Per Joel's recommendation, I spent my lunch money on ReaddleDocs.
Definitely a worthwhile investment. I haven't explored all of what it
can do yet, but it is just the app I was looking for to move files on
and off the iPad and even access my files on Googledocs and a webdav
drive. I'll give it four out of five schnozz prints on the camera
LCD. $4.99
Another app worth a lunch or two of Ramen Noodles is Note Taker HD.
This was written by Dan Brickland of VisiCalc fame. The only real
weakness in this app so far is that it is the equivalent of a notepad,
but doesn't allow the integration of notes, typed text and imported
graphics as some of the apps have. For example, Sundry Notes does
those things, but at the price of being tied into a "free service"
which could disappear or be charged for overnight. Note Taker HD is a
breeze to write on and doesn't tie you in with some third-party
on-line service. For what it does, it is awesome, but like most iPad
apps, it just barely gets by. I'll give it three out of five schnozz
prints on the camera LCD. $4.99
As previously mentioned in another post, Emerald Observatory is the
cat's meow of clocks. The rise and set times as well as compass
headings of where the sun or moon will rise is worth the price of
admission. I have to know arcane things like UTC and the various
definitions of twilight. This app clearly informs you of those things.
The fact that it uses NTP to sync to atomic clocks is another benefit,
especially when you are trying to precisely time a sun or moon transit
of the ISS. I'll give it five out of five schnozz prints on the camera
LCD. $0.99
VNC. I'm currently running VNC lite. The full-blown version has
additional keyboard keys (including the ctrl, alt, tab, etc.,). Five
out of five schnozz prints on the camera LCD. A must have. $0.00 or
$9.99
Topos2Go. Load up topographic maps on the iPad and use that for
mapping in places where a WiFi connection doesn't reach. There is a
free and paid version with more features. A bit on the slow side, but
the program is pretty decent. Due to the speed issues and not all
topos are in the library yet, I'll give this two schnozz prints on the
camera LCD. The value of the program depends on whether or not you
have a need for topo maps. $0.00 or $3.99
When it comes to DoF calculators, I've been trying two different ones.
iDoF Calc and F-Stop. Both are free. Both give you just what you are
spending. I'm going to list both as functional, but not very good.
DOFMaster is slightly better (and I suspect more accurate), but these
apps pale in comparison to DOFMaster LE which I have running on my
Palm Pilot and Palm Centro. I wish I could give a higher rating to
these. iDoF Calc at least remembers what your last selection was, but
F-Stop forces you to reselect lens, distance, etc., every time you
open the app. It's the typical issue of apps not knowing what they
were doing. The moment you close it or link to something else, the
information is dumped. Because of my familiarity with the Palm version
of DOFMaster LE, I'm going to give all these apps no more than a
single schnozz print on the camera LCD. Do they work? Well, yes, but,
I am terribly disappointed. DOFMaster for the iPhone is $1.99, the
others are a ripoff at $0.00
Some of us like staring up at the stars. An app called "Planets" is a
nifty free app that gives you truly usable skycharts. Another similar
app is Satellite Watcher. A bit limited on the database linkage, but
usable. As they are free and functional without too many bad habits,
I'll give them three schnozz prints on the camera LCD. $0.00 and $0.00
The iPhone, iTouch and iPad don't do Flash. That really stinks on so
many levels. As a workaround, CloudBrowse runs a virtual computer
environment which does do flash and passes the screen, keyboard and
mouse info (along with audio) on to the portable device. It works, but
is time and resource limited. This is a solution for when all else
fails. Not ideal, but Apple put us in this box. There is no dedicated
iPad app yet, so it runs the iPhone version instead. At most I give it
one schnozz print on the camera LCD, but still consider this a
must-have app for the iPhone/Touch/Pad. $0.00
Last for today is 3D Sun. This iPad app is simply terrific on so many
levels. As the sun is starting to wake back up and some of us are
aurora hunters, this is a must have app. Not many apps would I
consider worth going out of your way for, but this is one of them.
Without a doubt, the camera LCD is fully smudged with five out of five
schnozz prints. $0.00
For those of you for whom the language barrier is a problem... The
term "schnozz" means "nose". The more nose prints in this case, the
better.
AG Schnozz
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