July 9-10, 2013
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Enterprise social-networking company Jive Software has launched new applications for the iPad and iPhone, and soon it will bring its Jive Present app to Android.

With the “consumerization of IT” and enterprise-focused businesses making mobile a priority, it’s important for Jive to stay vigilant with its mobile solutions. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Jive competes with other enterprise networking solutions like Microsoft’s Yammer, Salesforce’s Chatter, and Tibco’s Tibbr — all of which offer strong mobile solutions.

The new iPad app is the biggest addition to the Jive mobile portfolio. It offers a feed of updates, document creation, and the ability to see trending items across the network. Another thing it includes is access to “virtual rooms,” which were introduced back in April.

“This is our first full iPad app, and it provides an elegant user experience,” Adam Mertz, Jive’s director of product marketing, told VentureBeat. “You can be connected to content, people, and places.”

Next up is the upgraded iPhone app. Jive has offered an iPhone app for receiving updates on the go for some time, but now it has been updated to function 50 percent faster and includes a new slide-out tab for navigation. Additionally, it includes customized activity streams, and users can mark items for action.

“Our customers are starting to use Jive more on mobile,” Mertz said. “We have to make it as fast as possible.”

While these iOS-focused updates are nice, Android users aren’t being completely left out of the Jive party. Jive will be updating its Jive Present app — which was just on the iPad — to work on Android tablets. Jive Present’s main purpose is as a digital-presentation tool, and there are at least some Android tablet owners out there that use their slates for business.

Finally, Jive has introduced a new mobile SDK that will give companies and developers the tools they need to build mobile apps that include Jive functionality. Many companies build their own internal apps, so offering the ability to build Jive into them could encourage more usage of the service.

Photo via Jive Software

July 9-10, 2013
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Admittedly, Airplay is probably the most useful and important feature on the Apple TV. And yet, it’s also the feature that consistently disappoints me. Being able to mirror your iPad or Macbook screen on your TV is wonderful, but the only time I ever use it is to show short video clips and photo streams to a room full of people.

However, Vidora’s newly released iPad app actually uses Airplay intelligently, like a natural extension of its video discovery and curation service. Seriously, Vidora’s Airplay integration is how I’d imagine Apple TV’s UX if Apple wasn’t scared of cannibalizing iTunes video sales and started sorting content based on making it easier for users to find things. (Sort of like what would happen in a bizarro world if Woz was calling all the shots at Apple.) Also, Vidora’s Airplay integration means you don’t have to use the Apple remote, since all navigation happens via your iPad.

Source: Vidora

Vidora cofounders

“We wanted to design a service that made set-top boxes obsolete,” Vidora co-founder Alex Holub said in an interview with VentureBeat. To clarify, by obsolete Holub means that everything about the Apple TV can, and should, be replaced –  with the exception of the Airplay screen sharing feature. “Everything you need is already being done, or can be done through your tablet already.”

Holub said it makes sense to cut out the “middle man” — or software used in set-top boxes and smart TVs — when designing a second-screen video experience.

I didn’t entirely understand how true his observation was until giving it some thought. If I have only 15 minutes to relax before running off to an interview, I’m more likely to reach for my iPad than remote controls for my TV and set-top box. Why? Because my iPad is up and running in seconds when I want to watch video. On the other hand, my TV/Apple TV requires more patience — waiting for apps to load, shuffling through endless rows of video thumbnails, and squinting while trying to read show descriptions from my couch because the font size is too small.

As for Vidora’s iPad app, it weaves videos from many of the most popular streaming video services, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, YouTube, Creepster, Fandor, and FlixFling, as well as iTunes’ digital video library. New users are prompted to run through a quick process of selecting at least 10 of your favorite movies or TV shows from several different genres, which serves as the initial template for Vidora’s recommendation engine. You can then see a wall of videos you can mark with a thumbs up or down, add to a universal watchlist, and see a list of sources for where you’re able to watch that video. For instance, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is available on all the big services (as it should, being the best Trek spin-off ever) Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, and iTunes. Clicking one of those sources pushes you to their native iOS apps, and then to your television if you have mirroring turned on through you Apple TV. YouTube apps and a few other video services like Yahoo and VICE can play from the Vidora app itself, too.

Vidora’s business model doesn’t charge people who use its service or to download the iPad app. The startup plans to generate revenue by forging deals with publishers for prominent placement within Vidora’s video curation and discovery service. Publishers who pay to have their videos on Vidora are bringing both content and video ads that run in between, and the more people who watch its content the more ad revenue it can generate.

That’s not to say Vidora isn’t without set-backs. For example, video quality is sacrificed when mirroring the iPad screen through Apple TV. And annoyingly, Amazon Prime Instant video still lacks integration with Airplay, so you’ll need to view that from your iPad or just watch something else. Also, the iPad is in use so you won’t be doing any multitasking without banishing the video from your TV screen. (This seems like less of an issue since the majority of people would just grab their smartphone instead.)

Another thing that may seem like a flaw at first is the lack of support for importing queues and watchlists from Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu. You’ll need to create a new watchlist as you find things through Vidora’s app instead. It eliminates the clunky process of constantly trying to sync changes you made elsewhere with the queues/watchlists on each separate service. (In my experience, this usually screws up those original queues/watchlists, by removing or adding things erroreneously.)

That said, most of the cons for Vidora’s Airplay experience are Apple TV’s fault — meaning there’s room for improvement. Holub said the startup has plans to develop an Android version of Vidora for devices that support Miracast — an Airplay-like technology that can be added to devices like TVs.  I’d really like to see what Vidora can do using a Nexus 10 and a Miracast-enabled TV, which won’t have many of the issues that hurt the iOS version of the service. Holub also stated that the startup will be adding additional video services and content publishing partners in the near future.

Founded in 2013, the San Francisco, Calif.-based startup has 10 employees who previously worked as engineers for Ooyala, the enterprise-level video services to publishers that want an easy way to scale their video content on multiple platforms, devices, and video codex. Holub declined to share Vidora’s funding history, but the startup’s website lists Core Ventures Group and Interwest Partners as investors.

Check out the gallery of screenshots embedded below for a closer look at Vidora’s new iPad app.

July 9-10, 2013
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Residents of Kansas City who prefer to use their iPad over a Nexus 7 are in luck, as Apple has just approved an official Google Fiber TV app for the device.

The app, which has been available on Android devices for almost a month, acts as a remote for those already subscribed to a Google Fiber TV plan. Subscribers will be able to search for programming and manage which shows they save to their DVR. The iPad app also allows subscribers to browse, buy, and watch on-demand movies and TV shows. (Of course, the only people who will really get any use out of this update are those in the greater Kansas City area. However, Google is planning to bring the Google Fiber service to Provo, Utah in 2013 and Austin, Texas in 2014.)

Google Fiber TV customers already get a Nexus 7 when they sign up for the service, but if you don’t like Android devices, then this is definitely a big benefit. I’d imagine it’ll also be useful for homes that have multiple people watching TV at different times. Since not everyone can have access to that “free” Nexus 7 at the same time, the added benefit of being able to use your iPad or iPad Mini will be nice.

Currently, there isn’t an iPhone/iPod Touch version of the Google Fiber TV app available, but the company did say its working on one that will be available in the near future.

July 9-10, 2013
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European tablet presentation startup Showpad has raised $2 million in its first round of funding to help more enterprise companies use iPads for work and to grow its business in the United States.

Showpad offers up software that turns iPads and other tablets into sales and presentation tools. The software lets you easily upload content and manage separate content profiles online. When you open the app on the iPad, the content profile that has been assigned to you shows up. (See the photo above for an example of a content profile.) Showpad joins other startups that are trying to make mobile devices a bigger part of the enterprise.

“The mobile tools that are available on the market today are not suitable for modern salespeople,” Pieterjan Bouten, Showpad co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “Just like any other employee on the move, salespeople have a need for accurate and real-time data. In addition, they need to be able to adapt their sales documentation to the individual customer’s requirements and to gain fast access to the experts within their companies.”

A big recent milestone for Showpad happened last October when it signed a partnership with enterprise social networking business Jive Software to power its Jive Present sales software.

On top of raising new funds, Showpad said it will open an office in New York City in May to help fuel demand for its service in the United States and to explore more partnerships like the one with Jive.

The new funding round was led by Hummingbird Ventures. “We have been more than pleasantly surprised with the excellent feedback we have been receiving from leading customers and partners of Showpad in Europe and in the United States,” Hummingbird Ventures managing partner Barend Van den Brande said in a statement. “We hope that our funding will help to accelerate the company’s continuing international expansion.”

Ghent, Belgium-based Showpad was founded in 2011 and it has already attracted big name customers including Unilever, BASF, and Heineken.

Check out the video below for more on Showpad.

Top photo via Showpad

July 9-10, 2013
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Combining peanut butter and chocolate is as powerful a match as digital comic books and the iPad  — especially when those comics are made by Marvel.

For years, early adopters of Marvel Comics’ “unlimited” digital comic book service on the web have been clamoring for the company to add support for the iPad, and today those fanboys are finally getting their wish.

The unlimited comics service first launched in 2007 with a modest 2,500 comic books that readers could access online via a Flash application. Currently, the service has over 13,000 comics available via a HTML5 web app (as well as the new iOS app) and costs consumers $10 per month, or $60 per year. But if you’re hoping to get any of the newer content that’s been published recently, you’re out of luck, as Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited (now officially called Marvel Unlimited) is primarily made up of classic stories from the company’s early days as well as a bunch of stuff that’s just worth checking out. And if you’re worried about burning through thousands of digital books, rest assured that Marvel does add new content on a regular basis.

After playing around with it for a bit on my iPad, I can definitely tell that there’s a big difference in quality when compared with Marvel’s official comic store app that’s powered by ComiXology. The Marvel Unlimited app is very bare bones and resembles much of what you’d expect to find on the web app.

There is no “guided view” feature (which zooms in one panel at a time), and because everything is streaming, pages are sometimes slower to load than what you’re probably used to on the official Marvel Store app, and sometimes I had to reselect on some books after getting an error message. Initially, pages were popping up fine, but I’m assuming everyone else is also trying to pull the same content on, which is keeping me in perpetual loading.

And while I do think Comixology’s comic image pages are higher quality, it wasn’t that big of a deal to me. I probably wouldn’t have even thought about it if I was casually reading. But honestly, this isn’t meant to be a premium product and its a bit unfair to compare it to more sophisticated applications for mobile devices.

Right now, Marvel is offering a selection of free comics through the app to give you an idea of what it can do. Those that already have a paid subscription do get access to additional features, like the ability to download comics to your device for offline viewing (which also fixes the slight delay when turning pages.) One big set back to this is that you’re restricted to saving six issues to your device at a time. I’d imagine this will increase as Marvel developers get their barrings and realize how people are using the service on a touch screen.

The new Marvel Unlimited iOS app should be available in Apple’s App Store for free across all Apple devices now. For a closer look check out some screenshots embedded below.

July 9-10, 2013
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Popular blogging service Tumblr has finally updated its native iOS app to support the iPad and iPad mini — a long waited moment for the millions of Tumblr fans around the world.

Tumblr released a completely rebuilt iPhone app in early November that was faster and more responsive than the old version. Like the iPhone version, the native iPad app is fast and includes features such as pinch and zoom to make photos larger, one-touch re-blogging of posts, offline support, multi-blog management, save drafts, queue posts, and more.

Since the iPad and iPad mini are well-suited for consuming content, we expect it will be good for Tumblr, which heavily relies on photo and video sharing. It’s likely better than the iPhone app for many of things you’d want to use Tumblr for.

If you’re a regular Tumblr user, let us know about your exprience with the new iPad app in the comments below.

Photo via Tumblr

July 9-10, 2013
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Streaming music service Rhapsody has launched an attractive new iPad app that could steal a little attention from its biggest rivals, the company announced today.

Rhapsody reached one million paid users in the U.S. far before Spotify did, but Spotify has attracted more attention during the past year or two, thanks to celebrity endorsements and a push to rapidly innovate its products. Spotify has five million paid subscribers and 15 million free users around the world. Rhapsody, on the other hand, has been more methodical — it only offers its service to paid users in United States and focuses on their needs.

While Rhapsody has had an iPhone app for a long while, today’s launch of an iPad app could bring a few more people over its service, especially those who like lounging with their iPads at home. Paul Springer, senior VP of worldwide product and design for Rhapsody, writes:

Our customers are going to be big fans of the latest tablet additions to Rhapsody’s growing product suite. Rhapsody has never looked or sounded better. We built this app from the ground up optimizing for speed, reliability and an effortless discovery experience for our members. We obsessed – and will continue to obsess – over making this the best way to enjoy music on your iPad, whether you listen through the internal speakers, headphones or external speakers using our Airplay and Bluetooth integration.

Rhapsody has more than 16 million songs available on its service and costs $10 per month. Rhapsody for iPad lets you use the service 30 days for free.

Check out the new Rhapsody iPad app from the Apple App Store here.

July 9-10, 2013
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Google has released a major update of its iOS YouTube app, and it now supports the iPad and the iPhone 5′s longer display. It also works better with AirPlay, so you can watch videos on the big screen.

Apple dropped Google’s default YouTube and Maps apps out of iOS 6, but Google released a great standalone app that worked on the iPhone and iPod touch. Now that app has gotten much better with this update. (We’re still waiting for the standalone Google Maps app!)

Google writes about the updated app on its YouTube blog:

You love watching YouTube on the go — in fact — more than 25 percent of all YouTube watching happens on mobile. This past September, you got the YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch to make it easier to find and share the videos and channels you love on YouTube, and you made us the number one free app in the App Store for two months. Since then, we’ve been hard at work to improve the app based on your feedback.

Just in time for the holidays, now you can download or update the YouTube app with a look designed for the iPad and iPhone 5, enhanced AirPlay support, videos that start faster and play more smoothly, and improved accessibility with VoiceOver. Enjoy Tastemade on iPad in full screen glory, or hours of flipping through Ryan Higa videos on your iPhone 5 or iPod touch.

Photo via YouTube

July 9-10, 2013
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After making a name for itself as a useful smartphone app for in-store shopping, ShopSavvy is finally launching on the iPad today — a shift that has forced the company to think beyond its current price comparison strategy.

The free iPad app comes as part of the ShopSavvy 6 update, the latest version of the company’s iOS app. On the iPhone, the update brings the usual performance improvements (the company says about 30 percent of the app’s code is new). But this release is truly about the iPad — just in time for a holiday shopping season where ShopSavvy predicts consumers will be heavily relying on their tablets.

ShopSavvy started out as a simple price-comparison app on Android phones, but it has quickly grown into one of the most popular in-store shopping apps on the iPhone and Windows Phone, with more than 40 million downloads and 10 million active users. When it comes to the iPad, the company had to shift gears a bit to take advantage of its bigger screen, as well as the fact that people will be using tablets at home more than in stores.

“It [the iPad app] was a complete rethink,” ShopSavvy co-founder and CEO Alexander Muse said in an interview with VentureBeat.”On the iPad it’s more of a product browser,” Muse said, while the company’s smartphone apps generally serve to compare specific products across multiple retailers.

While smartphones ruled mobile shopping last year, ShopSavvy believes that tablets will have a major impact this holiday season. That’s not exactly a bold prediction: We’ve seen time and again that consumer engagement on tablets is higher than smartphones (especially smaller tablets). And now that there are a wealth of cheap tablet options available, I’m sure they’ll end up being a popular way for consumers to shop.

“Instead of focusing on price comparison, now we’re focused on offering you one option [on the iPad],” Muse added. He noted that the biggest challenge for the company was figuring out a way to give consumers access to multiple products at once, instead of just comparing a single product’s price.

If you’re already tired of holiday shopping before you’ve even set foot in a store, ShopSavvy’s iPad app could be your savior. Instead of bouncing around multiple retailer websites, you can do all of your shopping within the iPad app. ShopSavvy currently works with major retailers like Best Buy, Home Depot, and Target, plus it offers pricing information for a plethora of online retailers.

ShopSavvy has offices in San Francisco, Calif. and Dallas, Texas, and has thus far raised a total of $11.5 million.

July 9-10, 2013
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Restaurant waitlisting app NoshList has launched a new premium version that includes table number assignment, unlimited texting between a restaurant and diners, analytics, and more.

NoshList helps restaurants ditch clipboards and buzzers, notifying diners instead via text messaging that their tables are ready. The host or hostess uses the NoshList iPad app to keep track of diners, send them messages, and estimate wait times.

The NoshList service launched in February and hit 1 million diners seated in 75 days. Now, after nine months, the service has seated about 4.5 million diners and is used by more than 1,600 restaurants in the United States. Big-name NoshList clients include Red Robin and Buffalo Wild Wings.

NoshList Premium features include:

• Unlimited Two-Way Texting
• Table Number Assignment
• Large Party Functionality
• NoshGuest Autofill
• In-App Statistics
• Designated Local Phone Number
• 30-Day Exportable Analytics
• Weekly Email Summaries

Regular NoshList will remain a free service, but NoshList Premium will cost $49 per month per restaurant.

“There’s absolutely no way in which pen and paper, yelling, or buzzers can be innovated to drive sales, relay guest preferences, or deliver a better guest experience,” Cody Rose, director of restaurant services for Firespotter Labs, told us via email. “And for decades restaurants have clung tight to these antiquated methods because there was no alternative.”

NoshList-parent Firespotter Labs, based in Pleasanton, Calif., has raised $18 million to date from Andreessen Horowitz and Google Ventures. The company is also the brains behind UberConference, Nosh, and Jotly.

Check out the video below for more on NoshList:

July 9-10, 2013
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With the sheer volume of new submissions hitting community news sharing site Reddit everyday, it’s hard to keep up with them if you don’t have lots of free time. This is especially true if you think Reddit’s front page looks like an overwhelming wall of blue text.

Reddzine, a free iPad app, could be a good solution for people who want to quickly scroll through the site’s front page or favorite subreddits (aka sub-category pages).

The app displays all the submissions, sorted by what’s hot, new, controversial, or top, within a 3- or 4-column design. For image-heavy subreddits like Aww, Pics, or Funny, the layout really shines as a way to quickly scroll through to find the good stuff. There is a “safe for work” mode that protects you from inappropriate submissions.

“Rather than staring at tiny thumbnails and constantly clicking through to view images and open links etc, I thought a more visual interface would be a nicer approach,” Reddzine developer Steve James told VentureBeat. He also noted that the app is likely to get compared with popular Reddit clients like Alien Blue.

“Alien Blue has its ‘Canvas; mode, and there are other apps such as Reddit Pics, but these apps only support browsing images in this way,” he said. “The idea for Reddzine was to support all types of content posted on Reddit (images, albums, videos, links and text), presenting them in a magazine-style interface, with large thumbnails and everything integrated into a single page app.”

Selecting a submission brings up a new window that zooms in on the content. Reddzine is integrated with Imgur, and photo gallery submissions are displayed accordingly. You can also access the comment section from this window, which allows you to vote, save, or share the story after logging into your account.

Yet, you can’t gain access to the comment unless you pay to the pro version of Reddzine, which is a $2.99 in-app purchase. Half of Reddit is reading and making comments, and without access to this functionality, the standard Reddzine app is very limited. There are a few things to note before upgrading to pro, too. First, you can’t get a custom “front page” that only includes submissions from the subreddits you’re subscribed to. You only have the option of choosing “All,” which is essentially what you’d see if you didn’t log in to Reddit’s website. The app also doesn’t have a landscape mode, which may bother some users who prefer the wider orientation when scrolling through news.

However, James tells me all of the aforementioned functionality requests are in the works. The 30-year-old England-based freelance developer is the sole creator of Reddzine, but fans of the app can look forward to new features like a landscape mode and Reddit user profile support in future updates.

For a closer look at the app, check out the gallery of screenshots below.

July 9-10, 2013
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We’ve heard for a while that Microsoft is developing native Office 2013 apps for iOS and Android, and a Microsoft product manager seemingly confirmed, yet again, that these apps would arrive shortly.

Microsoft product manager Petr Bobek reportedly told Czech website IHNED that Microsoft’s native Office apps for iOS and Android would be available in March 2013.

However, Microsoft HQ would not confirm or deny if Bobek’s statement was accurate. A company spokesperson sent us the following carefully worded statement:

We have nothing to announce today about retail availability of the new Office. As we shared previously, Office Mobile will work across Windows Phones, Android phones and iOS, and we have nothing additional to announce.

Translation (as far as I can tell): Yes, we’re working on Office apps for iOS and Android. We’ll let you know when we’re ready.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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While the most popular music startups suffer from huge licensing fees that keep them in the red, Bamm.tv is taking another route that focuses on the lesser known bands.

Bamm.tv new iPad app, which it released today, provides a virtual music venue that shows off high-quality streaming videos from hundreds of emerging artists from around the world. And when I say virtual venue, I mean it’s an actual virtual interface that requires users to touch all the elements on the screen to navigate. It’s a bit confusing at first, but Bamm.tv’s founders told VentureBeat that this is part of the experience.

The iPad app is made for people tired of scrolling though their regular libraries of the same songs and want something new. In that sense, it captures people who are more willing to explore. The app itself contains HD videos of live shows from emerging artists and edited by the Bamm.tv staff.

As for its business model, Bamm.tv is working with a handful of international partners such as Samsung, Chunghwa Telecom, Selectv, MunduTV, and FuugoTV, which ensures that the service is available to an estimated 20 million viewers. It also has plans to sell merchandise and ticketing for emerging artists through the app, and splitting half the profits with those artists.

Founded in 2010, the San Francisco-based company is currently bootstrapped but is seeking a round of funding in the range of $3 million to $5 million. For a closer look at Bamm.tv, check out the demo video embedded below.

July 9-10, 2013
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StumbleUpon’s new application for iPhone and iPad offers iOS users a fresh, colorful, and personalized twist on the now 10-year-old practice of thumbing through the best the web has to offer.

Released Wednesday, the app sports a new head-to-toe look, a stumble-centric navigation experience for instant gratification, a modified home screen for alternative ways to stumble, and new trending, “slide,” and “StumbleDNA” features that make for a faster, more personal browsing experience.

Founded in 2002, StumbleUpon is the resurrected startup that helps people uncover interesting photos, articles, and videos. The web exploration company, which was purchased by eBay in 2007 and then sold back to its owners in 2009, now has more than 25 million users and is growing fastest on mobile.

The new StumbleUpon experience for iOS looks and feels like no other product the veteran company has released to date — and that’s quite intentional.

“This app, to me, is the first step in really reimagining our product line,” StumbleUpon’s vice president of product Cody Simms told me. “We looked at how we could improve the navigation … while bringing a new element of fun and fluidity to the experience overall.”

The playfulness Simms speaks is most evident in an eye-catching design that screams, “come touch me.”

The new home screen encourages mobile folks to flit about the web, albeit with purpose, by stumbling in four ways: thumbing through content picked specifically for them, exploring articles in an all-new trending section, stumbling the activities of friends, or diving into selections around a particular interest.

The trending section suggests hot content getting the most amount of likes, shares, or community reactions, while activity mode exposes what friends and StumbleUpon ordained experts are liking for a more diverse selection of content.

Once the stumbling process is started, the application user will immediately uncover a StumbleUpon innovation called “slide.” Slide is a new feature that provides people with an instant, visual preview of content so that they can speedily skim and flick through articles, videos, and photos.

The stumbler will also notice that a color-coded bar follows them through the app. The bar, otherwise known as StumbleDNA, is meant to be a visual representation of who you are and what you like. Colors in the bar denote specific interests, and the bar changes with your changing tastes.

Altogether, the iOS app, said Simms, should accomplish three key tasks: help people stumble in new ways, weave identity into the experience so that StumbleUpon is a reflection of a person’s likes, and alter for the better how the service recommends content to its users.

“This iOS launch … is really the first experience of these coming to life in our product set that you’ll start to see across everything else we do,” Simms said.

The company said a new web version is coming soon and that a refreshed Android app is also in development.

July 9-10, 2013
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Popular digital magazine app Flipboard has made its first foray into video with new “TV” channels chock full of YouTube clips, the company announced today.

Two-year-old Flipboard just announced yesterday that it now has 20 million users. While the app is available widely for iPad, iPhone, and Android phones, it has had some trouble on the content side. Popular content providers, including Wired and the The New Yorker, have stopped providing full articles. So it makes sense to start adding video to the mix to give Flipboard users more options.

The new video feeds are curated from popular YouTube channels, and they cover a wide variety of topics including cooking, music, and science.

Check out the descriptions of the new channels below.

Cooking TV: For foodies and aspiring home chefs, these how-to cooking videos can add skills to your culinary repertoire. Learn the basics like Chow.com’s “How to Make the Creamiest, Cheesiest Mac ‘n Cheese” or try quirky recipes like Food Network TV’s “Chicken and Waffles on a Stick.”

Influencer TV: Hear about big ideas from leading innovators and creative thinkers. Influencers TV includes a TED Talks lecture on creating awe by Rob Legato, the visual effects supervisor for Titanic and Hugo. For shorter fare, check out Big Think videos on “The Search for Life on Mars” and “Seeing Sound, Tasting Color: Synasthesia.”

Music TV: Keep up with what the kids—and hip people of all ages—are listening to these days. Watch the latest indie music videos on Noisey and follow NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert series for intimate sessions with emerging artists. Pitchfork TV catches live show moments, including “Bjork Dedicates ‘Declare Independence’ to Pussy Riot.”

Science TV: Feed your curiosity with cool experiments and surprising scientific facts. VSauce will answer “What if the Earth were Hollow?” and “What If Everyone Jumped at Once?” On SciShow, find out “Why Our Brains Love Junk Food” or other scientific explanations for everyday dilemmas.

News TV: With News TV, stay updated on current events via leading news outlets. Get storm and earthquake alerts from Associated Press and ABC News. CBS News follows the 2012 presidential campaigns and Al Jazeera provides international news.

Catwalk TV: Get the latest fashion trends, fresh off the catwalks in Paris, Milan, Tokyo, New York City and more. YouTube channels like Fashion TV and Videofashion cover global runways and rising models. See new campaigns from individual designers, like Alexander McQueen’s “Menswear Autumn/Winter 2012.”

Video stream via Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
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Digital magazine The Daily has laid off nearly a third of its staff to help the unprofitable publication save costs, parent company News Corp. announced today.

Since the launch of the The Daily in February 2011, people have wondered if an iPad-only publication could make enough money to be sustainable. It currently loses $30 million a year, and executives projected that it would take five years to break even. With News Corp. planning to split its publishing and entertainment businesses, that timeline doesn’t look so viable anymore.

In a press release, The Daily said it would cut 50 full-time employees, or 29 percent of its full-time staff. The sports section will be gutted and replaced with content from “partners” like Fox Sports. The opinion section will be cut entirely.

The publication also said it would move to a “portrait-only orientation,” which could help it save money on development. Videos will still be viewable in landscape mode.

Photo: The Daily

Google’s gorgeous new iPad app for its Google+ social network is now live in the App Store, the company announced today on its blog.

The company introduced the app for iPad at its recent I/O conference. And it’s a wonderful-looking application that shames Facebook’s mobile app design. While Google+ the network is much less exciting than Facebook, it’s easy to see Google is at least owning on the design front.

One of the best features for the app (and Google+ as a whole) is undoubtedly the video “Hangouts,” which go well with the iPad’s design. The company writes:

There’s nothing like catching up with friends face to face. Now you can start a video chat with up to nine friends anywhere, anytime, with Hangouts on iPhone and iPad. Turn on ringing notifications so your friends know to join the Hangout.

To get started, tap “Hangout” from the main menu, add some friends, and tap “Start.” We’ll ring their phones, if you want, and if someone misses the hangout, they can ring you back with a single tap.

Take a look at Google+ for iPad photo below to get an idea of what a video Hangout looks like.

July 9-10, 2013
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Digital magazine service News360 launched a revamped version of its iPad app that offers a sleeker design, some refreshing user interface tweaks, and the possibility of stealing eyeballs away from its competitors.

News360 lets its users chose from a vast array of news topics to follow and aggregates favorable content based on user behavior through the app itself as well as social-networking activity. It’s already facing heavy competition from several digital news-magazine tablet readers, including Flipboard, Pulse, Google Current, and Editions by AOL. But News360′s most direct competitor is probably Zite, where users can vote on content and improve its news discovery the more you use the service.

The new version allows you to pull in trends/topics of news from your Twitter hashtags, Facebook likes, and Google+ profile listing. You can also search for custom topics like in previous versions and have everything displayed in a central home screen view. One pleasant addition to the main news view is the capability to treat news items like rectangular cubes, which you can flick up or down. Flicking the article cube reveals a longer version of the text that you can scroll through, and flicking it again shows a menu for bookmarking, voting on the article, and sharing the article through a number of social networks.

You can also select the individual article cube, which makes it take up the entire screen. The article text and images are displayed in a News360 reader, with a small portion of the article’s original website shown below. I wasn’t able to view more than the small portion of the website without first clicking through to the in-app web browser. I’m guessing this is a bug. If you don’t like the article’s source, News360 provides you will several other alternative news outlets that covered the same story. This is certainly useful for finding the best version of an article, but honestly, I’m not sure how often average, passive news readers will really use this.

You can download the updated News360 iPad app today for free via iTunes. Check out the demo video below for a closer look at the app’s updated look and feel.

July 9-10, 2013
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Inspiring curious world explorers and taking a more open-ended approach to travel booking is startup iTravel, makers of a just-enhanced iPad application that aims to stimulate the imagination during the vacation-planning process.

Germany-based iTravel, first founded in 2004 but just 20 months into its newfound mobile take on leisure travel, is one of 15 companies showing off applications and competing for best in show in today’s Innovation Competition at VentureBeat’s MobileBeat 2012 conference in San Francisco, Calif.

“The main point of iTravel is to allow you to book trips in an inspirational way, based on the experiences you’re going to have there,” iTravel CEO Axel Schmiegelow told me in an interview. “We sell full-packaged tours that are completely customizable.”

Think of iTravel as a modern, mobile-friendly travel agent. The startup employs an approach counter to that of the traditional online travel booking experience. So instead of taking the consumer down a road that starts with a specific destination and date range, and ends in booking a hotel and flight or so forth, iTravel invites the more openminded planner to select a part of the world — be it Europe, South America, the South Seas, and so forth — and start exploring various vacation packages that have been crafted by the company and its travel partners.

The iTravel for iPad experience, still just weeks old, takes these packages and offers them up to mobile users in a finger-friendly manner (pictured below).

“The iPad app is designed so that you and your partner, sitting together at your coffee table, can flip through different trips and find the ones that suit you best,” said Schmiegelow.

The refreshed application being demoed today (the update has yet to go live in the App Store) also comes with Facebook-powered intelligence that finds the friends that have already traveled to the places you’re considering visiting. The iTravel application then invites users to message their friends, through Facebook, for advice.

As it stands, iTravel for iPad, even with the Facebook integration, is easy on the eyes but lacks enough content to make the experience truly compelling. Some of the packages — the Carribean island-hopping yacht tour, for instance — are quite inviting, but there simply doesn’t seem to be enough here to make this your go-to vacation-booking app just yet.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that iTravel has its largest customer bases in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The company can, thanks to several years building up inventory in those countries, offer its customers in those countries far more trip options. In Germany, for instance, iTravel offers 1,600 trips for 160 destinations. Just 185 of those trips have been ported over to U.S. and UK users.

The startup, currently with a home base in Germany, will soon move its headquarters to San Francisco, Calif. to better compete in the U.S. travel market. The company also recently opened up an office in London to attack the UK travel industry as well.

iTravel for iPad users should also expect the application to get better rapidly, as the company plans a “high frequency” of updates, Schmiegelow said. One major update will be the addition of “Experience” search, which will offer users a way to explore all available trip options around the activities they’re looking to enjoy.

iTravel has raised $3.8 million in funding and has 28 employees spread across several offices. The company has 30,000 customers, and currently has a revenue run-rate of $4 million annually in Germany.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Apple has added a full-fledged application for podcasts to the iOS App Store to make it easier for people to find and organize content from podcasters around the world.

As we described previously, podcasts are prerecorded audio (sometimes video) programs that you can listen and watch across various devices while online or offline. The format became successful on Apple’s watch because the company created a dedicated section of the iTunes Store for podcasts. In the latest versions of iOS, users have been able to access podcasts through the “More” tab on the Music app. But now with a stand-alone app, listening to and finding new podcasts becomes much easier.

It’s entirely possible that Apple will remove podcasts from the Music app. The new app will also likely hurt already existing apps that organize podcasts such as Downcast, Instacast, and Podcaster 5.

The Podcasts app’s full set of features can be viewed here:

• Enjoy all of your audio and video podcasts in a single app.
• Explore hundreds of thousands of podcasts including shows in over 40 languages.
• Try the innovative new Top Stations feature to find new podcast series in a variety of topics, including arts, business, comedy, music, news, sports, and more.
• Browse by Audio or Video podcasts, or see what’s most popular in Top Charts.
• Tap subscribe for your favorites and automatically receive new episodes for free as they become available.
• Stream episodes or download to listen while offline.
• Skip forward and back using simple playback controls.
• Turn on Sleep Timer to automatically stop playing a podcast while listening in bed.
• Share your favorite episodes with friends using Twitter, Messages and Mail.
• Optionally sync your favorite episodes from iTunes on your Mac or PC.
• Sync your episode playback for seamless transition between devices.

Take a look at the gallery below for more looks at the app for the iPad and iPhone:

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Business intelligence app-maker MeLLmo, the creator of ultra-hot business iPad app Roambi, has launched a new app-building platform called ESX that will let other companies tap Roambi’s ability to make data gorgeous and accessible.

Roambi ESX will give companies that sell data for a living a way to create co-branded iPad apps without hiring design teams. ESX will let business create specialized publications that include text, images, Roambi data visualizations, and video and then publish the whole thing to the iPad.

The target audience for the platform will be the many small and large firms that collect and distribute data, Quinton Alsbury, MeLLmo’s president of product innovation, told VentureBeat. Ideally, many research firms would want to offer an iPad application that enhances their data sets, but many of these firms don’t want to pay for the development costs or hiring a mobile team. If they decide to use Roambi ESX, Alsbury said, it makes their lives easier and could be a boon for sales.

“There are hundreds of thousands of small niche research shops, and many of those will find this relevant and important,” Alsbury said. “One day, many apps in the App Store will be powered by Roambi.”

Specifically, Roambi wants to go after these types of companies with ESX:

• Information Publishers: syndicated research, market analysis, economic trends
• Marketers: interactive marketing brochures, newsletters, consumer behavior reports
• Corporations: corporate responsibility reports, investor reports, sales reports

MeLLmo said it will not be releasing pricing for access to the platform and that “interested parties can contact a Roambi salesperson for more information.”

San Diego, Calif.-based MeLLmo raised $30 million from Sequoia Capital this past September. Alsbury said ESX will help the company take advantage of its momentum in the market and help the company expand beyond simply making striking business intelligence applications.

Photo credit: MeLLmo

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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After all the turmoil Yahoo has gone through in the past month, the company is finally making moves on a legitimate plan to consolidate its resources on a handful of successful products and services crucial to its bottom line.

Today Yahoo announced that it’s shutting down digital magazine news app Livestand, which it only launched back in November 2011.

“When we discontinue products, it will be so that we can focus on opportunities where we lead and where we can create the most meaningful experiences for people using our products, and for our partners, developers and advertisers,” Yahoo stated in a blog post. “One of the first decisions we’ve made along these lines is to discontinue our personalized digital newsstand app, Livestand for iPad.”

Livestand was facing plenty of more popular competitors, such as Flipboard, Editions by AOL, Pulse News, Zite, and Google Currents. But even in a crowded market, Yahoo didn’t need to be focusing its efforts on side projects like this. The company said it still plans to focus on creating a more mobile web-friendly experience for its existing products. As we said at the beginning of the year, Yahoo can start by revamping Flickr.

It’s nice to see new CEO Ross Levinson actually doing something to lessen the company’s glut of useless services and products. But the work is far from over.

Fortunately, we’ve comprised a list of 10 products Yahoo needs to immediately shut down. (Well, it’s actually only a list of nine, since Livestand is now dead.)

July 9-10, 2013
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If there is one application that personifies how Apple’s mega-popular iPad is transforming the enterprise, it could very well be the intuitive, luscious, and just-plain-cool Roambi, a business intelligence app that brings mundane data to life in unimaginable ways.

Roambi, which has attracted $30 million in funding from Sequoia Capital, lets you show your company’s SAP, Oracle, or Salesforce data on the iPad in bright charts and graphs. Each report is available for online or offline viewing, so you can always bust out your iPad for presentations or routine queries.

And unlike business intelligence players with iPad app support like MicroStrategy, IBM Cognos, or SAP BusinessObjects, Roambi does not tie you down to a single data source. “Roambi is unique because it is designed to aggregate across different data warehouses,” Forrester mobility analyst Ted Schadler told VentureBeat. “They pull it all into a single data dashboard for an executive.”

The Roambi app serves more than 230 large enterprise customers, charging $795 per user licence, and more than 4,000 mid-size customers with its Pro offering, charging $99 per user per year. Its large enterprise customers have purchased support for between a hundred and several thousand employees, meaning the company is bringing in strong revenue.

Roambi comes from San Diego-based development firm MeLLmo. The company’s founders originally picked the odd name to throw off the competition, but they are stuck with it now because all their contracts use the name. They try to make the best of their funny name and in some ways they are affectionate toward it — in the office, the guys are “MeLLMen” and the ladies are “MeLLmettes.”

A bold bet

Roambi stems from the day MeLLmo chief executive Santiago Becerra (left) stood in line to get his hands on the first-generation iPhone in June 2007. A lifelong fan of Apple products, Becerra had the time to stand in line because he had sold a startup eight months prior and was taking a break from work. He deeply identified with the idea of the iPhone and loved the concept of using a flat touchscreen display for interacting with applications and the web.

“I remember that first day of playing with the iPhone and the pre-loaded apps like the stock widget,” Becerra told VentureBeat. “It was truly different because it required no instruction manual. At the time, I asked myself ‘How long before business people will want to see data on this device?’”

Becerra was so excited about the idea of enterprise applications for the iPhone that he called up and pitched a few friends and business colleagues on the idea. A few people shied away from the idea, but he found a solid founding team that believed in it, including Quinton Alsbury, David Becerra, and Jaime Zuluaga.

Alsbury, now MeLLmo’s president of product innovation, loved Becerra’s idea from the start. He wasn’t as immediately bullish as Becerra was, but he was excited about the iPhone’s potential.

“It seemed obvious to anyone looking at the phone — there was no way that it would be relegated to just a consumer device,” Alsbury told me. “Apple being a computer company meant that they had everything they needed to make it a computing platform. It seemed obvious that the evolution of the iPhone would make it into a computing device. Motion and visual graphics didn’t exist in this form before.”

So Becerra, Alsbury, and the others talked about the idea until they finally formed MeLLmo as a stealth LLC in January 2008. Their goal was to create a touch-based data visualization app exclusively for the iPhone. But as they were just getting started, the team knew they’d have to overcome a host of obstacles, including convincing people their idea was sound. The biggest problem they had was that no software development kit existed for iPhone apps. The App Store didn’t even exist yet to distribute those apps.

From the outset, the team made two bets: One, that business users would eventually prefer using iPhones over BlackBerrys. And two, Apple would soon offer a distribution model for other applications.

Development and launch

The MeLLmo team started recruiting on the sly that January. Alsbury said the company chose the slogan “Bringing social networking 3.0 to web 2.0″ because, like the company name, it would not hint at what the company was building. Many developers and business folks saw the slogan and contacted the company about job opportunities. When the prospective employees came in, the team revealed they were actually working on a business app for iPhone. Some of the earliest prospects jumped at the idea and still work for the company today.

The most critical early hire for the company was Alex Schaefer, a part-time developer who created the popular app ApolloIM, which ran on jailbroken iPhones. Jailbreaking your iPhone opens the door to installing unapproved applications and using the phone on other carriers. Early in the life of the iPhone, jailbreaking was especially popular because Apple didn’t yet offer the ability to install apps, and people understood that the iPhone could do much more than it was allowed to do. Schaefer’s ability to work around Apple’s limitations was important for MeLLmo, since the team wanted to build an app without an SDK.

“[Schaefer] in himself is an interesting story,” Alsbury said. “He wasn’t even a full-fledged developer. He was a poetry major with two years of computer science. But we needed someone to take some of these early ideas and see what was even possible. We needed someone who could jailbreak and start messing around. When we hired him, we gave him the title of ‘iPro.’”

So about month before Apple released its first iOS SDK on March 6, 2008, MeLLmo was already hard at work figuring out app development and how its data visualization app would function. Becerra describes the earliest months of development as “difficult” because there were no rules and no playbook for creating these apps. There were only a few apps for the iPhone at that point, so designing an interface with touchscreen functionality was tedious.

“It was really a new paradigm,” Becerra said. “To us, the hardest part was to forget about the past and center on a new platform and new ways of thinking.”

The company remained in stealth mode until May 19, 2009. Just before coming out, the team met with bloggers, journalists, and analysts to preview the product, which MeLLmo expected to sell directly to corporations. They were met with lots of skeptical looks and some “well-known bloggers” told then it wouldn’t work.

“They told us we wouldn’t be successful unless we were on BlackBerry,” Alsbury said. “They said ‘No enterprise is going to buy software institutionally for the iPhone.’ They didn’t believe anyone would buy iPhone software.”

When the company finally launched Roambi for iPhone, many businesses complimented the intuitiveness of the design and realized that touch-based data visualization could add some pizzazz to sales calls, presentations, and meetings. Those businesses weren’t exactly lining up to get their hands on Roambi at first, but the response was generally positive. In fact, business users were slowly ditching their BlackBerrys in favor of more powerful and versatile iPhones and starting to find ways to use it for work and play alike.

“We were surprised how fast companies were buying into it at the beginning,” Becerra said.

Page two: How the iPad changed everything and where the company is headed next

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Streaming music service Spotify has finally launched an app for the Apple iPad after a strangely long wait, the company announced today.

Spotify is most closely watched of the new crop of streaming music services, battling it out with the likes of MOG, Rdio, and Rhapsody. The service has attracted more than 3 million paid users across 13 countries. Rhapsody, which has been around since 2003, has more than 1 million paying users in the U.S. alone.

The new Spotify iPad app has been in the works for quite a while, and both Rdio and MOG debuted their iPad apps before it. Rdio launched its iPad app in August 2011 while MOG made its iPad debut this past March. Since Spotify gets more attention and scrutiny than its peers, the company was constantly questioned on where the heck its iPad app was and why it was taking so long.

But alas, the day has finally come. The app features support for the latest iPad’s Retina display, advanced search through the Spotify catalog of 17 million songs, hot and trending playlists, an inbox sorted by users, gapless playback, and AirPlay integration.

You can take a look at screenshots below of the new app:

And you can watch Spotify’s promo video below:

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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There are a lot of ways mobile apps are changing how we view our world and consume media. And while some are revolutionizing productivity or remodeling business presentations, others are pushing the boundaries of art, nature, and storytelling.

The following six jaw-dropping apps have turned our tablets on their ears by re-imagining what the form is capable of producing, striving beyond the usual boundaries to become something both impressive and exciting. Anyone making a tablet app these days needs to up their design game to be truly competitive, and these apps set the bar very high indeed.

Astronomy Picture of the Day by Concentric Sky

Developed in partnership with NASA, the Astronomy Picture of the Day (also called APOD) features decades of high-resolution photos of space hand-selected by NASA astronomers, who also write the included descriptions. There are new photos added every day, and the app allows you to find photos by date or shake the phone for a random image, save photos and share them with friends. And that’s all well and good, but the stars of the show here are the astounding images themselves, showing the vast skies above, from interstellar dust clouds and nebulas to volcanoes and telescopes.

iTunes (free), Android (free); Video demo

Al Gore — Our Choice

This app, which was designed to accompany Gore’s book of the same name, examines the causes of global warming and the solutions being enacted to combat its effects. The app itself changes the way you read and experience a book by melding seamlessly with the photography, interactive graphics, animations, maps, and documentary footage contained within the app’s many functions. A narrative from Gore turns it into a portal to experience the book through videos, photos and infographics that turn your tablet into a powerful learning aid. Charts and data are entirely reimagined; sliding your finger along the screen allows you to see the world’s population grow, and blowing into the microphone turns the blades of a wind turbine. The exquisite photos can be enlarged and pinpointed on a map, making anything you see in the book, explorable in the app.

iTunes ($4.99); Demo video

National Geographic & Fotopedia

National Geographic and Fotopedia teamed up for two incredible journeys — one is through Burma, the other is a bird’s-eye view of France. Both feature the stunning images of the planet and its people that fans have come to expect from National Geographic; the Burma tour features over a thousand photos, while the France app touts over two thousand professional aerial shot. Both also have interactive maps, slideshows, wallpapers, options to share, and a trip builder feature, which, after taking these virtual tours, you may very well be tempted to use. The magnificent photos coupled with stories, history, and geography make for an engrossing experience.

Android fans get a slightly different options in the National Geographic app which acts as more of a companion to the magazine with photos and categories such as news, pace and photo of the day.

Dreams of Burma: iTunes (Free)

Above France: iTunes (Free)

National Geographic; Google Play (Free)

Living Earth World Clock

Hands down the most strikingly beautiful world-clock app available, the Living Earth World Clock provides clock, weather, and alarm features with a live 3D simulation of the planet at the current moment in time. It also has global weather and forecasts around the world, and will display sunrise and sunset borders as they are happening in real-time. Clouds will streak across your tablet as they are moving across the sky outside your window; tropical storms appear on your screen as they are happening. The alarm clock can be synched with your music playlist, waking you to the song of your choice.

iTunes ($0.99)

deviantART Muro

Here’s the thing… technically deviantART Muro isn’t an a tablet app. What it is, is an incredibly versatile treat for the eyes crafted out of glorious HTML5. Muro is a drawing app that works right within the web browser on any tablet (or computer), as long as that tablet’s browser runs HTML5 (which at this point is pretty much all of them — including the iPad’s Safari). Muro doesn’t require Flash or a special plug-in and it works with both touchscreens and Wacom’s pressure-sensitive drawing tablets. Muro users create some astoundingly beautiful 2D digital artwork, which can be easily shared using a solid set of drawing tools and a variety of filters to blur, sharpen, and emboss. Perhaps the best part of this web app is browsing the works of all the other phenomenally talented Deviant-artists.

On the web (Free); Demo video on Chrome

The Numberlys

This gem from Moonbot Studios is a story-in-an-app celebration that’s half Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, half Pixar-style genius animation (that’s no coincidence as Moonbot Studios was co-founded by a former Pixar employee. Read the full story of the Academy Award winners at Moonbot). Part story, part adventure, part mystery, and part game, the Numberlys follows five little friends who live in a black and white world where only numbers exist until they create the alphabet by jumping, spinning, smashing, and pulling apart numbers with tools. The video is instantly charming, intriguing, and astoundingly lovely all at once. The very cool companion website is equally fun and imaginative. Visually beautiful, unique, and highly enjoyable, It’s an app worth buying a tablet for.

iTunes ($5.99); Video

July 9-10, 2013
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Although Apple is fond of showing iPad users playing games, watching movies, and listening to music on its ubiquitous tablet, more and more industry professionals are finding ways to incorporate the iPad into genuinely productive enterprise-level work. No longer just for Angry Birds, iPads can now be found in schools and universities, doctor’s offices, stockrooms, and boardrooms. There is an ever-expanding menu of specialized enterprise apps that are making the iPad a must-have office supply.

PlanGrid: Blueprints on the iPad

A prime example is the PlanGrid app, which allows users to store, view, and manage blueprints on the iPad. PlanGrid also allows note taking and sharing from the field, and uses the cloud to store project drawings and receive updates. All of the features of the app were designed specifically to save contractors time and money by making it easy to access blueprints and to share notes and changes. The availability of blueprints in a digital format not only saves time — no more waiting for the blueprints to be physically printed, no mistakes made by building off of old blueprints — but also takes a significant amount off the bottom line; PlanGrid claims that for every million dollars in building costs, there are typically printing costs of $3,500. The app is free to download in the App Store and for the first 50 sheets. Larger plans cost $20 or $50 a month.

Mobile MIM: X-rays in your doctor’s pocket

The new iPad touts the quality of its new retina display, and what better way to put it to the test than to use it for extremely vital visual information — like an X-ray or an MRI? MIM Software has done just that with its Mobile MIM app, which is used by medical professionals to view images from CT, MRI, X-ray, ultrasounds, PET, and SPECT scans. The app can also review images, contours, DVH, and isodose curves from radiation treatment plans. Doctors, nurses, lab techs, and other medical professionals can download data using an encrypted transfer to protect patient privacy, and set a passcode to encrypt non-image information and prevent unauthorized access.  Patients can also access their information from the cloud, making it easy to communicate across long distances. The Mobile MIM app is free to download from the App Store, but the companion cloud service does charge.

Kitchen IQ: Food safety and more for restaurants

While the iPad is used by culinary aficionados and amateur chefs to find and store recipes, take photos of food, organize and plan meals, and keep track of grocery lists, it’s also increasingly being used in the restaurant industry by managers to train staff, acquire customer feedback, plan and record events, keep track of expenses, and manage reservations. One example is the free Kitchen IQ app, designed to help restaurant professionals maintain operations according to health standards and guidelines by providing tips on avoiding foodborne illnesses. It also explains labeling options, finds common pitfalls, and even has a virtual Food Safety Audit for kitchen inspections.

EasyBib: Assistant for academics

Many see the iPad as a threat to traditionally paper products like newspapers, magazines, books, and libraries — however, many of these industries are adapting the tablet to their own purposes. Case in point is the free EasyBib app, which scans a book by bar code (or by entering in the title) to provide you with MLA, APA and Chicago style citations, or you can write your own citations. Citations can then be emailed or exported to EasyBib’s bibliography management service for easy organization.

Stock Room: Track inventory

Similarly, stockroom managers will be assisted by the simply named Stock Room app, which tracks inventory of items in a stock room or storage area. Users can snap photos of the items they need to track, perform a receipt of items into a stock room, keep a detailed log of receipts and items leaving the stock room as well as email a list of received items, of items being used, of item history and of current stock of the item. The personalization and detailed entries can help managers keep track of office supplies, spare equipment, mail supplies, tools or vehicle inventory. Stock Room costs $1.99.

July 9-10, 2013
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Facebook has updated its popular iPad app with much-welcome support for the new iPad’s Retina display and needed fixes like the ability to sign out of chat.

After a seriously long wait, Facebook finally released its Apple iPad app to the public this past October. The app functions much like the Facebook site and the iOS app. But as Facebook’s more than 750 million users seem to love photos, the app needed updating to support the iPad’s fantastic Retina display, which is one of the best-looking screens on the market.

On top of new support for the Retina display, the app also adds the following fixes:

- You can go offline in chat
- The right profile picture appears for everyone
- Your list of friends always includes all your friends
- In sets of photos, your name is displayed correctly
- Photos of people who like Facebook Pages load correctly
- Your friend-request notification only lights up if you have a request
- You can change your language to Czech, Danish, Greek, Indonesian, Malaysian, Norwegian (Bokmal), Portuguese (Portugal) or Thai

The fix I like most is the ability to sign out of chat. There are many times where I’ve wanted to check Facebook and not be seen as online by friends, so now I can do that. Profile pictures and request notifications working correctly are also welcome.

July 9-10, 2013
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Online-meeting startup MeetingBurner has updated its simple, clean iOS app to support the iPad, the company announced today.

MeetingBurner launched out of beta in early February with relatively inexpensive pricing. It faces steep competition in the online meeting space from Cisco’s WebEx, Adobe’s Connect, Citrix’s GoToMeeting, and AnyMeeting. With such fierce competitors, MeetingBurner needs all the tools it can get to help people attend its meetings. The iPad is an excellent tool for enterprise and is becoming surprisingly popular for sales teams and executives.

“The ability to attend a meeting or webinar remotely was extremely important to us,” MeetingBurner CMO Chris Van Dusen told VentureBeat via email. “Our hosts have the ability to attract more participants to their live meetings, and attendees are not locked to their computers. The iPad was a natural fit for MeetingBurner, offering high-speed streaming of both the audio and video, full chat capability and pinch to zoom functionality.”

MeetingBurner does not offer an Android app yet, but it says it is steadily working on one. Android users, for now, can view MeetingBurner meetings in their browsers as long as they support mobile Flash.

Ladera Ranch, Calif.-based MeetingBurner is a division of larger company Networx Online and has ten employees on its team.

You can see another screenshot of MeetingBurner for iPad below:

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Adding a whole new meaning to the phrase “up close and personal,” Skype has released a version of its iPad application optimized for the device’s new ultra-high resolution Retina Display.

Skype’s 3.8 for iPad was released Monday and is specifically tailored toward early buyers of Apple’s third-generation iPad, which features a heretofore unheard of screen resolution of 2,048 by 1,536 pixels.

With the release, Skype is promising customers its best-looking application yet. Technically, that description is absolutely accurate. VentureBeat’s own Devindra Hardawar, in a review of the new iPad, said, “because of its high resolution, the Retina Display makes practically everything look better, even merely browsing the web.”

But while we’re sure most of your friends and family members look better in high-definition, we know that the additional pixels won’t be favorable to all. So ladies, put your lipstick on. And gentlemen, you may want to rethink that decision to skip a shave in the morning.

Microsoft-owned Skype, which today demonstrated no qualms about rapidly updating to support a competitor’s hardware, was only recently made available to Windows Phone customers. The additional audience pool, however small it may be, helped pushed the VoIP service to a new 35 million concurrent user record.

Photo credit: spieri_sf/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
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Streaming music service MOG has just released a brand-new app for the iPad, a curious move for a company rumored to be in talks to sell itself to Taiwanese device manufacturer HTC.

Although MOG serves up a great streaming music product relative to its peers, it hasn’t attracted as much buzz as Spotify or as many paying customers as long-time player Rhapsody. It’s this position as a smaller player fighting a tough fight that has likely pushed the company to pursue the option of being acquired by HTC-owned Beats Audio. HTC was rumored to be launching its own streaming service, but MOG, with its deals already in place, might be an easier fit.

The new MOG iPad app takes stylistic cues from the service’s website and iPhone application. Features include the option to listen to music in a higher audio quality than its peers at 320 kbps, unlimited downloads of songs for offline play, music recommendations, personalized radio stations based on artists you like, high-resolution album art, Airplay support, and more.

To get access to the service on the iPad, you must pay for a $10-per-month subscription. Additionally, MOG offers a free ad-supported version of the service on the web, an ad-free $4.99 per month web-only subscription, and an ad-free option for web and mobile access at $10 per month.

Check out more screenshots from MOG’s iPad app below: