to some of the major image processing apps, although only Adobe Bridge and Lightroom get full import and export at the moment.

Here is a summary from the Press Release:

Metadata keywords can be read by various software packages including: 
* Adobe Bridge and Lightroom (import and export keywords and ratings)
* Apple iPhoto and Aperture (import keywords)
* Microsoft Photo Gallery(R) (import keywords and ratings)
* Nikon Capture NX2 (import keywords)

For Aperture users export of Keywords and Ratings back to your Mac is being developed and will no doubt be available in a future update.

Restricted Access

If you have imported Photos directly onto your iPad from a camera or iPhone, you cannot edit their metadata while they are in your Photo Library.  You must import the photos that you want to work with into Sort Shots first.

You can import photos either from the Photo Library on your iPad or from your computer via the iTunes File Sharing interface. The video below shows how to do this. It is not as integrated as we would like, but probably the best workaround that Developers can offer at the moment due to Apple's restrictions on iOS access.

Full Res or Optimised?

Another key feature is export of full resolution images back to your computer, although they do say this will slow the process down, so there is an option to export optimised versions of your photos if that is acceptable. We think that it is worth taking the 20% hit in performance to stick with full res images but it is nice to have the option to speed things up when the Web might be the final destination for the images and full res is not necessary.

Remember, Sort Shots is not writing anything back to the originals in your Photo Library, so you have to manually move the edited versions back onto your computer using the iTunes File Sharing function and drag and drop back to a folder as explained in the video below.

An important thing to note is that Sort Shots does not work with RAW images, so it will be your JPEGs that are being edited.

The new features in Sort Shots make it worth another look for those who need to Tag, Rate and edit EXIF data in their images whilst on the move or away from home.  Whilst the import/export functionality is a workaround, we still think it is very useful when you need it.

We have mentioned Sort Shots' new features here, but it is worth checking out all of the additional ones on their features page.  You may also want to take a look at the video below which explains the new import/export features and how to use iTunes to get the photos into Sort Shots.

Sort Shots 2.0 is available now in the app store at £2.99 ($4.99).

Apple have done a fine job of getting the point across with this new iPad advert. The iPad is a blank slate, it can become whatever you need it to be.

Obviously, we would love to see the 'artful' section expanded to a full 30 second advert of its own.

(Post amended to point to the correct UK press release complete with pricing, the previous release we linked to was the International version without regional pricing included.)

28th May 2010 - that's the day that UK punters can officially get their expectant, shaky hands on the iPad.  As we know already, iPad pre-orders are opened up this coming Monday, 10th May, but now we know when we can actually expect to join our US friends in owning our very own device.

As well as the UK; Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Switzerland will see the iPad released on 28th May, and the pre-order will be open on 10th for these Countries too.

How much will it cost?

Pricing & Availability
iPad is available in the UK for a suggested retail price of £429 (inc. VAT) for 16GB, £499 (inc. VAT) for 32GB, £599 (inc. VAT) for 64GB for Wi-Fi models and £529 (inc. VAT) for 16GB, £599 (inc. VAT) for 32GB and £699 (inc. VAT) for 64GB for Wi-Fi + 3G models.

Full details in Apple's press release here.

If you are running iTunes 9.1 on your Mac, have a look at your apps section.  Has it changed?  We have just noticed that our apps section when viewed as a grid is now split into three areas:

• iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad apps (we are guessing these are 'Universal' apps
• iPhone and iPod Touch apps (non-iPad apps?)
• iPad apps (designed for the iPad only - if you have any downloaded)

This is interesting because it is really not clear which apps are iPad only or Universal in the App Store in our opinion.  Although this categorisation will only show on apps you have on your computer, it is at least a start to making sense of the (in our case) hundreds of apps kicking about on our hard drives for testing purposes, or just in case we need them some day.

Apple have recently added a new page to the iPad area of their site.  They call it iPad ready and it is a list of the organisations or companies using HTML5 to deliver their video, at least as an alternative to Flash and a few instead of. Those mentioned include Reuters, Vimeo, Time, Flickr and the White House websites; and the list is growing.

We think it is an interesting move for Apple to specifically name these companies and it does feel like there has been a bit of a rush by some of them to meet the iPad launch on Saturday.  Maybe this is just a perceptual thing because much has been written since the iPad announcement in January about the continued lack of Flash support in the iPhone (and now iPad) OS, but more so in the last couple of weeks leading up to the iPad launch.

Still, it is further evidence of Apple's marketing prowess and the benefits for companies and organisations who can ride in Apple's wake as they launch a new product are obvious.  Anything that benefits the consumer has got to be good though in our view and Apple's devices are not the only mobile computing devices without Flash support.  It is going to be interesting to see how HTML5 and standards adoption will shape the Internet in the near future.

If you are interested in knowing more about Video formats for the web and how this is different in HTML5, this article over at diveintohtml5.org is brilliant and super nerdy in its details.

With the US launch of the iPad now just a few days away, we have been taking a look at some of the apps we know are coming to the iPad, or that we really want to see hit the platform when it launches.  

Some of this has been wishful thinking (Aperture on the iPad for example), some of it is just us getting excited about the ways we can hopefully use our iPads.

In case you missed any of the posts, we have listed them here:

Part 1 - Art (Brushes App)

Part 2 - Video (Reel Director)

Part 3 - Photography (Photoshop Mobile)

Part 4 - Music (Four Track)

Our fifth and final part of the series looks at pulling all of this together and we call it:

Creative content creation - Pages for the iPad

Why are we getting excited about Pages for the iPad?  Well, for a start, it looks gorgeous, Apple have done a fantastic job of optimising the app for the iPad as you would expect, and it stands out as a fine example for other Developers of what can be done on the iPad platform.  If you are not sure what we are talking about, take a moment to watch Apple's guided tour video for Pages first.

Looks great doesn't it?  Bearing in mind that this is version 1.0 of the software, we think that Apple have made content creation easy and fun, but at the moment Pages for the iPad only appears to create gorgeous, but static, documents.

With the ability to output to PDF or back to Pages on the Mac, this may well be enough for some Creatives, and at just under $10 we think it is a bargain given its current functionality.

Ideally though, we would like to see a bit more integration with other media. This would be a great advantage for self-published content creator.

Imagine you run a small fanzine and currently print out a greyscale magazine every few months, it takes you a long time and costs you quite a bit more than you make in subscriptions, but you love the subject and you really don't care about making money.  You have decided to take the fanzine entirely digital.  You have no budget, but you have an e-mail list of dedicated readers who are open to new ways of reading your publication.

You have a great idea for a fully integrated magazine blending together different media into one publication that you can e-mail out to your subscribers.  In your head this new fanzine has video clips, audio comments and interviews from some of the content creators you follow, a 'Fan Art' section with bios of the artists, audio messages fans have recorded on their iPhones and e-mailed to you that you want to collate together on a 'Your Comments' page and obviously plenty of photos too.  

How great would it be for someone like this, or the Educator creating learning materials, or perhaps a Student putting together a project, basically anyone who wants to produce creative content, to be able to all of this in ONE iPad application and share it with others, either on a site or via e-mail?

This is possible, we realise, with a combination of PDF (Acrobat) and ePub and possibly now HTML5 for video (HTML5 is good for iPhones/iPads), but it seems to be fiddly and/or expensive to get these documents together at the moment.  After watching the video above, we are certain that Pages could be the foundation of the one piece of software that can fulfil this need for independent, busy and probably cash-strapped creatives.  Whether the iPad can cope with all of this remains to be seen, but at this early stage it certainly seems like it will be able to, if not now, in future iterations for sure.

Pages as it is though looks great and we cannot wait to get our hands on it.

We hope you have enjoyed our mini-series of posts about the type of apps we want to be using on our iPads.  If you have any observations, or your own ideas about what you want to be using your iPad for, please let us know in the comments. 

If you haven't already, make sure you don't miss future posts by subscribing to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter.