Better late than never, right? That’s going to be a bit of a recurring theme for the first few items on this week’s hit list, as we wrap up our new iPad coverage and dive head-long into the rest of the week that was. So let’s not waste any more time…

Triple play

It took us a while to get our massive new iPad review up and I make no apologies for that. We worked, literally in many cases, around the clock for over a week making sure we used our new iPads, tested them, challenged them and got a sense of how they really worked in the real world. That took time. So did the the Mobile Nations round table, and iMore community report card that went with it.

I think it was time well spent though. We only get a few new devices a year at iMore, so when we get them we want to cover them well. That means not only technology, but usability and experience.

We’ll be following up as we usually do as well, to see how well it holds up as time goes on.

Resolutionizing

We’ve been slowly but surely updating iMore so it looks insanely greater on the new iPad’s Retina display. Our last redesign transformed a lot of the layout to CSS, which automagically looks great on Retina. For the persistent elements, like the header logo and sidebar icons, we’ve embedded the graphics at 2x size. They’re small enough that 60px vs 30px doesn’t make a huge difference when it comes to load times or bandwidth costs (for us or our users who may be on limited data plans).

We’re not sure how we’re going to handle the big post hero images or screenshots yet. We’re looking at media-query and other options, and when we settle on something, we’ll let you know.

We also did a special edition round-table on the last episode of Iterate all about Retina design, if you want to hear a lot more from a lot smarter on this.

No daisy at all

While I was busy with the new iPad, reporters were busy finding out that Mike Daisy’s The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, wherein he painted a sensationally horrifying portrait of Apple’s place in the Asian economy, wasn’t so much journalism as it drama. That he was an actor doing a play was, apparently, lost on everyone until now.

Daisy shares some of the blame for that, by intentionally putting himself into stories where he had no part, portraying his work as fact when it was fictionalized, and for giving interviews where he, like Sascha Baron Cohen, remained bizarrely in-character. The media shares some of the blame as well, for being so eager to put Apple into the headlines that they rushed to publish before looking into the very real problems in Daisy’s accounts. The rest of the blame falls squarely on us, the public, and our hunger for juicy, controversial, Apple-related stories. It’s the Bruce Lee cover I wrote about earlier this week.

In the end the story both helped bring attention to the issue of Chinese factories and working conditions and then clouded those very real issues in convolution, confusion, and even more controversy. Daisy wasn’t and should never have been the story. Lesson, hopefully, learned.

That’s not 4G

Speaking of lessons needing learning, Apple got in some trouble this week when it turned out their 4G LTE iPad didn’t work on International 4G LTE networks… which is exactly what Apple said during the new iPad event back at the beginning of March. That pesky little 4G term, however, the ones US carriers late to the LTE game like T-Mobile and AT&T started using for HSPA+, the one Apple carefully avoided at the iPhone 4S launch but seemingly embraced and extended at the new iPad launch, came back to bite them on the ass.

While Apple was clear about who was getting LTE up front, using 4G on the packaging turned out to be a problem in areas where carriers weren’t as liberal with the term as the US. No doubt it was easier for AT&T (and T-Moble) to tack 4G onto their marketing than to build out an actual LTE network, but there was no reason for Apple to follow that same line of folly.

This is especially true when it comes to the iPhone indicator, which since iOS 5.1 was released says 4G for AT&T, despite the radio hardware remaining entirely the same. It’s even more perplexing, given AT&T promptly thanked Apple for the concession by NOT giving Apple tethering plans for the new iPad. No one seems able to figure out FaceTime over cellular data either, despite Skype and every other similar service doing it freely.

Apple is already changing course on international marketing. Maybe they change course on AT&T’s indicator as well?

Comment clarity

At the top of every comment entry box on iMore it says:

Note: Comments must be civil, respectful, and on-topic. If a comment does not add to the conversation, if it contains spam advertising, or inappropriate language or content, it will be removed. Insulting the topic, author, staff, site, network, or other commenters will result in the comment being marked as spam and potential prevent future comments from appearing on the site. Do not post as a business or your comment will likely be confused with spam. Comments containing links may be held for moderation. Relax, enjoy, and share in the discussion.

Yet despite this, we still have a problem with trolls. We’re working on fixing it, and on making the comments more productive and enjoyable for readers who are here to enjoy and be productive.

Regular readers shouldn’t have to put up with that noise, and if someone lands on the iMore home page, or finds an article through search, they shouldn’t be subjected to the worst aspects of the greater internet f-wad theory (NSFW-L) any more than if they go to a park they should have to tip-toe around dog poop.

We should all be able to disagree without being disagreeable, love a device or platform without hating people who love a different device or platform, allow someone else to be right without thinking it makes someone else wrong.

We don’t plan on shutting them off or hiding them the way some other sites have. We plan on raising the level of discourse on iMore. Bring your A game.

Forum fun

As much as we’ll be keeping an eye on the comments, we’ll be doing even more in the iMore forums. We’ve already reorganized them to help all all of our new members more easily find what they’re looking for — be it assistance with a new device, or problems with apps and services like iCloud or iTunes, or discussion about the technology they love and use.

Mobile Nations has upgraded the backend considerably, giving the iMore forums some of the same great features our Android Forums have been enjoying for a while.

And there’s much more to come.

Features

Lots of great stuff this week:

• How to create stunning panoramic photographs with your iPhone. If you’ve ever wanted to capture more than your iPhone camera app still easily allows, check this out.
• All I would have wanted was a faster iPad Georgia dares to say she preferred the nature of the iPad 1 to iPad 2 upgrade over the nature of the iPad 2 to iPad 3 upgrade. Some of you may have run for torches and pitchforks.
• How to DIY replace the vibrator assembly in an iPhone 3G & iPhone 3GS Ally continues to fight for the users of older devices by showing how to keep them running longer, better.
• The iPad mini. Yours truly goes over the latest round of 7-inch iPad rumors and tries to sort the sane from the sensational.
• Angry Birds Space review: Entering iPhone and iPad orbit at the speed of rage. Simon straps on his rockets and enters the cosmic pork vs. fowl wars.
• Will the tablet market be more like the PC market or Smartphone market?. Chris takes a look at the iPad and tries to figure out if it will end up more like the iPhone or the iPod.

Recommended reading

• The digital-physical by Craig Mod describes the process by which Flipboard was brought to the iPhone.
• Photoshop CS6 improvements by my Iterate co-host, Marc Edwards, tells you why, if you’re a Photoshop user, you want to upgrade.
• Readability Directs Shared Articles To Own Servers, Cuts Out Original Publishers by A.T Faust III of App Advice catches Readability doing the wrong thing, and now the right thing.
• Google will abandon Android by Matthew Panzarino at his new side-gig, Robot Tuxedo.
• Samsung Galaxy Nexus my way and Working from my Transformer Prime by Jerry Hildenbrand highlights just what you can do with mobile. And a beard.
• Reality Check: RIM is not giving up on the consumer market by Chris Umiastowski takes the media to task for botching the BlackBerry earnings announcements. I’d add that RIM should have been far more careful in framing their comments as well.
• The Feature is Marco Armenent’s new name for Give Me Something to Read, so if you’re still thirsty of more, head on over and check it out.

And.. scene

Now that I’ve literally gotten blisters from typing and track-padding so much this month, I leave you to the rest of your Sunday. A Game of Thrones season 2 premiere anyone?

Every week the editors at iMore carefully select some of our favorite, most useful, most extraordinary apps, accessories, gadgets, and websites. This week’s selections include a unique photography app, a solution for reading sheet music on the iPad, an alternative to iBooks, an awesome flying game, a web app alternative for a popular native iPhone application, a new way to view your Instagram feed, and the best way to get comic books onto your iPad.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

Paper Camera — Alli

This is another one of those apps that’s available on both Android and iOS. Of course, it has a few more options for iOS right now, but that could change at any time in the continual game of cat and mouse between iOS and Android.

Paper Camera gives you new views of your world. View it in pastels, black and white, or as a cartoon. The filter above is called Comic Boom, and makes everything look hand drawn. There are bunches of filters, and half the fun is just looking at things through the different filters.

One of the really nice things with Paper Camera is that you’re not limited to taking new photos through the Paper Camera filters. You can put a filter on an existing photo from your album.

I should mention the big feature that the iOS version has that Android hasn’t caught up with yet – you can shoot video through these filters on iOS. Sweet, eh?

$0.99 – Download Now

GoodReader — Gary Mazo

I find that I use my iPad more and more in ways I would not imagined just a couple of years ago. One of my favorite uses of my iPad is as a repository for all my sheet music.

I am an avid piano player and have amassed literally thousands of pieces of sheet music over the years. Most was in loose-leaf format or in old piano books from when I was younger and lots was through digital music delivery or scans of music I had borrowed from friends.

I needed a way to get it all in one place and the iPad was going to be that place. Enter GoodReader from Good.iWare.

GoodReader is an app that supports PDF files, all Office files, iWord files, web archives and high-resolution images. Files are transferred either via iTunes document transfer or (and this is my favorite way to do it) via wireless transfer. Just touch the wireless transfer button and it finds your computer (if you are on the same Wi-Fi network) and you use the computer as a server. Select a file on your computer and – like magic – it shows up on GoodReader.

Once in the app, I can adjust the sort order, annotate PDF files (which is great for music) change the orientation, layout, jump around, search and more. I just swipe to the left to advance pages – which is so nice in a long piece of music – and can even pinch to zoom in on hard to read sections.

The only downside to GoodReader is that when I go to visit friends with pianos in their homes and they say "too bad we didn't ask you to bring music with you" I can no longer say "that is too bad" if I have my iPad around!

Are you using GoodReader? Do you have other ways of viewing sheet music on your iPad? Join in the discussion in the forums!

$4.99 – Download Now

Kindle for iPad — iMuggle

My new iPad has really gotten me more interested in reading on it than any other device has. The iPhone is just too small and I’ve always had some type of vendetta against eBooks. That’s starting to change and I’ve been enjoying sitting back with my iPad and reading.

The Kindle and iBooks apps are both great for reading. I’ve found myself using the Kindle app a lot more often for some reason. I think I just prefer the interface. It’s easy to use and since it was updated to support the new iPad’s retina display, it’s better than ever.

I still find myself using iBooks for PDFs but switching over to the Kindle app to read actual books. I like the idea of being able to read Kindle books on multiple devices on more than one platform. If I ever decided to purchase another type of device, I’d most likely be able to use my books on that device too.

If you haven’t checked out the Kindle app or what they have available for purchase, I’d highly recommend it.

Free – Download Now

Air Wings — Bla1ze

Looking for a pretty awesome flying game? Air Wings is where it’s at. The concept is to fly around gathering up coins and weaponry to use against other players as it is a multiplayer game. You have multiple planes you can choose from to purchase, it offers in game voice chat with 6 multiplayer levels to play through. In addition to all that, it was recently updated with new graphics for the new iPad as well, so it looks great. Air Wings is available for free in the iTunes store with in-app purchases starting at $.99 — I make this clear because you’ll want to grab at least one additional airplane pack in order to really get into the game.

Free – Download Now

SoundBest Player — SimonSage

A non-game iOS app caught my eye for a change this week. Rather, it caught my ear. SoundBest Player is a sharp, simple music player that mostly replicates the native music player in both layout and function, with one significant difference: within it is built a custom equalizer. When you first start up the app, it takes you through a short hearing test, and builds a a custom listening profile which changes the way your songs sound. You can save multiple custom profiles, and turn the equalizer off and on very easily. There are also presets for different genres of music, but aside from that, you have access to your usual library of playlists and songs sorted by album, artist, or by individual track. There’s full compatibility with playback control from the dock, lock screen, and headphones with in-line hardware.

SoundBest just came out this week, but there are a few alternatives already available that I haven’t tried out, like EQ 10 and Equalizer; the latter actually looks pretty good. It’s hard to describe the difference between music played through SoundBest versus the vanilla music app, but if you’ve ever played around with the equalizer in iTunes on your Mac, you’ll know what to expect.

$2.99 – Download Now

The YouTube Web App — JorjLim

As a frequent vlogger, Youtube is my second home; and the built in Youtube app, is quite frankly, rubbish! It lacks simple functionality, like autocomplete, and replying to comments, it doesn't offer any functionality that a video creator would want, like editing video info or checking channel stats and its really slow!

An alternative is the Youtube web app, and if offers all the functionality that the native app is missing, and so much more.

As a viewer, you get all the standard functionality of 'liking' and 'disliking', adding to favourites and commenting. The search even has autocomplete! You can also reply to other comments directly, share on more social networks like Facebook and Google+, and you can select to play the video in high quality or low quality regardless if you're on 3G or Wifi.

As a content creator, you can view, and respond to your mail, edit video details and remove videos on the go.

One of the greatest features that I found in the web app, is the leanback remote. You can connect the iPhone to the youtube leanback experience, and 'airplay' your Youtube videos and playlists to your TV or computer without the need for an AppleTV.

I've switched totally from the native app to the web app, and I have never looked back!

Gramory — llofte

I love Instagram, but the native Instagram app isn’t exactly awesome. The scrollable timeline is cool and all, but sometimes I’m forced to scroll through a lot of “meh” photos that I’m not particularly interested in. I love Gramory because it lets me see 20 photos at once as thumbnails so that I can pick and choose which ones I want to see bigger. It also has a very nice multi-plane UI.

The other feature that a lot users like is that you can filter photos by trends — something that the official Instagram app doesn’t allow.

Free – Download Now

Comics – Rene Ritchie

Comics was the best way to buy new comic books for iPhone and iPad, and now that the new iPad is out with it’s killer Retina display, Comics has updated to take advantage of it. Comics hasn’t just updated their own user interface, mind you, they’ve launched CMX-HD, a new format to best show off the content as well. What’s more, since Comics’ developer, ComiXology also makes the official Marvel, DC, Image, and other apps, all of them benefit from the new technology. Win. Win. Win. (You get the idea.)

And yeah, this stuff looks fantastic on the new iPad.

FREE – Download

• Marvel version
• DC version

Tell us your pick!

Those were our picks, iMore Nation, so now it’s your turn! Tell us your pick of the week below. Give us the name of your favorite app, site, or accessory, and tell us why it made your life more productive, more informed, more entertaining, or just plain more fun. Jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones returns to HBO tonight, kicking off season 2 in what will no doubt be sex filled, blood soaked, rip-roaring style. Winter is still coming (something those of us in Canada understand all too well — the wall looks like our driveways in January!), politics is still being played, armies are marching, and… there be dragons.

While the new season is exclusive to HBO (or similar channels internationally), you can still catch up on the first season, and enjoy all the books, on your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad right now.

Game of Thrones Season 1

The HBO production of A Games of Thrones is simply gorgeous, especially on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad Retina display, or in 1080p on the new Apple TV. The full first season is available on iTunes and includes not only the 10 episodes proper, but a bunch of special features as well.

Even if you don’t want to buy the season, you can grab six free specials about the various great houses of Westros.

$38.99 – iTunes – Buy now

A Song of Fire and Ice books and audio books

The entire A Song of Fire and Ice series so far, including A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and A Dance with Dragons are widely available as both eBooks and Audio books for you to load up and enjoy on your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

Variable – iBooks – Buy now

Variable – Amazon – Buy now

A Game of Thrones wallpapers

Just get a new iPad or have an iPhone just waiting to get decked out for the new Game of Thrones season? Here are your Game of Thrones wallpapers in full Retina resolution. Just save them to your Camera Roll, size and position them to perfection, and your iOS device will be ready and waiting for winter!

Lastly, if you’ve watched it, jump into our Movies & TV Forum and give us your Games of Thrones season 2 thoughts. Good as the book? Better? Watching now or waiting for it on iTunes?

It’s April Fool’s so our inbox is flooding with pranks both delightful and disturbing. There aren’t many that really pertain to iPhones or iPads. We mentioned Google’s 8-bit Maps and Gmail Tap earlier, but here are a few more that show some effort, creativity, charm, and/or humor.

Littlest Black Book for iPod nano

Leanna and I scored a sneak preview of the Littlest Black Book at Macworld 2012, and while it may have started out as a fun April Fool’s project, Pad & Quill has gone ahead and put it up on Kickstarter to gauge interest on an actual production run.

Out of all the stuff we’ve seen so far today, this one is the only real keeper. It’s incredibly cute, and would make a great novelty gift. If you’re looking for something different for the nano, check it out. (Lego Storm Trooper not included.)

More: Pad & Quill, Kickstarter

Barbie Digital Fashion Styling Head for iPad

ThinkGeek continues to have fun with April Fool’s day, though this year I have to say the Barbie Digital Fashion Styling Head for iPad is nowhere near as ambitious or as impressive as last year’s Playmobile Apple Store. Frankly, I’m posting it simply as an excuse to link back to the Playmobile Apple Store. Again.

More: Think Geek

Hungry Hungry Hippo for iPad

Better is ThinkGeek’s Hungry Hungry Hippo for iPad. A spoof on the classic kids game, it shows real plastic hippos eating virtual iPad hippo balls (or whatever they’re called). If that doesn’t light your retro fire, you can wake for their promised sequel: Hungry Hungry Hippos: Space!.

More: Think Geek

New iPad Opening Tool

iFixit brings their quasi-hyperbolic ranting against Apple’s non-user-servicable iOS devices to April Fool’s day with a spoof New iPad Opening Tool. Its imaginative goal? To get inside Apple’s latest tablet without needing “industrial strength suction cups, a heavy-duty 1500 watt heat gun, a dozen plastic spacers, and about an hour of careful heating and prying.”

More: iFixit

If you come across any other good ones, let us know and we’ll add them in!

David Barnard of App Cubby, Seth Clifford of Nickelfish, Marc Edwards of Bjango, Gedeon Maheux of the Iconfactory, and Rene Ritchie of iMore discuss designing and updating for Retina and HiDPI displays: preparation, process, tools, formats, distribution, and the future of resolution. This is an Iterate round-table!

• Our podcast feed
• Download Directly
• Subscribe via iTunes

• New iPad Retina display impressions
• Preparing for Retina display
• Updating apps for Retina
• Tools and process
• Icon distribution and formats
• Interface elements and formats
• Compression and universal apps
• Retina display and the Mac/Windows
• The future of Retina display/HiDPI and resolution independence

Panel

• David Barnard (@drbarnard) of App Cubby
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford) of Nickelfish
• Marc Edwards (@marcedwards) of Bjango
• Gedeon Maheux (@gedeon) of Icon Factory
• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) of iMore.com

Feedback

• Email: podcast@iterate.tv
• Twitter: @iteratetv
• Facebook: Iterate page

If you’re one of the best-of-the-best-of-the-best in mobile design for Android, BlackBerry, iOS, webOS, or Windows Phone, we’d love to get you on the show, or if you’ve found a drop-dead gorgeous app on any platform and really want us to talk about it, contact us and let us know.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

This is the Google I love. For April Fool’s day, Google announced they were porting their Maps service to… the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Not to be outdone, the Gmail team also announced support for morse code with Gmail Tap.

The Maps team:

In our pursuit of new digital frontiers, we realized that we may have left behind a large number of users who couldn’t access Google Maps on their classic hardware. Surprisingly, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was unsupported, despite its tremendous popularity with over 60 million units sold worldwide.

Our engineering team in Japan understood the importance of maps on retro game systems. With the power of Google's immense data centers, and support from Nintendo and Square Enix, we were able to overcome the technical and design hurdles of developing 8-bit maps. Today, we're excited to announce the result: a version of Google Maps for NES, with beautiful low-res graphics, simple and intuitive controls, and a timeless soundtrack.

It looks great (though Street View is a tad messy) and I hope they keep it around after April Fool’s — I know I’d check it out every time I needed a retro smile. To see it live, just hit the link below or go to http://maps.google.com and click “Quest” in the upper right hand corner of the map.

The Gmail team:

Gmail Tap takes the keyboard from 26 keys to just two. Every letter of the alphabet is represented by a simple pattern of dots and dashes, and once you know them you can type without even looking at your screen. This makes it ideal for situations where you need to discreetly send emails, such as when you’re on a date or in a meeting with your boss.

Now excuse me while I go telegraph Gmail the Cowboys and tell ‘em the law dogs are coming. And hell’s coming with ‘em!

Source: Google Maps blog, Gmail blog