Tap! blog feed

Can you design the ultimate gaming peripheral?

Christopher Phin — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:15:03 +0000

If you think you’ve got what it takes to design the ultimate gaming peripheral, Gioteck is offering a chance to win a prize worth up to £500,000 – including travel to Hong Kong and China and a live 12 month apprenticeship.

Registrations for the competition are open now at http://www.gioteck.com/designchallenge, and you’ve got until 15 March 2013 to get your designs in. The top 12 will be taken forward to a Dragons’ Den-style pitch in front of leading industry professionals.

The Creative Director at Gioteck, Andy Green, says “We believe the next pioneering idea will come from a gamer, and we are looking for a unique idea that pushes the boundaries of what is considered achievable in the current market” – so come on, Tapsters; get your creative juices flowing!

Ask us anything about the latest iOS devices!

Christopher Phin — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 10:33:50 +0000

Cool recent Tap! covers

Christopher Phin — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 15:23:37 +0100

We do fun covers for each edition of the magazine – and we’ve just posted a quick video showing some of our favourites!

The future of the iPhone

Christopher Phin — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 16:34:54 +0100

If you stop and think about it, using an iPhone – for a free video chat with someone on the other side of the world, say – feels like we’re living in the future. And yet the iPhone 5 is here now – but if the iPhone 5 feels futuristic, what will the iPhone be like in 2014, 2016, 2020 and even 2050? In the new issue, we investigate!

Is that an iPhone in your pocket? Which pocket?

Christopher Phin — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 16:23:32 +0100

I was talking to Matt and Neil on Twitter, and it turned out that I thought they were odd for keeping their iPhone in their left pocket despite being being right-handed. I mean, I can see their point, but I use my iPhone one-handed a lot while walking around, so because I’m right-handed, I keep it in my right pocket.

Anyway; it soon became apparent that there are strong passions at play here, so we thought we'd settle once and for all who’s the weirdo: he who keeps his phone in the same side pocket as his dominant hand, or he who keeps it in the opposite pocket? To the surveymobile!

Win an iPhone 5 in PhotoBox’s mobile photography competition!

Christopher Phin — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:05:06 +0100

I’m delighted to announce that I’m one of the judges in this year’s PhotoBox Motographer of The Year 2012 competition. What is a motographer, you ask? (At least, I did.) Well, it's someone who take photographs using a mobile device such as an iPhone – and if you submit yours to the competition, you’re in with a chance of winning whatever smartphone you want, £500 credit with Photobox, a year’s subscription to Tap!’s awesome interactive app edition, and loads more.

Want more details? Here's what PhotoBox has to say:

The 10 things to try first with iOS 6!

Ben Harvell — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 10:47:22 +0100

iOS 6 is out now! You might know about the headline features, but once you’ve installed it (through iTunes or by going to Settings > General > Software Update on your iOS 5 device), what should you try first? Well, here are the features big and small we think you should start with to see how iOS 6 makes your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch even better!

Matt Gemmell analyses the importance of strong wording for your app’s icons and alerts

Matt Gemmell — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 11:52:02 +0100

The most important writing you’ll do for your app isn’t code – it’s the trails of text that form a constant conversation with your users

The Tap! Top 100 2012 – a week to go!

Christopher Phin — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 10:14:45 +0100

In the August issue of Tap! The iPhone and iPad magazine, we’ve picked the hundred best apps ever made for iOS, and now we’re inviting everyone to vote to crown just one of these apps as the ultimate app of all time.

As we start on the last week of voting, and with thousands of votes cast so far, I thought I’d give you a little peek of what apps are currently in the top ten!

How big is the iOS ecosystem?

Christopher Phin — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 16:51:18 +0100

Even we sometimes have to stop and pinch ourselves about the scale of the world of the iPhone, iPad and App Store. Take a look at our infographic below and you’ll see what we mean!

We’ve selected 100 of the best apps ever made in the latest issue – that's just 0.01538% of the App Store! Get it now to read all about them, and don’t forget to vote for the very best app of all time!

People want some weird stuff in the new iPhone (and some clever stuff)

Matthew Bolton — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 17:42:44 +0100

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Looking for inspiration? These guys have got it by the Bloq load

Tom Harrod — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 16:15:15 +0100

Are you lacking visual inspiration? Is the old grey matter refusing to play nicely? Or perhaps you’re an art director trying to find some bright spark to commission, but aren’t sure where to look for funky and/or classic portfolios? Well, stop staring at the walls, and stare at this instead. The good folks at Creative Bloq – just across the way from Tap! Towers – have created Design Spring, their own app for showcasing design work, and it already has some great art on there. Ooh look, a dinosaur! Made out of roads and parks and churches and stuff!

Vote for the best app ever!

Christopher Phin — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 12:16:03 +0100

In the current issue of Tap! The iPhone and iPad magazine, we’ve picked the hundred apps that we think everyone should install today. Now, you get the chance to vote one of them as the best ever made!

You can vote for up to three apps, and feel free to discuss your favourite apps in the comments! May the best app win!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!

Games are no fun when you’re bashing your head against the difficulty wall

Christopher Phin — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 15:00:00 +0100

This column contains a discussion pertaining to computer games. This will come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, and who therefore knows what a terrible gamer I am.

This column also contains graphs, which will reassure anyone who knows me that I am in fact feeling perfectly fine.

So, to games and graphs and graphs about games. One of the reasons I don’t play games much is that I’m fundamentally not very good at them. (Ask Tap!’s Art and Deputy Editors, with whom I have had to stop playing Hero Academy; being comprehensively out-manoeuvred and ultimately slaughtered every single damn game we played essentially since we started was doing my ego no good at all.)

For me, all games go a bit like this:

We’ll have to wait 20 years to see the App Store’s true impact

Christopher Phin — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 10:38:10 +0100

We’re now so used to seeing people create apps that are packed full of utility and delight that we’re in danger of becoming blasé. Take DM1, for example. Yeah, so what? It turns your iPad into a drum machine; big whoop.

No, it really is a big deal. For the price of a coffee, you can transform an iPad into a rich, easy to use drum machine that is more competent and flexible than a bit of hardware you’d have spent hundreds on just a few years ago.

It’s time to talk about In-App Purchases

Matthew Bolton — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 12:51:57 +0100

Matt Gemmell encourages developers to take the Steve Jobs approach for design and inspiration

Matt Gemmell — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 17:15:00 +0100

More than 30 years of groundbreaking innovation and lessons from a benevolent dictator

The era of Steve Jobs has ended, but the things we can learn from his approach to products are more relevant than ever

A human voice in an app

Christopher Phin — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:01:25 +0100

The first thing I do most mornings is reach for my iPhone to quieten my alarm, the vibrating Lark that’s strapped to my wrist and connected to my iPhone over Bluetooth.

As soon as you switch off the Lark’s alarm, it shows you a summary of your night’s sleep and asks you to hit one of five buttons to rate how you slept. When you do, it offers advice or encouragement; it could be a simple commiseration that you slept badly, a high-five that you slept well, or advice about how to combat the problems of the night next time.

The Dark Knight Surprises

Tom Harrod — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 14:13:37 +0100

Holy stopmotion action, Batman! When LEGO sent us some of its amazing DC Superheroes sets, we’re not ashamed to say we got very excited. You can shoot these figurines and props frame-by-frame in LEGO's own Super Heroes Movie Maker app, and with a bit of time and patience you can make some epic stop-motion adventures!

And so, I was locked (ahem, ushered) into a brightly lit cupboard in Tap! Towers, armed with nothing but an iPhone and a tripod, and challenged to attempt to trump Christopher Nolan’s upcoming summer blockbuster – albeit one small frame at a time...

Robert Llewellyn: My Home Screen

Tom Harrod — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 15:48:17 +0100

Robert Llewellyn is best known for his loveable, bumbling portrayal as the robot Kryton in classic BBC sit-com Red Dwarf and for presenting popular TV show Scrapheap Challenge. He also has a podcast called Fully Charged. Robert loves his iPhone – even though he struggles to get network signal at home!