How to get AirPlay working on BBC iPlayer iPhone & iPad apps

Struggling to get Apple AirPlay working on the BBC iPlayer iPhone and iPad apps? Here's how:

1. Ensure your iPhone / iPad is running iOS 5.0 or above

2. Ensure your Apple TV is 2nd generation and running v.4.2 or above

3. Open the BBC iPlayer application on your iPhone / iPad

4. Find the programme you want to watch and press play

5. Double press the iPhone / iPad Home button

6. A menu will appear along the bottom of the screen

7. Swipe the menu left to right (once on iPad, twice on iPhone)

8. Click on the AirPlay icon

9. Select Apple TV from the menu

10. Sit back and enjoy!

Best iPad Games of 2010

It's amazing to think the iPad is only 9 months old, during which time it's really started to mature as a credible gaming platform. Admittedly many of its strongest games are ports from other platforms, although compelling iPad originals are starting to emerge.

Below are the top ten iPad games which most rocked my accelerometer in 2010. I've tried to only include games which really take advantage of the iPad's form factor (hence no Drop7, Plants vs. Zombies or Cut the Rope which play just as well on the iPhone imho).

Let me know which gems I'm currently missing out on.

#1 Angry Birds HD (£2.99)

Yes, it's available on the iPhone, but the additional space afforded by the iPad's larger screen makes it that much more enjoyable to play. If you haven't played it yet, be prepared to be addicted; Angry Birds is the iPad equivalent of crack. Its surreal battle between bird and pig has even inspired a live action YouTube tribute.



Like This? Try Plants vs. Zombies HD

#2 Monkey Island Tales 1 HD (£3.99)

Telltale Games' update to the classic LucasArts adventure game franchise really comes to life on the iPad, with sumptuous visuals, great voice acting, intuitive controls and the witty dialogue and fiendish puzzling you come to expect from the series.



Like This? Try Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck’s Revenge

#3 World of Goo (£5.99)

World of Goo was born to be played on the iPad. A beautifully crafted game, which enchanted on the PC and Mac and on the Wii, its even more intuitive and enjoyable to play when you can manipulate the balls of goo with your fingertips. Pure class.



Like This? Try Moonlights

#4 Dominion HD (£2.99)

Superior to EA's official iPad version of Risk (which itself is excellent), this world domination board game captures all the magic of the original, but ratchets up the pace and tension and throws in some small but welcome additional features, including an online multiplayer mode.



Like This? Try RISK: The Official Game for iPad

#5 Let’s Golf! 2 (£0.59)

A playful and addictive golf sim which employs the trusty three-click swing action rather than attempting to more closely mimic a real golf swing (which almost always ends badly). Works best as a social experience, whether pass and play or via one of the multiplayer options (Online, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are all supported).



Like This? Try Real Golf 2011 HD

#6 Ragdoll Blaster 2 HD (£2.99)

A similar game mechanic to Angry Birds, with a canon rather than a catapult and a ragdoll rather than assorted birds. What sets RB2 apart, however, is its endlessly inventive level design introducing an Incredible Machine style physics dimension to the gameplay with predictably addictive consequences.



Like This? Try Angry Birds HD

#7 Puzzle Agent HD (£0.59)

Another Telltale Games production, Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent (to give it it's full title) is a puzzle / adventure game hybrid with a distinctive visual style provided by cartoonist Graham Annable. Whilst the fidelity of the illustrations is quite variable, the overall effect is charming and the puzzles and narrative progression dovetail much more seamlessly than I expected.



Like This? Try Babylonion Twins HD Premium

#8 Broken Sword: Director's Cut HD (Free)

Another elegant port of a classic adventure game. Fourteen years on since it's original release and Charles Cecil's narrative stands up well, aided by gorgeous visuals, cinematic sound and an intuitive interface. Makes me wonder whether the iPad might stimulate a wider renaissance in the point and click (tap?) adventure game genre.



Like This? Try Sam & Max Episode 1: The Penal Zone for iPad

#9 Osmos for iPad (£2.99)

A simple but surprisingly difficult game in which you must propel a single-celled organism towards other, smaller motes in order to absorb them. Hit a bigger one and you get absorbed. It has a nice aesthetic / calming ambient soundtrack and would be very relaxing were it not so damn stressful...



Like This? Try Cut the Rope HD

#10 Mirror's Edge for iPad (£2.99)

A successful re-imagining of the first-person console title of the same name as a side-scroller, making smart use of the limited inputs of swiping and tapping to produce one of the most nerve-wracking games currently available for the iPad.



Like This? Try Canabalt

Prices correct at time of writing.

Aweditorium - awesome music discovery iPad app

I used to blog quite a bit about music discovery apps but then Spotify came along, I moved from the BBC's Audio & Music Interactive department (to its television equivalent) and general app fatigue set in...

Then, a couple of week's ago, online streaming service thesixtyone released its Aweditorium iPad app and I was shaken out of my music discovery lethargy by an app of such elegance and utility that it's become almost a constant companion, introducing another ambient screen into my life (but hopefully not forcing me to buy another iPad... ;)

Like many of the best interfaces, none of its paradigms are particularly new or revolutionary - it just assembles existing paradigms with such grace that it feels fresh and delightful, displaying a number of those small but significant interface touches that I've banged on about in the past.



On opening the app, a monochrome splash screen announces the name of the app and introduces its wonderful tag line: 'Aural Happiness' before fading in a mosaic of rotating artist images and a 'Headphones Recommended' icon. (It had me at 'hello'...)



Once fully loaded, the artist thumbnail in the centre of the screen glows seductively with a one word invitation to 'Tap'. Doing so expands the image to full screen and fades in a track from that artist. 'Tap, swipe or pinch' appears briefly on the screen; no long winded explanation of which each will do, just an irresistible invitation to find out through trying.



Tapping brings up the title of the track, the name and provenance of the artist and a row of six icons. Pause is self-explanatory. The CND logo turns out to signify sharing (via Twitter or Facebook), with the number in superscript reflecting the number of 'earthlings' who have shared the track. The heart icon provides links to other tracks by the same artist within the app and a link to download the track in iTunes. The speech bubble pulls up a video about the band and plays it out in minature, while fading the volume of the track playing to background level. The HD icon plays the track's music video in high-def. The tiles icon returns you to the mosaic (as does pinching).

In this state, info bubbles appear on the screen, providing background on the artist. Tapping for a second time hides the icons and info bubbles and instead overlays the track's lyrics on the screen.



Swiping in any direction moves you through the image mosaic and starts the next track playing. Left to its own devices, once a track finishes the image scrolls to one side and the next track starts playing.

Returning to the mosaic, you realise your musical journey is being visually tracked by unfading the thumbnails of the tracks you've played. Top left of the screen is a orientation map, plotting your journey across the mosaic in miniature and displaying how many tracks you've listened to and what proportion of the mosaic you've explored.



The current mosaic is 27 x 27 squares giving you 729 tracks to plot a course through. Another nice touch is that the mosaic wraps so you move seamlessly from one side to the other, never reaching an edge.

Of course, all of this interface delight would be for nothing were the music crap. Fortunately (and entirely subjectively) it's great, introducing me to unfortunately monikered, but musically glorious, The Morning Benders, to name but one.

If I were to scratch around for a criticism of Aweditorium it would be its failure to implement OAuth, forcing you to enter your Twitter username and password if you want to tweet a track, but now I'm just being churlish. Update: Aweditorium have been in touch to point out that the Twitter implementation makes use of xAuth :)

If you're remotely interested in indie music or application interfaces (and if you have an iPad) I'd heartily encourage you to download Aweditorium and see why I'm waxing lyrical. Wish I'd built it.