Mobile Magazine » ipad apps

Innovative iPad Apps Give Voice To Children With Autism

Michael Kwan — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:32:23 +0000

The iPad is mostly perceived as just a toy. It’s something you use to play Angry Birds and update your Facebook status. However, there appears to be a very special place for it in the classroom, particularly when it comes to children with special needs.

There was a feature on 60 Minutes last night that focused on this very topic, talking with the folks from Apps for Children with Special Needs or A4CWSN for short. Basically, they have developed a series of special applications that “enhance their learning experience” and give voice to kids with communication and language difficulties. The children with autism who they thought had severely limited vocabulary actually know more words than they thought, as evidenced by their success with vocabulary-centric apps on the iPad.

Check out the highlight clip on CBS News. Related to that story, A4CWSN is a customer of Gumdrop cases. These ruggedized cases for tablets like the iPad help the devices withstand plenty of abuse, which can happen with the tantrums from the children. If you’re going to use tablets in the classroom, a tough case is almost a necessity.

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How to run Android apps on your Apple iPad?

Michael Kwan — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 22:39:46 +0000

What’s that? You didn’t think this was possible? Well, think again, because Myriad Group has announced the launch of Alien Dalvik 2.0. This is a port of the Dalvik virtual machine from Android and it effectively lets you run Android applications on devices that aren’t running Android. This includes the Apple iPad, apparently.

I’m not entirely sure how this works, but I’m being told that Alien Dalvik 2.0 fully supports regular old APK Android package file formats for the apps, letting you run those APK apps on TVs, e-readers, and non-Android tablet devices. Google Goggles on an iPad? For real?

At least, that’s the idea in theory. In theory, it also means that developers might be able to code an application just once, package it up as an APK, and ship it out to devices that aren’t running Android at all. Somehow, I get the feeling that Apple won’t like this very much, as well as other OS folks like Microsoft’s Mango, but RIM might like it as they’ve been promising Android app support on the PlayBook. We’re expecting a demo at CTIA 2011 next week to learn more.

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iPad DJ Rana Sobhany mixes beats, reveals her apps

Michael Kwan — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:12:37 +0000

Is there anything the iPad can’t do? It won’t be replacing your MacBook any time soon, but if Rana Sobhany is any indication, it could be replacing your much more expensive DJ equipment. What she has done is hooked up two iPads to a basic $100 DJ mixer and a $100 USB sound box, reproducing a full DJ setup.

From what we can gather, Rana really is the first iPad DJ. Each of the two iPad devices have been loaded with several DJ-related applications and then they are connected to a cheap $100 DJ mixer so that she do things like cross-fade and hit kill switches. This could have been done with two iPod Touches, or iPhones for that matter, but since we are now in iPad hype mode, this seems extra super cool.

In terms of the apps being used, they were actually developed before the iPad came to be, so it’ll be interesting to see how much more iPad-optimized DJ apps will improve the situation further. She’s using Groovemaker House, Looptastic HD, iDaft, AC-7 Pro, Pianist Pro, and Sonosaurus Rex (link anyone?).

The video is a little on the long side (almost 18 minutes), but it’s worth watching if you’re looking to get into DJing and don’t have a ton of dough to blow on pricey equipment.

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