Some Apps

With dissertation out of the way I can finally update this bloody blog and I've been wanting to do a quick post about some lovely iPad apps I've come across over the past month of having an iPad. I knew going into owning an iPad that the main thing I would be using it was mainly for reading and it is amazing how many publications and reading platforms get it so wrong. So yeah here's a few of the apps I've found myself really enjoying and using a lot.

Readmill is essentially just another ebook reader, like apple's iBooks and amazons kindle app except it's kind of completely different. It works in the same way last.fm does in that it tracks your reading time and where you are in the book and creates a profile for you with all this data. Being a sucker for data I love that, but the thing that really won me over is the ability to highlight sections of the book and share them on your Readmill account. Now I know no one is going to give a shit about what sections of Slaughterhouse 5 I really loved, but as a tool to help me remember great quotes and such, it's proved really useful. It also helps that the app is beautiful with a gorgeous UI which unlike most of the ebook readers out there doesn't make a tacky looking fake bookshelf for you with fake books on. Instead it scraps that for a really minimal Saul Bass-esque approach with some beautiful typography.

Letter to Jane is in my mind the perfect example of how a publication can work so elegantly on an iPad. Each issue is it's own self contained app with it's own editorial style and issue three, titled Moral Tates pictured above is just perfect. It works so seamlessly and looks absolutely beautiful.

The McSweeney's app was always one of my favourite apps back in the day when I still had an iPhone and on the iPad it's even better. Having Internet Tendency in my hands again to access at any time is something I definitely missed and the Small Chair subscription is really enhanced with the bigger screen, with each separately designed little supplement really popping. 

Within the McSweeney's app was one of the things I was most excited about on first getting my hands on an iPad. Chris Ware's first ever exclusively digital comic, Touch Sensitive. It's a very short piece that I'm still not 100% sure about, yes the story is beautiful and affecting as expected and it looks absolutely stunning. but the way it works just doesn't seem to match up with the page, It's been simplified to much and there's no opportunity to get lost, which is one of the things I love most about Ware's work.

Well enough nerding out. I seem to still be in  "I must analyze everything and write a shit load" mode from doing dissertation.