The Apple iPad has been out long enough now that we are finally starting to see some really nice applications developed exclusively for the larger touchscreen of the popular portable tablet computer. The SeaHD app by Air Land Sea and Reef Critters Hawaii by Keoki Stender are two such applications which fully take advantage of the large screen real estate of the iPad with unique video, update and navigation options which are not as cheap as your iPhone app, but still well worth the purchase for reef aquarists, divers, and arm-chair appreciators of marine life in general.
Keoki and Yuko Stender’s Marine Life Photography website has been well known among marine aquarium circles for years as having exceptional photographs of rare and unusual marine life and it is frequently referenced in the online marine aquarium community. You can imagine that we jumped at the opportunity to pick up the Reef Critter Hawaii digital guide book by Keoki Stender which features over 350 photos of Hawaiian reef invertebrates which are pictured in an intimate way that no book has done before.
The Sea Critters Hawaii iPad application features many different invertebrates and being the coral junkies that we are, we immediately jumped to the coral section to see some amazing shots of unique Hawaiian corals like Montipora capitata, M. flabellata and Cyphastrea agassizii. As you can see above, each coral is featured as a colony for the main image and a macro close up in the vignette. There’s also tons of other starfish, shrimp, crabs and other invertebrates to explore in the Sea Critters Hawaii iPad application which is well worth the $9 asking price. We’ve referenced it several times in the last few weeks and we hope to see more iPad apps like it in the future.
The SeaHD iPad application by Air Sea Land is an interesting, interactive video application which has footage of reef and ocean scenes embedded in a map that you are encouraged to explore. The SeaHD application is only $3 which includes a ton of video with the initial download, and we’ve received one free update with some great white shark footage and also sprung for two $0.99 video bundles which brought with them a lot more video.
From Fiji, to Bonaire, Bahamas and Papua New Guinea, there is seriously a lot of footage on the SeaHD application and none of it is polluted by narration so you can listen to the included ambient sounds or just simply focus on the fishies and corals to relax. The footage of the SeaHD application includes exceptionally well chosen locations of reef where you can study a patch of coral and watch as all kinds of familiar reef fish cruise on by. The $3 price of the SeaHD application for iPad is a no brainer and with $1 bumps of video adding to the mix, we can now see some reefers getting aquascaping inspiration and divers getting a scuba fix simply by firing up this application and cruising through the videos of the interactive map; there’s a lot of them.
