Avid Studio video editor hits the iPad, looks a lot like iMovie

Avid is one of the big names in audio and video production software. The company offers professional media editing software for prices as high as $2499, and the Avid Studio home movie-making suite runs $170.

But now the company is launching a $5 version designed for the Apple iPad.

Avid Studio for iPad
Avid Studio for iPad is optimized for touchscreen input and the Apple tablet’s small screen. The mobile app can’t export videos in Adobe Flash format, but you can export apps to the Avid Studio for desktop app, which means that you can start working on a video on your iPad and finish on your PC.

The iPad app lets you work with audio, videos, and photos on your device or capture videos and photos while using the app. There’s support for 3D animations, transitions and titles as well as other effects such as picture-in-picture, pan and zoom.

All Things D reports that the $4.99 price tag is introductory. Avid will raise the price to $7.99 after 30 days. That’s still a bargain compared with the company’s desktop software, but Avid Studio for iPad will have to compete with Apple’s $4.99 iMovie app which offers many (but not all) of the same features.

Avid Studio for iPad is available from the iTunes App Store.

LogMeIn for iOS now lets you remote control a PC for free

LogMeIn iPad app

LogeMeIn‘s mobile apps for iOS and Android let you login to a remote computer to run applications, access files, and perform other functions that can make your smartphone or tablet feel like a full-fledged computer. But at $30, LogMeIn is kind of expensive for a mobile app.

Now the company has released a free version of its iOS app that offers basic remote desktop functionality.

You can use the free app to login to a Mac or PC using the free app to run programs. For instance you can view documents stored on your PC or surf the web in a full version of Firefox or Internet Explorer from your mobile device.

What you can’t do is stream video, transfer photos or other files from your remote PC to your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, or use the remote printing function.

For those features you can pay for an in-app subscription update to LogMeIn Pro which costs $40 per year. Or you can make a one-time payment of $100 for the LogMeIn Ignition app.

This new freemium model is similar to the way LogMeIn’s web-based service works. You can install the LogMeIn client on any desktop computer you want to remote control for free and login from any supported web browser for free. But if you want advanced capabilities you need to pay.

via Lifehacker

Mint personal finance app for iPad combines best of the iPhone, web app features

Mint 2.0 for iPad

Personal finance app Mint offers an amazing (and free) web service that lets you track your finances automatically by linking all of your bank, credit card, and other financial accounts, creating budgets, or setting goals.

The company also offers free apps for iPhone and Android phones which lets you see your balances and enter transactions on the go — but the mobile apps lack the charts and other visualizations that you get with the web interface.

Now Mint has launched an iPad app which combines some of the best features of its smartphone and web apps. You can use Mint for the iPad to view your data on the go or enter new transactions. But the app takes advantage of the iPad’s large screen to show you items that were previously only available on the web, including:

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Facebook for iPad now available

Facebook for iPad

It’s been a long time coming, but Facebook has finally released an official iPad app. Users have been able to run the iPhone app on an iPad, but let’s be honest — it looks awful on a 9.7 inch display. The new iPad app has been designed to take advantage of the extra screen real estate and give you access to most of the important features available from the Facebook website.

There’s a new multi-pane view, with a menu bar on the left side that lets you navigate to your news feed, photos, messages, or other areas. There are also two-panel views in several different sections. For instance, the Messages section shows a list of conversations on the left and details of your messages on the right. Notifications show up in a sort of pop-up menu that displays over the top of any screen you’re currently on when you tap the notification icon.

You can also view photos or videos or play games in full screen mode.

The new iPad app isn’t the first tablet-friendly Facebook app. The company released an app for the discontinued HP TouchPad tablet this summer. But there’s still no Facebook app available for Android tablets.

Facebook for iPad is available as a free download from the App Store.

Dolphin Browser brings tabs, gestures to the iPad

Dolphin Browser for iPad

The folks behind the popular Dolphin web browser for Android recently expanded into two new areas: tablets and iOS. Now hot on the heels of the company’s first iPhone web browser and its first browser for Android tablets, Dolphin has launched a free iPad app.

Dolphin Browser HD for the iPad has all the feature we’ve come to expect, including:

  • Browser tabs which let you flip between web pages without minimizing the current page first
  • Support for gesture-based navigation
  • A sidebar that lets you access bookmarks and other data by swiping the browser window left or right
  • A full-screen mode
  • Support for user agent switching so you can see desktop or mobile versions of websites
The browser also features Dolphin’s new Webzine mode which takes some web content and presents it in a clean, ad-free, magazine-style interface.

The developers are also running a contest through September 14th to celebrate the launch of the iPad app by giving away an iPad 2.

Evernote app for iOS update brings rich text support and new iPad UI

Online note-taking and synchronization service Evernote has launched a new iOS app with a redesigned iPad interface and a number of new features for iPhone and iPad users.

The most notable (pardon the pun) of the new features is support for rich text input, meaning you can add multiple text styles, lists and other formatting. It’s also easier to enter URLs.

You can also access shared notebooks (from any iOS device), and search universally within a note.

Other features for the iPhone/iPad Touch include the addition of a slideshow view, meaning you can see all the images attached to a particular note in the context of a slideshow. The ‘All Notes’ view also now displays notes as snippets, presumably making descriptive titles less important.

Evernote for iPad gains a new layout in the update, and notes are now displayed as ‘snippets’, which you can pinch-to-zoom in for a better view of the text. Tapping ‘Edit’ will let you easily delete and share multiple notes within the interface. You can also just tap and hold a note for more editing options.

You can download Evernote for iOS in the App Store for free.

via TUAW

Boxee iPad app lets you manage, stream media to your iPad

Boxee for iPad

Boxee makes media center software for PC, Mac and Linux computers and the company also offers a standalone set-top-box called the Boxee Box that lets you watch web video, listen to internet radio, or access other media on your TV without a PC. Today the company launched an official iPad app.

You can use the new iPad app as a sort of program guide for online video. You can find videos to watch, mark items to watch later, share videos with friends, or stream videos to your Apple tablet.

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BBC iPlayer iPad app brings British TV to 11 new countries

The BBC iPlayer service allows British residents to stream television programs to a computer or mobile device for free… or rather, for the price of the license fee everyone pays to use a television in the UK in the first place. And that’s why it’s taken so long for the BBC to offer the iPlayer service outside of the UK — the broadcaster has had to develop a system for offering a non-commercial service within the UK and a different, revenue-generating service in other countries.

Today the BBC begins rolling out iPlayer service beyond the UK. Apple iPad users in 11 European countries can download a new iPad app starting today.

They’ll be able to watch some ad-supported television programs for free, but to gain access to everything offered they’ll have to pay about 7 Euros ($10) per month or 50 Euros ($72) per year.

There’s another key difference between the international app and the service available to British television viewers. In the UK the iPlayer lets you see programs from the last 7 days so that if you miss an episode you can catch up quickly. The international app will be a video-on-demand service with TV shows from as far back as 60 years ago. The BBC will offer 1500 hours of programming at launch with more coming all the time.

The new app will allow users to stream video over WiFi or 3G connections, and users can cache videos for offline viewing.

Today the iPlayer iPad app will hit 11 countries in Europe including France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Later this year it will also be available in the US, Canada, and Australia.

The Guardian reports the BBC is running a one-year pilot project. That means eventually we may see apps for other platforms including Android or the web. It also means we may see the whole thing just go away if it the international iPlayer doesn’t make a profit.

I somehow suspect that there are enough fans of Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Top Gear alone to make sure that doesn’t happen though.


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