Total iPad

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Increase text size in iPad mail

This is just a quick video tip on how to change the text size in the Mail app on your iPad. A few days ago my mother asked me if there was a way to increase the text size so that she didn't have to 'outward squeeze' each individual email message. Of course there is a way I told her, it is as simple as:

Open the Settings app on your iPad

Tap General in the left panel

Navigate to Accessibility in the right panel

Tap on Large Text

Choose your desired text size

Now when you open your Mail app you should see the enlarged text displayed on your iPad.

Do you have an iPad tip, need help, or have a question? Try me on Twitter @iCrizzo

Drafts for iPad - Video Demo

I decided to do a video demo/review of Drafts for iPad. I like Drafts so much that I plan on doing a series of workflow videos showing how I use Drafts on my iPad on a day to day basis. I also bought Drafts for my iPhone last night so I may do some workflow videos on how I move content from device to device. After 1 week of using Drafts it has become one of my favorite applications on my iPad. I will be talking about Drafts more in-depth on the weekly Total iPad podcast.

Find out more about Drafts on Total iPad: http://totalipad.com/app/drafts/

If you have not already read my written review of Drafts, do so now: Drafts for iPad.

If you have a question or comment, try me on Twitter @iCrizzo.

Yelp (review)

I started Yelping in April of 2008, and am still happily yelping today. Yelp.com is a review site founded in 2004 that has over 30 million ratings for restaurants, hotels, nightlife, shopping, spas, automotive centers, gyms, entertainment, and even more. Practically every business category is listed. The nice thing is, people that rate these businesses are just like you and me.

With the iPad Yelp app, users can search for area businesses, call businesses, receiving driving directions, read & post reviews, check-in, view area deals, add bookmarks, follow friends, view & add pictures, and socialize with other Yelpers. Yelp accounts are free for users and business owners. It provides a fantastic way for businesses to connect with customers.

The Yelp iPad app has a unique feature named “Monocle." When tapping “Monocle,” the iPad compass and camera launch. Your display will show whatever your camera sees with a layer of all the area businesses (choose from restaurants, bars, or everything) and where they are in relation to where you are located. If you make a 360 degree turn, you will see all of the yelp listings surrounding you. I see this really coming in handy while in town where businesses are walking distance. For demonstration purposes, I took iPad Yelp App screenshots of the monocle feature within my home (see bottom of post for images).

The benefit I admire most about this app is the ability to read local reviews that are pretty honest, imo. So when you are visiting a new area and don’t know where the best sushi restaurant is, simply do a search for sushi nearby and see where the locals dine.

Yelp is available for free on your iPad in the App Store: Yelp - Yelp

[photos_bar]

Monday, September 3, 2012

Bing by Microsoft (review)

When it comes to apps, two of the components that stand out to me are its beauty and usability. When you can mix “beauty & usability” with “search,” you get “Bing” by Microsoft Corporation.

I recently installed Bing on my devices (iPad, Android tablet, iPhone, Galaxy S III), and am absolutely loving this app. In short, Bing is a search engine/browser by Microsoft Corporation. It has a beautiful & intuitive user-interface. The look and functionality of Bing differs across the iPad, iPhone, and Android devices.

Upon launching Bing, you will first notice the unique background image/wallpaper, which changes daily. This wallpaper is interactive, and if you tap it, you will see some tidbits of knowledge pop up about the wallpaper image. In the iPad version of the Bing app, you are able to swipe to the right and see past Bing wallpaper images and tap on them for their Easter Egg popups.

Across the top, all versions of the app contain a search bar with a microphone inside or next to it. By tapping the microphone, you are able to conduct a voice search, in which the results were pretty accurate across all my devices in testing.

Each app provides search categories that you may tap on... images, videos, maps, local, deals (not on the iPad version), movies, news, shopping, directions, travel, and weather. The iPad app also offers trends, finance, and history to the category listing. When you tap on a category, say... “deals” for example, it will display all the local deals in your area. If you tap on “movies,” you will see a list of films playing in your area (upon other accessible functionality with which you may interact). I will not go into detail on all of the categories, but encourage you to try them for yourself!

A unique item of Bing on the iPhone is the ability to scan and search within the app. In the search bar, you will see a camera icon. Tap this camera icon to launch this functionality. You can search text, a barcode, or an image. I tried it on a book I had nearby, and it worked perfectly.

All apps allow you to share your search results via email, SMS, Facebook, or via a plethora of apps on your iOS or Android device. All versions also allow you to bookmark your favorites as well.

You can download Bing free in the App Store:
Bing for iPad - Microsoft Corporation

Drafts for iPad

Drafts for iPad is an excellent productivity application from Agile Tortoise. Drafts is a super simple and easy way to jot down an idea with the tap of an icon. When you open Drafts you are presented with a blank screen and a blue blinking cursor which reminds me slightly of iA Writer. It is more than just a note taking application though, you can add calendar entries, send Tweets, or even write full articles similar to what I am doing now with this review.

The iPad version of Drafts cost only $2.99 and will sync perfectly with the iPhone version of Drafts if you sign up for a free Simperium data service account. Simperium is an iCloud like service that syncs behind the scenes and once you save a document it just 'automatically' appears on your other device. Sadly Drafts does not include iCloud itself as an option for syncing. Do not fret though, if you don't want to use Simperium you can always sync via Dropbox and choose to 'Open In' within the Dropbox application on your other iOS device.

I find Drafts to be very useful with helping me increase my productivity on my iPad. For example: I will be interviewing a co-founder of a successful company this Thursday on Total iPad, so I can open Drafts and write up a short reminder on the subject and send it to my Events in my calendar, then I can take that same text and post it to Facebook and Twitter to let my followers know about it. I have just killed 2 birds with 1 stone essentially. This keeps me from having to open Facebook, Tweetbot and the Calendar app. Drafts also includes a pretty cool link detection option for linking to phone numbers or addresses within your text.

Not only does Drafts increase my productivity with a few services but Drafts also supports a ton of my favorite iPad applications. I can also create notes that I can turn into calendar events as mentioned above, SMS messages, Day One entries or I can copy my content to the clipboard that I can 'Open-In' other applications that do not have built-in support within Drafts and then paste my content in that application. One example of an application that is not supported in Drafts but an app that I use daily on my iPad is Blogsy. Even though Drafts does not support 'send to Blogsy' it does support a large number of other popular applications.

Some of the supported Apps:

Twitter

Facebook

Evernote

Tweetbot

OmniFocus

Things

Simplenote

Sparrow

The Hit List

Echofon

Byword

WriteUp

Buffer

Bang On

Agenda

Day One

Writing Kit

One of the great things about Drafts is it includes built-in support for Markdown text within the application. You can format your text in Markdown and then tap on the Markdown preview to check that your text is formatted properly. I am a huge fan of Markdown and normally write all my post for Total iPad in Markdown on my Mac when I am using MarsEdit or iA Writer + Marked (for preview).

Drafts also includes a very useful top keyboard menu bar with some useful features when you are using the built in iPad keyboard. Some of the options include some of the most used keys for typing with Markdown and appear on the top right above the keyboard and include the following keys:

@ # * _ " -

On the top left of the extra keyboard keys there are options for: forward and backward keys for one letter or one complete word, as well as undo and redo keys.

Pros:

Beautiful UI

Share to some of my most used applications

Dropbox Support

OmniFocus Support

Supports Markdown

Nice selection of fonts

Color Themes

Cons:

Not all applications are available

iPad version is separate app from the iPhone version

No iCloud support

Final Thoughts:

I have been using Drafts on my iPad for about a week now and I have found it to be extremely useful as a productivity application. I love the way I can measure once, cut twice with post I write and send them multiple places at once enabling me to focus on other task instead of wasting time to open multiple applications. The layout is beautiful, the fonts selection is superb, the themes are nice and really give you that minimalistic feel that do not overwhelm you with too many options but offer enough to beautify the application. If you are using your iPad as a creation tool then you will definitely want Drafts on your iPad, Drafts is the Swiss Army Knife of creation applications.

You can purchase Drafts for iPad in the App Store for only $2.99:
Drafts for iPad - Agile Tortoise

There is also an iPhone version of Drafts in the App Store which is a separate purchase for only $1.99:
Drafts for iPhone - Agile Tortoise

[photos_bar]

Saturday, September 1, 2012

How to enable or disable Black on White on your iPad

Just a quick iPad tip video on how to enable or disable Black on White on your iPad.

Have a question, comment or tip for me? Try me on Twitter @iCrizzo