Ipad All You Need To Know

For today’s Daily Deal we’ve found 15 great apps to add to your iPad collection.  We have 9 productivity / entertainment apps and 6 game apps in today’s bundle.

We used our PadGadget Apps Tracker to find these great deals and we’ll continue to look for the best app deals as they pop-up. Some of these apps are up to 57% off, a couple are even free, so be sure to check them out because they are on sale for a limited time.

Game Apps

1. Amazon: Hidden Expedition (Full) – Now on sale for $1.99 instead of $3.99.
2. Batman Arkham City Lockdown – Now on sale for $2.99 instead of $5.99.
3. Drop The Chicken – Now available for Free instead of $0.99.
4. LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 – Now on sale for $2.99 instead of $4.99.
5. Mini Motor Racing HD – Now on sale for $1.99 instead of $3.99.
6. Simply Find It Pro – Now available for Free instead of $2.99.

Productivity and Entertainment Apps

1. Art Authority for iPad – Now on sale for $4.99 instead of $9.99.
2. ArtRage – Now on sale for $2.99 instead of $6.99.
3. AudioTools – Now on sale for $9.99 instead of $19.99.
4. My Sketch – Now on sale for $0.99 instead of $1.99.
5. NLogSynth PRO – Now on sale for $7.99 instead of $14.99.
6. Panorama 360 Camera – Now available for Free instead of $0.99.
7. PERFECT Web Browser – EXTRAORDINARY Browser w/ REAL-Tabs, TOUCH Scroll & TV OUT – Now on sale for $1.99 instead of $3.99.
8. Splashtop Remote Desktop for iPad – Now on sale for $2.99 instead of $4.99.
9. The Wizard of Oz: Interactive 3D Pop Up Book – Now on sale for $1.99 instead of $3.99.

Also be sure to check out yesterday’s Daily Deal to find more great savings.

You can also check out TapCentral’s Daily Deal to discover some great deals on iPhone and iPod Touch apps.

We use our PadGadget Apps Tracker to constantly monitor the App Store to find the biggest price changes on iPad apps. Our editorial team goes through the data, picks the best deals on the most interesting apps and then brings them to you on a regular basis. All app prices are checked at the time of posting but prices are subject to change without notice. When developers put their apps on sale it’s usually for a very limited time, often 24 hours or less, so be sure to check pricing on iTunes before making a purchase.

A few days ago, Verizon released their quarterly report, and the news was bittersweet: they sold a ton of iPhones, but were bit by the cost of subsidizing them. Today, AT&T released their own quarterly report, and they, too, felt the sting of high iPhone subsidies.

First, the good: the company sold 7.6 million iPhones in the last quarter, meaning that AT&T made up fully 20% of the phone’s total fourth quarter sales. The iPhone also made up 80% of AT&T’s total quarterly smartphone sales, handily beating out competing Android, Windows Phone, and other competing devices; and even accounted for 66% of AT&T’s total phone sales in the quarter.

This means that, despite losing exclusivity in 2011, AT&T remains the top carrier for the iPhone in the United States. Its nearest competitor, Verizon, only managed to sell 4.2 million iPhones last quarter. Third place Sprint has yet to report its sales, but they will likely come in below Verizon’s numbers.

But then, there’s the bad: like Verizon before it, AT&T also reported that the high cost of subsidizing the iPhone meant that, despite the stellar numbers, it actually took a hit in revenue for the quarter.  According to AT&T, they experienced a loss of $6.68 billion, or $1.12 per share, in the last quarter. The loss cannot be completely blamed on the iPhone — AT&T also suffered under pension costs and from the disastrous attempt to buy T-Mobile — but it’s clear that all those iPhones cost AT&T a pretty penny. In fact, the adjusted net income for the quarter was 42 cents per share, a penny less than Wall Street expectations.

Also like Verizon before it, these short-term losses have to be considered in terms of their long-term gains. Those 7.6 billion phones are now locked into 2 year contracts with AT&T, and many of them will probably pay extra to upgrade to the iPhone 5 later this year.

[via The Washington Post]

Last November I had the pleasure of first reviewing the Beauty and the Beast: Storybook Deluxe. I praised it for being the kind of high-quality app that you would expect from Disney and for giving us a way to celebrate the enchanting and engaging story of how Beauty finds true love in the Beast.

The recent update to this wonderful app has added a new dimension with animations direct from the film and a series of special effects that will amaze you.

The same great features exist, with activities, coloring pages and puzzles that serve to supplement the storyline and give your child the chance to learn a few things while spending time with their favorite Disney characters.

I think I still love the ability to sing along to songs from the movie best, because my daughter just loves music. But the eleven added animations really served to further supplement the story in a way that will bring the book to life almost like a mini-version of the film itself –only with this version, your child can participate!

What I liked: Animations from the film will be familiar for many children which will help them to relate to the story and increase their interest and investment in the app itself.

What I didn’t like: For those of us who have already been enjoying this app on a regular basis, it would be nice to have a quick-link to the new features so we can share them more directly with our child.

To buy or not to buy: If you weren’t persuaded to grab this app before there are even fewer reasons to resist now. In addition to the quality app that they began with, this update demonstrates their commitment to continued quality and further enhancements which should give you confidence in their products.

• App Name: Beauty and the Beast: Storybook Deluxe
• Version Reviewed: 1.3
• Category: Books
• Developer: Disney Publishing Worldwide Applications
• Price: $4.99
• Score:

If you listen really closely I think you can hear the sounds of Pandora shaking in its proverbial boots. This is because SpotON has now launched SpotON Radio and is ready to take charge as a new app on the music streaming scene that ties in to the popular Spotify music service (offering “A world of music” for your listening pleasure).

With online access to over 15 million audio tracks there is little concern that you won’t be able to find something that will interest you.

The exciting thing is that there is more charm to SpotON Radio than just access to a considerable music library. With a feature list that includes the ability to create custom playlists based on your favorite artists, export station history such that it can become your own playlist, rate as many songs as you can get your ears on with like and dislike so that your recommendations for things you may enjoy are as accurate as possible… all while streaming at an amazing 320 kbps (while connected to WiFi) and sporting beautiful retro-style graphics in a manner that is very pleasing.

Oh, and did I mention you get all of these things ad-free from an app that is also free?

Now it likely goes without saying that you are going to need a subscription to Spotify’s premium service in order to use this app which comes with a cost of $9.99 a month –though you certainly could spend a lot more trying to buy all of these tracks that you will have streamed to you so that requirement really doesn’t seem like a problem if you ask me. Besides, Spotify does offer a host of additional value-added features if you are signed-up (like social networking to meet others with your same or similar music taste)… but I digress.

Your mileage may vary, but it’s worth a try. The worst case scenario is you get the opportunity to listen to some of your favorite music and maybe even get a few recommendations for new stuff you may enjoy.

SpotON Radio can be downloaded for free from the App Store.

Lights! Camera! iPad App! The Oscars are an exciting time for Hollywood and almost as exciting for those of us who love movies. The awards show doesn’t happen until February 26, but you can grab the iPad app anytime now and get yourself ready for that red carpet evening.

ABC Digital wants to make you an honorary virtual member of the academy with this app, giving you unrestricted access to “complete nominee lists, trailers, buzz worthy videos, hosted specials on fashion and nominated films and actors, and more.”

If you are a fan of the awards ceremony (or even one of us… the type that love to watch with friends and share a few libations along with our predictions), this is exactly what you need to supplement your evening (and the weeks beforehand as you fine tune your scorecard).

The Oscars® app promises an insider view with all of the information you need to be informed and ready for the ceremony itself. On the night of the awards, the real magic of the app will unfold.

Whether you choose to be the director or just sit back and enjoy the live broadcast held within the app, you will have access to more cameras than anywhere else with more views and more interviews (not to mention a backstage pass to the ultra A-list after party and the Governor’s ball). Imagine if you have this handy on your iPad while you are also watching on television? You’ll be the best informed movie-fan(atic) out there!

The only trick is that in order for that last bit to work, you will have to have an active Internet connection from a US (or US Territory)-based provider and be running iOS version 4.2 or higher on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch.

You can download this app and get ready for the big night for free from the App Store!

With last week’s education event from Apple, the big news was the addition of textbooks to the iBookstore. Apple has teamed up with some of the largest suppliers of traditional textbooks to bring digital interactive learning tools to students in K-12 education. With this new way of teaching children, one glaring question still stands out, who will pay for it?

There have been arguments for and against the use of iPads in K-12 public schools since the device first launched. Some school districts have already successfully implemented a “one iPad for every child” program. However, there are a plenty of people that say they don’t want their tax dollars going to pay for this kind of technology.

The problem goes much deeper than any individual’s tax dollar. Currently, the public school system is suffering from a major debt crisis that has dramatically affected K-12 education. School districts that are seeing improvement in facilities and curriculum materials are mainly districts that were able to get local bonds approved to help fund much needed projects. Low-income school districts have a significantly harder time getting funding from local sources. In fact, many qualify for 100 percent State funding of projects instead of being required to come up with a percentage match, which doesn’t help much, since states are in such a financial crisis at the moment.

At the minimum cost of $499 per iPad a district would need to come up with nearly $750,000 just to have an iPad for every student at one average-size high school of 1,500 students. Depending on the size of the district, the total for high schools alone would be around the $2 million mark.

Some school districts could raise that kind of money from local bond sales, but low-income communities will not likely see an iPad in the hands of every student. The digital textbooks idea could create an even wider gap between low and middle-income children. Many low-income schools are having trouble just keeping proper air ventilation for their students. Finding funding for iPads seems impossible. Who will help low-income districts get the same opportunities to education as middle income districts? Will Apple offer free and low-cost iPads to children that qualify? If so, will low-income school districts be required to pay back money that is borrowed to pay for them?

The need to fund public schools is only part of the problem. What about misused or misplaced tablets? For example,  California Education Code Section 48904(a)(1) “holds parents or guardians responsible for the cost of replacing a textbook that is willfully defaced or not returned.” When we are talking about a kid getting caught drawing a mustache on a $75 textbook, it seems sensible to hold the parent or guardian responsible for paying for the replacement. However, if a student gets caught slapping a skateboard sticker on the back of an iPad, is it really reasonable to force the parent to pay $500 for a new one? It doesn’t matter if it is reasonable or not, in California, it is the law.

Additionally, the $15 price tag is not all it is cracked up to be. AllThingsD recently spoke with McGraw-Hill’s CEO, Terry McGraw who said that the low cost of a digital textbook can be justified because new copies would be purchased for each individual student, each year. Currently, a textbook will stay in the system for approximately five years. Buying a $15 textbook may seem like a great deal, but if school districts will have to buy a new one each year, they are not saving any money.

Apple’s great move toward helping to better educate our children seems not to have been thought through to assure that all students get the same opportunities. Unfortunately, if the digital textbook phenomenon takes off, it is likely that there will be an inequality in the children who get to take advantage of such technology and children who will be left out.

Motorola was on the scene at CES 2012 with the details on how they would change the face of DVRs by replacing those recording units with home video gateways designed to move content between all of your devices and technology (including gaming consoles, computers, tablets, smartphones or other set-top boxes).

FierceCable had the opportunity to interview Larry Robinson, Corporate VP and General Manager of Home Devices at Motorola to get some more of the down-and-dirty details.

The interview asked some of the questions we have all been wanting answers for, including when we can expect to see these devices hit the consumer market. Robinson indicated that the timeline was really dependent upon other companies with the first set of vendors targeted as cable companies that will be deploying their DCX-3600 video gateway.

The interview made it obvious that Motorola was not really trying to replace other methods of content delivery (such as using gaming consoles to view video content) in so much as it is trying to streamline the content coming into a home in an effort to make it available to multiple devices. This distinction is more about source than it is about the streaming itself –you can still use your xBox 360 to stream content to your television set but you might be picking that content up from your single Motorola video gateway. Delivering content in this manner means a single source of streaming and storage (potentially) which is great news for those of us with tablets and computers and televisions (oh my!).

I think the most enlightening part of the interview comes from Robinson explaining why Motorola’s technology is actually useful in a way that makes sense to the layperson. Motorola wants to do all of the translation and decoding so that content providers (such as your cable company) can deliver your video in their proprietary format and it can run through Motorola’s device and be delivered anywhere in the format each device requires.

This technology and the overall evolution of the television is very exciting and proves that you have to use it or lose it in this brave new world if you’d like to survive. Cable companies seem to be starting to understand this, hopefully it happened in the nick of time.

Strategy Analytics report on global tablet shipments during 2011′s fourth quarter. The research firm’s data show that the tablet market saw record shipments during the final quarter of 2011.

While Android OS increased the number of shipments, thanks in large part to a bump from holiday sales of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet, Apple’s iPad maintained an impressive 58 percent share of tablet shipments.

Strategy Analytics Director, Peter King, said, “Global tablet shipments reached an all-time high of 26.8 million units in Q4 2011, surging 150 percent from 10.7 million in Q4 2010. Demand for tablets among consumer, business and education users remains strong. Apple shipped a robust 15.4 million iPads worldwide and maintained its strong market leadership with 58 percent share during the fourth quarter of 2011. Apple shrugged off the much-hyped threat from entry-level Android models this quarter.”

Though Android tablets appear to have increased shipments compared to 2010′s fourth quarter (10.1%) by about the same percentage (10.6.%) that Apple’s marketshare of tablet shipments decreased (10.6%), the huge increase in the number of tablets shipped offsets Apple’s loss to some degree. The company now has a slightly smaller share of a pie that grew 150 percent over the last 12 months.

Strategy Analytics measures tablets shipped, rather than tablets sold, so readers need to bear in mind that some of the 26.8 million tablets shipped may not necessarily ended up in the hands of consumers. While this fact probably does not artificially inflate the iPad numbers, it may be an overestimate for tablets in the other categories since shipments fail to account for tablets that molder on store shelves or are returned by unhappy consumers.

[via MacRumors]

Who among us can say with any honesty that they haven’t ever been addicted to a Zynga app? Whether you are a Facebook gamer or have them loaded on your iOS or Android device, chances are good you’ve logged more than a few hours with at least one title. Heck, Zynga even makes apps for Google+, Yahoo and MySpace. How does the saying go? It’s hard to throw a rock, and not hit a Zynga game?

Nonetheless, it seems some people are of the opinion that Zynga’s success may be derived more from copying than creating. In fact, Nimblebit took aim at them by mocking their new Dream Heights app (given that it looks remarkably like their successful Tiny Towers app).

And really, why wouldn’t Zynga want to copy Tiny Towers? With over 1 million iOS gamers playing the popular app each day, Zynga is bound to want a piece of that action. Of course, the eyebrow raising piece of this pie is the fact that Zynga recently (and unsuccessfully) tried to acquire Nimblebit. So if you can’t buy them, copy them?

David Marsh, the co-founder (with his twin brother) of Nimblebit had some humor to add to the situation when he pointed out that “Even when you refuse to go work for Zynga, sometimes you end up doing work for Zynga anywa.” Zing(a)!

Fortunately Tiny Towers enjoys an already addicted and engaged user base, so it is hard to tell yet how this new app may affect their bottom line. Zynga certainly has a larger audience, though if they continue to do things that the public perceive as underhanded and entirely uncool that may start to dwindle.

Do you play Tiny Towers? Will you be giving the new Zynga app a try? Did your opinion of Zynga change with this announcement? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think about these copycat allegations.

Shaftesbury, creator of the Disney hit TV show Life with Derek, in collaboration with XMG Studio, just released the first series produced specifically for mobile devices.

The ten-episode show, geared toward preteens and “tweens,” incorporates a music, video and design studio for a truly interactive experience.

Each of the ten “appisodes” unlocks new features that will allow users to remix songs and add their own vocals, create show posters and album covers, reedit music videos and even pick out an outfit for the music group.

The show is cute. It is a story of a talented group of kids who get thrown together into a band so they can win a contest to become the opening act for their favorite pop star.  The dialog and acting is perfectly matched for the preteen generation.

The music studio is a lot of fun. Not only can users remix songs they have unlocked by watching episodes, but they can also sing along to the music and record their own vocals. The various instruments can be made louder or softer, the vocals can be taken out entirely or left in at any level. It is no master recording studio, but it is definitely entertaining.

The video-editing tool is also a creative device. Users can chose from three different camera angles of a music video and edit it together to make their own version. You don’t have to know how to use iMovie to be a music video producer.

The design studio is where kids can design their own outfits from a selection of materials, colors and accessories. It is probably the least interesting part of the app, but it can be fun to put shoes on Tyler’s hands or make a t-shirt design with your own band’s name on it.

The first episode comes free with the app, but the rest of the series can be added through an in-app purchase for $4.99. The first episode will unlock the music studio and two songs, the video-editing room and one video and the clothing designer with a handful of outfits to play around with.

This app has the potential to hit big with the younger generation of mobile device users. If the show can attract fickle preteens, the rest of the app will wow them.

What I liked: I liked being able to add my own vocal track to a song. When I was between the ages of 10 and 13, I thought I was a veritable pop star. I sang into my tape recorder, video taped myself dancing to Cyndi Lauper and tried to start my own band. I can image that the music studio will be a huge hit with the kids.

What I didn’t like: Personally, I wasn’t into the show itself. However, I’m not 12 years old. I also don’t like “The Adventures of Zack and Zack,” but that show seems to be really popular, so what do I know?

To buy or not to buy: For anyone with kids from ages 10 to 14, this is going to be a must-have app, literally (at least in their minds). Because their friends at school with have it, so they will beg for it until you give in. Just buy it for them already.

• App Name: Totally Amp’d
• Version Reviewed: 1
• Category: Entertainment
• Developer: XMG Studio
• Price: Free with in-app purchase
• Score: