That is certainly what Readdle, makers of Scanner Pro, want you to think anyway. Scanner Pro is a universal app that allows you to scan various types of document using your iPad’s camera. I have used this app on my iPhone and find it excellent. I have an iPad 2 so I decided to see what limitations there are when scanning with version 4.0.2 of the app. Readdle do say for optimum results you are better off using the iPhone version, or a new iPad. Let’s see if they are right…

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Getting Started

So that’s the first thing to keep in mind. The iPad version of this app is optimised for use with the new iPad and its retina display capabilities, that brings me to my first point about Scanner Pro.

Paying $6.99 for an app that may not work particularly well on my device feels like a risk I wouldn’t normally take. However, the iPhone version works really well (including the iPhone 4), so it seems strange that the app may struggle on an iPad 2.

Well, here is the good news. You won’t be wasting your money. There are indeed some limitations in regards to quality of the scans, but there are also ways around those limitations. So lets take a closer look.

What Is the App For?

The name is pretty self-explanatory, but Scanner Pro does particularly well with certain types of documents. In general you can:

• Scan handwritten notes and sketches to keep a digital copy.
• Scan receipts and invoices to keep a digital copy.
• Scan interesting book pages and magazine articles for reading later.

What Does It Look Like?

When you first start the app you will be greeted with the main document window:

Scanner Pro's main interface.

At first glance there don’t seem to be many options, but the neat interface has some useful features tucked away. For example, from the Settings menu, you can link your Dropbox, Google, and Evernote accounts:

Scanner Pro's settings.

I think that capability is critical for a productivity app. Evernote and Dropbox are popular the world over for good reason. Any app that claims to help with productivity must support them. Scanner Pro also supports Google Docs so all the main cloud based storage systems are covered.

Other than Settings, there are buttons for taking a new photo, and adding an existing one from the Photo Library:

Interface buttons.

Functionality

To scan a document, it is simply a matter of tapping the camera button. You will get a grid for alignment and a reminder to hold still while taking the photograph. Once you have tapped the button to take the picture, Scanner Pro will have a guess and which part of the image you were trying to capture:

Scanner Pro after photo taken.

You can use the drag handles to adjust the area that will be included in the scan. There are a set of buttons that appear on a toolbar at the bottom of the screen:

• Find borders – will try and work out the outline of the area you have photographed.
• Select all – will change the selection to include everything in the photo.
• A4 (might say letter) provides a menu for you to choose a document size.

Let There Be Light…

I did all my testing using natural daylight from a nearby window. The iPad version of Scanner Pro would probably struggle under tungsten lighting, unless you have a third generation iPad.

Readdle do provide a warning with version 4.0.2 of the app:

Readdle quality warning.

That tells you everything you need to know.

Some Scanning

I decided the best way to test the app was to try a scan on:

1. A newspaper article.
2. A magazine page.
3. Handwritten notes.

1. Newspaper Article

Scanned newspaper article.

Both images are acceptable as a record of the article. The image on the left uses the “photo” option, and the image on the right uses the “document” option. The “greyscale” option makes no discernible difference from the “document” option.

2. Magazine Page

Scanned magazine article.

The image on the left comes from the iPad app, and the image on the right comes from the iPhone app. I used the “photo” option in both cases. The iPad version suffers from graininess as Readdle have suggested it might. The iPhone version however is fine.

The app gives you the ability to include images from your Photo Library, so scans that turn out better from your iPhone can still be included into the document you are creating.

3. Hand Written Notes

Scanned hand written notes.

As before, the image on the left is the iPad version of the app, and the image on the right comes from the iPhone version. I used the “greyscale” option in both cases. You can see that the iPad version suffers from graininess again, whereas the iPhone version is really good.

If I was using the new iPad you can see that the quality would be excellent. I think the iPad 2 version of the document scan is still usable though. As I said before, using images from your photo stream is possible so if you are not happy the workaround is to use the iPhone version of the app to do the scan.

I also tried the pages from a book and the result was much the same. As long as I used the “Photo” setting for the scan on my iPad, it produced an acceptable result.

Other Features

A key feature of this app is how easy it is transfer your scans to various cloud storage services, or simply by email. Readdle have made the process so slick that scanning a document and sending/uploading it takes only a matter of a few minutes at the most.

Clicking the Edit button at the top right of the screen lets you select a document:

Selecting documents.

From there, you can choose the Export button:

Choose an export option.

Choosing email will offer you a choice of sending the sans as a JPEG or PDF. Choosing PDF creates a new email message, attaches the PDF and even fills in the subject line for you:

Emailing your documents.

Click Send and thats that, message sent with documents attached.

The process of uploading to Dropbox is very slick too. From the Export button choose the “Upload to…” option:

Uploading to Dropbox.

You will see the various options available. Choosing Dropbox:

Uploading to Dropbox.

Creates a ScannerPro folder and clicking the Upload button will send the scans to the folder – simple as that.

Conclusion

I was skeptical about scanning with my iPad to begin with, but after spending some time with the Scanner Pro app, I have seen the possibilities. The thing is, I was never really sure that the iPad needed a camera, but apps like this convince me otherwise.

It might be a coincidence, but recently I have had several situations crop up where I have needed to quickly copy a printed document, and Scanner Pro has provided me with a way to do it. Admittedly I used the iPhone version, but the point is, the app still provided the means to do it. If I am completely honest, the iPhone version is better overall than the iPad version. That probably isn’t the case if you have a new iPad though.

Is it worth the price tag? Well yes, if you have a new iPad and are likely to do a lot of scanning. If you have an iPad 2, you could take a look at DocScan HD it does a really nice job too, and has some nice export options. It’s cheaper too at $3.99.

360 Panorama has been fit for the iPad long before the new iPad made its debut. Better yet, it offers features the stock camera app would never be able to do without a lot of editing afterwards. Read more about it after the break.

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What Is 360 Panorama?

What 360 Panorama does is in the name itself: it takes panoramic photos. For those of you who don’t know, panoramas allow you to see much more of the photographer’s environment as it stitches many photos together. Essentially, you can get a 360-degree view in any direction. Usually panoramas are quite hard to create as it requires lots of photo-stitching and cropping in a secondary application.

Panoramas are created just by panning your iPad.

However, creating panoramas within this application takes out the majority of the work involved in creating a good panorama. All you have to do is click the record button on the bottom of the screen and pan your iPad in any direction to create your panorama. We’ll discuss how well this feature works in the next section. When you are done taking the panorama, you are able to view the final product by swiping or tilting. Pretty neat, eh?

A 360˚ View

As mentioned before, 360 Panorama creates a panorama by snapping photos as you pan your iPad. In many cases, this method can create rather poor results as it stitches photos together as you go. I am happy to say that 360 Panorama does an amazing job at this; everything fits together perfectly with the occasional, squint-to-see seam.

Adding comments is one of the many extra features in this app.

The finished project is customizable. You can view it on either a black or white background and as either a 360-degree photo or a stereographic. You can even add captions to the photo so you can remember where you took it.

Getting great results is heavily reliant on how well the user uses the application and utilities themselves. My biggest issue is that edges are often very choppy and do not line up. 360 Panorama does have a grid system within the application to help you line up your photos, but I found this close to useless. Basically, cropping down the edges is a better bet than trying to get your images lined up within the app.

Also, if you pan too fast, you may need to return to fill in holes which might alter your results with this application.

One thing to note is that 360 Panorama does require Location Services to work properly as it requests access to your photo library. This can cause the application to use a bit more of your battery than you may prefer, but it doesn’t make too much of a difference.

Perhaps the most glaring issue is this: why would I want to take pictures with my iPad? It’s cumbersome and awkward to hold, and most of you don’t have your iPad on you when you would want to take a panorama. Luckily, 360 Panorama is a universal application, so you can use it on both your iPad and your iPhone. Even though it isn’t the most useful, it is still nice that the developers made iPad compatibility with the application.

Sharing the Moment

What fun is taking a picture if you can’t share it? 360 Panorama comes packed with sharing options, and some of them are really awesome. To make the most out of its sharing features, you will have to sign up for an Occipital account. This could easily be done by hooking up your Facebook or Twitter profile to the service.

There are two ways you can share your panoramas on the service. The first is just sending it as a simple flat image. The flat images don’t require an Occipital account; however, you are limited to sending them through email or saving them to your camera roll.

360 Panorama comes packed with several different viewing options, like this awesome stereograph.

The second way to share your photos requires the Occipital account; however, it is much cooler. The “360″ photo allows the viewer to swipe the photo to view it in its entirety. In essence, it’s just a much more hands-on way to view photos. Your photo will be uploaded via Occipital and you will receive a link to view the 360 view. If this link is opened on a mobile device with a gyroscope, you can tilt your device to view the different parts of the photo. Needless to say, it is an awesome and unique way of viewing photos. You can see an example of a 360-degree photo here.

360-degree photos can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, and Email directly from the app. However, you can copy and paste the link to the photo to send it to friends on other networks.

The Verdict

360 Panorama is definitely a neat application to have. It completely simplifies the panorama taking process and creates some of the best results I have ever seen. Better yet, there are multiple viewing and sharing options so you can share the moment with anyone.

Although the app is pretty great overall, it does have its weak spots. The grid system is quite finicky, and using your iPad as a photographic device isn’t exactly desirable. However, as the app can be had for just $0.99, it’s definitely something you should check out.

Koder is a code editor for the iPad that offers syntax highlighting, a snippet manager, and access to remote file connections. If you need a way to code on-the-go, this just might be for you!

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How to Enter

To enter, simply follow us on Twitter and leave a comment on this post with your username. We’ll choose the winners at random two weeks from today. Good luck!

The latter are my definite favourite, as they allow you to sift through all the news to find the content that is both relevant and of interest to you. I never buy a daily newspaper and I don’t really use apps like BBC News seeing as I have to spend 10-15 minutes sifting through the wealth of news to find the stories that I want to read – usually it’s just the news, business and technology bits.

Well, this is where Editions comes in handy. I’m not going to insult you by explaining what a personalised news app is, but instead of being a feed aggregator (such as Flipboard), Editions actually creates your own personalised daily news “magazine” from the interests and sources you choose and you even get a pretend personalised subscription sticker on the front. Let’s take a closer look to see what it offers.

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Introduction

Editions, which is developed by AOL, is completely free from the App Store and is, in my opinion anyway, probably some of the best software the company has written (at least in the past 5 years anyway). Once you’ve downloaded and installed the app, Editions will ask you which sections you are interested in so it can help build your magazine around articles which you consider interesting.

The home screen of Editions, showing your recent magazines.

Editions features an automatic delivery feature which you can customise to suit your needs. I, for example, set mine to download at 6:00 am every single morning so I can read my magazine on the way to work without having to eat up loads of mobile data downloading it. You can also set up push notifications so that the app notifies you when your new magazine is ready for delivery.

Editions features automatic downloads, so you can choose when your new magazine should be downloaded automatically.

Browsing Your Magazine

Once your magazine has downloaded then it’s time to get reading it! The home page of your magazine features a top story from that day based on the sections you’ve chosen and, if you live in the US, Canada or UK and have entered your postcode into your profile page, a 3-day weather outlook.

The front page of your magazine, showing the top stories from that day and a 3-day weather forecast.

Editions automatically retrieves any appointments from your iPad’s calendar and displays these prominently on the front page as well and, if you’ve linked Editions to your Facebook account, reminds you of your friends’ birthdays – a useful touch I feel as I use Editions far more than Facebook on my iPad!

The table of contents page features no surprises apart from a really easy way to browse through your magazine quickly and easily. You can also scroll through all the articles in your magazine really easy by tapping on the Articles button, which brings up a list of pieces all arranged by category.

The scrollable list of all your articles sorted by category.

Viewing Articles

Editions makes browsing the news a very easy and pleasant experience owing to its absolutely fantastic and simplistic user interface. Your articles are arranged in a grid with bigger articles getting more space and on average, you have about 3-4 articles a page.

Editions displays your articles in a grid style, with longer articles getting more space on your screen.

On longer articles, you can simply swipe across the screen to read the complete article (however without any pictures or links), otherwise simply tap on the article to bring up the full version. Articles open in Editions’ built-in browser and, to help the app learn more about you and your interests, you can choose whether that article in question was of interest to you or not. Simply click on the tick next to the tag if you want to see more content with that tag, or on the cross if you want to see less.

Browsing an article via Editions' in-built browser.

Sharing content can be done straight from the article, and Editions can post to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and can also send articles to “read later” services such as Instapaper and Read It Later. You can also bookmark articles for future reference.

Customising Sections

Editions polls the most popular news sources in order to grab content for each individual section, however, you can tweak the app so you’re only seeing what is of interest to you. On the title page of each section (which features a top story), there is an option to edit each one, whereby you can add a particular news source (for example, The Verge), or follow particular products or companies (for example, the iPad or Microsoft).

Editing a section in Editions ensures that you only see relevant content.

All changes that you undertake in Editions (for example changing sections or customising them) are seen in your next daily magazine.

Final Thoughts

Editions is probably my favourite news app for the iPad and certainly the one that I use pretty much on a daily basis. I love the personalisation aspect of it and this feels a lot stronger than similar apps, such as Flipboard and Zite, where it is just displaying content that the app thinks is relevant to use. The interface is absolutely great, and for owners of the new iPad – Editions got its retina display update right at the beginning of April, meaning that it looks even better.

I don’t like the fact there is no choice to download data for offline use (this is certainly advantageous for people with only Wi-Fi iPads) and you pretty much have to remain connected to the internet if you want to fully browse the news articles within your magazine. However for a free app, and one from AOL, Editions certainly is a surprise and is definitely worth a look.

Videos aren’t as monetizable as written content, but that fact isn’t stopping anyone from uploading them either. This sheer volume of videos added everyday makes it impossible for us to discover stuff to watch from a single video sharing site, let alone checking out a few in one go. What we need is an app to filter the noise and find the content worth watching. Could Plizy be the one?

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Getting Started

Plizy is a free download from the App Store and you can get started instantly by using their guest mode. It’s mighty nice of the developers not forcing users to sign up before exploring the app. The guest mode doesn’t restrict using Plizy to the fullest, but signing up for an account does come with perks like a browser bookmarklet, downloads for offline watching etc.

Help Wizard

A quick deck taking the user through the features of the app makes for a thoughtful addition. Frankly, Plizy isn’t very hard to understand or use. Still, there are enough pointers and tips to make the lives of a non-savvy tablet user a whole lot easier.

Adding Channels

Tips for Navigation

Channels in Plizy are a convenient way to group content together. For instance, you can have a bunch of video streams under sports, news, or comedy channels. This way, you don’t have to deal with a mess of videos, which is why we are using an app like Plizy in the first place! You can start editing existing channels or create new ones by clicking on the settings icon in the lower right corner of the screen.

Editing Channels

There already are a few channels with video streams selected from a number of video sharing networks and content libraries. Right from the name of the channel to the order of arrangement, every aspect of it is customizable. Channels can be reorganized with a simple drag and drop.

Adding Content to Channels

Adding Channels

The number of available sources for video is staggering. From media giants to niche networks, if there are videos in a site, then there is a very good chance you will find it here in the library. I loved the neat organization and the comprehensive selection of categories.

List of Channels

Selecting and removing sources can be done with a single click of the button.

Discovering Videos

I was half expecting the app to make my head spin with some crazy UI elements, but thankfully the interface was completely uncomplicated. Videos are hidden behind their respective categories and you have dedicated sections for accessing Facebook and Twitter too (you can add login credentials or delete them altogether from the Settings screen).

Video Playback

Tapping on a category takes you to the lead story in the player. The developers have gone wild with their imagination and have made sure you have access to every single option that will make watching videos fun. Need to like, share, or move to the next video in the queue, the icons to the right of the screen are there at your disposal to do just that.

Planning to go back to the categories, or want to see all the videos in the channel? You can find the options for those to the left of the screen. Upcoming videos in the queue are previewed at the bottom and you can swipe horizontally to go back and forth.

The Queue

For those who aren’t fans of seeing only a limited version of the playlist, the Mosaic feature will be an absolute delight. The Mosaic screen displays all the available videos in the particular channel and you can scroll up and down to your heart’s content before choosing one to watch.

Mosaic

All videos are tagged with the logo of the source to help you better identify the channels that produce content that you either like or dislike. Surprisingly, Plizy lets you add sources to a channel from the mosaic screen too, without restricting you to the Settings screen. Not many apps allow this level of flexibility. Kudos!

Right now, you won’t be able to sort videos based on their freshness or any other similar metric. Making the search box available in the mosaic screen is a much needed feature too.

Final Thoughts

Plizy is convenient, powerful and fun to use. The hard work of the team is evident from the packed to brim feature set. In future, it would be great to discover videos based on their quality. Some sort of filter to separate high def videos and standard definition videos would make for a killer addition.

I wish Plizy was a little more polished. The user interface is very usable and doesn’t have a lot of frills, but is definitely not very pleasant to look at. Instead of doing wonders, the dark color scheme adds a bit of gloominess to the app. The eye candy that iOS is now legendary for is missing. But, considering the fact that the app is feature complete, it shouldn’t take a whole lot of time to make it gorgeous in the upcoming versions!

Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just an Instagram junkie looking for something new, there’s guaranteed to be something in the App Store that you’re bound to love.

In this round-up, we’ll help you find the right app you need, whether it be for work or play.

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Air Display

Adobe Lightroom on the iPad via Air Display.

Let’s be honest, quite a few of us just aren’t ready to part with our laptops and desktops as our primary photo editing devices. You demand the most out of your software to showcase your hard work, and Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom applications still reign supreme.

So how does the iPad fit into all this? As a touch-screen enabled external monitor, of course! Look no further than Air Display as your go-to solution.

Air Display on the iPad works beautifully as a reference screen and dashboard for the most demanding of desktop creative applications. One thing I love to do is to use Lightroom 4.0 on my new iPad while editing photos in Photoshop on my Macbook Pro. If you’re working with both a new iPad and OSX Lion, you also have the option to enable HiDPI mode which is considered Apple’s solution to delivering OSX content at Retina-like resolutions.

Price: $9.99
Developer: Avatron Software Inc.

Paper by FiftyThree

Paper is perfect for planning shoots.

As the App Store’s #1 Top Free App, Paper by FiftyThree has proven to be quite an impressive and well-optimized app that focuses on a minimalistic and lag-free approach to your typical feature-rich creativity apps.

Paper is absolutely perfect for a photographer to sketch out storyboards and concept illustrations when planning photoshoots.

Of all the note-taking and illustration apps I’ve ever used, Paper is second only to Procreate when providing the most natural handwriting experiences I’ve ever had on a tablet. Even with its limited and missing features as well as in-app purchases totalling to $8 to have all 6 tools, I find Paper to be worth every penny simply based on the overall experience alone.

Price: Free ($7.99 optional IAP)
Developer: FiftyThree

Process

Process also comes with great effects presets.

Considered by many as Adobe Lightroom for mobile devices, Process offers a great set of tools in a well thought out UI for fine-tuning and editing photos.

Though iPhoto is great for managing multiple photos and making a few minor tweaks to them, Process excels in deeper, non-destructive, image editing with hardware-accelerated processing for instant results. Whether you want to make quick adjustments or want to create more advanced layered effects and filters, Process gives you every tool to make it happen, outputting all your work at full resolution.

Price: $2.99
Developer: Alaric Cole

Percolator

Percolator turns Planetary's galaxy into something more!

Some might dismiss Percolator as a novelty app only capable of taking your photos and applying cutesy circular effects on them, but I’ve found Percolator to be quite awesome at creating truly interesting results after spending enough time with it.

You won’t find any fancy curves adjustments, layers, and professional tools here. Percolator does one thing, and one thing only, and it does it really well. The interface is minimal and gives you just enough without getting in your way.

Spend some time playing with the different effects and settings on one image and see just how many interesting results you can get. Who knows, maybe you’ll even produce something good enough to print and frame!

Price: $1.99
Developer: Tinrocket, LLC

Plastic Bullet

Randomized, high-quality filters at the tap of a button.

Before I happily jumped into the Instagram bandwagon, I fell in love with a vintage filter app called Plastic Bullet. Sure, you’ll certainly have no difficulty finding truckloads of photo filter apps on the App Store, but very few actually deliver quality vintage filters like Plastic Bullet does.

What’s so great about Plastic Bullet? Randomized, BELIEVABLE, filters. You will never have the same result no matter how many times you have it generate new filters for you. The heart-shaped “favorites” button will become your new best friend here, allowing you to save any creation you want at up to 3000×3000 pixels!

It will always be a fun surprise seeing what new effects Plastic Bullet will come up with next. If you’re more into much older looking vintage filters (think 1940′s), pick this one up.

Price: $2.99
Developer: Red Giant Software

Holo Paint

Create holographic text with Holo Paint.

Have you ever thought about creating fun pseudo-holographic photo effects with long-exposure photography? Neither have I. That’s until I discovered Holo-Paint, of course.

The way it works is you start off customizing settings in Holo-Paint which allow you to create your own 2D or 3D “holographic” text. It then gives you pertinent information regarding what settings you need to have on your camera. Finally, you jump in front of your camera, iPad in hand, and Holo-Paint gives you audible cues you need to follow so your timing is spot-on as it generates the light patterns that your camera captures as you slowly paint with (the iPad’s) light in however fashion you like.

It takes a while to get used to, but the end result is usually always worth it.

Price: $4.99
Developer: Garry Somerville

Adobe Nav

Using the iPad as a customizable control panel for Photoshop!

Adobe Nav was released in 2011 in a trio of companion apps along with Adobe Eazel and Color Lava. It works as a control panel that connects to the desktop version of Adobe Photoshop and lets you customize the panel layout to your liking. You can also browse and reorder up to 200 open images in Photoshop, which I found incredibly useful. Anyone that has tried to manage multiple images in Photoshop alone will quickly find value in this single feature the more they use Adobe Nav.

Price: $1.99
Developer: Adobe Systems Inc.

Blurb Mobile

Blurb Mobile's community consists of very talented visual storytellers.

Blurb, most popular for their online book creation and distribution service, now has an app that functions mainly as a social media service allowing you to present your photography in “stories” which you arrange yourself within the app. You also have the option to add audio clips to your stories should you ever feel the need to add that extra depth to them.

The quality of stories that others have uploaded is quite impressive. The community seems to be made up of serious enthusiasts that understand the value in visual narrative. If you’re looking for an alternative to popular social networks like Instagram, be sure to check Out Blurb Mobile!

Price: Free
Developer: Blurb Inc.

500PX

Some of the best images on the web can be found on 500px.

500px is a wonderful photo sharing social network for professional and serious photographers. As a big fan of Flickr I have found 500px to be very similar, only with a much higher standard of quality in the images that they feature. In it, you’ll find countless sources of inspiration, no matter what kind of photography you’re into.

Price: Free
Developer: 500px

iMotion HD

Create fun time-lapse and stop motion videos with iMotion HD!

iMotion HD is one of many stop-motion camera apps in the App Store. With features like remote triggering, onion skin, intervalometer controls, and manual focus, it offers a balance of great UI design and functionality. Full export features are unlocked with a $1.99 in-app purchase, but the app is free otherwise.

If you’ve never made yourself a stop-motion video before, this is a wonderful app to start with. With no limits to the size of the movies you want to make, iMotion HD is guaranteed to be a fun experience for many.

Price: Free ($1.99 IAP)
Developer: Fingerlab

Conclusion

These are just a few of many great apps for the iPad that will suit just about anyone looking to get the most out of their photography. We hope you’ve found an app or three that will help you expand your boundaries and boost your creative process!

Those with the new iPad will love showcasing all your high resolution photos on that shiny new Retina Display, especially if you’re a professional photographer showing clients your portfolio!

Be sure to check back often. As more new apps become available, we’ll be sure to have even better round-ups in the future!

Phillip reviewed Grazing a few months ago, and reading the review left me hungry to try it. Unfortunately, I found myself less concerned with flexibility of browsing and sharing and more concerned with download management, something that both Mobile Safari and Grazing lack. This led me to iCab Mobile, a powerful browser by Alexander Clauss.

How does iCab hold up to the competition? Can it counter Mobile Safari’s native advantage?

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Appearance

iCab isn’t ugly by any standards, but it hardly deviates from the traditional chrome design common to iOS browsers. The app has been updated to take advantage of the iPad’s Retina Display, except for a few overlooked module icons. iCab’s traditional browser experience comes with the same finger-friendly tabs as Safari, but also the annoying omnipresent tab bar, even when there’s only one tab opened.

It's hard to tell iCab apart from other browsers, but this traditional design works well.

iCab uses separate search and address bars, which makes me long for the omnibar present in apps like Grazing. This is a minor annoyance because iCab’s search bar provides easy search engine switching that makes up for the lack of a combined bar.

It’s hard to review iCab without comparing it to visual beauties like Grazing, and Grazing’s creative gestures that show or hide certain elements of the browser outshine iCab’s clunkier full-screen mode and customization settings. Fortunately, iCab holds up well to Grazing’s minimal amount of buttons and clutter-free interface.

Full-screen mode maximizes viewing space without sacrificing access to core functions.

Browsing

Bells and whistles are nice, but a browser is useless if it can’t perform the function after which it’s named. To put it simply, iCab is a robust browser. Page scrolling is smooth, even with ten tabs of loaded content. Switching tabs requires a single finger swipe to the left or right in the browser window, and the tab-tile menu makes it easy to navigate through multiple tabs.

Tab tiles make closing multiple tabs a snap, but the lack of the ability to rearrange tabs is a bit of a bummer.

iCab tabs can’t be rearrange by dragging, but long pressing a tab brings up an alternate tab menu, where tabs can be rearranged. This menu provides quick access to current tabs and recently closed tabs.

Most web searches in the U.S. begin with Google, but this leviathan’s search results are increasingly tainted with social network fluff and advertisements. Alternative search engines like DuckDuckGo can provide better results, but Mobile Safari limits users to Bing, Yahoo, or Google. iCab includes these traditional search engines as well as many alternatives and the ability to add a custom search engine via url. iCab’s search implementation is excellent, and switching between search engines takes about the same amount of time as tapping the empty search field.

Yahoo and Google search suggestions will work, even if you’re using an alternative browser like DuckDuckGo.

iCab makes it easy to search the current page or various sources with a few taps.

Now that the search is over, it’s time to process, capture, or share an awesome website. The action menu contains every action imaginable, from tweeting a page to taking a chrome-less screenshot that automatically uploads to Dropbox. The action menu is sprawling and users will want to take the time to parse out any unnecessary actions.

iCab's action menu offers a handful of powerful sharing features.

Downloads

Safari has major incompetencies in the downloads department, and its flaky open-in performance is an unpleasant compliment to its nonexistent download manager. Fortunately, iCab alleviates these download woes and has one of the best download managers that I’ve seen in an iPad browser.

iCab can preview downloads, rename them, or ship them off to Dropbox for later use.

Long press a file link and tap “Download File” and the file is added to the download manager. Users can rename files, and iCab previews downloaded documents as well as video and audio. While preview is an awesome addition, my favorite feature is easily Dropbox upload. Downloaded files can be uploaded to Dropbox with two taps, and this serves as a fast way to send lecture presentations or shared documents to Dropbox.

The Dropbox file path can be changed in the app settings.

Modules

iCab comes with several preinstalled modules, similar to plugins. These modules perform a range of features from simple Instapaper sharing to providing an onscreen calculator. At one point it was possible to install modules from the internet, but a phone call from Apple led to this feature’s removal. Most of the modules can be replaced with a simple bookmark bar entry, and some of the more advanced features, such as print to PDF, are quite hit or miss. The modules feel unnecessary, but at least iCab’s customization options make it easy to remove the module icon from the toolbar.

Access iCab modules by pressing the module icon in the toolbar or two-finger tapping the screen.

Privacy

iCab doesn’t save form data automatically, but users can tell the browser to save specific form data manually. Once the data is saved it can be used to automatically or manually fill out the form in the future. Unfortunately, unsecured saved forms give snoops easy access to user logins. Fear not, because iCab makes it possible to password protect form data. Assign a password to the form data, and iCab requires the password before it will fill in a web form. The password also keeps prying eyes out of the saved forms list in the settings menu. This isn’t as secure as 1Password but any step to thwart data thieves is a step in the right direction.

iCab’s web filters prevent certain JavaScript and CSS from running. Customize these filters in the app settings.

Aside from form passwords, users can also set a browser password. This password is necessary to access most of the app settings and user data. iCab has a guest mode, just in case users want to allow guests access to the internet but want to keep guests away from private data. As with other iCab features, guest mode is highly customizable.

Use guest mode to share you iPad without fear of snooping evildoers.

If all of these preventative measures are not enough, set iCab to nuke history, cookies, databases, and local storage upon quitting, or activate private browsing to prevent iCab from storing web data.

Customization

Open the settings menu in iCab and it becomes clear that this app is not designed for simplicity. iCab allows the user to customize almost every aspect of their browsing experience, except for browser theme oddly enough. Toolbars are completely customizable and can be turned off completely. There’s also a comprehensive and customizable gestures list that makes nearly anything possible with a tap and swish.

Spending some time exploring iCab's settings will pay off with a highly customized experience.

Conclusion

The developers of iCab have created a solid browsing experience, and it’s surprising that a browser with so many features runs so smoothly. Even though the modules are a miss and don’t truly add to the overall experience, most of the app’s features are useful and well implemented.

Due to Safari’s native integration with the iPad, it’s impossible to truly replace it with an alternative browser, but iCab is a worthy supplement for anyone looking to fill the functional holes in the native browsing experience. It’s certainly not the best browser for sharing, Grazing has it beat here, but iCab truly shines with its download and privacy features.

Read past the break for the full review!

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I had seen the name “Gunman Clive” popping up around the web, with talk of high-jumping, six-shooting action, and old-school gaming. Needless to say, I was sold. As soon as the title screen loaded, I knew I was in for a wild, wild ride.

Silly name, serious cowboy.

It Looks Fantastic.

If just the name “Gunman Clive” alone isn’t enough to woo you, just wait until the first level starts. The pencil-drawn animation combined with intentionally rough 3D modeling gives Gunman Clive a refreshingly unique look, especially in a gaming category typically dominated by games heavily “inspired by” the exploits of a certain Italian plumber.

Headin' to town.

The stages in Gunman Clive tend to come fast-and-furious, not lasting terribly long but packing a surprising amount of challenge into short spaces.

Plenty of vantage points for the enemies of Clive.

Each level has plenty of space for enemies to hide, requiring a lot of quick-thinking and fast firing to survive. A lot of time was clearly put into designing levels that were challenging, creative, and fun to play. I also really loved the hand-drawn look of the game, especially the way the background moves as though the page were wrinkled. The pencil stylings made the more 3D-rendered bosses look excellent, and kept the game engaging the whole way.

The Gameplay Is Great.

Playing Gunman Clive is simple and familiar, with a virtual D-pad on one side of the iPad’s screen. The other side has Jump and Shoot buttons, again like you’d expect out of a platformer.

I was surprised at how well the virtual D-pad responded in Gunman Clive. Controls are still the biggest downfall of most iOS games, but playing Gunman Clive was a refreshingly smooth and natural experience.

Get ready for lots of jumping and lots of shooting.

Clive can run, jump, duck, and shoot well enough, although I was frustrated that he couldn’t fire upwards like certain enemies could. This was the kind of thing that I always remember happening in my old Nintendo games, so as nostalgic as this game made me, some things never stop being frustrating.

You can't shoot at him. Really.

Clive has a health bar on the left side of the screen, which is refilled by collecting pieces of birthday cake (what else?) that get dropped by dispatched enemies.

This cake is no lie.

He can also collect more powerful weapons like a spread gun, rocket launcher, and even a laser gun. Taking a hit after powering-up your weapon returns you to the default single-shot gun, which is annoying but keeps the game challenging.

Get ready for some spread-fire fun.

It’s Nintendo-Hard.

Gunman Clive starts out nice and casual, enough to draw in just about any gamer. But, after just a few stages, I started to notice something: Gunman Clive is hard.

Sometimes, only a little, but at other times? Maddening, frustrating, heart racing, restart a level 500 times only to fall off a platform AGAIN, hard.

Get ready to fall. A lot.

While lots of iOS platformers encourage exploration, taking things slow, or focus on gathering coins and flowers, Gunman Clive is about running, jumping, ducking, jumping, shooting, running, jumping while shooting and then ducking immediately to avoid being shot. Again.

I started playing Gunman Clive expected a walk in the Western-themed park. What I got was one of the most frustrating and satisfying platforming experiences since I packed up my old NES.

This part is hard.

Fans of classic games like Metroid or Castelvania will well remember the frustration of getting knocked back every time you take a hit from an enemy, and even if you don’t, Gunman Clive will remind you quickly and painfully. Every time an enemy hits Clive, he’s knocked slightly backward. As annoying as this is on the ground, it’s infinitely worse when it happens in midair, causing you to miss the platform you were jumping toward and fall to your death for the 100th time. As frustrated as I got, it made me feel so much like I was playing an old game from my childhood again that I found myself laughing aloud at just how much difficulty I had passing certain levels.

This part is REALLY hard.

It Has Bosses. Awesome Bosses.

Great games have great bosses. Gunman Clive has some of the best and hardest bosses I’ve dealt with on iOS so far, with everything from overgrown minigun-wielding bandits to trains that turn into… robots?

2 seconds ago, he was just a train.

The bosses in Gunman Clive were challenging, but not to the point of seeming impossible, and it was always satisfying beating them to the ground.

Jump. Duck. Shoot. Repeat!

And Yes, It Has Aliens.

Just when I thought I knew what to expect from Gunman Clive, I found myself flying through space, dodging asteroids and dispatching what looked like space-cat-dogs. This game is unpredictable and inventive, managing to be both a wonderful throwback to classic platform games and a challenging, original experience for iOS.

Yeah. I wasn't ready for this either.

Gunman Clive is a great value at $1.99 for a universal app. As great as the iPhone can be for platforming, the experience on an iPad was out of this world. The game has excellent design, loads of creative and familiar elements, and can be at times rage-enducing in its difficulty. With tons of action and even a pinch of art, Gunman Clive is among the very best in platforming on iOS.

It’s a great game that brings back childhood memories of expansive battles with plastic soldiers, tanks, and airplanes! Prepare to become closely acquainted with flamethrowers, riflemen, ack-acks and cannons. It’s dynamic and challenging, but also a perfect time-filler.

A little graphical appetiser...

Toy Defense is already available for your iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch and will be soon available for Mac, PC and Android.

Simple poll this week, to further gauge the organisational habits of AppStorm readers – after we learned that AppStorm readers love having 6 apps in their dock!

Some people are really keen on folders, while others like to have their apps out for all to see. Some people have to fill up each screen with icons, while others will happily go around with only 1 or 2 apps on a screen.

So there here it is; how many screens of apps do you have?

I’d love to know why you have the number of screens you have, simply head to the comments, are they designated for specific tasks or organised by colour of icon?