Pulse Did It Again!

To be frank, I am kinda tired with tablet-related news. It seems that nobody remembers how amazing PCs are anymore. Well, the popular personalized mag app developer, Pulse, strives to change the trend. Pulse is one of the first developer, after Tripit, that attempt to deliver personalized mag and news reading experience to our PC, and they have done it with style!

Pulse has really taken full advantage of the power of HTML5 to deliver its interactive interface. By sharing the same UI as its mobile app, the web app version of Pulse (also known as Pulse.me) is absolutely user friendly. It's tiles design also make it easy for the future touch-focused Windows 8 devices.

To access to the content of Pulse.me, all you have to do is to sign up for an account. You can do it either by using email or facebook, and it doesn't take you much time before you can start customizing your mag. After the sign up process, you are given choices of a number of categories. After you have done the selection, Pulse.me will gather up all the related news feed and display them in a series of tiles, making it easy for users to navigate. 

It's good to see developers like Pulse initiating a bold move to provide great contents through the web, let's hope that there are more to come!

Cooliris: The Best Google Image Experience

We stumbled upon this app through Freemyapp.com, a site where you can test sponsored iOS apps and collect points for redeeming free gifts, and my first impression towards this app, STUNNING!

If you can still recall, years ago, we have a firefox plugin called Cooliris, which allows users to browse images from the web in 3D walls. But now with tablets, people have soon forgotten about those awesome old days. People will say, what can be better an browsing images on a touch screen device? What can be smoother than flicking and swiping your photo collection with your finger? The fact is, we have found the answer for these questions, a BETTER photo browsing experience than the native iOS photo app. Exactly! its name is still Cooliris, only this time in the form of iOS app.

By using Cooliris for iPad, you can choose to browse through your iPad photo albums, or connect it with your facebook account to browse your facebook photos in a smoother fashion. What's even better, is that you can browse and save images from Google Image, right inside this app! With this app, we would be one of the happy customer who would say good bye to the horrible Safari Google Image search!

Still not convinced with the app? Let's show you some of the amazing screenshot of Cooliris in action!

p.s. We really have no idea what to search for, so we tested on "The Dark Knight", 😂

Can Google Drive finally Takedown Dropbox this time?

Google is everywhere, in our map, email, browser, and even in our cloud storage. But this is thing they have been talking about, about Google's Google Drive being able to replace Dropbox, by far the one of the most popular cloud storage, in our iPad and iPhone. But, how true is that?

For one thing I can say as a Dropbox user, the ease of uploading photos and videos onto its database, right from the app itself, really is a pleasure.The upload speed is fast, and I can straightaway access it from the Dropbox folder on my laptop. What about Google Drive? Absolutely not. All I can do is just viewing and downloading the documents from my Google Drive to the iPad, or open my Microsoft documents in iWork apps. No uploading function available in the app? That's not such a good idea if it really wants to be successful.

Honestly I have nothing against the idea of Google Drive, but until it start building in file uploading feature, I am gonna just stick with my Dropbox account.

Scripted: The App for Movie Buffs

Fancy reading some of the best original movie scripts? SCRIPTED is the app for you! Currently featuring over 100 scripts from some of the latest and coolest movies, this app is certainly a must-have for movie buffs who wants to get more out of their favourite titles. You can either view the scripts online, or download it for offline reading. The app is now available for free in the Appstore for limited time, go grab yours before its too late!!!

Note: This app is designed only for iPad.

The "Touch" Effect

Can iPad replace my laptop? Not likely. Yet this thin and slick slate of art has conquered a big portion of my daily life. It's hard not to notice how iPad has replaced my Asus laptop in many of my daily routine. From checking mail to surfing the web, most of my daily tasks as a lecturer could be done smoothly without my laptop. I can open and edit my slides with the Keynote app, manage my webmail with Safari, view word documents through Pages app, download and view my invigilation timetable through Numbers, I can even kill some free time reading my favourite magazines on iBooks and Flipboard. Occasionally, I keep in touch with friends through Facebook. And by the end of the day, while I finally lie on the bed, I start to realise that I haven't even touch my laptop at all! 

That's what happen to many of us these days, and it's not surprising. If you pay more attention while you walk along the streets, more and more people are holding tablets, and it's not just a trend, it has turned into a habit. I could still recall seeing my mum attempting to scroll her laptop screen with finger gestures last weekend. It also happened to my friend when she was trying to explain to me the content of a PDF file on my laptop. We have changed the way we interact with devices, just like the way we change the way we interact with people, and most importantly, the way we interact with we daily tasks, ALL because of this small and thin piece of aluminium. 

So if you ask me again whether my iPad can replace my laptop? I will still say NO, yet I won't deny that there's a possibility that it might or will really change the way we interact with technology in the near future.

Will iPad finally meet its match?

Speculation about the next iPad killer is finally SURFACE-ing, at least that's what Microsoft is trying to promise us. No solid product for now, just videos and image gallery, yet it manages to shed some hope for die hard Microsoft fans, who have been dreaming that one day Microsoft will once again, reclaim the triumph that Apple has snatched away from it many many years ago. BUT, is that going to happen?

With Microsoft promising full sized USB port and micro SD support, it's obviously aiming to take down all major tablet brands, especially Apple (iPad) and Samsung (Galaxy Tab). Its Touch Cover with physical keyboard also aim at addressing the common issue of modern tablet, which is the lacking of physical keyboard (except for Asus Transformers series). Besides that, Windows RT is also one of Microsoft's BIG plan to attract potential customers based on the notion that Windows platform would support more software than other OS platforms.

The BIG question is, would their dream finally come true? IS this really the REAL iPad Killer? Guess we still have to wait till it is finally release.

What do you love about the WWDC?

The WWDC event is just over and there are mixture of feelings regarding the announcement made by Apple CEO, Tim Cook and his team. While many of us might be excited about the upcoming iOS 6 and its generous Siri offer for the new iPad, or the amazing ultra thin Macbook Pro, what actually amazed me is something else. If you guys happened to watch the WWDC keynote presented by Tim Cook, you will notice a very unorthodox, un-Tim Cook-like kind of introduction. YES, EXACTLY! The Siri introduction which is rich with humour, cynical jokes, and loud applauses, really amuse the crowd. It really reminds me of the late Steve Job's keynote regarding the first Macintosh, where the Macintosh was programmed to introduce himself and acknowledge his creator (Steve Jobs). Both keynotes bear some close resemblance to each other. It was really a joyful experience watching the live streaming of the keynote, and to be frank, I think Tim Cook was doing a great job warming up the audiences with such a magnificent introductory video.

So, that's what I love about the 2012 WWDC, what about you?

if you miss the live streaming, you can still watch it here:

http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/126pihbedvcoihbefvbhjkbvsefbg/event/index.html