Unlike the iPhone, the iPad is used in many households as a mobile computer that is used by many, if not all, members of a family. While many households have an iPhone per family member, it doesn’t seem nearly as common to have each person with a personal iPad. I don’t know whether it’s because of price, size, or a combination of both, but the iPad seems to be used as much more of a family device.

One thing that the iPad is sorely lacking is multiple user accounts. Having a family unit is great and all, but many want to have their own pictures in their photo collection, their own apps on their home screens, and their own websites in their favorites. Nobody has figured out solutions to the first two problems, but the third may have been solved by an innovative new app called Switch.

Switch, from Mechanical Teeth, offers users a browsing experience that lets each user their own password protected account. Each account gets its own history, bookmarks, and tabs, allowing each user to browse the web without everyone in the house knowing what they are doing. Of course, the inclusion of multiple accounts also allows personal iPad owners to switch between their own interests, giving you access to a work only account, a school only account, and a casual account for your few free moments.

Hopefully Switch will spark some interest into multiple user account development… enough to make Apple take notice. All the apps in the world are great, but if Apple would add some multi-user functionality to their next iOS update, the world would be a much better place (well… maybe just slightly better). In the meantime, be sure to pick up Switch from the App Store today.

[Source: Macgasm]

$4.99

Switch ~ multi-user web browser

iPad Only App - Designed for the iPad
Released: 2010-11-25 :: Category: Productivity

The 4.2 update for iOS devices is rumored to be launching this week, and perhaps no machine is getting more fun new features than the iPad. While many of the additions merely bring the iPad in line with capabilities already possessed by the iPhone and iPod Touch, no one seems to be complaining. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s coming in the update.

AirPlay – Owners will now be able to stream their pictures, videos and music directly from their iPad to their Apple TVs and AirPort Express, as well as to other AirPlay-compatible devices from third-party vendors.

AirPrint: With AirPrint you’ll now be able to wirelessly print from your iPad by allowing iOS 4.2 devices to discover printers on the local network. The only catch is you seem to need the newest version of Snow Leopard to make it work.

Multitasking: Possibly the biggest new feature in iOS 4.2 is multitasking. Just like on the iPhone and iPod touch, a double click on the home button brings up a bar at the bottom of the screen with the last six apps opened. This allows users to switch between apps without having to go to the home screen first.

Folders: iPad users can now finally organize their apps into folders, with up to 20 apps in each folder.

Game Center: Now you can track Achievements and friends on any iOS device and brag about your amazing score regardless of what mobile device you’re carrying. The app is pretty much the same as what’s already available on other iOS machines.

Also just like on the iPhone, swiping to the right on the multitasking panel brings up screen brightness and volume. Apple turned the orientation toggle on the top right of the device into a mute switch, so this area of the multitasking bar now lets you lock your iPad into the desired orientation.

Safari: The ‘+’ button for bookmarking sites is gone and has been replaced with a share button that includes the bookmarking functionality, but also allows you to compose an email with a link to the current page and to print the page with the help of AirPrint. The tab button now also shows how many open tabs you currently have.

Also new is the ability to search for text inside a page. The search feature in Safari now doesn’t just display search suggestions but also tells you how often your search terms appear on the page you are currently looking at. After clicking on one of these results, a new bar appears at the bottom of the browser screen that allows you to jump to all the instances of this keyword and also to refine your search.

Unified Email Inbox: See all your email in one inbox, even if you sync multiple email accounts with your iPad. Gmail accounts can also archive messages rather than deleting them, but if you do want to delete a message it requires going through a couple extra menu screens in order to do so.

So plenty of new toys available for iPad users to check out, now we just have to wait for Apple to throw the switch and make the update live. Once 4.2 is in the wild we will be sure and let you know so you can download it immediately.

[via ReadWriteWeb]
[inbox image source: TiPb]

Like Flash but can’t bear to part with your iPhone? You’re in luck. There is a new browser, set to launch Thursday, that converts Flash from websites into HTML5 without too much of a hassle.

Skyfire first debuted on Blackberry and Windows Mobile back in 2008, and then was updated and fixed up for the Android launch back in May. The app has been downloaded more than 4.5 million times across all of the platforms. Needless to say, the Skyfire browser has been popular, but never has it been so necessary as it is now for the iOS platform.

To get around the Apple wall of hate and agony, Skyfire takes the Flash image from your page, downloads it, fully renders it, and than shoots you back a thumbnail that allows you to stream the video from their servers.

“We will attack those pesky blue Flash error messages,” said Jeffrey Glueck, Skyfire’s CEO.

Unfortunately, even with the external server rendering, Skyfire will still not display Hulu movies or let you play the billions of Flash games that plague the web. Even still, the developers think that their app will open up millions of web pages to iPhone users who were previously in the dark.

One concern that many have had with Skyfire is online safety. Instead of working on its own, Skyfire somehow works on top of Safari to render the video. Because of this, many users were concerned that online banking done via Safari would potentially be shot up into the Skyfire servers, but the folks at Skyfire say not to worry. Skyfire ensures that the information they receive will not be sold and that secured sites, such as online banking sites, will not be rendered with their servers.

Be sure to check the App Store on Thursday at 9AM EST to get your hands on this Flash rendering app monster. How it got approval from Apple is beyond me, but after a rigorous two month approval period, it looks like it’s here to stay.

[Source: CNN Money]

Opera Mini is a web browser for the iPhone. A web browser? Why would you want that, you already have Safari, right? Good question…

Opera Mini seems to be an application that was built just because they could do it. It’s really only useful for a small number of people — those that only have access to really bad Edge data. And it needs to be really bad to make Opera Mini useful. The goal of Opera Mini is to speed up the rendering of web pages by doing all of the hard work on the server and then sending down low bandwidth images to the client on your iPhone. And, in theory it works, but in practice, not so much.

In my tests over the last few hours I had a hard time finding a web site that rendered correctly. Most were missing large chunks or just didn’t function at all. One of the main features is that all javascript, the code that lets web pages do interactive things, is executed on the server. But the result is that this pretty much breaks any web page that has any javascript.

The plus is that Opera Mini is free to download, and does have some interesting features. The 3×3 grid of quick launch web sites called Speed Dial is great. The zooming and scrolling is wickedly fast. But overall, if a page doesn’t render properly, how useful is it?

FREE!

Opera Mini Web browser

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-04-13 :: Category: Productivity

We’ve been working the past couple weeks on an Mobile Safari version of 148Apps.com. It’s now ready for your mobile viewing pleasure. Just go to http://148apps.com with Mobile Safari to see it. We’ll still be making a few adjustments in the coming weeks but let us know if you see any problems with the mobile version.