Now that all the big players have released TV catchup service apps for the iPad it is time for me to take a look at them all and give you a rundown of the best.  All the apps are free and work via wifi internet connection.  Apps all tested on an iPad 2 with an 8mb internet connection. All apps work with original iPad. Your internet connection may vary.

ITV Player

ITV Player has a nice black, blue and white design with sections of Most Watched, Don’t Miss and channels ITV1, ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4. Programmes are available for up to only 7 days after airing. Also offers an A-Z listing of shows and a search function.  The quality of the TV stream is not the best and occasionally you may get buffering problems and also the picture sometimes is not as clear as it can be and can appear pixelated and blurry.  Some shows have a parental guidance on them but there appears to be no parental lock.  7/10

4 OD Catchup

This app is the offering from Channel 4. It has an easy on the eye blue design and the app opens with a selection of recommended programmes to watch from channel 4. E4 and More 4.  It offers an excellent 30 day viewing window so you are not rushed to watch a show. The quality of the stream is excellent and I experienced no issues with the app.  This app has an optional parental lock with use of a pin number if you wish to lock your childs viewing.  9/10

Demand  5

Channel 5’s offering started out as a test app for viewing Big Brother and has now become a fully fledged catchup app. It covers an excellent 30 days of viewing shows with a simple purple and grey navigation which like the others easy to use. The app is sponsored by Currys PC world with a small banner in the app, there is also a PC world advert prior to some shows viewing but really it is not intrusive at all. It also has some older shows broadcast months ago. The app description says shows are viewable for 30 days but I found some shows were viewable for up to a year. Channel 5 does not have a lot of content which is why I think it has some back episodes of shows to bulk it out a bit. Good quality internet stream 8/10

BBC iPlayer

The original and best of the catchup services, the BBC iPlayer by its very nature of TV and Radio has the most content of all apps. It covers catchup programmes from BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, CBBC, Cbeebies, BBC News and BBC Parliament plus all of the available digital BBC radio stations.  Internet streams are of excellent quality and the app has a nice design in both portrait and landscape modes with channel listings and a search function.  Oddly, and unlike the desktop version it does not appear to have a parental lock but it does have a favourites function to add a series so a new episode will be automatically listed in the favourites section.  Excellent stream, best content but no parental lock, also shows generally are available for only up to 7 days which is a bit disappointing  9/10

Poker Pals supports AI two player, local pass and play but ultimately online multiplayer with a friend or a random person. There seems to be no issues with online and it generally works very well. Myself and a few friends had an issue with the game not notifying on iOS5 but I found the fix for this was to go the the device settings – settings ->notifications -> Pals HD – and change the alert type from a banner to alert box.

Sadly, the game is missing online chat which is a great shame, many good iOS board games have online chat now and it is something that should be added to give a better feel of a social game.

Now onto the real issue I have. After having purchased the game for iPad, I found it was quite addicted so purchased it for iPhone too. The problem is that the second device will not accept my username and gives an error that username is already taken – yes it has been taken, by me!! But it seems that I cannot purchase it for two devices and play it with the same username. This is far from the usual behaviour for iOS games and it is something Chillingo must fix as soon as possible, it seems when they made this fun game they forgot that some people may have multiple devices. I am sure they will fix it, but in the meantime do not buy it again for a second device.

So all in all, a fun game, very addictive but has a few issues and tweaks that they need to resolve. I would like to reiterate though apart from the issue above and the tweaks I would like added, I have found no problems with the gameplay itself. Oh and as a BTW, there is an achievement for beating Difficult Davey, I did it after about 10 tries but I swear he cheats. And speaking of achievements, there seems to be a bit of a bug – I magically unlocked a load of achievements I never actually earned! 

The game is not huge by means of time of completion but there is some replay value to go back and get the gems you missed and aim for gold medals and there is a promise of more levels to come in a future update.  I recommend this game as a short blast of fun which you may prove difficult to put down.  At the moment it is also only £1.49 in the AppStore too, so grab it while it is cheap. Also available for iPhone.

This led me to consider maybe getting an ipad 2. With its slimmer and lighter body, it might prove better for my needs. I had been mulling it over for a few months and every time was talked out of it by various people as I would not gain much from upgrading to a 2 and it would be a waste of money. But really how much money can you put on comfort?  I’m not saying the ipad is uncomfortable for all, but it is for me sometimes.

So anyway on Thursday I decided to take the plunge and buy one. Managed to find one in Comet who delivered on Saturday. All I can really say is that playing games now for longer periods definitely is MUCH more comfortable, so much that I do not regret getting it for one moment. Not only is it thinner and lighter, but the more rounded edge around the back of the case sits much more comfortably in the palms of the hands and it feels more natural. So forget the addition of cameras, faster processor and the colour white, the biggest draw really is how well the ipad sits in your hands. If you do find it a tad uncomfortable playing on the ipad then do consider an ipad 2 because the minor changes in design and weight really do make a difference.

There are many variations in the hidden object game genre, some are simply find a list of objects and complete a scene, but the better ones have a proper story attached to them and brain exploding puzzles to really give your mind some exercise. Some of the puzzles may be easy and others are so evil you may find yourself looking for help online.  Hidden object games are always suitable for all ages but some of the ones with hard puzzles in may naturally be too difficult for younger children.  They are also very accessible and can be found on all formats from mobile phones to ipads and PCs and there are even a few on the gaming consoles. And they are great to play if you have only a few minutes or many hours.

Here is a little rundown of my favourite hidden object games on iphone or ipad, which with the touch screens are perfect for hidden objects. Be wary when choosing though, some are really short about an hour or so long and others are 4-5 hours or more.  The selection below are all fairly lengthy games except for Nick Chase Detective HD which I felt was a great story anyway so deserved to be on the list.

Antrim Escape 2 HD

Awakening: The Dreamless Castle

Awakening: Moonfell Wood

Drawn: The Painted Tower

Flux Family Secrets

Mushroom Age

Nick Chase A Detective Story HD

Treasure Seekers 1

Treasure Seekers 2

Most of the games are of a decent length and took me at least 4 hours to
finish. They also have a good mix of hidden object finding and brain bending
puzzles to vary the action. Antrim Escape 2 is extremely hard so if you are
new to these games this one is best avoided but may I suggest starting with
Flux Family Secrets, it is not too easy but has a good balance between not
too difficult and giving your brain cells some action.

UPDATE: Always ask twitter if you have problems and not Xbox support.

Issue fixed by this step from @jochta http://j.mp/lDr5Xn

If you were lucky enough to receive an iPad for Christmas you will be of course itching to get some excellent apps to enjoy it with.  A few weeks on and you have probably downloaded loads of apps and found some useful ones and some useless ones.  Here is a rundown of a few of my favourite FREE apps:

GoSkyWatch –  Amaze yourself and your friends and family with this brilliant guide to the heavens above. Point your iPad to the sky and it will show you the names and locations of every star, planet and system around you in relation to your standing position.

Words with Friends HD – I reviewed this last year for the iPhone. It is simply a Scrabble clone which you can play online against others.  Ad-supported. If you do not want the adverts you can get the paid version for only £1.19

Guardian Eyewitness – Amazing photos from around the world, updated daily.

Puzzler World Lite HD – Crosswords, Sudoku, anagrams, plenty of word games to test your brain.

Wikipanion for iPad – It is Wikipedia on your iPad. Does what it says on the tin.

NASA HD – The official NASA app. Videos, information, live launches, images. Extensive app.

Photopad – The first iPad may not have a camera, but you can still import your photos and then use this free app to crop, lighten, add effects and all the usual tools.  Also consider Adobe Ideas

Sky+ TV Guide – Sky EPG on your iPad, with remote record facility for when you lose your remote control down the sofa.

UZU – A particle visualiser. A bit of nonsense really but it is free and very relaxing creating your own sort of mini fireworks display.

Telegraph Newspaper – Free for the time being supported by adverts, this is an excellent iPad newspaper with headlines, comments, stories and features. The only thing it lacks is the crossword.

History: Maps of the World – This app does require an internet connection to download the maps so fire up your wifi. Excellent historical maps from around the world. Includes a search function.

Dropbox – Dropbox allows you to store files on the Cloud and transfer for free between computers. Extremely easy to use.

NavFree – FREE SATNAV APP?? Oh yes. You do not have to fork out many £££’s for a satnav app. Navfree is totally free UK & Ireland maps with turn by turn voice directions included. It is a big download but you do not need an internet connection to use it as the maps are preloaded to your device.

A few thoughts. The app looks good. Bright and colourful you can easily see the display of the EPG and click on any programme to get more details or set a remote record.  You can search for programmes, search by day, set it to display only certain categories and also change the display so programmes list across or downwards.  There is one minor issue and scrolling can be a bit wayward. It is possible to scroll back to programmes shown previously in the day and this is an annoyance as when it is scrolling wayward it is too easy to scroll backwards. I really do not need to see programmes already shown and they need to implement a stop so it will scroll left only from the point where programmes are on now – like on the iphone version.

For those who also have the Sky mobile TV app, you can have them in one app so they work seamlessly between the two.

Now for the obligatory screenshots:

The printer itself is excellent with a large array of features which you would not usually see on printers.  It is web app enabled so with a touch of a button you can print out graphs, calendars, soduko puzzles, colouring pads and much more.  The printer also has it’s own email address so people can send emails to it and it will by itself print out the emails and any attachments.  If you choose to use this feature though be sure to register the email on the HP website and lock out unauthorised email printing otherwise you may come home to a pile of printed porn. It is easy to lock out unauthorised users via the website.

I don’t want to harp on about the features much as a better review is posted up on the TECHRADAR website here.

Moving onto Airprint.  The printing is extremely easy to use on iOS devices.  Printing is supported in Safari, Mail and Camera Roll, so go into the item you want to print, click the arrow (normally used for reply/forward/etc and select print. Choose your printer from the list and print, it is that simple. It is extremely quick and printing signal from phone/ipad to printer was only a second. The printing functionality does lack a few features, the only option is to select how many copies you wish to print. There are no other basic options like selecting the orientation of the print. I had my ipad in landscape mode and a Google page printed in portrait mode so it seems it is portrait only for now.  One thing useful (or not) is that it formats web pages quite well.  As a test I printed a page from the BBC News website. As you know BBC is full of links, images and everything they can cram in but it printed only the story with no photos or extra rubbish so ink and paper waste is reduced.  I note that this is a good thing but in some circumstances you may want everything printed including photos so for some it may be an annoyance.  I am sure future updates will bring extra printing features but for now, it is one tiny step closer to making the ipad a laptop replacement, well for me it is anyway.

A list of apps which feature Airprint so far can be found HERE CLICKY HERE

Gameplay is largely unchanged from the previous games and there are plenty of things to do to keep you occupied, from destroying Borgia towers (which opens new areas) to collecting loot, carrying out assassinations, and collecting feathers and flags.  I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Brotherhood although I did expect some changes and beefed up gameplay which was simply more of the same from before.  That is not necessarily a bad thing, the gameplay works as it does but there could have been some more improvements to mix it up a bit.

I would liked to have seen some improvements over the platforming mechanics but sadly the old problem of randomly jumping to your death still exists. A series of jumps may work well but the  most miniscule of movements away from thumbstick forward may see you falling to your death – something which is most annoying when for example climbing the spectacle which is the Colloseum. But while this game is as frustrating as hell, it is one of those games which has a unique draw and addiction. So while I spent many a time falling to my death or surviving and having to make a climb over and over again, the charm of the game made this a non issue and there was a drive to complete it.  Had this been any other game, no doubt I would have traded it in out of annoyance. But it is Assassin’s Creed, so it is okay.

Section 16 puzzles are back and are still as mysterious as before. If you like your brain tested, the glyphs are definitely something to search out.  In a huge place like Rome though these glyphs can be hard to find. But here is a tip – Press start and go to database, then locations. Ensure Rome is highlighted then press Y to filter through to section 16 locations. Pick a location (I don’t recommend the first one early days as it is hard to access) and then you can add a map marker to take you to the location. Much easier to find them then.

I have finished the game now although not yet got 100% completion. I did complete buying all parts of Rome and was really disappointed not to get an achievement for that. I am not greatly into achievements, but it is really annoying when you get an achievement for watching a cutscene and then do not get one for something that actually requires effort.  Note to developers: Make sure your achievements actually mean somethign to achieve please.

Anyway, all in all a good game and I look forward to some download content to extend the game. Oh and a BTW, what the hell was up with that ending? That was a major WTF moment.