Stories By James Kittredge

New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman set out more than a decade ago to make complicated, restaurant-style cooking accessible to the masses. His encyclopedic cookbook, How to Cook Everything, quickly became a runaway success and earned the author a place next to Julia Child on any serious foodie’s bookshelf. Now, this weighty tome has found the ideal interactive home on the iPad.

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Last week, Launchpad Toys updated their "must have" Toontastic app to version 1.1, adding a host of new characters, backgrounds, animations, and technical tweaks. The new characters and settings maintain the same whimsy and fun of the originals, while injecting the already excellent app with loads of potential for new play and experimentation.

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I know what you’re thinking: the App Store is sorely missing games that entertain with an eye towards preserving our planet’s precious natural resources. If that sounds like you, Fencing Flea has created Exhaust Thing: a fast and frenzied "rotate-and-tap" puzzler about the grim future of our ozone layer. Unfortunately, a clever premise and a delightful art style isn’t enough to salvage a game that's just not all that enjoyable.

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Perhaps it’s the native Californian in me, but I’ve always had a penchant for sushi. The colorful rolls, the spritely sashimi, the sense of tradition that comes with each mouthful -- something about this varied and sophisticated food genre truly captures the imagination. Unfortunately, producing sushi at home has always seemed too daunting a task. That was until I got my hands on Jake Davidow’s outstanding Teach Me Sushi app for the iPad.

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With the Apple faithful basking in the afterglow of a successfull iPad 2 launch, it was a good week to be a member of the Cult of Cupertino. In this week’s Padvance Report, we get some hands-on-time with the new tablet, and check out several high profile new apps.

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While iPad 2 was undoubtedly the star of Apple’s March 2nd media event, we here at Padvance were especially excited to see that Cupertino would be bringing a version of its popular GarageBand software home to the iPad. Indeed, company execs gushed over its comprehensive multitouch usage, as well as its ability to make even a rank amateur sound like Mozart. In our experience, the hype was justified. GarageBand for iPad is a genre-defining piece of software that also happens to be a blast to play with.

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In the wake of last week’s announcement of the next iPad iteration, the Apple faithful have been eagerly preparing for launch date, which will be upon us by the time you read this. Join us in today’s Padvance Report for a look back on this week’s tablet and app update news.

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Not that it comes as a big shock to anyone who had been following the rumor mill leading up to this week’s announcement, but Apple’s new baby is here (or at least it will be on the 11th). Of course, we here at Padvance were excited to cover the unveiling this week. In this week’s Padvance Report, we take stock of what we know about the new tablet and examine a few apps designed to make your digital life just a little bit easier.

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In the absence of a first-party Facebook client for the iPad, a number of worthy alternatives have sprung up to fill the void. Given the sheer number of social networking options in the App Store, we were initially skeptical that developers could continue to improve on a formula that seems fairly entrenched. Napkin Studios’ Friended for iPad, while not without its problems, manages to do just that.

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Well, folks, the mounting rumors of the past couple of weeks may have been, at least for a time, simply sound and fury, signifying nothing. One significant announcement aside, this has been a relatively quiet week for the plucky iPad, but Padvance has still been on the case. In this week’s report, we take a look back at Apple’s recently announced App Store subscription model and a look forward at some exciting apps on the horizon.

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“Charming” is a word that gets bandied around quite a bit in discussion of iOS apps and games. In the case of Darren Murtha’s app, Drawing Pad, it is absolutely the ideal descriptor. As an entry in a crowded field of artistically inclined apps, Drawing Pad's simplicity, whimsy, and diversity of kid-friendly features distinguish it from the pack.

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The iPhone is now on Verizon, a new iPad (or maybe two) are on the way, and, by all accounts, the MacBook Pro line is headed for a major overhaul. Apple no longer seems content with letting updates and announcements leak out in dribs and drabs. In today's report, we take a look back at a week of expectation and speculation, talking about what the past 7 days have meant for our favorite tablet.

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Puzzles, a Steampunk aesthetic, and the game of Twister don’t necessarily go together like peanut butter and jelly, but Quokka Studios has somehow managed to combine all three into Panopticon, an iPad-only game that is as devilish in its required contortions as it is clever in its design.

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With a new iOS release on the horizon and speculation about the iPad 2 reaching fever pitch, the Apple rumor mill went into full effect this week. In this week’s Padvance report, we take a look back at the week that was and look forward to a new dawn for our favorite gadget.

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With a new iOS release on the horizon and speculation about the iPad 2 reaching fever pitch, the Apple rumor mill went into full effect this week. In this week’s Padvance Report, we take a look back at the week that was and look forward to a new dawn for our favorite gadget.

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As the release of iOS 4.3 approaches, the Apple faithful turn their attention back to their favorite tablet. In this edition of the report, we take a look at a few of the possible new features we’ve covered this week.

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Admit it, you’re as connected as they come. You juggle five different IM accounts, and Facebook is never more than a tap away. If you are this brand of ultimate social butterfly, Agilemobile has just the app for you: Agile Messenger HD Pro.

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Now that the holiday app explosion is over, this has been an uncharacteristically quiet time for major iPad news and app releases. That said, we take a look back at what we’ve been working on over the past couple of weeks.

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At this point, all of us know the story: Apple and Adobe just refuse to play nice with one another. Both sides trade barbs (deserved or not), feelings are hurt, and the consumer misses out. From the iPhone’s inception, users have clamored for a way to view Flash content on their shiny, new iDevices. With the release of the Skyfire Web Browser, it looks like the wait is over . . . sort of.

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From salons to burger joints, the App Store is saturated with time management strategy sims. Still, we approached Nevosoft’s sequel to the generally well-received My Kingdom for the Princess with high hopes. What we found, however, was a generally fair entry in the genre that is heavy on charm, but light on originality.

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