I met up with the guys behind iBackflip while at Macworld, and was impressed with their passion for design. Their first iBackflip was a pretty straightforward flip-down arm sling for the iPad. Using Velcro, it offered a basic black design and minimal extras. The new iBackflip Somersault, now available for pre-order, is a thoroughly...

Seamus Blackley is one of the co-creators of Microsoft's original Xbox console, and he put together a really interesting team of old-school Atari game developers recently to make mobile games. Blackley's new company is called Innovative Leisure, and while the website isn't anything more than a groovy logo, the devs he's got on board...

Earlier today, Apple was forced to remove the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 (not the iPhone 4S), and all 3G iPads from its online store in Germany. This injunction was short-lived as Apple appealed and the German court suspended the ban. The company told Slashgear, "Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to...

Dave Caolo and I were chatting this morning about iBooks and spelling. "It's not my daughter's favorite subject," he said, "and I'm looking for a way to make it more appealing to her." He asked if there could there be any way to incorporate spelling quizzes into iBooks via Author. The answer is, unfortunately, not clearly yes. That's...

Two of the things that enchanted me most at Macworld | iWorld 2012 was the Jot stylus and a preview of Readdle's Remarks app. I've spent the past week looking at different note-taking apps to use with my new Jot Pro while waiting for Remarks to come out. The preview held not one, not two, but three TUAW writers enthralled as the Readdle...

One of the iPad's first regular periodical publications (if not the first one) The Daily launched a year ago. It's been a fairly rocky year. Originally, the Rupert Murdoch-funded app hoped it could get at least half a million subscriptions to keep its publication going; a few months ago we heard that there were 120,000 daily readers,...

The pocket version of Ticket to Ride by Days of Wonder is among the best board game adaptations for the iPhone, and it's just gotten better with asynchronous multiplayer support. Now you can start a game with friends through Game Center, and take turns back and forth across the Internet. The experience is similar to popular multiplayer...

Although they haven't exactly explained how school systems or parents are going to pay for iPads or other tablets for every student, the US government is pushing a new initiative to move from standard printed textbooks to digital textbooks within the next five years. While it's good to see that a focus on digital textbooks is finally...

Take that, Apple! Avid has just released an iPad iMovie competitor called Avid Studio. The US$4.99 app is a scaled-down version of Avid's pro video editing tools. Avid Studio features a timeline and storyboard, plus some iPad-friendly gestures so you can scale images and videos. You can arrange your edits on the timeline for special...

Last year, we looked at Doodlecast for kids from zinc Roe. It's an iPad app that lets your kids record themselves talking while they draw on the screen. The app records both the audio and the drawing and combines the two into a single video. My kids loved Doodlecast and continue to fill my iPad with narrated drawings. With Doodlecast...

Flipboard added another feature to its popular social stream and news reading app that'll please international users. Announced earlier this week, the company will be sending out three new Content guides for readers in Australia, Canada and the UK and Ireland. Folks in those countries will soon receive news that's custom-selected for...

I'm excited about this one -- Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective was one of the best mobile games on the year that didn't appear on iOS in 2011, but the wait is over: Though it's been on iOS in Japan for a little while, the game is finally coming to the App Store on this side of the world this evening. As of tomorrow, you'll be able to...

Do you think you have what it takes to be an air traffic controller? Before you're responsible for hundreds of lives, you should test your flight controlling skills with NASA's latest iOS app, Sector 33. Sector 33 is a game similar to Flight Control from Firemint, but a bit more realistic. You are a controller in charge of flights into...

Smappsoft sought me out a few times at Macworld | iWorld this year, so I was glad to see what they've been up to. Last I saw the company, they were working on a puzzle game called Look Again, and since then they've released a few other titles, including Chinese 13 Card Poker and a version of Look Again for children called Look Again,...

Just before I headed out of San Francisco at the end of Macworld | iWorld last week, I met up with a few of the guys from BearExtender, who make an impressive product that will boost the Wi-Fi signal coming into your Mac. The guys were in San Francisco to show off the BearExtender Mini, which will eventually replace the current...

I first met Liv Games' Orian Livnat at last year's Macworld, where he showed me a wild game called Legendary Wars that mashed up a number of different genres and ideas in a mix created by Livnat and his family and friends. At the time I thought the game was a really interesting idea, but even I didn't expect the kind of success Liv...