Visit Inkygirl.com, my illustrated guide for those who write and draw for young people. For info about my writing, drawing and other projects, see DebbieOhi.com.
**NEW**: For a peek into how picture book I'M BORED was created, see the I'M BORED Scrapbook Blog.
Welcome to iPadGirl, my blog about e-books, digital publishing (esp. effect on children's publishing), iPad apps for writers, and using the iPad for creative inspiration. I post much more frequently in my iPadGirl Twitter account than I do in this blog.
I've been having a lot of fun experimenting with Moodboard ($4.99, from A Tiny Tribe). It's a great brainstorming app for organizing pictures and text.
The interface is super easy to learn, and I love being able to use the pinch movement to enlarge, shrink, move and rotate images and text. Think I might use this for storyboarding!
Also, the app has lots of options for changing the look of the background, text and images. I'm going to start using this app to generate some interesting images for my various blogs.
Here's a list of the iPad apps for taking notes and writing that I've reviewed so far. Corkulous isn't so much about writing long pieces, but is great for keep track of shorter notes.
I love the fun Corkulous interface, which closely mimics a giant corkboard. I've seen a lot of apps that try to mimic a corkboard, but Corkulous goes beyond a simple "notes on a corkboard" idea and lets users attach a wider variety of items including not only typed notes but also pictures, images and contacts, to do items (which you can check off with one tap) and labels.
You can move around and resize items. I can have one big post-it note, for example, that can have as much writing on it as a page in another writing app. I can choose the colour of the post-it note, a choice of four fonts, adjust the size of text, choose the type of text alignment.
Looking at the sample screenshots, you can already see how useful this app would be for planning out a book. You could collect idea snippets, images that inspire you, post goals and deadlines, build up character backgrounds, etc. SO many possibilities for writers!
Here's a promo video that will give an idea of the app's potential:
What I liked:
- Very easy to use. You can select the type of item you're adding by opening up the virtual set of drawers at the bottom of the screen.
- You can imbed corkboards within corkboards.
- You can export PDFs of your whole corkboard. Or, of course, just take screenshots and save them to your Photo Library.
- You can resize a post-it note so that it can hold a lot of text.
- Easy to select and move or edit items.
- You can search the content in your corkboards.
What I didn't like:
- Not being able to resize labels and to-do items the same way as you would a post-it note. Granted, the size of the item expands as you type more text, but I'd like the option of having a giant label (looks like a small piece of paper stuck to the corkboard with a piece of tape) with smaller items contained within it.
Wish list:
- Have the option of e-mailing corkboard content WITH the corkboard texture behind it.
- Be able to draw on a post-it note.
- Would be nice to be able to use the pinch movement to zoom in and out to get a quick overview of a corkboard instead of having to scroll around it full-size to navigate.
- Would be great to have an iPhone version that syncs with the iPad Corkulous.
Overview:
I love this app! Priced at only $2.99 (introductory price), it's a steal.
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 10:22 AM in 
