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This is a fantastic app. More information than a library of textbooks on WWII and all presented in a clear, intelligent, interactive way. Easy to follow. Particularly fascinated by the map timeline, which taught me more about the invasions and falls than 5 years of GCSE history ever did.

"More information than a library of textbooks...."

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This is a truly brilliant app and looks stunning on the iPad. I hope they expand this series to other major global events as it provides genuinely interesting facts with video and an interactive format. Would definitely buy more apps like this.

"I hope they expand this series to other major global events..."

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I've been fascinated by what the future holds for online history for some time and this app gives us the clearest vision yet of that future. It feels like a watershed. The vast amount of searchable content is arranged on the innovative timeline, which plays to the iPad's strengths. The interplay of video, text and still photographs is dazzling. The moving map feels like an app within an app. As a tool for exploring the Second World War, this is unbeatable.

"It feels like a watershed."

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Timeline World War Two stands out with features that put history in context... it is absolutely gorgeous... Features like a scrollable map, updated audio for newsreel footage, and day-by-day layout of information... create an app that really stands apart.

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When I was about 10 years old, I decided it was time to graduate from the Scholastic Reader-approved books of my youth to what I determined was meatier, more adult fare. I checked out a book from the library about World War II-it may well have been one of those Time-Life overviews of the war that doubtlessly make serious historians cringe. But for a 10-year-old it was just the sort of stuff to spark an interest in history that continues to this day.

The 10-year-olds of 2012 have more sophisticated tools at their disposal in the form of Apple's iPad. And that's given developers a chance to use the iPad's touch interface and multimedia support to make history come alive in ways that few people probably imagined back in 1982. I've recently spent some time with a pair of apps- World War II Interactive and Timeline World War 2 -that take the same information about the war that I pored over decades ago and present it in an eye-popping new fashion. Both apps are worthwhile downloads for history buffs, particularly students, but one of them in particular does a standout job of putting its own stamp on the story of the conflict.

World War II Interactive from Internet Design Zone offers a well-organized blend of text, photos, maps, and multimedia that together provide a solid overview of the conflict. The app splits up the story of World War II into nine sections, with chapters that focus on the events leading up to the war and the aftermath-the sort of valuable contextual details that sometimes get short shrift in apps like this.

Within each section, you'll find articles on specific events. The 1943 section, for example, lets you read up on everything from the Tunisia campaign to the invasion of Sicily to American advances in the Pacific theater. The articles are fairly compact, but they're augmented with tappable links and summary boxes for a good recap of events. In addition, each section provides a swipeable timeline-again, with tappable links to more content-and a basic map showing what territories were held by the Axis and Allied nations at the end of the selected year.

A multimedia section offers photo features on everything from propaganda posters to images and information on the tanks used in battle. The app also includes videos, mostly culled from old newsreel footage. Many of these clips are disappointingly short-10 to 30 seconds-but a few, such as those detailing the second battle of El Alamein or the D-Day landings, run for a couple minutes. In addition, World War II Interactive features clips from memorable speeches, though only American and English ones are included. Churchill, Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower are all well-represented here; Charles de Gaulle and his Appeal of 18 June speech is not. Omitting transcripts of the featured speeches also seems like a glaring oversight.

That lack of depth is evident throughout the app, and it's easily World War II Interactive's most glaring weakness. The app pulls its content from publicly available materials-there's a lot of Wikipedia material here. The app does a great job in presenting this content, but beyond the packaging, there's not much of a value-add here. World War II Interactive works best as a starting-off point for learning more about the war, but it's certainly not a definitive resource. (A free version of the app includes the 1940 chapter, giving you a chance to judge the app's value for yourself before paying for the full $5 download.)

Ballista Media's Timeline World War 2 doesn't offer the display options of World War II Interactive. Like the name says, Timeline World War 2 shows off its information about the war-short dispatches, photos, maps, and videos-in a scrolling timeline spanning from 1939 and 1945. And it is absolutely gorgeous.

As you might guess, Ballista has designed Timeline World War 2 to be a chronological account of the war. (The app's home page even features an On This Day box that highlights an event occurring on the date you're using the app.) The main timeline calls out major events-Eisenhower taking command of U.S. forces in Europe, the Marines' assault on Guadalcanal, and the Soviet counterattack in Stalingrad highlight the middle of 1942, for example-but other events float in the background. Tapping on any event zooms you into the day-by-day view, which provides more detail.

The articles in Timeline World War 2 aren't as long as those in World War II Interactive, but there are more of them; the same holds true for photos and newsreel footage. And Timeline does a better job of putting the information in context. A tappable map icon in each entry shows you where the events took place, so you can get a general sense of where places like Dunkirk and the Ardennes are. (Those pins are dropped on a global map depicting the conflict, which is not as detailed as it should be. Fortunately, other maps in the app showing battles and troop advances offer a more detailed view.) Some of the included videos allow you to swap in new narration from newsman Robert MacNeil over the original audio. Again, this lends the content included in Timeline World War 2 eight decades of perspective you won't get by just including the original footage.

In addition to its timeline view, Timeline World War 2 also features a map overview, depicting the territories held by the Axis and Allies. Adjust the slide at the top, and you can see how that territory changes as the war progresses. It's a neat feature.

Timeline World War 2 is not without its flaws, chief among them the need for an Internet connection to view video content. For students who access the app in a classroom or users with a cellular-enabled iPad, that won't really be an issue. But if you've got a Wi-Fi-only model and you want to do a little reading up on World War II when you're out and about, you may have to make do without the video component. It's a trade-off Ballista likely made to keep the app's file-size manageable, but it's likely to rankle some users. I also wish there was a way to bookmark starting and stopping points or to jump to a specific year from the app's home page: Timeline World War 2 forces you to start with the invasion of Poland in 1939 anytime you enter the timeline.

The 10-year-old me would have enjoyed both World War II Interactive and Timeline World War 2. Both apps make great use of the iPad interface to present a lot of facts and figures about World War II in a compelling and engaging way. But the 40-year-old me appreciates the effort put into Timeline World War 2 a bit more. Features like a scrollable map, updated audio for newsreel footage, and day-by-day layout of information show an effort to do more than just repackage freely available content and to instead create an app that really stands apart.

[ Philip Michaels is Macworld.com's editor. At 10 years of age, he thought General McAuliffe's response to a German surrender ultimatum was just about the coolest thing ever.]

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Two World War II reference apps for the iPad

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Both World War II Interactive and Timeline World War 2 do an admirable job at using iPad features to present facts and figures about the war in an engaging way. But it's the latter app that excels at putting its own unique stamp on presenting history.

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It's a beautifully-designed demonstration of the iPad's powers as a publishing platform for non-fiction... This reader, for one, found it a vivid and immersive exploration of a defining event in modern history.

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It's not hard to guess the logic behind releasing "Timeline World War 2" at this time of year: It's the quintessential dad app. For many people giving or getting a new iPad for Father's Day, this Ballista Media/Agant Ltd. production handily illustrates the merits of the tablet medium by taking the material of a zillion History Channel documentaries and presenting it in a fresh new way.

But "Timeline World War 2" is not just for dads! Yes, it focuses on the military (rather than the political or social) aspects of the conflict, but to someone (like me) who's unlikely to read a book devoted to major battles, key tacticians, warships sunk or scuttled, weapons descriptions and so on, it may be even more interesting and enlightening than it would be to an aficionado. It's also a beautifully-designed demonstration of the iPad's powers as a publishing platform for nonfiction.

Wars are mostly strings of discrete, if related, events, which means accounts of them fit well into a timeline format. "Timeline World War 2" includes a video introduction by revered broadcast journalist Robert MacNeil, and he continues to crop up now and then as you explore it. MacNeil's presence in the app proper is far from pervasive, however, and it's best to think of him as a badge guaranteeing its seriousness and substance.

The main panel of the app is a side-scrolling assemblage of items resembling index cards pinned to a cork board. A bar at the top indicates where you are in the years between 1939 and 1945, so you can scroll month by month - or day by day, depending on the setting of the chronological zoom adjuster, which you can set yourself. You can also drag a pointer along the top bar to a desired date. The "cards" are displayed in layers, with the most significant events in the foreground and the rest in semi-shadow behind them, so you know there's more to drill down to. You can filter to see just the entries about battles, or those pertaining to a certain country, etc. The text is derived from two day-by-day histories of the war (one about the European theater and the other about the Pacific) written by Peter Darman and John Davison, respectively.

Histories of war, especially modern wars, are tricky. Even more than most historical events, there's a huge difference between the immediate, confusing, frightening experience of living through a war and a retrospective consideration of what actually happened and why. It's easy to lose track of one perspective when you're paying attention to the other. "Timeline World War 2" orders its entries with this in mind. It offers three different types of items: news-making one-day events are displayed as telegrams; accounts with a bit more perspective (the Nazi takeover of Paris, for example) look like typewritten reports, and annual overviews or biographies of the major players look like pages from a book. That's an elegant design strategy that conveys information instantly without calling too much attention to itself.

There are photos and, most captivating of all, many newsreel reports, streaming from the web. These latter are, of course, largely propagandistic; you wouldn't want to count on them to give you an accurate picture of how the war was proceeding when they were filmed. A few come with the choice of watching with the original audio or with narration by MacNeil. Both are worth listening to; however stiff-upper-lip the British film announcers get, there's no better way to glimpse how it felt to be a civilian in a movie theater worrying and wondering about the future and the fates of loved ones.

The only disappointment in "Timeline World War 2" is the map feature, which seems to be automatically generated, a basic world map with a pushpin indicating a site mentioned in the current entry. There aren't graphic overlays of arrows and other diagrams to explain troop movements or battle configurations, so unless you're the sort of person who doesn't know where Norway or Libya are, it's not the least bit helpful.

Serious World War II history buffs may find "Timeline World War 2" too elementary; I can't testify to that. There's not a lot of text in it when you add it up, but text isn't the only way to communicate in this medium. This reader, for one, found it a vivid and immersive exploration of a defining event in modern history.

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It's not hard to guess the logic behind releasing "Timeline World War 2" at this time of year: It's the quintessential dad app. For many people giving or getting a new iPad for Father's Day, this Ballista Media/Agant Ltd.

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Timeline WW2 offers museum-quality app interaction... It's a groundbreaking application in that it fully realises the museum experience, providing a nuanced exploration of a huge amount of data... for any fan of the History documentaries, this is sure to be a perfect gift or self indulgence. It's beautiful, it's expansive, and it's a great demonstration of what the iPad can do at its best.

"... it's a great demonstration of what the iPad can do at its best."

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Timeline World War 2 is a fantastic way to teach eager young minds the course of the conflict... Worth the buy? Absolutely. Even if you're not a World War II buff, it never hurts to learn about the past.

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This Memorial Day, it's important to remember the sacrifices of the men and women who did not come home from serving our country abroad. To that end, why not pick up an app that will educate and inform you about the Second World War, complete with newsreels, audio, commentary, and interactive maps?

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Dan Snow brings the cataclysmic events of the Second World War to life... unique timeline, maps and expert commentary from the estimable historian himself. The ultimate guide to the ultimate conflict.

"The ultimate guide to the ultimate conflict"

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The app is impressive, centred around a timeline of more than 2,000 events during the war, a dynamic map, and Snow's own commentary on the Pathe videos.

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A selection of 18 new apps for you today:

Timeline World War 2 with Dan Snow

TV historian Dan Snow has taken to the App Store for this project, which focuses on the second world war. It includes a zoomable timeline of more than 2,000 events during the war, more than 100 British Pathe newsreel videos to watch, and a dynamic map.
iPad

Yahoo! Connected TV

Yo dawg! They put apps in your phone so you can control apps on your connected TV. It's enough to make your head spin. Yes, Yahoo has launched an official Android app for its connected TV platform, meaning anyone who owns compatible tellies can control their TV apps from their, er, Android app.
Android

Lego Super Hero Movie Maker

Now, this is rather fun. If you own Lego's range of DC Universe Super Heroes (Batman, Superman etc), this official app wants to help you make a stop-motion movie with them. It includes title cards, colour filters and the ability to save the resulting films to your iPhone for sharing.
iPhone

Sky Cloud WiFi

Sky has launched its new Cloud WiFi app for Android and iOS, which helps customers of its home broadband service to get online for free on their mobile devices at Cloud Wi-Fi hotspots around the UK.
Android / iPhone / iPad

Total War Battles

Sega's latest iOS game is based on its Total War franchise, with an all-new game designed for touchscreens. The setting is medieval Japan, with real-time battles and more than 10-hours of campaign gameplay.
iPhone / iPad

Charlie Bit Me!!!

This would definitely count as a sign of the times: enormously-popular YouTube video Charlie Bit My Finger now has an official app, with Talking Tom Cat-style talkback features, mini-games and a photo-sharing aspect too. The link above is for Android but here's the iPhone version.
Android / iPhone

If you own a BlackBerry PlayBook you can visit Wikipedia in its browser, obviously. But if you have a craving for a native app, the Wikimedia Foundation has just released one.
BlackBerry PlayBook

London Travel Live

Getting around the capital? This app aims to bring all the travel info you'll need into one place, including tube status, bus routes, BorisBike hiring details, traffic data and the ability to pin much of this to the home screen.
Windows Phone

London club Fabric has launched its own iPhone and iPad app, offering events listings, ticket-buying, blog posts, and streams of audio recorded at the club itself.
iPhone / iPad

Hear It, Note It! - The Aural iQ Game

Music puzzle game Hear It, Note It aims to test players' musical notation skills: "Listen to the notes, remember them and then write them with the simple drag and drop interface." Music students in particular may find it useful and fun.
iPhone / iPad

Penny Finds Her Brave

Here's a lovely-looking book-app that aims to teach children that they are brave. That means 24 pages of interactivity and animation, and a built-in "bravery scanner" to convince your child of their bravery. Oh, and it also works as a night-light as they fall asleep, for good measure.
iPad

National Parks by National Geographic

Thinking of wandering around some of the US' national parks in the near future? National Geographic has the app for you, offering maps, points of interest, photo galleries and tips, and lots of personalisation features.
iPhone

Sea Odyssey - Giant Spectacular

Liverpool's Sea Odyssey event is commemorating the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic this month, as three giants visit the city on 20-22 April. The official app offers photo-sharing, a guide to the route the giants will take, and the story behind the street theatre. It's the work of developer Apposing.
iPhone

Another big website coming to BlackBerry PlayBook is Kayak.com, offering its app for finding flights, hotels and car rental, as well as tracking flights and organising trips.
BlackBerry PlayBook

Dragon's Lair Comics

Famous looks-beautiful not-actually-that-much-fun-to-play game Dragon's Lair has been reimagined as a digital comic for iOS, promising "swordplay, sorcery, dragons, and damsels...plus a pinch of humor".
iPhone / iPad

Twizgrid - Media Browser for Twitter

The latest attempt to find a new way to browse Twitter comes from AJP Apps, and focuses on pictures. "Discover remarkable Twitter visual content by searching for keywords; view images shared by specific people; or simply browse the beautifully curated albums," explains its App Stroe listing, although standard Twitter features are supported too.
iPhone / iPad

TuneUp Mobile

TuneUp Mobile is the latest music recognition app looking to provide an alternative to Shazam, identifying songs that you hear playing, then showing lyrics, iTunes purchasing links and letting you share details to social networks.
iPhone

European Health Insurance Card

Even the European Commission is making apps nowadays. This one is a guide on how to use the European Health Insurance Card, including emergency numbers, and what to do if you lose it. Be warned though: "Card cannot be generated or downloaded for use."
iPhone
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Apps Rush: Timeline World War 2, Yahoo Connected TV, Lego Super Hero Movie Maker, Sky Cloud WiFi and more

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A selection of 18 new apps for you today: TV historian Dan Snow has taken to the App Store for this project, which focuses on the second world war. It includes a zoomable timeline of more than 2,000 events during the war, more than 100 British Pathe newsreel videos to watch, and a dynamic map.

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Timeline WW2 is one of the most impressive history apps we've seen yet, and sets the bar very high... The first thing to note is the sheer depth and range of this app... It's easy to see this being of great benefit for educators, while the lay person with an interest in history will lose hours exploring little known aspects of the war.

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