MediaPad Pro (iPad)

January 13th, 2011 by

Developer: MEDL Mobile, Inc. with Craig Orsini
App Type: Digital Photography Portfolio Maker/Presenter
Price: $14.99
Version: 1.2
Time Used: 2 months

With 58000 apps available on the iPad app store alone, there is a lot of chaff to wade through to get to the wheaty goodness of really good apps.  If an app doesn’t become one of the top few for total number of downloads, it can often fade into obscurity regardless of its quality or utility.  We recently got our hands on a copy of the digital photography portfolio suite MediaPad Pro for the iPad.  Does MediaPad Pro rise above the usual app fodder into the realm of actual utility?  Read more to find out.

The concept of a digital photography (including video) portfolio may be a new concept to most non-photographically inclined people.  Normally this would also be a bit out of my area of expertise as well, but I luckily recently purchased a fantastic Panasonic Lumix LX5 digital camera that I was eager to show off to my friends and this app presented a great way to do this.

Many professional photographers already have digital portfolios in the form of fancy Flash-based websites, but these can be awkward to take around and show prospective clients, especially on the iPad where Flash is not welcome.  MediaPad Pro steps up to fill the need here and provides a simple but feature-rich interface for creating and viewing slick digital portfolios of photographic work with the striking visual nature of a well-designed portfolio website, but with the portability and gloss inherent in iPad apps.

With MediaPad Pro, I was able to make a fancy portfolio of my recent pics and videos my uploading them to the iPad through the device’s Apps > File Sharing tab in iTunes.  Videos do have to be in m4v, mov, mp4, or avi format, so straight upload of AVCHD mts files was out of the question, but almost nothing aside from iMovie works with mts files anyways.  With fairly minimal fiddling with the placement and settings of my portfolio I was able to make one that impressed everyone I happened to show it to.

If you’re an enthusiast or professional photographer looking for a slick way to show off your work to friends, family, and potential clients then this may well be the app for you.  If you’re and average person with some holiday snaps that you want to show your grandma, this app is probably overkill.  Here?s a breakdown of my experiences with this app:

Cool:

+ Slick interface that is sure to impress just about anyone
+ Many options to customize your portfolio just the way you like
+ Aptly simulates a well-made digital portfolio website while adding portability
+ Supports a large amount of movie, picture, and music files
+ Easy to make little changes and edits once finished

Uncool:

– Sometimes crashes without warning (like a lot of apps)
– $14.99 price tag is too steep for your average, casual iPad user
– Basic UI elements may not suit everyone’s visual tastes
– Too feature-rich and niche for most iPad users, clearly made for photography professionals

(A copy of the app was provided to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes.)