Apple’s app approval team is still hard at work approving and rejecting iPad apps coming from developers eager to get in early. In the App Store is more than 3100 iPad apps and counting, according to Mobclix.
Here’s the breakdown of the current iPad apps: About 80 percent/2523 iPad apps are paid apps. 20 percent of them which are free, coming to 599 apps. Most of the apps are games, taking up 942 of the 3,100+ iPad apps. The average price of the apps is $4.99. Most of the books apps are paid.
Though there may still be a day or two before the official iPad launch on Saturday, the about 2000 for-iPad apps are now available for browsing and download from the App Store (Link opens iTunes). From the ABC Player to Twitteriffic, you can start building on your apps collection and sync it through iTunes when you get your hands on an iPad.
As expected, the majority of the iPad apps are pricier than its iPhone counterpart and quite larger in size as well.
Which one of the iPad-only apps are you most excited to test out?
As developers submit their apps for approval before the iPad launch, a few of them are releasing screenshots of their forthcoming iPad apps.
Developers are making use of iPad’s extra screen real estate to include a finger-friendly, gorgeous UI, something you mostly find on a Mac or PC. And as demonstrated at the iPad announcement and these early apps preview, replicating real life objects are going to be a huge theme on iPad apps.
Apparently, App Annie has some early screenshots of the “actual iPad feed for the app store”, showing some of the iPad Apps that will be available for download at launch.
And it appears that the “HD” moniker is not used by all iPad-only games. To distinguish apps as only for iPad, the early iPad app developers are using monikers like: for iPad, Elite, XL, HD, Deluxe, Real, etc.
The leaked screenshots also revealed how early developers are pricing their iPad Edition apps vs their iPhone/iPod Touch counterparts. In most cases, the prices of the iPad-only apps are bumped up from the iPhone pricing, which came as no surprise at all.
Labyrinth 2 HD – $7.99 | Labyrinth 2 – $4.99
Pianist Pro – $9.99 | Pianist – $3.99
Enigmo Deluxe – $9.99 | Enigmo 2 – $2.99
Sparkle HD – $2.99 | Sparkle the Game – $2.99
Flight Control HD – $4.99 | Flight control – $0.99
The Instapaper Blog has posted a preview of the iPad Instapaper app that is hopefully launching with the first batch of iPad Apps. If you don’t know what Instapaper is, it’s an app that lets users save a webpage for offline viewing, with many other features on the paid version of the app.
iPhone or iPod Touch users that already purchased Instapaper Pro will have available the iPad Edition of the app synced to the iPad from iTunes when its released, just like the rest of your app collection.
The iPad Version of the app really just “looks like Instapaper Pro, but bigger, and with slight interface tweaks and redesigns where appropriate.”
After the break for 2 more screenshots of the iPad Instapaper app.
Last week, Amazon finally released the long-awaited Kindle application for Mac users. Today, Amazon launched a preview page for the iPad Kindle App.
The Kindle App for the iPad will include numerous features that you already enjoy with the iPhone, Mac or Windows Kindle app and more:
The ability to adjust the screen brightness right from within the app to reduce eye strain.
Shown in the image below, turning a page with your finger will replicate a ”Page turn animation” just like the iBooks app.
“In cover-navigation view, the sky behind the silhouetted figure will change according to what time of day it is.” says TUAW.
The Kindle App and iBooks App will be competing to live on your iPad, since the iBooks app will not be preloaded on the iPad, but rather you’ll have to get it from the App Store like the Kindle app.
Symantec published a press release today detailing its upcoming Norton 360 iPhone/iPad app. No, it won’t protect your iPad from those pesky “viruses, Trojans, spyware, and other threats.” Nor will it “Warn you of dangerous downloads” with Norton Download Insight. But what it will do is give you access to your backup storage from Norton 360 or Norton online backup.
The beta version of the app is planned to be released on the App Store for free in a couple of weeks.
Although the app is free, you’ll have to shell out $79 for Norton 360 Version 4.0 which comes with a 2GB online storage. Alternatively, you can get a 25GB online backup account for $50.
There’s always other cheaper or Free options such as DropBox (2 Gigs Free) or MobileMe.
At TED on Friday, Wired Magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson announced that Wired will be launching the iPad Wired Magazine App by this summer.
“Im from the media world, Anderson told the audience and as you may have heard, we have lots of questions about our future. The good news I think we found part of the answer. We think this is a game changer.”
The attendees at TED got a demo of the up coming application, which won’t look too different from the iPad Wired App concept that was shown last november in New York. (Below)
And according to a report by Cult of Mac, apparently, the working prototype was built on Adobe Air, which like Flash is not supported on the iPad, so either they develop a native /iPad App or port the app over from AIR via Adobe Flash CS5.
No word on pricing or exact release date, but the digital version of the Wired magazine will likely have a cheaper subscription plan vs. the print.
Always Innovating, the makers of the Touch Book, has successfully ported the iPhone game ‘Crazy Tanks’ on to their device. From the video, the game ran pretty smoothy with decent resolution on the Touch Book. iPhone apps on the Touch Book would be a great selling point, but Apple’s legal team won’t be too friendly about this at all, being that this is an iPhone App.
iPhone developers will also have to do some tweaking to the screen size and resolution to their app, especially games unless Apple plans to run all iPhone apps in an iphone-sized window on the tablet, which seems likely at this point.
Update: All iPhone apps are resized to fit the iPad.
