Yahuui Blog: November 2015

Monday, November 30, 2015

Apple : Apple may be discontinuing the 11-inch MacBook Air

Apple may be discontinuing the 11-inch MacBook Air

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If you're in need of a lightweight 15-inch notebook, Apple might soon have you covered. Rumors have surfaced that Tim Cook's team is planning to ditch the 11-inch MacBook Air in favor of a larger format laptop.

The rumor, which comes via a Chinese news site, says Apple will be keeping the 13-inch MacBook Air models, but it will ditch the 11-inch version in order to clear a path for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, according to the news outlet's sources.

Additionally, the next-generation MacBook Air is rumored to feature Intel Skylake processors, a Retina display, a new battery pack and cooling modules.

What's in the MacBook Air?

Today's MacBook Air models come in an 11-inch model starting at $899 (£749, AUS$1,249) and a $999 (£849, AU$1,399) 13-inch variant. Both models come standard with a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 processor, Intel HD Graphics 6000, 4GB of memory and an 128GB SSD.

The 13-inch MacBook Air comes with 1,400 x 900 resolution screen, and the 11-inch version comes with a 1,366 x 768 screen.

If the 2016 version of the MacBook is updated to a Retina display, the 15-inch version will feature a 2,880 x 1,800 resolution, and the 13.3-inch model will come with a 2,560 x 1,600 resolution.

Why no 11-inch version?

Apple has gone out of its way to market the iPad Pro as a productivity device that can replace your laptop. Given its dimensions and light weight, it's likely Apple views the iPad Pro and the 11-inch MacBook Air as direct competitors.

Rather than produce two devices with similar target demographics, Apple could launch the 15-inch MacBook Air in order to capitalize on notebook users who require large-format screen real estate, but don't need the premium features included in the high-end MacBook Pro.

Via: Economic Daily News

What is the best laptop in the world?

Software : Microsoft's PowerApps: The easiest way ever to create a mobile app

Microsoft's PowerApps: The easiest way ever to create a mobile app

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Introduction and scope of PowerApps

Want to work on your phone? Microsoft has a new service to let you build your own apps, instead of waiting for the IT department to get around to it.

"The way we work is changing," says Omar Khan, who runs Microsoft's new PowerApps service. "We're more mobile than ever before; work now happens everywhere. Businesses have a more mobile workforce and most employees are doing their work from more than one location.

"But still, a lot of work happens at our desks. Many mission critical systems were build decades ago and many of those systems require VPN connectivity and a desktop web browser to access. In fact, half of information workers still don't have access to their business apps from mobile devices, even though our consumer apps have rapidly evolved, in fact so fast that it's hard to keep up with."

Redmond has produced a mobile app builder so simple any Office user can use it

Cloud drag factor

Why have business apps lagged behind? One reason is the popularity of cloud services. They're convenient and they often have mobile apps for their own tools, but that doesn't help if you need to use them alongside data from another system, especially one that's running on your own server.

"As businesses adopt more SaaS services, their data is more dispersed than ever before," Khan points out, "and being able to connect to that data across clouds is difficult."

IT departments can't help, says Khan. For one thing "they lack the skills to deliver the apps that employees need". And for another, they can't keep up with the number of apps business users need and he doubts they'll be able to catch up.

That's the same story that CCS Insight saw in a survey earlier this year – 20% of employees said they'd asked IT for mobile apps, and of the 80% who didn't ask, over half said it was because they didn't believe IT would be able to deliver (and given that 43% of those who did ask didn't get an app from their IT team, they might be right).

A third of the employees surveyed said they'd consider making their own apps without asking anyone at their company and 10% said they already had – looking at the survey numbers just from the UK, 14% said they'd make their own apps.

You don't have to write code to create options like a slider bar

Scope of PowerApps

They are exactly the users who Khan thinks will want Microsoft's new PowerApps service. The idea is to make it easier to build mobile apps that use business data, whether that's coming from a cloud service, a server or just an Excel file, says Khan. "With PowerApps, you can connect to your company data – whether that's coming from SaaS apps like Salesforce, Dropbox, Office 365 and many more, or from enterprise systems like Oracle, SAP, SQL Server or even from custom systems in house."

And the key is that this isn't another developer service; it's designed to be easy enough for the employee who needs the app to make it themselves. "Anybody with simple Office skills, Excel and PowerPoint skills [can] create apps using the data exposed through the service, and you can share them with other people in your team, on any device – iOS, Android or Windows."

You can make simple tools with PowerApps, or you can build something more powerful. Khan notes that "it's useful for anything from instant surveys all the way up to extending critical business systems, like time and expense tracking."

Excel on the go

Most businesses run on Excel spreadsheets and email (or SharePoint and workflows for larger, more sophisticated setups). The Office apps can open a spreadsheet on pretty much any smartphone or tablet, although more complex functions and macros won't work (even on an iPad Pro). But a complex spreadsheet isn't easy to use on a small screen the way an app designed for touch is.

PowerApps makes it easy to take a spreadsheet and turn it into something that looks like an app, with fields that you drag out on-screen (very much like putting objects onto a PowerPoint presentation), but still stores the data in Excel so you can go back and work on it at your desk when you want to. The file needs to be saved in the cloud, but you can choose from various cloud services; Box, Dropbox and Google Drive as well as OneDrive.

If you use SharePoint, you can use a SharePoint list as the data source for your app. For companies that use it, that's as important as getting Excel spreadsheets onto your phone says PowerApps program manager Wade Wegner. "We're taking data that used to only be available in SharePoint, in the browser, into an app, without having to write code."

Start with the built-in templates to get basic apps you can extend

Template apps

You can start with a template to make things simpler – initially there are only a few of those available (like tracking sales leads or people who are coming to an event, a product catalogue, a simple service desk app and a survey), but Microsoft will be adding more. "Templates give people ideas as to ways they can build PowerApps and ideas of how they can solve their problems, and they also show the best practices for how you build apps," explains Wegner.

So far, then, this is much like the handy FileMaker Go tool for turning FileMaker databases into mobile apps, but PowerApps gets really interesting when you use it to connect to other systems. If you use Salesforce or Dynamics, you can combine information from those systems with what's in your spreadsheet (as well as systems on your own servers, like Oracle and SAP). That means you can use your full list of customers to look up information rather than duplicating it in your app.

You can also add actions that happen outside the app – if you're collecting sales leads and you want to be able to offer a new customer a discount, you'll probably need to get approval. You can have an app send an email and process a yes or no answer to place the order with the discount or let the customer know they didn't qualify for a discount after all.

IT insight

To add more app features – like using the phone GPS to add your current location to customer leads that you create – you can use PowerApps' API features, which is where the IT team gets to have more control. They can choose extra APIs that will be available, including connections to company databases. "We heard from IT admins that they didn't want users to be building apps without having some insight into what's happening," Wagner explains.

Add workflow so your apps can do more than just editing and showing records

This is where the underpinnings of the PowerApps service become clearer – it's built on the Azure Apps service that Microsoft unveiled to developers last year, and it evolved from the Project Siena tool Microsoft created to let people make Windows 8 apps.

"With PowerApps, we not only let business users innovate with a simple tool but it also has a full infrastructure behind it in Azure that allows developers to build web apps for business use as well as native back-ends and that helps them deploy apps. It also has a full experience for IT to manage those data connections as well," Khan explains.

You can build apps in PowerApps on Windows, OS X and in a web browser. PowerApps starts as a free preview – when it launches you'll be able to make as many apps as you want without having to pay for the service, and it will be free for your IT team to manage those apps. However, if you want to connect to your own servers to get data, you'll need to pay for a business licence.

The great apps drought – can it be prevented?

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Software : Goodbye apps, hello smart agents: Are you ready for the post-app world?

Goodbye apps, hello smart agents: Are you ready for the post-app world?

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Introduction and smart agents

Anyone who has a smartphone bursting with downloaded apps is a rare breed – and getting rarer. Apps are on the wane. According to analysts at Comscore, most people (65%) aren't downloading apps at all, and get by with whatever comes pre-installed on phones.

Not that apps aren't being used. They are, but we're now in a one-app world; 42% of people spend most of their time on a single app.

We'll soon see a paradigm shift in terms of where people get their information from. By 2020, smart agents and virtual personal assistants (VPAs) will handle 40% of mobile interactions, and the post-app era will be in full swing.

"We are witnessing a shift from apps to new advanced forms of using artificial intelligence to create smart agents," says Mark Armstrong, European MD of global app development platform Progress. "They can positively and autonomously generate the next decision or suggestion."

He adds: "Autonomous decision-making will be taking place on a grander scale, and involves an ecosystem of complex data sets acted on dynamically, and based on user-preferences." With that kind of tech on the horizon, apps are beginning to look archaic.

Would the Apple Watch include apps if Siri was actually any good?

What and when is the post-app era?

It depends who you ask. "This is not really about replacing apps," says Nils Lenke, Director of Research, Nuance Communications. "What you will see is new Internet of Things (IoT) software platforms appearing in addition to apps, and you will also see cloud-based systems … as long as there are smartphones and tablets, there will be apps." For Lenke, post-app is about pairing-up devices, but for many companies, the mobile web is already replacing apps.

"Mobile marketers face a constant dilemma whether to create an app or a website," says James Rosewell, founder and CEO of 51Degrees, a device detection company. Why create bespoke, native apps for myriad platforms and devices when a single-codebase website will do?

"Mobile websites can offer the same functionality as apps for a fraction of the cost, are easier to maintain, and can be more profitable," says Rosewell, adding that it's easy to deliver a personalised experience for every visitor by detecting the device accessing the website. "It's the obvious choice." However, there are other reasons why apps are losing their shine.

Nick Braund, Head of Technology and Innovation at PHA Media

Sneaker tracking and app crawling

Another cause of the demise of apps is Google's recent use of 'sneaker' tracking, which allows its algorithms to find and index data stored within apps. "This effectively streams content direct from an app without the user having to download the app itself," says Nick Braund, Head of Technology and Innovation at PHA Media. "App developers will need to continue to evolve, as Google is doing, in order to stave off this attack and entice similar download levels that we have seen to date – approximately 185 billion in the past year," says Braund.

This is a big shift for app developers. "Making apps searchable is now a do or die tactic," says Pete Trainor, Director of Human Centred Design at Nexus Design. "If they can't be crawled, they won't be found."

Next-gen virtual assistants will never say 'I found this on the web'

What are smart agents and virtual personal assistants?

Think a supercharged Siri for whom saying 'Here's what I found on the web' would be tantamount to self-deletion. While using Siri ties you to a device and its manufacturer, in the post-app Internet of Things era there will be many specialised assistants available. Nuance is now providing toolkits and cloud-based platforms that help developers create their own assistants using Nuance's automatic speech recognition, text-to-speech, and soon, natural language comprehension tech.

"General-purpose assistants like Siri promise to solve many different problems for you, and while the list of supported domains keeps growing, the user's challenge is that when making a query, they are uncertain whether they can expect Siri to be helpful and add real value, or whether the query will just end in a web search," says Lenke.

In the future, assistants won't be focused on just one device, their abilities and limitations will be clearer, and they will reside in different places – some on the cloud, some embedded, some hybrid.

"Smart agents differ from things like Siri in that product and service companies will ultimately be behind them, with tailored customer services," says Matt Mould, Technology Enablement Lead, Slalom Consulting. "One of the new battlegrounds will be which complete smart agent service do I use and subscribe to?"

A world without apps?

Smart agents and productivity

Gartner predicts that by year-end 2016, more complex purchasing decisions – such as where parents buy back-to-school equipment – will be made autonomously by digital assistants. That kind of spending will soon reach $2 billion (around £1.3 billion, AU$2.8 billion) annually.

"That translates to roughly 2.5% of mobile users trusting assistants with $50 a year," says Armstrong, who thinks it's significant, and that businesses will begin to partner with those in the supply chain to collaborate and deliver ultra-personalised, real-time offerings from which the digital assistant can then consciously choose between. "This may mean that businesses build their own digital assistants and platform offerings or chose to integrate their data with existing or new artificial intelligence tools," says Armstrong.

Smart agents like IBM's Watson will be much cleverer than Siri

Expect smart agents to appear in the workplace, too, serving up information for employees on appointments, project priorities, productivity and software choice based on how you're interacting with your smartphone, desktop PC and the cloud.

How will banks use smart agents?

Got a query about your account? You can currently call, login to your account on a website, open an app, or use web chat to speak to a customer support agent. That's all about to change.

"Over the next 18 months we'll see single point of contact digital assistants used to triage people through to the correct answer to their problem," says Trainor, who thinks it's akin to every customer of a major bank having a personal banking assistant in their pocket.

"Instead of hunting, you just ask, and your next best action – a piece of content, a balance transfer, a payment to a provider, a phone number to call – is given straight to you," he says. "That's the next generation of concierge banking, and it's going to be facilitated by artificial intelligence-driven personal agents and virtual personal assistants."

Talking to the TV? You soon will be

VPAs and machine learning

Next-gen VPAs go way beyond basic keyword searches, such as the Xerox-owned WDS, an intelligent, virtual customer care agent that can understand, diagnose and solve customer queries in the same way a human agent would. The cloud-based, learning WDS Virtual Agent's avatar, tone and manner can be changed to suit the brand, but its unique selling point is that it taps into data that's already in call centres about customer sentiment, described symptoms, problem types, root causes and the techniques agents use to resolve problems.

The result? It's using the very latest customer data, and it knows the newest issues and problems that customers are facing. "Digital care tools often lag behind the intelligence that resides in the contact centre, with outdated content or no awareness of new problems. Our research in artificial intelligence is changing this," explains Jean-Michel Renders, Senior Scientist at XRCE. "With our machine learning technology, the WDS Virtual Agent has the ability to learn how to solve new problems as they arise."

How should the IT industry prepare for the post-app era?

Realise the pivotal role that artificial intelligence will play in how we will all navigate information is what the IT industry should do – and quickly. Much of that is about embracing new IT skills. "Finding new types of skills to employ will be crucial," says Trainor. "People who understand cognitive computing and complex data structuring are important." He also suggests bringing more psychologists in-house to help create effective personalities for VPAs.

"Open source projects and investing in skills is the answer," says Mould. "The biggest software giants have all learnt this lesson and, as a result, their products and services serve a much wider ecosystem."

A world without apps?

The post-app world is fast approaching, but don't expect a world without apps. "Apps will exist and evolve in some shape or form, and smart agents and VPAs will become more like the search engines that get people to them," says Trainor. "Virtual personal assistants will create a better connected digital world, rather than replace it."

The great apps drought – can it be prevented?

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Software : Cortana arrives on iOS with beta test launch

Cortana arrives on iOS with beta test launch

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Having pushed out a beta version of its Cortana digital assistant for Android devices, Microsoft is now turning its attention to Apple's mobile platform: those who've already signed up to be part of the beta program can now download the app for iOS.

It follows a Windows Insider forum post from the start of the month inviting users to register their interest in testing the app - a "limited number" of people who clicked through on the survey page are now eligible to install Cortana on their own devices.

If you've not already signed up for Cortana on iOS you're out of luck for the time being, but it shouldn't be too long before the app is available for all. Microsoft's digital assistant is now an integral part of Windows 10, although desktop support has yet to extend to the UK.

Microsoft everywhere

After making little headway with its own mobile platform, Microsoft executives have decided to make sure its flagship apps are available everywhere: the likes of Office, Outlook, OneDrive and now Cortana can all now be run on iOS and Android devices.

Indeed, Windows 10 comes with a Phone Companion utility for getting all of your Microsoft apps up and running on your non-Microsoft smartphone. If you can't beat them, join them - or something along those lines.

Like Siri and Google Now, Cortana can pull up information from the web, search through emails and calendar entries, set reminders on the go and more. Let's hope Microsoft opens up the beta to everyone in time for Christmas.

You might soon be able to test the Cortana on iOS app

Friday, November 27, 2015

Apple : Black Friday: The best Apple deals for Black Friday 2015

Black Friday: The best Apple deals for Black Friday 2015

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Apple products are hot once again this Black Friday and the hottest product of them all is the iPhone 6S.

You can save £125 on that iPhone deal, but there are plenty of other deals around on Apple products, from Macbooks and iPads to Lightning cables and iTunes gift cards.

Most of these deals will not be found on Apple's official website - but luckily the guarantees offered by stores like John Lewis make them a better place to buy from anyway!

Here is techradar's pick of all the best deals on Apple gear for Black Friday 2015 in the UK:

Best Apple deals for Black Friday 2015

NEW! iPhone 6S 64GB | 4G | SAVE £125 | ~~£225~~ £100 upfront | Unlimited calls and texts | 6GB data | £31pm
This is the best Apple deal of Black Friday by far. Using the voucher code BLACKFRI6S you can wipe £125 off the upfront price of the superior 64GB version of the iPhone 6S and pay £100 up front instead of £225. It comes on a pretty exciting contract too. It'll cost you £31 per month on a Vodafone 4G plan, and for that you'll get unlimited calls and texts and 6GB data (unlimited data for first 2 months). This deal is the best out there by far!

iPhone 6S 128GB | ~~£170~~ £100 upfront | Unlimited mins + txts | 2GB | EE 4G | £34.99pm
Using the code BLACKFRI70 you can again pay just £100 (saving £70) for the iPhone 6S 128GB, this time on EE. For £34.99 per month, you'll get unlimited calls and texts and data. This deal should please anyone who wants to be on EE which, let's face it, is the UK's most popular (and best?) network. Get this deal in Space Grey | Get this deal in Rose Gold | Get this deal in Silver | Get this deal in Gold - don't forget voucher code BLACKFRI70

John Lewis Apple deals

Save money with John Lewis iPad price matching - always get the best prices here!

Apple iPad Air: Save £70 and get it for just £249

Apple Mac mini: Save £50 on the Mac mini and pick it up for £299

Apple iPad Air 2: Save £30 on the iPad Air 2 and get it from £369

More Apple deals for Black Friday

Macbook Air: Get a Macbook Air from just £682 at Amazon.co.uk

iPhone 6S: Get an iPhone from £25 per month at Mobiles.co.uk

FREE iPad mini 4: Get one of the brand new and awesome iPad mini 4's absolutely FREE when you buy one of these phones at mobiles.co.uk

Cheap iPhone: Get the cheapest iPhone in the UK! Pick up a refurbed iPhone 4S for £99.95 at Argos

Lightning cable: get 20% off this high quality replacement Lightning cable for your iPhone or iPad with our exclusive codeTECHRAD1 at Amazon.co.uk

iPad Pro: Apple iPad Pro 32GB Silver now £615 at Rakuten.co.uk

Macbook Pro: Get the Apple Macbook Pro Core i5 with 4GB RAM and 500GB HDD for £899

iPad mini 2: Get the 16Gb version of the iPad mini 2 (brand new) for just £179.99 on ebay!

Macbook: get a new Macbook with a three year guarantee at John Lewis! Prices start at £699

We'll add more Apple deals on Black Friday itself - so keep checking back for the latest deals!

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Apple : Buying Guide: Best Mac to buy in 2015

Buying Guide: Best Mac to buy in 2015

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Picking the perfect Mac

Buying a new Mac isn't as easy as picking out a new iPhone. With a phone you only have to worry about cost, color, and capacity, but when upgrading your computer you need to consider portability, power, speed, storage, screen size, pixels, expansion needs, and more.

So while Apple's Mac lineup is fairly streamlined and straightforward, there's still a lot to consider. If you decide you want a desktop, there's the Mac mini, iMac and Mac Pro to choose from. If portability is your primary concern, you have the MacBook Air, MacBook and MacBook Pro. Even if you pass on the build-to-order options, there are dozens of possibilities ranging from $499 (about £325/AU$646)all the way up to $3,999 (about £2,610/AU$5,181).

A new Mac is a long-term investment. You don't want to be stuck with the wrong one for years and years, so we sorted through every option for every model to help pair you with your perfect match. Head to the next page as we dive right in.

Mac Buyer's Guide 2015

Mac mini

While the all-in-one iMac is Apple's most popular entry-level desktop, the screenless Mac mini is a more cost-effective option. Its small, square enclosure can easily fit on any desk, no matter how cluttered it may be. The mini isn't exactly a powerhouse, but it performs well for a computer that's cheaper than an unlocked iPhone 5s.

The Mac mini doesn't come with a keyboard, monitor, or mouse, but it's packed with ports: one for HDMI, a pair for Thunderbolt 2, four for USB 3, an SDXC card slot, and an IR receiver sensor. The entry-level model skates by with a 1.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive, but for an extra $200 you can double most of the specs. That's a 40% price increase over the base model, but it's worth considering since Apple has made it almost impossible to upgrade your mini after you get it home.

The top-of-the-line Mac mini bumps the processor up to 2.8GHz and adds a Fusion Drive in place of the 5400-rpm spinner, but at $999, we wouldn't recommend it. If you're willing to spend over a thousand dollars on a desktop computer, you'll be better served by moving up to an iMac.

In the UK, the Mac mini runs from £399 to £799, while in Australia it starts at AU$699 and tops out at AU$1,399.

Mac Buyer's Guide 2015

iMac

The iMac has always been a trendsetter, going all the way back to its Bondi Blue CRT days, and the current razor-thin model is as stunning as ever. Even the cheapest iMac has a lot going for it, most notably the 21.5-inch screen - you'd have a hard time finding another monitor that looks this good, let alone a whole computer. And the starting MSRP of $1,099 (£899/AU$1,549) puts those luxury looks in an affordable price range.

The base model is a little limited by its processor, but it's not a bad entry-level machine. Its specs are comparable to the base Mac mini, but the iMac gets a bit of a performance boost thanks to a healthy 8GB portion of RAM. The machine doesn't include an HDMI port, but either of the two Thunderbolt ports can double as a Mini DisplayPort connector for dual-monitor setups.

As with the mini, spending an extra couple hundred bucks gets you a whole lot more. The middle iMac configuration has double the hard drive capacity (1TB), plus it gets you better graphics with an upgrade to Intel's integrated Iris Pro technology over the lower-performing HD Graphics 5000 card. The processor jumps to the quad-core 2.7GHz CPU, with a Turbo Boost that pushes it all the way to 3.2GHz. And don't sweat the 8GB of RAM - its easy to upgrade through a memory compartment door in the back. Unless you're on an extremely tight budget, this is the model we recommend.

If you want a larger screen, there's also a 27-inch iMac. The sole configuration consists of a 3.2GHz quad-core processor, 8GB of memory, a 1TB hard drive, and a hefty Nvidia GeForce GT 755M graphics card for $1,799 (£1,449/AU$2,499). It isn't a bad deal, but we can't recommend it when, for $1,999 (£1,599/AU$2,799), you can get your hands on the mother of all iMacs.

Packing an eye-popping 14.7-million pixel screen, a 3.3GHz chip, and the AMD Radeon R9 graphics card, the iMac with Retina 5K Display isn't just one of the most powerful Macs in Apple's lineup, it might actually be the most practical purchase you can make. A decent stand-alone 5K display will set you back at least $2,000, and when you factor in the cost of a machine that can handle it, the retina iMac starts to look like a bargain. The lower-end model packs more than enough punch for most people, but you might want to consider upgrading the platter drive, either via a $200 BTO option or by stepping up to the 3.5GHz model for an extra $300.

Mac Buyer's Guide 2015

Mac Pro

The Mac Pro was cutting-edge when it launched in late 2013, and it's still one of the most advanced PCs money can buy. The machine has power and performance to spare, with quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processors, dual AMD FirePro graphics cards, and super-fast PCIe-based flash storage. And its distinctive 9-inch-high cylindrical form fits great on any desk.

Of course, the Pro's price tag matches its performance - ranging from $2,999 (£2,499/AU$4,399) to around $10,000 depending on your storage, memory and processing needs - but it's as future-proofed as any Mac you'll find. Even if OS X were to transform into some kind of a Multitouch hybrid in five years, today's Mac Pros will surely be able to handle it.

Mac Buyer's Guide 2015

MacBook 12-inch

Apple's newest MacBook isn't for everyone. While it supplanted the MacBook Air as the lightest and smallest laptop, the extra portability came with compromises. Most notably, Apple replaced the standard USB 3 and Thunderbolt 2 ports with the brand-new USB-C protocol. While it's cool that a single cable can now be used to handle both power and data as with an iPhone, Mac users who are used to plugging in a variety of devices may find themselves frustrated until the market for USB-C hubs, docks, and drives starts to flourish.

There's also the keyboard. When the PowerBook debuted in 1991, Apple caused a stir by pushing the keys closer to the screen to create a natural palm rest and room for a trackball. Apple is attempting to change the game again with the new MacBook, this time by re-engineering every key to be thinner and far less springy to the touch. It feels quite a bit different than any other laptop we've ever used, so we recommend trying one at an Apple Store before making a decision.

If those two concerns (and the loss of the glowing Apple logo) aren't an issue for you, the MacBook is pretty great. Even though its 1.1GHz or 1.2GHz dual-core Intel Core M processor has nowhere near the power of the Pro or even the Air, the laptop is more than capable of running iMovie, Photos, and even Photoshop with ease. It's also easy on the eyes with a stunning design that's available in silver, space gray, and gold, and it comes packed with the latest in portable technology, from the 2304x1440 retina display to the Force Touch trackpad. An affordable $1,299 (£1,049/AU$1,799) gets you 8GB of RAM, a 256GB flash drive and a 9-hour battery.

Mac Buyer's Guide 2015

MacBook Air

The MacBook Air is in an interesting spot. While it's still one of the most popular and well-known notebooks around, the launch of the slimmer, lighter new MacBook has stolen some of its thunder, and we have to assume one of two things: either a major update is in the works, or it will soon be made obsolete by an expanding MacBook line.

But until then, we wouldn't discourage anyone from buying it. The MacBook Air will still give you all-day battery life, USB 3 and Thunderbolt ports, and an SDXC card slot. Even without a Retina display or Force Touch trackpad, it's a very capable machine, with a 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 128GB flash drive. Either model can be had for less than a grand, and with identical specs, choosing between the two sizes comes down to preference, with just $100 separating the $899 (£749/AU$1,249) 11-inch version and the $999 (£849/AU$1,399) 13-inch one.

Mac Buyer's Guide 2015

MacBook Pro

The name may suggest a high-priced machine, but the MacBook Pro is far more affordable than the desktop tower that shares its surname. If you're looking for more of a desktop replacement than a road companion, it's definitely the way to go.

We don't recommend the cheapest model, however. While it does have a zippy 2.5GHz i5 processor, we aren't wowed by the laptop's 13-inch non-Retina screen, 5400-rpm hard drive and 7-hour battery life. At $1,099 (£899/AU$1,549), we'd either get the upper-end Air for the same price or chip in another $200 to go Retina. The extra money also buys double the RAM, three additional hours of battery life, a Force Touch trackpad, and Iris graphics. You'll give up quite a few gigs of storage (125GB vs 500GB), but the upgrade to a flash drive makes the tradeoff much more palatable. You can spend even more for extra storage and a few megahertz, but most users will get what they need for $1,299 (£999/AU1,799).

At the very top of Apple's laptop lineup is the 15-inch model, and it earns its premier spot. Packed with a 2.2GHz or a 2.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, a Force Touch trackpad, and 16GB of RAM, it's a screamer whether you're editing videos in Final Cut Pro or making music with Garageband. Starting at $1,999 (£1,599/AU$2,799), this model is significantly more expensive than its smaller sibling but worth every penny. And the $2,499 (£1,999/AU$3,499) step-up brings more than the usual storage and chip bump; Apple has also crammed in AMD's Radeon R9 M370X graphics card, which makes this the only laptop advanced enough to power a 5K display.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Software : Microsoft imposes deadline to upgrade to Internet Explorer 11

Microsoft imposes deadline to upgrade to Internet Explorer 11

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Business customers looking to continue using Internet Explorer instead of switching to Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 have until January 12, 2016 to upgrade.

Upgrading to the latest Internet Explorer version 11 by the deadline will ensure that you continue to receive security updates and technical support, according to a Microsoft advisory.

"Internet Explorer 11 is the last major version of Internet Explorer, and will continue to be supported for the life of the operating system on which it is installed – including Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10," Microsoft said in a statement.

Microsoft continues to support Internet Explorer, which recently turned 20 years old, stating that "Internet Explorer 11 will continue to receive security updates and backward compatibility improvements."

IE for business

Businesses that develop and maintain web applications can save time and development costs by using the new Web Application Compatibility Lab Kit.

Microsoft made product improvements to Internet Explorer to make it more business-friendly. Key product features include Enterprise Mode, Enterprise Site Discovery, HTTP Port numbers, Microsoft Edge and IE11 switching, and a simpler, scalable Enterprise Mode schema.

"For example, Enterprise Mode provides higher-fidelity emulation for older versions of Internet Explorer, and Enterprise Site Discovery can help assess your existing web environment," Microsoft said.

Users can specify port numbers in different document modes. Additionally, users can begin surfing the web in Edge and automatically switch to Internet Explorer 11 for pages that require backward compatibility based on specifications made by IT.

"After January 12, 2016, only the most recent version of Internet Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive technical support and security updates," Microsoft said in a blog post. "For example, customers using Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9, or Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 7 SP1 should migrate to Internet Explorer 11 to continue receiving security updates and technical support."

IE11 versus Microsoft Edge

Microsoft advises business users to install Microsoft Edge by default when upgrading to Windows 10, but support for legacy technologies means that Internet Explorer will continue to be a relevant tool for businesses. For example, businesses that choose to use password managers, like LastPass, may choose to continue using Internet Explorer because plugins are supported. Microsoft Edge doesn't support the LastPass password extension.

Both browsers are supported on Windows 10. IE11 continues to support plugins, toolbars and ActiveX controls, while Microsoft Edge provides Cortana integration for smarter, contextual searches and allows you to note and annotate web pages.

"In addition to better support for modern web standards, improved performance, increased security, and greater reliability, migrating to Internet Explorer 11 also helps unlock upgrades to Windows 10, Office 365, and the latest Windows devices," Microsoft said.

Read our picks for the best browsers

Friday, November 20, 2015

Apple : Updated: Best iPad apps 2015: download these now

Updated: Best iPad apps 2015: download these now

Posted:

The best iPad apps

iPad apps

If you've got yourself a shiny new iPad Air 2 or iPad mini 4, you'll want to start downloading the best iPad apps straight away. And if you already have an iPad Air or older iPad, you might want to update it with some new apps.

It's the apps that really set iOS apart from other platforms - there are more and higher quality apps available on the App Store for the iPad than any other tablet. So which ones are worth your cash? And which are the best free apps?

Luckily for you we've tested thousands of the best iPad apps so that you don't have to. So read on for our 60 best iPad apps - the definitive list of what applications you need to download for your iPad now.

If you are looking for games, then head over to Best iPad games - where we showcase the greatest games around for your iOS device. Or if you're rocking an iPhone 6S head over to our best iPhone apps list.

1. 1Password (Free)

iPassword

Although Apple introduced iCloud Keychain in iOS 7, designed to securely store passwords and payment information, 1Password is a more powerful system. It can also hold identities, secure notes, network information and app licence details. Your stored data can then be accessed on more than just Apple's platforms. The core app is free, but you'll need to pay $9.99 / £7.99 to get access to all its features.

2. Madefire Comics & Motion Books (free)

Madefire

The iPad has given new life to comics, providing the perfect digital home for them with its big, sharp, colourful screen and Madefire Comics makes the most of it by stocking motion comics. As the name suggests these include movement rather than just static panels and often feature music and sound effects too, bringing you into the story like never before. With big names and an ever growing library Madefire is essential for comic fans.

3. Air Video HD ($2.99, £2.29)

Air Video HD

Even the most expensive iPads in Apple's line-up don't have a massive amount of storage, and space is rapidly eaten up if you keep videos on the device. Air Video HD acts as an alternative: stream movies from a PC or Mac, auto-encoding on-the-fly as necessary. There's also full support for offline viewing, soft subtitles and AirPlay to an Apple TV.

4. Elevate (free)

Elevate

We could all use a bit of brain training from time to time and Elevate is a great way to do it. It aims to improve your writing, reading, speaking, listening and maths skills through a variety of daily challenges, which keep your brain active and test you in entertaining ways. A beautiful interface makes it a joy to use and the core app is free, but extra features can be added with a subscription.

5. BBC iPlayer (free)

iPlayer

BBC iPlayer is a must-have download for iPad users. The slick interface makes it easy to browse or watch recent shows and current broadcasts. You can choose from two quality settings and toggle subtitles, stream to an Apple TV via AirPlay, or download shows to your iPad, so you can watch them on the move.

6. Byword ($5.99, £4.49)

Byword

Word processing is something the iPad fares remarkably well at — if you have the right app. Byword is a no-nonsense distraction-free editor that just lets you get on with writing. There's Markdown support, helped along by a custom keyboard row, and also a live word/character count. For anyone publishing to the web, a single $4.99/£3.99 IAP provides integration with the likes of WordPress and Tumblr.

7. Comic Life ($4.99, £3.99)

Comic Life

Comic Life provides a creative way to tell a story or present some of your favourite photographs. The many templates provide a starting point and theme, and you can then import photos, add captions, and design special effects. Comics can be sent to friends in a variety of formats, or to your Mac or PC to carry on working in the desktop version of the app.

8. Day One ($4.99, £3.99)

Day One

Journalling is one of those things that people always think will fall out of fashion, but it never quite does. Day One has plenty of advantages over a paper-based diary, though; wrapped up in a beautiful interface is the means to add images, weather data and music info, along with formatted text. Individual entries can be 'published' to share with people, and of course everything you create is fully searchable.

9. Diet Coda ($19.99, £14.99)

Diet Coda

Panic's Coda is a hugely popular Mac app for coding websites, and the iPad app is no slouch either. Diet Coda provides a touch-optimised means of editing files, which can either be done live on the remote server or by downloading them locally first. Syntax highlighting, clips and a built-in Terminal make this a great app for any web designer on the go.

10. DM1 ($4.99, £3.99)

DM1

Drum machines are always a lot of fun, but many of those available for iOS are rather throwaway, their options exhausted within minutes. DM1 is pretty much the exact opposite, packed with a huge number of drum kits, a step sequencer, a song composer and a mixer. Inter-App audio, Audiobus and MIDI support also ensure what you create doesn't end up in a percussion-rich silo.

11. Dropbox (free)

Dropbox

Dropbox is a great service for syncing documents across multiple devices. The iPad client works like the iPhone one (hardly surprising, since this is a universal app), enabling you to preview many file types and store those marked as favourites locally.

12. eBay (free)

eBay

Use eBay for iPad and you'll never touch eBay in a web browser again. It's fast and efficient, beautifully showcasing important details and images in its main results view. Gallery images can often be displayed almost at a full-screen size, which is particularly useful on an iPad with a Retina display. Speedy sorting options are also available.

13. Evernote (free)

Evernote

Like Dropbox, Evernote (a free online service for saving ideas – text documents, images and web clips – that you can then access from multiple devices) works the same way on the iPad as it does on the iPhone. It benefits from the iPad's larger screen, which enables you to see and navigate your stored snippets more easily, but it's handy knowing you'll be able to access all your notes on any other device, or any future device you might buy, like the iPhone 7.

14. Fantastical 2 ($9.99, £7.99)

Fantastical 2

Apple's own Calendar app is fiddly and irritating, and so the existence of Fantastical is very welcome. In a single screen, you get a week view, a month calendar and a scrolling list of events. There's also support for reminders, and all data syncs with iCloud, making Fantastical compatible with Calendar (formerly iCal) for OS X. The best bit, though, is Fantastical's natural-language input, where you can type an event and watch it build as you add details, such as times and locations.

15. Flipboard (free)

Flipboard

Initially, Flipboard looked like a gimmick, trying desperately to make online content resemble a magazine. But now it can integrate Flickr and other networks, beautifully laying out their articles, Flipboard's muscled into the 'essential' category – and it's still free.

16. Airbnb (free)

Airbnb

Airbnb makes travel affordable and social, as rather than staying in a hotel you can stay in someone's house. Options range from crashing on someone's sofa to renting a private island, or if you have a spare room you could even rent your own space out. The iPad app is one of the best ways to browse it too, letting you search and book using an attractive image-heavy interface.

17. GarageBand ($4.99/£3.99)

GarageBand

Apple's GarageBand turns your iPad into a recording studio. It includes a range of smart instruments, MIDI editing and song arrangement so you can make music anywhere. It's not free any more, but you get access to all of its instruments and sounds for one fairly low fee.

18. GoodReader ($4.99, £3.99)

GoodReader

GoodReader is the iPad's best PDF reader. You can annotate documents, extract text, and now also rearrange, split and combine documents. The app previews various other files as well, can create and extract ZIP archives, and is capable of connecting to a wide range of online services. Alongside Dropbox, it makes a great surrogate Finder/Preview combination — a must-have for iPad power users.

19. iBooks (free)

iBooks

Going head-to-head with Kindle, iBooks is a decent ebook reader, backed by the iBookstore. As you'd expect from Apple, the interface is polished and usable, with handy cross-device bookmark syncing, highlighting, and various display options. It's also a capable PDF reader, for your digital magazine collection.

20. IM+ (free)

IM+

Although the iPad enables a certain amount of basic multi-tasking, anyone who constantly juggles a number of instant messaging services will soon be tired of leaping between apps. IM+ is a good solution, enabling you to run a number of IM services in a single app, and there's also a built-in web browser for checking out links.

21. iMovie (free with new device or $4.99, £3.99)

iMovie

You're not going to make the next Hollywood hit on your iPad, but iMovie's more than capable of dealing with home movies. The interface resembles its desktop cousin and is easy to get to grips with. Clips can be browsed, arranged and cut, and you can then add titles, transitions and music. For the added professional touch, there are 'trailer templates' to base your movie on, rather than starting from scratch.

22. Kickstarter (free)

Kickstarter

After a stint on the iPhone, Kickstarter has now arrived on Apple's slates and it's the perfect fit for it, giving you a big window into thousands of projects which you can back with a tap. Browse by categories and sub-categories, select how to sort projects or just search for a specific one. Just be careful. Last time we launched the app we emerged six hours later and hundreds of pounds poorer. We eagerly await delivery of our smart socks.

23. iStopMotion ($9.99, £7.99)

iStopMotion

There's something fascinating about animation, and iStopMotion is a powerful and usable app for unleashing your inner Aardman, enabling you to create frame-by-frame stories. There's also time-lapse functionality built-in, and the means to use the free iStopMotion Remote Camera with an iPhone on the same network.

24. iTunes U (free)

iTunes U

If you're still convinced the iPad is only a device for staring brain-dead at TV shows and not a practical tool for education, check out iTunes U. The app enables you to access many thousands of free lectures and courses taught by universities and colleges, thereby learning far more than what bizarre schemes current soap characters are hatching.

25. Journeys of Invention ($9.99, £7.99)

Journeys of Invention

Touch Press somewhat cornered the market in amazing iOS books with The Elements, but Journeys of Invention takes things a step further. In partnership with the Science Museum, it leads you through many of science's greatest discoveries, weaving them into a compelling mesh of stories. Many objects can be explored in detail, and some are more fully interactive, such as the Enigma machine, which you can use to share coded messages with friends.

26. Kindle (free)

Kindle

Amazon's Kindle iPad app for reading myriad books available at the Kindle Store is a little workmanlike, and doesn't match the coherence of iBooks (you buy titles in Safari and 'sync' purchases via Kindle). However, Kindle's fine for reading, and you get options to optimise your experience (including the ability to kill the naff page-turn animation and amend the page background to a pleasant sepia tone).

27. Korg Gadget ($39.99, £29.99)

Korg

Korg Gadget bills itself as the "ultimate mobile synth collection on your iPad" and it's hard to argue. You get 15 varied synths in all, ranging from drum machines through to ear-splitting electro monsters, and an intuitive piano roll for laying down notes. A scene/loop arranger enables you to craft entire compositions in the app, which can then be shared via the Soundcloud-powered GadgetCloud or sent to Dropbox. This is a more expensive app than most, but if you're a keen electronic-music-oriented songwriter with an iPad, it's hard to find a product that's better value.

28. Launch Center Pro ($4.99, £3.99)

Launch Center Pro

The idea behind Launch Center Pro is to take certain complex actions and turn them into tappable items — a kind of speed-dial for tasks such as adding items to Clear, opening a URL in 1Password, or opening a specific view in Google Maps. Although the list of supported apps isn't huge, it's full of popular productivity apps; and should you use any of them on a regular basis, Launch Center Pro will be a massive time-saver and is well worth the outlay.

29. Microsoft Word for iPad (free/subscription-based)

Microsoft Word

It was a very long time in coming, and there were fears Microsoft would make a half-hearted effort to get Word on to the iPad. In the end, we actually got a surprisingly powerful, touch-optimised, high-quality word processor and layout app. The subset of tools you get from the PC version is more than sufficient, and for free you can use the app as a viewer. For editing, you'll need an Office 365 subscription (from $6.99/£5.99 monthly), and this will also give you access to Excel and Powerpoint, along with office apps on other platforms.

30. Movies by Flixster (free)

Movies by Flixster

One for film buffs, Movies figures out where you are and tells you what's showing in your local cinemas – or you can pick a film and it'll tell you where and when it's on. The app is functionally identical on iPad and iPhone, but again the extra screen space improves the experience.

31. Notability ($3.99, £2.99)

Notability

There are loads of note-taking apps for the iPad, but Notability hits that sweet spot of being usable and feature-rich. The basic notepad view is responsive, but also enables you to zoom and add fine details. Elsewhere, you can type, import documents, and record audio. Notes can be searched and, crucially, backed up to various cloud-based web services.

32. Numbers ($9.99, £7.99)

Numbers

We mention Microsoft's iPad efforts elsewhere, but if you don't fancy paying for a subscription and yet need some spreadsheet-editing joy on your iPad, Numbers is an excellent alternative. Specially optimised for Apple's tablet, Numbers makes great use of custom keyboards, smart zooming, and forms that enable you to rapidly enter data. Presentation app Keynote and page-layout app Pages are also worth a look.

33. Paper By FiftyThree (free)

Paper

There's a certain train of thought that apps shouldn't ape real-world items, but we dismiss such talk. They just shouldn't ape real-world items badly! Paper by FiftyThree gets this right, with beautiful sketchbooks in which you can scribble, then share across the web. Books and the pen tool are free, and other tools are available via In-App Purchase.

34. PCalc Lite (free)

PCalc Lite

PCalc Lite's existence means the lack of a built-in iPad calculator doesn't bother us (in fact, we'd love to replace the iPhone Calculator app with PCalc Lite as well). This app is usable and feature-rich – and if you end up wanting more, in-app purchases enable you to bolt on extras from the full PCalc.

35. PicFrame ($0.99, 79p)

PicFrame

PicFrame is a simple app, but one that's beautifully honed and a delight to use. You choose a template and then import photos, which can be zoomed or adjusted via filters. Additionally, captions can be overlaid and the frames tweaked until you have the perfect composition. Once you're done, your creation can be shared on social networks or via email, and saved to your camera.

36. Pocket (free)

Pocket

Pocket and Instapaper have long battled it out for 'article scraper' king, but Pocket trumps its rival in appealing to iPad-owning cheapskates. Instapaper requires a purchase for iPad goodness, but Pocket is free. It's also very fast, offers tagging, includes a great original article/plain-text toggle, and has a vaguely Flipboard-like visual grid-based index.

37. Sequential (free)

Sequential

We've elsewhere mentioned Comics, but Sequential has a slightly different take on the medium. It's an altogether more upmarket affair, aimed at graphic novels and collections of sequential art that are supposed to be taken seriously. Therefore, this isn't so much everything but the kitchen sink, but a repository for a carefully curated selection of some of the best comics ever created.

38. Autodesk SketchBook (free)

Autodesk SketchBook

We tend to quickly shift children from finger-painting to using much finer tools, but the iPad shows there's plenty of power in your digits — if you're using the right app. Autodesk SketchBook provides all the tools you need for digital sketching, from basic doodles through to intricate and painterly masterpieces; and if you're wanting to share your technique, you can even time-lapse record to save drawing sessions to your camera roll. The core app is free, but it will cost you $3.99 / £2.99 to unlock the pro features.

39. Sky Guide ($1.99, £1.99)

Sky Guide

Augmented reality is still in its early days, but Sky Guide shows off the potential of merging the virtual with the real. Using your iPad, you can search the heavens in real-time, the app providing live details of constellations and satellites within your field of view. Away from the outdoors, Sky Guide doubles as a kind of reference book, offering further insight into distant stars, and the means to view the sky at different points in history.

40. Skype (free)

Skype

In theory, we should be cheerleading for FaceTime, what with it being built into iOS devices, but it's still an Apple-only system. Skype, however, is enjoyed by myriad users who haven't been bitten by the Apple bug, and it works very nicely on the iPad, including over 3G.

41. Skyscanner (free)

Skyscanner

Skyscanner's website is pretty good, but the iPad app's another great example of how an app's focus can really help you speed through a task. You use the app to search over a thousand airlines, and it provides straightforward competitive journey lists and comparison graphs. If you're planning a flight, it's an indispensable download.

42. Snapseed (free)

Snapseed

Apple's Photos app has editing capabilities, but they're not terribly exciting — especially when compared to Snapseed. Here, you select from a number of effect types and proceed to pinch and swipe your way to a transformed image. It's a fun tool, but there's plenty of control for anyone determined to get their photos just so.

43. Soulver ($4.99, £3.99)

Soulver

Soulver is more or less the love child of a spreadsheet and the kind of calculations you do on the back of an envelope. You write figures in context, and Souvler extracts the maths bits and tots up totals; each line's results can be used as a token in subsequent lines, enabling live updating of complex calculations. Drafts can be saved, exported to HTML, and also synced via Dropbox or iCloud.

44. TED (free)

TED

TED describes itself as "riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world". The app pretty much does as you'd expect – you get quick access to dozens of inspiring videos. However, it goes the extra mile in enabling you to save any talk for offline viewing, and also for providing hints on what to watch next if you've enjoyed a particular talk.

45. Adobe Slate (free)

Adobe Slate

Need to make a newsletter, invitation, or report? Then you need Adobe Slate. The app lets you combine text and images into a visual story that flows like the best digital magazines. It's simple to use, letting you effortlessly create a professional story and it's easy to share too, giving you a link which allows your readers to open it on phones, tablets and computers.

46. Traktor DJ ($9.99, £7.99)

Traktor DJ

Traktor DJ wisely dispenses with skeuomorphic representations of deck-spinning; instead of virtual vinyl on your iPad, you get waveforms, providing visual cues regarding what you're playing. The app is efficient and simple to use, enabling you to define cue points and loops, along with dropping in effects; helpfully, Traktor DJ also attempts to tempo-match songs from your iPad library. It's a very different approach to iPad DJing, but one that works wonderfully.

47. TuneIn Radio (free)

TuneIn Radio

Output your iPad's audio to an amp or a set of portable speakers, fire up TuneIn Radio, select a station and you've a set-up to beat any DAB radio. Along with inevitable social sharing, the app also provides an alarm, AirPlay support, pause and rewind, and a 'shake to switch station' feature - handy if the current DJ's annoying and you feel the need to vent.

48. Wikipanion (free)

Wikipanion

The Wikipedia website works fine in Safari for iPad, but dedicated apps make navigating the site simpler and faster. Wikipanion is an excellent free app, with a sleek iOS 7-style design, an efficient two-pane landscape view, and excellent bookmarking and history access.

49. Yahoo Weather (free)

Yahoo Weather

With weather apps, you're frequently forced to choose between lashings of data or something that looks lovely. Yahoo Weather combines both, offering a stunning interface that happens to be rich with information. The maps are a touch weak, but other than that, this is an essential weather app, especially considering Apple doesn't provide an iPad equivalent itself.

50. YouTube (free)

YouTube

When the YouTube app presumably became a victim of the ongoing and increasingly tedious Apple/Google spat, there were concerns Google wouldn't respond. Those turned out to be unfounded, because here's yet another bespoke, nicely designed Google-created app for iOS. The interface is specifically tuned for the iPad, and AirPlay enables you to fire videos at an Apple TV.

51. Coda for iOS ($9.99, £7.99)

Coda

Every now and again, you get an app that ticks all the boxes: it's beautiful, audacious, productive, and nudges the platform forwards. This perfectly sums up Coda for iOS, a full-fledged website editor for iPad.

The app's graphic design borrows from the similarly impressive Transmit for iOS, all muted greys and vibrant icons. It's a style we wish Apple would steal. When it comes to editing, you can work remotely or pull down files locally; in either case, you end up working in a coding view with the clout you'd expect from a desktop product, rather than something on mobile. Naturally, Coda is a fairly niche tool, but it's essential for anyone who regularly edits websites and wants the ability to do so when away from the office.

52. MindNode ($9.99, £7.99)

MindNode

Mind-mapping is one of those things that's usually associated with dull business things, much like huge whiteboards and the kind of lengthy meetings that make you hope the ground will swallow you up. But really they're perfect whenever you want to get thoughts out of your head and then organise them.

On paper, this process can be quite messy, and so MindNode is a boon. You can quickly and easily add and edit nodes, your iPad automatically positioning them neatly. Photos, stickers and notes can add further context, and your finished document can be shared publicly or privately using a number of services.

53. Earth Primer ($9.99, £7.99)

Earth Primer

When you're told you can control the forces of nature with your fingertips that probably puts you more in mind of a game than a book. And, in a sense, Earth Primer does gamify learning about our planet. You get a series of engaging and interactive explanatory pages, and a free-for-all sandbox that cleverly only unlocks its full riches when you've read the rest of the book.

Although ultimately designed for children, it's a treat for all ages, likely to plaster a grin across the face of anyone from 9 to 90 when a volcano erupts from their fingertips.

54. BIAS FX ($29.99, £22.99)

BIAS FX

For most guitarists, sound is the most important thing of all. It's all very well having a massive rig of pedals and amps, but only if what you get out of it blows away anyone who's listening. For our money, BIAS FX is definitely the best-sounding guitar amp and effects processor on the iPad, with a rich and engaging collection of gear.

Fortunately, given the price-tag, BIAS FX doesn't skimp on set-up opportunities either. A splitter enables complex dual-signal paths; and sharing functionality enables you to upload your creations and check out what others have done with the app.

55. Status Board (free)

Status Board

We love our iPads, but during the day tend to spend our time glued to glowing laptop and desktop displays. There's always the sense the iPad could be doing something. With Status Board that something is acting as a status display for you or your business. You drag and drop customisable panels, including clocks, weather forecasts, calendar details and website feeds, thereby giving you constant glanceable updates for important info.

A one-off IAP (£7.99/$9.99) unlocks further options that are mostly perhaps more suited to business environments (graphs, tables, HTML, photos, countdowns and text); and in either case support for HD displays enables you to present your status board really large, should you feel the need.

56. Pixaki ($6.99, £4.99)

Pixaki

With visible pixels essentially eradicated from modern mobile device screens, it's amusing to see pixel art stubbornly refusing to go away. Chunky pixels are, though, a very pleasing aesthetic, perhaps in part because you know effort and thought has gone into the placement of every single dot. For our money, Pixaki is the only app worth considering for iPad-related pixel art.

It's simple and elegant, with straightforward tools, an extremely responsive canvas, global and document-specific palettes, and multiple brush sizes. Extra points, too, for the opacity slider's handle being a Pac-Man ghost.

57. Foldify Dinosaurs ($3.99, £2.99)

Foldify Dinosaurs

We're big fans of the Foldify apps, which enable people to fashion and customise little 3D characters on an iPad, before printing them out and making them for real. This mix of digital painting, sharing (models can be browsed, uploaded and rated) and crafting a physical object is exciting in a world where people spend so much time glued to virtual content on screens.

But it's Foldify Dinosaurs that makes this list because, well, dinosaurs. Who wouldn't be thrilled at the prospect of making a magenta T-Rex with a natty moustache? Should that person exist, we don't want to meet them.

58. Audiobus ($4.99, £3.99)

Audiobus

Although Apple's Inter-App Audio, baked deep into iOS, has gained traction, it's Audiobus that leads in terms of app compatibility. The audio-routing system enjoys support from over 600 products, covering a huge range of DAWs, synths and guitar apps. With the multi-routing IAP ($4.99/£3.99), you can create complex chained effects and other sophisticated set-ups.

And if you've multiple iOS devices, Audiobus Remote (also $4.99/£3.99) provides a second screen for your session, simplifying recording, sample triggering, preset selection, and more.

59. SidTracker64 ($12.99, £9.99)

SidTracker64

When someone talks about bringing back the sounds of the 1980s, your head might fill with Human League and Depeche Mode, but if you played games, you'll instead think of Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway, chip-tune pioneers whose music graced the C64, leveraging the power of the MOS Technology 6581/8580 SID (Sound Interface Device) chip.

SidTracker64 is a niche but wonderfully designed iPad app that's a complete production package for creating SID tunes. It's unashamedly retro in terms of sound, but boasts a modern design, with powerful editing and export functionality. If you're only into raw chip-tune noises, Audiobus and Inter-App Audio are supported; but if you're an old-hand, you'll be delighted at the bundled copy of Hubbard's Commando, ready for you to remix.

60. Scanbot (Free + $4.99, £3.99 IAP)

Scanbot

There are quite a few scanners available for iOS, but Scanbot is the one you should keep on your iPad, primarily because it does a whole lot more than just scanning. That's not to say it doesn't do that bit well, because it does; scans are crisp, clear, optionally automatically cropped and straightened, and shareable to a wide range of services.

But pay the IAP and you gain access to smart file-naming, the means to add new pages to existing scans, and text recognition. This not only enables searches of filed scans, but also the automated extraction of key information- phone numbers; URLs; email addresses- into a smartly conceived actions menu.

61. Assembly ($1.99/£1.49)

Assembly

Illustration tools are typically complex. Sit someone in front of Adobe Photoshop and they'll figure out enough of it in fairly short order. Adobe Illustrator? No chance. Assembly attempts to get around such roadblocks by turning graphic design into the modern-day touchscreen equivalent of working with felt shapes — albeit very powerful felt shapes that can shift beneath your fingers.

At the foot of the screen are loads of design elements, and you drag them to the canvas. Using menus and gestures, shapes can be resized, coloured, duplicated and transformed. Given enough time and imagination, you can create abstract masterpieces, cartoonish geometric robots, and beautiful flowing landscapes. It's intuitive enough for anyone, but we suspect pro designers will enjoy Assembly too, perhaps even using it for sketching out ideas. And when you're done, you can output your creations to PNG or SVG.

62. Chunky Comic Reader (Free)

Chunky

There's a miniature revolution taking place in digital comics. Echoing the music industry some years ago, more publishers are cottoning on to readers very much liking DRM-free content. With that in mind, you now need a decent iPad reader for your PDFs and CBRs, rather than whatever iffy reading experience is welded to a storefront.

Chunky is the best comic-reader on iPad. The interface is simple but customisable. If you want rid of transitions, they're gone. Tinted pages can be brightened. And smart upscaling makes low-res comics look good. Paying the one-off 'pro' IAP enables you to connect to Mac or Windows shared folders or FTP. Downloading comics then takes seconds, and the app will happily bring over folders full of images and convert them on-the-fly into readable digital publications.

63. Metamorphabet ($3.99/£2.99)

Metamorphabet

You're probably dead inside if you sit down with Metamorphabet and it doesn't raise a smile — doubly so if you use it alongside a tiny human. The app takes you through all the letters of the alphabet, which contort and animate into all kinds of shapes. It suitably starts with A, which when prodded grows antlers, transforms into an arch, and then goes for an amble. It's adorable.

The app's surreal, playful nature never lets up, and any doubts you might have regarding certain scenes — such as floaty clouds representing 'daydream' in a manner that doesn't really work — evaporate when you see tiny fingers and thumbs carefully pawing at the iPad's glass while young eyes remain utterly transfixed.

64. Tweetbot 4 ($9.99/£7.99)

Tweetbot

It's been a long time coming, but finally Tweetbot gets a full-fledged modern-day update for iPad. And it's a good one, too. While the official Twitter app's turned into a 'blown-up iPhone app' monstrosity on Apple's tablet, Tweetbot makes use of the extra space by way of a handy extra column in which you can stash mentions, lists, and various other bits and bobs.

Elsewhere, this latest release might lack a few toys Twitter selfishly keeps for itself, but it wins out in terms of multitasking support, granular mute settings, superb usability, and an interesting Activity view if you're the kind of Twitter user desperate to know who's retweeting all your tiny missives.

65. Fugue Machine ($9.99/£7.99)

Fugue Machine

This music app is inspired by layered composition techniques used in some classical music. You tap out notes on a piano roll, and can then have up to four playheads simultaneously interpret your notes, each using unique speeds, directions and transpositions. For the amateur, Fugue Machine is intuitive and mesmerising, not least because of how easy it is to create something that sounds gorgeous.

For pros, it's a must-have, not least due to MIDI output support for driving external software. It took us mere seconds to have Fugue Machine working with Animoog's voices, and the result ruined our productivity for an entire morning. (Unless you count composing beautiful music when you should be doing something else as 'being productive'. In which case, we salute you.)

Now you've got the best apps make sure you protect your iPad Air with the best case.